“But then Mochi has to stay alone,” Coco said.
Lana was touched by their concern. “We’ll sort it out. Mochi doesn’t mind being alone some of the time. He needs to rest.”
“Is he going to die?”
“I don’t know. It all depends on if it’s his time or not. Sometimes people stay alive against all odds, and others surprise us by dying suddenly. Only God knows the answers,” Lana said.
“Like what happened to your father,” Marie said.
“Exactly.”
Coco had on her contemplative face. “I want Mochi to live.”
“We all do, honey.”
When all was said and done, they left with a bucketful of berries, purple smudges covering mouths and hands, and a lopsided but perky tree. Even Sailor was stained red and purple. It took the three of them to haul the tree into the back of the truck.
“Can I make a star for the top?” Coco asked.
“You betcha.”
No one was going to take Christmas away from them.
* * *
When they reached the road to the house, once again there was something hanging over the middle of the road, same tree branch.
“What is that?” Coco said, instantly alert.
“I think I know,” Lana said.
This time it was a sardine tin. Lana let Coco open it. Inside was a note. Saturday 1600 hours. Your place. GB.
“We can tell him to let our parents out!”
“First we have to tell him they’re your parents, remember? But let me do it. It’s a touchy subject. Promise me you won’t say anything, okay?”
Marie sounded angry. “Our parents are not Nazis. You think they are, don’t you?”
Lana was taken aback by the force of her words. “I never said that. But right now, Major Bailey believes I adopted you long ago, so I need to be able to explain why I lied to him. People don’t like being lied to.”
It was going to be an uncomfortable conversation, but he seemed so reasonable and levelheaded. And teachable. She was banking on that.
“So why did you lie?”
Lana grew defensive. “You saw how it’s been. No one knows who to trust and everyone’s scared of being arrested—or worse. It seemed right at the time. I had no idea that Major Bailey would become friends with us.”
* * *
That night they made grilled tuna sandwiches with fresh tomatoes from Kano Store, and sautéed wild spinach. Coco complained about having tuna again, but they had run out of peanut butter and no one could say when the next shipment would come in. The girls had told Mochi and Benji all about the day, and after eating, Coco produced her contraband for them, along with the ink they had borrowed from Mrs. Kano. There had been none left on the shelves, but Lana promised to return it the next day. Mrs. Kano didn’t ask what it was for.
“What about a typewriter...you got one of those on hand?” Mochi said.
Lana leaned in. “No, but Mrs. Kano said I can use the one at the store tomorrow.”
After fingerprinting Mochi and Benji and deciding on the new last name Hamada, the kids set off examining every inch of the kitchen again for a way into the hidden room. Lana busied herself with a crust for a blackberry pie. Earlier, a program on the radio had played Christmas music, and now she couldn’t get the tunes out of her head.
When she went to wash the berries, someone had thrown part of the stem in and she pricked her finger. She rinsed the blood away and kept working. Before she knew it, she was lost in a daydream about Grant and the way he had touched her. Everything about him felt magnified.
Coco brought her back to the kitchen when she said, “I found something!”
She had wedged herself in the pantry. Everyone crowded around to look. On the bottom of the wall with no shelves, behind bags of rice, there was a long crack. With her scrawny arms, Coco moved the rice to the other side, no problem.
“Let me have a look,” Lana said.
Coco came out and Lana went in. She ran her fingers along the edges of the wall, and right next to the door frame, something stopped her hand. She pressed on a small lever. Nothing happened. Then she pressed again, the other way, and the wall sprung open.
“A door!” Coco screamed.
Narrow wooden steps led down into a pool of darkness.
“Who’s going to go first?” Marie said.
“Me,” Benji offered.
“Grab the flashlight.”
Lana followed Benji, with Coco holding on to her shirt. Mochi said he’d stay and keep Sailor company. The wood was unfinished and wall studs were exposed. Benji stopped at the bottom and shone the beam around. About ten feet long and twenty feet wide, a room stretched underground. One wall was lined with rifles and gas masks, the other had a desk with a tangle of radio equipment and wires and stacks of legal pads. The third had shelves of rice, flour, lard, food cans and empty jars.
“Whoa,” Benji said.
“I guess we don’t need to dig a bomb shelter,” Marie said.
“Look at all this food!” Lana said, thrilled at the thought of having extra everything, since no one knew when the next shipments would arrive. And the jars would come in handy for the honey.
She inhaled. Along with the mustiness, the room smelled faintly of her father and his trusty Barbasol shaving cream. She took the flashlight from Benji and walked over to the desk, curious what was on the papers. Illegible scribbles and sketches filled the legal pads. A framed picture of a young Lana and Jack standing at the edge of the crater hung on the wall over the desk. A plume of smoke lifted up behind them.
Marie leaned in. “That’s you.”
“It is.”
“You look so young.”
“Getting older happens to the best of us.”
Right then, the brunt of missing her father slammed Lana full force. The amount of love he held for her, even with her refusing to return, caused a rush of tears. He had refused to give up on her. Some small part of her believed he would always be there, and that when she was ready, she could go back. It was a risky way to live, she realized.
“Are you okay?” Marie asked.
She felt choked up. “I just miss my father.”
A small hand grabbed onto hers. “Don’t be sad, Aunt Lana. Jack said he knew you loved him and that you’d be coming back one of these days.”
It took a moment to register that Coco was holding her hand. “He told you that?”
Coco nodded. “He also said I reminded him of you, and that made him happy.”
That warmed her insides. “Sounds like the two of you were close.”
“He was around more than Daddy because Daddy was always working. And now I miss them both,” Coco said.
“I’ll tell you what, girls, and this goes for you, too, Benji. If you have a disagreement with someone you love, never, ever put off making things right. It could be a big disagreement or it could be tiny. But the worst thing is to go through life wishing you had done things differently. Love deserves more.”
Coco tugged on her hand. “The morning Papa got taken away, I told him he was bossy and mean, and now he’s gone. I want him to know I won’t bring caterpillars and lizards into my room anymore, and how sorry I am.”
“You’ll get to tell him,” Lana said.
Marie confessed, “Mama was mad at me because I’ve been walking home with Bobby Kanuha and I never told her.”
Benji surprised Lana by adding, “I hardly remember my parents, and I feel bad about it almost every day.”
Lana drew them in for a group hug. Marie felt so strong and sturdy, and Coco was a pack of bones. Benji went rigid at first, but none of them pulled away, and she felt a big helping of love surround them. For a moment she swore her father was in the room, too.
When they came apart, Coco was staring at the wall. “Why so many guns?”
All the guns gave Lana an uncomfortable feeling, too. “For protection. Remember, he was counting on an invasion. He wanted to be prepared. Promise me you won’t touch them, okay?”
“He must have started building this a long time ago, though,” Benji said.
“My father might have seemed eccentric, but he was always one step ahead of everyone else.”
“But how would he have known so long ago?”
Lana thought back on events over the past few years. The Japanese attack on USS Panay, the Nanking Massacre and their invasion of French Indochina. Then in 1940, when Roosevelt ordered the Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Hawaii, she could imagine the workings in her father’s mind. He picked up on patterns that others missed. He probably started the house before hearing from General Short.
“The signs were there, I suppose. You just had to know where to look,” Lana said.
She would be curious to read through his notes and see what he’d been doing with all the radio equipment. Now all civilians had been strictly ordered to suspend operations.
Marie asked, “Should we see what’s behind that door?”
There was another door on the far wall. Lana walked over and opened it. On the other side, a long tunnel led off into the dark.
Coco shrunk back. “It looks scary.”
“It’s a lava tube,” Lana said, shining the light down the corridor. “We’ll see where it leads in the morning.”
“I’m not going,” Marie announced.
“Main thing is we know how to get down here now,” Lana said. In case we need it.
* * *
As soon as the sun was up, Lana, Coco and Benji headed back downstairs. She wanted to find the tunnel’s end before Grant came. The lava tube was high enough to stand up in, and Lana stepped in. “Who’s coming?”
Benji and Coco looked at each other and then followed. The floor was uneven, with fallen rocks scattered about. One was a large boulder. As long as there were no earthquakes, they should be fine. Farther along, a section of roots hung down, dripping moisture onto the ground. Lana could hear her breath and imagined fleeing soldiers along this same path. She prayed with all her might that it never happened.
“It’s creepy,” Coco said, reaching for Lana once again.
Lana grabbed her hand. “This is an escape route, should we ever need to flee. Don’t you want to know where it ends up?”
“Not really.”
After what felt like an hour of walking but was more likely five minutes, the tunnel made a turn. Up ahead, light shone from above. A skylight. A whole section of the roof had caved in, and Jack had bolted a sturdy wooden ladder to the rock wall. Benji went up first. Grass and lantana spilled over the sides.
“We’re by the pasture,” he called down.
Coco went next, and Lana followed. Sure enough, they were in a small clearing just off the closest horse pasture. Golden morning rays lit up the dew. Once again, Lana was struck by her father’s ingenuity and how much thought went into his hideaway. If anyone stood a chance of surviving, it should have been him.
THE LEMONADE
They spent the rest of the morning fashioning a tree stand, using lava rocks in a metal bucket to hold the tree upright, and making decorations to hang on the branches. The girls foraged for pine cones, cut out paper snowflakes, and collected sticks to make ornaments. Mochi was up and about and looking more clear-eyed than he had since he’d been with them.
“What about presents?” Coco asked.
“I told you, Santa will get here.”
“I mean for us to give. Can we get presents into the camp?”
“We can make presents, and I’ll work on finding that out.”
As the time drew near for Grant to arrive, Lana caught herself ruminating over how and when to tell him about the Wagners. And what of Mochi and Benji? She wanted to come clean on everything. Whatever it was that was happening between them, she didn’t want it built on untruths. Nor did she want Benji to be hidden away every time Grant came around. But telling him was risky. She decided to bring Benji anyway. This was her property and she could have who she wanted here.
In the stillness of the early afternoon, it sounded like a stampede coming down the driveway. Coco ran outside wearing pants underneath a sleeveless polka-dot dress. Barefoot again. She sprinted up the driveway like a mad fairy. This time, Grant brought three other horses. Lady, a big buckskin and a painted mare.
“I wrangled a couple more horses this time. I figured we could use a few extra cowgirls,” he said when he hopped off. He looked at Benji and said without missing a breath, “And cowboys. The two girls can ride together.”
Benji smiled with a look of relief.
“I want Lady,” Coco said.
“Lady is taken,” Lana said firmly.
Coco didn’t argue, but she stuck her tongue out at Benji, who stuck his tongue out in reply and walked right up to Lady and held his hand out under her nose. She sniffed.
“You ride?” Grant asked him.
“No, but I’m a fast learner.”
Grant showed him how to mount and gave him some basic instructions and treated him like one of the gang. Lana wanted to hug him for it. He looked extremely kissable, too. His skin was several shades darker than when she’d last seen him, and he was wearing a long-sleeved red palaka shirt.
“You look like a real paniolo,” she said.
Grant grinned. “Tryin’ my best to fit in.”
Now that the lines were blurred between them, Lana wasn’t sure how to greet him. But Grant gave her an innocent peck on the cheek as he had every other time, and a wink that caused her knees to weaken. Coco eyed them closely.
They set off with Coco and Marie on the buckskin, Lana on the palomino and Benji on Lady. As they rode along, Lana imagined herself leading tours through the park and sharing every ounce of her experience with the guests. It sure would beat attending parties in Honolulu where the men gambled while the women gossiped about who had come on the last ship. In her mind, Grant would be part of the deal, as would Coco and Marie and Benji. The thought of not having them here caused an ache under her ribs. Maybe war did that to a person, quadrupling every potent feeling so that what mattered most was impossible to ignore.
Time slowed down. Love sped up.
As luck would have it, the wild horses were all in the barn pasture. ‘Ohelo, the white horse, and four other stunners. They all looked like they wanted to bolt, but there was only a short stretch of fencing needed to close the gap. Grant immediately had the group line up to block it. The wild horses trotted to the far corner, stirred up and anxious.
“We need to finish the fence and then see if we can lure ‘Ohelo over here,” he said. “Lana and Benji, I need you with me on the posts. Girls, you keep your horses and Sailor between the others and the gap. Let me know if they give you any trouble.”
“Can I talk to the wild ones?” Coco asked.
“By all means, but gently,” Grant said.
Grant and Lana went to the barn to collect the rest of the posts and fencing. The minute they stepped behind the wall, he pulled her close and kissed her, long and slow. Lana stepped backward until she was up against the wood. A small groan escaped. He tasted salty. She was pinned to the post, unable to move, unable to think. When he pulled away, he whispered into her ear, “I’ve been dying to do that since the minute I left you the other night. You’ve been making it hard to work.”
Lana grabbed his hand and laughed. “Behave yourself, Major.”
He twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. “You know, I was hoping to run off with you alone in the woods today, but I knew how much Coco wanted to ride, and we have work to do. Can I get a rain check on that?”
“Deal,” Lana said.
“Let’s get this stuff out there before they get suspicious. Kids know way more than we give the
m credit for,” he said.
“Why are you so good with them?”
He shrugged. “My niece and nephews back home. They keep me honest.”
“And Benji is happy to be included.”
“Seems like a hardworking kid.”
“He is.”
“Good to have around in times like these, and if you trust him, then I trust him,” he said.
Lana smiled.
It was hard to imagine Grant in another place, in another life. She wanted to know every small detail of his life, who he loved, and who loved him. Whoever they were, they were probably sick about him over here in Hawaii.
They spent the next hour digging holes and setting posts. Coco and Marie looked happier than she’d seen them in days, and Benji had dug three holes by the time Lana finished one. The horses ripped and crunched on the grass, unfazed by the weight on their backs. Coco was chattering away, and every now and then Lana caught fragments of her words. My name is Coco...love horses...best friends...there’s a war...safe.
At one point, Grant leaned on his shovel and observed. “She’s a special kid, that one. See how the horses are completely at ease? I reckon they like the conversation.”
“Who knows what goes on in that little mind of hers. But I agree, she’s one of a kind.”
“Has she always been this way?”
A bug flew into Lana’s mouth and she coughed. “Since day one.”
Tell him! urged an inner voice. She glanced over at Coco and Marie, and ‘Ohelo, with her swollen knee, then back at Grant, who had rolled up his sleeves and was unspooling barbed wire. Sweat ran down his neck, dampening the collar of his shirt. He was completely focused. She’d tell him in private, before he left for the night.
“Any Christmas plans?” he asked.
“Part of me just wants to forget Christmas. But with kids, that doesn’t work. We cut a tree and made our own decorations, but Coco was worried about Santa being scared away by the Japanese.”
He squinted into the sun. “I hope you told her he’d be here?”
“I did. But where am I going to find presents?”
Red Sky Over Hawaii Page 22
