by Anne Bustard
So I am fixing to work on my tan. I won’t stick out so much with one.
I scamper to the ocean side of Hanu Road and race walk down the grassy shoulder. My beach bag bumps against my hip. I pass driveways and a bunch of side streets until I find the street to the park.
Tall ironwood trees with long, weepy needles and teeny tiny pinecones line the road. The breeze kicks up and I see the shimmering blue water in the distance. I take in the salty air and quicken my pace. Big white puffy clouds decorate the bluest of blue sky.
I’ll stay until dinnertime. Then, after we eat, we’ll drive over to see Howdy.
I sprint across the beach park grass and step into the soft, sugary sand. Here, the beach is long and broad. Sparkles of light dance off the clear blue-green water. Ribbons of turquoise, emerald, teal, and navy color its surface. Halfway to the horizon, a line of waves breaks on the reef. To the far left and right, small islands host untold numbers of birds. I cross the sand to the warm water’s edge and let the lacy ocean shush over my feet.
The beach park is filling up, but not too much. I settle in between a family and a couple with cameras taking photos of each other on their beach towels. I inspect my two-piece suit. I made it right before we moved. It’s orange with white polka dots and ruffles, just like one I saw in a magazine.
I slather on the baby oil and hope for the best. I’ll use the system Cindy’s older sister swears by. She should know. She sunned every day over spring break and came back to school the tannest girl at Gladiola High. Her foolproof method? Apply oil and turn from one side to the other every thirty minutes. Like roasting chicken on a skewer. Done.
I prop myself up on my beach towel and pop a piece of spearmint green deliciousness in the shape of a leaf into my mouth. Candy is an important part of sunning.
I gaze at the ocean. If I squint hard enough, I can imagine this wide-open space is the land around Gladiola. This time of year, pastures of green overflow with happy shades of blue, orange, yellow, pink, and white wildflowers. And all you see is land and sky for forever.
A fly wants to become my best friend.
“Shoo,” I tell it, and it wings away on the gentle breeze.
Slather and turn.
Thirty minutes. The family next to me is at the water’s edge, with buckets and shovels. The girl about my age helps the younger ones fill their pails with sand. The couple next to me reads. My bag of candy is now empty. I open a pack of my favorite gum, and my mouth juices around a stick of its chewy sweetness.
I wonder if Cindy has found the key chain we won with the ticket we shared at the fall carnival at school. We put keys to both of our houses on it. She took it home first. I forgot about it until I opened my bedside drawer a few weeks later and there it was. I didn’t say a word. I hid the key chain under her bed days later. She never said a thing. Next thing I knew, it was behind a pillow on my window seat. Back and forth it went. Before I left, I tucked it in a boot deep inside her closet.
Slather.
Turn.
One hour.
I pull out a postcard from my beach bag to send to Grams and Grandpa. A colorful fish on the front eyes me. “Hum-you-hum …?” The letters of its name blur together. Twelve letters in the Hawaiian alphabet. And this little fish with twenty-one in its name is swimming circles around me.
Slather.
Turn.
Ouch.
I pop up and rush to the edge of the ocean where foam swirls around my feet. I tiptoe forward until I’m knee-deep and splash water over my arms and shoulders. Cooling, cooling off.
“You’re red,” hollers the older girl being buried up to her neck by her family.
“But I’ve been here less than two hours.”
“That’s probably long enough,” says her mom as she adds a shovel of sand on top of her daughter’s stomach.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
This I know: It’s going to take a lot longer than this to become a new me.
Fire
DADDY WORKS for the agriculture department. He studies invasive species and knows a heap about sugarcane production.
They burn the fields. On purpose. To make an easier and more productive harvest. Somehow it doesn’t ruin the stalks. Then they collect the cane.
We took the extra-long way back to the house after the hula show last weekend and passed by a burning field.
Yellow and red flames reached for the sky. Gray smoke billowed up and up. The wind carried it across the blue, hiding long sections. The smell was thick, heavy.
I am like sugarcane. I am on fire.
My skin is tight. Itchy. Cindy’s older sister looked bronzy beautiful after all her sunning. I look like the inside of a hot dog—pinky red.
Mama sits beside me on my bed, applies cold compresses, and rubs in handful after handful of lotion. I wince as she smooths another layer of cream back and forth across my shoulders.
“Your daddy and I think you need to stay put this afternoon,” she says.
“Mama, no,” I say, turning to meet her eyes. “I’ve got to see Howdy. He needs me. I don’t want what happened to Tink—”
“I know you’re disappointed.”
“Mama, please. I promised. I don’t think Howdy recognized me yesterday. If I don’t see him today, he’s going to forget me.”
“That cat surely knows you. He’s just going through an adjustment period,” she says, covering my red arms with white.
Daddy enters, bearing a tall glass of water with extra ice, just like I like it. “Tell you what,” he says. “How about if I check in on Howdy tomorrow?”
Daddy knew I’d be worried. “Thank you,” I say.
“You look all tuckered out, Peggy Sue,” says Mama. “Let me fix you a plate and then you can take a nice long nap.”
Warm smells from Mama’s smothered chicken permeate our house. Usually, that starts my mouth watering. But not today. All that candy has turned in my stomach. “I’m still full from breakfast.”
I lay on top of my bed. Mama covers me with an extra sheet and tiptoes out of the room. I’ll just rest for a few minutes. Then she’ll see that I’m good to go and we’ll visit Howdy after all.
But I sleep until Mama wakes me for supper and more lotion. I sip water and eat a few bites of chicken and fruit salad.
At midnight, her cold compresses warm against my skin.
“I hurt everywhere, Mama. Even my ears.”
“I’m so sorry, Peggy Sue, but it’s going to be okay. Unfortunately, it may get worse before it gets better.”
Still Burning
I’M SWEAT-STUCK to the backseat of the car idling in front of school Monday morning and all prickly on the inside.
“You’ll feel better if you socialize,” says Mama.
Only if I were in Gladiola.
Before breakfast, I heard her tell Daddy that I can’t stay at the house all day by myself. She’s going to the doctor and a newcomers’ club meeting.
“Go get ’em, tiger,” Daddy says. “I won’t forget to tell Howdy you said hi.”
“Thank you.”
More sweat collects at the back of my legs, travels to my ankles, and sneaks under my arches. I am a living puddle.
I’m delaying the pain. Fast or slow, it hurts to move. I should get out now, get it over with.
“Bye,” I say, propel myself forward, and release the suction from my back riiip-pop. I grit my teeth, swing my legs out the door, and stand. I think I still have all my skin.
Even though I’m wearing my lightest, softest outfit—an old pink seersucker sundress—it feels like soggy sandpaper against my skin. I’m both hot and cold.
Everyone cringes when they see me walk up.
Laughs.
Okay, just one girl laughs.
“Leper,” she says.
Sour Pineapple
“LISTEN TO THIS,” says Kiki to the girls at the machine next to us at the beginning of class. She slides her chair closer. “This haole’s m
other was yelling at the grocery man yesterday when she was picking out a pineapple. I knew it was her because she was tall and had a funny kind of accent like hers.”
My face grows hotter.
Mama had fixed a fruit salad with oranges, cherries, and marshmallows last night. Usually, she added pineapple. It might have been her.
“Plus,” says Kiki, “the grocer called her Mrs. Bennett. I’m telling you, she was giving the guy a hard time. She was really huhu.”
It was her, all right.
If Kiki’s trying to embarrass me, it’s working.
“Um, Kiki,” I say.
“Don’t interrupt me, haole leper,” she says, and turns her back to me. “The lady held a pine in her hand and said, ‘You told me this was ripe. I cut into it at home and look. It’s practically white and very sour.’ Everybody in that part of the store turned their grocery carts around to get out of her way. The produce guy was turning red.”
“Was she wearing sunglasses?” I ask.
Kiki whips her head around. “No, and I told you,” she says, “stop interrupting. I’m getting to the good part about me.”
Kiki tugs on the bottom of her blouse and returns to her friends. “I know him, the grocer,” she says. “He walks his dog on the beach. So I’ve got to say something, defend the guy. So I tell her she’s the sour one.”
“You said that? To her face?”
“Yep.” She glances back and smiles. “What do you think about that, haole?”
I blow out a stream of air and look straight at Kiki. “Sometimes it’s true.” Like today.
I see the surprise in Kiki’s eyes.
I turn to my pattern directions to figure out what I’m supposed to do next.
If only I had directions for her.
Word Problems
LATER, IN MATH, we tackle word problems. But I already have plenty of my own:
Likelike is pronounced “leakay-leakay,” not “like-like.”
Hilo is “hee-low,” not “high-low.”
Kaneohe is “kah-nay-oh-hay.”
Pau is “pow,” not “pa-you.”
Aina is “eye-na,” not “a-in-ah.”
Kalanianaole is a blur of letters and sounds.
And I still can’t figure humuhumunukunukuapuaa.
That evening, Daddy honks the car horn twice as he pulls up to the house. I bolt out the door. “Howdy’s in tip-top shape,” he says before I can even ask. “Though he did let me know I was a poor substitute for you.”
“Thanks, Daddy,” I say, and kiss him on the cheek. “I trust you to tell me the unvarnished truth.”
“Always,” he says, and grabs his briefcase from the backseat. “I just passed one of your flyers on a telephone pole. How’s my favorite entrepreneur?”
“Broke.”
“But not for long.”
“Daddy, don’t you get tired of being positive all the time?” I ask as we move toward the house.
“It beats worrying, kitten.”
I sigh. Deeply.
I wouldn’t know.
Detention
WHEN I GET to home ec the next morning, Mrs. Barsdale and Kiki are finishing up a conversation. Kiki turns, muttering, and stomps back to our sewing machine.
I scoot my chair out of her way.
“Haoles never listen. Never say sorry. Never say thank you,” she says as she threads the machine.
“Typical,” says the girl sewing next to us.
Kiki studies the page of instructions, balls it up, and tosses it at me. I wince as it scratches my sunburned arm and lands on the floor. I let it be.
For the next fifteen minutes, Kiki sews in darts, pops up for water, and talks to the girls beside us.
She rethreads the machine at least five times because the tension is too tight. Not to mention her darts are on the outside.
I am silent.
“Look what you made me do, leper,” she shouts as she holds up her dress. “You should have stopped me.” Her eyes narrow. “See you in detention,” she says, and rushes away from me.
My stomach catches. “No, wait,” I say, following.
“Is there a problem?” asks Mrs. Barsdale.
Kiki holds out her dress. “This,” she says. “And her.” Kiki steers Mrs. Barsdale out of my hearing.
I should have known better. I did nothing while Kiki made those mistakes.
Mrs. Barsdale and Kiki return. Our teacher takes the dress from her. “Peggy Sue, this kind of oversight won’t earn you any extra credit today. Please help Kiki correct her error.”
“I will. Which should mean I won’t have detention either.”
“Detention?” asks Mrs. Barsdale.
“Gotcha,” says Kiki, and jabs me in the chest. “Gotcha good.”
“What is going on here?” asks Mrs. Barsdale.
“I need air,” I say, before barreling out of the room. And a smarter brain. I don’t go far. I slump against the lockers outside the door for the rest of class. No one comes looking for me. When the bell rings, I rush in, grab my stuff, and leave.
Only two more days of her this week. Good Friday can’t come soon enough.
That night, I tiptoe out back, plant my feet in the dewy coolness, and stare up at that cacti that’s hanging on for its life.
Are you going to bloom?
Show me.
Shut Out
LIKE ALWAYS, I sit by myself at lunch the next day and eat my baloney sandwich. Only now, I’m in the cafeteria, smushed between a wall and a girl who is talking to everyone else. I don’t listen in. I think about Gladiola. I wonder how long that gum-wrapper chain is now. I wonder if Grams made fresh tomato sandwiches for lunch. I wonder what colors Grandpa is mixing today for his next oil painting—sapphire, mint, tangerine—and who will clean his brushes?
The house is silent and all the curtains are drawn when I trudge in from school. I find a note on the dining room table under a new bottle of lotion:
TV dinners in the freezer.
Mama
I guess the new doctor didn’t help.
I know the drill—do not disturb.
I reach for the lotion and pour gobs into my hands. I smear the cool goodness onto my skin until I look like a ghost.
Then, I retreat to my room and study a little for Mr. Nakamoto’s test tomorrow.
But it’s harder to concentrate without a cat on my lap. So I slip into the kitchen, grab a banana and the extra house key, and head next door for hula.
But I’m back in two seconds. I write a note and stick it under Mama’s door:
Hope you feel better soon.
Peggy Sue
Hula
I TAKE A SEAT on the bench lining the back wall of Mrs. Halani’s studio and rock my feet on the woven mat.
Pairs of girls enter, their voices filled with laughter. Tammy, the girl from my homeroom, bounces in, donning another pink hair ribbon. A girl I don’t know, at least I don’t think I do, prances beside her. “Snow,” Tammy says, and throws her arms in the air. Her charm bracelet jingles happiness. “I can’t wait.”
“I’ve never seen snow,” says the other.
I stand and move closer, but still hang back. Tammy turns around.
“We’re moving next month,” she tells me. “My parents are taking my brother and me out of school early and we won’t even have to finish on the mainland.”
“I can tell you’re excited,” I say. Tammy hasn’t just hit the double jackpot—leaving and no school to make up—she’s hit the triple: no Kill Haole Day either.
Other girls crowd around her. “Tammy, we’re going to miss you sooooo much.”
“You guys can visit anytime. Our house will have a guest bedroom.…”
I fade back onto the bench. Her still-ringing bracelet reminds me of Cindy’s. I gave her a four-leaf clover charm before I left.
A few minutes later, a girl with short brown hair and a big smile rushes in, says hello to everyone, and plops beside me. Her dark eyes twinkle.
�
��Hi, I’m Malina, Mrs. Halani’s daughter.”
“Peggy Sue,” I say. “Nice to meet you.”
Malina’s a younger, smaller version of her mom, with an inked outline of an empty heart on the back of her right hand.
She shows me her arms. No chicken pox.
“Glad you’re not cooped up anymore,” I say.
“Glad you’re the new neighbor,” she says. “The last ones didn’t have any kids.” She studies my arms. “Your sunburn looks terrible, by the way.”
“I’ll survive,” I say, though it still doesn’t feel like it.
“Time to begin,” says Mrs. Halani. Her muumuu is powder blue and white. “We have a new dance to learn.”
“You may not want to stand next to me,” I tell Malina as we take our positions on the woven mat. “Last week was kind of a disaster.”
“No worry, beef curry.”
Just in case, even when Mrs. Halani tells us to add arm movements, I still dance only with my feet.
During a break, Malina points to my old flyer next to the door. “Trying to earn extra money?”
“As much as possible,” I say.
“Me, too. I’m thinking about starting a dog-walking service.”
“That’s a great idea.” But one I’ll shy away from for sure. The memory of that bite is still too fresh. And, besides, I don’t really know dogs.
“I want to go to Paris someday,” says Malina. “Want to come?”
“How about right after class?”
She laughs.
It turns out Malina is in Mr. Nakamoto’s homeroom and history class, but for some reason, we have different lunch schedules.
“Transferring in late is hard,” she says. “We’re all stuck in our ways like cement.”
I nod.
“But you’ll be okay,” says Malina. “There’s always a crack.”
I want to believe her.