The Girl at the Center of the World

by Austin Aslan

“From Moloka`i? Father Akoni?”

  “Why would he do that? He convinced us that the Orchid needed to stay. This voice wasn’t friendly.”

  “Someone else has made contact?” he marvels.

  “Could be anyone.”

  “That narrows it down. Just one person?”

  “It feels like only one, but I don’t know.”

  “Is it a guy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “English speaker?”

  I pause, stumped. “The meaning…doesn’t really come in words. I turn them into words, but…it could be in any language.”

  “Okay,” Dad says, thinking. “I could take you up to Buzz right now. Otherwise it’ll have to wait. Uncle Hank and Grandpa are taking the truck to Waimea tonight, to try to muscle into the markets up there, bring home some beef.”

  He’s waiting for an answer. This is ridiculous. Go now or wait? I don’t want to drop everything to go deal with this at Buzz’s observatory on the summit of Mauna Kea. I need a rest. I need to know more. That voice was so weak. Could have been anything. Maybe just my exhaustion.

  I shake my head. “What if Buzz is still in Kona?” Dad hesitantly agrees that we should wait.

  “Has Aukina been by?”

  “Yeah. He’ll check back in soon. Keep practicing Morse code while you wait.”

  I wander the market aisles as I practice.

  Everyone’s shouting: Buy this, trade that. I stop and stare in morbid fascination at a table displaying bins full of fried insects. It took me three weeks to gather the courage to eat my first fried coqui frog. Would I ever eat a fried insect? Probably, yeah. But only as a last—

  “I know that look,” says the vendor. He’s maybe thirty, as thin as a marathoner, with a bushy beard. A filthy hemp necklace hangs around his sweaty neck. He’s probably from Puna, been selling bugs since long before Arrival. “Ever had shrimp?”

  I offer him a wary half grin.

  “Tastes about the same. Same texture, too. They’re cooked. Clean. Go ahead, for a pretty young lady, you can have a sample.”

  My cheeks grow warm. “No thanks.”

  “Free protein? Can’t be passing that up!”

  “I’m not that desperate.”

  “No? You must have it good.” His voice isn’t so playful. I lower my eyes. He’s right; I shouldn’t be snooty. That comment was tasteless at best, possibly dangerous. I do have it good, I realize. I’m so hungry—always so hungry. But I suffer less than most.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it,” I mumble. Embarrassed, I move on.

  I haven’t seen an overweight person in forever. I remember when movies and TV shows depicted times like these. Often there were fat characters. I always wondered about that. Where’s this guy getting so much food? No one could get fat nowadays.

  We used to go to the farmer’s market once a month, then head off to the beach. We’d buy stupid things, like coconut water and refrigerator magnets and hair clips that looked like flowers.

  Just once—I’d like to walk into a grocery store and toss what I need into a cart, even something I don’t need, pay for it with the swipe of a plastic card.

  At the next stall, whale meat. Blubber. Oil. All humpback. Like a pack of sharks, a frenzied crowd is eager to get at the carcass. The team behind the table is rushing to keep up, all smiles. They must be making a killing off this killing. I think back to the whale song I heard along the breakwater, when I wondered if life was better for these creatures under the reign of the Star Flowers.

  Guess not.

  I overhear a conversation a couple of tables down. I creep forward to listen. “Yeah. Rumbling all week,” one man says to another. They’re carefully placing the last of their mamey sapote fruits, `ōhelo berries, dried mangoes, and bars of homemade soap into tattered plastic bags.

  “Whatever else that meteorite did, it ticked her off. When did she last blow?”

  “Mauna Loa? The flow of ’84.”

  “Pu`u `Ō`ō is flowing again.”

  “That right? Town of Pāhoa in its path again?”

  “Not at the moment. I’ve got a buddy in Puna at the back end of Orchidlands. He said it’s a 24/7 geyser of lava. Reached the sea by the end of yesterday.”

  “Pele’s waking up. Blood’s boiling. Like Pāhoa and its neighbors don’t have enough on their plates.”

  “She never did care for us mortals.”

  A voice in my ear. “Pele.”

  I whip around. It’s Aukina. “You freaked me out.”

  “Pele. Easy one. Ready? Dot dash dash dot. Dot. Dot dash dot dot. Dot.”

  He smiles at me as I gape. “Wait,” I say. “I thought ‘dot dash’ was A.”

  “Very good. That’s right. You’ve been studying. But P is dot dash dash dot. It goes on further. See? I told you it’s going to be tricky.”

  I slump forward. The different lengths of letters is going to kill me. “It’s okay!” he says. “You’ll get the hang of it in no time.” He looks less the soldier than ever. I can’t help but laugh. Maybe it’s the black T-shirt with the pink elephant on it, or the cargo shorts and slippahs. He has a surfer’s mop, black hair, spiky. And I love his leg tattoos.

  “Well, good, because ‘no time’ is exactly how much—”

  Gunshots. Everyone screams and drops to the ground. Aukina tackles me and flings us both to the pavement.

  Another shot. Very close. Screams.

  Masked figures with red Hanaman armbands train guns on the people selling.

  Two masked robbers are behind a table, filling bags with jars of oil, fistfuls of cash, and a pile of bartered items. Two others shovel whale meat into a wheelbarrow.

  “This whale is the property of the sheriff of Hana!” shouts one. The voice seems familiar. Two Dog? “These goods are illegal at your market and can only be obtained through our official channels. If you’re caught—”

  Someone springs up from behind the whale with a pistol and fires at the Hanamen. Two Dog dives to the side. Aukina and I press ourselves into the ground.

  Play dead, I tell myself.

  Two Dog bolts. The whale vendors scatter. The vigilante with the pistol looks around, flees.

  A second or two of silence. Then the crowd descends, fighting and trampling to grab a jar of oil or a bit of meat.

  “You okay?” Aukina says, his eyes on fire.

  “Yeah. You?” I shout over the noise.

  “Come on!”

  “Dad,” I say. “Dad! Grandpa!” I hear my name through the roar of the crowd. “Mike! Lani!” I shout, scanning the fallen, wild with worry.

  “Lei, come.” Aukina tugs at my shirt.

  “Leilani!” It’s Grandpa. We lock eyes from neighboring aisles. He hops toward me, fighting the crowd.

  Dad nearly knocks me over. “Lei! Are you all right?”

  “Fine.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Dad,” I say. “Get back to your stuff!”

  Grandpa reaches us. He wraps around me like a shield. “You okay?”

  “Yes. Get back to the table, okay? Before—”

  Dad nods, squeezing my shoulder, looks at Aukina, skips away. People are snatching up our corn as they race past. Dad shouts, “Lani, get her out of here!”

  Grandpa and Aukina and I race away against the swarm. I drag us to a halt. “Tūtū, go help him. Get the truck and pull it around.”

  “They’re going to be back. We need to—”

  “I know. That’s why Dad needs you. I’ll get on my bike and head straight for the hospital. I’ll be fine. Hurry!”

  Grandpa’s eyes drill into me.

  “I’ll stay with her,” Aukina says. “Until we’re away. Then she can ride fast.”

  Grandpa nods. He must have met Aukina already. “Where’s your bike? I’ll get Mike once you’re set.” We sprint along the edges of the crowd to the pole where I left my ride. Two Dog is trying to lift my bike over the top of the sign to sidestep the U-lock.

  “That’s who s
hot at us on the breakwater! He’s with the sheriff.”

  “Stay here,” Grandpa commands.

  He rushes Two Dog.

  Two Dog sees Grandpa, drops the bicycle, which slides down the pole, and readies a punch. But Grandpa barrels into him. They tumble into the street, locked together, batting at each other with closed fists.

  I run up, stop. There’s nothing I can do. Grandpa slams Two Dog’s head into the pavement, and the Hanaman goes limp. Grandpa positions himself squarely on top of Two Dog. I see him reach for a pair of handcuffs around his belt that aren’t there. The instinct of a veteran cop. Grandpa looks around.

  “I told you to stay back!” he yells at me. I’m in shock. “Your bike lock. Now,” Grandpa says. I race to the pole, fumble for the key in my pocket, and shakily fit it into the lock. I toss the bike lock to Grandpa and back up with my bike.

  Two Dog stirs, groans. Grandpa puts the U-lock around his neck and locks him to the signpost.

  “Mr. Hawika,” Aukina mutters to Grandpa. “What’re you…?”

  Two Dog looks right at Grandpa. “Hawika. You’re Hawika.”

  A ripple of terror goes down my back. I back away farther, before Two Dog can see me. I tug Aukina away from them. Grandpa freezes. “I’m nobody.” Fear in his voice.

  “Sheriff ’s looking for you.”

  I slink back, hide around the corner. What? Why?

  Grandpa leans in close to his face. “Sheriff is a coward. A mall cop. You hear? You can’t hide from justice, though. Not even a washed-up crook like—”

  A group of men wearing red armbands turns onto the sidewalk. They see Two Dog, race forward.

  “Tūtū!” I shout.

  Grandpa sees them, throws my key far down Mamo Street. “Go!” He disappears into the crowd. The thugs gather around Two Dog, then go hunt for the key.

  Around the corner, I jump on my bike. Aukina gives my seat a push and sprints beside me until I gain speed and pedal away. I race toward the hospital like a chased rabbit, changing directions at every side street, never slowing.

  CHAPTER 12

  It’s fall, though Hilo is a year-round seventy-eight degrees. I’ve been homebound since the scare at the market, not eager to leave the safety of our isolated Lost World. And with our taro beds coming into full rotation, pests attacking our kitchen garden, and algae building up in my freshwater ponds, I’m too busy to escape even if I wanted to.

  Luckily, everyone I’d otherwise miss comes to me.

  Buzz shows up, but his visit is brief. He’s been keen to check in for a while, though he hasn’t felt ready to disclose his findings; he has the same scientist’s caution that annoys me about my ecologist parents. “Slow and steady wins the race,” they’ve always said.

  Kai and I bombard Buzz with questions. “Too early to say” and “I’ll tell you later,” he says.

  I try to guilt info out of him. “Wouldn’t it be safer if someone else knew, in case something happens to you?”

  “If something happens to me, Richard has the combo to my notes,” he assures me. “I also drew him a map to your place. He’ll come right here if I can’t.”

  My parents insist that we set a date to return with him to the peaks. “Three weeks,” Buzz suggests. His eyes gleam as he tells me, “I can’t wait to show you the pearl. Your meteor.”

  “Are you freaking out in a geeky way or a cool way?” I ask. Buzz gets excited about everything, from improving energy efficiency on gas generators to new ways to store guava at high elevation.

  “Both. Three weeks and you can judge for yourself.”

  “Hold on,” I say. That’s too long. I persuade him to walk to the corral with me, to feed `Imiloa. Along the way I fill him in on my Morse code campaign. His face lights up. “I saw that—the on-off! I was camped up at the pearl that morning. This is brilliant, Lei. Huge.” I drop my other grenade: the new presence I encountered the morning of my last grand mal.

  He stops, thinks for almost a full minute. “There’s only one logical conclusion,” he says, pitching feed to the horse. “Someone’s using another dish.”

  “Really?”

  “Definitely a concern.” He rests the pitchfork against the corral. “I’m glad your bond with the Orchid is strong enough to withstand this. My worry is: if it can happen once, who’s to say it won’t continue? You won the horse race because you live directly under a big array. But this is going to keep happening. And we have no way to predict how the Star Flowers will react under mounting pressure from all sides.”

  “And the baby?” I ask. “It’ll become susceptible to imprinting, eventually. What if someone slips in before me? What if they command it to leave?”

  “You’ll override the command. Mama’s orders will overrule any trespasser.”

  “Hope so.”

  “I wouldn’t fret,” Buzz says. “Hopefully you’ll send the Orchids off before year’s end. We’ll push this up. Let’s meet in two weeks, tops. Okay? I’ll get the dishes prepared. We’ll spend time at the array before our field trip to the impact site. Try to make contact with the baby again, and we’ll make sure you have plenty of time to use the bullhorn to talk with the mother. Maybe see if you can’t kick this other person out.”

  “How would I do that?”

  “Form a defense shield or something? You’re the alien psychic.”

  I grunt. “Wanna trade?”

  “Yes!”

  Tami is next to show up. Mom and Grandpa and Sara have been attending some town hall–style meetings in Hilo, using the trips into town to conduct some trades and to work volunteer shifts at the hospital as repayment for Tami’s care. Mom brought Tami home after their second town hall. Living by herself wasn’t going so well for Tami. She had wanted to be there in case her mom stopped by, which she never did. Being alone was good for staying still and healing, but the boredom was driving her crazy, and my parents never felt that she was safe enough.

  Keali`i’s been by more often since Tami planted her flag on our couch. They chat and laugh in hushed tones in the evenings. I sometimes cast Tami inquisitive glances, but she’s not spilling any beans, and I try to leave them alone.

  I had my own hushed conversation with Keali`i the first time he showed up. “Where have you been?”

  “Lying low.”

  “Surfing?”

  “Maybe.”

  He’s never gone for long, and his place near Keaukaha is so far away. I don’t get it. “Seriously, where do you stay?”

  He shrugged. “I know some guys squatting in a cottage on the bluffs, crash on their couch sometimes.”

  I let it go. “The meds—how did you do it? Everyone wants to know. You could be in danger.”

  Keali`i glanced around, answered softly, “Cashed in a few favors, racked up a few IOUs. Knew somebody who knew somebody.”

  “Grandpa and Dad are going to interrogate you,” I warned.

  He nodded.

  My family did grill him, but he insists in the most charming way possible that whatever stunt he pulled that night is none of our business, and he uses endless days of hard work and sweat as a get-out-of-jail-free card. Bottom line is that we need his help running the farm.

  Aukina has been up to the house four times in the past two weeks. Morse code lessons. Dad has promised him the moon for all his effort—days of help down at their homestead whenever his family needs extra hands. I was so focused on getting fluent with the code that it was Tami who pointed out that he’d probably bike up here every three days no matter what. Tami adores him. She’s always fake-swooning when Aukina’s back is to her. Sometimes I can’t help but laugh.

  He and Keali`i met during Aukina’s second visit. Keali`i morphed into typical island-boy mode, playing it sooo cool. I swear, guys on these islands have a switch that goes off when they size each other up. Aukina and I were sitting at the dining table, I was attempting to tap out in dots and dashes the preamble to the Constitution, when Keali`i entered through the kitchen, pulling off leather gloves and
leaving a trail of gritty black mud behind him.

  “An den,” I said to him. “Keali`i, this is Aukina.” Aukina rose from his chair.

  “The code talker.” Keali`i put his gloves down and shook Aukina’s hand gruffly. “Over from O`ahu, yeah? You surf, brah?”

  Aukina nodded.

  “No doubt. We should shred sometime, eh?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “K’den.” Keali`i guzzled a tall glass of water, snatched up his gloves, and went out the door. Aukina smiled after him, winked at me, and we returned to our lesson.

  Aukina set off on his bike for home a few hours later.

  “Why do you have to learn the whole code?” Keali`i asked me that night, playing cards with me and Tami. It was full dark. We lit a couple of candles in the living room, giving me the strange feeling that it was a special occasion. We were drinking cups of warm kava, steeped from a medicinal plant called `awa to relieve sore muscles. “Can’t you just write out a message and memorize the pattern? Or flicker everything while you’re awake?”

  I tried to explain that my commands to the Orchid are much more fluid during space-outs and that my ability to give her complex instructions (flare, dim, flare…pause…dim, flare, dim)—especially when she’s over another part of the globe—requires a focus I’ve never been able to achieve while awake. As for only memorizing a pattern and not bothering with mastering the whole language, I talked with my parents about it but decided that this is too important to leave to recitation alone. “What would I do if I got off track in the middle of a string of commands? I can’t have any confusion on either end of these one-way conversations.”

  “Sure it’s not just an excuse to have Soldier Boy over all the time?” Tami asked.

  “Tami. I want to do this right. That’s all there is to it. Has nothing to do with meeting Mr. Right.”

  When I went to bed, I heard the low murmurings of Tami and Keali`i downstairs. The next day Tami said, blushing, “We almost kissed. He told me he’s never dated a haole.”

  I threw her a shaka. “He’s shy. Let him take his time.”

  I can’t take my time, though. I’ve been studying Morse code for less than three weeks, but I almost feel ready to use it for real. Just one more practice session with Aukina. This time, though, we’re not tapping messages to each other across the dining table. I’ll be up on the roof of the house while he’s a quarter mile upslope. I’m supposed to mirror-flash a passage to him that he doesn’t know in advance. If he’s able to record it perfectly, I graduate, he says.