House of the Red Fish (25 page)

“Then pump them up,” I said.

“Hoo,” Mose said. “I don’t know….”

“Hey, busta, good, nah?” Grampa grunted, sitting back on his heels, gazing down on his new patch.

We walked over to inspect his work, a rectangle of repair fabric solidly glued over the knife hole. I knelt down and ran my hand over it. “Wow, Grampa, nice job. You think it will hold?”

Grampa studied me, sucking his teeth, telling me without saying a word that of course it would hold and if I asked again he might have to crush me and wrap me up in old newspaper.

“Okay,” I said, holding my hands up in surrender. “Now let’s patch those tubes.”

Except for the white clouds sitting still over the mountaintops, the sky was as clear and blue as the sea. The sun poured down hot.

“Anybody got any money?” Rico said just past noon, wiping the sweat off his face. “I getting hungry.”

We dug around in our pockets and together came up with two dollars and nineteen cents. Again I hadn’t thought ahead. First I forgot to bring water, and now only Mose had thought to bring Rico something to eat.

“Sorry, Rico,” I said.

“Got enough for some rice ball,” Ben said. “Couple each.”

Grampa grabbed the money. “Go work,” he said. “I get um.”

He wobbled away on his bike, heading toward the street.

“Your grampa’s a nice old guy,” Calvin said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Look at him, going to buy us lunch.”

“Uncle said your grandpa was an honorable man,” Calvin said.

“Charlie said that?”

“He said your grandpa brave, too.”

“That’s what Fumi said. Feel like I hardly know the guy, and he’s my own family.”

“You heard about him and Chun Hoon store?”

“Chun Hoon?”

“Your grandpa. You heard that story? Uncle told us, ah, Ben?”

Ben nodded. “True, Tomi. Listen. They was down Chun Hoon store, little bit before Pearl Harbor time. Uncle and your grandpa. Uncle was grocery shopping. Your grandpa went with him for something to do.”

“You never heard this?” Calvin said.

“Never.”

“Huh. I guess he too shy to tell you.”

“Shy?”

“Okay, proud, then.”

“Proud. I can buy that one.”

Ben tapped my arm. “Listen to this, while they was shopping a crazy guy came in the store waving around a machete, drunk, or maybe just nuts, ah? So the guy tried to rob the store with that machete. The Chinese man behind the counter tried to shoo the guy away with a broom, refusing to give him any money, and the crazy guy hack at him with the machete.”

“Almost took the guy’s arm off,” Calvin said.

“The Chinese guy fell down, too shocked to cry out,” Ben said. “But Uncle saw it all, was coming up on the wild man from behind—”

“But the crazy guy heard him and turned around with that machete above his head,” Calvin broke in. “Uncle stopped cold when he saw that, then the crazy guy flew at him ready to take off Uncle’s head!”

“Boom!” Ben said. “Just before he come down on Uncle with that blade, your grandpa streak in like a bullet and grab that guy’s wrist and rolled and took the guy down and came up standing with the guy’s machete in his hand.”

“Ho!” Rico said.

“No kidding. The crazy guy stumble out the store and was caught later by the police. But Uncle would be dead if it wasn’t for your grandpa, Tomi. He knows some kind of judo or aikido or karate or something. Got to be, ah?” Calvin shook his head, pausing.

Ojii-chan?

Saved Charlie’s life? Ho.

Was courage something you could inherit from your family?

I sure hoped so.

The pontoon tubes were perfect for what we wanted to do. Each had two sets of handholds on either side, for carrying, and we used them to run the rope through.

“Calvin,” I said. “You and Ben take that tube. Mose and Rico, you take this one. Me and Billy will run the rope under the stern and bow. That make sense?”

“You forget we Hawaiian, Japanese boy,” Calvin said. “We know boats like you know rice.”

“Hey,” I said.

Calvin grinned. “We go. Jump in.”

The six of us dragged the two deflated pontoon tubes over to the rocky edge of the canal and dropped them into the water.

Mose and Rico jumped in and swam one of the tubes
around to the port side of the boat. Calvin and Ben worked the other tube to the starboard side.

“Okay,” I said. “Now push them under. Me and Billy will tie them off.”

It was like somebody’s birthday party out there, yakking and shouting, having a good time trying to sink those tubes. Ben and Calvin forced theirs under pretty quick. But Mose and Rico had to stand up and jump on theirs to make it sink.

Billy laughed. “I guess Mose and Rico need some man-sized help. You ready?”

“Let’s go,” I said, and we each grabbed a pair of goggles and jumped in. The rusty water was warm and tangy.

The four of us struggled the port side tube down past the old inner tubes, all of them still there, and still tight with air.

Billy and I came up gasping.

“Let’s … tie … them off,” I said.

Mose popped up, took a big gulp of air, then went back down to hold the pontoon tube in place while Rico came up for air.

“Ready,” he gasped.

Billy and I dove under. I grabbed the rope and secured it through a strap on the front end of Mose and Rico’s tube. Billy got the one on the other end. Since the boat was sitting on the muddy bottom we couldn’t sling the rope under the hull. But there was enough sling space on both ends where the hull curved upward.

We swam the rope around and lashed the ends through the canvas handholds on Ben and Calvin’s pontoon, tightening the rope a bit, just enough to hold the tubes in place.
Later, when we inflated them, we would have to adjust the rope as the pontoons fattened.

When the tubes were secure, Calvin glided over the
Taiyo Maru
and stood hip deep on the deck. “If this works, and we get the hull off the mud, then what? How we going drag um away?”

This part of the plan wasn’t completely clear to me yet, because now I was making it up as we went along. “Well … what I thought was … we could … we could take some rope and pull the boat toward the ocean from the side of the canal, you know, pull it like a mule, and we could keep it from hitting the rocks with a pole.”

Calvin frowned. “Maybe. But better if we had a boat that could pull it.”

“Yeah, but who has a boat?”

“Look,” Ben said. “Lunch.”

Starving Rico raced for shore just as Grampa Joji rolled up on his bike with enough rice balls for three each, and a fourth for Rico, and man, were they good.

“Thanks, Ojii-chan,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, thank you, old man.”

“Unnh.”

We all sat licking our sticky fingers and looking at the
Taiyo Maru,
the sun burning down like a Big Island branding iron. I turned to Grampa. “You know where we can get a tow boat, Ojii-chan?”

He scowled at me.

I turned away. I didn’t think so.

Mose stood and stretched. “Let’s get that pump going.”

“After we get the boat up,” Mose said, “we still going need one more rope for pull um, ah? Where we going get that?”

I was out of answers.

“Ne’mind,” Ben said. “We swim. We push it, pull it, kick it, slap it, whatever. We not sissies, brah. We go!
Imua!
“

Rico raised a fist. “Charge!”

While we clumped around the air compressor, they came in five cars, parked on the street, and ghosted through the trees and weeds.

One by one we looked up.

Five, eight, ten, fourteen … fifteen mean-looking haoles.

And in the front was Keet Wilson, walking stiff and straight, leading his thugs to war.

Grampa Joji picked up his bike and pushed it away. He passed right through the gang of trouble and vanished into the trees.

No one even glanced at him.

Ben cracked his knuckles.

Rico balled up his fists.

Calvin stood tall, arms crossed, chin high.

Waiting.

I felt my skin crawl, my tongue dry with fear. I had promised Papa I’d never scrap in the dirt like a dog. But to run would be more shameful than to fight, not only for me, but for my whole family.

The six of us spread out.

Keet and his bodyguards headed our way.

Nine had baseball bats. Six took up as much space as Calvin and Ben. Dwight had a black eye. Probably who Rico hit last night.

“Lunchtime,” Calvin said.

In that instant I knew how this would go down. “We not going fight them, Calvin.”

“Whatchoo mean, brah? We going crush um.”

“Keet won’t fight without backup. He’s a coward. You have to get him alone. If I can make it about me and him—”

“Naah,” Calvin said. “He ain’t going shame himself in front his guys like that. You watch. Let um come. I got a big appetite.”

“Let me try my way first.”

“Yeah, but after that, we going eat, ah?” He grinned.

The haoles spread out in a half circle, capturing us with our backs to the canal. How did Keet have the power to get all these guys on his side? What was he telling them? Were these the guys Jake had warned us about, angry sons of the BMTC?

Keet came up, his cold eyes fixed on mine. He stopped a couple feet away, still walking kind of stiff. What was that all about? He thinks he’s Genghis Khan?

“We came for my rubber boats,” he said, almost friendly, as if he’d just stopped by.

Ben cracked his knuckles again. Keet didn’t even seem to notice him.

On the other side of me Rico stepped up. He spat in the dirt. “Come on, punk,” he said to Keet. “Right now, you and me.”

Keet shifted, looked back at me and moved closer. His left eye twitched. “Later, chimp,” he said to Rico, but looking at me. “First I got business with the fish boy.”

“Chimp?” Rico was ready to explode.

I put up my hand. “I’ll handle this, Rico.”

Keet scoffed.

The others stayed where they were, blank-eyed. It was hard to read haoles. Were they worried or just crazy? These guys could scare you out of your skin if you let them. The trick was not to let them.

Keet stood so close I could feel his heat. Small bubbles of sweat peppered his upper lip. “You stole this stuff from my yard,” he said. “I want it back.”

“You got that backwards,” I said, almost in a whisper.

“What?”

When I didn’t answer, he sighed. “Now, I ask you, is that right? To accuse me like that?”

I could land one good pop right there on that sweaty lip. Maybe I could break his nose. So what if I got killed? It would be worth it.
Like dogs, Tomi,
Papa’s words whispered.
Don’t shame us.

I kept my eyes on Keet’s. No way I can let him think he has me at his feet.

Keet grinned. Did he believe I would never challenge him, because of Mama’s job? His grin vanished when Calvin headed over to the biggest, nastiest-looking guy in Keet Wilson’s army.

Keet’s eyes shifted that way.

Calvin got right up in the guy’s face. They stood eye to eye, and if looks could kill, both of them would soon be pushing up weeds.

“We meet again,” Calvin said.