Ti Leaves

Lei and Kaukahi both dropped to the floor and crawled to the window that looked into the backyard. What creature would make a noise that loud? Lei motioned to Kaukahi to stay down as she slowly peeked out of the window.

Outside on the back lānai, it was just Ilikea and Kaipo, returned in human form. False alarm.

“They’re back!” Lei cried.

They were each holding opposite sides of a massive blanket bundle in their hands, carrying it over to a clean table.

“Come on.” Lei tugged Kaukahi’s wrist.

“You go,” Kaukahi said, stroking her curtain. “I’ll be right back. I think I have an idea for the dress.”

At Lei’s hesitation, Kaukahi pushed. “Really, I’ll only be a minute. And we can talk more then.”

“Lei!” Kaipo hollered.

“You won’t come?” Lei asked.

“Go!” Kaukahi said.

Lei darted out of the house, through the sliding door in the kitchen, to the back lānai. The blanket that the ʻaumākua held the corners of contained a huge mound of cloth.

“Whoa, was this what Kaukahi’s been working on?”

Ilikea looked frazzled—her plumeria hanging precariously, hair looking like she’d stuck her head out a car window—but she was positively beaming.

“Just flew in from Hawaiʻi Island and wow, are my arms tired.” Ilikea released the bundle carefully onto the table. “Next time you casually suggest I go grab Kaukahi’s sewing stuff, I may casually suggest you go pick a lehua.” She massaged her biceps and hands, then nudged Kaipo’s arm. “Thanks for swooping in and grabbing a corner.”

Kaipo flexed his own fingers. “No problem. You and Makani had made it impressively far on your own.”

“Thank goodness you’re back.” Lei wasn’t sure how much Kaukahi had done yet, but this big lump looked…well…big, so hopefully it was mostly all there in dress shape. “Kaukahi is freaked over getting this dress done. You wanna bring it inside to show her?”

Ilikea stepped away with a grimace. Kaipo rubbed the back of his neck and studied the beams of the ceiling.

“How heavy is that thing?” Lei moved to grab it herself, grunting to lift it. “You seriously carried this from Hawaiʻi? Ili, you’re a beast!”

“Tell me about it,” Ilikea said as she straightened her plumeria and moved out of the way.

Lei picked up the bundle and Kaipo rushed to open the door for her.

“Thanks. Hey, Kaukahi…,” Lei called.

Raised voices drifted down the hall.

“…not gonna happen,” Aunty was saying.

“I promise I’ll replace—” Kaukahi pleaded.

“My decor is not a part of your Project Runway vision.”

“But this is your biggest piece of fabric!”

Lei kicked off her slippers and hurried to the back room. Kaukahi and Aunty Lori were standing next to the window, both of their hands on the pale rose-colored drapery. She wasn’t sure what exactly was happening, but it looked like Kaukahi was trying to pull the drapes down. Desperate times had led her to desperate alternatives.

“Kaukahi, stop!”

Ilikea stepped next to Lei. “Ta-da! Caviar has arrived!”

“Cavalry,” Lei whispered.

“Whatever,” Ilikea whispered back through the side of her mouth, lips pulled in an unwavering smile.

Kaukahi’s mouth fell open and she released the drapes. “Is that…?” She rushed over and started sorting through the mound on the blanket. “It is!”

Kaukahi lifted the massive jumble out of Lei’s hands and put it on the floor. She knelt next to it.

“But oh! Ili! How? When? Seriously, though, how?”

Ilikea proudly retold the heroic saga of her brilliant idea to save the family. Lei backed her up, oohing and aahing at the right moments. The story really wasn’t that long, but somehow she managed to drag it out to at least five minutes by adding in a scene with an ʻiwa sky pirate trying to capture their fabric, though what a seabird would want with velvet and tulle was beyond Lei. She couldn’t tell if Kaukahi was believing the whole thing or just being polite, but the girl gave 100 percent of her attention to her ʻaumakua—something that Lei had yet to witness until now. Ilikea was soaking it all in.

Aunty Lori smoothed out invisible wrinkles from her drapes. “Glad that my drapery will last another day. Thanks, Ilikea.” She patted the girl’s back and headed out the door. “I’m going to go pick up your tūtū, Lei. Be back soon.”

Kaukahi got to work in quick, sure motions, an artist in her element, piling and dividing with some sort of strategy that Lei couldn’t figure out.

“I can tell you’ve got this under control, but if you need any help, I love busywork and it’d be perfect for brainstorming what to do next,” Lei offered. See, you’re a priority.

When Kaukahi didn’t respond right away, Lei moved to leave, catching Kaipo’s eye and tilting her head toward the door. Kaukahi was used to getting things done on her own, Lei got that. Still, it sucked to put her offer out there and have Kaukahi ignore it the way Ridley and Hennley would.

The screen door squeaked as she pulled it open, and Kaukahi’s head jerked up.

“Wait!” she called, holding both hands out to them. “Yes, help. Please.”

Kaukahi grabbed a box of ti-leaf ribs that Aunty had deboned earlier for hula skirts. “So what I’m thinking is we line them up against the edge of the velvet, like this.” Kaukahi showed them and Lei followed.

“And what I was thinking,” Lei said, pinning the bone in a fold of fabric, “is that when Kaipo and I saw ginormous rats with pendants in Waikīkī yesterday, they didn’t seem strong enough to do much more than freak out the tourists there—no kid stealing or anything yet. Remember how Aunty Ruby told us that different birds are attracted to different trees in different areas, and that the kia manu, the bird-catchers, knew all the different birds and what trees they hung out in and all that?”

Kaukahi, Kaipo, and Ili all nodded at her. Makani was playing with a piece of ribbon, blowing it up in puffs and not letting it fall to the floor.

Lei continued. “So, instead of us being alone up in the wet highlands waiting forever for individual kuewa birds to come the way the kia manu did, I think we have something working in our favor—the parade. We know they all want to be there with the crowds.”

The three of them nodded again as they pinned.

“I know we’re cutting it close by waiting till the parade to try to catch them, but having them come to us is the best chance we have of catching them all. Not to mention they’re not all birds. We still need to figure out the ones in the ocean or on land.”

Kaukahi pulled some pins out of her mouth and chimed in. “Fishponds. For sure. It’s how our family used to catch fish without actually having to catch them. And, ooh, when we did our ʻaumākua unit in Hawaiian studies last year, I read about one who was a caterpillar on land and a sea cucumber in the ocean. And oh! There were some that could change from animal to plant to mineral, so we should definitely keep our eyes peeled for questionable-looking rocks.”

Lei’s jaw dropped. “You had a unit on ʻaumākua? In school?”

Kaukahi looked at Ilikea, who shrugged.

Kaipo spoke up. “Schools on the continent aren’t really into…ah…” He looked at Lei. “What would you call this? Hawaiian history? Legends? Religion?”

“Any and all. But whatever. No big deal.”

It was a Very Big Deal.

But Lei didn’t have time to deal with ruminating on how different her life would be if she had been raised here.

“Okay, shifty rocks. How do you think we trap them?” Lei asked.

“We could use Aunty’s laundry baskets and rubbish cans,” Kaukahi said.

Lei nodded. “Smart.”

Kaipo tapped his chin with a ti-leaf rib. “I met one who was a small field mouse once. That was embarrassing.”

Lei furrowed her brow, then got it. “Because, right, you’re an owl and—”

“It was an accident, and I let her go as soon as I realized. Don’t think she’d come to this, though. Her family was taking care of her.”

Kaukahi started using words like basting and bobbins, and Lei backed out of the way, lending fingers to hold down fabric when asked. The sewing machine began to whir as Lei continued to plan.

“Okay, so then here’s what we know and what we need. ʻAumākua can be owls, pueo.” Lei nodded at Kaipo.

“Ooh, don’t forget the mudhens, shifty buggers,” Ilikea said, eyes narrowed. “Never really trusted them after the whole fire-hoarding incident.”

Lei remembered the story about Maui basically having to steal the secret of fire from the birds whose distinctive red foreheads gave them their Hawaiian name.

“Moorhens,” Kaukahi said.

“Potatoes, Kaukahi. Cool with calling them ʻalae ʻula?” Lei asked.

Kaukahi nodded.

“Great.” Lei pulled out her phone to take notes. “So, we have pueo and ʻalae ʻula. ʻElepaio were considered ʻaumākua of canoe makers, so they might turn up, and maybe other small birds, too. We have Aunty Ruby’s techniques for them. Okay, and for the ocean they can be sea cucumbers, eels, manō—shark—potentially some fish…can we make a fishpond that can hold everything from tiny to large?”

Lei frowned and looked to Kaukahi.

But Kaukahi was staring at Kaipo. “Kaipo, stand up and stick out your arms, please? I need a mannequin and you’re about the right height.”

Kaipo’s cheeks darkened as he silently obeyed, his arms awkwardly splayed like airplane wings. “I mean, we probably can’t make a fishpond ourselves…but we did meet some someones who can.”

Lei’s eyes widened as she thought back. The wall that kept getting rebuilt over night!

“Kaipo, you’re brilliant. Ili, could you fly to Kuaihelani and ask the Menehune—”

“No way. I mean, I know I’m totally amazing, but come on. I already died once and am not looking to do it again.” She paused for a beat, as if waiting to see if anyone would laugh at the ʻaumākua joke. Nothing. “But really, I just can’t get back there, then back here in time.”

Lei looked at Kaipo. He shook his head with a half-smiled apology. There had to be something she wasn’t thinking of. She leaned back against the wall, then jerked forward.

“The scale! The moʻo on the island was able to talk to the moʻo in the cave on Hawaiʻi Island. If we can communicate with the Kuaihelani moʻo, maybe she can ask the Menehune to come.”

Ilikea looked at her confused. “Uh, yeah. That’s a really good idea…but unless I have the memory of a mosquito, we don’t have a scale to call her from. You gave it to her, remember?”

“I know that we gave that one away, but there are legends of moʻo on all the islands, right? We just need to find another one to call her from,” Lei insisted.

Kaukahi shook her head and tucked an excess bit of fabric into the waistline. “Nope, I’m out. No more moʻo for me. Did you see the tail on that last one?” She shuddered. “You folks do this recon and I’ll be there for phase two: Catch the kuewa. I’ll bring the stuff to use to trap the rocks.”

“Ooh, good call,” Lei said. “Ili?”

“Kaukahi might need me,” Ilikea said, shooting clear “need me” glances over at her oblivious descendant, who was placing a final pin into a sleeve.

“Nah, I’m good, Ili. You go.”

Ilikea’s face fell, but before Lei could speak up to offer words of encouragement, Kaukahi stepped back from Kaipo and made an announcement.

“There. The dress is done.”