Priorities

Lei picked up her bag and hoisted it over her shoulders. “Do either of you want to come help me look for Kaipo?”

“I’m staying. Pulling down the rocks put me behind on my sketch detailing. Plus, I need to practice,” Kaukahi said.

“Practice?” Lei looked at Ilikea, who offered a shrug.

Kaukahi rummaged through her bag and pulled out a massive bunched-up tarp. She slowly unrolled it.

“Practice.” She unwrapped one towel and laid it on the sand. Then another. Then another and another. Finally, she was holding one of the ʻukulele that Lei had seen on her wall.

“You brought a ʻukulele?”

“Dad was too busy to rehearse last night—someone missed their shift and he got called back out to the site—but he said he’s really excited about our performance so I can’t miss a day.” She was cradling the wooden instrument and all the words poured out in a rush. Then, as if realizing people were staring at her, she looked up and blinked her tough mask back into place.

“What? Some of us are capable of juggling multiple priorities,” Kaukahi snapped.

Lei didn’t want to give Kaukahi the satisfaction of having the upper hand by showing her curiosity, so she didn’t even ask what performance the fashionista was talking about. Instead, she rubbed her nose to hide her surprise and prevent herself from saying something absurd, like “Yeah, well, clowns juggle, so maybe you’re a clown.” It wouldn’t work, anyway. It’s fine. She can win this one. Lei looked at Ilikea to show the bat-girl how much effort she was putting into this silence. Maybe it’d count as goodwill.

But if Ilikea noticed her act of heroism, she didn’t say anything.

“I can…I’ll…” Ili chewed her lip, looking at Kaukahi as if hoping she’d offer something, like helping her harmonize her dad’s part—something to promote a buddies-for-life vibe.

But Kaukahi gave her zero encouragement, already focused on tuning her strings, singing “My Dog Has Fleas” under her breath.

“Why don’t you come look for Kaipo with me?” Lei suggested. “I need your help finding food for us, too.”

“I am the best fruit finder there is,” Ilikea said brightly. But in a much lower voice, she added, “Apparently this is what I’ve been reduced to. The mighty Ilikea—produce picker.”

Lei looked between Ili and Kaukahi with her ʻukulele. Why did it feel like finding a lost necklace in a cave in the middle of this mysterious island was going to somehow be easier than getting these two to really see each other?

Lei and Ilikea passed sandcastles decorated with various shells and moats as they climbed up and over the cliff—she could tell Kaipo and Makani had been busy.

“Ili, I think you’re just trying too hard. Kaipo never really pushed or pressured me,” Lei said at the top. Trade winds cooled her off, and the misty spray of waves crashing on the far side coated her face with another layer of salt.

“Well, yeah, but you were desperate and didn’t have any other options.”

Lei stopped short. “Um, ouch. Harsh much?”

Ilikea rolled her eyes. “You know I don’t mean it like that. Just that you were stuck in Volcano and Kaipo said you really wanted someone to play with. Kaukahi has lived here her whole life and has never wanted to play. Or hang out.”

Lei thought about the way Kaukahi talked about the ʻiwa birds. “Maybe she just doesn’t see the point yet, but she will. You’re loyal and fierce and funny and clever. Maybe she just hasn’t had a good chance to get to know you outside of her house, where she feels like she’s totally in control.”

“Well, she better fall out of control soon so I can swoop in.”

“Guessing as an ʻaumakua, you’re not supposed to hope that bad things happen to your family,” Lei said with a grin.

Ilikea smiled back. “I mean, I’m not talking horror or destruction or anything. But maybe just a little chaos. A little something out of the norm to open her mind to possibilities. Hey! What if I have her pick a—”

“NO. Absolutely not. There will be no lehua picking here. That’s what got us into this whole mess, remember? Besides, today was good, right? At the cave?”

“Yeah,” Ili agreed, sounding a little far off and dreamy. “Today was good.”

“We’ll figure something out. Let’s focus on getting the pendant back tomorrow, getting boss back to normal, then keep working on Kaukahi.”

They walked awhile, following a set of footprints past more castles. Kaipo and Makani had started getting creative, building other things out of sand, including a sea turtle, a mermaid, and a detailed one of a mom cradling a baby that got Lei teary-eyed for no reason. The crashing of the waves breaking near shore filled their silence, until movement in the shade of a coconut tree at the edge of the sand caught Lei’s attention.

“There he is. Hey!” she yelled over the waves. “I thought you said you’d stay put!”

Kaipo didn’t even look their way as Makani swooped over, spinning around them both. He was focused on his latest creation, patting down the wall of another castle.

“I got bored. You’re not the boss of me.”

“Obviously, but I could sure use some cooperation,” Lei said, before biting her tongue. Sounding like her mom was not the vibe she was going for. “Let’s go.”

Kaipo punched down the sand wall. “Fine. I was done here, anyway.”

He stood and took off the way they came from, stomping through all the moats and turrets he’d built. Lei and Ilikea walked along the tree line, darting into the shade to grab a few bananas on their way. The shadows concealed a pressure that Lei didn’t like.

“Feel that?” she asked Ilikea.

Something thunked farther back in the jungle, like a coconut falling, or someone jumping down from up high. Then a crashing sound started up—deep in the trees but coming closer. Fast.

“Sorry!” Lei called out to no one. “The bananas are all yours!”

In a flash, she dropped her bananas and grabbed Ili’s arm. Ilikea’s eyes were wide as she, too, dropped her bananas and transformed into a bat, flying back to the light.

“Slow down!” Lei hissed.

“I’m too young to die! Kaukahi needs me,” Ilikea said over her shoulder as she flitted to the shore.

“You’re generations older than I am!” Lei yelled, running after her friend.

The powdery sand made Lei stumble, feet sinking as she hurried after Ilikea toward the natural lava jetty that Kaipo disappeared over the other side of. As soon as Lei crested the wall, the chords of Kaukahi’s ʻukulele reached her and she forced herself to turn around, back to the beach she’d just run across.

It was empty. There were no more crashing noises. Lei tried to get her breath back under control. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Something on this island was still not happy they were here.

As Lei rejoined her group, Ili turned back into a girl and sat by Kaukahi, who had a small fire going and a couple of skewered fish roasting over the flames. Kaipo was sulking, sitting in the sand next to them.

“Finally. Thought I’d have to send out the search party.” Kaukahi wrapped the ʻukulele in a towel and placed it in her bag. “I figured you’d come back foodless. Kaukahi to the rescue.”

Lei salivated, too hungry to point out that only weirdos would talk about themselves in the third person.

Kaukahi continued. “You wouldn’t believe how many mū there are here. We’re gonna eat good tonight.”

She spread out a blanket made from scraps of fabric in vibrant shades of reds and oranges. It was all sewn together in a way that made it look like she’d captured the sunset from the sky and laid it on the sand for them to sit on.

Kaukahi took Lei and Ilikea’s still-terrified faces in. “What happened?”

“Thought I’d heard something in the trees back there. I let my imagination take over and freaked,” Lei explained.

Kaukahi handed her a skewered fish and she bit into it. Of course, it was delicious and not too bony.

“Reasonable that a cloudland might not be uninhabited,” Kaukahi said, like it was no big deal, and turned back to her dinner. “Think about it, why would we be the only ones here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because we haven’t seen any signs of civilization? Maybe because I didn’t know this place existed? Maybe because it isn’t on a map?”

Kaukahi looked at her while she chewed. “Seems like an awfully narrow-minded view on what civilizations look like. What, because they didn’t ruin this gorgeous stretch of beach with a hotel or homes, they aren’t civilized?”

“What? No, that’s not what I meant.”

This conversation was getting way too deep, way too fast. Lei took another bite of fish and decided silence was the best option. Ilikea caught Lei’s eye and pointed to her temple, reminding Lei of their earlier conversation about Kaukahi’s sharp wit.

When they were all full, Kaukahi grabbed a final fish that had been skewered and saved, and took it out to the cliff point. Through the dimness of evening, Lei saw a large fin emerge from the water and Kaukahi toss the best part of the fish down to the shark. Ilikea sighed, good humor gone as her descendant honored another.

“She cooked the fish and gave it to you first,” Lei said, trying to cheer her friend up.

They watched as more shapes emerged from the sand. Makani was playing a sand-shape guessing game next to them.

“Bunch of bananas,” Lei guessed at the wind’s latest impressively realistic creation.

Makani tickled her elbow lightly, dissolving the sandy fruit as they started on their next object.

“Doesn’t really feel the same, though, does it?” Ilikea asked.

It didn’t, not really, but Lei didn’t want to make things worse. “She’s thanking him for all of us. We couldn’t have got here without his help today. Ice shave, I mean shave ice.” Lei identified Makani’s latest creation. Lei was always flip-flopping between the way her tūtū said it and the way people everywhere else said it.

Another light tickle from the wind and a new sand shape.

“You couldn’t have gotten here without my help, either,” Ilikea said, kicking the sand. “Me being an ʻaumakua was the reason the kukui tree solidified enough for us to make that leap this morning.” Ilikea frowned at Makani’s latest, a long, ribbon-shaped sand creature emerging from between sand coral. “Puhi. Are you even trying to challenge us?”

Makani blew a bit of sand at Ilikea before they whirled into a tight tornado and spun a short distance down the shore and got to work, sand spitting and churning all over the place. Kaipo kept busy on another simple castle.

“You’re right,” Lei said. She stood. “Hang here, I’ll be back.” Lower, she added, “And be nice. Makani hasn’t done anything wrong.”

Lei braced for more verbal sparring as she joined Kaukahi at the point. Kamohoaliʻi was swimming large circles below them.

“Hey, good thinking, thanking him again.”

“Dad would make a big deal. ‘You gotta remember who you represent when you away from da house,’ ” Kaukahi said, mimicking her dad in a big, low voice.

Lei smiled and lowered her emotional shield just a smidge. “Sounds like he’d get along with my tūtū.”

Kaukahi looked at her. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, she’s always on about ‘remember who you are and where you came from’ and that sort of thing. I am in charge of remembering the family’s moʻolelo.”

Kaukahi nodded. “That’s cool.”

Lei did a double take at the casual acceptance of the duty she only recently embraced herself, then smiled. Not having to defend herself was new. The girls watched the shark in silence for a bit as Lei tried to figure out exactly what she could do to help Ilikea.

“Do you think your parents are okay with you being gone overnight on an invisible island because you have your ʻaumakua?”

Kaukahi’s head jerked back in surprise. “Ili? What would she have to do with it?”

“I mean, my tūtū let me go all sorts of places as long as I was with Kaipo.”

“She didn’t trust you without him?”

Lei thought back to the last week and how Tūtū practically kicked her out of the house to face Pele without Kaipo.

Kaukahi must have seen something on her face because she shook her head. “Thought so. We don’t always need our ʻaumakua anymore.”

“I realize we might not need them, but why wouldn’t you want Ili around?”

Kaukahi suddenly was fascinated by the sand under one of her nails. “Why would you? ʻAumākua are basically bodyguards with no free will, forced to hang out with you whether they want to or not. That isn’t fun. You’re not a friend, not a priority by choice. You’re a job.”

Lei was stunned speechless. With that direct hit, Kaukahi spun on her heel and went back toward camp.