Strong Like the Sea, стр. 19
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to help him ’cause Auntie only gave me this index card with all these jumbled up words after I asked Uncle if I could help. But why? I mean, if I’m supposed to figure out this new clue, why make me offer to help first and then give it to me?”
A Japanese white-eye swoops in and flutters under the table between us and Malia’s older sisters. With green-yellow feathers and a gray belly, the white-eye hops across the patio pecking at this or that. But after a few seconds, he flies off toward L&L Hawaiian BBQ. Seems chickens already cleaned this area out.
Malia turns my new clue card over. “What does it mean?”
“I’m not sure yet. I had to use a Caesar cipher to change the letters on the card before I could read it at all. Now the letters are good, but they don’t all make words yet. It’s a tricky one.”
She passes the card back to me. “No, I mean, is this card going to help you when you’re working with Uncle Tanaka?”
“That’s the problem; I don’t know.” The door to Angel’s Ice Cream, Smoothies, and Shave Ice swings open, and one of Malia’s sisters walks by. I lower my voice. “Does it mean I’m supposed to work with Uncle every day? Or only on special days? No idea.”
I sip my pineapple float and scowl at the mess of papers surrounding the oversized index card with Mom’s coded messages. I’ve had it for two days, but I’m still not sure what Mom means by it.
Sometimes it’s easy to think like she does or at least see what she’d notice—like how many tables there are on the patio outside Angel’s. She’d know how tall the umbrellas are that rise out of the center of every table: three red, three orange, and three yellow. Nine of them. Mom would know that. She’d probably know how many windows and doors lined the parking lot too, but I don’t think that would help with this clue.
“Was Uncle Tanaka excited you wanted to help?”
I wrinkle my nose. “Well, after I asked to help, Uncle sort of sputtered and choked till his face turned all purple before Auntie made him go inside . . . so maybe that counts as excited?”
“Sure. Let’s pretend he’s so excited he can’t hardly stand it.” Malia smirks and stabs a spoon into her shave ice a couple times to mix in the evaporated milk topping. “You think you’ll get to put stuff in those little bottles?”
A rooster with long black tail feathers crows and flaps his wings. Perched on top of a car with surfboards on the roof, he crows again and puffs his feathers. The show-off.
“I don’t know if we’ll use bottles. Maybe? I’ll find out this weekend when I go with him.”
“But I thought he works—” She glances at Jack and the guys walking out of Angel’s with their heaping shave ice cups and whispers. “You know, out on the ocean.”
“Shh. Don’t jinx it. He works by the shore too—with tide pools and stuff. Maybe we’ll do that? No one said we had to go way far out or anything.” I swirl the cardboard straw in my half-melted pineapple float and take a sip as the boys settle at the next table over.
“. . . and then Tehani’s mom says I’m gonna be the tree. A tree!” Kase holds his arms out like a palm tree with a spoon in one hand and a towering bowl of rainbow-colored shave ice in the other. “You think it’s ’cause I’m tall?”
“Hey! Watch it.” A man behind Kase stops so fast his safari hat slides off, and he teeters on his tippy-toes—his face close enough to Kase’s shave ice that his nose almost touches it. Right behind him, a lady in a sparkly sun hat and matching miniskirt holds their Pizza Hut box high overhead to keep from smashing it into her date.
“Sorry.” Kase pulls his shave ice back and steps aside.
“Unbelievable. No regard at all.” The tourists grumble and stride past to a sit at a table near the end of the patio.
“So does that make me a good tree or a bad one?” Kase sits next to Ekolu at the table beside us.
“Brah, at least you didn’t end up a reindeer.” Ekolu points to his face. “She says I gotta wear a red nose. On this! You can’t mess with perfection. No way.”
“Naw. You want perfection? This is perfection.” Kase stabs a spoon into his rainbow ice tower. “You’re a close second—maybe.”
“Second!” Ekolu sits up straight, his spoon hovering over the shave ice. “Second to none, brah. Prove me wrong. I’ll take you on right now.”
“Ooooh.” Kase grins. “You’re going down. First one to finish wins.”
“Don’t do it.” Malia picks up another paper to study. “You should quit now before it’s too late.”
“Oh, it’s happening.” Kase sits across from Ekolu, his spoon at the ready. “On three.”
“You’ll hurt your brains.” Jack takes another tiny bite of ice.
“One.” Ekolu leans over his bowl.
“Lolo boys.” Malia slides a paper aside and reads the next.
“Two.” Kase raises an eyebrow.
“Remember last time?” Jack nibbles his ice. “It did not go well.”
“I’ve been practicing!” Ekolu grins. “Don’t distract me.”
“Don’t encourage them.” Malia passes Jack a page. “Have you seen Alex’s notes?”
“Three!” Kase and Ekolu shovel scoop after scoop into their mouths, plastic spoons flying so fast they almost blur.
Jack stands behind Malia and scans the table full of papers. “Whoa, you think you have enough notes? What’s it for—
history?”
“Nope, it’s part of Mom’s challenge.”
Slurping and smacking, Kase and Ekolu wolf down the tops of their shave ice and dig into the bottom half.
“You got it figured out?” Jack savors another spoonful, his dark brown eyes scanning the table.
“No,” I grumble.
“She had to decode the code first to try and figure out the real code.” Malia glances at me. “Right?”
“Yeah,