Hero of Hawaii

by Graham Salisbury

  “He’s a surfer,” Stella said, kissing his cheek. “He does that all the time, don’t you?”

  Clarence shrugged. “You live Hawaii, you live the ocean, ah?”

  “True,” I said.

  He tapped my arm. “The boat.”

  Stella hugged him again. She gave my shoulder a squeeze.

  I stood gaping as she ran to catch up with Mom and Darci.

  By the time we got the boat home and Clarence drove off, the raging storm had blown away from the islands. Maybe it fizzled out somewhere over the ocean. Except for what me and Willy had just been through, it was the best storm ever in my whole life so far.

  But not for Mom.

  “I don’t want to see anything like that again for the rest of my life,” she said later in the kitchen. “If I could just take a bath and lie on the couch with my magazines …”

  She sighed.

  I was starting to doze at the counter when Julio called. “I heard Willy almost drowned,” he said.

  I told him the story.

  “Ho, man,” he said. “So he’s okay now?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I’ve been trying to call him but no one answers.”

  “Wow.”

  “I’ll call you when I know something.”

  “Yeah, good.”

  We hung up.

  I sat around yawning and rubbing my eyes while Mom and Stella went for Chinese takeout. Darci was on the floor in the living room watching cartoons. She didn’t seem to mind postponing her party.

  I was asleep with my head on my arms when Mom and Stella came back.

  “Wake up, sleepyhead,” Mom said. “We got your favorite … beef tomato.”

  “Yeah … I’m awake.”

  Plink.

  The leak bowl only had a little bit of water in it.

  I looked up at the sagging ceiling.

  “Ledward should be here any minute to look at that,” Mom said. “The flooding is over, thank goodness. He’s staying for dinner.”

  Plink.

  “I’m calling Willy again.” I took the phone into the dining room.

  He was home!

  “Hey,” he said. “Just got back. What a day, huh?”

  “You okay?”

  He sneezed. “Thanks to you. That was scary.”

  “Very.”

  “I can hardly stay awake.”

  “Me too.”

  We let a few seconds of silence go by. I cringed, thinking about that wall of mud water at the end of the river. “Let’s not do that again, okay?”

  “Fine with me.”

  “Where’d that helicopter take you?”

  “Somewhere like an airfield. Some guys checked me out, gave me some kind of pills and a cool space blanket. My parents came and got me.” He paused. “Boy, were they shook up.”

  “Yeah, my mom, too.”

  We were silent again.

  “You going to school tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Sure. I’m fine. Just tired. But all I want to see when I wake up in the morning is the big old sun. Forget that rain.”

  “Like forever.”

  “Hey, how’s Streak?”

  “Asleep.”

  Willy laughed. “That’s me in a few minutes. So, see you at school.”

  “Laters.”

  We hung up. I took the phone back in the kitchen.

  “How is he?” Mom asked.

  “Same old Willy.”

  “I hope so.”

  I looked at Mom. “What do you mean?”

  “Well … sometimes a terrifying experience like that can affect us deep down inside. I just hope he doesn’t end up afraid of the ocean.”

  “Afraid?”

  “I’m not saying he will, Calvin. Just that it’s possible.”

  That would be really bad, I thought. We lived on an island. The ocean was everywhere. It would be like being afraid of the air.

  On my way out to feed Streak in the garage, I heard the quick tap of a horn. I looked up just as Ledward pulled into our driveway.

  I filled Streak’s bowl and headed out.

  Ledward had put the canvas top up on his old army jeep. The tires and wheel wells were caked with mud.

  “Howzit,” he called.

  “Hey.”

  Ledward got out and grabbed his tool box off the backseat. “Your mama told me you and your friend Willy had a big day.”

  “Big scary day.”

  Scarier for Willy, I thought. I hoped Mom was wrong about him being afraid of the water, like Darci was.

  I shuddered. He could have drowned. Me and Streak, too.

  Ledward nodded. “I was scared like that once.”

  “Really? You got caught in a river, too?”

  “Not a river, no.”

  “Then what?”

  He nodded toward the yard. “Let’s sit.”

  We went out onto the grass. It was still wet, but who cared?

  Ledward sat with his arms crossed over his knees. He looked out toward the mountains. “Well, let’s see, I guess I was a couple years younger than you are now … eight or nine. I went hunting with my pops. This was on the Big Island. You been on the Big Island?”

  I shook my head. “Only this one.”

  “What? You never been off this island?”

  “Nope.”

  Ledward scratched his head. “You and me got to take care of that, take a trip.”

  “Just us?”

  “Man trip.”

  Cool!

  “So what were you scared of?”

  “The volcano.”

  I looked at him. “What’s so scary about that?”

  Everyone knew the volcano had been erupting for around thirty years. It was just part of life on the Big Island. All it did was make the sky smoky.

  Ledward chuckled.

  “Well, first, I was only a small kid, ah? But second, was the power of it. My pops took me down to see that end of the island. The volcano had flowed red hot down the hill toward one old village. Lucky thing they had scientists who study volcanoes, and they predicted the path, ah? So they warned the people and they all got out in time. But that lava came right down on top of their homes and covered them. Poof! The place was gone. All that was left was one stop sign. You go there now, you can still see it. Black lava rock everywhere … with that stop sign sticking out of it.”

  “Wow.”

  “To this day, I can still see it.”

  Why would that be so scary, I wondered? “Just the sign?”

  He nodded. “Just the sign, but what it told me at that age was that against nature, you get what you get. Your only defense is to be ready. Not much more you can do.”

  He studied the river, still fat with muddy water. “Funny, yeah? That sign in my head all these years.”

  “Are you still scared of volcanoes?”

  “Naah.”

  “Do you think Willy will be scared of the ocean now?”

  Ledward turned to me. “Get him back in the water, soon as possible. You don’t want him thinking about it too long.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “He should learn some ways to get out of trouble.”

  For sure, I thought.

  We sat in silence.

  Ledward nudged me with his elbow. “Your mama said they calling you a hero.”

  “That was just Clarence fooling around.” I wasn’t any hero.

  We sat watching the river.

  “Ledward?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know the cables you put on the oars?”

  “So you wouldn’t lose them.”

  “Yeah. Well … that was real smart. Willy might have … you know, drowned without them. So … so thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Ledward tapped my knee and stood. “How’s about you hero my tools into the house so we can take a look at that leak.”

  I couldn’t help grinning as I picked up the tool box.

  Ledward took a quick look at the leak before Mom ca
lled everyone to come eat. White Chinese take-out boxes were spread all around the table: beef tomato, beef broccoli, sweet-sour chicken, rice, wooden chopsticks, fortune cookies, and extra boxes of chicken chow mein. Darci’s favorite meal.

  I went straight to my fortune cookie: NOTHING IS EXACTLY AS IT SEEMS.

  What kind of fortune was that?

  Darci took a huge helping of chicken chow mein. She could eat all three boxes, if you let her.

  “So, is our leak as bad as it looks?” Mom asked.

  Ledward had cut the sagging part of the ceiling away so now you could look up through the hole and see the plywood roof.

  “Small leak that made a big mess. I get it fixed up soon.”

  Mom put her hand on his. “Thank you, Led. You do so much for us.”

  “Naah,” he said. “Just regular home maintenance.”

  “Regular or not, we’re lucky to have you around.”

  Ledward nudged a fortune cookie toward Mom. “Hey, check your fortune. See what it says.”

  Mom cracked it open and read it. “ ‘Great riches are in your future.’ ”

  Now, that’s a fortune, I thought.

  “I want that one,” Stella said.

  Mom gave it to her. “Take it. I already have great riches.”

  Huh? Where?

  While we sat around eating Stella’s cupcakes, which she had managed to make after all the excitement, Mom gave Darci a small gift-wrapped box.

  “Happy birthday, sweetie.”

  Darci tore into it. “Oh, wow, Mom!”

  “Stella and I picked it out for you.”

  Darci tilted the box toward me.

  I peered in at a shiny silver bracelet. “Huh,” I said.

  Darci got up and hugged Mom and Stella.

  What I’d gotten Darci at the Byodo-In Temple was good, and she’d love it … but it wasn’t the perfect present. I needed time to find something that really meant something. “I’ll give you my present next week at your party,” I said.

  Darci put the bracelet on and showed it to Ledward, who nodded. “That looks good on you.”

  Oh! I thought.

  Yes!

  An idea was coming to me.

  I jiggled my leg. Yes! Yes!

  If I could pull this off…

  I couldn’t sit at that table a second longer.

  I went into the kitchen for the phone.

  “Clarence,” I said. “It’s me, Calvin.”

  After dinner, Darci and I were lying on the living room floor watching TV. Mom was in the kitchen cleaning up, and Stella had disappeared into her bedroom.

  Ledward was out in the dark backyard shoveling sand and dirt into the ditches the rain had made coming down off our roof in the storm. I could see him through the sliding screen door.

  A mass of bugs swirled around the single patio light, bugs that would gladly eat me alive. But for some reason the bugs never bothered Ledward.

  I tried to watch TV.

  But I couldn’t keep my thoughts from drifting back to the muddy ocean, remembering over and over how scared I’d been when I saw Willy look at me just before he went under. It made me cringe.

  Stop, stop, stop!

  Think of … the temple! Yeah, and the giant golden Buddha…Don’t worry, be happy, everything’s cool.

  “Darci,” Mom called from the kitchen. “Turn the TV down!”

  Darci picked up the remote and clicked off the TV. “What time is it?”

  I peeked at the kitchen clock. “A little after seven.”

  “You think Willy’s still up?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Call him and see. I just thought of something.”

  Mom liked Darci’s idea.

  “But can’t it wait until morning, sweetie? It’s dark out, and Willy needs sleep.”

  “But he’s still up, Mom. Calvin said. And anyway, if I have to wait a week for my party, this is what I want to do for my real birthday.”

  My stubborn little sister. We grinned at each other.

  Mom sighed. “Fine.”

  Darci ran and got some white paper, a pair of scissors, and a red crayon.

  I sat watching her at the dining room table. “What are you doing?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Ledward came inside.

  Stella peered out of her room.

  Mom hooked her arm in Ledward’s and we all watched Darci.

  “There!” Darci said.

  She’d made five white bands, which she taped around our right arms. She even made one for Streak that went around her belly. On each armband she’d drawn a red cross inside a circle.

  “Perfect,” she said, admiring her work.

  But Stella was frowning. She looked at Mom. “Is there something weird in the dirt around here?”

  We all looked at Stella, like … what?

  “It really stinks in my room. I think the rain brought something up. It smells really bad.”

  “Huh,” I said, giving her a thoughtful look.

  Ah, doggy doody justice!

  Stella gave me a squint back. “I had to close my window.”

  “That’s funny,” Mom said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That is funny.”

  In the kitchen Darci got four of Stella’s cupcakes, put them on a plate, and covered them with plastic wrap. “Let’s go,” she said, taking Stella’s hand.

  Mom and Ledward grinned at each other.

  I brought up the rear with Streak, trying not to laugh when I thought of Stella’s sour face. Justice!

  Willy’s mom answered the door.

  “Wow,” she said. “It’s the Red Cross!”

  “Is Willy here?” Darci asked.

  “Come on in. He’s in the living room.”

  “Willy!” Darci called. “We brought you cupcakes!”

  That night I slept on the bottom bunk with Streak.

  My thoughts and feelings were leaping around like fleas. And though Streak couldn’t talk and help me figure it all out, it just felt good being with my dog.

  I lay back with my hands behind my head.

  Hero sounded good, but really, was I … a hero?

  Maybe.

  Kind of.

  But I wasn’t the only one.

  Clarence was one, for sure. And Ledward, who’d fixed the oars and everything else. And Mom, who worked extra hard for us.

  I reached down and scratched Streak’s ears, smiling in the dark. “Hey, Streak,” I said. “Is there something funny in the dirt around here?”

  I laughed.

  “You’re a hero-dog.”

  Slept like a rock that night.

  On Saturday a week later it was sunny hot. The river was back to its slow-moving, stinky self.

  Anyone looking at our house must have thought there was going to be some kind of neighborhood carnival happening in our front yard.

  It would be famous, all right. Kids were going to come to Darci’s party from all over the place. Only Clarence couldn’t be there. He had to work.

  But he stopped by to give Darci a leather necklace with a shark’s tooth on it. “I coming back before your party’s over, ah?”

  He winked at me.

  I nodded, hoping our timing would work out.

  “Thanks, Clarence,” Darci said, slipping the shark’s tooth over her head. “I love it!”

  Which reminded me that I still had to wrap what I’d gotten her at the temple.

  While Ledward set up the slippery slide, I grabbed the color comics section from an old Sunday paper and quickly wrapped her present in my room. One of her presents, anyway.

  No way I could wrap the other one.

  Darci’s slide was definitely the most amazing contraption our street had ever seen. The ramp was as tall as I was, which made the takeoff part rocket fast.

  Ledward set up the hose to squirt water down the tarps, keeping them slippery wet, and when someone asked, he’d send them down with a shove. Streak raced the shrieking sliders down the slop
e, barking her head off.

  Down at the bottom of the yard Darci and her friends were pretending to be bowling pins, scattering and falling all over each other when someone came down the slide. Just beyond, the silent river moved toward the sea.

  I was in line, waiting for my bazillionth run.

  Maya stood shivering behind me, even though it was blazing hot. Julio and Willy were in front of me.

  Julio’s younger brothers Marcus, Diego, and Carlos had all shown up on tin can stilts. Julio pretended he didn’t know them. His youngest brother, Cinco, was only three, so he was still at home.

  Marcus and Diego were slippery sliding fools, but Carlos was afraid.

  “My mom gave me a nickel,” he sang as we stood in line.

  “Go away!” Julio said. “Jeese!”

  “She said go buy a pickle.”

  “Not that song again.” I covered my ears.

  “I have an idea,” Maya said, nudging me. “Why don’t you take him down the slide … hold him on your lap.”

  I looked back at Maya. “Tell Julio. He’s his brother.”

  “Forget it,” Julio said.

  “But he likes you,” Maya said. “Look, he’s singing to you.”

  “I bought some bubble gum, a-chuka-chuka bubble gum.”

  Maya grinned. “It’ll make him be quiet, I bet.”

  I snorted. But maybe it would work. “Hey, Carlos. You want to go down the slide with me?”

  Carlos froze and looked up at the takeoff ramp. He shook his head.

  “Come on,” I said. “You can sit in my lap.”

  I reached out.

  Carlos turned to Julio.

  “Don’t look at me,” Julio said. “I’m not taking you.”

  Carlos hesitated, then gripped my hand. Willy and Julio stepped aside to let us go by them in line. We climbed the ramp.

  “Looks like you got a new friend,” Ledward said, holding the hose.

  “He’s a pest.”

  “Good luck!” Maya said.

  I sat on the ramp. Ledward helped Carlos into my lap. “Ready?”

  I nodded. “Do it!”

  Boom! Ledward sent us off with a shove.

  Carlos and I blasted down the slide, banging off the ramp onto the slippery blue tarps that zipped us toward the river. “Yee-haw!” I yelled.