The place went bazookalolo!
That hall was as loud as all six Blue Angel fighter jets blasting low over your head.
Dad’s drummer started hammering on his drums as the curtain rose.
Boom! Pok!
Boom-boom, pok!
Boom! Pok!
Boom-boom, pok!
The crowd went wild as the band started off with Dad’s last big song, “I Love Sunshine Pop.”
The concert hall was alive with everyone hooting and screaming. It was a song that was so easy to sing along with, and that’s just what Shayla and I were doing.
“Dom, dom, dombie-do-dombie-dombie-do…”
Shayla grabbed my arm and squeezed.
Song after song, nonstop, the crowd stood and cheered and sang along, and when, two hours later, the concert ended with “Rocket Ride,” the concert hall felt like some cool alien monster, rocking and rolling, totally wild.
“I wanna go on a rocket ride,
Past the moon and out the other side.
Sailing through a billion diamond stars—
Call it crazy but you got to get away for a while.”
Shayla knew all the words. We sang them as loud as we could. We jumped and danced and clapped, and when it was over we staggered from laughing so hard. It was so much fun I forgot all about Shayla being the pest from school.
“Calvin! This was the best concert ever!”
“Yeah. For me too, Shayla … me too.”
At the end of the show the band left the stage, but the audience kept clapping and shouting and whistling and whooping.
Dad came up to us, his hair plastered with sweat. He ran his arm over his forehead and gave us a huge grin. “Hear that, Cal? They loved it!”
“Yeah! So did we, right, Shayla?”
“It was so, so amazing!”
“Well, hang on a minute, Shayla, because we’re going back out there to do one more song, and I have something I want you two to do for me. You willing to help us out?”
“Yeah!” we both said.
“Zeppo!” he called. “The Frisbees.”
Feet started stomping. The crowd wanted Little Johnny Coconut to come back out.
Zeppo ran over with two boxes of fluorescent-green Frisbees. He pulled one out. “Like it?”
Printed on it in dark blue was a coconut tree on a small island, and Little Johnny Coconut’s Rocket Ride Tour.
“Yeah!” I said. “These are great! What are they for?”
“For you and Shayla to zing out into the audience during our last song. You watch … the place will go nuts!”
“You mean, go out there?”
“Piece of cake. You can do it.”
I looked at Shayla.
She beamed.
Man, I was suddenly so nervous I thought I would faint. Go out there in front of all those people?
Zeppo handed us the boxes of Frisbees.
I looked at Dad. “So, we just throw them out there?”
“Spread them around. Try to get them all over so no section feels left out. Do your best.” Dad grinned and called to his band. “Let’s go!”
They jogged back onstage. The place roared like thunder in the mountains. So wild it gave me chills.
Little Johnny cranked on his guitar and let loose on a song called “Black Cadillac.”
“Zip ’em!” Zeppo shouted, pushing us out from behind the curtain.
Shayla and I ran out with the boxes of Frisbees. Lights exploded in my eyes.
I couldn’t see anything. I raised my hand to block the glare.
Little Johnny sang, “I love my black Cadillac, my shiny Cadillac, yeah, just my buddies and me…”
Shayla grabbed a handful of Frisbees and shoved a bunch at me. She ran to the other side of the stage. When the audience saw what we were about to do, everyone started leaping up and waving for us to throw the Frisbees their way.
Zing!
The first one I tossed went toward Darci. Stella caught it and gave it to her. Darci held it high, jumping up and down to the music.
Zing!
Zing!
Zing!
It was so much fun I couldn’t even believe it. What had I been so nervous about? Shayla was zinging those Frisbees way out into the audience. She was dancing really good, too, almost like she was part of the show. It made me smile. Shayla was a rock-star dancer!
Ho!
“Black Cadillac” ended right after we tossed our last Frisbees. Perfect. Dad and the band took a bow and motioned for us to join them. Holy moley!
Shayla and I ran off the stage with the band.
It was absolutely the biggest thrill of my life.
“Wow,” I said to Dad. “You do this every night?”
He laughed. “Not every night, but close. You two did great out there, I mean really, really great!”
Shayla and I looked at each other. She couldn’t have smiled any bigger if she’d wanted to.
“Here,” Dad said, handing his guitar pick to Shayla. It was green, like the Frisbees, with the coconut tree on it in blue. “Something to remind you of tonight.”
Shayla squeezed it. “I’ll never forget this, ever!”
Dad winked at me.
I could hear people talking and laughing as they slowly made their way out of the concert hall.
Dad and his band fell into some folding chairs. Zeppo tossed them ice-cold bottles of water.
Man, the sound of that crowd would stay with me for my whole entire life. And the sight of Shayla, squeezing that tiny guitar pick.
See? the little voice said. See what you did?
Yeah.
It was kind of like seeing a falling star.
One minute it’s there, so surprising.
Then it’s gone.
But deep inside, you know you’ll never forget what you saw.
That night Little Johnny Coconut and his band had to catch a flight back to the mainland. We said goodbye backstage, after celebrating the great show.
Our time with Dad was running out.
Marissa crouched down to Darci while reaching over to take my hand. “I just can’t wait to have you two come visit us in Las Vegas. Boy, do I have things to show you.”
Darci and I hugged her.
Just before everyone left, Dad pulled me and Darci aside. “Listen, you two. I want you to know that I’m going to be a better father to you, and that’s a promise. I’ve missed too much, and coming here has been a real wake-up call for me.”
“You’re already a good dad,” I said. “We just don’t get to see you.”
He smiled and hugged us both. “That’s going to change.”
“Oh,” I said, remembering. “Can you do one more thing?”
“Anything.”
I pulled Tito’s CD out of my pocket. “A kid at school wants your autograph.”
“Sure.”
Dad signed it and handed it back. Sometimes Tito could be okay, I guess.
“Bye, Dad.”
He hugged me and Darci.
Then he was gone.
I cruised through Sunday in a daze.
Man oh man oh man.
When I went down to the beach with Willy and Julio, we were still talking about the concert. Willy said, “I can’t believe Little Johnny Coconut is your dad.”
I grunted. “Sometimes I can’t, either. On that stage he was like nobody I’d ever seen before.”
“Crazy wild!” Julio added.
“What was it like, up there with the band?” Willy asked.
“Flat-out unreal!”
The next morning at school as the buses were arriving, I was hanging out by the cafeteria with Julio when Bozo zipped up on his old one-speed bike. He skidded to a stop, spraying dirt all over our feet. He got off and locked his bike with a fat chain.
“Who’s going to steal that junks?” Julio whispered.
That made me laugh.
Bozo looked up.
“Whatchoo laughing at? You just look in a mirror?”
>
He cackled at his own lame joke.
Then he got serious. “Answer me what I asked, punk.” He put his hand on my chest. “Talk before I turn your face into a pancake.”
“I wasn’t laughing.”
“I heard you.”
“Okay, I was laughing, but not at you.”
Bozo grabbed my shirt and pulled me up, his face about an inch from mine.
I struggled to get free.
“Hey, hey, hey,” somebody behind me said. “Whatchoo doing to my friend? Let um go.” Tito squeezed between me and Bozo.
“This punk was laughing at me,” Bozo said. “I going make him sorry.”
“Let um go,” Tito said.
“But he—”
“Let um go, I said.”
Bozo pushed me away and let go. My shirt was all wrinkled up.
Tito smoothed it out with his hand. “Bozo kine of touchy sometimes. I mean, when you look ugly as him you got to be touchy, ah?”
He barked out a laugh.
Bozo scowled.
I pulled Tito’s CD out of my pocket. “I got it signed for you.”
“Ho!” Tito held it up. “Cool!”
He put his arm around my shoulder and winked at my friends. “Lissen, little bugs. I going give you a gift. For all of this week, ev’ry day, ev’ry minute, here at Kailua El, nobody going bother you. I promise. So relax, ah? Just cruise.”
Tito shook his head, smiling. “I owe you, Coco-rock-and-roller-dude, and when I owe,
I pay.”
“Owe me for what? The CD?”
“You brought me and Lovey together, and I not going forget that, no.”
He thought Lovey liked him? Huh. Maybe she did.
Tito let me go and reached out his palm for me to slap it.
I hesitated, then slapped.
“There you go!” Tito said, and walked away with Bozo.
When they passed Lovey Martino, she gave Tito a nod, like, That was nice.
“Hey, Lovey,” he called. “I going play slack key for you soon. We go beach, you and me. I bring my guitar. How’s about it?”
Lovey rolled her eyes.
Tito spread out his hands and said to the whole schoolyard, “She loves me!”
Rubin and Julio cracked up.
I don’t know why, but just then I thought of Shayla’s guitar pick. It made me smile.
When the bell rang, we headed to Mr. Purdy’s room.
“Hey, Manly,” I said to our class centipede as I slid into my seat. “Wassup?”
Manly scurried toward me in his terrarium. So what’s next, Calvin? he seemed to say. You humans put on a pretty good show.
The next Saturday Darci and I went to the beach, taking Darci’s Rocket Ride Frisbee. While we were tossing it around, three second-grade boys came running up.
“Hi, Darci, can we throw it, too?” one kid asked.
Darci beamed, so I handed the Frisbee to the boy. “Sure.”
I went up to sit in the shade of the ironwood trees. I put my hands behind my head, leaned back, and looked out over all that calm blue ocean. Today things weren’t hamajang.
Nope. Everything was darn near perfect.
A Hawaii Fact:
The Big Island of Hawaii is home to the world’s biggest telescope. It’s on the top of Mauna Kea. The Mauna Kea Observatory stands at an altitude of 13,796 feet.
A Calvin Fact:
Julio read somewhere that this is the most tongue-twisty thing you can say in English: “The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick.” Ho! You can hardly even think it, let alone say it! Try it. I dare you.
Graham Salisbury is the author of seven other Calvin Coconut books: Trouble Magnet, The Zippy Fix, Dog Heaven, Zoo Breath, Hero of Hawaii, Kung Fooey, and Man Trip, as well as several novels for older readers, including the award-winning Lord of the Deep, Blue Skin of the Sea, Under the Blood-Red Sun, Eyes of the Emperor, House of the Red Fish, and Night of the Howling Dogs. Graham Salisbury grew up in Hawaii. Calvin Coconut and his friends attend the same school Graham did—Kailua Elementary School. Graham now lives in Portland, Oregon, with his family. Visit him on the Web at grahamsalisbury.com and calvincoconut.com.
To listen to Little Johnny Coconut sing songs from Rocket Ride, go to grahamsalisbury.com/music.
Jacqueline Rogers has illustrated more than one hundred books for young readers over the past twenty-five years. She studied illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design. You can visit her at jacquelinerogers.com.
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