Freckled

by T W Neal

  I’m glad she isn’t snooty about living in the Big House. She and Darcy seem really happy to have some other kids to play with.

  Over the next weeks, while Mom and Pop adjust to working a whole lot more than either of them are used to, we crawl around, under, and all over the sprawling wedding cake of a mansion. We collect antique trash from under the house: tiny colored medicine bottles, bent silver spoons, and even a gold pocket watch with rusted innards which I’m lucky enough to find under our cottage. We take over the pond’s boathouse as our fort, and make a “store” out of all the junk we collect, where we trade with each other and haggle over items for our individual forts.

  When that gets boring, we play “school” in the abandoned classroom at the battered desks. We take turns being the teacher, writing on the crumbling natural slate blackboard with stubs of chalk. We invent elaborate treasure hunts, with clues and tasks that I orchestrate for the younger girls.

  I sneak in some fishing because I could say the girls wanted to, and they’re part of the Big House family. But the girls are grossed out by the fish, so I have to throw back what I catch—and I never hook any of the really big ones.

  The best thing about the whole situation is where the Estate’s located: right across the street from Hanalei Bay.

  Hanalei Bay is a great deep arc in the island with a beach that runs its entire length. There’s no reef to spoil the swimming except at the surf spots, way outside. Our whole family is thrilled to be so close to the best beach on the island, all sparkling water and smooth sand bottom, with great surfing just a paddle away.

  When the chores of the day are over, Bonny and I and the Wilcox girls throw on our suits and run to the beach for hours of swimming and jumping off the pier into the crystalline water below—and we share this joy with the local kids. On the pier, everyone gets along.

  Mom and Pop go out to surf the Bay every day. Mom rides one of the first Morey Boogie bodyboards ever to arrive on Kauai, and Pop rides a variety of boards depending on the wave size.

  This location is the first time we’ve had easy access to beginner surf spots, and Pop decides to teach us surfing. No other girls our age are surfing, but he wants us to learn, and like most sports I’ve tried, I want to master it. We already know ocean safety, like how to spot a rip current, get out of it, and read the ocean. At first, Pop goes with us to help us learn, putting Bonny and me up on a longboard at the keiki spots next to the pier and the Pavilion a little way down the beach.

  “Getting waves is all about positioning and timing,” Pop says. “Observe a wave from the beach, and see the point where it breaks consistently. Then position yourself in front of that peak. From there, choose a “lineup,” a reference point on shore. That way, no matter where the current or conditions are moving you, when you paddle back out you can always get to the right place by finding the lineup object on shore.”

  We pick a reference point to line up with and I get that, but I’m not so good with the timing part. I either start paddling for the wave too soon and it breaks on top of me, or too late, and then the next one lands on my head. Still, I love the feeling when I do finally catch a wave—the breathless excitement, the speed, the responsiveness of the board to turn the way I lean. Pretty soon, I’m able to go out on one of Pop’s boards by myself.

  The only downside of our move to the Estate is that Pop is working really hard, and it makes him super grumpy. The yard work of the big Estate is never-ending, and he hates the long boring hours of mowing. He’s exhausted in the evenings, and has begun drinking at least a six-pack a day.

  Mom tries to encourage him. “You’re getting in shape!” She pats his arm muscles, which are definitely bigger. He doesn’t seem motivated by this.

  Mom is happy, though, always busy with projects. She’s putting in a gigantic garden plot in the middle of the yard. Making it into planting beds requires backbreaking hours from all of us shaking dirt out of chunks of the former lawn. When she’s not gardening, she helps Carol at the Big House with cleaning and continues to make her puka shell necklaces.

  One Saturday morning, Mom and Pop sit us down at the kitchen table for a “confab.” Confabs are family meetings where “changes in policy” are laid down. I’ve come to dread confabs—the news is seldom good.

  Mom tells us they’ve decided to divide up Pop’s work hours so he’s not so tired. “I’m going to do fifteen a week, Toby will do ten, and Bonny five. That way, your dad will be able to surf and be in a better head space,” Mom says. I work this out mentally—with all of us pitching in, Pop will now be working about half as much as he’s supposed to.

  Ten hours a week is a lot. I cringe at the boredom of so many mindless hours raking leaves and grass clippings, which I’ve already deduced will be my function. “Don’t most dads work full time? Is it right for us kids to do work when you’re getting paid? Do the Wilcoxes know?”

  Pop gets mad, ballooning bigger and turning red before my eyes. “Enough of the lip. That’ll be a barrow of manure.” This is Mom and Pop’s favorite new punishment: sending us into the pasture with a wheelbarrow and a shovel and having us fill the barrow with cow pies for Mom’s composting on the garden.

  “It doesn’t seem right.” I fold my arms and frown.

  Pop stands up, his face dark and neck veiny. “Make that five more barrows! And if you keep it up, I’ll add on work hours too!”

  I shut my mouth with difficulty. If I keep talking back, I’m going to get lickins with a hairbrush and more work. I don’t like Pop so grumpy, that’s for sure. Since we moved, he’s edgy and that dark mood hovers around him like a fog. I got used to him being mellow, like he was while we were at the Josephsons’ and camping. Working a few days a week at the Anchorage Restaurant left a lot of time to sit around, playing guitar, and smoking pakalolo after surfing.

  It’s probably a good thing for us all to help Pop stay in a good head space as Mom calls it, and having time to go surfing is an important part of that. He’s growing some new pot plants in the bathroom, but the leaves are soft and only waist-high, and there aren’t any buds. I wish the lolo was ready now, so he could take the edge off.

  So, I do two hours a day of yard cleanup, and it’s just part of my chores.

  On flat days with no surf, I take my mask and snorkel and cruise around the pier’s pilings checking out the fishing situation, which is good for papio.

  In the dark water there, spread-eagled and floating, I see my first hammerhead shark; a baby only three feet long. Its T-shaped body weaves along the sand bottom like a metal detector searching for treasure. I hold myself still and it undulates beneath me, moving on down the sun-rippled shadows cast by the pier.

  Pop retrieves our old canoe from Wainiha, and Bonny and I take it out to explore a whole new terrain. The pond goes on awhile, deep into pastureland rimmed with reeds and punctuated by wild palms heavy with coconuts.

  The sea turtle rumored to live in the pond is sleeping on a muddy beach area where the cattle drink. Turtles are endangered in Hawaii, and I’ve never seen one up close. It’s roughly the size of our kitchen table. We pull the canoe up next to him, and I get out to investigate.

  “Be careful. He has a big mouth.” Bonny sounds worried as I tiptoe over and squat down next to him.

  The turtle’s head is the size of a football, and his bill looks wicked sharp, his closed eyes wrinkled gray coin purses. Dull shades of green and brown, with circles and shapes on the surface like the rings on a tree trunk, pattern his algae-covered shell. I set my hand gently on the shell; it’s hot from the sun and feels like a horse hoof.

  He startles awake and opens an eye that reminds me of dragons: brown and black, shot with gold phosphorescent rays. He whips his head away and heaves his giant body around, paddling his massive flippers, trying to get back into the water.

  Bonny shrieks as I hop back into the canoe and push off with the paddle. I sit in the bow and position us as he drags his bulk around on the muddy bank and launches into the shallo
w pond. “Get ready! He’s going to pull us.”

  “No!” Bonny exclaims, but I’m already reaching for the turtle as it thrashes past. I catch the rim of the shell behind its head. We’re both yelling with terrified excitement as the turtle tries to get into deeper water.

  I’ve leapt onto a bucking bronco, and I drop the paddle, hanging halfway out of the canoe, holding onto the shell with both hands. The turtle heaves and thrashes, lifting the front of the canoe with his bulk, but my grip on his shell prevents him from submerging. My arms are yanked almost out of the sockets, but I don’t let go. He’s so big that, like a gigantic outboard, he tows us out into the center of the pond.

  “This is so awesome!” I yell back at Bonny, who’s managed to catch the paddle I dropped and is grinning at me.

  The reeds, palms, and muddy banks slide by, nesting coots and herons watching as we paddle past them on turtle power. The great reptile seems tireless, but I’m not, and I finally let go of his shell as we come out of the pasture area into visibility by the lawn, where we could be spotted from the house.

  From then on, we like to visit him in his resting spot and bring him veggies from Mom’s garden. We don’t make him tow us again—we could tell how scared he was.

  Now that we’re in Hanalei, with flat roads and everything accessible, I get a rusty old banana seat bike at a garage sale and ride to fifth grade at Hanalei School. Bonny’s staying home and doing Calvert, so I’m on my own this time. I’m delighted to find that my old friend, Tita, and her mom have moved to a house right across from the Wai`oli Hui`ia Church in the center of town. I swing by her place in the mornings, and we bike the couple of blocks further to school.

  I need money now that I have a place to spend it, with Ching Young Store a mere bike ride away. Doug, our neighbor in one of the cottages and technically the Estate’s handyman, is a heavy-browed man whose name, dark demeanor, and main occupation have lent themselves to the nickname “Drug.”

  “Bring me all the magic mushrooms you can find when you’re out in the pasture shoveling that cow shit,” he tells me. “I’ll pay you a dime for small ones and a quarter for the big ones.”

  This seems like a great deal when sugar-laden candy bars sell for a quarter. I’m still scared of cows after the Bull Incident at Kala’s house, but the cattle are usually in the pasture across from the pond, so on my manure pickup runs, I check each cow pie for mushrooms before shoveling it out of the grass and into the barrow.

  “Magic” mushrooms are small modest umbrellas of almost transparent silver-gray. They’re delicate, and get crushed if put in a bag, so I bring along a glass artichoke jar with a wide mouth for collecting. I’ve known that grownups like to get high and trip out on these since the Forest House, but I’ve never been even remotely interested in trying them myself. I’m scared of being out of control like I’ve seen people acting: silly and giggly, or staring into space seeing things that aren’t there—and with my imagination, who knows what I might see?

  Shrooms grow from spores, so I encourage that. If I find an old or dried-up looking cow pie, I’ll sometimes squish a mushroom up and rub it into the surface, leaving it so more can grow.

  This goes on a while, and one day I take my jar of shrooms to Drug’s cottage.

  “Doug?”

  He’s frowning and looks like a pirate as he comes to his screen door in loose surf trunks, scratching his hairy belly. “Whaddaya want?”

  I keep my eyes on his face, away from the bearlike pelt of his chest and below. “Your shrooms. Got some big ones in here.”

  Doug takes the jar from me, stirs it with a finger. “I’ll count them and get back to you.”

  “I already counted them. There are eighteen. Six are the big size.”

  Doug narrows cold brown eyes at me, and I squint back. I don’t trust Drug not to cheat me out of a quarter or two.

  Doug slams the door and walks back inside. I cock it open and peer in after him. He opens a large wooden box, and a powerful wave of pakalolo reek rolls out to greet me. Clearly Drug’s got a major stash, but even when I squint, I can’t see what’s in there—I don’t see well long distance.

  Doug comes back and puts two crumpled dollar bills and a dime into my hand. “I need about twice that many to make any money,” he says. “Get me more.”

  I stick the money in the pocket of my worn cutoffs. “I’ll bring you all I can find.”

  “Let me show you what I’m selling so you understand.” Doug gestures for me to follow him inside. I’m wary of getting cornered with men, so I keep an eye on the door and bet my fast feet can get me out of there if I need to. He leads me into the surprisingly neat kitchen, where he’s got a row of empty spice jars lined up and a big can of honey beside them. “I put the shrooms in the honey. The chemical in them that makes people trip seeps out into the honey and gets stronger. I can sell one of these jars for fifty bucks, but I need about twice what you brought me to fill just one bottle.”

  I can do the math. “So, you’ll give me four bucks and you make fifty?”

  “You’ve got a smart mouth, you know that?”

  “I guess. I’m just wondering how that’s fair.”

  “I have to buy the jars and the honey and sell the stuff. You can’t go into business and undercut me in this town, in case you’re thinking of it.”

  “I’d never do that.” I stare down the dealer who lives in my back yard. “But I want a quarter per shroom, no matter the size.”

  A long pause as he takes my measure. “Done. Now get out of here.”

  I don’t need any further encouragement.

  The next afternoon after school, I take Tita to Ching’s Store and we buy a pile of forbidden sugary treats with my two dollars and ten cents in shroom money. Loaded with tasty loot, we ride our bikes to the county repair yard across from her house, and out of view, leaning our backs on the mountain of gravel used for town pothole repairs, we eat Nutty Buddies and Sugar Daddies, Snickers, and Paydays. We finish off our feast by sipping grape Fanta while chewing wads of Bazooka gum. As a finale, I bought us each a box of Tomoe Ame Japanese candy, delicate pink chewy bliss wrapped in edible rice paper with tiny toys that come in a separate section of the box.

  “Thanks for sharing your money, but I think you should save it for a horse,” Tita says, hard to understand through her bulging cheeks. She plays with the plastic charm she got in her Tomoe Ame box. “You can get a horse for just a couple of hundred dollars, or lease one, and you could just keep it in the Wilcoxes’ pasture by your house.”

  “You think so?” A couple of hundred is still a shit-ton of money, but I’ve been asked to babysit the girls at the Big House and some other kids by Mom’s friends, and I can get a whole dollar an hour babysitting.

  “Yeah.” Tita has joined 4-H, and she’s deep in the riding scene. “You can lease a horse at the stables for only forty a month or so.”

  “That’s still a lot of money.”

  “I help my mom clean houses, and I babysit so I can pay for the horse I’m using. I want you to get into it too so we can ride together.”

  Riding real horses with Tita? I’d do anything to make that happen. That day I resolve to start saving for a horse. Between shrooms and babysitting, it shouldn’t take long. When I announce my goal, Mom smiles. “Good to have something to save for, that way you don’t spend all your money on candy.”

  She flicks a piece of chocolate off my lip but says nothing more. My face goes hot with embarrassment. I know how she feels about sugar and processed foods.

  Mom tells us that evening, chopping Swiss chard from the garden to go with our beans and brown rice, that she’s pregnant again.

  “I wanted to wait three months before I told you, until we were sure the baby was okay,” she says. Her smile glows. Bonny dances around clapping her hands, and I throw my arms around Mom’s waist, hugging. She has a tall, sturdy body that feels strong enough to have a dozen more babies, and she’s only thirty-one. Her hair’s long and streaked with blo
nde from the sun, her skin the deep tan of polished coconut shell. Like Pop, she’s been getting in shape working on the yard and boogie boarding at Hanalei every day.

  “I can’t wait to see my baby brother or sister.” I remember Francis’s tiny perfect face. Whoever’s already in her tummy is already almost as big as he was when we buried him.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Tidal Wave Escape Boxes

  Grampa Jim, Bonny, Toby on Keiki, and Gigi with Baby Anita at Estate

  Age: 11, The Estate, Hanalei, Kauai, 1976

  Mom and Pop have a radio in the house where they listen to the news, and there’s nothing good happening in the outside world. With gas rationing in effect, we can only buy gas on certain days of the week, so we only go to Lihue once a month in the Rambler. “Hawaii is too dependent on shipped-in food and supplies,” Pop says. “We have to be prepared to survive if we’re cut off. Nuclear energy, Big Oil—they’re all in bed together and anything could happen.” With Barking Sands military base on the south side of the island, being a target in some world war seems like a real possibility.

  Concerned about this, every time our parents go into Kapa`a or Lihue, they buy extra nonperishable food in case of The End of the World. Big bags of rice and lentils, boxes of powdered milk, dried fruit and nuts, honey, and vats of organic peanut butter from the co-op are all stored in one of the outside barns in big plastic paint buckets with lids so the rats and insects can’t get in.

  School is going okay so far. Mr. Nitta’s a tidy Japanese man who wears short-sleeved, button-down shirts with undershirts beneath, something I haven’t seen since living with Grandpa Jim. He has a head of thick black hair he plasters into a helmet shape with stiff and flowery-smelling goo. The fifth-grade classroom is a big, airy wooden room with louvers that admit a nice crosswind. My new teacher is not one for a lot of decoration, so unlike my other classrooms, the walls are bare except for maps and a chalkboard. I find it restful, easier to concentrate in the simpler décor. I’m having trouble seeing and take a spot right at the front with Tita at a shared desk.