STORYLINE

How Coffee and Can Openers Helped Restart Thanksgiving

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For a long time people celebrated Thanksgiving every year because they didn’t have to worry about having enough food. The first Thanksgiving happened a long, long time ago before people knew about vending machines or how to put food in cans. A group of people called the Pilgrims had a feast with people called the Indians in order to thank them for teaching them how to grow food. Over the years, other people heard about the Pilgrims, moved to where they lived and killed almost all the Indians. After that, Thanksgiving was mostly about eating with relatives and trying to be nice to them. Everyone’s family would travel from far and wide to eat together, catch up on each other’s lives, and talk about what things used to be better. The kids would sit at a different table than the adults so they could be loud and everyone ate a type of bird called a turkey. A turkey was like a giant chicken but it was almost always dry when you cooked it and nobody ate the eggs.

After things stopped working, people had to worry about getting enough food to eat everyday so they stopped having Thanksgiving. There weren’t any turkeys on the island anyway. Nobody seemed to care because they were busy trying to live. For lots of years people like my Grandpa Pa’ani worked hard up on the hill to make sure everyone there had enough to eat, and that the ugly people down below didn’t steal anything. Even though the people on the hill were smart and they worked hard some of their plants started to get sick. The macadamia trees stopped making nuts and the taro plants started turning brown and dying. Everyone was really scared because they didn’t know where they were going to get food.

They were so worried that a bunch of them went out the gate and down below to try and trade for some food. After looking around for awhile they found a hunting party. The ugly hunters saw that one of the traders was drinking coffee and asked if they could taste some. They hadn’t had good coffee in a really long time because their roasters were broken and they’re not very good at fixing things. They really liked the coffee so they invited them back to their village.The people on the hill noticed there was a lot of broken stuff in the village. Almost all of their machines didn’t work and their plates and glasses were chipped and dirty. Most of their stuff was rusty and all of them had to share a can opener. They noticed something else too, lots of healthy plants.

The people from the hill told them about how their plants were dying and the Kanaka knew what to do. They gave them a different kind of taro plant that was stronger than the old kind but tasted just the same. They showed the hill people how to bury the purple fish next to the macadamia trees so they would get better and make nuts again. The people on the hill were happy that they didn’t have to worry about starving anymore. They decided to have Thanksgiving again and invite the Kanaka.

Even though the people down below don’t smell very good and are messy when they eat, the hill people opened the gates to share a feast . They laid out blankets and brought out tables so that their houses wouldn’t get messy. The Kanaka brought lots of fish, meat, and vegetables. The hardworking people made lots of coffee and brought out clean plates and glasses for them to use. Everyone was really happy and best of all nobody tried to steal anything. To show their appreciation for the good manners and the healthy plants, the people on the hill gave them bags of roasted coffee, new glasses and plates, and some new can openers. The people down below loved the gifts, especially the can openers. After that the Kanaka and the people like my grandpa started trading things more often. They still do today.

The people up here had such a good time that they decided to start having Thanksgiving every year again. We don’t eat with the people down below anymore because we have enough food for our families now. Grandfathers can talk about how lazy everyone is compared to them, aunts can ask your older sister why they aren’t married, and your cousin can talk about how important Kanaka integration is to a vibrant culture again, all thanks to coffee and can openers. I’m glad that the Kanaka helped us but I’m more glad that I don’t have to eat with them. My weird cousin is bad enough!

Akamai Mahelona
4th Grade
Pu`u School Lahaina

STORYLINE

The Story of Longboard Lei

The fracture made a lot of scary things you have to be worried about. Nobody wants to come across a green lady or a group of night marchers, but some of the biggest dangers in Lahaina don’t come from the monsters; they come from people themselves. Lots of survivors tried to make things better, like my grandpa, but lots decided to steal and take what they want also. One of the worst of those kind of people is Longboard Lei.

Nobody who lives on the water is safe from the pirate queen and her crew. They say that Lei took the weapons from all the old naval bases around the islands, and put them in a secret armory. They say that there are enough guns there to arm everyone on the island, but my dad says that it’s probably not true, and it’s just a story to make people even more scared of her.

What is true, is that Lei is a great surfer and ruthless. She hates cowardice more than anything else. In fact, if she attacks your village your best bet is to fight back. After an attack, Lei rounds up everyone who didn’t help protect their friends and they’re never see again, but she leaves the injured alone. There are lots of stories about how she got to be a good surfer and why she hates people who don’t fight back, but this is my favorite.

Lei was the daughter of a Kanaka fisherman. Along with her brothers and sisters, she would jump in her dad’s boat every morning and he whole family would go out far beyond the reefs to catch butterfish and mackerel. Her father would tell them all tales about the old world to keep them entertained. He’d talk of movies, traveling across the world in an instant, and how some people used do nothing but play games all day. Lei in particular loved hearing tales of the great old surfers, and would spend much of these fishing trips dreaming of a time when people could survive simply by being good at riding the waves.

Then Lei’s life changed forever. The fish had been harder and harder to find for months, and her dad decided to go out further than usual to look for them. They hadn’t traveled far from the usual fishing grounds when they were hit by a veilstorm. The sky changed color, the orange rain fell, and a massive surge built up beneath their tiny boat. A wave lifted them all high into the air, and the boat broke apart. It was the last Lei would ever see of her family.

The young girl awoke half drowned, clinging to a piece of wood, and floating in a cove. Something about being in the water terrified her, and she kicked as hard as she could to shore. She found herself on a rocky beach surrounded by cliffs. Lei sat for a while and considered her options. She decided to rest for a while and then swim around to see if she could find a better place to wait for help, but hours turned to days.

Every time she tried to go in the water, something inside her made her freeze. So she spent days catching slow crabs and prying snails off the rocks at low tide. She tried boiling sea water and catching the steam like her father taught her, but she wasn’t very good at it, and only collected enough water to make her even more thirsty. On the third day she began to see things and wondered how long it would be before she saw her family again. She watched the rope ladder fall down the cliff face and the old woman descend, but didn’t believe she was real until the coconut water touched her lips.

She was so thirsty that she spilled as mulch as she gulped. The woman said she had been watching Lei, and she was impressed. However, she wondered why whe never swam out of the cove to explore the island. Lei told the strange woman about her family, what had happened, and that she was scared. The woman hugged her close and said she understood because something similar had happened to her long ago.

She promised to help Lei and for the next few months the two were inseparable. While Lei talked about her friends and family freely, the old woman didn’t like to talk about her past. She told Lei that she used to be in movies and was a great surfer in her time. The girl assumed she was just trying to make her feel good until she arrived one day with a pair of crude surfboards. Seeing the skeptical look on Lei’s face the old woman said, “I was always better at riding them than building them,” and hobbled in the water. Lei was amazed! While she walked with a shuffle on land, the old woman deftly maneuvered her board in the water like she was part of the waves. It filled her with enough confidence that she ventured in the water too, and together they paddled out of the cove.

Lei saw that there were many tiny islands in the vicinity and the pair hugged when they reached the beach. For many years, the pair lived on the main beach and surfed every day. While she didn’t mind playing and swimming close to shore, she was still scared to venture out into the deep water. The old woman would take trips to one tiny island every week but refused to say why. She told Lei that if she was so curious, she could just swim out there herself and see. One night as the pair lay in their shelter the old woman hugged Lei close and told her that she was glad she had ended up on the island, and was happy that the end of her days would be spent with such a brave young woman.

The words burned deep inside Lei. As strange as it might sound, she always thought that she would be found. It never occurred to her that she might spend the rest of her life here. She decided that she needed to swim to the little island and see what the old woman was keeping there. It wasn’t a long swim, but Lei’s hands were tired from gripping her board so tight when she arrived. There was a tiny shack not far from the beach, and Lei was not prepared for what she found inside.

A beautiful but broken surfboard with a picture of a young woman who looked a lot like her old companion sat in the corner. There was a piece of driftwood adorned with shells and eight names carved into it with the words “Keep Kicking” underneath. On the wall hung a tattered wetsuit with the name, “Layla” written on the back. Lei was stunned. The old woman was the famous surfer Layal Kalani. Her father had told her stories of Layla. How brave she was, and how she was lost at sea and never found. As Lei thought about the stories, her family, and the old woman, her hands began to shake in anger.

The old woman had talked about not being afraid, but she had never tried to leave herself. She couldn’t believe that the stories her father told of the brave surfing legend who fought sharks, would just sit here and wait to die. She talked about courage but she had none inside her. Worse still, she wanted Lei to succumb to weakness and stay here herself. For the first time in her life she knew what was important. Her father was a good and hardworking man, but it didn’t matter. Her brothers and sisters were innocent and honorable but it didn’t matter. People talked of the bravery of Layla, the Queen of the Surf, but it was a lie. The only thing that mattered was not being a coward, and having the will to take and do what you wanted.

Lei put on the old wetsuit, kicked over the wooden memorial, and grabbed the largest piece of the broken board without a word to the old woman that had almost made her happy to stay on the island. They say her bitterness and anger only grew as she rode the currents. By the time she made land, the young daughter of a Kanaka fishermen was gone and Longboard Lei was all that remained. She would show everyone what someone could do when they didn’t give up and they were not afraid.

My mom doesn’t like when I tell this story to my brother because it scares him, and she says it has a terrible message. But I think it’s good because now he thinks if I get too mad at him for going through my things, I might turn into a pirate like Lei.

Akamai Mahelona
4th Grade
Pu`u School Lahaina

STORYLINE

My Day With an Expert: Auntie Oki

An expert is someone who has a special skill or knowledge in a certain area that nobody else has. There are many experts on the island. Some are really good at finding water, knowing what the animals are going to do, or fixing things that break. Sometimes people argue about who’s the best expert at certain things but when it comes to shark-toothed weapons everyone agrees. Nobody is as good as Auntie Oki. When I learned that we had to spend a day with an expert for this assignment, I knew right away that I wanted to spend a day with her.

Oki and her sister Pana run the armory. Before the fracture the armory used to be a museum. Lots of people would come to look at all kinds of old stuff, not just weapons. Since the accident, the sister’s family have made it the best place to buy the equipment you need to protect yourself and keep you alive if you’re out exploring.

Leiomano is an old Hawaiian word that means “lei of the shark”. Today it’s a word that means any kind of shark-toothed weapon and it is Oki’s specialty. She says that making leiomano is a form of art and she tries to make each of her weapons as suitable for framing on the wall as they are at slicing through a Nightmarcher.

Every morning Oki puts on her beach hat and sets out just before sunrise to look for shark teeth. “You find the best ones right at dawn,” she says. Oki prefers tiger shark teeth but says you can use any heavily serrated species like dusky, bull, or even great white teeth. Even though the pointy teeth of the different kind of reef sharks look cool, Oki says they don’t cut very well so she only uses them for decoration or toys.

She carries the teeth back home in specially made bundles of hau tree cloth and palm fibers to avoid the teeth cracking or becoming dull by rubbing against each other. In her workshop, Oki lays out all the teeth, grades them, and decides what color schemes, patterns, and weapon types each tooth would be good for.

Oki says that every tooth, tusk, and antler she finds has a place and that there are a numerous opportunities in every home to “tastefully weaponize the decor”. She is almost as well known for her nontraditional creations as she is for her leiomano work. Every night Oki teaches a class on creative armament design for anyone interested in the subject. She says her exclusive line of boar-tusk brooms are, “easy to use and are as deadly as they are elegant.” But when it comes to shark teeth she does things the old way.

Oki treats the teeth with a special process handed down through her family to make them hard and less brittle. Even though I asked politely, she wouldn’t tell me what it was. She only uses koa or milo wood in her weapons. She says that they are the most durable and fit in well with almost any color palette.

Some people say that the best way to secure a tooth to a weapon is to lash it without drilling holes or use a strong epoxy or glue. Oki says those methods are lazy and can lead to tooth or life loss in battle, as well as a missed opportunity to add exciting accent features to a weapon. Auntie Oki uses a small laser drill to score her treated shark teeth before punching a hole with a handmade sandalwood awl. She says you can’t make beautiful weapons unless you’re using beautiful tools.

The ancient Hawaiians believed a lot of weird things about teeth. They believed that shark teeth could protect you from shark attacks and made warriors more brave. They also believed that if you took a molar from a fallen enemy and inlay it in a club, the mana from the slain warrior was transferred to the weapon, giving its owner more spiritual power. Owning a shark-toothed weapon was a great honor and would make its wielder almost impervious to harm. But Oki says her creations are for display and devastation purposes only, not for spiritual protection.

If you are looking for: a Koa axe, a niho knife, a hoe leiomano paddle, or just a simple shark-toothed club, there is no better place to look than the armory. My mom says that I’m still too young to get a pololu spear, but when I grow up, I know Oki will make me a beautiful one that will match my favorite boots.

Akamai Mahelona
4th Grade
Pu`u School Lahaina

STORYLINE

The Story of Miki the Helpful Menehune

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The Kanaka don’t teach their kids in the same way we do here in Pu’u. They use stories. Since they didn’t plan as well as people like my grandpa and his friends, they didn’t have safe places to live, food, water, and printers to make things like the Thrivers do here. Instead, the Kanaka had to rely on each other and their families to survive the big accident. They know that they have to count on everyone in their village if they’re going to make it, even if someone doesn’t always do a good job every time. Miki the Helpful Menehune is a story about not giving up on someone even when they disappoint you.

Lohi’s grandfather was one of the elders in her tiny village. Having lost her parents to Night Marchers when she was only two, her grandfather raised her as his own daughter. He thought it was important for Lohi to go on walks with him so she could learn the ways of the forest and see its dangers firsthand. It was on one of these walks that the pair heard a horrible noise coming from the ruins of some old houses.

Carefully they approached to find the scene of a shrig attack on a menehune den. One of the scintillating shrigs lay dead, surrounded by the bodies of many menehune. It looked like the creatures had killed each other and there were no survivors. Just as they were walking away they heard a shrill cry from behind them, and saw a very young menehune standing there. Lohi’s grandfather said it was too young to survive without its parents and they should leave it there, and let the jungle judge its worth, but Lohi couldn’t help but feel bad for the tiny thing.

As they walked home, Lohi noticed the menehune following them as best as it could. Its little legs were barely able to keep up, and it struggled up ravines and over logs, but it never gave up. She asked her Grandfather if they could take it to the village and help it until it was big enough to fend for itself. One look in her eyes, and her tutu knew it was no use in arguing with the girl. “If we take this menehune to the village it won’t learn what it needs to survive, and you will have to take care of it for the rest of its life. It will become part of the family. Do you understand,” he asked? Lohi shook her head yes. She named it Miki, and hugged her grandfather saying she would look after and feed it every day.

Many were not happy when Lohi and her grandfather returned with Miki. He screamed nonstop the first few weeks until Lohi found that he’d stop for a while if he could hold a set of old tools. He only screamed half the day after that. Feeding him was hard too. His teeth hadn’t come in yet and she had to feed him poi, and boiled fish every few hours to keep his hunger screams at a bay. Still Lohi never gave up on Miki and the two grew very close. But menehune grow up faster than people, and it wasn’t long before Miki started causing trouble in the village.

The menehune was fascinated with anything mechanical, especially anything that ran on electricity. Overhearing one of the hunters talk about how the village guns were in desperate need of repair one day, Lohi got an idea. She’d sneak out after bed with Miki and they’d fix all the guns. The others would be so happy when they saw what she and Miki had done, they’d stop shooing him away from the houses, and saying bad things about him. She asked Miki if he could do it and his little body shook in excitement. He screamed with joy, but things didn’t go quite as planned.

Miki took everything apart at lightning speed, but he didn’t seem to know what to do next, and neither did Lohi. Her grandfather grounded both of them, and it took days to put the village armory back together again. But Lohi didn’t give up. When she let Miki try to upgrade the village’s solar panels a few weeks later, he covered them in paint and they both had to tend to the composting pile for a week for punishment. When Miki ruined half the village’s batteries while trying to charge them, and accidentally electrified the front door, Lohi’s grandfather had enough. He took away Miki’s tools and told Lohi that she would have to get rid of the menehune if he got into any more trouble.

Everyone in the village was already upset because of a long drought, and Miki’s “help” was not appreciated. Many, including Lohi’s grandfather, were worried because they didn’t have enough water to irrigate the crops, and it looked like a long hungry winter was on the way. When the village well dried up, panic struck the Kanaka. Getting through a season of poor crops was one thing, but they couldn’t survive without water. The people had to think about the possibility of braving the dangers of the forest in search of water and moving the entire village.

But Lohi had a plan. Even though her grandfather told her Miki wasn’t supposed to try and fix anything again, she knew that if they got the old desalinator working again they could stay where they were, and they might even save the taro. She got Miki’s tools from where her grandfather hid them and asked the menehune if he could fix the machine. Miki threw his screwdriver he was so excited and screamed with confidence.

The next morning while everyone was gathered to talk about what they were going to do, Lohi showed up with a glass of water, and Miki yelping in delight behind her. She said, “They may disappoint you, by not always doing the right thing, they may even make you angry sometimes, but a Kanaka should never give up on their family. Even though you all did, I never gave up on Miki and now he’s fixed the desalinator. We don’t have to go anywhere.” Everyone cheered, and from that day on he was known as Miki the Helpful Menehune, even though he probably went on to break a lot more stuff.

Akamai Mahelona
4th Grade
Pu`u School Lahaina

STORYLINE

Lawai’a and the Whale

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Even though many of them are sick from the big accident, the Kānaka are really good hunters and fisherman. They are also great storytellers. They use their stories to help remember people who have died and to teach lessons. One of my favorites is the story of Lawai’a and the Whale. It is probably based on a real person but parts of it seem a little fishy to me.

The Kānaka have a long history of being excellent canoe builders but none of them were as good as Lawai’a. His long canoes were just as straight and strong as the short ones, and they could handle even the biggest waves. Nobody wants to go far out to sea, but if you had to, you wanted to be in a canoe that Lawai’a built.

Lawai’a took pride in his creations, but what he really wanted was to be a good fisherman. You see, while he was easily the best canoe builder on the whole island, maybe ever, he was a terrible fisherman. In fact, Lawai’a had never caught a fish or crab in his entire life. Even when he was asked to collect limpets from the rocks he came back with the smallest basket. All of the fishermen wanted one of his canoes, but none wanted to go fishing with him. As far as they were concerned he was cursed. He would spend every day the same way, building canoes in his shop by himself, and dreaming of becoming a fisherman.

The fracture didn’t just kill things on the land, it devastated the waters too. After the accident most of the big fish disappeared and the Kānaka had to live on crabs, small reef fish, and the occasional big prize that would swim too close to shore looking for food.

One spring the fishing was particularly bad, and the people worried that they might not get enough food to make it through the summer. What little hope they had disappeared when they saw the whale. Nobody had seen one since the day everything stopped working. The villagers knew that the whale would eat all the little fish they depended on. They were scared and didn’t know what to do. But Lawai’a said he had a plan.

He said he had an old harpoon that he found in the ruins of the whaler’s village to the North. He would take his biggest and strongest canoe out past the reef and kill the whale. The fishermen thought he was crazy but they didn’t have a better plan. The villagers wished him luck, and had a big party before sending him off. Nobody expected to see him again.

It didn’t take Lawai’a long to find the giant beast. He watched it herd the fish into tight balls before diving beneath and engulfing the whole school with its gigantic mouth. The closer he got the more he shook in fear, but he knew that everyone was counting on him so he tried to be brave. He finally got close enough and let the harpoon go. Lawai’a very first throw was true and it hit the whale mid-tail. The big animal sped off out to sea and the coiled rope hissed at it spun out. In less than a minute the rope went taught and the canoe lurched forward knocking Lawai’a down. He was speeding out to sea.
Lawai’a stayed attached to the whale for 3 days. They went around islands and over reefs. The whale tried diving deep and sinking the canoe but Lawai’a had brought enough rope for even the deepest spots. They swam through a storm but even crashing down the biggest waves wasn’t enough to loosen the harpoon. Finally the whale was getting tired and asked Lawai’a why he had stabbed him.

Lawai’a told the whale about how hungry the Kānaka were and about how bad the fishing had become. The whale listened to Lawai’a and offered him a deal. If he promised to remove the harpoon, the whale would promise to not come back to the Kānaka’s fishing grounds, and he would teach Lawai’a how to find and catch fish. Lawai’a thought about it, looked at how little water he had left to drink, and agreed.

The first day, the whale showed Lawai’a were the black crabs lived now and how to catch them. Lawai’a filled a third of his canoe full of them. He told the whale how he chose which trees would make the best canoes. He talked about which chisels he liked best and how to make lacquer while they looked for crabs.

On the second day, the whale explained how smart the octopus had become since the fracture. He taught Lawai’a how to disguise his traps with shells the same way the Kānaka still do today. By that evening another third of the canoe was filled with food. Lawai’a told the whale about his family and the first girl he loved. He talked about how his father taught him his craft and how he still dreamed of his mother’s cooking.

The third day, the whale explained that a deep canyon had formed after the accident and that the butterfish now swam there. He took Lawai’a to a good place to fish for them, and before long they had caught a dozen. Unfortunately, the canoe was becoming so full that there wasn’t much room for the Lawai’a. The whale saw this and offered to help again. He told Lawai’a that he could keep fishing until his canoe was completely full and he could sleep on the whale’s back that evening. Lawai’a agreed.

That night as the whale swam back to the village Lawai’a sat and looked at his full canoe in the moonlight. He wondered if it would be enough to get invited on fishing trips in the future. He told the whale how all the other fishermen thought he was cursed. The whale told him about his life and the secrets of the sea. All through the night the pair shared stories.

As the sun rose they saw people already casting nets in the surf. The whale told Lawai’a that its name was Hilina`i and that if he ever needed help again to paddle out to where they met and call his name. Lawai’a thanked him and plunged his harpoon into the whales blowhole.

The villagers could barely believe their eyes. Not only had Lawai’a killed the whale, but he had ridden him into shore with a canoe full of food behind him. Lawai’a told them what he had learned. The Kānaka divided the whale and all the rest he brought in the canoe. From that day on Lawai’a was known as the best fisherman on the island.

For the rest of his life Lawai’a would go out every week to the spot where he had met the whale and call the animal’s name. While he got his wish and was now also known as the greatest fisherman of all time, he still wasn’t invited to go on trips. The other fisherman were scared he would show them up or worse, they’d have a bad catch while fishing with the legend he had become. Lawai’a hoped that one day Hilina`i’s spirit would answer his call for help. He longed for those days they spent together fishing and talking. Lawai’a learned that what he had really wanted all those years wasn’t to be known as a good fisherman, it was to have someone he could call a friend.

Akamai Mahelona
4th Grade
Pu`u School Lahaina

STORYLINE

The Story of the Veil Stop Farmers

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Everyone makes mistakes, and my grandpa says it’s ok to make mistakes as long as you learn from them. One of my favorite stories about learning from your mistakes is the story of the Veil Stop Farmers. It teaches kids and adults that you always have to be cautious, even if you think everything is ok, and that you should to listen to legends even if you don’t think they are completely true.

Frank and Dawn Aikola worked with my grandpa and many of the other Pu’u founders before the big accident. Dawn was one of Veilcorp’s best engineers. My grandpa says she was one of the smartest people he ever knew, but that didn’t matter when the fracture happened, nobody was smart enough to stop it.

Dawn was outside in the garden when the ground started shaking and the explosions started. Frank ran out to get her and said they had to go to the emergency shelter. They ran out to the road and saw lots of other people running to where the shelter was. Then Dawn stopped and said she forgot her ring and ran back to the house. Frank tried to stop her but she ran fast. It’s a good thing she went back. When they came back outside they saw that the road had split apart and the people fell into a deep crevice. After that they called it her lucky ring, and Dawn never took it off.

The Aikola’s where one of the founding families of Pu’u. Along with my grandpa and others, they got the power working, fixed the water purifiers, and built the walls. There weren’t many machines that Dawn couldn’t fix, but after a while the macadamia trees stopped making nuts, and the taro started to die. Nobody knew how to fix them, not even Dawn. The Kanaka gave us different kinds of taro plants and medicine for the trees but the people of Pu’u couldn’t wait, they needed food now.

Then one day Dawn was looking at an old Veil Stop station near the school and had an idea. Before the accident people used the veil station to travel across the world, but soon they got really lazy and decided they wanted to travel all over the island without walking too. There were only a few Veil Stops at first, but eventually they made a whole bunch of them because people wanted them everywhere. Dawn remembered that one of them was just North of the Hana taro farm.

Even though the farm is only a little over a mile away, nobody had tried to start another community there. It’s dangerous to go outside of the walls, even a little. The Kanaka have lots of legends about dangerous places, but they consider Hana farm one of the worst and warn everyone not to go there. But the people were desperate and needed food. Dawn’s plan was to see if she could get the Veil Stop near the farm working again, so they could use the farm to grow food and not have to walk through the dangerous forest.

Dawn’s team made it to the farm and found the Veil Stop. It wasn’t too damaged and in a couple hours Dawn had it almost fixed but they needed a little piece of wire. Instead of trying to walk back, she had an idea. She slipped off her ring and wedged it where she needed the wire. Back in Pu’u the Veil Stop sprang to life. Dawn and her group appeared; her lucky ring worked again! She grabbed the wire she needed and some seeds and they all went back.

Over the next few months, the people of Pu’u got Hana Farm running again. Eventually people started staying out there everyday and just sending the vegetables in big baskets through the Veil Stop. Dawn was out there a lot fixing things and working on an irrigation system, but she came back every night because Frank was worried that something would happen.

After a while there was a rumor that a big boat had beached on the other side of the island, so Frank had to leave with some other scouts to check it out. He told Dawn that he’d be back in a week or two and told her to be careful. The next few days Dawn spent almost all her time at the farm, and by the end of the week she was staying out there overnight. It was the peak of the harvest so all the farmers were staying at the farm until all the crops were picked. It seemed like the baskets got bigger everyday. Eventually one of the baskets came with a note that they needed more help, so three more volunteers went through the Veil Stop to the farm.

The next day the same thing happened, and a few more people went to work. Nobody who had left came back, but the baskets were so big that nobody thought anything was wrong. Then Frank came back one evening and found that Dawn was gone. He got worried when the people told him that she’d been working at the farm for days without coming home. Before he could walk through the Veil Stop another big bunch of baskets came through. Again there was a note that the farmers needed more help, but this time Frank noticed something, one of the baskets had a spot of dried blood.

When Frank and the other scouts finally got to the farm the sun was coming up. They didn’t see anyone in the fields or hear anyone or anything. All the birds were quiet and the fields were covered in fog. They searched the big house and found clothes but no people. They looked in the barn but that was empty too. Finally, when they walked out to the Veil Stop they found something. It was Dawn’s lucky ring, lying in the dirt.

The scouts spread out and hid all day waiting to see who was sending the vegetables but nobody showed up. They were just about to leave when they saw someone pushing a cart through the field. For a minute Frank thought it was Dawn, but as the woman got closer he saw that she was covered in leaves and vines. Just as she was getting close she stopped and began to look around. Frank stood up and yelled at her to stop. The woman let out a loud hiss and the plants around her began to move. It was a green lady. She ran at one of the scouts while everyone screamed and shots rang out. She reached the scout before he could escape, and the others watched as she fled into the forest dragging the screaming scout behind.

They never found her, the scout, or any of the others, including Dawn, and when they searched the cart they found another note. My grandpa says the green lady had been ordering up people like pizza, but he says lots of weird things. Even though they missed Dawn and all the others, what happened to the Veil Stop Farmers taught the people some important lessons: Our scouts now make face-to-face contact with outposts every few days. Everyone who goes outside the wall gets a password you have to remember and include in anything you write, and we’re careful of places that scare the Kanaka. One day I want to get rid of all the green ladies. I won’t end up like the Veil Stop Farmers because I learned from their mistakes.

Akamai Mahelona
4th Grade
Pu`u School Lahaina

STORYLINE

The Legend of Floppy Finn and the Bone Garden

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The people who first came to the island brought a lot of things with them like food and tools, but they also brought the idea of sacred places. Long ago there were all kinds of springs, creeks, and mountains that were supposed to hold powers or let you talk to spirits. The big accident destroyed a lot of things from the past like the roads and buildings, but the idea of sacred places survived. Today lots of people hold places like Black Rock Beach or the Augustinian Cliffs sacred. They are places that teach us about the people who came before us and life lessons. This is a story about one of the scariest, the Bone Garden, and a carver who broke the rules of this scary sacred place.

There was no doubt about it, Finn was born to be a carver. Before the fracture, Finn’s tutu was a famous artist and people came from all around to buy her carvings. She passed this talent down to Finn’s father and eventually to him. They say Finn made his first machete handle before he could even walk. But he wasn’t just good at making weapon grips and before long people started to notice.

Finn started out working with wood but eventually, he learned that he was meant to work with bone. He could carve a totem as big as one of the Kanaka warriors out of a whale rib in an afternoon. He could make a fishing arrow out of a deer leg in minutes and his bear bone carvings looked so realistic people said you could hear them roar. Everyone wanted Finn to carve them something and the orders started to pile up. That’s when the trouble began.

Finn was really good at carving but he was also very lazy. Bones are hard to get. Deer are fast and wary. Wolves and bears have good senses and are dangerous to hunt, and the only way to get whale bones is to wait for one to beach itself. It wasn’t long before Finn had used up all the bones he could find on this part of the island but he still had lots of things to make. That’s when he got the idea about looking for bones in the Bone Garden.

Every group of people has their own way of saying goodbye to a loved one after they die. The Kanaka believe that dead people should be returned to the water and bury each other at sea. We Thrivers recycle the dead in machines, but a long time ago they used to bury people in the ground or burn them up to ashes. One of the biggest problems for people who lived through the big accident was what to do with all the dead people. There wasn’t enough room or time to bury them all, and there weren’t enough trees to burn them all up. It wasn’t healthy to have dead people everywhere so everyone decided to put them in a nearby valley.

The people put their loved ones and neighbors there and anything else that reminded them of the way the world used to be. It wasn’t long before the plants and vines started to grow around the bodies. They say that first spring the most beautiful flowers the island has ever seen grew amongst the memories and the lost. They named the valley the Bone Garden. People said you could hear the spirits there if you listened closely and that the Night Marchers tended the flowers at night. It became one of the most sacred places on the island and everyone treated it with respect, everybody that is but Finn.

With all the bones piled up there, Finn figured that he’d be able to find all the knife handles and materials he needed. He thought a few femurs would work great to fill orders and he could probably even use a humerus or two. His friends were horrified when he told them his plan and they tried to warn him, but Finn wouldn’t listen. He headed out to the Bone Garden the next morning and came back before noon with a bag of bones to carve.

That night his neighbors heard drums and shouting from the jungle. When they looked out they saw lights moving in the Bone Garden and they knew the Night Marchers would discover that Finn had disturbed the sacred place. As the drums got louder and the lights got closer they all ran inside hoping the marchers would leave them alone. It wasn’t long until they could hear footsteps outside and then Finn. His screams lasted all night.

Finn was still alive when they found him in the morning. The garden’s protectors had taken his carving knives and removed all the bones in his arms and legs to replace the ones he took. When he died a few minutes later the people laid his remains and all of his tools in the Bone Garden to make sure the spirits didn’t return.

After that day, parents would tell their children the story of Floppy Finn to make sure they knew to respect the island’s sacred places, and never take anything from the Bone Garden. I’d never get in trouble like Finn because I know that polycarbonate is stronger and makes better handles than bone. I also think touching an old person’s bones is gross.

Akamai Mahelona
4th Grade
Pu`u School Lahaina

STORYLINE

How Tiki Idols Helped Everyone Work Together

In the past, before my grandpa and his friends made everything safe on the hill, people would carve tiki idols to help them remember people or stories. Some of the idols were even gods. Nobody in Pu`u think the idols are gods anymore, but they still help us deal with the people down below and remember the way things used to be.

A long, long, time ago people on the islands didn’t have cameras or books so when they wanted to remember something they’d carve an idol. The idols would be a way for the people to remember all of their grandparents or explain how something happened, like how people were made. For a long time people would learn about their history or religion with the help of the idols.

Some of the idols were made of stone but most were carved out of wood. The idols could be bigger than a person sometimes, but most weren’t. Some of the idols had lots of patterns carved into them or even bright colors. Even though some of the idols were supposed to be people they didn’t look very realistic, but they would usually have something special carved into them so you could tell who or what it was supposed to be.

When people got smarter and stopped believing that birds could talk, or that people were made of dirt, they stopped praying to them. They still carved the idols because they were cool to look at but people could look at pictures of old people to remember them. They had science to answer questions about where people came from so they didn’t need the idols anymore.

When the veils broke everyone was really scared. Only smart people like my grandpa had things that worked because they were prepared. The people got together in groups to help each other and protect themselves from Night Marchers and Green Ladies. The people on the hill all worked together but the people below fought a lot and would try to steal if you didn’t watch them. The worst were the people who got sick and ugly. They would usually fight and they would always try and steal things, especially guns.

Rai stones helped all the people get along better and some of the fighting stopped but things were still bad. Everyone on the hill wished that the people below would be better and act right but they didn’t know what to do. Then someone thought about how tiki idols helped people remember rules and learn about things.

The people on the hill talked to the people down below including the ugly people about what rules would be best for everyone. They made idols that had little bits of everyone, even sharp teeth for the ones who got sick. They agreed that the idols would be a symbol of getting along. The people on the hill told the dumber people that the idols were watching everyone and would punish anybody not following the rules. After that, things were much better.

Tiki idols help us keep the people down below from being bad and help us remember how hard working together used to be. Even though we lied about the idols watching over everyone, it was a good lie like when you tell your mom that your room is clean so you can practice shooting. I’m glad that someone remembered tiki idols and that all the people down below believe in them.

Akamai Mahelona
Pu`u School Lahaina

4th Grade

STORYLINE

Why We Use Rai For Money

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A long time ago there were no Tourist camps to trade with or Night Marchers, Menehune or even Green Ladies in the jungle. Everything worked everywhere not just up here on the hill. Everyone used money that was paper or on little plastic cards, but a long time before that people used things called Rai stones.

The Rai stones were carved out of limestone and they looked like wheels. Sometimes they were bigger than people but sometimes they were small enough to carry. Big ones or ones that looked good were worth more than others. There were even ones that were so big that they were really hard to move so people just had to remember who they belonged to.

When the Veil fractured lots of things changed. There were smart people like my grandpa who worked hard and knew that they couldn’t count on anyone to help them. They had lots of batteries and good strong fences. When things stopped working people like him kept things running up here so their families could have good lives but it wasn’t easy.

Some people down below weren’t careful so lots of them died. Some people were traveling and they got really sick and ugly but they could still speak if you talked to them. Some of them turned into monsters and started living in the jungle. That’s why it’s important to never go outside the fence unless you’re with an adult.

Everything went fine on the hill for a while but soon they started running out of food and they needed stuff to recycle to fix things or make new guns to kill the monsters. My grandpa and his friends knew where to find things down below but the Kanaka were always fighting with them or asking for guns that they couldn’t be trusted with. Nobody knew what to do.

Some people still used the paper money on the hill but lots of people just used it for starting fires outside the fence. The plastic cards didn’t work because everyone had to agree what they were worth and nobody could agree. Then someone remembered Rai stones. It was easy for people to agree on what the stones were worth and they were hard to lose and wouldn’t get wet in the rain. Even the Kanaka agreed.

Now when we clean the Kanaka’s water or give them things they want but can’t get into trouble with, we subtract it from the big stone next to their camp and when they give us food we add it. Everyone here on the hill uses little Rai stones when we buy things and so does everyone on the island. Rai stones helped people not fight and agree on things. Rai stones are an important part of our history. When I’m older I want a lot of Rai stones.

Akamai Mahelona
4th Grade
Pu`u School Lahaina

STORYLINE

The Legend of Mark, the Last Hailoha Driver

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A long time ago when everything still worked and my grandpa was young, there were roads paved with something called asphalt everywhere and most people had cars. If you wanted to go somewhere nearby, you’d get into your car by yourself or with a bunch of people and just drive there. That worked good most of the time but sometimes people drank too much or they were really tired and driving was dangerous. People were getting hurt a lot so they decided it would be better to have drivers take you where you needed to go. Back then you could use phones to talk to other people and make the drivers come to where you were. There were lots of drivers on the island but the best one was Mark.

Like a lot of the old things the drivers went away when the veils fractured, but some people say that Mark and his car survived. Nobody knows how he made it, since he wasn’t on the hill with the rest of the smart people. Some say he was a scientist and knew how to protect himself. Others say he made a deal with the spirits on the island. According to the stories if you’re on Front street during a new moon you might see Mark driving his car. Some people say that you need to have a working phone to make him stop but others say you just truly need to get somewhere to catch his attention.

Mark’s car is black so it’s hard to see and it doesn’t make any noise. It is made out of a special metal that can’t be dented and nothing happens if you shoot it. The tires never go flat too. He has been up and down Front street so many times that he doesn’t need to use the lights on his car. Mark just knows where the bad spots are and drives around them. It’s easy for him to drive right past someone without them noticing so you have to pay real close attention if you go and look for him. He knows what’s in each building he drives past, so you can’t surprise him.

They say that Mark can tell if someone is good or bad and bad people who try to get Mark to take them somewhere never arrive. If you’re good, Mark will protect you and bring you where you need to go. You never have to tell Mark where you want to go he just knows somehow. All the monsters who live in the jungle are scared of Mark especially the Menehune. According to the stories, any Menehune who see Mark turn into wood, but that seems like a lie to me, so it’s probably not true.

If Mark stops to give you a ride you have to pay him and he doesn’t accept rai stones. The stories say that Mark’s favorite things are cigarettes and Manimal drinks. He will take you anywhere you want if you have enough of those, but he’ll accept other things too. Some of the other things that Mark will take for payment include: canned food, old books, honey, alcohol, or even jokes and good stories.

Even though Mark is mostly good in the stories (unless you’re a bad person) he has some rules that you have to follow. If Mark stops to pick you up, you have to give him his payment right away. He doesn’t like to ask for payment. He likes listening to old music in his car. If you try and talk over the old music or ask him to turn it down he’ll stop the car and make you get out. If you complain, he’ll honk the horn to let all the monsters and bandits know where you are. Mark has a bowl filled with peppermint candies in his car that he shares with anyone that he takes for a ride. You can take one of the candies but only one. If you take more, he’ll take you where he takes bad people and you’ll never be seen again.

Mark The Hailoha Driver is a good story but the only person I know who says he’s real is my Grandpa and sometimes he lies to me so I’m not sure. There might have been a guy named Mark who did all that stuff after everything broke, but my dad says Front street is really dangerous so Mark would have to be really tough, tougher than my dad. I think it would be awesome if there really was a Mark. When I get older I want to go down to Front street on a new moon and look for him, but probably with some other people.

Akamai Mahelona
4th Grade
Pu`u School Lahaina