Queen Liliuokalani: Royal Prisoner

by Ann Hood

  “Wow,” Maisie said. “A canoe trip across the ocean with twenty people rowing for us. I kind of like being royalty.”

  “So it’s safe?” Felix asked her.

  “Oh, don’t be so nervous,” Maisie scolded him. “It’s perfectly safe.”

  Felix wasn’t so sure.

  “Maybe we’ll find the crown floating in the water,” he mumbled.

  “The crown,” Maisie groaned. “We need to figure out how to find it.”

  Before Felix could agree, she added, “When we get back from the Big Island.”

  To Maisie and Felix’s surprise, not only were they and Lydia and ten sailors and ten rowers going to Hawai‘i, all the royal children were going. The canoe actually looked like a long, giant tree that had been hollowed out, with the ten rowers standing inside, bare-chested, paddles at the ready. Maisie and Felix found places together on the bark floor.

  Felix noticed that the older kids stuck together at the prow of the boat. From where he sat, he had a clear, unobstructed view of Bernice. She had woven flowers in her hair, and as she laughed with Victoria, her dimples deepened.

  His reverie was interrupted by the oldest, David, who thrust a coconut into his hands. The top had been sliced off.

  “Drink,” David instructed, lifting his own coconut and gulping its milk.

  Felix took a big swallow and leaned back. Maybe this wouldn’t be too terrible, he thought. He only hoped he wouldn’t get seasick, the way he usually did.

  As the canoe glided across the waves, Lydia and Emma started to weave flowers into Maisie’s and each other’s hair. The sky quickly grew dark, and Lydia sang a Hawaiian song in the sweetest voice Maisie had ever heard. With the fragrant flowers in her hair, and her stomach full of the snacks that got passed around, Maisie stared up at the starry sky above them.

  “What a pretty song, Lydia,” Maisie said. “What does it mean?”

  Instead of answering, Lydia began to sing again, this time in English.

  “Profuse bloom glowing as a delight, and lei for Kamakaeha,” she sang.

  “It’s her song,” Emma whispered to Maisie.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Konia, her hanai mother, wrote it for her. It’s her name song,” Emma explained.

  Maisie knew she had heard the word hanai before, but she couldn’t remember what it meant.

  “Hanai?” she asked Emma.

  “The people her parents gave her to,” Emma said simply.

  That’s right, Maisie thought. On that day at the seaport, the conch blower had announced that the royal baby had been given to parents of a higher royal stature. And Lydia was that royal baby.

  “Listen,” Emma whispered to Maisie as Lydia sang, “Ka‘ala wears a lei of rain and flowers…”

  When Lydia finished her song, Emma moved closer to Maisie and whispered into her ear.

  “You see, in the song Konia gave Lydia her legacy: the flowers, the rain, the mountains and valleys.” Emma leaned back and sighed her dreamy sigh. “There could be no richer legacy than this.”

  Soon, Emma fell asleep, her head bobbing against Maisie’s shoulder. All around Maisie, the sounds of sleeping children mingled with the lapping of the oars in the water. Finally, she closed her eyes, too, her mind filled with images of flowers and mountaintops, and Lydia’s sweet song.

  The canoe was met the next morning by people offering fruit and alohas. As each person stepped onto the beach, someone put a lei around his or her neck. Felix rubbed the sleep from his eyes. In the distance, gray smoke rose from an enormous mountain. Lot noticed him staring at it.

  “Kīlauea,” Lot said.

  “What?”

  “The volcano,” Lot said, pointing to the mountain.

  “Is it…erupting?” Felix asked. From the looks of it, that was exactly what was happening.

  Lot nodded. “That’s where we’re going. To give offerings to Pele.”

  He started to walk off, but Felix asked him to wait.

  “You mean, we’re going into an active volcano?” Felix said.

  He had not wanted to come on this trip in the first place, and now he was going to have to go to a volcano while it was erupting. He thought of the way he’d seen volcanoes erupt on TV, the tops of the mountains blowing off and molten lava spilling down their sides. Terrified people trying to outrun it. And not always succeeding.

  But Lot laughed. “Not in it, exactly,” he said. “We’ll just hike to it and throw our offerings into the crater.”

  Felix swallowed hard. “But it’s okay if we stay behind, right?”

  “That would anger Pele,” Lot said seriously. “She is the goddess of the volcano. You don’t want to upset her, do you?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. As Felix watched Lot walk away, he wondered what would happen if you upset the goddess of the volcano. Whatever it was, he felt certain it would not be good.

  Glancing at Kīlauea again, Felix shivered. He decided not to look in that direction again for the rest of the day. Maybe, he thought, he would even be able to figure out a way to stay behind and not anger Pele.

  During dinner later that day, two men, naked except for bark loincloths, sat before them and began to play the drums, banging with their palms and chanting.

  From behind the palm trees, a girl appeared. Her dark hair, woven with flowers, hung down to the small of her back. Her white blouse was loose, and slipped off her shoulders as she moved. Maisie could see her hips swaying beneath her full skirt. A bracelet of shells clinked softly from her ankles.

  “She is the court hula dancer,” Lydia explained. “Hula,” she added, “is Hawaii. It is the story of our creation. The story of our life.”

  Maisie watched, mesmerized, as the girl’s hands undulated.

  “The waves,” Lydia interpreted.

  The hula dancer’s arms lifted, her hands making circular motions.

  “Mountains,” Lydia said.

  Soon, a story revealed itself through her dance. With Lydia softly narrating for her, Maisie saw how the hula told about the eruption of volcanoes, the birth of rainbows and flowers, even love stories. By the time the girl had finished dancing, the sun was beginning to set. She placed her palms together in front of her and bowed her head slightly.

  “Mahalo,” Lydia murmured.

  Maisie knew that meant “thank you,” and she quietly said it, too. “Mahalo.”

  As she watched the hula dancer slip away, Maisie was glad hula had not vanished when the United States took over Hawaii. If it had disappeared, Hawaii’s story would have disappeared as well.

  The next morning, servants arrived leading horses for the ride up to the volcano.

  “Are you ready for the ride through the jungle?” Lydia asked Felix.

  “It’s a jungle?” Felix said, his heart sinking.

  Lydia pointed toward the volcano, partially covered in gray smoke.

  “We are going straight up there, through the jungle.”

  “Great,” Felix said under his breath as he climbed on top of a horse behind his sister.

  Try not to think about jungles, he told himself as they bounced along. Try not to think about volcanoes or the goddess of volcanoes or—

  “Look!” Maisie cried. “There’s something…alive…moving around in that tree! A…a…monster!”

  Everyone burst out laughing.

  High in the trees, climbing among the red blossoms, the creature jumped from branch to branch.

  “It is a monster,” she said, which made everyone laugh even harder.

  “That’s a man,” Lydia said, peering into the trees. “He’s the royal feather gatherer.”

  Maisie blushed.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” Lydia told her. “How would you know? But watch him. He’s smearing sticky stuff on the branches to hold the birds there when they land.”

  “Like Velcro,” Maisie said.

  “Vel— what?” Victoria asked.

  “You know,” Maisie said, but of course they didn�
�t know. She shook her head. “It’s an American…bird,” she said.

  “What’s going to happen when a bird gets stuck there?” Felix asked, not liking the sound of this.

  “Watch,” Lydia said.

  The man climbed down the tree and waited. Soon, a dozen birds were stuck there on the branches, flapping their wings and squawking. The man climbed the tree again and lifted each bird’s wing, carefully plucking a feather from it. He took the feathers and placed them in a quiver slung over his bare chest. When he’d taken a feather from each bird, he lifted the bird from the branch and set it free. Soon, the sky above them was awash in bright yellow as the birds took flight.

  “He takes the feathers for the robes of the king and high chiefs,” Lydia explained.

  “I remember at Restoration Day, how the king’s cape was covered in yellow feathers,” Felix said.

  “That’s the sign of royalty,” Lydia said, watching as the birds flew away.

  “Since we’ve stopped here, why don’t we have our lunch?” Bernice suggested.

  Eagerly, everyone dismounted.

  Almost immediately, Felix spotted beautiful red and yellow flowers growing in the forest. But as soon as he bent to pick one, Lydia came running to stop him.

  “What are you doing?” she shrieked.

  “Picking a flower,” he said.

  “If you pick them, it will rain,” she said, exasperated. “And if it rains, we’ll have to turn back.”

  “But why would it rain if I pick a flower? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Because these are special flowers, and if you pick them, it will rain, that’s why,” Lydia said, holding her arms up hopelessly.

  “Okay, okay,” Felix said. “I won’t pick them. But honestly, Lydia, rain has nothing to do with these flowers.”

  She just shook her head at him. But she waited until he walked away from the flowers before she followed.

  Back on the horses, within a few hours the ground turned from grassy and fern-covered to slippery black bumps lined with thin cracks.

  “Lava!” Lydia announced happily.

  Felix’s stomach dropped. He was on a horse riding on top of lava; the very thought made him tremble. He hoped that Lydia didn’t notice.

  But she did.

  “Don’t worry,” she told him. “This is hardened. And cold.”

  “Oh! Great!” Felix said, as if cold, hard lava was a good thing.

  The ride grew bumpier on the uneven surface of the black lava. Felix held on tighter to Maisie.

  “It’s just lava,” she said, squirming in his grasp.

  “Oh, is that all?” he said, tightening his arms again.

  “Ugh! What is that smell?” Maisie said.

  That was when Felix realized he’d been holding his breath out of fear. He exhaled and breathed in.

  “Rotten eggs,” he said.

  “That’s the sulfur from the volcano,” Lot told them. “The path gets narrower from here. We’ll continue the rest of the way on foot. And be careful. The lava is getting hotter now as we near the crater.”

  “We’re going to walk on hot lava?” Felix said.

  But no one seemed to hear him. They all eagerly jumped from their horses and began scrambling across the lava. Felix watched as the ones in front lifted their feet quickly, the way people do when they run across hot sand at the beach. He looked behind him. If he didn’t follow the others, he would be alone here. And soon it would be dark. Reluctantly, Felix made his careful way down the narrow path. With each step he took, the ground grew warmer, until he, too, was doing that funny hop-step across the black lava.

  When he caught up with everyone, he saw that they were peering down at something. All of a sudden, he heard a rumble, and thick gray mud shot up from the crater, straight into the air.

  Felix ducked, but the mud landed nowhere near him. Still, he stayed crouched, his arms positioned protectively over his head, watching as one of the servants distributed bananas. The offering, Felix realized. He didn’t want to get closer. But he didn’t want to make Pele angry. Even though he didn’t believe in a goddess of fire, now that he was this close to the volcano, he decided it was a good idea to follow along. Just in case.

  Maisie, squeezed between Lydia and Lot, stared through the stinky smoke and down into the wriggling, bubbling mud.

  “Wait until it gets dark,” Lot said. “That’s when the real show begins.”

  She watched as he tossed two bananas into the crater.

  Maisie knew that sometimes people prayed when they made offerings. Why, even when kids threw pennies into fountains, they made wishes.

  She took a deep breath, her nose filling with the rotten egg smell, and closed her eyes.

  “Please, please, please let us find that crown,” she said, soft enough for Pele but no one else to hear.

  Then she opened her eyes and threw two bananas into the bubbling molten lava below.

  CHAPTER 8

  Mr. Melville to the Rescue

  This was what Maisie knew to be true: Back at home, in Newport and how hard it still was for her to admit that was home now—her mother was canoodling with Bruce Fishbaum. And in New York, her father was canoodling with Agatha the Great. What she didn’t know was how she and Felix fit into this new world. Sometimes it was almost impossible to believe that just a year ago, her life was in place, as it had been for as long as she could remember. Other times, that old way of life seemed more real than the strange new one she inhabited. Would she ever be able to figure out how to keep what was good from before and still be able to adapt to all the changes? Maisie wondered.

  At this moment, she was sitting on a veranda at the palace waiting for Felix so they could walk together into the bustle of Honolulu. While she was convalescing, he had learned his way around the busy streets. And sitting on a veranda at a palace, nibbling on fresh pineapple and gazing out at birds-of-paradise and hibiscuses and orchids was not unpleasant. Not in the least. Yet Maisie was beginning to get that urge to go home, despite all the problems waiting for her there.

  Felix appeared in the garden and waved to her. His skin had browned in the sun, making his eyes seem even greener. And the salt air made his cowlick stiffer and straighter, like an antenna, Maisie thought.

  “What are you giggling about?” Felix asked her suspiciously.

  “Your hair,” Maisie said, getting to her feet and stretching.

  Out of habit, she touched the egg-shaped lump on the back of her head where the surfboard had hit her, and winced. It still hurt.

  Maisie and Felix walked around the grounds, to the gate that led out to the street. The air was hot and the sun was strong, but still a soft breeze blew from time to time, cooling their skin and sending the palm trees rustling.

  “So,” Felix began, and Maisie knew she was about to hear a speech he’d rehearsed.

  “Even though life here is pretty great,” he continued, “and even though things back home are…in flux—”

  “That’s one way to describe it,” Maisie interrupted.

  “We still need to figure out how we’re going to get back without the crown,” he finished.

  “Maybe this is what Great-Uncle Thorne meant when he said to use the anagram when we’re in a pickle. This qualifies as a pickle, I would say.”

  Maisie saw the bewilderment on her brother’s face.

  “Oops,” she said. “That’s the thing I neglected to mention.”

  Felix stopped walking and threw his arms in the air in exasperation.

  “You didn’t tell me how to use the anagram the right way?” Felix said, his eyes gleaming behind his glasses.

  “I did,” Maisie said quickly. “Sort of,” she added.

  “What else did he say?” Felix insisted.

  “I heard how sad you were that night back in New York, and I had the crown with me, and I just wanted to make you feel better,” Maisie explained.

  That was the truth, wasn’t it? Even then she’d known that she should tell Felix
everything Great-Uncle Thorne had said, but it was so unusual for her brother to want to time travel that she hadn’t wanted to miss the opportunity.

  “Maisie?” Felix asked impatiently.

  “He said it would give us information—”

  “I know that! You already told me. We already did that!” he said, his exasperation growing by the second.

  “Okay, okay. He said that we could also use it if we were in a pickle. That’s exactly the word he used. A pickle. Danger—”

  “Thank you! I know what it means to be in a pickle, since I spend half my life in one with you!”

  Felix started to walk again, his head bent, his lips moving as if he were speaking to himself. Maisie fell into step beside him.

  “I think this constitutes a pickle, don’t you?” she asked.

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Felix said. “We aren’t exactly in danger. In fact, we’re safer than we’ve been other times.” He thought of the ship fire with Alexander and fleeing to Shanghai with Pearl, and shivered.

  “But we can’t get home,” Maisie reminded him.

  “Did Great-Uncle Thorne happen to mention how we use the anagram if we don’t have the crown?”

  Maisie shook her head no.

  “Usually, we both hold on to the object and that sends us back in time,” he said, and Maisie knew he didn’t expect her to weigh in, that he was just thinking out loud. “This time, we said…well, we said what we said and held on, and it sent us into that…funnel thing…and we learned where we were and who we had to give the crown to.”

  He paused, his face set with concentration.

  “Then we both held on and said it again, and we landed—”

  “Don’t remind me,” Maisie groaned, touching that lump again.

  “—right where we needed to be.”

  By now they had reached the seaport. The harbor was full of ships from France and England and the United States, and the air was heavy with the stink of whales and rotting fish.

  But Felix didn’t seem to notice.

  “Now you’re telling me that if we say…those words…again, without the crown…somehow we’ll get the crown back?”