by Anne Bustard
I risk it and leave the umbrella. The sun flickers behind clouds as I retrace my route to school, cut across the practice fields, and skip over to Kealoha Drive. The main business section is one long block with a few side streets. Fujimoto’s Five-and-Dime is at the end. The sky grows darker and heavier.
On this side of the street, the stores stand alone. I walk close in, avoiding cars parked almost to their doors. Seascapes on easels front the art gallery window. Pink coral earrings, strands of pearls, and bracelets of jade rest on black velvet at the jewelry store. A fat drop of water lands on my shoulder, another on my shoe. The five-and-dime closes soon and I want to get back in case it pours.
I’m in and out in fifteen.
I stand under the store’s entryway and watch the raindrops fall closer together. I stuff my bag of purchases under my blouse and lunge into the drippy wet. By the time I charge across the fields at school, the rain is steady. Mud splatters up the back of my legs with each step. My shoes are in soggy ruin.
I bet it’s raining at the quarantine station, too. Howdy doesn’t take to stormy weather. As soon as rain comes, he slinks under a bed or behind a chair. I hope his kennel doesn’t leak. I hope tonight his bench will do.
We eat supper as soon as I finish showering.
And I tell my parents all about my new business.
“You’ll be flooded with calls,” says Daddy.
I hope. But the phone hasn’t rung yet.
“Mama, did I miss any while I was out?”
“No,” she says, rubbing her temples. “Not a one.”
After dessert, I stack the plates on the counter and reach for the receiver on the wall phone across the teeny kitchen. Maybe the line is dead. But before the phone reaches my ear, I hear the monotone. Quicker than quick, I return it to its cradle so callers won’t get a busy signal and give up.
Of course. The rain. The rain washed all of my words away.
Ocean or Train?
IT’S STILL DARK.
Dawn won’t come for hours.
Slowly, I stretch my legs so as not to disturb my cat.
Then I remember: Howdy’s not there.
I shiver in the coolness, pull up my covers, hug my pillow, and listen.
In the stillness, I hear shushing sounds like the soft inhale and the louder, stronger exhale of the trains that pass through Gladiola while we sleep.
But this isn’t Gladiola. This isn’t a train.
It’s the ocean.
If it weren’t for other houses and trees, I could see the big blue from here. Hanu Road winds next to the beach, with occasional side streets angling to the water. If I could walk a straight line, the beach is across the road and eight houses away. Down a ways to the left, a beach park with coconut trees and tall, tall, ironwood trees with long needles and thimble-size pinecones stand just yards from the water.
I close my eyes and pretend I hear a train. That I’m home.
Sharing
“AN INDUSTRIOUS START,” says Mrs. Barsdale, the home ec teacher, the next morning at school. Her hair doesn’t appear to have strayed one strand since yesterday. She inspects my fabric pieces at a huge table in the back of the room. “Though I always check my students’ work before they cut.”
I wrinkle my eyebrows. I must’ve missed hearing her say that. I stayed up late specifically to cut out the pattern.
“But it looks like you did well.” Mrs. Barsdale reaches into her lab coat pocket, pulls out a scrap of paper and a pencil, and scribbles something.
“Oh, no!” someone hollers from the front of the room.
“Excuse me, I’ll be right back,” Mrs. Barsdale says, and hurries toward the girls congregating around a machine by the door. “Class,” she yells. “Sit down. Be quiet. Work.” She takes a breath and adds, “Eighth graders, I expect you to lead by example.”
A girl in line for the ironing boards near the windows might be the same one from homeroom and hula. There’s a pink ribbon in her hair.
Sewing machines drone. Hands wave every which way, but Mrs. Barsdale doesn’t seem to notice.
“We share machines,” the teacher says when she returns, and motions me toward the front of the room.
My eyes dart around the space. Every machine has two girls. Except one. Grams always says bad things happen in threes. It’s only my second day of school, and I am already over my limit.
“Have you met Kiki Kahana?” Mrs. Barsdale asks.
“I have,” I say.
Kiki rubs her hands together and smiles all sticky sweet.
Of all the girls, I have to partner with her?
“Let Peggy Sue take the next turn,” says the teacher. “She is even further behind than you.” Mrs. Barsdale looks at the clock. “Switch places,” she hollers.
“Piggy Sue, Piggy Sue,” whisper-sings Kiki as I sew. Over and over and over again.
I’d give anything not to be me right now. Not to be haole.
I don’t talk. I try not to listen. I sew.
Maybe if I ignore her, she’ll stop.
But she doesn’t.
“You know Madame Pele, right?” she says a minute later.
No, not personally. But I’ve heard of the volcano goddess. “Yes,” I say.
“Don’t take pork over the Pali or she will send trouble your way. Bad trouble.”
My shoulders squirm without my consent. Another threat? Or is she joshing? This girl won’t quit needling me.
I purse my lips and press the foot pedal harder.
I wish I could talk to a friend about Kiki. Ask about Kill Haole Day. But I don’t have a friend. Even if I did, everyone knows people keep secrets sometimes. Sometimes they don’t.
Two girls sharing the machine next to us pop over. “My grandmother told me, never take bananas with you on a boat,” says one.
“Or let your chopsticks stand in a full rice bowl,” says the other.
Both bring bad luck. I sew in a seam and stop. But I don’t look up.
“And don’t,” says Kiki, “pick a lehua flower unless you want it to rain.”
“My cousins tested it out once,” says a girl. “Not a cloud in the sky. Sixty-four minutes after picking—boom—rain.”
“This is not a social hour, girls,” says Mrs. Barsdale, clapping her hands. “Work, work, work.”
The girls return to their seats.
I’m spooked. Which I’m sure is their point.
Kiki starts to sing again.
And I count the days until summer.
Hawaiian History Again
“I’M PASSING OUT A REVIEW sheet for your upcoming test,” says Mr. Nakamoto at the end of class that afternoon.
I notice right off it’s not one sheet, it’s three or four stapled together.
I glance down the first page: King Kalakaua the Merrie Monarch, Bayonet Constitution of 1887, “Hawaii Pono‘ī,” Missionary Party, Iolani Palace, John Owen Dominis, Committee of Safety.
“But the test isn’t until next Thursday,” says the boy in front of me.
“Mr. Aquino,” says Mr. Nakamoto, “I can see my magnanimous gesture escapes your consciousness. As I’ve said prior to every quiz, it would behoove you to study some each day rather than cram the night before. This aid,” he says, holding the papers as high as a torch, “is a gift.”
The boy sighs extra loud. Even though no one else makes a sound, the looks on our faces tell the same story—we’re sighing on the inside.
Mr. Nakamoto is still talking, and I tune back in. “… we’ll end our year with a unit on statehood and look at our first months as the fiftieth star.”
Statehood? All I know is the date, August 21, last year. Gladiola held a party at the rec center to celebrate and the whole town showed up wearing red, white, and blue. Cindy and I handed out plastic leis. We drank Hawaiian punch, ate cake with coconut icing, and entered a hula hoop contest, which I lost to my friend. Before we left, we sang to Daddy, because it was his birthday, too.
Here, I imagine, there was an
even bigger party. Parades with folks on floats covered in flowers, riders on horseback draped in leis. Bands playing patriotic songs for crowds gathered up and down the streets, cheering, waving flags. Important speeches by the governor and other dignitaries. Boats clustered along the shoreline, some spraying plumes of water, making rainbows. Honking horns. Hula dancing and music. And later, fireworks that reached for the stars.
But after only two days in Mr. Nakamoto’s class, I can already tell that at the end of the unit, he will give us another test instead of a party.
As soon as I’m in from school, I’m out again.
The water from the garden hose beats bat-a-bat-a against the front window of the house. I move in time with the music next door.
Just one more day of school and I’ll see Howdy. I hope he and Tinkerbell have become good friends.
I zoom back inside, make more posters for my window-washing business, and circulate them around the neighborhood once more.
It’s only partly cloudy. No rain.
Extra Credit
“THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO take you over a week,” Mrs. Barsdale says Friday morning while standing beside the sewing machine. She taps the beauty mark above her upper lip.
My darts are in and pressed, shoulders stitched together, and front facings basted.
It’s hard for me to tell from the sound of her voice if being ahead is a good thing or not.
“So I’d like you to help Kiki.”
“What?” says Kiki. “I don’t need help from her. I don’t need help from the haole.”
“Truth be told, I’m terrible at putting in zippers. And there’s so much more to do. The back facings, the hem, handwork …”
Mrs. Barsdale picks up a pin from the floor and sticks it into the red pincushion attached to her wrist. “I am prepared to offer you extra credit, Peggy Sue.”
That sounds good, but I know it really means nothing.
“Haoles helping haoles,” says Kiki.
“Typical,” murmurs the girl at the machine next to us.
“Kiki, I’m trying to help you. It’s the perfect solution. We discussed your academic problems in the counselor’s office. You promised you’d raise your grades. You need help. This girl is an accomplished seamstress. You’re akamai, Kiki. Act like it. Act smart.”
“She can help me,” says the girl to my left.
“Or me,” says another.
“No,” says Kiki, glaring right at me. “She’s mine.”
“It’s settled, then,” says Mrs. Barsdale, walking away.
“I can’t wait to leave this stupid school,” Kiki says. “Next year, high school will be so much better.”
So she’s an eighth grader.
“Stupid haole,” says Kiki.
“What have I done?”
“Plenty. You’re all the same; you’re all related to Captain Cook. Diseased.”
Diseased?
“You come over here and tell us what to do. How to live. You are not the boss of me.”
“I—”
“Stop bothering me. Stop talking.”
Fine, I mouth, and adjust my ponytail. That, I think, is the smart thing to do.
Hula Practice
PRACTICE TAKES TIME and this afternoon I have nothing but. I haven’t gotten any phone calls for work. No sense washing our windows today. It’s raining. Again. Raining so hard I can’t hear the music next door.
The wind gusts outside and the hula papers on my dresser scatter to the floor. The small gray-and-white cat figurine Cindy gave me as a going-away gift tumps over on the bamboo tray.
I shut the windows before more damage is done, right the cat, and collect the pages from Mrs. Halani. They hold the words for each song, with the English translation as needed, and instructions for the movements.
I should dance each hula three times, she said.
A portable hi-fi came with the house. Mama bought me the hula records I need.
So I will dance.
I place a record on the turntable and begin.
And as soon as I do, I make a mistake. So I start again.
And again.
I want to dance all the way through the song without goofing up. Just once.
“Seems like I kept hearing the same section of music over and over,” says Mama as I grab cheese and crackers a while later. “Is that record player on the fritz?”
No, I am.
Howdy
FINALLY, IT’S SATURDAY.
“I’m here, Howdy,” I say as the quarantine officer unlocks the door to my cat’s kennel and Daddy and I slip in.
Howdy has smushed himself up against the corner of his cell under the wooden bench.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner,” I say as I lie belly-down on the cold concrete and glimpse my cat in shadow. I can’t read his eyes. “I can stay for two whole hours today,” I say and reach out to pet him. “And tomorrow, too.”
Howdy lays back his ears, opens his mouth, and hisses.
“Howdy,” I cry, pulling back my hand. “It’s me, Peggy Sue. You know, the one who loves you. The one who misses you. The one who wishes more than anything else that you didn’t have to live here.”
Howdy closes his mouth, but his ears stay in their I-don’t-trust-you position.
“Howdy will be all right, Peggy Sue,” says Daddy. He stretches out his long legs and settles on the bench with his paperwork. “He’s a Bennett. And you brought him his favorite food.” Daddy hands me the aluminum foil with a few pieces of leftover chicken I saved from dinner last night.
I lie on my side and place a piece of meat halfway between my cat and me. Howdy sniffs the air, but doesn’t budge.
I brought extra chicken for Tinkerbell, too, but all I see is an empty cage next door. Maybe it’s her checkup time.
I wiggle closer to Howdy and reach for him again. Whop. Howdy’s paw hits my fingers. “Ouch,” I cry, and rub my hand.
“No fighting, you two,” says Daddy.
“Not funny,” I say.
“Just give him a little more breathing room.”
So I do. I scoot back, but my eyes never leave him. “Everything is going to be okay, Howdy. I promise.”
“Time to pick up your mother from the beauty parlor,” says Daddy way too soon.
“That cat’s got some pounds on him,” says the officer as we step out of Howdy’s cage. “He’ll probably lose a few. Most do. At least the ones that make it.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
I look into Tinkerbell’s pen. That’s when I notice. No bowl of water. No bowl of food. No pan of litter. No small white card on the cage.
“Y’all were supposed to take care of her,” I cry.
I squeeze my eyes shut, as if that will block out the truth. Tinkerbell was leaving four weeks before Howdy.
“We did our best,” says the officer.
I open my eyes and pull away from the cage.
Poor Tink. I am sure she died of a broken heart.
“Oh, Howdy,” I say. “You’ve got to be strong.”
I trudge out of the building after Daddy, my insides tight and twisty. The waterfront just across the way mirrors the dark gray sky.
On the drive back over the Pali Highway, I close my eyes and count.
Less than a day until I see Howdy again.
Then it’ll be one hundred and ten more days until he is released. Unless of course I can break him out sooner.
Thirty-four more days of school.
Forty more hours until I have to see her.
And I don’t know how many more days until Howdy and I leave this awful island and head home to Gladiola, Texas. Truth be told, anywhere sounds better today. Anywhere but paradise.
Night-Blooming Cereus
BEFORE BED, Daddy sticks his head into my room. “I’ve kept forgetting to show y’all something in the yard,” he says. “Your mama just said she’ll take a rain check, but I’m hoping you’ll come out back.”
The TV blares from the front ro
om. That’s Mama. She doesn’t like to miss her favorites.
“Sure, Daddy.”
We find the flashlight in the kitchen drawer. I scamper down the back steps and tiptoe onto the cool grass. No stepping on any bufos, brownish warty toads, for me. No petting them, either. Daddy had said it’s best not to tangle with them. Though they’re mostly harmless to us, these critters are poisonous. Cats tend to ignore them, but sometimes dogs can’t resist. I’m not taking any chances.
Daddy strides ahead, tall, confident. I hop gingerly across the lawn, between plumeria trees with their skinny branches and long narrow leaves. I take in deep breaths of their sweet-smelling clusters and make my way to the monkeypod tree in the back corner where Daddy stands.
“This is one of the reasons I chose this house to rent,” he says, giving its enormous trunk a pat. “That and of course the Halanis. This tree is probably older than me.”
Starlight twinkles through its big branches and umbrella-shaped top.
“Shine the light up the trunk until you see something,” says Daddy.
“Like what?”
“Go on. You’ll know it when you see it.”
I move the light up, up, up. And stop. Scraggly legs of a plant cling to the trunk. It doesn’t look like it belongs. Instead, it looks like something I might come across in a pasture outside Gladiola. The leaves are flat, spiny, bumpy, green, and a little wider than a ruler. Like a cactus, though not like one I’ve ever seen.
“It’s a night-blooming cereus,” Daddy says.
“I don’t see any flowers.”
“It’ll bloom when it’s ready, kitten, and only in the dark.”
I kind of like that. It will bloom in secret, as if it doesn’t want anyone to notice. As if it doesn’t want the attention of the bright light. Only people who look carefully will see.
I shine the beam back on the plant.
Not even a bud.
Sunday at the Beach
MAMA PREPS FOR SUNDAY dinner in our tiny kitchen. “Thanks, but no thanks,” she said when I offered assistance. “This space is best for one.” Daddy’s out front, trimming hedges and visiting with Mr. Halani. We won’t eat until one o’clock.