Anywhere but Paradise (5 page)

My eyes dart around the space. Every machine has two girls. Except one. Grams always says bad things happen in threes. It’s only my second day of school, and I am already over my limit.

“Have you met Kiki Kahana?” Mrs. Barsdale asks.

“I have,” I say.

Kiki rubs her hands together and smiles all sticky sweet.

Of all the girls, I have to partner with her?

“Let Peggy Sue take the next turn,” says the teacher. “She is even further behind than you.” Mrs. Barsdale looks at the clock. “Switch places,” she hollers.

“Piggy Sue, Piggy Sue,” whisper-sings Kiki as I sew. Over and over and over again.

I’d give anything not to be me right now. Not to be haole.

I don’t talk. I try not to listen. I sew.

Maybe if I ignore her, she’ll stop.

But she doesn’t.

“You know Madame Pele, right?” she says a minute later.

No, not personally. But I’ve heard of the volcano goddess. “Yes,” I say.

“Don’t take pork over the Pali or she will send trouble your way. Bad trouble.”

My shoulders squirm without my consent. Another threat? Or is she joshing? This girl won’t quit needling me.

I purse my lips and press the foot pedal harder.

I wish I could talk to a friend about Kiki. Ask about Kill Haole Day. But I don’t have a friend. Even if I did, everyone knows people keep secrets sometimes. Sometimes they don’t.

Two girls sharing the machine next to us pop over. “My grandmother told me, never take bananas with you on a boat,” says one.

“Or let your chopsticks stand in a full rice bowl,” says the other.

Both bring bad luck. I sew in a seam and stop. But I don’t look up.

“And don’t,” says Kiki, “pick a lehua flower unless you want it to rain.”

“My cousins tested it out once,” says a girl. “Not a cloud in the sky. Sixty-four minutes after picking—
boom
—rain.”

“This is not a social hour, girls,” says Mrs. Barsdale, clapping her hands. “Work, work, work.”

The girls return to their seats.

I’m spooked. Which I’m sure is their point.

Kiki starts to sing again.

And I count the days until summer.

Hawaiian History Again

“I’M PASSING OUT A REVIEW
sheet for your upcoming test,” says Mr. Nakamoto at the end of class that afternoon.

I notice right off it’s not one sheet, it’s three or four stapled together.

I glance down the first page:
King Kalakaua the Merrie Monarch, Bayonet Constitution of 1887, “Hawaii Pono‘ī,” Missionary Party, Iolani Palace, John Owen Dominis, Committee of Safety
.

“But the test isn’t until next Thursday,” says the boy in front of me.

“Mr. Aquino,” says Mr. Nakamoto, “I can see my magnanimous gesture escapes your consciousness. As I’ve said prior to every quiz, it would behoove you to study some each day rather than cram the night before. This aid,” he says, holding the papers as high as a torch, “is a gift.”

The boy sighs extra loud. Even though no one else makes a sound, the looks on our faces tell the same story—we’re sighing on the inside.

Mr. Nakamoto is still talking, and I tune back in. “…  we’ll end our year with a unit on statehood and look at our first months as the fiftieth star.”

Statehood? All I know is the date, August 21, last year. Gladiola held a party at the rec center to celebrate and the whole town showed up wearing red, white, and blue. Cindy and I handed out plastic leis. We drank Hawaiian punch, ate cake with coconut icing, and entered a hula hoop contest, which I lost to my friend. Before we left, we sang to Daddy, because it was his birthday, too.

Here, I imagine, there was an even bigger party. Parades with folks on floats covered in flowers, riders on horseback draped in leis. Bands playing patriotic songs for crowds gathered up and down the streets, cheering, waving flags. Important speeches by the governor and other dignitaries. Boats clustered along the shoreline, some spraying plumes of water, making rainbows. Honking horns. Hula dancing and music. And later, fireworks that reached for the stars.

But after only two days in Mr. Nakamoto’s class, I
can already tell that at the end of the unit, he will give us another test instead of a party.

As soon as I’m in from school, I’m out again.

The water from the garden hose beats
bat-a-bat-a
against the front window of the house. I move in time with the music next door.

Just one more day of school and I’ll see Howdy. I hope he and Tinkerbell have become good friends.

I zoom back inside, make more posters for my window-washing business, and circulate them around the neighborhood once more.

It’s only partly cloudy. No rain.

Extra Credit

“THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO
take you over a week,” Mrs. Barsdale says Friday morning while standing beside the sewing machine. She taps the beauty mark above her upper lip.

My darts are in and pressed, shoulders stitched together, and front facings basted.

It’s hard for me to tell from the sound of her voice if being ahead is a good thing or not.

“So I’d like you to help Kiki.”

“What?” says Kiki. “I don’t need help from her. I don’t need help from the haole.”

“Truth be told, I’m terrible at putting in zippers. And there’s so much more to do. The back facings, the hem, handwork …”

Mrs. Barsdale picks up a pin from the floor and sticks it into the red pincushion attached to her wrist. “I am prepared to offer you extra credit, Peggy Sue.”

That sounds good, but I know it really means nothing.

“Haoles helping haoles,” says Kiki.

“Typical,” murmurs the girl at the machine next to us.

“Kiki, I’m trying to help you. It’s the perfect solution. We discussed your academic problems in the counselor’s office. You promised you’d raise your grades. You need help. This girl is an accomplished seamstress. You’re akamai, Kiki. Act like it. Act smart.”

“She can help me,” says the girl to my left.

“Or me,” says another.

“No,” says Kiki, glaring right at me. “She’s mine.”

“It’s settled, then,” says Mrs. Barsdale, walking away.

“I can’t wait to leave this stupid school,” Kiki says. “Next year, high school will be so much better.”

So she’s an eighth grader.

“Stupid haole,” says Kiki.

“What have I done?”

“Plenty. You’re all the same; you’re all related to Captain Cook. Diseased.”

Diseased?

“You come over here and tell us what to do. How to live. You are not the boss of me.”

“I—”

“Stop bothering me. Stop talking.”

Fine
, I mouth, and adjust my ponytail. That, I think, is the smart thing to do.

Hula Practice

PRACTICE TAKES TIME
and this afternoon I have nothing but. I haven’t gotten any phone calls for work. No sense washing our windows today. It’s raining. Again. Raining so hard I can’t hear the music next door.

The wind gusts outside and the hula papers on my dresser scatter to the floor. The small gray-and-white cat figurine Cindy gave me as a going-away gift tumps over on the bamboo tray.

I shut the windows before more damage is done, right the cat, and collect the pages from Mrs. Halani. They hold the words for each song, with the English translation as needed, and instructions for the movements.

I should dance each hula three times, she said.

A portable hi-fi came with the house. Mama bought me the hula records I need.

So I will dance.

I place a record on the turntable and begin.

And as soon as I do, I make a mistake. So I start again.

And again.

I want to dance all the way through the song without goofing up. Just once.

“Seems like I kept hearing the same section of music over and over,” says Mama as I grab cheese and crackers a while later. “Is that record player on the fritz?”

No, I am.

Howdy

FINALLY, IT’S SATURDAY.

“I’m here, Howdy,” I say as the quarantine officer unlocks the door to my cat’s kennel and Daddy and I slip in.

Howdy has smushed himself up against the corner of his cell under the wooden bench.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner,” I say as I lie belly-down on the cold concrete and glimpse my cat in shadow. I can’t read his eyes. “I can stay for two whole hours today,” I say and reach out to pet him. “And tomorrow, too.”

Howdy lays back his ears, opens his mouth, and hisses.

“Howdy,” I cry, pulling back my hand. “It’s me, Peggy Sue. You know, the one who loves you. The one who misses you. The one who wishes more than anything else that you didn’t have to live here.”

Howdy closes his mouth, but his ears stay in their I-don’t-trust-you position.

“Howdy will be all right, Peggy Sue,” says Daddy. He stretches out his long legs and settles on the bench with his paperwork. “He’s a Bennett. And you brought him his favorite food.” Daddy hands me the aluminum foil with a few pieces of leftover chicken I saved from dinner last night.

I lie on my side and place a piece of meat halfway between my cat and me. Howdy sniffs the air, but doesn’t budge.