Hero of Hawaii (2 page)

“Go,” Julio said. “Jump in. But don’t swallow it.”

Willy frowned.

We called it a river, but it really wasn’t.
It was a drainage canal that carried runoff from the lowlands out to the ocean. I took my skiff out on it all the time, a rowboat that sat in the swamp grass below us. I got Darci to go with me sometimes, but she didn’t like being out on the water. She wasn’t a good swimmer.

“So when’s Ledward coming?” Willy asked.

“Soon.”

Mom was still at work, but her boyfriend, Ledward, was coming over to build the slippery slide for Darci’s party … a
monster
slippery slide that would start with a high ramp at the top of our yard and run all the way down to the river.

Carlos stopped searching for toads and looked up at us. The tin can stilts were slung around his neck, two big cans with strings on them. He took them off and stepped up onto them, then clomped up the slope.

Julio groaned and closed his eyes. His
brothers drove him crazy. He had four, all younger than him.

“Wanna hear a song?” Carlos said, coming over to us.

Willy laughed.

I squinted up at Carlos. “Not really.”

“Go ahead, Carlos,” Maya said. “You can sing your song to me.”

“My mom gave me a nickel, she said go buy a pickle, I did not buy a pickle, I—”

“Come on, Carlos,” I pleaded. “Go sing it to the toads.”

“—I bought some bubble gum, a-chuka-chuka bubble gum, a-chuka-chuka bubble gum, a-chu—”

I covered my ears. Where was Ledward!

“My mom gave me a dime, she said go buy a—”

“Julio, wake up!” I shouted. “Carlos just wet his pants!”

Julio peeked open an eye.

Carlos stopped singing and looked down.

“Peace at last,” I said.

Willy cracked up.

Maya glared at me.

“What?” I said.

“You didn’t have to embarrass him.”

Carlos’s eyes filled with tears.

Maya slapped my arm. “Look what you did.”

Julio went back to sleep.

“Hey, hey, hey,” I said, sitting up. “Come on, Carlos, I was only joking.” Carlos pulled up on the strings that held the tin can stilts to his feet.
“My mom gave me a … gave me a …”

He couldn’t go on.

“You’re such a meany, Calvin.” Maya got up and put her arm around Carlos. She kicked Julio’s foot. “Don’t you care about your brother?”

“What brother?” Julio said, his eyes closed. “I don’t have a brother.”

I sighed and got up. “Come on, Carlos, I didn’t mean it. Look. I was kidding. You didn’t
wet your pants, and anyway how’s about you teach me to walk on those stilts?”

Carlos stared at the grass.

“Come on. I never learned how.”

Carlos stepped off the cans and held them up by their strings.

“Cool,” I said, taking them.

“Calvin!” someone screeched from the garage.

I glanced over my shoulder.

Stella, holding up the dog-poop shovel.

S
tella was from Texas and lived with us as Mom’s helper. She was in the tenth grade at Kailua High School. She wasn’t just bossy, she invented bossy.

“What?” I said, stepping up on the tin can stilts.

“Your mom called and said to clean up the yard for the party.”

“So clean it.”

“You, Stump. Not me.”

I squinted at her. I hated when she called me Stump!

“Justice for the meany,” Maya said.

Stella wasn’t leaving until I took the shovel. “Let’s go!” she snapped. “I don’t have all day.”

“This is all your fault,” I said to Streak.

Streak tilted her head.

“Hey, Carlos, you want to help me?”

Carlos grinned.

“Go on, Carlos,” Julio said, his eyes still closed. “I’ve done it before, and it’s really fun!”

Maya grabbed Carlos’s shirt. “Oh no you don’t. Carlos, don’t listen to these fools.”

I shrugged. Still on Carlos’s tin can stilts, I clomped over to get the shovel.

Stella eyed me. “Are you some kind of a circus freak? Oh, I know, you just needed help getting up to normal height.”

She snickered at her own joke.

“So funny I forgot to laugh.”

She grinned, holding out the shovel. “Get it all, Stump. We don’t need some kid stepping in something.”

“Stop calling me Stump!”

“Well, you’re short, aren’t you?”

“Stop! I mean it!”

“And if I don’t?”

I snatched the shovel out of her hand just as Ledward’s jeep pulled up. He honked.

“Scoop the poop,” Stella cackled, then rode her broom back into the house.

“Darci!” I called. “Ledward’s here!”

Julio and Willy scrambled to their feet.

Darci ran up from the river. “Yay! Yay! Yay!”

Ledward got out. He was half Hawaiian, half Filipino, and tall as a telephone pole. He looked down on us. “Is this my construction crew?”

“Yeah!” we all said.

I peeked into the jeep. The lumber was
new. It smelled good. “Can we help you, Ledward?”

“Sure can. You going to work in those boots?”

I looked down at the tin can stilts. “You like them?”

“Used to have a pair myself.”

We were as excited as ants in the kitchen. Together we took lumber, blue tarps, stakes, extra garden hose, and Ledward’s tool box out onto the grass. Ledward built the takeoff tower
first. It was about six feet high. Then he made a ramp and tacked plastic tarps down over the wood. Below that he staked more tarps into the grass and ran the slide all the way down to the water. But Darci made him shorten it. She didn’t want the slide to end in the river, where the current could take you away.

“Ho!” I said. “This is outstanding!”

Later I shoveled up all the dog poop, but I didn’t flip it into the bushes like I usually did. I dumped it in the weeds under Stella’s bedroom window, which she always left open for fresh air.

By the time Mom got back from work, the slide was done and everyone but Ledward had gone home.

Darci grabbed Mom’s hand the second she got out of the car. “Come see! Come see!”

“Wow!” Mom said, hooking her arm in Ledward’s. “The kids are going to have so much fun!”

Ledward glanced at the sky. “There might be a problem … radio said a storm is coming.”

“What’s a little rain? They’re going to get wet anyway.”

“Might be more than just a little rain.”

Darci bounced on her toes, as excited as I’d ever seen her. “Nothing can stop my party, nothing, nothing, nothing!”

T
he next morning, Saturday, Ledward came back over. He grabbed the morning paper off our driveway and headed into the house.

Darci, Mom, Stella, and I were in the living room, looking out the window at the wild gray clouds. Tomorrow was party day and it wasn’t looking good.

Ledward tapped the newspaper headline as he eased the screen door closed behind him.
MASSIVE TROPICAL STORM APPROACHES ISLANDS
, it said. “Looks like a big one.”

Darci crossed her arms. “We’re still going to have the party. It’s only going to rain, that’s all.”

Ledward looked out the window and shook his head. “I don’t know, Darci girl.”

“It does look threatening,” Mom said.

Ledward nodded. “Thought I’d come tie down that ramp and get all that tarp up and into the garage. It could get windy.”

Darci’s careful plans were crumbling like sand in the surf. Two friends had already called saying they couldn’t come because their parents were worried.

But the storm wasn’t here yet.

Mom hugged Darci close.

“We still have today, Darce,” I said. “At least we can do that.”

Today Stella and her big scary-looking twelfth-grade boyfriend, Clarence, were
taking me and Darci to the Byodo-In Temple as Stella’s present to Darci. The temple was Darci’s number one favorite place to go. You could feed wild birds right out of your hand, and Darci loved birds. They had a giant gong there, too, which was my favorite part.

Ledward studied the darkening sky. “Better get going soon. My guess is maybe two, three o’clock this thing will hit.”

I looked up at him. “But we’re still going to have the party … right? Sometime?”