STORYLINE

The Legend of Piper: The Worst Tapper

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There is no doubt that Lahaina is a dangerous place to be if you are alone. If you are going to make it, your best chance is to belong to a group, and that includes family. Having a big family helps you survive, even if it means having to put up with brothers. But not all families are connected by blood, sometimes you just find that you fit in so well with a group that you become family. The story of Piper is a good example of how you can find a family even in the unlikeliest of places.

When Piper was born her parents could tell right away that something wasn’t right. Most Tapper babies are soothed by listening to the classics, but jazz standards didn’t settle her down. In fact, the 12th Street Rag just made her cry. Things only got worse as she got older. The first steps for many Tappers are something basic like: ball changes, heel turns, or a dos-y-dos, but much to her parent’s dismay, Piper walked before she danced.

At an age when most Tapper girls were picking out brightly colored tights, suspenders, tops, and leotards, Piper had a hard time choosing marvelous combinations. As fate would have it, she was color blind and didn’t like tight-fitting outfits. When she was old enough to begin her training, she had nothing but a closet full of 15 khaki skirts. Others in her group began to whisper about the odd little girl. She hated the way sequins felt on fabric, and glitter made her itch. She only liked comfortable shoes and refused to wear any kind of hair adornment.

Her differences became glaringly apparent when she went on her first raid. Piper didn’t think it was right to kidnap people and hold them for ransom. She thought everyone had the right to live on the island, not just the Tappers, and asked why they had to be so mean. Her worried parents tried to talk to her about it. They warned her that she better start learning her choreography and watch her keys and cues.

Piper tried and tried to be like the others, but as much as she tried, she just couldn’t understand why it was important to: turn on allies in the middle of a fight, wipe out outposts, or sew the seeds of terror across the island. She didn’t like hiding in the tunnels and navigating in the dark with her sonar unit. She liked the way the sun felt on her face and the way it danced on the waves.

One night, after stepping all over her partner’s feet while stealing medicine from a Thriver village, she returned home and heard her parents talking. Piper had officially been accused of the worse thing a Tapper could be accused of. The group said that she was insufficiently fabulous. Custom held that the Piper would have to perform for the whole group the following night to prove her worth and display her entertainment value. If the judges didn’t give her a high enough score, it would not end well.

Devastated, Piper ran through the tunnels, and out of the cave to her favorite spot on the beach. She wondered what she was going to do, and why the others couldn’t understand that sunlight on the water was just as beautiful as moonlight. She was so deep in thought that she didn’t hear the Kanaka hunters until it was too late.

Back then, bandits were always sneaking into Kanaka camps and robbing them. The hunters assumed that Piper was a bandit scout when they tackled her. You can imagine their surprise when they saw it was a Tapper, even if it was one dressed in muted colors. Many had never seen a Tapper in real life, and nobody had ever captured one alive before. After some nervous conversation, and some worried looking around, the hunters decided to bring Piper to a nearby village and let the elder there figure out what to do.

The Kanaka have many legends about the Tappers, and there was a lot of debate when they got to the village. Some suggested that they tie her to a post and let the sun turn her into wood. Another warned that Tappers got their power from the Earth so they needed to put her someplace up high or out in the water. One old man said that if left unwatched a Tapper could turn into sound, and she would surely bring back others. In the end, the elder decided to put Piper in one of their guard towers with two of their best hunters. If she had been turned to wood by the morning light their problems were solved, if not, he’d decide what to do after getting some sleep.

Piper tried to explain that she didn’t want to hurt them and that she wasn’t like other Tappers, but the hunters didn’t want to listen. She was pleading with them in the tower when something caught her eye. A line of bushes on the edge of the forest didn’t look right to her. While she was staring at it, and trying to figure out why they looked different, they began to move. It was a group of camouflaged bandits. While her Tapper family considered her colorblindness a weakness, it allowed her to easily spot different textures and distinguish patterns better than someone with normal vision. She pointed out the bandits three times before the hunters could see them too.

The village didn’t know what to think after Piper warned them about the impending danger. The fact that she didn’t turn into wood in the sunlight left many scratching their heads too. They kept Piper in the tower for many months and her ability to spot danger became famous. Soon she was allowed to leave the tower and accompany scouting parties. She could spot a crooked fern at 100 yards, and could even find a green lady hiding in the forest. Piper went on to work with some of the greatest Kanaka chiefs ever known. They renamed her Loa’a the Finder, and she still lives with them to this day. Piper learned that sometimes you are born into a family, and sometimes you just find one.

Akamai Mahelona
5th Grade
Pu’u School Lahiana

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

Chief Ikaika’s Speech before the battle of Black Rock Beach

For a thousand years our people lived in harmony with the island and the spirits. We drank from her waters, ate the fish in the sea, and grew plants in her soil. But we started to turn our backs on the island and ignore her laws. She was disappointed and warned us but we wouldn’t listen. Then we broke a rule too large for her to ignore. We decided her fundamental laws did not matter when we started using the Veil, and she had no choice but to discipline us.

She cleansed the island by turning the symbol of our arrogance against us. The explosions leveled many structures and the radiation killed thousands in town as well as many of her lesser children in the jungle. But we are the Kānaka, and we understand that we must atone for breaking her rules. She chose to spare us and test our hearts. We are strong. Our bodies could take the scars and the warping that she had punished us with. Our hearts stayed filled with love for the island and her wisdom. Some were not powerful enough to survive her twisting, and their bodies broke. The mutants and their kind let fear and hate fill their hearts and they turned into monsters. But we are the Kānaka and we survived to rebuild our lives.

Like all good mothers, the island knew her children. She knew it was in our nature to break her rules. There are some who say that we must not use any machines, and turn our back on the technology that we put above our island mother, but that is not true. It was the Veil she hated and took from us for our own good. She wants our children to drink cold Manimal while they ride their bikes. She wants us to see movies with our friends once again, and check our phones during the slow parts. She wants us to eat food cooked in a microwave, and put our plates into a machine to clean them. She wants us to live again once our punishment is over. We are the Kānaka, and we want those things too.

We do not have to do this alone. Through this long campaign, we have learned that she has loaned us the aid of her lesser children. The boars in the jungle tear through our enemies with noble tusks, punishing those who let the darkness overcome them. The sharks devour them if they try and swim out past the reef. Many of us have seen the island herself swallow up our adversaries and cleanse them with fire. They have no totems, the spirits are with us too.

Even the treacherous Thrivers of the hills have joined our cause. I have passed on some of the island’s wisdom and taught them how to farm. I have told them our stories, and have learned theirs. We share food, rai, and the truth of what the island must become in order to redeem ourselves. They have pledged their guns, tricks, and blood to our crusade. We are all united behind my totem.

I have gathered the hundreds of you here from across the island. You are the best and the bravest of us and now our work is almost done. We are the Kānaka and we will claim our home again. With the Thrivers’ help, we have pushed the monsters South from Kaelekii point. Side by side with the creatures of the jungle we have driven the Green Ladies and their minions West from Kealii gulch. I have personally driven the cannibals North from the city center with the help of my elite band of Koa.

These assorted horrors stand now at Black Rock Beach with our shark bruddahs swimming hungrily in the surf. It will be dawn in a few hours. It will be the last sunrise our enemies will ever see. With our allies’ help, we will defeat the twisted evil that is awaiting us. With the sun on our backs and love in our hearts, we will cleanse this part of the island and live like our mother wants us to. We are the Kānaka and we will win.

STORYLINE

I Don’t Want My Son Spending Valentine’s Day On Your Ship!

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When Maleko told me that he wanted to enroll in your Love and Literacy program, I thought it was odd but that it couldn’t hurt. I was obviously wrong. I had no idea the kind of nonsense that you would be filling his head with. It seems like you people need a reality check. The world has order and rules again, it has to in order to make everything work. Love is fine but it doesn’t protect you on the road and it doesn’t make the water drinkable. Love doesn’t conquer all!

I knew something was different after his first week of classes. Maleko has always been a sullen boy, and I noticed a certain sparkle in his eye that had been previously reserved for lava sledding. My suspicions were confirmed we he started talking about a girl in his class called Nui. It was nothing but Nui this and Nui that around here. He told me that her parents grew breadfruit, and that she was a great story teller. I should have known something was wrong by the way he acted when I suggested that she come up to Pu’u for a visit. I missed it, but I blame you for creating an environment that fosters such nonsense.

His father and I laughed about his puppy love, and joked about how many marriages must come from your school. Reading nothing but romance novels on an old cruise ship filled with teenagers and young adults…it’s just like the people in that old movie, you’re just missing the iceberg. When he started insisting on ironing his clothes I knew things were getting serious. He had been spending so much time at your school and with Nui that we thought we’d surprise him by showing up to his morning class. We were the ones who got a surprise.

I didn’t really understand what I was seeing at first. There was my darling boy sitting on someone’s lap like a ventriloquist dummy. We walked around to face him and get a better look at who this person was and why he was sitting like that. When I realized that it was a hulking Kānaka girl my jaw dropped. It suddenly all made sense to me, but I didn’t want to believe it. This was Nui.

We all stared in silence for a few seconds before Maleko kicked his legs and yelled, “Put me down!” They both began to ramble and explain, but I couldn’t hear them right away. Nui was at least 2 feet taller than him and probably double his weight. All I could imagine was where we’d get a dress to fit, how the wedding pictures would look, and what his grandmother would say.

When I could comprehend words again, Maleko was in the middle of explaining that Nui’s parents weren’t exactly thrilled with the idea of him either, but they understood that the heart wants what it wants. The “teacher” said something about how the power of love can overcome all obstacles and how inspirational their story was. I can’t believe you teach such rubbish!

It didn’t get any better. My innocent son informed me that the two were already engaged and that they were planning on having a Kānaka binding ceremony, whatever that is, on Valentine’s Day! Worse still, the school was sponsoring the event and letting them both stay overnight on the ship for their honeymoon.

Who do you people think you are? Nobody informed me of anything, and I’m the mother of one of these misguided kids. Your staff has been anything but helpful up to this point and my husband seems resigned to the idea that we’ll soon have a new daughter-in-law. But I don’t see how this comes out happy in the end. That’s all I want. I’m sure they think they’re in love, but is love really enough to make it through this world? Please, don’t let my son spend Valentine’s Day on your ship!

Iolana Mahelona