Lock and Key (novel)
After her drug and alcohol addicted mother abandons her, child services forces 17-year-old Ruby Cooper to move in with her sister, Cora, who had left for college when Ruby was young. Ruby is upset about this arrangement and continues to wear the key to her old home on a chain around her neck. After learning she will be transferring to a new high school, Ruby attempts to run away but is found out. Nate Cross, Jamie and Cora's next-door neighbor, covers for her. Over the span of the story, Ruby slowly becomes closer to Nate.
Ruby and Rata
Ruby (Yvonne Lawley) is an 83-year-old woman who has just failed her driving test and is worried about her ability to cope with day-to-day life at her age. She asks her nephew Buckle (Simon Barnett), posing as a real estate agent, to arrange to lease part of the house she owns to a potential housemate to assist her with various chores. The new tenant is Rata (Vanessa Rare)—a well-dressed, smooth-talking young woman of Māori descent who works for a large finance company. Once she has moved in, it becomes apparent that Rata is actually a cleaner at the firm, has a young son named Willie (Lee Metekingi), and is in trouble with social services over welfare payments. Rata is also hoping to make it big as a singer in a punk band, The Apocalypse, which is reliant on her accessing the supposed "fortune" of her new housemate/landlady to pay for sound equipment. An unusual relationship develops between Ruby, Rata and Willie, with each of them manipulating the others in some way, but forming a bond and dependence on each other."Ruby and Rata" was filmed in and around the Auckland suburb of Mount Albert.