Strong Like the Sea, стр. 67

“Or a moose,” I agree.

“Bah, he’s perfect size. Not his fault the rest of the world is too small. Sarge!” At Uncle’s call, Sarge heaves himself to his feet and ambles to Uncle’s side, Malia following after.

“I thought you’d be busy.” I give her a hug and she rubs Sarge’s head as he wedges himself sideways between us.

“While you were on the Big Island, I talked with my mom about feeling burnt out, and we went over all the stuff I’ve been doing. We found a pretty good compromise, I think. I’m still doing a lot of things, but not everything all the time anymore. So you know what that means . . .” She wiggles her eyebrows.

“You get to . . .” I try to think of what else she’d want to add to her schedule, but I can’t.

“I get to sleep in,” she fake whispers. “It’s this thing people do sometimes. It’s glorious.”

A message from Jack pops up on my phone. Howzit - Why Malia say you wan pick stinky cheese fruit?

To help my mom.

But. The SMELL.

Yeah, yeah. You gonna help us?

But but but THE SMELL!

I roll my eyes and tuck the phone back into my pocket. “Jack might come later to help, maybe. Uncle, tell us what to do.”

Sure, noni plants are all over the place, but the one in Uncle’s yard only has two fruit pale and soft enough to be ripe. The rest are all way too hard and green. I worry we won’t find enough, but once the coconut wireless gets wind of what we’re doing, my phone starts chiming all over the place for places we can go pick ripe fruit.

A couple hours later, Malia and I trudge back into the yard with two whole sacks full of the stuff, which seems pretty good until we see five overflowing bags at Jack’s feet as his dad visits with Auntie, who must’ve just got home from work at PCC because she’s all dressed up in her pretty skirt, flowers clipped up in her hair again. Uncle chats too, except he’s bent over holding onto Sarge’s collar to keep him out of trouble.

Spying us entering the yard, Sarge swings his behind around so he’s between Uncle and these newcomers. With his precious human protected, he lets his tongue loll out and wags his tail.

“Holy cow.” I thought we got a lot of fruit, but they must’ve used super-speed. “What’d you do? Steal all the noni in the whole town?”

“Naw, naw, Dad and me been going door to door, trimming trees and cleaning up palm fronds for people for a while. We asked them if we can take noni for you, and they said yes.” Jack cups his hand beside his mouth. “Did I mention they stink?”

“Hey! Be respectful.” Jack’s dad ruffles his son’s hair, pulls him back against his chest, and winks at me. “So sorry. What can I say? I teach him manners, but look what happens?” He lets Jack go, and they grin at each other.

“If my manners are bad, it’s ’cause I copy you.” Jack smooths his hair, but it’s still sticking up all over the place.

Malia and I snicker, but Jack catches another whiff of cheese fruit and turns a little green.

The Tanakas show us how to wash and prepare the fruit so some goes into day jars, some in the hobbit hole tanks, and some we slice up to dry on racks. With Malia, Jack, his dad, and me all working, we fill every jar and drying rack Auntie and Uncle own—which is a lot.

By the time Malia’s mom comes to pick her up, we’ve got everything as prepped as possible. Jack and his dad leave with the half-full bag of leftover noni, but I’m pretty sure we heard Jack complaining about carrying the smelly bag all the way across Kamehameha and past Laie Elementary.

Auntie goes inside to cook dinner, but I keep looking from the sliced fruit drying in the sun, to the big clear jars, to the dark tanks. I like how it feels to see it all done, like unlocking a bonus level on one of Mom’s challenges.

“You work hard today.” Uncle sits on a chair under the lanai and wipes sweat from his forehead with a trembling hand. “Real hard.”

“It was fun. And who knows? Maybe it can help.”

“Perhaps. You have enough ready for a year, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He pulls a small, dark vial from his pocket. “Until your noni is ready, you can take this one with you. It’s finished and aged. Maybe it’s right for your mom. Maybe not. Remember, could be her doctor says she can’t take any. You respect what your parents say, even if you don’t like it, okay?”

“I will. Thank you.” I hold the vial as if it’s more precious than gold—because to me, it is. Gold can’t make my mom get better, but maybe this little glass bottle could help. I carefully tuck it into my pocket.

“Good. There’s something I want to show you.” He scoots forward and takes my hand when I reach to help him up. Our long day of work must’ve been harder on him than I thought. When he tucks my hand into the crook of his arm and leads me around to the beach, he shuffles more than he steps, and I feel the trembling all the way through his elbow.

I open my mouth to ask him what it means for him to have Parkinson’s, but I don’t know how to say the words, and worse, I’m scared he’ll clam up again like he used to. No, not clam up. That’s not right either. More like a squid that squirts black ink all over to blind and confuse threats before shooting away to hide. The squid is here and gone before anyone even knows they’re scared. But Uncle can’t hide from me anymore; I know him too well.

When we reach the sand, I think I spy Saisei playing on the waves, but she’s pretty far out so I can’t be sure.