Hang Ten for Dear Life!

by Nicholas O. Time

“Really?” I say, surprised. “I had no idea. I have a pretty great family,” I admit to Akemi. “My sister is really talented, and my dad teaches me a lot, and my mom is the funniest person I know.”

  “You’ll like my family, too, Kai,” Maria says. “My dad is a big prankster. And of course my brothers have followed in his footsteps.”

  “I’ve heard the rumors.” I laugh. “They’re the ones who glued fake spiders to the bathroom ceiling at Sands, right?”

  “That’s them.” Maria laughs.

  Akemi doesn’t seem to be paying attention to us anymore. She’s looking down at the ground again, and I see a few wet drops hit the dirt where she’s standing.

  “Is it starting to rain?” I wonder, looking up at the sky.

  “No, Kai,” Maria says. “Pay attention!”

  Maria points to Akemi. She’s still looking down, but now her shoulders are shaking a little. She’s crying!

  “This isn’t good, Kai,” Maria whispers. “We’re supposed to be cheering her up.”

  She goes over and puts her arm around Akemi.

  “Are you okay?” Maria asks.

  “I’m not!” Akemi sobs. “I miss my mom and dad. I miss my brother and sisters. I miss my home. I don’t have any friends here. I’m so tired. I’m so sad.”

  Maria hugs her a little tighter.

  Akemi wipes her eyes.

  “Maybe we should talk about something else,” Maria suggests. “My mom always says that when you need a cry, just let it out, but don’t dwell in it.”

  “Akemi,” I say. “Do you know why oysters never share their pearls?”

  Akemi doesn’t answer. She just shakes her head.

  “It’s because they’re shellfish,” I say.

  “Kai is getting ready to perform for a comedy contest,” Maria explains to Akemi. “In case you were wondering why he’s obsessed with bad jokes.”

  “Hey, they’re not all bad,” I protest. I turn back to Akemi and ask, “How does the ocean greet a surfer?”

  Akemi looks up at me, smiles, brushes a tear off her cheek, and whispers, “It waves.”

  I can see a tiny ray of hope, but I don’t want to push the jokes too much. Then, all of a sudden, my stomach starts to growl like a trapped tiger.

  Akemi giggles. “We can get some food now,” she says.

  Maria and I follow Akemi through the fields until we reach a building with large open doors. Tables are stretched from one end to the other, and workers are lining up to get their meals. Others are sitting down at the tables and quickly gobbling up their food.

  We follow Akemi in line and I get a tray. First on my plate, a heap of rice. Of course. Then I get a heaping of tofu stew. I can see their vegetable garden out the window. There are plantation workers outside tending to their gardens. The daikon radishes, eggplants, and string beans that are in my stew have come straight from that garden.

  There is a lot more going on in the dining room than there was in Akemi’s room, but it is just as dismal. All the workers are dirty, sweaty, and look exhausted. There’s not a lot of conversation because most of the workers have just enough energy left to scoop the food into their mouths. Akemi, though, is a lot chattier than she was before. She’s asking Maria questions about her family, her home, and the things she likes to do. When Akemi looks away for a moment, Maria gives me the thumbs-up sign.

  After we finish eating, we walk back with Akemi. She seems so much happier than she did just a little while ago.

  But apparently not happy enough. As soon as Akemi gets into her room, she drags the trunk over and starts to put her few belongings inside it.

  “Wh-wh-what are you doing?” I blurt out.

  “This isn’t the place for me,” Akemi tells us. “You’ve convinced me of that. I miss my family too much. You reminded me what is really important in life. I need to be home, in Japan, with my family.”

  Maria and I look at each other in horror. We’ve totally messed this trip up!

  “Hold on, Akemi,” I say. “We’ll be right back.”

  Maria and I head out for a quick team conference, but when I pass Akemi’s trunk, I see the strangest thing. There’s the glimmer of green in the small pile of Akemi’s clothes, and it looks exactly like the shade of green of Tim Raveltere’s gloves.

  “This is an epic disaster!” I moan to Maria when we get outside.

  “Suck it up, Kai,” Maria says. “Maybe Akemi should go home. Maybe she needs to be with her family. You saw how sad she was.”

  “NOOOO!” I cry. “If Akemi goes home, my family will never move to Hawaii. And never mind the consequences of . . . Hello? No Hawaii, no Kai. It will mean that my grandmother won’t exist either, and she was one of the first marine biologists to fight for the protection of endangered fish here. If she’s never born, she’ll never get to do all her important work. The future of Hawaii’s wildlife is at risk, Maria! Don’t you even care about that?”

  “CARE?” Maria yells back at me. “Of course I care. I just didn’t think of that. What are we waiting for? We need to figure out a better plan—now!”

  I look around and see the path we first walked up to get to Akemi’s.

  “The beach,” I remind Maria. “Akemi loves it there. She writes about the ocean and the wildlife here all the time in her journal.”

  “So do you think it’s time to ask Akemi for a tour?” Maria asks.

  “It is,” I say.

  I am pretty sure our plan is going to work, but when we go back inside, Akemi is gone. And since there’s really nowhere for her to be hiding in here, we have no idea where she could be. Did Tim Raveltere get her? Did she disappear through some time portal? We search for clues and then we find some out back—a trail of muddy footprints leading off in the opposite direction of the beach path.

  The path actually swirls around and leads to a different spot along the water’s edge. It’s a quiet, shady area surrounded by palm trees, like a little secret nature room. Rocky ledges surround a pool of blue-green water, and Akemi is sitting on one of the biggest rocks, wiping away tears.

  “I’m sorry, Kai. I’m sorry, Maria,” she says when she sees us. “I’m not very good company today. It’s just that . . . today is a difficult day for me, and I feel sad.”

  “Did they give you more work?” Maria asks.

  “No, no,” Akemi says. “Today is a day that makes me miss my family even more than ever,” Akemi says. “It’s . . . it’s . . . the day I was born.”

  Maria and I look at each other, not quite sure what to say. We knew it was her birthday, but of course we couldn’t tell Akemi that.

  “I’m grateful that you were both friendly to me,” Akemi adds. “And it was really nice to meet you. I really enjoyed spending time with you.”

  “Happy birthday, Akemi,” I say quietly, and Maria repeats it.

  I get a feeling that this spot is a sacred place to Akemi, and that any joking, or trying make a bigger deal of Akemi’s birthday, is not the right move. We don’t have any wiggle room—if I make the wrong move now, I might never exist in the present! So Maria and I find rocks near Akemi and sit on them silently. Maria takes out her paper and pencils and starts to sketch.

  As I look around, I realize that I know this spot, actually. I’ve read about it in Akemi’s journal. We sit together, and I start to see that it’s not just beautiful because of the trees and sweet-smelling flowers. There’s an incredible, busy world of wildlife around us. Brightly colored birds call to one another in the trees. A blue butterfly lands on a nearby flower.

  “This is a magical spot,” Maria whispers as she draws. “It feels like it was sprinkled with fairy dust.”

  “Totally,” I say.

  “It’s my favorite place on the island,” Akemi admits. “I love to just sit here and watch.”

  “I can see why,” I tell her.

  “Can you show us more, Akemi?” Maria asks. “I’d love to see the island that you see.”

  Akemi leads us through the trees and points o
ut all the wildlife around us. I know from her journal that she’ll never go to high school, and she hasn’t studied biology, but she’s a natural. She knows exactly where to find the most amazing things. Like if we look inside the flower of the pitcher plant, we’ll find a pool of water, or if we turn over a rock, there’s a skink (a tiny lizard) living underneath.

  “You really love nature,” Maria observes. “I do too.”

  “It’s why I wanted to come here,” Akemi admits. “Of course, my first thought is for my family. I have to work so I can send money back home and help out. But I imagined that I would do so much more than just work here.”

  “Then why don’t you?” I ask.

  “Why don’t I what?” Akemi wonders.

  “Why don’t you stay,” I say to her, “and do so much more than just work here?”

  Akemi puts her head down and closes her eyes. She takes a deep breath. I take one too, and it smells like the ocean breeze mixed with the sweet smell of plumeria blossoms. Akemi doesn’t answer me, but I know I’ve given her something to think about.

  We quietly follow the trail as it loops around. Maria spots a bird sitting in a giant, star-shaped flower. She takes out her paper and pencil again and sketches it. Akemi points to a pink flower with curled, waxy petals.

  “Pink torch ginger,” she tells Maria.

  Maria starts to sketch the flowers. That’s when we begin to hear the shouts.

  “STOP!” A girl’s voice echoes through the trees.

  “That sounds like Leilani!” Maria says.

  “PUT THAT DOWN!” a boy yells.

  “And Tua!” I say.

  We race down the path to find out what’s going on.

  • • •

  Tim Raveltere is what’s going on, or more specifically, Tua is holding our sneaky former substitute teacher in a wrestling grip. He’s wearing only one green glove, though.

  “I knew that was one of his gloves in Akemi’s trunk,” I whisper to Maria.

  I’m afraid that if Tua lets go of his arms, Tim will activate his time-travel watch and make a portal appear. I’m not quite sure how I’ll explain that to Akemi, Leilani, and Tua, so I walk over to help Tua out, when Akemi storms past me.

  “He was trying to take these!” Leilani says to Akemi, pointing to a pile of eggs wrapped up in a scarf.

  Tim tries to talk his way out of it.

  “Come on, guys,” he says. “I was hungry. I haven’t eaten in years—I mean hours—and they looked good.”

  “They looked good?!?” Akemi huffs. “Do you know what kind of eggs those are?!”

  “Those are honu eggs,” Tua growls into Tim’s ear. “Don’t ever touch them.”

  I’m not really sure what a honu is, but I’m guessing they’re pretty important around here. Leilani can see the confusion on my face.

  “Honu is our green sea turtle,” she explains. “For all Hawaiians, it is a good-luck symbol, our guardian spirit.”

  “Honu stands for the link between man, the land, and the sea,” Tua adds. “Our stories tell of a special honu, named Kauila, who would turn into a human girl and protect the children playing on the beach. When Kauila’s mother dug her nest, a spring of water spouted from the ground, giving the children water to drink.”

  “Those turtles have been part of the islands, part of our world, for a lot longer than we have,” Akemi adds. “Like Tua said—don’t ever touch them!”

  Leilani explains that we will have to get the turtle eggs back to their nest and buried as soon as possible so they can hatch when they are ready. Tua and Maria agree to stay with Tim while we search the beach to find the place where Tim dug up the eggs.

  Suddenly I see Maria tug on Tim’s ear. Hard.

  “Listen, Mr. Tempo,” she snarls. “No tricky time stuff. I’m in no mood!”

  Ha! And my friend Faris thinks Maria is quiet!

  Akemi zigs and zags up and down the beach, intent on finding the right spot for the eggs.

  “Cup the eggs in your hands,” she tells me and Leilani. “It will keep them warm and incubating.”

  “You got it,” I say.

  “And walk slowly and steadily,” Akemi adds. “It’s important not to jostle them!”

  I walk as if I am holding my mom’s favorite Satsuma vases. I would be grounded in my room for a year if I ever did anything to “jostle” them.

  I hear a splashing sound and look out to see an enormous fin poke out of the water.

  “Watch!” Akemi tells me.

  A giant gray body emerges on the surface as a humpback whale leaps above the water, then dives back down again.

  “That’s off the hook!” I shout. “I can’t believe I just saw that.”

  “Oh no, there are no hooks involved,” Akemi corrects me. “No one is catching that whale. It is breaching.”

  “Right.” I chuckle.

  I mean, I can’t explain “off the hook” without revealing something about the time period I come from, so I’m just going to have to let Akemi think I’m some kind of whale newbie.

  “There are ships that hunt them, though,” Akemi says sadly. “I don’t know why they’d want to take those gentle giants from the world.”

  Akemi points to the waters closer to the shore, and I can see a dense school of striped fish swim right by us. Then she taps my shoulder and points back toward the trees. A Hawaiian goose, the nene, waddles through the trees with three goslings close behind her. I wish Maria were here to sketch all this.

  Akemi keeps on looking in the sand for the right spot. Her love of all things natural is transformative. Her face looks so different right now than it did when we first saw her working in the field. She looks bright and beautiful. And she’s so inspired by the nature around her. I have to admit, I am too.

  Finally, Akemi finds the spot.

  “I’ve got this,” I say, but then I trip on a water-logged branch and nearly drop the eggs.

  Akemi quickly scoops the eggs from me and places them down in the sand. Leilani places hers, and then we cover them up. We wait and watch for a few minutes until we’re sure that no one is going to disturb them.

  “Aloha, honu keiki,” Leilani whispers to the eggs. “Safe travels to the ocean.”

  • • •

  When we get back, I realize that we may have made a mistake leaving “tough guys” Tua and Maria in charge of Tim. They’ve tied him up to Tua’s surfboard and are pushing him out to sea.

  “Wait!” I yell, feeling conflicted. “I mean, I don’t think he’s a good guy, but I’m not sure that he’s a bad guy either. We don’t want to put him in danger or anything. That wouldn’t be right. You know, right to a fair trial and all that.”

  Maria pinches Tim’s ankle and he yelps.

  “See if you feel the same way after you hear this, Kai,” she says.

  Tua asks about the book that Maria was holding when they first found us floating out in the ocean.

  “Is it yours?” he says.

  “Not technically,” I admit. “A friend loaned it to me.”

  “I told you it’s mine!” Tim yells. “I’m the friend.”

  “You are sooo not my friend,” I protest. “And the book is not yours. Be real.”

  “Okay, okay,” Tim says. “Like I told you before, it’s not exactly mine, but the ‘friend’ who gave it to him, Ms. Tremt, is a witch. An evil witch who has plans to ignite every volcano on the islands until they melt into the sea.”

  “You’re a joke.” I laugh. “Tua, that is totally untrue.”

  “Told ya,” Maria says triumphantly to Tua.

  “I already believed you.” Tua laughs. He turns back to Tim. “No book for you!”

  “What about my glove, then?” Tim moans. “At least let me get my glove back!”

  “You and that glove!” Maria says as she pinches him again. “I already told you how you’re going to get it back.” I don’t know why Tim wants his glove back so badly, but I figure his gloves must contain some sort of magical power or he would
just let it go.

  Maria explains that she realized Tim was probably searching through Akemi’s hut looking for us (or signs of the book) when he dropped the glove. She and Tua agreed that the perfect way to ensure Tim doesn’t make any more trouble for us is to send him off on an “adventure” mission.

  “First he’ll have to figure out how to untangle the vine so he can get his arms and legs free,” Tua explains. “Don’t worry, Kai. They’re pretty loose. There’s no real danger.”

  “Then he’ll have to surf—or swim—back to shore?” Leilani guesses.

  “Exactly,” Tua confirms.

  “In the meanwhile, we’ll hide his green glove in the sugar-plantation crops,” Maria finishes. “It should take him a long time to find it in all that greenery!”

  “You’re brilliant!” I say as I grab Maria and give her a hug.

  Maria hugs me back! It’s totally awesome.

  I hear coughing behind me and I see Tua and Leilani smiling at me.

  “It’s not like that,” I protest.

  “Sure it’s not,” Tua teases.

  We all agree that Maria and Tua’s plan is golden. We crouch down to push Tim out to sea.

  “Please, reconsider this,” Tim pleads. “I lied. Valerie Tremt isn’t a witch. She’s an extraterrestrial being who is gathering information to take back to her home planet. They will invade our planet and destroy all humans on Earth.”

  “What is he even talking about?” Leilani laughs.

  “Nonsense,” Maria says, pinching him again. “Didn’t I tell you to keep quiet?”

  Once Tim is safely out to sea, we race back to Akemi’s hut and grab the glove. We weave through the fields, looking for the perfect place to put it.

  “Over here!” Leilani calls, standing in the middle of tall sugarcanes.

  “No,” Akemi says. “We’ll probably cut those down tomorrow. The glove will be easy to see then.”

  “What about here?” Maria asks, pointing to a pile of cane that’s been cut.

  “Nope,” Akemi says. “We can do better.”

  “I know!” I say. “Follow me!”

  I lead the group back to the dining hall and head out back. I find a thick patch of daikon plants full of large green leaves.