Malina Beach: A Paradise Island Series

by K. A. Burgdorf

  We go into an office with three women standing behind different desks. The woman at the first window we come to is short and thick, wearing her hair in a tight bun and has a necklace around her neck that reads ‘Jilly’ in fine golden lettering.

  “Hi,” Emily greets her. “My friend needs her class schedule. She’s new to this school.”

  “Name?” the woman demands without looking away from her computer screen.

  Her fingers click and clack against the keys of her computer before she even has my name.

  “Malina Beach.”

  The woman hits her mouse three times before sliding away from her desk and walking over to a printer across the room. Two sheets of paper spits out into her hand and she bends them in half, cutting off the unnecessary blank paper.

  She slips them to me as she sits back down.

  “Welcome to Moanalua High School. The bell is about to ring, so you may as well go to your homeroom for class now,” she says to me, flashing a toothy grin.

  “Thank you,” Emily and I say to her and turn. My eyes flash to my homeroom teacher’s name. Mrs. Robinson.

  “Shoot,” Emily groans. “I have Mr. Ivy,” she sighs.

  I frown. “Well, let’s see who else we have together,” I say, passing her my class schedule while I look over my extra curricular schedule.

  “Yes! We have Math together… that’s Mrs. Green. And we have Literature together, “That’s Mr. Dillon. He’s cute. And we have biology together. That’s Mr. Daniels,” Emily says.

  “Wow, we have a lot together,” I say excitedly. She grins.

  “Yep. See this is going to be great! I’m so glad my doctor gave me the clear to come to school,” she says.

  “Speaking of that,” I say, taking my schedule back from her. “How are you feeling?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Stop trying to baby me. I’m fine. I’m great,” she says. I know she isn’t being entirely truthful, but I drop the subject, knowing she just wants to be a normal High School kid today.

  I wonder when we will run into the friends Emily said she had that left for the summer. I bet they don’t know she has cancer.

  The bell rings, blasting our ears and telling us to hurry to our lockers. I glance at my schedules while Emily tugs me, by arm, down the hall. My locker number is 113.

  Where is 113?

  “Do we go to our lockers?” I ask Emily.

  “Not the first day. Usually, when the bell rings, you will get your homeroom subject book out of your locker and take it to class. Like any other school.”

  I laugh at myself. “Right.”

  She stops suddenly as the hallway overflows with teenagers. “Here’s your homeroom class,” she says. I glance inside the door she stopped us in front of.

  “Mine is three doors down,” she says.

  “Okay, I’ll see you later,” I say. “Where is locker 113?”

  She frowns. “Far away from mine,” she grumbles. “I’m number 124.”

  She looks down the line of lockers. “You’re right down there. The yellow one.”

  My face lights up. “Yes! I got yellow!” I exclaim. She grins.

  “I’ll see you later.”

  She leaves me in the doorway. I turn and walk into the classroom. There are three people already seated. My teacher, Mrs. Robinson, is seated at her desk. She has straight, flat blonde hair and blue eyes. She wears rectangular glasses and has wide hips and large calfs. She smiles at me as I take a seat in the front row, directly in front of her desk.

  Kids pile into the classroom of all shapes and sizes, chatting and laughing with people they most likely haven’t seen the past three months. I sit, silent and glance around at everything and everyone.

  When the class appears to be full, Mrs. Robinson stands, wearing a skirt covered in white Calla Lilies, and a purple shirt that hangs loosely from her shoulders. She writes her name on the large black board in perfect cursive, large enough for everyone to see clearly.

  She first calls attendance. Thankfully, she didn’t introduce me as a new student.

  I’m simply Malina Beach. After attendance, she introduced herself.

  “My name is Clarissa Robinson. I’m thirty seven years old. I have three children, whom I love very much and I read Harlequin Romance Novels,” she says, earning a series of giggles and whispers from around the classroom.

  “Now,” she says. She begins walking around, first down the aisle farthest from me. “I’m going to call a name…” she says, loud and clear. “And when I call your name I want you to tell us all three things about yourself.”

  A hand flies up behind me. I turn to look at the girl who raised her hand. Her nose is pointed upward, sort of like a pig. Though I hate to think that, because it’s so rude. Her eyes are blue and her lips are thin and upturned.

  “Yes?” Mrs. Robinson says. The girl clears her throat. Just looking at her, you can tell she is smart. And rich. She actually wears a sweater vest that’s brown and black, with her jeans two sizes too big.

  “How are you going to call our names?” she wonders. “You don’t have our name list in your hands?”

  Mrs. Robinson grins. “Ahh, very good question!” she says. “I have a photographic memory,” she explains. Which makes students all around the classroom drop their jaws, including me. “I remember every name on that sheet, and all of your faces. And chances are, I always will.”

  After a few moments of dead silence, she laughs lightly. “Are we ready to start?”

  We all nod. Every single one of us, still silent.

  She proceeds to call each of our names in alphabetical order, her hands tucked behind her back as she listens closely to each thing we have to say. Mostly, kids pick things to say like their hobbies. Skateboarding, surfing, snorkeling, running, baseball, basketball, soccer, and reading. A few others say that they moved here from California or Oregon. But when my name is called, I panicked, and I say something that I don’t think anyone was expecting… not even Mrs. Robinson. Though I’m thankful she doesn’t make a big deal out of it.

  “I moved here from Tennessee at the beginning of the summer. I really love the color yellow, so I’m really happy that my locker is yellow,” I say and pause. “And my father died when I was six.”

  The class is quiet, stunned, and probably disappointed that the new girl is so weird. Mrs. Robinson smiles at me, bright and vivid.

  “I love yellow, too,” she tells me. “Another thing about me is: I live in that big yellow house on Chestnuts Street; by the water. I’ve lived there for twelve years, and before that, my mother lived there since she was ten. My grandmother loved that house. My grandparents bought it and that property in 1966.”

  I smile at her. Soon, class begins. Mrs. Robinson talks with a slow, sweet voice.

  She reminds me of Ms. Honey from Matilda. She’s sweet and careful and doesn’t like to use any harsh words, though her vocabulary is so well developed, a clear sign that she truly does have photographic memory. I’ve never met anyone like her, which makes my favorite teacher immediately.

  My next class is Geography, which is mind-numbingly boring and stale and routine, especially compared to my homeroom class; compared to Mrs. Robinson.

  Next, I have a P.E. class; while normally I would like this, today we are playing volleyball, and I’m awful at volleyball. I almost ask the athletic and tough looking P.E. teacher if I can just run laps instead, but decide that I don’t want to draw too much negative attention to myself on the first day.

  I make it through the period, though I was hardly a part of the game at all. No one knows me, and they didn’t form their teams full of new girls. They were all friends. They all knew each other, loved each other and didn’t want to get stuck with the complete stranger. They want their best friends. I know exactly how they feel.

  But my next class is with Emily. It’s Literature, and I couldn’t be more excited.

  I pile in early and have a seat, watching the door and waiting for Emily. To see her familiar fac
e.

  People pile in, unfamiliar face after unfamiliar face. I’m already bummed I haven’t seen her in the halls. Finally, she arrives, talking vividly with a girl I’ve never seen before. Her hair is long and blonde and she is shorter than Emily. Their arms are interlocked and they are laughing together. They look as though they have been friends for years. And they probably have. Emily’s eyes search for me, and the girls break away when she spots me.

  “Hi!” she says, coming to steal the chair next to me. She quickly and swiftly hugs me before setting her bag on the floor. “How are you? How is your first day so far?”

  “Good,” I murmur. “It’s great to see a familiar face.”

  “I’m sorry we don’t have more classes together,” she says with a frown. “But for right now. I’m all yours.”

  “Awesome!”

  “Oh, my god,” she says. “Wait until you see the teacher,” she giggles. “He is the youngest teacher, the hottest teacher, the sweetest teacher…”

  “How old is he?” I wonder.

  “Twenty-seven,” she giggles. “He has the eyes of an angel. Just wait until you see his eyes. All of the girls have crushes on him. I mean, all of them, even some of the teachers.”

  “Wow…” I murmur. “What is he, a model on the side?”

  “No,” she says. “But he so should be.”

  “Who was the girl you came in with?” I ask her.

  “That’s Taylor,” she says. “We’ve been friends since third grade,” she says, happily smiling at the thought of her. “Do you want to meet her?”

  “No, that’s okay. I can meet her later.”

  As I say this, the teacher, Mr. Dillon, makes his way into the classroom; his eyes are glued to a clipboard in his hands. He sits down at his desk, writes something on the clipboard and looks up at all of us, talking and chattering. Except Emily and I; we are gawking. My face is stunned and Emily’s is amused in an odd, satisfied way. She is totally checking him out.

  And everything starts to progress in slow motion. The way his eyes, a bright and shining green, skim across the class. He glances back at the papers in his hand and licks his lip. I swear I nearly melt out of my chair. To say this man is handsome is the crime of the century. He must be God, or at least chiseled from stone.

  I swear I see Emily drooling.

  “That’s the teacher?” I say. “That’s the Godlike being that I’m supposed to learn Shakespeare from?” There must be some mistake. There is no way I am going to be able to concentrate on old books and plays with him walking around on Earth.

  “Yep,” Emily says. “Isn’t it great?”

  “Okay, everyone,” Mr. Dillon says. “Can I have your attention?”

  He clearly isn’t from around here. But I can’t place his accent. We all look to him now, as if we would want to look anywhere else.

  He smiles. “Good morning. I’m Mr. Dillon,” he says, standing and coming to lean against the front of his desk, moving papers so he doesn’t knock them off. “Welcome to the new school year,” he says. “The first thing we are going to learn about isn’t

  Shakespeare, which is the question of the day, right?” he says, working his way back to the board. He picks up the chalk, writes a word I can’t yet see and steps away.

  It says, ‘Into the Wild’.

  “‘Into the Wild’ by Jon Krakauer. Who has heard of this book?” he asks. Only two hands go up, and one isn’t mine. I watched the 2007 film, but I’ve never read the book. I didn’t even realize there was a book.

  “Only two,” he says, surprised by this. “Well… this is a nonfiction book, about a young man who set out on a life as a tramp. He referred to himself as Alexander Supertramp, but his real name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He died from starvation when he was left trapped in the wild, in Alaska, due to the overflow of a major river that he couldn't cross. He nearly drowned trying.

  He believed in changing the world. He believed in having only essentials, or even less than that. He believed in nature and truth. He actually quoted a great author, Henry David Thoreau, saying ‘Rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness, give me truth.’” He pauses, looking out over us. He speaks so passionately about literature, about truth, about this boy. It’s almost spiritual. It’s addicting to listen to.

  He continues. “He burned all of the money in his wallet. He cut up his credit cards, social security cards, student ID's, Driver’s license, everything. His parents didn’t see or hear from him in two years before he died. Nor did his sister, Carine. He didn’t believe that we needed to have human interaction to be happy. He didn’t think he needed anyone.

  But the day he died, he wrote down, “Happiness is only real when shared.”

  “Do any of you believe this? What are you opinions?”

  Hands fly up into the air. “Yes?” he says and points to a boy with black, spiked hair.

  “I don’t know about that… I mean, without money, how do you eat? How do you live? Where do you sleep?” the boy asked.

  “He hunted, while he was in the wild, or he just didn’t eat. He had a few jobs. He wasn’t totally broke. But he slept in a tent, or in a cave in Mexico,” he says. “This kid, he’s a tremendous person, because, well, he did what he really wanted in life. He was truly the wild one. He was truly one with nature. And if that doesn’t inspire you, I don’t know what will.” he says.

  “You’re probably wondering, “Why am I telling you all of this, right?” he asks.

  Kids giggle and laugh throughout the classroom. I just smile at him.

  “Because it has a message. Material things are not life. Money is not life. In the end, it’s love, it’s family, it’s the Earth and the stars and your heart and soul.”

  He speaks so animatedly. He talks with his hands, which makes him even more crazy looking.

  But he’s so incredibly handsome, that doesn’t even matter. It adds to the charm.

  “I see people all day long, taking everything for granted. While this kid gave it all back and said, ‘No, I don’t want that new car. No, thank you. I’m going to go live under the stars. I’m going to walk across the country. I’m going to go live in Slab City and enjoy the hippies for a few years. And then he said, you know what? I’ve enjoyed this… this beauty and this freedom… but I want the real thing. So he walked into the wild and never walked back out.”

  A girl raised her hand. “What is Slab City?”

  “It’s an old Military base out in the desert. And people just started parking their vans and their trailers out there… now it’s like a community.”

  “People really live this way?” another girl asks.

  “All the time.”

  Wow, I think. Ultimate freedom. Like running. Like biking.

  “The point of this is, I’d like you all to watch the movie, read the book, it doesn’t matter, but read it or watch it and try to find a little bit of your own truth. What sets you off? What holds your fancy?”

  “What do we do after that?” someone asks. I keep my eyes on Mr. Dillon.

  “Then tell about it. Write about it, sing about it, write a poem about it, a rap song, write a screenplay about it. Just get it on paper.” The class is silent, and Mr. Dillon grins. “No, you will not be graded on it. But, give it some thought. In the meantime,” he says, wheeling out the TV and VCR cart. “We are going to watch this documentary on Henry David Thoreau.”

  The class groans, even Emily, but I’m interested in the man who could ever say a beautiful thing like, ‘Rather than love, than money, than fame, than fairness, than faith, give me truth.’

  When class is over, Emily waits by the door for me, but I stop at Mr. Dillon’s desk, waiting for my turn to speak to him. A few girls are murmuring something to him too low for me to hear.

  When they leave, I step forward. “Excuse me?” I say. He glances up and his eyes grow.

  “Yes,” he asks. He stares at me, making me smile at him.

  “I was just wondering… wh
ere might I purchase this book you’re talking about? I’m new in Hawaii… I don’t know where any libraries or bookstores are?”

  “Oh…” he says, opening a drawer on his gray metal desk. “Borrow mine,” he says, handing me an old looking, withered book with creases on the binding and pages dog-eared.

  He grins at me, handing it over.

  “Thank you,” I say. “What you said today was really interesting,” I tell him.

  “I’m glad. You’re the first person to ask about the book and not the movie,” he says. “Make sure you bring that back when you are done. I’ve had that copy many years.”

  “I will, thanks again.”

  I walk towards Emily, who is laughing with her hand over her mouth.

  “What?” I say.

  She pulls me into the hallway, away from the teacher. “You were totally flirting with the teacher!” she says, too loudly. I shush her.

  “I was not!” I say. “I was asking him about a book, you perv.”

  She snorts a laugh and shakes her head. “That’s not what it looked like. Your face is as red as a stop sign!”

  “Oh, be quiet,” I say, pushing past her to walk to my locker. “I’m with your brother, remember?”

  “I know,” she says. “But it was just funny the way you looked… you looked like, well, a teenage girl.” She starts to giggle again.

  “Go to your locker, I’ll meet you in class!”

  She’s still laughing as she walks away. I feel my cheeks; my face is beat red. I sigh deeply, calming my heart down gradually as I find the right book for our next class, grabbing a clean notebook while I’m at it. But as I walk to my next class to meet Emily, I can’t help but smile as I remember the way he talked about Literature. The rest of my day goes by in a blurry flash as I think of him.

  I love Hawaii. I love my friends. I love my house and my life, and my new school isn’t looking too bad, either. But Hawaii is full of some awesome people, and they all seem to cross my path. I guess that just makes another reason why I feel as If I’m on a permanent vacation. I can’t wait to see whom I meet next.