Just Like Old Times

The tunnel was dark and damp and felt way too familiar for comfort. The biggest difference between last week’s lava tube and this tunnel echoed off the walls around her: Kaipo’s bickering with all of them, the scratch of Kaukahi’s pencil against her sketch pad, and Ilikea’s suggestions of where to go.

“I’m telling you, we should go this way,” Ilikea said.

“Who made you the boss of me? I want to go that way.” Kaipo stomped his foot and pointed.

“Hey, team, what’s up?” Lei asked.

“He’s trying to get us to go the wrong way,” Ilikea said.

“Your way’s the wrong way. I know where I’m going.”

“Oh yeah? How?”

“They’re telling me.”

Goose bumps broke out along Lei’s arms. She didn’t need to ask Ili and Kaukahi if they heard anything. Their faces both looked as freaked as she felt.

“How do we know you’re not leading us the wrong way? You didn’t seem too eager to find your necklace outside,” Lei said.

Kaipo sneered at her. “Guess you’ll just have to decide if you trust me.”

Lei surveyed her damp surroundings, searching for any real, tangible clues. The beam of light from her headlamp illuminated the walls of both tunnels. Back and forth it bounced as she considered.

“Hey, Ili, Kaukahi, do you see this?” She touched one of the sides. “Moss.” It was coming from the direction Kaipo had been in favor of. “If there was any light at all during some part of the day or year, it’d probably help things to grow, right? So if Ilikea is right and ʻIo’s drop hole gets sunlight on it at least part of the day, then maybe going in this direction will get us toward the pendant?”

Kaukahi felt the peach fuzz–soft moss. “Ili, why did you think the other way was the way?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” the girl said, rubbing her arm. “I just get a bad vibe coming from that direction. But it could also be the giant moth I ate last night. I feel like it is still fluttering around in my stomach trying to get out.”

Lei gave an involuntary shudder at the thought.

“Kaukahi, any thoughts?” she asked.

Kaukahi adjusted the goggles that sat just above her light. “I’m going with potential photosynthesis over indigestion.”

Ili’s shoulders sagged.

“Yeah, I get it,” Ili said, heading toward the mossier tunnel. “I just hope we don’t regret it.”

Her words reverberated in Lei’s mind, and she couldn’t help but imagine invisible ears perking up at their arrival. But even with the noise they were making and the ominous thought that they were being led to a finish line by something only one of them could hear, Lei couldn’t help but be grateful that at least this time she was with…maybe it was still early to use the word friends…but maybe something more than acquaintances. Like, people who were safe to share a table with in the lunchroom, even if they just sat together in silence. Comrades? Teammates? Lei looked at Kaipo. Despite his outburst, she held tight to the belief that they were friends beyond their roles. Though right now she would be fine if this volcano shot him out through the top. A smile slithered over her lips, but she tried to cover it by yawning when she caught him looking at her with a glare. The lack of sleep was really catching up with her. Her brain bobbed like one of Kaukahi’s skirt buoys.

“Do you hear that?” Ilikea asked, freezing in her steps.

Kaukahi and Lei both paused, listening hard.

“Uh, yeah. Been hearing it this whole time. What took you so long to—”

“Boss, shut it,” Lei said. There was something. It was so faint it was almost like the hum or ringing that sometimes filled her ears for no good reason. “Should we abort? Go back?”

“Who says it’s coming from up ahead?” Kaukahi asked. Fair point. Though if it was coming from behind, that meant it was catching up to them. Which was somehow scarier to think about than them approaching whatever it was.

“Let’s go faster,” Lei suggested, and they all picked up the pace. Lei wished that there were the plips and plops of water like in the other lava tube to break up the quiet and give her some sense of distance and time instead of this endless yawning void of darkness.

And the hum.

Which had grown as loud as mosquitoes, but she still couldn’t tell if it was in front of them or behind.

Suddenly Kaipo broke into a run and took off ahead of the group. Lei followed more slowly, trying to watch for any dips in the ground.

“Boss, slow down,” she hissed.

The tube curved, and Kaipo darted out of sight.

“Ili, can you keep up with him?”

“Roger Dodger.” Ili whirled into bat form and flew after him.

Kaukahi jogged to Lei. “I don’t know what he was like before, but do you really think a pendant is going to help him? ’Cause he seems like a massive turtle turd to me.”

Lei kept moving. “I swear, he is awesome. He’s just not himself. Just wait, you’ll see. He always made sure my trips back here were as good as they could be, that I had someone to hang out with and vent to, to run ideas past. He’s the best. Or was. It sure seemed like I was more than just a job.”

Kaukahi winced in her lamplight. “I did say that, didn’t I? Sorry, I can be blunt. Ilikea comes over a bunch, but I just don’t have time to hang out or go do things. My mom needs me to make sure her outfits are always fresh. She’s really busy.” Her voice cracked with a tinge of sadness and Lei looked over in surprise at the emotional leak. Kaukahi must have caught her concern because she sharpened her tongue with pride. “Our tours are taking off like fire. Folks come back to her every time they visit because she represents having new things to share from a face they trust, and influencers love having a local with a camera-ready aesthetic that pushes boundaries on traditional tour uniforms.”

Lei nodded along to what sounded an awful lot like a canned pitch, but sensed there was something bigger bothering Kaukahi. See, this was where the whole “friendship” thing would come in handy. With Ridley, she used to know the right things to say. Now? Well, she didn’t want to risk saying something wrong. It seemed like Kaukahi retreated to work talk whenever she started to open up.

As if confirming Lei’s theory, Kaukahi pushed on. “And I know if I do a good job on this dress that I’ll get noticed. Maybe even hired. I could be the youngest person to design for Manaola!” At Lei’s blank stare Kaukahi tried again. “Huishan Zhang?”

Lei shook her head.

“Alice and Olivia? You know what, never mind. It doesn’t matter. The point is, I have these goals to work toward and don’t have time to humor an overachieving bodyguard.”

As scary as it would be if Kaukahi was right, she owed it to Ilikea to help Kaukahi see things a different way. She thought about it for a bit, really considering what Kaukahi had said. Total friend move, right there: listening. Tūtū would be proud. So would he-who-used-to-be-Kaipo. This was the longest the girl had talked to Lei without a smug or snarky look and Lei didn’t want to blow it.

“Okay, I hear you,” Lei said carefully. “But here’s the thing, it isn’t an either-or situation. I bet if you give Ilikea a chance, you’d see that she’s not trying to distract you, and the last thing she’d want is for you to miss your goals because of her. And even if you do move off into the big world of fashion, she’ll still be supporting you from here and waiting to hear all about it when you come home to visit.”

Kaukahi frowned.

“You won’t find a bigger cheerleader,” Lei pressed as they rounded the corner. “And while I might not know much about fashion, I do know that sometimes in life, we all need cheerleaders.”

Whatever she was going to say next fell off her tongue as she tripped over Kaipo’s seated form. “Ow, what in the—” A hand clamped over her mouth, muffling her question.

“Shhh,” Ili said in a hushed voice. “I think we found the humming.”