Queen Liliuokalani: Royal Prisoner

by Ann Hood

  A baby cried.

  The men began to cheer and shout.

  And the door of the big hut opened and a woman ran out, also shouting.

  Everyone was pointing to the sky, ecstatic. There, stretching across the sky and seeming to drop into the distant hills, was a rainbow. Maisie had never seen one like it before. Each color glimmered in the sunlight, and for the first time ever, Maisie could actually see all seven colors, just like her kindergarten teacher had taught them: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Each of them vivid and distinct. The rainbow formed a perfect arc in the middle. It almost looked as if someone could actually walk across it like a beautiful multicolored bridge.

  “What are they saying?” Felix asked.

  Maisie shook her head without looking away from the rainbow.

  “They’re not speaking English,” she said.

  Felix tried to make out what language they were speaking, but the wind suddenly grew even stronger, and lifted him and Maisie again, higher and higher. It took all his strength to keep hold of his sister’s hand. Just when he thought he couldn’t hold on for another second, the wind weakened again—keeping them suspended in the middle of its vortex, but allowing them to see what lay below: a bustling seaport, full of whaling ships and sailors, more half-naked native people, and westerners dressed in high-collared shirts, long-sleeved coats, and pants or skirts.

  “They must be so hot in—” Maisie began.

  But she was interrupted by a long, low sound that stopped all the action below.

  It came from a man in a loincloth holding a giant conch shell to his lips. He blew three times, then lowered the shell and faced the crowd.

  “Aloha!” the conch blower said in a deep, loud voice.

  “Aloha,” the crowd responded.

  “I bring news of the birth today of an ali‘i, a girl born to Keohokālole, who will be hanai to Konia, granddaughter of Kamehameha the First, and High Chief Paki.”

  “Felix!” Maisie said, squeezing her brother’s hand. “We have to pay attention. This must be the information we need.”

  The conch blower continued his announcement.

  “Our high chiefess, Kinau, sister of our king Kamehameha and wife of the governor of Oahu, has named the baby Liliu Loloku Walania Kamakaeha.”

  A murmur spread among the Hawaiians in the crowd.

  “Liliu’s birth is auspicious,” the conch blower proclaimed. “On this cloudless day, at the moment of her birth, a rainbow appeared in the sky.”

  Maisie and Felix looked at each other. They were there when this royal baby was born. They had seen that rainbow.

  “Liliu will be important to Hawaii,” the conch blower said proudly. “Let us rejoice in her arrival. Aloha!”

  “Li-li-u,” Felix said carefully. “That must be who we have to give the crown to.”

  But Maisie looked troubled. “We’re in Hawaii, right? I mean, they said aloha, and even I know that’s what they say in Hawaii.”

  She remembered when Bitsy Beal came back from her vacation on Maui and how every time she came in or walked out of a room she said Aloha! She wore a purple flower behind her ear for a week, too, and a puka shell necklace.

  “You’re right!” Felix said, terrified. “We’re in the wrong place! And we’re stuck in this…this…vortex, and—”

  “You don’t know it’s the wrong place,” Maisie said, trying to hold on to Felix and memorize the name Liliu.

  “We have a crown! There aren’t kings and queens in Hawaii!” Felix said, frustrated. “Hawaii’s a state!”

  Maisie thought about what Great-Uncle Thorne had told her. The anagram could give them information and get them out of a tough spot. Did this qualify as a tough spot? she wondered.

  She looked at her brother’s frightened face, and the seaport far below. Then she tried to land, to push against the force that seemed to be holding them in place. But it was impossible to move of her own will.

  “We have to say it again,” Maisie told Felix.

  Felix thought again of castles and knights.

  “You think that will get us out of here?” he asked hopefully.

  Maisie realized she hadn’t told her brother everything Great-Uncle Thorne had said to her, and when he found out, Felix would be really mad at her. She would just have to deal with that later.

  For now, she took the crown from her inside pocket, and with some effort she managed to twist her body around to face Felix.

  “Hold on and say it again,” she told him.

  “Lame demon,” they said again as their hands gripped the crown.

  The familiar smells and sounds came, and the children began tumbling through time and space.

  Then, for a nanosecond, there was nothing. No sounds. No smells. No movement.

  And then, with a crash, they landed.

  CHAPTER 5

  Liliuokalani

  A girl stared down at Felix. She had a plain face and dark hair that was parted down the middle and braided.

  “Where did you come from?” she asked him.

  Felix knew he was on a beach. He could already feel sand between his toes and hear waves crashing. The girl looked Hawaiian. Good, he thought. We’re still in Hawaii. All they needed to do was find this Liliu and give her the crown.

  “I was sitting here watching he‘e nalu—”

  The girl, seeing his confusion, pointed toward the ocean, where tiny dots bobbed in the water.

  “And all of a sudden here you are,” she finished.

  Her eyes brightened.

  “Are you aumakua?” she asked eagerly.

  “I…I’m Felix Robbins,” Felix answered.

  He stared past the girl. Those dots on the water were coming closer, and he could see now that they were surfers, dozens of them. The waves, ten feet tall or more, curled menacingly toward shore.

  “And I’ve lost my sister,” he added.

  “But where did you come from?” the girl asked again.

  Felix studied her as he tried to think of an answer. Oddly, she wore a long black skirt and a long-sleeved button-down shirt that came all the way up her neck. She even had on a black jacket, despite the heat.

  She narrowed her eyes. “You are so pale, you must be aumakua. They pop up everywhere, and then disappear again just as quickly.”

  “Ghosts? Is that what au…au…”

  The girl laughed as he tried to pronounce the word.

  “Aumakua,” she said again. “Yes. Ghosts.”

  “I’m not a ghost,” Felix said. “But I am worried about my sister.”

  “Where did you leave this sister of yours?”

  Again, Felix searched for an answer.

  “She was right next to me a moment ago,” he finally said helplessly.

  A terrible thought struck Felix. He jumped to his feet and ran toward the water. The waves were gigantic. What if Maisie had landed in there? She might be struggling right now to stay afloat, or to safely catch a wave to shore. Or…He shook his head. He didn’t want to think of all the awful possibilities.

  The girl appeared by his side.

  “You think she’s surfing?” she asked in disbelief.

  Felix turned away from the ocean for an instant. This girl was so persistent, so present. Could she be Liliu? Did lame demon make finding the right person this easy?

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Lydia,” she said.

  Disappointed, he returned his gaze to the ocean, scanning the faces of the surfers riding into shore. But he did not see Maisie among them.

  Shielding his eyes from the bright sun with his hand, he nervously tried to locate his sister.

  Then, suddenly, a commotion broke out on the water, way in the distance. What had been an uneven line of surfers on their boards became a busy circle. The sounds of shouting carried across the balmy air.

  The people on the beach and the surfers who had ridden waves to shore all turned. The surfers began to paddle frantically back toward t
he commotion.

  “What’s going on?” Felix asked when he reached the crowd of onlookers.

  “A girl got hurt,” someone said.

  “Haole,” someone else added.

  Felix began to tremble.

  “Haole?” he asked Lydia.

  “Haole,” she said. “Foreigner.”

  Without thinking, Felix joined the others who were running into the pounding surf.

  “Maisie!” he called as loud as he could. “Maisie!”

  Maisie opened her eyes. Everything around her was spinning and blurry, and her head throbbed. As if from somewhere far, far away, she heard her name being called. But she couldn’t answer. She closed her eyes, hoping that when she opened them again things would be clearer. Where was she? And what had happened to her? As she squinted from beneath one half-opened eyelid, the world around her slowly came into focus. First, she saw Felix looking wide-eyed and terrified, his face pale and his hair sticking up at crazy angles. Then she saw two bare-chested boys peering down at her with serious expressions.

  “She’s waking up!” one of them said, but even though his face was close to hers, his voice sounded faint.

  “Maisie?” Felix asked desperately. “Can you hear me? Maisie?”

  She wanted to tell him that she could hear him, though with the ringing in her ears, everyone’s voice sounded small and distant. But when she opened her mouth, only a small groan came out.

  “Your head,” Felix said. “You banged it pretty bad.”

  How had she banged her head? Maisie wondered. She tried to think, but her brain felt all cloudy and mixed up.

  “Do you know where you are?” the handsomer of the two boys asked her.

  Maisie shook her head slightly, which sent pain shooting into it. She winced.

  “Do you know what year it is?” the other boy asked.

  “Two thousand thirteen,” she croaked.

  The two boys looked at each other, worried.

  Felix laughed nervously. “Boy, did you hit your head hard.”

  “Maybe you time traveled?” the handsome boy said with a little teasing smile.

  “Oh, yes,” Maisie mumbled, closing her eyes again. “I do it all the time.”

  The next time she opened her eyes, only Felix was by her side. Things looked less blurry, but her head still ached.

  “What happened?” she whispered.

  Felix’s face flushed with relief. “You sound better,” he said. Then he frowned at her. “You got hit in the head with a surfboard.”

  “A surfboard?” Maisie repeated, struggling to remember. Why in the world would a surfboard fall on her head?

  “We were in that weird tornado or funnel or whatever it was, and then we said lame demon again, and I landed on the beach, but you landed in the water, and you got hit in the head with a surfboard and practically drowned.” Felix’s words came out in a rush, as if he’d been waiting a long time to spill them.

  “Slow down,” Maisie said. She could not remember being in a funnel or even in the ocean. In fact, looking at the size of those waves, she couldn’t believe she’d go in the water at all.

  “I…I don’t remember,” Maisie said softly.

  Felix leaned closer to her.

  “Maisie, do you know that we’re in Hawaii?” he asked her in a low voice. “In the 1800s?”

  She let his words sink in. They must have time traveled again, she realized. But hadn’t Great-Uncle Thorne sealed off The Treasure Chest?

  “Remember?” Felix was whispering. “You brought a crown with you to New York when we visited Dad? A crown you took from The Treasure Chest?”

  A vague memory of their father in a strange apartment floated across her mind. Then another memory, of a pretty woman by his side.

  “Agatha the Great?” Felix was saying.

  And: “That southern girl living in our apartment?”

  And: “The conch blower?”

  Felix shook her gently. Had she just fallen asleep? Maisie wondered.

  “Maisie?” he was saying. “Do you still have it?”

  “What?” she murmured.

  “The crown!”

  Maisie tried to focus on her brother’s face, but her vision doubled, then blurred. What was he talking about? Southern girls and conch shells and crowns?

  She felt his hands patting her fleece vest.

  “It’s gone!” Felix said, and his voice sounded desperate.

  But Maisie closed her eyes, his voice receding into the darkness that enveloped her.

  Maisie felt a cool cloth on her forehead, and then a soft voice told her that she was at Haleakala.

  She looked up to see a girl at her bedside.

  The girl pressed a finger to her lips, then indicated with a small nod that Felix was sleeping on a mat on the floor beside Maisie.

  “Haleakala is my home,” Lydia continued quietly. “My hanai father, Paki, is here to check on you.”

  “Hanai father?” Maisie asked, her throat dry and scratchy.

  “You are in Hawaii,” the girl said. “In the palace of the king.”

  Surprised, Maisie tried to sit up and look at her surroundings. But as soon as she did, a sharp pain jolted her skull.

  “Ouch!” she said, easing herself back down.

  “You foolishly went into the surf at Waikiki Beach, and you were floundering about when a surfboard crashed down on you and knocked you out. Lot saved your life,” she added.

  Funny, Maisie thought. The girl spoke with a clipped British accent and wore western-style clothes, but she was clearly Hawaiian.

  “My hanai father,” Lydia said again. She leaned closer to Maisie and explained, “Here we have a tradition of giving a baby away to other parents in order to improve its status and strengthen bonds between royal families.”

  Even though it didn’t quite make sense to her, Maisie managed to nod before Lydia stepped aside and the largest man Maisie had ever seen appeared in her place. Paki stood at least six feet four inches tall and must have weighed over three hundred pounds. His hair was red and his skin was fair.

  Paki smiled gently down at Maisie.

  “We teach our youth that when we he‘e nalu together, we are sharing the nalu of mother earth,” he said, his voice lyrical and kind.

  “He‘e nalu,” Lydia interpreted. “Surfing.”

  “You see, youth have the opportunity to wash away their past mistakes and troubles by returning to the water, by he‘e nalu.”

  “I don’t think I meant to surf—” Maisie began.

  “When we surf together,” Paki continued, “we become family. Therefore, you are now part of our family, Maisie. You will stay here with us until you are healed.”

  “Thank you,” Maisie said sleepily.

  Paki’s laugh was more of a low rumble. “Sleep,” he said. “Heal, little one.”

  In the two days before Maisie began to wake up, Felix stayed by her side. They were in the royal palace, a place of contradictions. Some rooms were filled with heavy wooden furniture, oil paintings, and even white linen tablecloths, crystal glasses, and heavy silver—not unlike what they had at Elm Medona. But other rooms were spare, with tatami mats on the floors and low tables where meals were eaten not with silverware but with your hands, or with hollowed coconuts for scooping poi, the thick mashed taro root that seemed to accompany every meal.

  All the royal children lived at Haleakala, Felix had learned. Lydia told him that for years they had lived in a boarding school called the Chiefs’ School in Honolulu that had been run by the Cookes. But the school had closed and the children had returned to the palace.

  “The ones who survived,” she’d added sadly.

  She went on to explain that when the westerners came to Hawaii, they brought diseases with them. A measles epidemic had wiped out a fifth of the population, including her brother Moses.

  “The westerners,” she added, “have changed everything.”

  Felix had squirmed uncomfortably beneath her solemn gaze. He had felt
this way before, when he and Maisie landed in South Dakota with Crazy Horse and watched the Lakota struggle to keep their land and their traditions. Was the same thing happening here? he wondered.

  Ever since he and Maisie first went into The Treasure Chest and ended up in 1836 with Clara Barton, Felix had become aware of how little he knew about history, despite the As he always received in social studies. That feeling had returned again and again during his two days with Lydia and the other royal children. All he’d known before landing here was that Hawaii was the fiftieth state. But slowly he was learning that many Hawaiians did not want to be part of the United States. In fact, Lydia had told him that Hawaii had been briefly under British rule.

  “We just want to be left alone,” she’d said with a sigh.

  Without Maisie to run his ideas by, Felix spent too much time alone, wandering the palace rooms or the courtyard outside. He worried about his sister’s injury, even though the king had called in a kahuna to check on her. The kahuna had mumbled some words over Maisie, splashed her with oil, and ordered bed rest. Still, Felix wouldn’t feel relieved until his sister was back to her old self.

  He worried, too, about the fate of these people who had taken them in. The fate, in fact, of all of Hawaii. For Felix knew that, despite their dissatisfaction with westerners, and the United States in particular, Hawaii was going to become a state. He had no idea when, however, because once again he’d taken history for granted and hadn’t paid attention to details like that.

  And of course, he worried about the crown. He grew more and more certain as time passed that it had sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Without it, he and Maisie were surely stuck here for good. Even though Felix had wanted to escape his father and Agatha the Great, he didn’t want to escape forever. He had to find the crown.

  But how? Felix asked himself over and over as he walked beneath the tamarind tree in the courtyard or sat beside his sleeping sister’s bed.

  A trip for the children to go bowling was planned for the afternoon. There were seven royal children ranging in age from thirteen to seventeen. They called themselves ali‘i, which meant “royalty.” All of them had lived together at the Chiefs’ School and learned English there. Now they lived here at the palace. Felix had a hard time keeping straight who was really brother and sister and who was hanai. But it didn’t seem to matter to them. “Only westerners find this important,” Lot had told him when Felix tried to write it down one day.