Seaside Trouble

The sun was beating down on them as they walked down Kalākaua Avenue toward Kapiʻolani Park. Ilikea had handed over the pooper-scooper bucket and decided to be a “waver” a few blocks back. (“Really, it’s better this way. People want to see me smiling and waving, not inspecting a horse’s backside waiting for the next bomb to drop.” Lei wasn’t so sure anyone actually cared about seeing her, but there were enough of them that she was happy to switch off and take scooping duties for the rest of the parade.) There was a stretch between the palace and Waikīkī where the sidewalks weren’t crowded with spectators, but once they hit the hotel district, parade-goers came out in droves.

Lei moved closer to Kaukahi, who was eyeing the lampposts and trees lining the street. “See anything?” Lei asked.

“Not yet.”

“Keep your eyes on the kids.”

The sidewalks were filled with children—from babies in strollers all the way up to surly-looking high schoolers. A pair of moms held a toddler’s hands, pointing and waving, narrating the scene for them. A dad had his ponytailed kid on his shoulders. Older kūpuna sat in chairs, some with lei and lauhala hats, some with big wraparound sunglasses and baseball caps mentioning long-ago wars. All completely oblivious to the gnawing worry scraping at Lei’s ribs.

They were nearing the police station. The amplified voice of the announcer by the Duke statue was reverberating off the hotels across the street.

“There,” Kaipo said, pointing to one of the streetlamps that they’d glue-ified yesterday.

Three little birds were flapping their wings and struggling, but not getting anywhere.

“It worked!” Lei said.

Her hands shook with urgency. They needed to get the necklaces before the birds freed themselves.

“Take the rake and scooper. Just leave them in the alley, we’ll come back for them. I think we’ll want our hands free,” she instructed her friends.

Lei nodded to the same alleyway Kaipo and Ilikea had changed in yesterday. Ili followed behind. Kaukahi pushed the poop-filled wagon over to the curb, where the crowd parted to let them through.

“Sorry, bathroom break!” Lei called.

The stinking wagon helped clear the crowd a bit, and people were all too willing to give them space. Lei pulled while Kaukahi pushed, and together they got the wagon through sand and against the wall surrounding the Kapaemāhū stones. Ilikea and Kaipo ran to the alley, then flew out over the tops of the crowd. Everyone was so distracted by the parade, they never noticed the brief, feathery scuffle above them. Lei hurried over and caught the few feathers that drifted down.

“What are you going to do with those?” Kaukahi asked.

“I have a feeling some of the creatures we’re seeing are kind of rare or old. I was thinking I could give these feathers to Aunty Lori to thank her for her help.”

Kaukahi grinned and joined her in collecting them and putting them carefully in the front pouch of her backpack. Kaipo and Ilikea separated themselves from the birds, pendants in their grasp, and flew back to the alley. Lei and Kaukahi followed.

“There are birds stuck on most of the palm fronds!” Ilikea yelped, flapping in excited circles. “Most are pouting and crouched down so you can’t see them from the ground. We’ll go grab their necklaces.” Kaipo handed three to Lei, who put them in her bag. He took off to collect more. Ilikea was too busy crowing. “We totally stopped them before they had a chance to start!”

Lei frowned. It seemed too easy. They must be missing something.

And then the screams started.

Down by the shoreline, the few people who were more interested in sunbathing than watching a parade were shrieking and running toward the crowd. Lei dashed off for the screaming. Great, now I’m the fool in the horror movie who runs toward the bad guy.

Ilikea flew above the chaos. “For flap’s sake, people. Screaming helps no one. Fight. FIGHT! Once more, onto the beach!”

“Ili,” Kaukahi called, cutting off the bat’s battle cries. “Come on, let’s grab the laundry baskets.”

Ilikea stopped flapping, momentarily stunned. “You want me?”

Makani swooped in, lifting the bat’s wings before she hit the sand.

“Don’t make this a thing. Come on.” Kaukahi headed toward the surfboard area in the alley.

Ilikea collected herself quickly. “Roger Dodger! Ooh, or should I say, Rahi Kaukahi?”

“You’re making it a thing.”

“Right. Onward!”

Lei spied Kaukahi’s small smile even though she shook her head as she ran toward the police station. When people from the shore cleared out of Lei’s way, she got a better glimpse of the water and stumbled, catching herself on a beach chair.

The scene in front of her looked like a wacky evolution drawing from science class. The ones that showed how life emerged from the ocean and took their first shaky breaths on land.

Except nothing about these things looked shaky.

From the shallow waters of Waikīkī, creatures crawled, slithered, and hopped onto the sand. Lei’s heart leaped when she saw that the wall had been completed, arcing around the sandy beach and even beyond the reef where they had stopped with the sandbags last night. It came back to connect with the wall at the ʻEwa end of Kūhiō Beach. The Menehune had finished it during the night!

And it worked! The kuewa, who were drawn to the crowded swim zone, were trapped in the shallows. The traditional gate that the kānaka used on their fishponds wouldn’t have worked in this case since they were trying to trap ʻaumākua of various sizes, from sea cucumbers to sharks, but it looked like the Menehune got around that by closing off the gate. Maybe they knew they had captured all the spirits. Judging by the number of animals coming out of the ocean, they must be pretty dang close!

There were sea cucumbers—loli, Lei remembered Tūtū calling them—that were inching along like fat, slimy caterpillars. Not too scary, right? But then there were different fish—Kaukahi would probably know all the different kinds—and some had wicked-looking teeth that chomped and bit at the air, as if testing out how to breathe (How were they breathing?). And scariest of all were a number of very unfriendly sharks, like battle tanks on the shore.

But the ferocity of the sharks lost some of its bite when Lei saw how they floundered on land. Kaukahi and Ilikea returned, armed with baskets and nets.

“Whoa,” Ilikea whispered.

“Are they doing the worm?” Kaukahi asked, watching the sharks. One heard her and turned their way, gnashing its teeth. Lei flinched but stood her ground. No way could it get to her.

“Looks like it.” Lei giggled nervously.

The shark started inching its way over to them, snapping and snarling through rows of teeth. A band of brittle stars—peʻa—scuttled along and wedged their way under the shark. Together they hoisted it up, a mighty three inches off the sand, and started carrying it toward the crowd of unsuspecting parade watchers. Some of the peʻa would trip and fall before getting back up and moving to lift another worming shark. The entire scene would have been comical if not for the teeth.

“Where’d you get the nets?” Lei asked as the last of the creatures pulled themselves from the sea.

“The hotel pools. We’ll return them when we’re pau.”

Lei nodded her approval for Kaukahi’s quick thinking. “Well played. What if we start from behind, avoiding teeth, and just pull off necklaces as they go toward the crowd?”

“I like it, but what if Kaukahi and I do something different?” Ilikea said. “We could trap a bunch of the smaller ones under the baskets to buy some time, then use the nets to go help you with the others. ’Cause there are a lot of necklaces to get.”

The bat-girl frowned, watching as some rocks hopped out of the water, lumpy pendants bumping against themselves.

“Ooh, good thinking,” Kaukahi agreed. “Rili Ili?” She held her long pool-cleaner net up over her shoulder like it was a baseball bat and winked at her ʻaumakua.

Ilikea beamed back. “Rahi Kaukahi!” And together they took off, rounding up kuewa with the baskets, then skimming the surface of the water with the nets, scooping the hardier spirits like the wana and rocks into mounds, then removing their small necklaces.

Lei moved to action. She decided to start with the sea turtles first since they always looked so friendly sunning themselves, but after the first one nearly took her finger off snapping at her, she rethought her approach and went for a sea cucumber instead. When she carefully lifted the front of the cylindrical, squishy creature, it squirted water at her. She shuddered but didn’t let go. The tiny necklace came off easily, complete with a mini cucumber-shaped pendant at the end. Lei stuffed it in her bag, and watched as the sea cucumber maneuvered a slow about-face and headed to the water.

“They go back to the ocean when you take off the necklace,” she called to Ili and Kaukahi.

“Roger.”

“Got it.”

They moved as quickly as they could from the back of the line, tackling the smaller creatures first. Then they teamed up, Ili wrapping her fingers around turtle heads to prevent them from snapping.

“I am so sorry. You know I respect you. You’re like the bats of the sea, the way you glide with your flippers. We’re practically cousins. And I know you’re not really trying to bite my friends.”

Lei lightly unclipped the cord and slipped it off. Ilikea yanked her hands away quickly, but the turtle didn’t even snap now that the pendant was off. It turned and followed the others sliding back into the water.

Lei was working on carefully lifting the necklace off the fin of a silvery striped manini when Makani blew her so hard, she spun toward the street. She’d been focused on harvesting the necklaces as fast as she could, she’d lost sight of the spirits at the front of the line. The sharks had almost reached the crowd of parade watchers, who had ignored the earlier cries of the beachgoers. The parade itself was still going, the music from the marching band covering the sounds of the crowd’s distress.

Something was happening to the spirits.

They were morphing.