The Islands at the End of the World (14 page)

“Thanks.” I blush again and turn around. I return to Dad, and for a moment I wish he were Tami. We’d already be talking up that
cham
—our secret word for a good-looking guy. I suddenly miss her with a sharp pang of … loss.

But it’s not forever
, I tell myself.

I kill some time by removing and reapplying my spearmint-pearl polish. I usually don’t do my fingernails, but I add them in to the mix tonight. If I can’t get rid of the dirt, at least I can hide it.

I wonder if Private Cham over there would like spearmint pearl. I shrug. Can’t be worse than my current cellblock brown.

We often hear gunfire across the bay. Single shots or short bursts. I think of that man’s head bursting open against the white sail. As miserable as we are in camp, the fence that surrounds us keeps the madness at bay.

Sunday and Monday come and go. Two weeks since we last talked to Mom and Kai. It feels surreal—and painful. I’m angry all the time. Or sad. Or numb. I never just feel normal anymore.

Tuesday. I’ve counted about fifty lucky people with blue name tags called to board a plane bound for the Big Island. Meanwhile, four new tarps have been hoisted up inside our
pen, and hundreds of additional interisland travelers have arrived.

Would we already be home if we’d come here right away?

I have a cot, but now Dad sleeps on the muddy ground next to me, using the canvas of our tent as a ground cloth. There were no more cots to go around, but the people in the camp redistributed the ones we do have among the women and children. It was a good moment. Started with one guy insisting that a new lady take his. She tried to refuse, but he won. Then a few more got up and did the same thing. And suddenly everyone was passing cots around, like some weird square dance without music. People were laughing, chatting with each other. It took a while for the excitement to die down. Thinking of it now, I’m reminded of Saturday-morning soccer games.

I turn to Dad sitting beside me on the cot. “Anyone around here have a soccer ball?”

Dad’s eyebrows go up. “Let’s find out.”

We ask around. Finally, a soldier passes a ball over the fence. It doesn’t take long before we have a game going. Coed. All ages. People move camp and squeeze together to give us room to play. We’re on a soccer field, after all. The game gets crowded, so someone suggests teams and rotating matches. Everyone who’s not playing watches. Even the guards spectate during their patrols. Every time there’s a goal, cheers ripple through camp, inside and outside the fence.

We play until just after dark, and we agree to do it again every evening.

*  *  *

I’ve been leaving my phone off. I turn it on now and switch off airplane mode. It finds a network and shows full bars. I dial Mom, but the call fails. Before I can shut it off, it dies. I’m certain it still had power. I sit and stare at the blank screen.

“Dad, my phone’s fried.”

“Weird how things are zapping out so randomly,” he muses, sitting cross-legged on the flattened tent next to the cot. “The Orchid’s … aura … must have folds and knots that miss things as it churns around out there. Like pancake batter that still has balls of dry flour even after you whisk it. It may only be a matter of time before
nothing
works anymore.”

A chill runs up my back. “Well, when it goes away, though …”

Dad shakes his head. “When the Orchid goes away, everything will still be broken. It’ll take a long time for factories to get up and running. This thing goes away right now, we’ve still entered a new era, Lei. Nothing will ever be quite the same.”

The truth of his words lingers like cigarette smoke; it stinks, and I’m not ready to breathe it in.

Dad squeezes my shoulder. “Mine’s charged and still works.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have any music.”

“What was the last song you listened to?”

“I don’t remember. Why?”

Dad shrugs.

I force a smile, try to make light of it. “Oh, now I remember what it was.”

“What?”

“John Denver. ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane.’ ”

“That’s not funny.” Dad shakes his head.

“It is when you try to sing it.”

We both laugh.

It’s just dead weight, but I place the phone in my backpack.

Now and then it rains for several minutes at a time as dark purple clouds drift quickly by, but mostly it’s stayed sunny and humid in the strange light filtering down through the sky. Occasionally, a bus offers to take people—mostly families with young
keikis
—to the nearby beach. The kids and their parents love it. Dad and I never go. Even though it would be good to replace running laps and dribbling soccer balls with actual swimming practice, we don’t want to miss a flight while we’re away.

If they were taking folks to the Kailua beaches, maybe then I would go. A chance to surf.

When the “beach bus” returns on Saturday afternoon, the families file into the camp, looking fresh and rather cheerful compared with the rest of us.
We should have gone this time
, I think. Only one flight was called all day, not for the Big Island. A little dip in the bay, in spite of its floating trash heaps, would have done my spirit a lot of good.

Two
keikis
run by me—a small Hawaiian brother and sister—covered in mosquito-bite welts. Their mom chases after them. The mosquitoes have found her, too. They settle into their space a few yards away from us and the mom says,
“I said stop scratching! They’re making you bleed. It’s gonna get infected!”

I watch the three of them for a moment, grimace at myself, and unzip my backpack. I pull out my smaller can of repellent. I hesitate, put it back, and take the larger one.

Before I can change my mind, I trot over to the mother and present her with the bug spray. “Here, take it.”

“Fo real?” She reaches for it.

“I’ve got … you know … I got plenny,” I whisper.

“Mahalo.”

* * *

The weeping at night has been replaced by coughing, and every day that we’ve been here, older people have been carried away on gurneys. One body is taken away beneath a sheet, the lumpy, shrouded gurney hauled through the gate over a muddy path and out of view.

We’ve been in camp for a full week. This morning the soldiers are wearing masks.

The masks are the soft, white kind—the type dentists wear. But where’s mine? I feel like the only passenger without a parachute on a plummeting plane.

I sit down on the cot, lean over, and draw a map in the dirt with my finger. Kaua`i, off to the left. O`ahu, bigger, right in front of me. About the size of those masks. Moloka`i, a long finger to O`ahu’s right. Then Maui, a figure-eight shape, slightly lower. Then the Big Island. Mom. Kai. Grandpa.

I study the distances
between
the islands.
Can I do it? Can I swim that?
No way.
But could Dad and I row it?

The answer has to be yes.

I start my next set of push-ups, my eyes fixed on the gap between O`ahu and Moloka`i. One island at a time. If we have to, we’ll do it. We’ll make it work.

One. Two. Three.

I’ve seen Grandpa canoeing like a frigate bird over the water in Hilo Bay. He could do it.
Then so can I
.

Four. Five. Six.

Moloka`i—once famous for the old leper colonies. The government’s quarantine policy ended in the sixties, but before that, people were sent there to live out their lives. Never to return.

Seven. Eight. Nine.

Moloka`i doesn’t like outsiders. Surfing, for example—don’t even try it if you don’t live there.

But you have the right to belong. Fight for it, like Pele
.

Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

We’ll make it work. We’ll get there even if we have to paddle on surfboards.

Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen.

And then we’ll keep going.

* * *

On Thursday I see Aukina patrolling the perimeter of the far side of the fence. He’s. So. Hot! It’s still obvious how young he is compared to most of the soldiers. In my mind’s eye I catch a glimpse of Grandpa—straight out of high school on a battleship. Looking like that. It makes me smile. I head toward the fence.

I attempt to brush my fingers through my tangled black hair, for all the good it will do, as I catch up to him. “Hi, Aukina.”

He turns. His mouth is covered with a mask, but the
smile shows in his eyes. He waves. “Hey, Leilani. Howzit? Been watching you on the soccer field. One mean forward.”

“Really?” I float into the air, a flush rises into my neck. “Um, thanks. You should play!”

He raises an eyebrow. “Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you: I asked around about your meds.”

“Yeah?”

He shakes his head. “Sorry. Nothing like that on base. What’s it for?”

I shrug uncomfortably. “No worries, just …”
Only forty left
. “Sorry, didn’t mean to pry.”

I change the subject. “Hey, what’s up with the masks? Why do you get to wear them and we don’t? It’s creeping everybody out.”

Aukina looks down at his feet for a moment before a muffled answer comes. “There’s a nasty flu spreading at the other camp. I don’t like that we’re supposed to wear them in front of everyone.”

“It’s not more than that, is it? Like, radiation?”

“No. That would mean creepier masks. The day we march out here with those … it’s all over either way.”

I slouch forward against the fence.
That’s encouraging
. “Hey, trust me,” he offers. “Folks are monitoring radiation. This isn’t about that. People are getting sick in that camp. You can’t put thousands of people in one place in the tropics without issues, yeah?”

“Well, even so, didn’t your mother tell you not to bring out your toys if you weren’t willing to share?”

He studiously scrapes his muddy boot over a patch of grass. “I’ll mention it to the sergeant, Leilani.”

“Good.”

“Dang, are all girls from Hilo as
tita
as you?” he asks.

He just called me tita. Does that mean I finally belong?
I laugh. “ ‘No. Just me, baby. Just me.’ ” That’s a line from the film Army of Darkness.

He doesn’t seem to pick up on the reference, and I’m mortified.
Dad and his movies!
An awkward silence falls. My cheeks grow warm.
Of course he doesn’t know that movie, stupid
. “I was joking,” I try. “I’m actually the nicest person from Hilo. In Hilo, I mean. I’m not from Hilo. Well, I am now, but …”

“Lei,” Aukina says. I fall silent. “It’s all good. I was just teasing you.”

“Oh, yeah. Well … anyway, I better go.”

“K’den. See you around.”

“I’ll be … here.” I turn to leave but whip back around when my stomach grumbles. My embarrassment fades. “Hey, Aukina?”

“Yeah, Lei?”

“I’m so hungry. Do you have any real food?”

Aukina shakes his head. “I’m hungry, too.”

I turn, but whip again as he adds, “Hey, Lei?”

“Yeah?”

“You see this?” he says, hefting his rifle with a wry smile.

I frown. “Yeah. So?”

“ ‘This is my boom stick,’ ” he begins. I laugh. That’s the
most famous line from
Army of Darkness
, when the time-traveling hero Ash shows off his twelve-gauge Remington shotgun to King Arthur and a crowd of “primitive screw-heads.”

Aukina continues, grin widening, “ ‘S-Mart’s top of the line. That’s right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?’ ”

I march away, beaming.
Oh. My. God. He’s an even bigger nerd than I am!

In the early afternoon, the rest of us are issued masks. I doubt I had anything to do with it. Apparently, someone dredged up a dusty box of medical supplies. They look like they’ve been in storage since the days of Pearl Harbor. Most people eagerly strap them on, and now only their wild eyes show their fear.

Dad and I put them on.

I pace for a bit, then disappear into my book. I read about King Kamehameha, who united the islands and abolished the bloodthirsty
kapu
, or system of taboos. And he won his later wars with a little help from Captain Cook and the other Europeans who “discovered” Hawai`i. Kamehameha’s rule was foretold, and the kahunas prophesied that his arrival would be marked by a fire in the sky. Turned out to be true. Halley’s Comet.

Maybe the Emerald Orchid is just a sign of good things to come.

Yeah, and maybe I’m a Chinese jet pilot
.

I laugh out loud. Another quote from
Army of Darkness
. Where’s Aukina when you need him?

* * *

In the evening our soccer match is interrupted by the sound of gunfire from the camp across the road. Everyone rushes to the fence. I hear screams and shouting and see something that nearly stops my heart. A body is draped over the top of the other camp’s high fence. A group of soldiers scurries about, devising a plan to pull it down, while other soldiers push onlookers back.

Dad searches for his next words as we peer across the distance. “These camps aren’t going to hold together much longer.”

Our own wardens appear outside of our fence, blocking our view. “Turn around! Move away from the fence.”

I spot Aukina. “Hey!” I shout through my mask. “Did you guys
shoot
that guy?”

“Lei,” Dad begins, but his muffled protest dies as others around me take up the chorus. A yelling match ensues. The soldiers hold their position. Aukina and I share a glance before my view of him is blocked by another soldier. He looks sad … maybe even frightened.

Dad pulls me back from the fence by the sweaty collar of my raggedy blouse. “Someone tried to escape.”

We slouch back to our cot. “You okay, Lei?”

I force a smile, hoping Dad can see it in my eyes above the mask. I want to rip it off. It itches and it’s stuffy and it scares me. But I’m more scared to not have it on. I pat his arm. “Don’t worry, I won’t break into a seizure
every
time someone gets shot in the face.”

Dad presses his palms into his eyes, mumbles something.

“What?”

“Maybe you should,” he finally says.

“Huh?” A prickle of adrenaline shoots up my back.