Anywhere but Paradise

by Anne Bustard

  Being Safe

  MY PARENTS ARE SAFE. Howdy is safe. Maybe Kahuna is, too. I’ve tried to talk to Kiki. The doctor says my head is okay. I feel better. Really. I can’t live like this forever. This is the last week of school.

  I’m tired of being scared. Tired of worrying. In fact, I don’t think I have any more worry left in me. I’m tired of always thinking the worst. I’m going to be positive. Think the best.

  I’m going to school tomorrow.

  Hana Hou!

  “I’M SO GLAD your parents are okay,” kids say in homeroom the following morning.

  “Did you really see Pele?”

  I look at Malina. She shrugs.

  In home ec, Kiki is absent. I imagine she’s still looking for her dog. I wish her the best.

  Instead of my afternoon PE class, I’m in the library shelving a slew of biographies and books about the solar system and World War II. A piano concerto plays on the radio as the librarian and her volunteer tussle with overdue notices.

  “WaaaaAAHHHH.” The alert sirens wail.

  “No!” I cry as my heart races. “Not again.”

  “Let’s not panic,” says the librarian, turning up the volume on the radio. I rush to her desk so I won’t miss a word.

  An announcer breaks in. Another earthquake shook Chile. We must evacuate.

  I sink to my knees. Mama and Daddy will find higher ground. But Howdy? He’s trapped in his cage. Alone. And what about everyone else? So many have already died.

  Malina barrels in. “She’s with me,” she tells the librarian in an official-sounding voice. The two move away and speak in hushed tones.

  Then Malina joins me on the floor. “It’s probably a dud. But we need to leave now.”

  I know.

  “Hana hou!” she says. “One more time.”

  We catch up to her math class plodding single file toward the hill.

  She talk, talk, talks about everything. Nothing. Some teachers tell her to hush.

  “Special case,” she says, and ignores them.

  I don’t really listen. I can’t stop remembering the last time the sirens sounded.

  The all-clear comes about two and a half hours later.

  Howdy’s safe. We’re all safe.

  As soon as I get home, I hug Mama. Hug her hard. For the second day in a row.

  I skip hula so we can be together.

  “You’ve done a great job sewing, Peggy Sue,” she says when I show her my work. “But I know the recital is coming up and you may be behind. I’m not as good a seamstress as your grandmother, but my handwork isn’t bad.”

  “This one’s ready to hem,” I say, and give her a purple-and-white shorty muumuu. “And don’t worry, Grams always says quilters make mistakes on purpose. Nothing is ever perfect.”

  Telling

  KIKI WAS A NO-SHOW for home ec Thursday morning as well. As far as I know, Kahuna is still MIA. Which means there’s a chance she won’t be at school tomorrow either. Of course I want her dog back. But I would be so relieved if she didn’t show up.

  “One more day,” sings Malina after school. We’re in her bedroom to practice hula.

  “Um, can I ask you something?”

  “Anything,” she says, sorting through her records to find the right ones.

  I pick at a cuticle. I know that Kiki had told me not to say anything. Or else. Now I’m sure that Kiki won’t find out about Malina. Malina’s true blue. And I want to know more.

  “I’ve been wondering about Kill Haole Day.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Guess.”

  “It’s a dumb tradition at our school. Some eighth-grade locals beat up kids for fun. They think they’re so tough.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not saying they’re right or anything, but from the beginning, haoles have changed Hawaii, our aina—our land, our lives.”

  “And not always for the good.”

  “It makes me sad sometimes.”

  “So I guess some kids are so mad that on the last day of school, they pick a fight.”

  “Yep,” she says, waving a record. “No worry, beef curry. We’ll stick together.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  “Of course. Now, come on, let’s practice.”

  She starts the music and we dance.

  “Any chance you’ll help me sew later?” I ask after one hula. Even with Mama’s assistance, I’m way behind. “I’ll donate to your Paris fund.”

  “You’re on.”

  Malina comes over to my house. We sew. Malina stays for supper. And we sew some more.

  “Time for me to go,” Malina says. It’s almost eight thirty. “You need to come, too. My mom says that she has a little something for us.”

  “Autograph books,” we say, as Mrs. Halani hands each of us one. “Thank you.”

  Mine is light pink with Autographs written in loopy cursive in dark pink across the cover. Autograph Hound is written inside a dachshund on Malina’s.

  “I’m going to ask all of my old boyfriends to sign,” she says.

  “That’s very magnanimous of you,” I say.

  “I know,” she says.

  Last Day of School

  IT’S A HALANI TRADITION for Malina to be driven to school by her dad on the last day, and I’m her lucky guest. No siren. Instead, the radio blasts songs from Malina’s favorite station.

  We’re surrounded as soon as we step out of the car. “Peggy Sue, sign my autograph book. Peggy Sue, over here. Please sign.”

  I don’t know most of the kids, but I sign anyway. And ask for their signatures, too. I don’t see Kiki.

  Mrs. Taniguchi catches me on my way to homeroom. “I wanted to thank you for something,” she says. Her skirt and shoes are the same shade of fern green.

  “Me?” I have no idea what that could be.

  “I understand that you helped Kiki Kahana with a sewing project. That was very kind of you.”

  Kind? Not really. “About that,” I say.

  “Coming,” she says, signaling to someone behind me. “I’m sorry, Peggy Sue, Mr. Kam is sending an SOS. I’ve got to go.” She flits away before I can tell her more.

  There’s an awards assembly first period.

  No home ec.

  This is my lucky day.

  After lunch, one of Kiki’s friends bumps me in the walkway and keeps going. No big deal. Everyone is in a hurry to get out of here.

  So am I. Just two more periods to go. The outside corridor is jammed.

  When I leave the library, I turn the corner and head for Hawaiian history, my last class of the year.

  Boom!

  I collide with … I look down … Kiki. On the ground.

  “Oh, no,” I say. “I’m so sorry.” She scowls back at me, and my shoulders stiffen. I have to make sure she got my message. That she knows how I feel about Kahuna. “I hope,” I say, “that your mom told you. I’m sorry about Kahuna, too.”

  Kiki bounds up, her eyes boring into mine. “Today is my day,” she says. “Bwak. Bwak.”

  No more maybes.

  That is her answer.

  No deal.

  My luck just ran out.

  Help!

  I FLY DOWN the hallway to class.

  “Whoa there, Texas,” says Kimo as I plow into him going into our room.

  “Sorry, Hawaii,” I say, and rush inside.

  Where is Malina? Where is my friend?

  Not here.

  The bell rings and everyone takes a seat. Mr. Nakamoto stands beside a stack of papers on his desk.

  Malina enters smiling and points to her autograph book. “Steven Hamakua, the eighth-grade class president, asked to sign,” she says as she takes her seat. “Of course I couldn’t turn him down.”

  “Malina, Malina,” I urgent-whisper to her. “We have to talk. Right now.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Miss Bennett,” says Mr. Nakamoto. “Your undivided attention, please.”

  Malina covers
her mouth and whispers, “Just a sec.”

  “Today, we will review our old exams,” Mr. Nakamoto says. “And I will excuse you one row at a time to clean out your lockers.”

  “No fair,” says Glenn.

  “Mr. Aquino,” says Mr. Nakamoto. “After all I’ve taught you this year, if this is the first time you realize that, I have finally succeeded.”

  I tap Kimo’s desk across from me. “Change places?”

  Mr. Nakamoto picks up the papers and we make the switch. “Row one.”

  As Kimo walks toward the door, Mr. Nakamoto puts out his arm to block him. “Mr. Nahoa, return to your seat until I call your row.” He peers down my new row. “Miss Bennett, to your locker.”

  “Busted,” says Glenn.

  I join my classmates in the hall.

  The way I see it, I have three choices when the bell rings.

  I can run. I can hide. I can fight.

  Briiiiiiiing

  I RUN.

  Under the Flags

  “WAIT,” calls Malina as I charge away from Mr. Nakamoto’s door.

  Not a chance.

  I run as hard and as fast as I can. Ahead in the courtyard, a haole boy is shoved to the ground. I run. Faster.

  “Fight. Fight,” someone yells, and the boy and his attacker are surrounded.

  A sharp whistle blows.

  A teacher to the rescue.

  I speed past the cafeteria, through the tunnel-like entrance and into the light. I clutch my autograph book, report card, and papers.

  Kiki stands under the flagpole.

  Waiting.

  She lifts her arm and points right at me. Arms link through my elbows and propel me toward her.

  “Let go,” I scream, kicking a girl’s leg beside me. Arms tighten around mine.

  I twist back. Kids pour out of the school, headed our way.

  Not a teacher in sight.

  Ahead and next to the street, buses idle, waiting for riders. A radio blares over shouts about summer vacation.

  A circle has formed around Kiki but parts as I am forced forward, forced into the center. Then, just like that, it closes. The arms holding me let go and melt into the crowd. I am a few feet away from her. Nowhere to go.

  Kiki grabs my autograph book. My report card and papers fall to the ground. “It says here,” she shouts, opening my book, “Texas is two good to be four-gotten.”

  Kimo wrote that.

  Kiki swings around. “I ask you people, is that true?”

  “No,” they shout.

  I hug my arms across my chest.

  “It says here this haole’s no ka oi.”

  Malina’s words say I am the best.

  “No,” shouts the crowd.

  Kiki smiles at me, awash in their fervor. She rips pages out of my book, throws them down, and grinds them into the red dirt.

  “Yes,” chants the crowd.

  Why did I have to move here? Why did I have to come to this school? Why did I have to meet her? She’s been nothing but mean—teasing, taunting, threatening, laughing, maybe, maybe, maybe-ing me.

  I hate, hate, hate her.

  Kiki tears more pages into smaller and smaller pieces, lifts her hands to the sky, and tosses the papers as high as she can. The pink rain falls.

  I charge.

  And trip.

  And fall. Fall on the scraps of pink.

  Kiki throws her head back and laughs.

  The crowd joins in.

  My hands, my knees—scraped raw.

  I hug my knees to my chest and lower my head. My first fight. Over. Over before it even began. And I lost.

  “We don’t want you here,” says Kiki. “Take. Take. Take. Go back to where you came from, haole dog killer.”

  I’m trying. I’m trying so hard.

  “Kiki, that’s enough.”

  I look up. It’s Malina.

  “Maybe Kahuna is still alive,” she says. “I hope so. If you hadn’t let him out, none of this would have happened. Or blame my dad, not her.”

  “Ooooo,” whisper some in the crowd.

  “Haoles aren’t your enemies, Kiki. Hate is,” says Malina.

  Hearing Malina say that, say those words about hating—she doesn’t know it, but I hate, too. I am just like Kiki.

  “I feel sorry for you,” says Malina. “These islands are big enough for all of us. We are the Aloha State.”

  The state of love.

  “Today’s just for fun,” says someone in the crowd. “You know, tradition.”

  “Does Peggy Sue look like she’s having fun?” asks Malina.

  “I should go now,” I say, picking myself up. I keep my eyes on the ground and walk away. No one stops me.

  “What are you afraid of, Kiki?” I hear Malina say. “That if you got to know Peggy Sue, you’d like her?”

  “You crack me up, cousin,” says Kiki.

  “I wish I could say the same about you,” says Malina. Then, “Peggy Sue, wait up,” she calls after me as I keep walking.

  Cindy

  I YANK OPEN the mailbox beside the driveway. It’s stuffed. I tug at a magazine in the middle to unclog the jam. Bills and letters spill out.

  Trying to catch them is like catching water with your bare hands—you’ll only get a few drops.

  “This one’s for you,” says Malina.

  I recognize the handwriting.

  “It’s from Cindy,” I say, and sink to the grass. Finally.

  I tear open the envelope and read:

  Aloha, Peggy Sue!

  Sorry I haven’t written! You know how crazy it gets at the end of the school year!

  Thanks for all of your postcards. Wish I could be there for your first hula recital.

  There’s a new girl, Edna Peabody? It turns out she’s really nice.

  Now I have someone to split a Dr Pepper float with at the soda fountain. She likes to play Ping-Pong, too. I’m going to visit my grandma in Granger this summer. Edna’s aunt and uncle live there, so we’re going together. Isn’t that the best?

  Have fun surfing and sunning and hulaing (is that a word?)!

  Yours truly,

  D (which Edna started calling me and it’s stuck!)

  PS I took the key you sent me to the owners of your old house, but when they tried it out, it didn’t fit. Sorry!

  PPS The gum chain is so long now that it wraps around the whole outside of school!!

  I smush the letter and toss it in the hedge behind me.

  “Bad news?” Malina asks, taking a seat on the grass.

  “When I return, I don’t think we’ll be best friends anymore.” The words slip out before I can take them back.

  “You mean, like, to visit?”

  “Malina, I think I need to tell you something.”

  Paris Confessional

  “I HAVEN’T BEEN saving to go to Paris,” I say. “I’ve been saving to go back home.”

  “You lied to me?” Malina’s eyes widen.

  “I feel really bad about that. But truth be told, I don’t belong here.”

  Malina scrunches her eyebrows.

  “It’s not you,” I explain. “It’s Howdy’s quarantine, Mama’s rock fever, mine, Daddy’s long work hours, a new school, Kiki, my sunburn, humuhumu-whatawhata? and all the other words I don’t know and can’t pronounce, the tidal wave, the hospital, Kahuna, Kill Haole Day. It’s too much. And poi. It tastes terrible.”

  “Hey, I don’t like poi either.”

  “Don’t make me laugh. I’m serious.”

  “Me, too. Listen, things have been rough. Especially after school today. But you have friends.”

  I look at her.

  “Okay, not everyone. But you can’t let one person ruin your life.”

  I keep staring.

  “Or even a few. Not everyone in Gladiola is perfect, are they?”

  I don’t answer.

  “You haven’t been here that long, Peggy Sue. Have you given Hawaii a chance? It kind of seems like you made up your mind not to l
ike it before you even got here.”

  She’s right. I didn’t want to move in the first place.

  “You could belong if you wanted to.”

  Her words sting. More than bees or rabies shots.

  So

  MALINA AND I head to my front door. From her mom’s studio comes a song I know, about the town of Lahaina on the island of Maui. I hum to cover up the silence.

  I need a mid-course correction. That’s a term Daddy learned in the military. When something is cockeyed, it’s time for an adjustment. Malina’s right. I can’t let a few bad things—okay, a lot of bad things—get to me. I should rise above them. I should make the best of my present situation. I should focus on the good.

  My parents are home. Malina is my friend, even if she is put out with me right now. The girls in my hula class are nice. I love to dance even though I’m not that great at it. I’m earning good money sewing. Howdy is almost halfway through his quarantine. And now it’s officially summer vacation. I’ll be leaving sooner than later. I almost have enough for a third of a ticket.

  I should try.

  I should enjoy Hawaii while I’m still here.

  It’s true. Nothing’s perfect.

  Not people.

  Not Hawaii.

  Not me.

  “Malina, I’m sorry,” I say as we reach the steps to my house. “I haven’t been fair to you or to Hawaii. Thank you for sticking up for me after school. It means a lot. And for saying what you just said about giving this place a chance. I’m going to try. Really try.”

  We climb the steps, I open the door, and we walk through.

  “Can I see what everyone wrote in your autograph book?” I ask as we grab a snack.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” she says, and opens to the last page: “ ‘Stay sweet, Malina. Hope to c u this summer! Kimo.’ ” A cool drawing fills up the rest of the space.

  “See,” I say, giving her a pen for her hand heart, “no worry, beef curry.”

  Bump

  THAT NIGHT I scoot out back with a flashlight. I haven’t checked on the night-blooming cereus since my parents left. I click on the light and shine it on the base of the monkeypod tree. Up, up, up goes the light, until it touches the bottom tip of the plant.