Hero of Hawaii

by Graham Salisbury

  Clarence was emptying the bowl under the leak.

  “Hey,” he said. “Where you went?”

  “Where’s everyone?”

  “Had to get groceries. Candles, too, case you lose power.”

  “They went shopping in a storm?”

  I peeked back out into the garage. Mom’s car was gone and I hadn’t even noticed.

  “Watching the leak while they gone,” Clarence said.

  Huh. Felt kind of weird to be home alone with someone I hardly knew.

  Clarence must have noticed. He chuckled. “They be back soon. So … where you went? Just curious.”

  “Me and Julio, we went down to the beach to see if the river was going into the ocean.”

  “Gotta be, ah?”

  “Like a freight train.”

  “Take you right out to sea,” Clarence said.

  That was a scary thought.

  “You check your boat?” he said.

  “No.”

  Clarence set the empty bowl under the drip. “We go. That river coming higher by the minute.”

  We stood just inside the garage looking out. Raindrops splashed up over my feet and legs. The river was almost up to my skiff again, climbing the slope of our yard.

  “How high do you think it will get?” I asked. “Could it reach our house?”

  “Well, you pretty high up.”

  Through the wall of rain I could make out the rickety old wooden golf course bridge that spanned the water just upriver. I’d fished off it lots of times. There was a small platform out near the middle where you could sit. A few more feet and that platform would be under water.

  “Let’s get your boat.”

  We pulled the boat up to the top of the yard and left it bottom up. Back in the garage, we took off our soaked shirts and squeezed them out.

  “Listen,” Clarence said. “I gotta go home. Watch that leak … and tell Stella I said bye, ah?”

  “Yeah, sure … you coming back?”

  “Tomorrow. Right now I got to make sure my moms and sister doing okay.”

  “What about your dad?”

  Clarence snorted. “No more dad. Like you, ah?”

  “I have a dad.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s a singer. He lives in Las Vegas.”

  Clarence nodded. “That’s good, then.”

  “Yeah.”

  He started for his car.

  “Wait,” I said. “Your cousin Rudy said hi.”

  Clarence stopped. “How you know Rudy?”

  “Uh …”

  Clarence grinned. “Ah, the beach, right? He made you come home.”

  I frowned.

  “Hey, no worries. I won’t tell.”

  He was okay, Clarence.

  “Watch the river,” he yelled as he got into his car. “It starts coming up too high, call me. We make some sandbags for the house.”

  Sandbags?

  I looked at the river.

  The rain roared on.

  When Stella, Mom, and Darci got home from the store, I said, “Clarence went to check on his mom and sister.”

  Mom plopped a droopy wet grocery bag on the counter. “Shopping in a storm is no fun.”

  “He said to say bye,” I added.

  Mom started taking things out of the bag. “What’s Clarence’s family like, Stella? They obviously raised him well.”

  “Nice. They live in a little house on the other side of the river. His dad and uncle live there, too.”

  “What?” I said. “He said he didn’t have a dad.”

  “Well, actually the dad is Lovey’s, not his.”

  “Lovey?”

  “His sister, pea brain. You should know her. She goes to your school.”

  “Lovey Martino?”

  Stella snapped her finger and pointed at me. “Bingo.”

  “But Clarence’s last name isn’t Martino,” I said.

  Stella gave me a sad look. “Your lightbulb isn’t very bright, is it?”

  “Stella,” Mom said.

  “Fine. She’s his half sister. Different dad.”

  Ho! Lovey Martino was Clarence’s sister? Man, was Tito going to be surprised about that. Tito’d met up with Clarence once and was scared of him. Tito was this sixth grader who always bothered us at school. He followed Lovey Martino around like a shadow, even though Lovey wouldn’t give him a crumb off her lunch plate. Tito also liked Stella, who thought he was an idiot.

  Mom looked at me as she put stuff away. “How’s everything at Julio’s house, Cal?”

  “Oh … good.”

  “Do they have any leaks?”

  “Uh … no,” I said, hoping that was true. I made myself busy by emptying the leak bowl and setting it back under the drip.

  Plink.

  The phone rang.

  Stella answered cheerfully, hoping, I guess, that it was Clarence. “Hello-o.”

  I started for the door before Mom could ask any more questions.

  “Hey, twit!” Stella called. “It’s Willy.”

  I took the phone. “Hey, Willy.”

  Stella and Mom left the kitchen.

  “Can you believe this storm?” Willy said.

  “No kidding. You should see the river. It’s rising.”

  “Is it going to reach your house?”

  “I sure hope not.”

  We were quiet a second.

  “Hey,” I said. “You want to sleep over tonight? Ask your mom.”

  “Yeah, great. Hang on.”

  I held my hand over the phone. “Mom,” I called. “Can Willy sleep over?”

  “If it’s okay with his mother it’s okay with me,” she answered from the living room.

  Willy came back. “She said I could.”

  “Cool. Come now. Bring your sleeping bag. My other bunk doesn’t have sheets on it.”

  “Be right there.” Willy lived down the street, a few houses past Julio’s. We hung up.

  A half hour later Willy came dripping in through the garage and stuck his head into my room. “You in here?”

  “What took you so long?”

  Willy tossed his sleeping bag on the lower bunk. “I had to clean my room first. Hey, Streak.”

  Streak lay on a small rug on the polished concrete floor. She thumped her tail.

  “Cleaning your room sounds like bribery to me,” I said.

  “Totally.”

  It was getting darker outside. “Let’s go see what’s for dinner.”

  It was almost like camping out. Mom and Stella cooked up hot dogs and beans and sliced some apples. Willy and I took our plates out on the covered patio and sat watching the rain pour off the roof so hard it dug trenches in the sandy soil below. It was loud, too.

  Willy shouted, “Hot dang! Can you believe this rain?”

  “Double dang! Ho!”

  He grinned.

  Back in my room it was just as noisy. Rain was misting through my screen, but only onto the windowsill.

  Something else was coming into my room, too.

  “Yai! ” Willy yelped, and scrambled up onto the top bunk. “Look on your desk! It’s Manly Stanley!”

  Manly Stanley was our class pet, a centipede that I’d caught in a jar and that now lived in a sandy resort on our teacher’s desk at school.

  “That’s not Manly, it’s his uncle, Legs. Hey, Legs,” I said to the centipede. “Where you been?”

  My desk was a counter that ran along one side of the room. Behind it was a stone wall, which was the old garage wall before someone who lived here before us made a storage room out of half the garage. There were cracks in the rock. That was how bugs of every kind got in.

  “They come in when it rains. Kind of like a bug explosion.”

  “Great.”

  I laughed. The centipede was pretty big, about four inches. It would probably look like an alien from outer space through a microscope. “Don’t worry. The small green-head ones are worse.”

  “I feel better already.”


  “Those ones you don’t see until they bite.”

  Willy looked down from the top bunk. “Can’t you get it out?”

  “Sure … but there’d just be more of them.”

  Willy’s mouth hung open. “We gotta sleep with those things in here?”

  “They won’t bite you. They just want to be dry, is all.”

  Willy frowned. “Fine, but I’m not sleeping on the bottom bunk.”

  We traded beds. I handed him his sleeping bag and he tossed me my pillow and sheet.

  I snapped my fingers. Streak jumped up on my bed and plopped down by my feet.

  “Say good night to Spidey,” I said to Willy.

  “Who’s Spidey?”

  “Look in the corner above your head.”

  “Aw, man!”

  “He won’t bite, either.”

  It was still raining when I woke up the next day, Sunday. My window was filled with dark gray clouds and the sound of endless rain. It was supposed to be Darci’s party day, but that would have been a disaster in this weather.

  I got up on my elbows.

  My blinking clock said it was 2:18. The power had gone out and come back on in the night.

  “Willy,” I whispered. “You awake?”

  No answer.

  Streak stretched and yawned, sleeping by my feet.

  I peeked up over the top bunk. Willy wasn’t there.

  I pulled on yesterday’s shorts and T-shirt, and Streak and I headed to the kitchen. The smell of bacon hit me like a brand-new sunny day.

  A glass bowl of pancake batter and a carton of eggs sat ready by the stove. Willy and Darci were sitting at the counter near the leak bowl with glasses of orange juice.

  Mom looked at me from the stove, a spatula in her hand. “Good morning, sleepyhead.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Almost nine-thirty.”

  “It’s still raining.” I was getting worried, because it had never rained so hard for so long.

  “It’s supposed to let up sometime this morning. At least, that’s what Ledward said. He called. Still stuck.”

  “My boat!” I ran to the living room to look out the window. Willy jumped off his stool and followed.

  “Come right back,” Mom said. “I’m starting the pancakes and eggs.”

  The river was as wide and high as I’d ever seen it in my whole entire life, so high it made my stomach swirl. Scary! My skiff was still above it, but not for long. I hoped Ledward was right about the rain ending soon.

  “Look at the bridge!” I said.

  The water was nearly to the top. There was only about six inches left to go and—boom—that bridge would be under water.

  “I hope the river doesn’t take it out,” Willy said.

  “Prob’ly could, too.”

  We ran back into the kitchen. While we ate the best breakfast ever—bacon, eggs, and pancakes taste so good in the middle of a storm—the rain started to let up.

  “Finally,” Mom said.

  Stella came into the kitchen. She looked at me and Willy. “Hurry up. I need the kitchen.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “For this,” she said, holding up a fist.

  “Stella’s making cupcakes,” Mom said. “Special ones for Darci.”

  I scrunched up my face. “What’s special about cupcakes?”

  Stella moved up next to me, so close I could smell her toothpaste. She put her arm around me. “So, Stumpy, listen. If you saw a special cupcake would you even know it was special?”

  I shrank away from her arm.

  Willy gaped.

  “The answer is no,” Stella said. “So I ask myself: Why are we having this conversation?”

  Mom pointed out the window. “Look! The rain stopped.”

  My ears swelled in the sudden silence.

  Now there was only the rattle of the wind slapping at the window screens.

  I shoved Stella away and gobbled down what was left on my plate.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said to Willy.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Mom said. “Where are you going?”

  “Just outside, Mom. Check stuff out.”

  “Okay, but you listen to me—don’t get close to that river! It’s moving very fast.”

  “We won’t.” We headed for the door.

  “Let’s go check out the bridge,” I said to Willy.

  Streak was in the garage. She hopped up when she saw us.

  “Stay,” I commanded. “Guard the house.”

  I didn’t want her falling off the bridge or something.

  Streak was getting better at staying when I said to.

  Willy and I blasted out into the dark gray day.

  The wind wasn’t nearly as powerful as it had been the day before, but it was still strong.

  We ran across the street, through the jungle, and out onto the golf course on the other side. There was no way any golfers would be out on this day.

  Long swamp grass along the shore bent in the wind. On sunny days we found lost golf balls in it and sold them back to golfers for a quarter.

  The bridge looked the same as always. But the river was very close to having it for a snack.

  I grabbed Willy’s arm and held him back. “Too spooky to go out there.”

  “Looks okay to me.”

  He started out.

  I frowned. “Go slow, then,” I said, creeping along behind him. “Better not go at all.”

  “It’s fine. Look. It’s solid. Not rocking or anything.”

  The water raced under it, a gazillion gallons, all muddy brown and littered with floating junk. The river moved so fast it made the bridge hum. I could feel the vibrations in my feet and legs.

  We walked out to the small platform, taking careful steps, ready to run back if the bridge started to feel weird.

  So far, so good.

  We crept out onto the platform and crouched. The swirling water made me dizzy.

  Downriver I could see my house with my skiff high up in the yard. Farther toward the ocean, the road bridge that crossed over into Lanikai only had a small space under it, too, but it sat higher than the one we were on, and it was way stronger.

  “Man, look at all the junk in the water,” Willy said.

  Branches from the mangroves that lined the river had broken off and were sailing downstream. Some got caught under the bridge.

  “Here comes a big one,” I said.

  It was mostly submerged, but parts of it stuck out of the water. It was heading right toward us and would go under the platform if it stayed on course. Willy crawled to the edge and looked into the water. “Let’s watch it go by.”

  I got down next to him. The branch flowed under, and when it popped out on the other side Willy reached down and grabbed it.

  I blinked and he was gone. The branch had pulled him off the platform into the muddy water.

  “Willy!”

  He looked back at me as the river swept him away.

  “Willy!” I screamed again.

  He was still hanging on to the branch as it dragged him toward the sea. He bobbed, then went under.

  I gasped.

  He popped back up.

  A huge gust of wind rattled the bridge. I jumped up and leaned into it, started running. Back to the fairway. Along the swamp-grass shore. Into the jungle, pounding down the trail. I broke out onto the street across from my house.

  The street was deserted.

  Nothing but the wind and empty yards.

  Off to my right the river sailed on, and I could see Willy, still clinging to the branch. In a minute he’d glide past my yard. I ran down to the waterline, now eating up most of our yard.

  “Willy!”

  He couldn’t hear, too busy struggling to hang on to the branch, trying to keep his head up.

  “Swim to shore!” I shouted. “Let go and swim!”

  Willy was new here. He didn’t know about getting out of currents. I’d never even seen him swim. Did he know how?

>   The boat!

  I ran to my skiff, flipped it over, and dragged it toward the water. The oars fell out, twisting in their cables, flopping around behind.

  Glancing up at the house, I saw Darci watching me in the big front window.

  “Willy’s in the water!” I yelled. “Get Mom!”

  But Darci couldn’t hear me. She disappeared from the window.

  Willy was even with the yard now. There was no way he could angle in to shore before he passed. He was too far out and moving too fast. I’d have to get the boat out and catch up, grab him before the current dragged him out into the ocean.

  A car pulled up.

  Clarence!

  He saw me untangling the oars and ran down to me, leaving his car door open. “You can’t go out on that water!”

  “Willy fell in the river!”

  “Where?”

  “That branch! See him?”

  I tried to unhook the cables from the oarlocks but couldn’t. Why did Ledward do this!

  “Wait!” Clarence said. “I going the house, tell them. Stay here. We go together!”

  Clarence sprinted toward the door.

  I got the oars untangled and tossed them into the skiff.

  Willy hadn’t said a word since he’d fallen in. No screams, no yells. Just silence. Scary, scary silence.

  He was past the yard now, moving toward the second bridge.

  And the ocean!

  No time. I shoved the skiff out and jumped in.

  “Hey!” Clarence yelled behind me.

  I turned to look back. Clarence held his head in his hands. Streak ran from the garage, down to the water. She barked at me.

  Mom ran out.

  She shouted something, her words muffled by the wind.

  Streak barked and barked as the current grabbed the boat. I fumbled with the oars.

  Ahead, Willy still clung to the branch. Moving closer to the bridge. Closer, closer.

  Three feet separated the bottom of the bridge from the surface of the river. Willy was low in the water. He could make it under.

  But could I?

  The closer the river got to the ocean, the faster it ran.

  The wind howled in my ears, but the muddy water was eerily silent. I could see Streak running along the shore.

  Just as the skiff reached the bridge, I dove onto the floorboards, flattening myself to make it under. The oars fell into the water. The current spun the skiff around, the stern thunking one of the bridge pylons.