Catastrophe at Castaway Cove (Kristi Cameron Book 8)

by Cynthia Griffith

  “This beautiful shade of aqua for the Seashell Shack and lime green for the Pineapple Palace.”

  “Wow! It’s going to be a rainbow of tropical colors up here!” Skeeter said. “What are you girls planning to do?”

  “We’re done with our work inside the cottages! The furniture looks great, and everything is nice and clean and fresh, with new bedding, draperies and towels. The girls did a beautiful job painting! I’m so pleased!” Mrs. Manoa said, smiling happily. “I think today we’ll get started painting the dining room. With all six of us girls working on it, we should be able to finish it today. Kimo is already here, too, and he should be finishing the last of the repairs today, too.”

  “You know, I’ve been thinking,” Pete spoke up unexpectedly. He was normally a pretty quiet guy, so when he brought up something new, it sometimes came as a surprise. “Have you done much advertising yet, Mrs. Manoa? It doesn’t do much good to get the place all fixed up for guests if you don’t have a bunch of guests all lined up to come stay with you!”

  “Well no, Pete, actually I haven’t. This all came about so fast and we’ve been so busy with this other work that I just haven’t had a chance to do anything about it. It’s certainly been weighing on my mind, though.”

  “Well, the best way you can advertise these days is over the Internet. It’s pretty inexpensive and you’ll reach a worldwide audience that way. I’m pretty handy with designing and setting up websites. If you’d like, I can get a Castaway Cove website set up for you and you can start putting the word out that you have a unique and beautiful getaway here! You have a computer and an internet connection here, don’t you?”

  “Of course. Oh, Pete! Could you really do that for me? That would be so wonderful!”

  “Sure, I’d be happy to! Dan will help me—won’t you, Dan? He’s pretty creative and artistic. We always make a good team when we work together.” Dan agreed to it and they made their plans to get to work on it when they were done painting later that afternoon.

  The day passed swiftly. The last two cottages got their coats of paint and then the two older boys started working on the new website. Skeeter and the girls decided if Dan and Pete were going to keep working, then so were they. They had finished painting the large dining room shortly after lunch. The honey-caramel color was warm and inviting and went well with the beautifully refinished hardwood floors. Mrs. Manoa had ordered eight sets of tables and chairs the week before to be delivered from a hotel liquidation firm on the big island. They were supposed to come in any time. Hopefully the Camerons would get to see the dining room finished in all its glory before they left.

  “You all need to stop painting and go down to the beach!” Mrs. Manoa fussed when they begged to get started on the lobby. “I don’t want you working all day!”

  “This is fun for us!” Kristi exclaimed. “It’s exciting to see it all come together. Besides—the Palekaiko by Moonlight Festival is tonight and we’ll have lots of fun then!”

  “We promise we’ll stop early enough to get ready for it,” Robyn added. “You don’t have to worry about that! We would never miss a chance to get all dressed up like Hawaiian princesses, would we girls? Would we, Skeeter?” she turned to him with a twinkle in her eye.

  “Princesses? Bah, humbug!” he growled. He couldn’t fool them, though. They all knew he was just as eager for the night’s festivities as they were.

  “Well, alright then, but from what I understand, the festival starts early—long before sunset,” Mrs. Manoa said. “We probably need to leave by 5:00. There are a lot of fun things to see and do—lei-making, hula contests, a luau, the twilight floral parade and then once it is dark, fireworks and the moonlight parade. It’s on a much smaller scale than other aloha festivals on the bigger islands, but my neighbor lady told me that they really do it up well here and it’s the highlight of the year for most of the people here on Palekaiko.”

  “It sounds wonderful! But two parades?” Anna asked.

  Mrs. Manoa smiled. “The moonlight parade is different. You’ve probably never seen a parade like this one before.”

  “Okay—now you’ve got us curious! We’ll work another hour or so and then start getting ready to go, okay? Come on guys—we need to step it up! Let’s see how much we can get done in the lobby before we quit for the night,” Rachel said.

  It was a few minutes after five when they all gathered out by the vehicles in the yard. “Ready, everyone?” Steve asked. “Wow! You’re knocking my eyes out!” The colorful cottages of Castaway Cove were nothing compared to the color of the traditional Hawaiian costumes that they all wore. The guys had all picked out a vintage shirt from Uncle Paulo’s collection, but it was the girls and two ladies who really shone. Kristi had finally settled on a short blue floral Hawaiian dress and Leilani wore a similar long dress in peach. Robyn had chosen the Pâ'ûpâ'û, which consisted of a turquoise Pâ'û hula skirt with a matching Pâ'û top, or sack. Anna looked exotic in a sarong of deep pink and gold, while the ladies wore elegant silk muumuus in red and purple.

  The teen girls all had silk flowers in their hair, but Steve went over to a hibiscus bush and plucked large, full blossoms for his wife and Mrs. Manoa. He bowed as he presented them and they giggled like a pair of school girls as they put them in their hair. “Beautiful blooms for a couple of bloomin’ beauties!” he said gallantly.

  They really burst out laughing then! “Oh, Steve—you are such a poet!” Rachel chuckled.

  Finally, they all piled into the SUV and pickup truck and headed off to the festival. Palekaiko was a different place today then the sleepy little town they had seen before. Several hundred people crowded the sidewalks and even walked down the middle of the street. Booths were set up all along the way with all kinds of colorful crafts and artwork, snacks and souvenirs. The Camerons eagerly climbed out of the vehicles as soon as they could find a place to park and headed into the crowds.

  One of the first booths they came to was a lei-making exhibit. “Ooh! I’d love to make a lei!” Kristi exclaimed as she looked with gleaming eyes at the display of lush garlands of flowers that hung from the overhead crossbars of the booth.

  “Oh, brother!” Skeeter rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m out of here then! Come on guys—let’s go find something to eat!”

  “That’s fine, Skeeter, but don’t snack too much! Don’t forget we’re going to the luau in a couple hours!” Rachel called after the boys as they took off. “Girls, you go ahead and do whatever you’d like and we’ll meet up with you at the luau, okay? Mrs. Manoa and I want to look at some artwork.”

  “Okay, Mom! See you later!” The girls waved goodbye and turned back to the booth.

  Two native girls sat on mats making leis. One of them looked up at just then and smiled. “Aloha! You’d like to make a lei? We’d be happy to teach you,” she said. “Oh, hi, Leilani!” she added as she spotted Leilani standing with Kristi and the other girls. “How is the work coming up at Castaway Cove?”

  “Great! Alana, these are my friends Kristi, Anna and Robyn from California. Alana goes to the church I told you about,” Leilani said to the other girls. “And this is your sister, right, Alana? Is it…Halia?”

  “Yes. Aloha! Come on in, girls, and sit down here on the mat with us. You can pick out whichever flowers you’d like. As you can see, we have several different kinds of flowers in many colors. You can mix it up and use a variety of flowers and colors, or use all the same. We have orchids, hibiscus, Arabian jasmine and bougainvillea, white ginger, gardenia and plumeria,” she said as she pointed out the different varieties of flowers in bins that lined the inside of the booth.

  Alana had long needles and heavy thread for each of them. “The process is pretty idiot-proof. No offense!” she said with a smile. “You just run the needle through the center of the flower, one after another, until you have about forty inches strung, and then tie the ends together! So simple a kindergartner could do it!”

  “Uh, I’m not very crafty. I certainly hope I don’
t have any problems or I’m going to feel like a—five-year-old idiot!” Robyn muttered.

  Halia laughed. “Don’t worry! You’ll do fine! Now, which flowers would you like to use?”

  The girls made their choices and sat down on the mat to string their flowers. The Hawaiian girls were right—it was simple, easy, quick—and fun! Less than thirty minutes later all four girls were proudly wearing their new leis. “They’re beautiful!” Anna said. “They smell gorgeous, too! Ummmm!”

  “Thank you so much, Alana and Halia!” Kristi said. “I hope we get to see you again before we leave!”

  “Aloha! You’re welcome! Look for us tonight in the moonlight parade!” the sisters called as the girls left their booth.

  They walked from booth to booth, sometimes stopping to buy a small treat, other times watching a craftsman at work. There were artists painting landscapes, and others carving tikis, small canoes, turtles, signs and trinket boxes from wood. They stood for a few minutes and watched several old ladies scraping the bark from mulberry trees with seashells and then pounding it to make kappa—an ancient Hawaiian cloth. Another old woman sat in a corner painting a length of the cloth by hand with dyes made from roots, bark, leaves, berries and even sea urchin ink. Beautiful Hawaiian quilts hung in another booth. “What do you want to bet my mom bought one of those?” Kristi said to the other girls.

  Another booth featured lauhala weaving—making hats, purses, baskets, fans and other things by weaving palm fronds together. Robyn was excited to see a dozen or more pa’u hula skirts hanging in one booth, along with hula skirts made of grass and Ti leaves. “I’m really tempted to buy one,” she said as she looked through the colorful array, “but where would I wear it? Can you see me walking down the halls at school in one of these?”

  “Oh, but come over here, Robyn! Look at these!” Kristi called to her. She had wandered over to the next booth and now as the other girls joined her they noticed a sign above the booth that said “Your Name in Hawaiian!”

  “Look at all the jewelry!” Kristi said. “It’s gorgeous! Pearls—even black pearls!—coral, opals, turquoise… They have jewelry made from all sorts of shells, bone, wood, nuts, seeds—even shark’s tooth! And look! You can have a bracelet made with your name spelled out in Hawaiian!”

  A young woman was working in the booth. “Aloha!” she said. “Yes, you choose whichever shells or beads you’d like, and then these beads that have the twelve letters of the Hawaiian alphabet, and we will spell out your name in Hawaiian and string then together for you!”

  “Ooh! That’s neat! Let’s all do that! I’d love to know what my name is in Hawaiian!” Kristi said.

  “Me, too!” Anna and Robyn each echoed.

  “Fine! Then I need to know your English names first of all, of course,” the girl said. She wrote them each down as the girls told her, and then looked them up in a small book. “Kristi, your name in Hawaiian is Kaliki. Robyn in Hawaiian is Lopine.”

  “Lopine?” That’s strange! It doesn’t sound anything like Robyn.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Anna’s name though, sounds just the way it does in English! It is Ana.”

  “Oh, that’s the same as it is in Spanish,” Anna said. “I’m a little disappointed. I was hoping for something more exotic.”

  “I’m sorry. Leilani, of course your name is Hawaiian, but I can tell you its meaning. Hold on a second…oh, here it is! Leilani means ‘heavenly blossoms.’”

  “Ooh, do you know what our names mean?” Kristi asked. I hope mine means something like ‘breeze through the palm trees’ or ‘fragrant flower.’”

  The girl shook her head. “I’m sorry. These are just translations of your names. I don’t know what they mean. Actually, the old, true Hawaiian names were the same for boys and girls. A boy could actually be called a flower, or a girl a “strong rock,” for example. And all old Hawaiian names were not beautiful, either! Sometimes they would name their babies something ugly or horrible to ward off evil spirits, like “filth” or “thief” or “worthless” or “illness!”

  “Oh, that’s awful!” Kristi exclaimed. “I’m just as happy not to know the meaning of my name then! It would be just my luck to mean something like “warty nose” or “two-ton lizard!” The girls all giggled.

  A little later they were on their way again, each wearing her new bracelet and calling one another by their Hawaiian names, preceded by “Princess”—Princess Kaliki, Princess Lopine and so on. “The Twilight Parade is supposed to start in twenty minutes or so,” Leilani said. “Do you think we should find a place to stand where we’ll be able to see well? It’s pretty crowded. There are a lot more people here than are normally on Paradise Island. I think a lot of people must come here to Palekaiko just for this festival.”

  The other girls agreed. They were looking for a good spot when they heard their names being called. Rachel, Steve and Leilani’s grandmother were standing across the street from the general store, waving at them. The girls hurried over to them, eager to show off the beautiful leis they had made, and the bracelets with their Hawaiian names on them.

  “They’re lovely!” Rachel said. “What a great souvenir—and a nice way for you all to share in the ‘sisterhood!’ I wonder what my name is in Hawaiian?”

  “It’s Lakeli,” Mrs. Manoa said. “That was my mother’s name.”

  “Princess Lakeli,” Kristi said. “We’re all Hawaiian princesses for tonight!”

  “No, that would be Queen Lakeli!” her father corrected. “You are the queen of my heart, Lakeli!”

  “Oh, Steve! How you do carry on!” Rachel flirted back with her husband. She tossed her hair and fluttered her eyelashes.

  “Well, I wonder where the guys are?” Kristi said, looking up and down the street. “I hope they remembered about the parade!”

  “Oh, they’re probably somewhere in this crowd,” Steve said.

  “Well, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to see Skeeter come marching down the street in the parade!” Robyn laughed. “He’ll hula his way into the hearts of all these people and they’ll name him king of the festival! What would that be, Mrs. Manoa—his name in Hawaiian, I mean? King what?”

  “King Kiwini.”

  “King Kiwini!!!” The girls all hooted.

  Robyn laughed so hard tears trickled down her cheeks. “Oh, I cannot wait to tell him,” she gasped, wiping the tears away. “King Kiwini!” She burst into a fit of giggles all over again.

  ___________

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ___________

  Palekaiko by Moonlight

  Actually, “King Kiwini” and the other two guys weren’t far away. They had eaten their way through all the snack booths and stopped to look at a few displays since parting with the others. Finally, a martial arts exhibit had caught their eye and they lingered to watch. They were impressed with the kickboxing, jiu-jitsu, karate and taekwondo exhibitions they saw. Skeeter, of course, had to practice a few of the moves they had seen as they finally walked away. He kicked out at his brother, not planning to actually connect, but to his surprise, Dan just happened to take a step in his direction as he moved aside to allow a woman with a stroller to pass by.

  “Ow!” Dan yelped as Skeeter’s foot caught him in the thigh. “Hey, knock it off, you goof! That hurt!”

  “Oops! I’m sorry, Dan! I really didn’t mean to touch you! Wow, I guess I don’t know my own strength!” Skeeter said, looking at his brother a little nervously.

  Dan snorted. “You didn’t kick me that hard! Just cool it, okay?”

  “Hey, look, guys!” Pete said suddenly. “It’s almost seven o’clock! Aren’t we supposed to meet your folks for that Twilight Parade at seven?”

  “Oh, yeah! Man, we almost forgot! Come on! If we hurry, maybe we’ll be able to find them before the parade starts,” Dan said. “Hey—we can cut through this alley and come out near that little store. Let’s go!”

  Dan ducked behind the booth they were in front of and into the alley. Skeeter and Pete wer
e right behind him. It was a short little passageway—only the length of the two buildings it separated—but after the crowds and noise out on the street, it seemed very deserted. The light was dim back there, as well, for the sun was going down and the shadows were deepening. The boys never gave it a thought, though. Why would they be nervous in this little piece of paradise?

  Several stocky figures suddenly appeared ahead of them at the end of the alley, silhouetted against the brighter light of the street. Dan stopped suddenly and reached out to pull Skeeter back. Something about the way the young men were standing sent a warning to Dan.

  Pete felt the same prickle of danger. “Let’s go back the other way,” he said in a low voice.” They turned to retrace their steps and discovered two more guys standing behind them in the entrance to the alley. They were cornered!

  They stood stock still, not sure of what would happen next. Why would anyone want to bother them? They hadn’t done anything to anyone! Were these guys going to rob them? If they were, they’d be disappointed. None of them had more than a dollar or two left in their pockets after the last couple of hours of buying one snack after another.

  As the other fellows drew nearer Pete, Dan and Skeeter saw that they were not much older than themselves. Dan recognized them as some of the young men who had stood around the martial arts exhibition they had just left, watching, just as they had, the mock combat going on in the ring before them. He had given no thought to them, assuming they were merely spectators as they were. Now he realized they had not been watching the exhibition at all. These thugs had been watching them!

  “What do you want?” he asked now as they approached. He kept his voice steady, but non-aggressive. Show no fear, but don’t provoke them, either! he told himself. They stepped closer, completely surrounding them.

  “You thought the fight exhibition back there was impressive?” one of them finally said with a sneer. “You haven’t seen anything yet! Your feeble attempts are ridiculous, you little haole,” he spat out as he turned on Skeeter.