15. A passion for lollies by Ariana Harper
 

I looked forward to David coming to our house to look after me when Mum and Dad went out. He was a really fun babysitter.

Going down to the dairy to buy lollies was definitely the highlight. We would walk down the hill and go to both the dairies in Ngaio, making sure we got the best deal and so we were fair to both shops. 

I used to get the money out of my piggybank to buy the lollies. David would ask me if my parents allowed me to do that. I said they wouldn’t mind but I was probably lying. So David would help me get the money out, using a knife from the kitchen. We liked to buy raspberry licorice, sherbet and mixed sweets in little white paper bags.
 

One night when I went to bed I forgot I was still wearing my lolly-bead necklace. David said goodnight to me but a little while later I woke up screaming because I thought I had a weta crawling around my throat. David came into the bedroom and asked me what the matter was. I just kept on screaming, really loudly. In the end he just stood there blocking his ears because he couldn’t stand the noise. Finally I stopped screaming and we worked out it was the lollies, not a weta, I could feel tickling my throat. “I think you had better take that necklace off,” he said. “It’s time to go back to sleep.”
 

Sometimes David brought his play station over to our house. He was quite addicted to it. He would play his games while I watched and ate my lollies.
 

Another time he cooked up some cheerios and offered me some. I thought they looked disgusting because all their skins had come off and were floating about in the red water. So David ate them all, then I regretted I hadn’t had some too.
 

For Christmas 2004, James and David bought me a huge lego set. It was like a rescue airport, with little helicopters, buildings and people. They spent a long time helping put it all together for me. They used to play lego a lot when they were little. 

Other times we used to play monopoly together, stretched out on the living room floor. That was another of our favourite games and it was fun playing it with them. I was about twelve years younger than David but he was always patient and kind to me...