Wall of Water

by Kristin F. Johnson

  14

  Alex returned to the surgical ward, and Sienna went to rest her leg and wait for her dad’s shift to end. Two shadows stood behind the curtains of Alex’s Dad’s “room.” Mom was talking to the doctor, and Dad was lying on the gurney.

  “Is he going to be okay?” Mom asked.

  “He should recover fine. But he’ll need to rest and not overexert himself.”

  Alex’s mom emerged from behind the curtains and draped an arm around Alex’s shoulder. “He’s going to be just fine,” she repeated. “For now, he needs to rest. He’s pretty out of it from the surgery.”

  Alex breathed a sigh of relief. She hoped Dad would be okay. She had a bad feeling, but maybe her luck would change.

  Alex felt in her pocket—the rock was still there. She had brought all this havoc and bad luck on her family and Sienna and the islands.

  Never take a lava rock. It’s bad luck. The guide’s words rang in her head. Next time, she would listen to the locals.

  She had to return it. That would change her luck.

  She wanted to tell her dad. She knew it would make her feel better. She didn’t normally keep things from her parents, but she couldn’t tell Dad right now because he was still knocked out, and Mom was super stressed already. Alex felt sick.

  But she could do something—she could get rid of the rock, once and for all.

  “I’ll be back,” Alex said.

  “Where are you going?” Mom called after her, but Alex would explain afterward. She had to get to the ocean.

  Alex slipped out a side door and looked around for someone with wheels. She could hitch a ride and get as close to a beach as possible. The stadium was right on the bay, but was that enough? Did she need to return the rock to a natural area like the place she’d found it? Was the beach even there, after the tsunami had clawed at the land?

  Alex spotted Sienna, who was sitting in a bent lawn chair with her foot elevated, talking with a cute guy who leaned against a golf cart. He wore a red and white Red Cross T-shirt and looked close to their age.

  “Alex, this is Keoni,” Sienna said.

  “Keo-nee?” Alex said.

  “Kee-ony.” He smiled as he corrected her pronunciation.

  “Sorry. Kee-ony. Is this yours?” Alex pointed at the golf cart.

  “Yeah.”

  “I need you to take me on an errand, if you’re willing.”

  “What do you need?” Keoni asked.

  “I need an ocean,” Alex said.

  “Hmmm.” He scrunched up his eyebrows. “Okay. Hop on.”

  “I’m going with you,” Sienna said.

  “Okay, you take the front seat,” Alex said, “so you can prop up your leg.”

  “Right.” Sienna slipped onto the seat.

  Alex climbed onto the back of the cart where golf clubs were normally hauled and hung on to the bars.

  Like everything else on the island, the golf cart didn’t move fast. Sun sliced under the roof and warmed Alex’s arms and legs. Keoni handed her some black emergency sunglasses with a tiny Red Cross on the temple.

  She just wanted to get to the water. She couldn’t afford to have any more bad luck. Everything she owned had been stolen from her by the tsunami, but that little lava rock would not let go. It clung to her like they belonged together, but she would return it soon.

  “You’re pretty lucky,” Keoni said to them.

  Alex laughed. Luck. That was such a matter of opinion. “Why do you say that?” she asked him.

  “You survived a tsunami! Do you know how many people die in tsunamis?”

  Alex looked down at the floor of the golf cart. She thought of her grandma, who had lost her parents in the tsunami in . . . what had Dad said, 1976? That was before Alex was born. How many people had died in this tsunami? Shame filled her.

  “You even found your whole family. That’s amazing!”

  She glanced at him. “You’re right. I should be happier.”

  Keoni shook his head and kept driving. He told her the news he had heard: the tsunami had crossed much, but not all, of the Hawaiian Islands. There were four or five surges, though the first two had been the worst. The airports were washed over. Planes floated in water, and the most critically hurt patients were being airlifted in helicopters to the mainland.

  Alex wondered what Mom and Dad were thinking. Would her family stay in Hawaii and rebuild their lives? Could they even get a flight home? Were they stranded in this disaster until further notice?

  After about twenty bumpy minutes of driving, the ocean came into view.

  “Here we are,” Keoni said. “Waikiki Beach.”

  Waves crashed into the shoreline, sending water splashing into the air. Keoni drove in as close as he could get, considering the wreckage on the beach, and pulled up in a turnaround about a hundred feet from the water’s edge.

  “How’s this?”

  “Good.” Alex and Sienna stepped out of the cart and walked toward the ocean. Alex turned for a moment and added, “We’ll be right back.”

  “Take your time.” Keoni got out and leaned against the cart, watching the crashing waves.

  Seaweed, shells, and dead fish and crabs were strewn about the other litter and wreckage from the tsunami. Alex stepped carefully.

  “What are we doing?” Sienna asked.

  “I’m making things right,” Alex said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I did something, something bad.”

  “What?”

  Alex sighed, exasperated. “I took something, okay?”

  “What did you do, take a lava rock?” Sienna laughed.

  Alex stared at her for a long moment, stone-faced. “Yeah, I took a lava rock.”

  Sienna stopped smiling. “Oh,” she said.

  Alex pulled the rock out of her pocket and held it out to Sienna.

  Sienna stared at the stone in Alex’s hand, but she didn’t touch it.

  “Come on,” Alex said.

  They picked their way down the sand until the cool water lapped at their ankles. They joined hands.

  “Please forgive me for stealing the lava rock,” Alex said. “I swear I will never take another treasure from your beaches ever again, if you can just make everything all right. And please let my dad be okay.”

  They squeezed hands. Then Alex gripped the rock, cranked her arm back, and flung the rock as hard as she could over the waves. It landed with a plunk and a tiny splash out in the middle of the water.

  A wave, bigger than the others, frothed cold water over Alex’s ankles. She felt a sudden wash of gratitude. She had found her family, and her friends were safe. Even though she was covered in bruises and cuts and her cut arm ached, everything would eventually be okay.

  Alex led Sienna back to the golf cart. The waves seemed to crash more gently, as if the ocean were relaxing. Or was she just imagining that?

  “Feel better?” Keoni asked as Alex settled into the back.

  “A little,” Alex said. She took a deep breath of fresh ocean air and exhaled. “Are you superstitious?” she asked Keoni.

  “Me? I don’t know. Maybe. You?”

  “Maybe.” Alex tightened her grip on the back railing.

  Keoni shifted the cart into drive. “Let’s get you two aina hanau.”

  Alex gave him a puzzled look.

  “Home,” he said. “It means home.”

  “No,” she said. “My house is somewhere in the ocean now.”

  “It’s different,” he said. “Aina hanau isn’t a house—hale is the word for the building you live in. Aina hanau is, like, your homeland, where your people are. And it’s a lot harder to lose that.”

  “I think that would be Minnesota,” Alex said. “That’s where I was born.”

  “For now, think of it as where your people are. I’ll take you back to them.”

  15

  Keoni dropped them off at the stadium, and Alex said, “Thanks for bringing us home.”

  Keoni just smiled. Ale
x and Sienna said, “Mahalo!” to thank him for the ride.

  “Anytime. Aloha,” he said and winked at Sienna before driving away.

  “I think he likes you,” Alex said.

  Sienna giggled and bumped Alex in the shoulder.

  More survivors had gathered inside the stadium. The two girls eased through the crowd, careful of Sienna’s leg, and arrived just as Mom emerged from the curtained recovery room and waved them in.

  Inside, Dad sat with his good arm draped around Drew’s shoulder. His other arm was in a sling, and a bulky wrapping covered his wounded shoulder.

  “They’re saying now that it was a fault-line break in Japan’s tectonic plates,” Dad was telling Drew.

  Fault. No, it was Alex’s fault for taking the lava rock.

  “And that break rippled into an earthquake on the ocean floor,” Dad continued.

  Did she dare tell Dad about robbing the beach of its treasure? I have to tell what I did, Alex thought. That would be the only way to make the horrible guilt go away. Not telling was making her feel so alone.

  “The quake happens on the ocean floor, then creates the huge wave that rolls into shore,” Dad continued.

  “I have to tell you something,” Alex blurted out. She was almost crying.

  “What is it, sweetie?” Mom said. “What’s wrong?”

  Alex didn’t deserve them. She shouldn’t have disobeyed the sign and scoffed at the locals’ beliefs. How many people had suffered because of what she had done? And Dad had specifically forbidden her from taking the lava rock.

  “I took a lava rock,” she muttered.

  “What?” Mom said. Mom and Dad glanced at each other.

  “A lava rock—the ones we’re not supposed to take—the ones that cause bad luck, like the guide said.”

  Recognition washed over Mom’s face. “Oh, honey.” Mom wrapped her arms around Alex. “You didn’t cause this.”

  Alex stared at the ground.

  “Have you been carrying that around all this time?” Mom leaned back to look Alex in the eye.

  “Uh-huh,” Alex whispered.

  Mom pulled Alex in for a tight hug. Alex’s shoulders shook as she finally released all the tension she had been carrying.

  “That’s just an old superstition.” Dad waved his good hand in the air. “None of us has that kind of power.”

  “But tradition here does hold that removing the rocks brings bad luck,” Mom said. “Remember the tour guide’s stories? People who lost jobs or friends, or who went bankrupt? People might give Alex a hard time for it.”

  Dad frowned and said, “The people who had bad luck after taking those rocks drew that conclusion, but it was just coincidence.”

  Alex exhaled, the weight lifting off her shoulders, and then sniffled. “But you said we had to respect what the guide said.”

  “What? Oh.” Dad swatted the air again with his good arm. “I only meant that we needed to respect nature. It’s not good for the ecology to remove natural elements from the land or beaches. Maybe removing one lava rock wouldn’t make difference, but if everyone who visited Hawaii took lava rocks for souvenirs, then it might make a difference.”

  Alex looked at them. “So what do we do now? We can’t go home. Our house is probably gone. Our whole neighborhood is flooded.”

  Dad thought for a moment. “For now, we’ll stay in a temporary shelter and help with the rescue effort. I have a contract with the university for the rest of the school year. Your mom has deadlines. We have obligations. We can’t just leave.”

  Alex had thought they would leave the island immediately. Now, half of her wanted to go back to Minnesota as soon as possible, away from volcanoes and earthquakes and tsunamis, but the other half wanted to stay. She had friends here, Sienna and Maia, and Mrs. Chu. She didn’t want to desert them.

  Mom added, “Some of the parents were talking while we were sitting in the stadium, and they said the university has already volunteered to let high school classes meet in their classrooms, so you and your classmates can finish out the school year.”

  “Hey,” Dad said, “how about that? It’ll be like you get to try college before actually going off to college.”

  “Hmmm,” Alex said.

  “We could even carpool together,” her dad said.

  “Don’t push it,” Alex said, but then she laughed.

  A familiar voice interrupted them. “Hey, Alex! Mr. and Mrs. Reyes!”

  Alex turned around. Sienna and both of her parents stood in the end zone, on the W in Warriors.

  Alex ran over and hugged Sienna. “Aloha,” she said to Sienna’s parents.

  “Aloha,” they replied.

  She turned to Sienna. “I’m so glad you found them both.”

  Sienna gave a relieved sigh. “Me too. Hey, guess what! We’re going to finish the year at the university.”

  “I heard,” Alex said.

  “Isn’t that lucky?”

  Alex looked back at her parents and Drew. They had been lucky—they were all together, alive and well. She thought of Joseph and his parents. They had found each other, but how many other people had been separated from family and friends? Separated from home?

  Alex’s parents walked over, Drew trailing behind. They were her home. Her family and her friends.

  “We’re so glad you’re all okay,” her mom said to Sienna and her family.

  Sienna’s dad cleared his throat and said, “So, I heard that you have family in the Philippines—maybe somewhere to stay?”

  “We do,” said Dad. “My mother lives outside Pagadian City.”

  “Well,” Sienna’s dad said, “we’ve had offers from the Philippines to evacuate anyone who’s willing, to reduce the strain on resources here. We could get you on the way to your mom’s place in a few hours. It will be a few weeks before school starts again.”

  Mom and Dad exchanged a glance.

  “Can you travel right now?” Alex asked her dad.

  “The doctor said it was fine, but there would be a wait while they evacuated patients in critical condition. We’ll come back when we get the all-clear from the rescue workers and the temporary housing is ready.”

  “Is that okay with you?” Mom asked Alex.

  Alex took a deep breath. She thought of what Mrs. Chu had said, about people leaving. She would find Mrs. Chu before they left and tell her they were coming back.

  “Yes,” Alex said. “I want to meet Grandma.”

  “Great!” Dad said. “It will be like going home.”

  “Aina hanau,” Alex said.

  “Hyena?” Drew said.

  “Aina hanau,” Alex repeated. “It means homeland, like going home.”

  About the Author

  Kristin F. Johnson lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and teaches writing at a local college. She spent two years as a media specialist and children's librarian in Minneapolis Public Schools. In 2013 and again in 2015, she won Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grants for her writing. She loves dogs and has a chocolate Labrador retriever.