The Girl at the Center of the World

  I sit up, bob my head. “She’s passing something. I felt it.”

  And then I feel it. A vague sensation of imbalance, accompanied by a slow twisting of the gut. In my mind? Vertigo? But the windows rattle. The Merrie Monarch Festival posters all turn several degrees, as if straining to perform the hula. The wineglasses in the hutch chime nervously. The ceiling fan wobbles.

  Kai releases a low, excited yelp from the lanai and runs down into the yard.

  The windows are still. The gentle rattling of the wineglasses ceases.

  “Earthquake?” I ask. Did I just cause an earthquake?! But I get it: those chips of sunbaked clay from my seizurescape—pulled up by the shift in gravity—were tectonic plates.

  And then it starts again. The earth slips beneath us. Grandpa falls onto the couch. I catch my balance as if I’m on a wobbly surfboard. The hutch falls over. The windowpanes flutter in their frames so fiercely I’m afraid they’ll shatter. The trees beyond the windows visibly sway, shedding flowers and leaves.

  “Oh, God, what have I done?”

  The shaking diminishes. I steady myself on the ground. I catch Tami’s unbelieving eyes, clasp my hand to my mouth. Did I say that out loud? Does she know? I hear the distant barking of dogs. My mind wanders to the rest of Hilo. Please be okay.

  “Look!” Kai yells.

  I rise. We hurry outside. The Orchid looms large across the sky. But she’s retreating even as we watch, drawing back into deeper space and dimming as she does so.

  My attention is drawn upward. Straight up. Against the background of the retreating Orchid, an object plummets through the early night sky, a contrail of green fire and smoke unraveling behind it. The pearl.

  At first it’s almost hovering, motionless in the near heavens. It rockets closer. Then, hidden from view by nearby trees, it strikes the side of Mauna Loa. From the shield volcano’s direction a plume of ash rises in silhouette against the high horizon.

  We hear a sonic boom; pressure pounds my ears. The windows rattle. The coqui frogs fall abruptly silent. A breeze picks up, carrying grit that stings my skin.

  In the quiet that follows, everyone turns and stares at me. I feel faint.

  “Come inside,” Mom says, holding me up. Grandpa takes my other side.

  “Who knew your birthday would be such a blast!” hollers Kai.

  “What’s going on here?” I hear Tami ask, alarm in her voice.

  I shake my head. No. She knows. I don’t want her to know. But I’m too tired. Nausea. I sit on the couch for a minute, trying to stay awake.

  Mom and Grandpa help me upstairs. I stumble into my bed. They go only after I agree to drink a glass of water. Above my bed I make out the shape of the dreamcatcher. I crawl under the sheets and let frog song guide me into an oblivion of stars.

  Kai’s dreamcatcher works.

  CHAPTER 3

  I wake in the morning with pain in my stomach and chest. But it has nothing to do with the pearl. This pain is hunger.

  Dad comes to check on me. To my horror he says that Tami and Keali`i are still here. They know. But there’s room in my mind for only one crisis right now. “I have to eat,” I tell him.

  “Food’s waiting for you. Buzz is still here, too, but he’s in a hurry to go up Mauna Loa to investigate what happened.”

  Oh, God. The earthquake. “Is everyone okay? Hilo?”

  “Don’t know. Grandpa’s checking around. Kai’s with him. But I wouldn’t worry, Lei. Big Island is used to quakes. Home to five volcanoes—we’re right on the Pacific Ring of Fire. Tremors weekly for thousands of years. No one will think twice about it.”

  Dad leaves, and I throw on a tee and frayed jean shorts. I step into my slippahs and catch a glimpse out my window. I approach cautiously, swing open the screen, and stare. A low bronze cloud stretches from the direction of town out to sea, dimming the morning sun.

  The impact.

  My eyes follow the cloud to where it’s thickest. Mauna Loa. I can’t see the volcano from this window, but there’s no doubt. The pollution is clearing; it’s had all night to disperse, and the high trade winds have vacuumed away the unsettled debris. But there’s nothing up there to destroy; Mauna Loa is already a scorched, asphalt-like surface, piles of lava flows upon jet black lava flows. That pearl probably sank into the volcano’s surface like a steel marble dropped into a tray of brownies.

  It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.

  My friends. I’ve already explained the insane story of my connection to the Orchid to others. I told it to Dad, to Mom and Grandpa on the night we reunited, to Kai a few days later, after my parents had decided he could be trusted. He was excited. But what about Tami and Keali`i? How will they react?

  Everyone stands when I come down the stairs. They turn and follow me as I sit at the table. Watching. I eat whatever Mom gives me, leftovers from last night’s botched party: salted `ulu breadfruit slices, baked `uala sweet potato wedges, a bit of dried fish. I don’t care about rationing. I even scrape clean our three-finger poi in the `umeke poi bowl. In a cone of silence.

  “Lei,” Tami says, taking the chair next to mine and squeezing my hand. I look at her.

  “Hey. This is…wild. You should have told me.”

  “I was afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  I shrug, but I know. How could I explain something so crazy?

  Keali`i leans against the wall. He straightens when I eye him. “Hi,” he offers. My parents and Buzz sit down across from me.

  Buzz rubs his beard. “Kai was right: your birthday was a blast.”

  I smile thinly, study my empty plate.

  “Sorry, Lei,” he says. “You look nervous. Don’t be. This is a good opportunity. I’m going to go up there and get a sample from this meteorite. First chance we’ve ever had to physically examine these alien creatures.”

  “I call it a pearl. The meteorite. Felt like a pearl. I don’t know.”

  “Okay. Good. Back up,” Buzz says. “Tell me everything. Why’d this happen?”

  I explain the best I can everything I remember from yesterday, starting with the explosion near New York. I recount everything I felt during the contraction and release, the heaviness, the density, the gravity. I explain why I aimed it at the mountain. I glance up at Tami and Keali`i often but can’t hold their gaze.

  “Gravity well. Fastness. Propulsion. Explains how they get around Newton’s Second Law! Okay. Okay.” Buzz nods, stroking his beard.

  “You were right to hit Mauna Loa,” Mom assures me. “Smart thinking.” I stare past her at the walls. The Merrie Monarch posters are level again. The hutch is up. Empty.

  “This is all beyond fascinating, Lei,” Buzz says. “I’m going to get to work. Others will be curious about the impact site, too. There’re only a few roads up there, all of them gated. I have keys. I should be able to beat anyone there. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Buzz’s departure leaves a sudden silence. Dad says, “He took your projector. To his shop at the observatories.”

  Tami clears her throat. “So, Lei, anything new with you lately?”

  “I’m sorry, Tami. I…How much did Dad tell you?”

  “Everything. You basically pulled a Jedi mind trick on the Orchid?” she asks.

  She’s joking! What a relief. “More of a Vulcan mind meld,” I say. “Buzz helped—he used electrodes to hook my brain signals up to his radio telescope array. Radio dishes, you know? To broadcast into space. The Orchid and I fused. I didn’t so much convince her to come back. I…Somehow I was her. I just…came back.”

  “Can I be an alien psychic, too?”

  I look at her apologetically. Dad comes to my rescue. “Tami, I told you. Her epilepsy makes it possible.”

  “And my best friend is the only person in the world who can do this?”

  “I’m not the only person who can hear them,” I quickly answer. “On Moloka`i we met a priest with epilepsy who could. And he knew of a boy who could. There must be others. We stumbled upon
the answer to communicating on Mauna Kea. Not many places in the world with those kinds of radio resources. I was just the first to reach it.”

  “And then the Orchid imprinted somehow,” Mom says. “Like a baby seagull imprinting with the first thing it sees after it hatches.”

  “The first sperm to reach the egg,” tries Dad. “Everyone else got locked out.”

  “Oh, my God.” Mom slaps her forehead. “Can we just…not use that analogy?”

  “What?” Dad says, petulant.

  Tami asks, “What about the second one, the baby?”

  “I’ve tried to link with the little Orchid, but it hasn’t worked. I’ve never heard its thoughts. It does whatever its mom wants, so I just focus on the mom. Buzz says these creatures have a lifespan we can scarcely grasp. And if it usually takes a solid year for a human child to speak—why would the little Orchid be ready and willing to talk after three months?”

  Tami shrugs. “I don’t know. Just asking.”

  I study her nervously. I think this is going okay, though. She’s unsettled, but she’s not holding it against me. Just trying to figure it out.

  “Hold on a sec.” Keali`i’s smile is strained. “I’m just saying: if these Star Flowers want to leave—maybe we should, you know, let them.”

  “They cancel radiation,” I say. “The meltdowns. They soak it up—our mess—like a mop.”

  “They said that last night. But it doesn’t make any—”

  “Think about it,” Dad interrupts. He points at the map above the breakfast bar. “Two hundred. Two hundred nuclear meltdowns around the world already. Countless throughout the U.S. There were early disasters in nearby Australia, Japan.”

  “I wondered what that map was about,” Keali`i says to himself.

  Dad continues. “But, here’s the thing: there’s no fallout. Not a trace of radiation in the air. Not even normal trace levels.”

  “We’re way out here. Of course there’s no radiation.”

  Dad nods patiently. “I held Buzz’s Geiger counter myself, Keali`i, as recently as two weeks ago. The needle doesn’t even move a normal amount. It’s just…dead.”

  “Everything’s dead.”

  “No, this was an old counter. Simple circuit, very low wattage, like a flashlight. We can still get some flashlights to work, right? Even car batteries.”

  Keali`i’s silent for a while, thinking it through. “Wait,” he says. “I’ve been going over this all night. If the Star Flowers soak up radiation, then why do nuclear rods get too hot in the first place? Shouldn’t they just be…kaput?”

  “Nearest we can figure is that enriched uranium—it’s too concentrated. Like ice cubes. A sponge can’t soak up an ice cube, can it? It has to melt first.”

  Keali`i looks directly at me. “Listen, Lei, I’m not trying to be difficult. I just still have questions. Aren’t there other things to consider? Starvation? Disease? Fighting? This ‘lesser of evils’ argument…I don’t know. With every passing month it’ll be harder to actually recover, until it’s too late altogether. Gas will go bad in another six months. Engineers, technicians, electricians, computer programmers, chemists…they’re all dying out there, too! And wouldn’t nuclear scientists have figured this mop thing out? Don’t you think they already know to accelerate their meltdowns?”

  “Maybe,” I say. “But how come there haven’t been four hundred meltdowns already? Not enough people are hitting the fast-forward button.”

  Dad says, “The point is, we don’t know. We need better information, to be certain that the right people understand the game plan. Until then we’re in a holding pattern.”

  “Until then people around the globe remain scared and hopeless and dying,” says Keali`i. “Who’s that poet? You want a bang but you’re getting a whimper.”

  “I KNOW!” I shout. “I know that. Don’t you think I know?” Keali`i puts his hands in his pockets. I continue. “Help us. Think. How do we get the word out?”

  “Okay, well…have you tried giving the Orchid a longer leash? So it’s far enough away to not fry circuit boards? Reel it in only when there’s a pop, but otherwise—”

  “We’d risk their getting away because the line’s too weak. They’ll just zap microchips all over again each time they come in. Fits and starts. Almost worse that way.”

  Mom explains that our family has put a lot of thought into this, but we’ve still fallen short. She concludes, “Meanwhile, we have to survive each day as it comes. Challenge after challenge. We have to meet our daily demands as best we can. Here, now.”

  Dad says, “We need to make a pact. This is a secret. Very important it stays that way. Can you imagine Lei’s danger if the wrong people found out?”

  Tami nods, her face losing just a hint of color. Keali`i’s eyes narrow grimly.

  “Do we have your word not to mention this to anybody? Ever?” Mom says.

  “Of course!” Tami answers.

  “Absolutely,” Keali`i agrees. “Lips are sealed. No matter what.”

  * * *

  Within the hour, Keali`i and Tami leave for town on their bikes. Keali`i offers to escort her down the hill. “I’ll probably be gone for a while. Other business to attend to,” he explains. Typical Keali`i.

  It’s hard to see them go, but we agree to meet up as soon as I have a chance to visit Tami. Keali`i reminds me: “Bring your wet suit.” Then he adds, “And bring Tami. If you want.”

  My parents overhear and share a look. I’m sure they’d like to cloister me here. But that’s never going to happen.

  Our neighbors Paul and Sara Irving arrive at our house with their baby. They’re out for a long walk and have come to check on us following the earthquake. We’re thrilled to see them, and we circle around baby Chloe. Paul and Sara had Chloe only a few days before the power went out. If she had been born after that—who knows what the hospital would have been like. I hear that it’s still up and running, but just barely, and only with volunteers at their wits’ end.

  “How’d your place do?” Dad asks Paul.

  “Some pictures fell down. No real damage.”

  Thank God, I think.

  “Good! How’s everything else going?” Dad asks. He points knowingly. “Bags under your eyes.”

  “It’s going well,” Paul says. “Power or no, parenting is just…what it is: sleepless nights, dirty cloth diapers, fending off the hordes of boys.”

  Sara and Mom drift to another room to talk story. I’m torn between joining them and playing with the baby, but Chloe wins out with her little grasping starfish hands and big blue eyes.

  “Made her a mobile, Lei.” Paul beams. “Clothes hangers and paper cutouts.”

  “You’re a stellar dad,” my father says.

  “I’ll learn from you. I don’t know how you pulled off crossing islands to get home, keeping Lei safe.”

  Dad eyes me. “I never let her out of my sight.”

  “Hey,” I tell him. “I know you get nervous when I go into town. It’s great that you let me do it anyway.” I turn to Paul. “Another secret of a good dad: don’t smother your daughter or she’ll turn against you.”

  Dad’s eyes narrow. “It’s dangerous down there.”

  “Tami needs me down there, too.”

  “We worry.” The way Dad says this makes me fall silent. “You leave, we worry. Every minute. The knowledge sits in your gut all day. It’s a terrible way to live.”

  “Well…,” I start. “What…How is that fair to me?”

  “I don’t know,” Mom admits, coming back into the room with Sara, like she’s been waiting to have this conversation. “Listen, we trust you. You’re seventeen going on seventy. Just…what you went through to get home—an experience like that does two things. You know better than most how things can turn lethal in an instant. But your experiences also taught you that you’re immune to danger. You survived the unsurvivable. On some level you think you’re invincible. That’s ridiculous.”

  “You sound like Tūtū,” I say. r />
  “Good!” she says. “Then you know I’m right.”

  “Wow,” Sara says. She’s in her late twenties, blond hair cut short like mine. “I can’t imagine letting go. It’s hard to admit that we’ll have to separate someday.”

  “It’ll happen.” Mom sighs. “Even after the end of the world. Nothing changes.”

  The young family heads back home, and the urgency of chores, chores, chores rushes back. Mom asks me to clean the chicken coop. I tidy it up in a sort of daze. If I just won my freedom, why do I feel so guilty about it?

  Grandpa arrives after lunch while I’m in the greenhouse moving `ulu seedlings into larger pots. We’ve propagated these root cuttings from the shoots of our five breadfruit trees. Grandpa helps me finish up.

  We sit on the front steps. I pick at the edges of a patch of moss, peeling it up like lifting carpet. It’s so quiet. My parents are catching up on chores around the back. Kai is at Uncle Hank’s for target practice. “The loko wai you built was damaged by the earthquake,” Grandpa tells me. “All your o`opu escaped. I’m sorry.”

  My fishpond. A week’s worth of work, a month’s worth of maintenance. My o`opu were just starting to grow, too. I had been hoping to fry up my first batch next week. I squeeze my hands into fists, then return to prying up clumps of moss.

  “There’s nothing you could have done, Leilani,” Grandpa says. “This island is alive, always has been. Part of learning to live sustainably—and part of returning to our roots—is learning to accept the whims of the gods. Pele carries out her great works without a thought to us. She rebuilds her island, and we will rebuild our loko. This is a core part of who we Hawaiians are.”

  He knows that wasn’t Pele. It was me. “Tūtū,” I say.

  He draws me in close. “Come, breathe.” I close my eyes and breathe deep, smell the plumeria flowers on the tree above me, the flowers Mom always rests above her ear. “Mind, body, and spirit are all the same thing,” he explains with the voice of a magician; he weaves spells. “Pono. Equilibrium, wholeness, harmony. You must be connected to your spirit, the world around you. Your `aina, your land. Your family. `Ohana. You are lōkahi, Leilani. You are one. Individual. Matchless. And you are also One. Indivisible. Connected with all of creation.”