by Ann Hood
Felix was hesitant to leave his sister’s side, but Lydia’s hanai mother, Konia, convinced him that Maisie was being well cared for. Certainly their home, Haleakala, was a lovely place to get better. There were big wraparound porches on both stories, and trees and flowers bloomed everywhere on the grounds. The air inside and out was fragrant.
As they left for the bowling alley, the oldest girl, Bernice, pointed to one of the trees, which had dense green leaves and brown pods hanging from the branches. Unlike Lydia, who was plain-looking and quiet, Bernice was one of the most beautiful girls Felix had ever seen. When she smiled, two deep dimples appeared in her cheeks. Felix was glad that she smiled often.
“That tamarind tree was planted to commemorate my birth,” Bernice said proudly.
“So Paki and Konia are your hanai parents, too?” Felix asked her.
“No,” Bernice explained, “I am their only birth daughter.”
“Her mother, Konia, is the granddaughter of King Kamehameha the First,” Lot said.
“Which means Bernice could be queen someday,” Lydia said.
When she said that, Felix’s stomach dropped. Bernice couldn’t be queen without a crown, could she? And besides, that crown was meant for someone named Liliu, not for Bernice. Of that Felix was certain.
“If the Americans leave us alone,” Lot was saying.
Suddenly, Felix got an idea. It was the kind of idea he would normally run past Maisie first. But since he couldn’t, he plunged ahead.
“I guess every king is named Kame…hame…ha,” Felix said haltingly.
This sent everyone into a round of laughter.
Lydia patted Felix’s arm. “Kamehameha the Great united our islands,” she told him. “His son—”
“I get it,” Felix said, blushing. “Each king’s son is named Kamehameha. But could someone else become queen? Other than Bernice?”
“Unlikely,” Lot said.
“For example, Lydia is a high chiefess,” Bernice told Felix. “Her lineage goes all the way back to high chiefs under Kamehameha the Great. Still, too many things would have to happen before she would ever become queen.”
By now they had reached the busy streets of Honolulu. Felix was surprised by how changed they were from his viewpoint in the time funnel. What he had seen then were mostly thatched huts with just a few western-looking buildings, many bare-chested Hawaiians, lots of sailors, and stern-faced missionaries dressed in black. Now, all the grass huts were gone, and in their place stood houses and businesses that looked very much like the ones on the streets of Newport. There were no more native Hawaiians in their traditional clothes. Instead, they wore western clothes, although theirs had patterns of palm trees and flowers.
On Punchbowl Street, Kawaiaha‘o Church rose above all the other buildings.
“That sits on top of an ancient spring,” Lot said, glaring at the church. “Our people dove for that coral at a reef, then dragged the rocks here to build a church. Some of them weighed more than a ton!”
“Look!” Bernice said. She pointed across the street to where a new storefront had a freshly painted sign reading MONTGOMERY’S.
A man with thick dark hair and a thick beard stood there, jangling keys. His bright blue eyes lit up when he saw the royal children approaching. Felix assumed he was a missionary, like all the westerners he had met here so far.
“Mr. Herman Melville,” Lydia said. “Good day.”
“Have you defected from the church yet?” Mr. Melville asked.
“Mr. Melville vehemently opposes the missionaries,” Bernice told Felix.
Surprised, Felix asked why.
The man peered down at Felix. “They’ve defiled the people here, young man!” he roared. “They’ve suppressed all of their traditions, their culture, their sport, their very nature! Do you see that monstrosity across the street?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “They used the Hawaiians to build that, and their roads, and every other thing they desire. It’s a sin what they’re doing.”
“Mr. Melville came here on a whaler from Massachusetts,” Bernice told Felix.
“I took the long way around,” Mr. Melville said with a grin.
“He’s been to Tahiti and just about everywhere else in the South Pacific,” Lot said.
“And he sets the pins at the bowling alley,” Lydia added happily.
“Not anymore, I’m afraid,” Mr. Melville said, holding up the keys. “I’m now employed as a clerk for Mr. Montgomery’s store here.”
“Well, we’ll miss you then, because we’re going bowling,” Lydia said.
They all said good-bye to Mr. Melville and continued to the bowling alley. Bowling, it seemed to Felix, had not changed much over time. Except for the fact that there were nine pins instead of ten, and that a man reset the pins each time, the game and the rules were the same as when he and Maisie used to go bowling at Bowlmor Lanes with their parents in New York. Still, all the time they bowled, the name Herman Melville stuck in his head. He was certain he had heard it somewhere before. But with the noise of the balls crashing into the pins, and the excited shrieks of the children, Felix could not remember where.
When the game was finished, they began to walk back to the palace, and Felix took the opportunity of their silence to put his idea to the test.
“Do any of you happen to know someone named Liliu?” he asked, certain from what he’d seen in the vortex that she was the person he and Maisie needed to find.
All the royal children stopped walking and stared at him.
“Why, you know her, too,” Bernice said finally.
“I do?” Felix asked.
“Didn’t you know that the missionaries made us all take English names?” Lydia asked.
Felix shook his head.
“They did,” Lydia continued.
She took a step closer to Felix and smiled.
“I am Liliu,” Lydia said proudly.
Despite the hot sun, Felix shivered.
He was standing just a few inches from the person he knew would someday become the queen of Hawaii.
CHAPTER 6
Restoration Day
It took almost a week for Maisie to recover. With her headaches and sleepiness, she mostly stayed in bed. All the royal children visited her, and even Paki stopped by every morning, but she grew too tired to do much more than listen to their reports about life in Honolulu and around the court. Felix split his time between sitting at his sister’s side and joining the others for luaus, trips to the beach, or more bowling expeditions. Despite the friction between some of the Hawaiians and the missionaries and westerners, life here was easy. The food was fresh and plentiful, and everyone liked to have fun.
The longer Felix stayed, the more he came to understand and appreciate the concept of aloha. Before he’d come to Hawaii, he thought the word meant just “hello” and “good-bye.” But he quickly came to understand that it meant much more. It was almost a way of life. Lydia had explained to him that aloha was a way to spread goodness to other people. Letting him and Maisie stay at the palace was aloha, Felix decided.
When Maisie grew stronger and got her memory back, Felix knew he needed to tell her that he’d found Liliu. And that the crown was lost.
The first thing was easy.
“She doesn’t seem very…I don’t know…queenlike, does she?” Maisie said.
“I know,” Felix agreed. “And not only is Bernice better queen material, she actually is the one in line. Unless a million things happen to change that,” he added.
“So it’s unlikely that Liliu will be queen?” Maisie asked.
He nodded. Felix could see her putting all the pieces together.
“I guess,” she said finally, “that a million things are going to happen.”
“I guess,” Felix said with a sigh.
“Well, let’s give her the crown and see what happens,” Maisie said.
“Um…,” Felix began.
Maisie patted her inside fleece pocket and frowned.
“I know my brain got a little scrambled,” she said, “but where is the crown?”
Felix should have prepared an explanation. But he hadn’t. And now his sister was looking at him, waiting.
“Uh,” he said. “About the crown.”
“You already gave it to her?” Maisie said, still not angry.
Not yet, Felix thought.
“Nooo,” he admitted.
“What then?”
“You had it,” he tried.
“So?”
“And you…well, you landed in the ocean. With huge waves.”
A shadow fell over Maisie’s face.
“Felix,” she said, “are you telling me the crown…”
She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. She thought of the Pacific Ocean and how big and deep it was. She thought of the crown floating to the bottom of that big, deep ocean.
Felix met his sister’s eyes.
“Maisie,” he said, “the crown is gone.”
The good news, Felix tried to convince Maisie—and himself—was that the shard was still tucked into the corner of Maisie’s pocket.
“Big deal!” she said. “We don’t even know what the shard can do. We know we need that crown to get home.”
“But,” Felix offered weakly, “we do still have the shard.”
His sister just glared at him.
Luckily, Lydia came in then and Maisie had to at least try to be nice.
“Guess what day tomorrow is?” Lydia asked them. She didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s Restoration Day!” she announced.
Maisie looked confused, but Felix remembered what Lydia had told him.
“The day Hawaii got its independence back from England?” he said.
“Wait,” Maisie said. “England ruled Hawaii?”
“Very briefly,” Lydia explained. “Our king, Kamehameha, relinquished our islands to Britain several years ago. I remember the day so well. All of us from the Chiefs’ School had to march down to the fort and watch them lower and replace the Hawaiian flag with the Union Jack. Although our hearts were broken, Kamehameha promised to win back our islands for us, and he did.”
She smiled at Maisie and Felix, and although Lydia was a plain girl, that smile made her look as beautiful as Bernice.
“Every year on the anniversary, there’s a big celebration. And the anniversary is tomorrow. We call it Restoration Day because it was the day our islands were restored to us,” she said.
“What do you do to celebrate?” Maisie asked.
She wondered if it would be like the Fourth of July, with fireworks and parades.
“You’ll see tomorrow,” Lydia told them.
The next morning, the sky was not the beautiful cloudless blue it had been. Instead, low gray clouds threatened rain.
“I hope we get there before the rain starts,” Maisie said as they climbed into a coach with Lydia, Victoria, and Emma.
The coach made its way through the crowded streets of Honolulu. It appeared that everyone was heading to the Restoration Day celebration.
By the time they reached the Nu‘uanu picnic grounds, the rain had begun. But no one seemed to notice or care. The streets were lined with people waiting for the parade that was moving toward them to arrive. And Maisie and Felix, in one of the royal coaches with three of the ali‘i children, were part of that parade.
The native people stood beneath the thatched roofs of two large pavilions, their arms full of flowers.
The parade was led by horses ridden by the older ali‘i children. The people in the parade—even the horses—were decked out in vivid yellow and red and blue, covered in ribbons and flowers. Behind the older children came their royal carriage. Maisie noticed how proudly Lydia sat, her back erect and her face composed. At the sight of them, the onlookers began to throw flowers into the carriage. Lydia unfurled the Hawaiian flag, which looked a lot like the British flag to Maisie. It had red, white, and blue stripes, and a rectangle in the upper left corner with the Union Jack in it. Lydia waved it wildly.
The carriage behind theirs was even grander. As soon as it appeared, the Hawaiians cheered so loudly that Maisie’s and Felix’s ears rang.
“Kamehameha!” the crowd shouted, bowing and throwing still more flowers into the king’s carriage, where he sat with the queen, smiling out at everyone.
When Maisie turned around to look, she couldn’t take her eyes off the king. Tall and handsome, with olive skin and a fat dark moustache, he wore an enormous cape covered in brilliant yellow feathers. But Felix was riveted by the pageantry that followed the king’s royal carriage. Behind it came what appeared to be a thousand riders on horseback, all of them wearing ribbons and flowers. And behind them came a few thousand more men on horseback who were less decorated but still as colorful as all the others. Neither Maisie nor Felix had ever seen such a grand sight.
The coaches came to a stop, and Maisie and Felix joined the ali‘i children standing in two rows.
A tall man in a yellow cape stood before them and saluted.
The name John ‘Ī‘ī was whispered in the pavilion with great reverence.
John ‘Ī‘ī dropped the cape from his shoulders, revealing the most impressive muscles Felix had ever seen. The crowd gasped at the sight of him, bare-chested and walking purposefully into an arena where twenty men holding spears waited.
“What’s he going to do with those guys?” Maisie asked Lydia.
“Fight them,” Lydia said matter-of-factly.
“But he doesn’t have a weapon!” Maisie said.
“It’s the tradition of ancient warriors,” Lydia answered, never taking her eyes from John ‘Ī‘ī. “He must stand alone and unarmed.”
“But they’ll kill him!” Felix said, covering his eyes.
When the crowd cheered, he peeked between his fingers and watched John ‘Ī‘ī catch the first spear as if it were the easiest thing to do. The spears began to fly, aimed with great force and speed at what seemed like every part of his body at the same time. Effortlessly, John ‘Ī‘ī caught each spear, and flung them back with equal force and amazing gracefulness.
Felix let his hand drop from his eyes, and watched in awe as every one of the spearmen were sent from the field. As the twentieth one was driven out, everyone—even the westerners—cheered so exuberantly that the ground shook with the power of their applause and shouting.
Maisie was still trembling with a combination of fear and excitement when a guard arrived to escort the children to the royal banquet.
As part of aloha, commoners were invited to eat with the king and queen. Maisie and Felix found spots to sit on tatami mats at one of the long, low tables. They feasted on roast suckling pig and fried fish and, of course, the ever-present poi.
Licking her fingers, Maisie caught sight of the adjacent room. It was full of haole—westerners—sitting on beautifully carved wooden chairs at a table draped in white linen, eating from china plates with real silverware and crystal glasses.
Lydia followed Maisie’s gaze, and touched her arm lightly.
“It’s aloha,” she said in a soft voice.
Maisie frowned. “How can it be aloha?” she asked.
Lydia just shook her head.
“Maisie,” she said carefully, “my people lived happily for thousands of years before Captain James Cook arrived here in 1778. We tended our land and worshipped our gods, and we were happy. The kahuna—the priests—set the kapu, which were all the things that were forbidden, and we followed these rules. Until the foreigners came. Then, Kamehameha the Second observed the haole men and women sitting together and ignoring the gods’ wishes, and he saw there were no negative consequences for their actions. No tidal waves or thunder or fire or deaths. So he lifted the kapu. When the missionaries arrived, they found my people without beliefs, struggling. It was easy to convert us,” she added sadly.
Maisie tried to make sense of all she was saying.
“Do you wish the ka…kapu were still in place?”
&nb
sp; “I wish my people and our kingdom weren’t getting erased,” she said solemnly.
Maisie wished she could reassure her. But Hawaii would become a state, and the changes Lydia feared were, indeed, inevitable.
“Some people believe it’s only a matter of time before your country claims us,” Lydia was saying.
She took Maisie’s hands in hers and looked her right in the eyes.
“But I can’t imagine it. Hawaii a state? My kingdom gone?” Lydia paused. “Can you?” she asked finally.
CHAPTER 7
Yellow Feathers
“Sleep well,” Lydia told them when they returned to the palace that night. “You won’t be getting much sleep tomorrow night.”
“What’s tomorrow night?” Felix asked.
“We’re going to Hawai‘i, and I thought you might want to come along.”
“Aren’t we already on Hawaii?” Maisie asked.
“Hawaii is made up of eight islands,” Lydia explained. “This one is Oahu. The capital, Lahaina, is on Maui. And the biggest island is Hawai‘i. It’s called that. The Big Island.”
“Where is that?” Felix asked. He tried to hide his trepidation, but when Lydia laughed at him, he realized she saw that he was wary.
“It is very far across the ocean,” Lydia said. “We will get there by canoe.”
“We’re canoeing across the ocean?” Felix said, panicked.
“That sounds great,” Maisie said.
“Do we have to paddle the canoe?” Felix said.
“We don’t paddle it,” Lydia explained. “There are ten rowers and ten sailors who do it for us. It will take most of the night.”
As she left the room, she added, “So get a good rest tonight.”
Maisie loved the idea of this new adventure. Boarding a giant canoe—it must be giant to fit so many people—and sailing through the dark night to a different island where the king waited for them sounded like the perfect way to spend their time.
