Queen Liliuokalani: Royal Prisoner (7 page)

“We just want to be left alone,” she’d said with a sigh.

Without Maisie to run his ideas by, Felix spent too much time alone, wandering the palace rooms or the courtyard outside. He worried about his sister’s injury, even though the king had called in a
kahuna
to check on her. The
kahuna
had mumbled some words over Maisie, splashed her with oil, and ordered bed rest. Still, Felix wouldn’t feel relieved until his sister was back to her old self.

He worried, too, about the fate of these people who had taken them in. The fate, in fact, of all of
Hawaii. For Felix knew that, despite their dissatisfaction with westerners, and the United States in particular, Hawaii was going to become a state. He had no idea when, however, because once again he’d taken history for granted and hadn’t paid attention to details like that.

And of course, he worried about the crown. He grew more and more certain as time passed that it had sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Without it, he and Maisie were surely stuck here for good. Even though Felix had wanted to escape his father and Agatha the Great, he didn’t want to escape
forever.
He had to find the crown.

But
how
? Felix asked himself over and over as he walked beneath the tamarind tree in the courtyard or sat beside his sleeping sister’s bed.

A trip for the children to go bowling was planned for the afternoon. There were seven royal children ranging in age from thirteen to seventeen. They called themselves
ali‘i
, which meant “royalty.” All of them had lived together at the Chiefs’ School and learned English there. Now they lived here at the palace. Felix had a hard time keeping straight who
was really brother and sister and who was
hanai
. But it didn’t seem to matter to them. “Only westerners find this important,” Lot had told him when Felix tried to write it down one day.

Felix was hesitant to leave his sister’s side, but Lydia’s
hanai
mother, Konia, convinced him that Maisie was being well cared for. Certainly their home, Haleakala, was a lovely place to get better. There were big wraparound porches on both stories, and trees and flowers bloomed everywhere on the grounds. The air inside and out was fragrant.

As they left for the bowling alley, the oldest girl, Bernice, pointed to one of the trees, which had dense green leaves and brown pods hanging from the branches. Unlike Lydia, who was plain-looking and quiet, Bernice was one of the most beautiful girls Felix had ever seen. When she smiled, two deep dimples appeared in her cheeks. Felix was glad that she smiled often.

“That tamarind tree was planted to commemorate my birth,” Bernice said proudly.

“So Paki and Konia are your
hanai
parents, too?” Felix asked her.

“No,” Bernice explained, “I am their only birth daughter.”

“Her mother, Konia, is the granddaughter of King Kamehameha the First,” Lot said.

“Which means Bernice could be queen someday,” Lydia said.

When she said that, Felix’s stomach dropped. Bernice couldn’t be queen without a crown, could she? And besides, that crown was meant for someone named Liliu, not for Bernice. Of that Felix was certain.

“If the Americans leave us alone,” Lot was saying.

Suddenly, Felix got an idea. It was the kind of idea he would normally run past Maisie first. But since he couldn’t, he plunged ahead.

“I guess every king is named Kame…hame…ha,” Felix said haltingly.

This sent everyone into a round of laughter.

Lydia patted Felix’s arm. “Kamehameha the Great united our islands,” she told him. “His son—”

“I get it,” Felix said, blushing. “Each king’s son is named Kamehameha. But could someone else become queen? Other than Bernice?”

“Unlikely,” Lot said.

“For example, Lydia is a high chiefess,” Bernice told Felix. “Her lineage goes all the way back to high
chiefs under Kamehameha the Great. Still, too many things would have to happen before she would ever become queen.”

By now they had reached the busy streets of Honolulu. Felix was surprised by how changed they were from his viewpoint in the time funnel. What he had seen then were mostly thatched huts with just a few western-looking buildings, many bare-chested Hawaiians, lots of sailors, and stern-faced missionaries dressed in black. Now, all the grass huts were gone, and in their place stood houses and businesses that looked very much like the ones on the streets of Newport. There were no more native Hawaiians in their traditional clothes. Instead, they wore western clothes, although theirs had patterns of palm trees and flowers.

On Punchbowl Street, Kawaiaha‘o Church rose above all the other buildings.

“That sits on top of an ancient spring,” Lot said, glaring at the church. “Our people dove for that coral at a reef, then dragged the rocks here to build a church. Some of them weighed more than a ton!”

“Look!” Bernice said. She pointed across the street to where a new storefront had a freshly painted
sign reading
MONTGOMERY’S
.

A man with thick dark hair and a thick beard stood there, jangling keys. His bright blue eyes lit up when he saw the royal children approaching. Felix assumed he was a missionary, like all the westerners he had met here so far.

“Mr. Herman Melville,” Lydia said. “Good day.”

“Have you defected from the church yet?” Mr. Melville asked.

“Mr. Melville vehemently opposes the missionaries,” Bernice told Felix.

Surprised, Felix asked why.

The man peered down at Felix. “They’ve defiled the people here, young man!” he roared. “They’ve suppressed all of their traditions, their culture, their sport, their very nature! Do you see that monstrosity across the street?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “They used the Hawaiians to build that, and their roads, and every other thing they desire. It’s a sin what they’re doing.”

“Mr. Melville came here on a whaler from Massachusetts,” Bernice told Felix.

“I took the long way around,” Mr. Melville said with a grin.

“He’s been to Tahiti and just about everywhere else in the South Pacific,” Lot said.

“And he sets the pins at the bowling alley,” Lydia added happily.

“Not anymore, I’m afraid,” Mr. Melville said, holding up the keys. “I’m now employed as a clerk for Mr. Montgomery’s store here.”

“Well, we’ll miss you then, because we’re going bowling,” Lydia said.

They all said good-bye to Mr. Melville and continued to the bowling alley. Bowling, it seemed to Felix, had not changed much over time. Except for the fact that there were nine pins instead of ten, and that a man reset the pins each time, the game and the rules were the same as when he and Maisie used to go bowling at Bowlmor Lanes with their parents in New York. Still, all the time they bowled, the name Herman Melville stuck in his head. He was certain he had heard it somewhere before. But with the noise of the balls crashing into the pins, and the excited shrieks of the children, Felix could not remember where.

When the game was finished, they began to walk back to the palace, and Felix took the
opportunity of their silence to put his idea to the test.

“Do any of you happen to know someone named Liliu?” he asked, certain from what he’d seen in the vortex that she was the person he and Maisie needed to find.

All the royal children stopped walking and stared at him.

“Why, you know her, too,” Bernice said finally.

“I do?” Felix asked.

“Didn’t you know that the missionaries made us all take English names?” Lydia asked.

Felix shook his head.

“They did,” Lydia continued.

She took a step closer to Felix and smiled.

“I am Liliu,” Lydia said proudly.

Despite the hot sun, Felix shivered.

He was standing just a few inches from the person he knew would someday become the queen of Hawaii.

I
t took almost a week for Maisie to recover. With her headaches and sleepiness, she mostly stayed in bed. All the royal children visited her, and even Paki stopped by every morning, but she grew too tired to do much more than listen to their reports about life in Honolulu and around the court. Felix split his time between sitting at his sister’s side and joining the others for luaus, trips to the beach, or more bowling expeditions. Despite the friction between some of the Hawaiians and the missionaries and westerners, life here was easy. The food was fresh and plentiful, and everyone liked to have fun.

The longer Felix stayed, the more he came to understand and appreciate the concept of aloha.
Before he’d come to Hawaii, he thought the word meant just “hello” and “good-bye.” But he quickly came to understand that it meant much more. It was almost a way of life. Lydia had explained to him that aloha was a way to spread goodness to other people. Letting him and Maisie stay at the palace was aloha, Felix decided.

When Maisie grew stronger and got her memory back, Felix knew he needed to tell her that he’d found Liliu. And that the crown was lost.

The first thing was easy.

“She doesn’t seem very…I don’t know…queenlike, does she?” Maisie said.

“I know,” Felix agreed. “And not only is Bernice better queen material, she actually is the one in line. Unless a million things happen to change that,” he added.

“So it’s unlikely that Liliu will be queen?” Maisie asked.

He nodded. Felix could see her putting all the pieces together.

“I guess,” she said finally, “that a million things are going to happen.”

“I guess,” Felix said with a sigh.

“Well, let’s give her the crown and see what happens,” Maisie said.

“Um…,” Felix began.

Maisie patted her inside fleece pocket and frowned.

“I know my brain got a little scrambled,” she said, “but where is the crown?”

Felix should have prepared an explanation. But he hadn’t. And now his sister was looking at him, waiting.

“Uh,” he said. “About the crown.”

“You already gave it to her?” Maisie said, still not angry.

Not yet,
Felix thought.

“Nooo,” he admitted.

“What then?”

“You had it,” he tried.

“So?”

“And you…well, you landed in the ocean. With huge waves.”

A shadow fell over Maisie’s face.

“Felix,” she said, “are you telling me the crown…”

She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. She thought of the Pacific Ocean and how big and deep
it was. She thought of the crown floating to the bottom of that big, deep ocean.

Felix met his sister’s eyes.

“Maisie,” he said, “the crown is gone.”

The good news, Felix tried to convince Maisie—and himself—was that the shard was still tucked into the corner of Maisie’s pocket.

“Big deal!” she said. “We don’t even know what the shard can do. We know we need that crown to get home.”

“But,” Felix offered weakly, “we do still have the shard.”

His sister just glared at him.

Luckily, Lydia came in then and Maisie had to at least try to be nice.

“Guess what day tomorrow is?” Lydia asked them. She didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s Restoration Day!” she announced.

Maisie looked confused, but Felix remembered what Lydia had told him.

“The day Hawaii got its independence back from England?” he said.

“Wait,” Maisie said. “England ruled Hawaii?”

“Very briefly,” Lydia explained. “Our king, Kamehameha, relinquished our islands to Britain several years ago. I remember the day so well. All of us from the Chiefs’ School had to march down to the fort and watch them lower and replace the Hawaiian flag with the Union Jack. Although our hearts were broken, Kamehameha promised to win back our islands for us, and he did.”

She smiled at Maisie and Felix, and although Lydia was a plain girl, that smile made her look as beautiful as Bernice.

“Every year on the anniversary, there’s a big celebration. And the anniversary is tomorrow. We call it Restoration Day because it was the day our islands were restored to us,” she said.

“What do you do to celebrate?” Maisie asked.

She wondered if it would be like the Fourth of July, with fireworks and parades.