On the dock, the Celtic was ready to go. The captain and shipping agent stood next to one lowered gangplank. The captain looked at Mary and called for help. Two sailors carried her up the gangplank. Vicky’s blue ribbon fell from her braid, which started to unravel. The last James saw of Mary was her long black hair, fanning.
Kam handed the trap to Huntington’s agent. James picked up the ribbon from the dock and walked with Richard to the gangplank.
“Take care of the roan,” Richard said. His voice was unsteady.
“Take care of your little sister.” James put the ribbon in his pocket.
EXCITEMENT CHARGED THE air inside the station. James and Kam walked in together, and everyone fell silent.
“You have ten minutes to get dressed,” Wong said. He arranged his epaulets. “We’re marching to the palace together.” He lowered his voice. “Where the hell’s my horse?”
“In back,” James said.
They donned the dress uniforms reserved for ceremonies. The blue pants matched the jacket with the motto on the pocket: the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.
James picked up the folded flag. How was he going to carry it without being seen? The belt, he thought. The belt. He tucked the flag smooth against his belly and buckled his belt, still on the last notch but tighter with the flag inside.
ALONG KING STREET, clusters of haoles waved American flags. There were no Hawaiians. They were inside shuttered windows, hung with black crepe.
The stand on the grounds of Iolani Palace was decorated with red, white, and blue bunting. Spectators took their seats. How was he going to switch flags with everyone looking on? Wong pushed James to the front, next to the flagpole. His face burned with shame. The only other Hawaiians besides himself were in the Royal Hawaiian Band, which began to play “Hawaii Ponoi.”
Wong nudged him. James stepped forward and pulled the ropes. The Hawaiian flag began to lower. A squall of rain wet the flag. The band played. Kam stepped forward to help James fold the flag, and then it was in his hand.
The Royal Hawaiian Band stopped playing. The audience gasped as they threw their instruments on the ground and walked away.
An American soldier stepped forward, clipped the American flag to the pole, and ran it up. Guns from the USS Philadelphia boomed in the harbor as the Stars and Stripes flew high above Iolani Palace.
All eyes were on the American flag. Kam nudged him and yanked the new flag out from James’s belt. James shoved the real flag inside. The guns fell silent, and James walked slowly toward the new governor, carrying the new flag, feeling the dampness of the real one against his skin.
His natural father, Huntington, stood next to the governor. He smiled at James as if to mock James’s Hawaiian blood, having to take down the Hawaiian flag. It was a smirk, really. James met his father’s eyes coldly, without emotion, as he handed the new governor the new flag.
It was done.
THEY FOUGHT THEIR way through the drunken officers in the station. An elderly Hawaiian man, standing by the door, stepped in front of James.
“Take the flag to your auntie,” he said, and walked away.
“A hui hou,” Kam said, and also started to walk away.
“You might as well see it to the end,” James said.
James reborrowed Wong’s horse while Kam resaddled his own mare. They rode toward the great Ewa Plain and did not stop until they reached the foot of Auntie’s road.
Kam reined up his horse. He reached inside his own belt and pulled out the oil-paper packet. He handed it to James, who opened it. Inside was the bloody mango knife, which they buried under a pandanus tree.
CHICKENS CLUCKED AND scattered as they rode into the yard. Auntie came running and embraced them both, tears in her eyes.
“They’re on the Celtic,” James said.
“I know,” Auntie said. “We talk later.”
Three very old kupunas sat on the outside bench, next to the row of shoes. James handed the flag to the oldest. They nodded their farewell and set off walking toward the black caves above the Ewa Plain.
“They already ate,” Auntie said, herding James and Kam into the pili-grass house.
Inside, they ate laulaus and sweet potatoes. James unbuckled his belt (Oh, what a wonderful feeling) and then took it off altogether. He tried to be discreet, but nothing slipped past Auntie’s eye.
She rose to her feet, whisked away their empty calabashes, and refilled them with poi. “You’re too thin, boys,” she said. She waggled a finger. “A skinny Chinaman? A skinny hapa? Officers like that don’t get respect.”
She brought out four more squares of coconut pudding, then placed a new mango knife next to the plate of fruit. “Will you slice the mangoes, James?”
And he did.
The Price of Love by Peter Robinson
Tommy found the badge on the third day of his summer holiday at Blackpool, the first holiday without his father. The sun had come out that morning, and he was playing on the crowded beach with his mother, who sat in her striped deck chair, smoking Consulate, reading Nova magazine, and keeping an eye on him. Not that he needed an eye kept on him. Tommy was thirteen now and quite capable of going off alone to amuse himself. But his mother had a thing about water, so she never let him near the sea alone. Uncle Arthur had gone to the amusements on the North Pier, where he liked to play the one-armed bandits.
The breeze from the gray Irish Sea was chilly, but Tommy bravely wore his new swimming trunks. He even dipped his toes in the water before running back, squealing, to warm them in the sand. It was then that he felt something sharp prick his big toe. Treasure? He scooped away the sand carefully with his hands while no one was looking. Slowly he pulled out the object by its edge and dusted off the sand with his free hand. It was shaped like a silver shield with a flat top and seven points. At its center was a circle, with METROPOLITAN POLICE curved around the top and bottom of the initials er. On its top were a crown and a tiny cross. The silver glinted in the sunlight.
Tommy’s breath caught in his throat. This was exactly the sign he had been waiting for ever since his father died. It was the same type of badge he had worn on his uniform. Tommy remembered how proud his dad had sounded when he spoke of it. He even let Tommy touch it and told him what er meant: Elizabeth Regina. It was Latin, his father had explained, for the queen. “That’s our queen, Tommy,” he had said proudly. And the cross on top, he went on, symbolized the Church of England. When Tommy held the warm badge there on the beach, he could feel his father’s presence in it.
Tommy decided not to tell anyone. They might make him hand it in somewhere, or just take it off him. Uncle Arthur was always doing that. When Tommy found an old tennis ball in the street, Uncle Arthur said it might have been chewed by a dog and have germs on it, so he threw it in the fire. Then there was the toy cap gun with the broken hammer he found on the recreation ground – “It’s no good if it’s broken, is it?” Uncle Arthur said, and out it went. But this time Uncle Arthur wasn’t going to get his hands on Tommy’s treasure. While his mother was reading her magazine, Tommy went over to his small pile of clothes and slipped the badge in his trouser pocket.
“What are you doing, Tommy?”
He started. It was his mother. “Just looking for my handkerchief,” he said, the first thing he could think of.
“What do you want a handkerchief for?”
“The water was cold,” Tommy said. “I’m sniffling.” He managed to fake a sniffle to prove it.
But his mother’s attention had already returned to her magazine. She never did talk to him for very long these days, didn’t seem much interested in how he was doing at school (badly) or how he was feeling in general (awful). Sometimes it was a blessing, because it made it easier for Tommy to live undisturbed in his own elaborate secret world, but sometimes he felt he would like it if she just smiled at him, touched his arm, and asked him how he was doing. He’d say he was fine. He wouldn’t even tell her the truth because she would get bored if she had to listen to his catalog of woes. His mother had always got bored easily.