“So you want to go back and pursue this golden-tailed fish?”
“Well, sort of.” Hector smiled. “It’s a little more interesting than that. Now bear with me, this is some unbelievable stuff here. It turns out that the fish wasn’t a fish. It was a mermaid. And there were others in the area with it.”
“Come on,” scoffed Simon.
“I swear on my momma’s grave, there were mermaids,” he drawled. “They disappeared and I hung out a while hoping they’d come back, but I was driven away by the Okawiians, who didn’t want an outsider there. They have some special protected status or some nonsense. So I stayed in the area a little further away and happened to be scuba diving at a nearby island when suddenly another mermaid appeared. I shot my harpoon at this one, too, but missed again.”
Simon raised his eyebrows and took another sip.
Hector leaned in. “Now here’s the thing. Those islanders were protecting them, I know it, but I couldn’t get near the place after they threatened to call the Island Council to force me away. I eventually did call their bluff, and naval forces were indeed deployed. Obviously I left before any kind of conflict occurred.”
“So you think the mermaids are still by Okawii”
“If they’re not, I think the Okawiians can point me in the right direction. But again, I can’t go near the place.”
“You want me to go to Okawii and ask?” asked Simon, still unsure about his role in all this.
“Not exactly. I’m really just curious if your boss knows anything about it, seeing as he was married to an Okawiian and all. If there’s some way you could ask him, while still being very discreet...”
Simon felt uncomfortable doing this, but he had no other choice seeing as Hector knew all about his past. Still, he was determined not to come out as a complete lackey in this deal. This was something Hector wanted badly, and Simon wanted to get something out of the deal.
“Fine. But only if I can come and get one, too.” Something like this could seal his friendship with Hector and raise his standing in the club a hundred-fold.
Hector smiled. “Good man.” He appreciated Simon’s small renegotiation and passion for the hunt, and was elated at the thought of getting his White Whale, or, his Golden Tail. “I have a trip planned for the South Pacific in a few weeks.” He removed a business card from his wallet and wrote a number on the back. “You can reach me at this number if you find anything out.”
Chapter 6
Mina stood at the edge of the lagoon with ten other 8-year-olds, slightly self-conscious about her age, yet excited to learn all there was to know about being a mermaid. Eagerly she had arrived before the others, forgetting about what she had come to refer to as ‘Okawiian time,’ namely, that nothing on the island ever began on time, and that staying up late and waking up late in the day was the norm.
As the others had trickled in, she heard a voice on the path.
“Who’s the tall one in the middle?” Ana asked loudly, obviously referring to Mina.
Mina turned red and looked around herself to see how others were reacting. Nobody else seemed to notice.
“Knock it off, Ana. Come on, let’s go to Vai Place,” said Maria, who was walking with Ana.
Maria was one of the other teenage girls about Mina’s age on the island. They had met a few days before, and she had been kind enough to invite Mina to hang out at Vai Place with her and her boyfriend, Paul. Maria had shown up in Mina’s life just after her falling incident, and she was grateful to find someone her age who was sincere and nice.
“All those who are not a part of this class will please proceed to Vai Place,” said a large Okawiian with a deep voice, obviously the instructor.
His name was Halapua. He was a large man in his mid-thirties who had twin sons in the class this year. Although he wasn’t very book-smart (he didn’t make it through high school), he was the best swimmer on the island, and had an innate sense of the sea. It was rumored that when he was 19 he anticipated a shark attack by two great whites while on a fishing party far from any land, and was able to just save his companions by ushering them into an underwater cavern.
“Okay, kiddos, some basic information before you taste your first bit of White Coral.”
He spoke in accented English as a kindness for Mina, who would be unable to understand the nuanced instructions in Okawiian yet. The 8-year-olds didn’t mind; they learned English in school and were more proficient than their parents.
“First, for the next few weeks you are not to change your form outside of this class. The Coral will be in your system for the next 24 hours, so after class you are to avoid the shores of the island and this lagoon. If you usually go out and throw shells into the sea with your kid sister as your afternoon activity, find something else to do. If you do go into the sea, you will not be allowed to attend lessons anymore and you may return next year as the only 9 year old in the class. Second, being a mermaid uses muscles you have never used in your lives. It is very tiring until you can build those muscles. So, today’s class will only be 30 minutes, tomorrow’s will be 40, and we’ll work our way up like that to about two hours. Once you are 10 years old, you may go out into the sea, staying between the island and the reef. Only those 14 and up are allowed outside of the reef into the great Pacific.”
Halapua passed out the Coral and instructed them to jump in and hang onto the edge. Mina swallowed the chalky nub and once again felt her legs disappear in the water. She hadn’t seen any mermaid tails in full daylight besides her own and was delighted to see the all of the colors of the fish tails in the lagoon. Halapua’s jaw dropped when he saw her golden tail for the first time—a golden tail hadn’t been seen on Okawii for 15 years, but he quickly composed himself and led the class in their exercises.
For the next 30 minutes they practiced staying underwater for minutes at a time, to let their gills breathe for them, and hanging onto the ledge and kicking their fins. Although she felt like a toddler in a learn-to-swim class, she was dog-tired at the end of the lesson.
The next few days were full of the same: kicking along the shore to build up their muscles. Halapua didn’t say much about their progress so far, showing his approval with a grunt, and his disapproval with a somewhat sterner grunt.
On her fourth day of class, Halapua again addressed the class. “Some more rules: the rows of White Coral growing on that far edge of the lagoon are the island’s backup supply. You are not to touch it without express permission. You will obtain your Coral from your parents, who will distribute it to you as they see fit. Also, as you know, the Aquarius comes every two weeks on Thursday. It is forbidden to change your form on boat day. That is why tomorrow we will not be having class. Today we will be practicing fishing.”
With this, he dumped a bucket of colorful fish, all about the size of an adult human hand, into the lagoon and instructed them to ‘go fishing.’
Fifteen minutes later nobody had caught a fish. Mina had come close a couple times. She quietly pursued a bright blue one but it slipped out of her hand twice.
Halapua gathered the students. “Mina was the only one who almost caught one. You cannot just dash after a fish, you have to stalk it silently. Once you are in range, dart your hands out and squeeze like you want to suffocate it.”
That had been Mina’s problem, she hadn’t been squeezing the fish hard enough.
The weeks went by quickly for Mina. As she became stronger, her confidence in her new sea-body grew and she felt like she now knew what she was born for. Although she knew it was dangerous, she couldn’t wait to dive into the ocean and just swim for as long as she could. To her great delight, she discovered that even as a novice mermaid she swam like lightning compared to swimming with legs. As a former competitive swimmer, she loved the feeling of the water rushing against her face so much more rapidly.
For the last day of class, Halapua took the class to the shore.
“Today will be the second-to-last time you will be in this part of the ocean as a me
rmaid until your 10th birthdays. Your last time will be next week when we take our class field-trip.”
He passed out short spears and nets and again told them to ‘go fishing,’ but to stay within the reef. This time they were more successful. Everybody returned with something to bring home to their families for supper.
As the class dried off on the beach and got their human legs back, Halapua addressed them for the last time as part of the class.
“You have done well, and I look forward to watching you practice in the lagoon for the next two years, and to going fishing with some of you in six years. Pay attention, because this next thing I teach is the most important thing you need to learn. This is a safety issue. You know that the dock and the entrance to our reef is the on the south side of the island, and the river is to the north. You know that our gills can sustain us for hours at a time underwater before we need a breath with our lungs. When you are 10 years old, there is something you all will need to practice: swimming from the dock all the way around the island to the river while holding your breath. As you may have noticed, when our gills work underwater, we emit bubbles. The way to stop the bubbles is to ‘hold your breath,’ which takes the same muscle power you would do if you were holding your breath on land. That effectively stops your gills from working and emitting bubbles.
“Right now it is probably about a 30 minute swim for you from the dock to the river. You will get stronger over the years and that time will decrease to about 22-25 minutes. You will need to learn to either swim faster, or to hold your breath longer. You will not be allowed out of the reef to go hunting when you are 14 if you cannot complete this safety maneuver. This is not something often used, but it has to be learned in case of emergency.”
“Come,” Nukuluve grabbed Mina’s shoulder after her last mermaid class, “I will show you how to make my spicy fish stew, a favorite dish here on the island.”
Mina’s eyes brightened. She had always wanted to learn to cook, and now her own grandmother was going to show her.
“First, you get the fire going. The cooking fires here are lit often, enough that you only have to put some coconut hair here, see, and wave a palm leaf.”
Mina didn’t know the first thing about cooking, but she knew that at home the stove’s fuel never ran out.
“Do we have enough wood?” she asked, glancing nervously at the four pieces of wood in her grandmother’s pile.
Nukuluve smiled. “On Okawii it is always the woman’s job to pick the wood. You are right to look at the pile. This wood will be enough for now—I will show you how to use it sparingly—but while the stew is cooking I will let you go pick more wood.”
She said this in such a loving, gentle tone that Mina wanted nothing more than to gather enough wood to last her grandmother a year.
“I’m so sorry I never noticed before,” said Mina, hopping to her feet.
“It is fine. I wanted you to concentrate and save your energy for your lessons, but if you like, you can be in charge of the firewood from now on.”
Under Nukuluve’s tutelage, Mina chopped and sliced onions, vegetables, and garlic while her grandmother eviscerated the fish.
As the aromas of the stew began to rise, Mina’s emotions got the better of her. “Oh, Grandmother,” she sighed tearily, “I wish I had grown up here.”
Nukuluve touched her arm. “I sometimes wish that, too. But your education—so much better over there. And your soul is that of a true Okawiian—I can tell that.”
After lunch Mina went into the woods to gather more wood for her grandmother’s fire. When she returned, Keoni was sitting at the fire pit chatting with her grandmother. The past few weeks of language lessons had been heaven for her. It was a thrill just to have the opportunity to spend time with him alone, well, almost alone. The elders were always there at the other end of the lodge.
Once, Ana walked by the lodge during their session. Mina was sure it was on purpose because nobody had walked by the lodge before that and there were plenty of other routes from the people’s houses to the hangouts on the north side of the island. Ana pretended she didn’t see them sitting there until she was very close, and then hopped up the step and asked with a huge smile, “What are you guys doing?” Mina smiled right back at her and answered, “I’m learning Okawiian.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” Ana had replied absent-mindedly. Then she came up next to them to see ‘if they needed any help.’ Mina was mad. She knew that Ana just wanted to find another opportunity to make fun of her and to subliminally remind Keoni that she really wasn’t from Okawii. Unfortunately, Ana succeeded in doing just that by correcting Mina’s pronunciation twice. Keoni was polite to her but after the second correction he made it clear to her that they didn’t need her help.
Secretly, Mina was pleased that she was pissing Ana off just by having language lessons with him. There had been no sign at all that Keoni liked her especially, but still, if the lessons were enough to make Ana jealous, that was good enough for Mina. She still hadn’t forgiven her for making fun of her for falling from the vines on her first day.
Still, her language skills were improving, and Keoni offered enough motivating smiles at her to make her wonder if maybe, just maybe, he did like her as more than a friend.
“Is something the matter?” she asked him. “Are we not meeting at the lodge?” Her classes in Okawiian every afternoon had been going well. She could now pick up almost all of what was being said around her. Speaking the language was a different matter. She was embarrassed around the islanders to practice her broken Okawiian because she felt that if she was Okawiian, she should speak it well. It was Nukuluve with whom she practiced most often, as well as the kids in her mermaid class, who made no judgment of her, and were mostly in awe and curious about this American-Okawiian.
“My mother sent me with a recipe question,” he responded, “Also, just as a heads up, our lesson will be a little different today. The elders have requested that we practice conversation with them.”
As she followed him on the jungle path, Mina watched the muscles in his calves contract. Again, she forced herself to think of Andrew. Is he muscular like this? I can’t remember. It was thoughts of Andrew that kept her awake at night. At home in Arizona she truly felt like they were meant for each other. But she was here now. She had two worlds now. Andrew could never fit in here, and, as she guiltily thought, Keoni couldn’t really fit in at home, either.
A group of five elders had already assembled at the main lodge. Keoni deferentially waited for Chief Akolo to begin the conversation.
“We have all met Mina Young, daughter of Eva, daughter of Konala. We requested that you have your Okawiian lesson with us today.” Chief Akolo smiled. “Forgive us, but we are old men with little entertainment, and your progress is of great interest to us. It is very rare that someone learns our language and we are curious how you are coming along.”
Chief Akolo omitted the most important thing. The elders weren’t actually interested in her progress in the language, but as older men who were contemporaries of her grandfather and remembered her mother Eva, they were curious about her character.
“How are you liking Okawii?” One elder asked in Okawiian.
“I like it very much here,” Mina responded. “It feels…like home to me.”
The elders nodded.
“And the cuisine?” Another asked. “Are you getting used to the food?”
Mina smiled. What was it with these men and their cuisine issues? She thought that they all must secretly swim to a nearby island and sneak Doritos.
“It’s fabulous. I’ve always loved, um, fish.” She couldn’t remember the Okawiian word for ‘seafood.’ “And my grandmother’s fish stew is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”
They chuckled. Konala often had them over for a discussion over a meal, and no leftovers ever remained.
The conversation about general topics continued for the next half hour. Mina held her own and when she stumbled over a word
, she smiled confidently and tried to talk around the word that had eluded her.
Afterwards, Keoni escorted Mina out of the lodge. Uhila, one of the oldest elders, turned to another elder and whispered out of the Chief’s earshot, “Yes, I think she’ll do quite nicely.”
Mina returned home after her conversation with the elders a little confused.
“How did it go?” asked her grandmother.
“Fine, I think, but I didn’t really understand it. We talked about the weather and fishing and they asked about my grades in school.”
Nukuluve smiled. “You have the golden tail. They wanted to see you and get an idea about how you carry yourself.”
Mina shrugged her shoulders and turned toward her hut. She didn’t want to think about the fact that because of her tail color and heritage she might be expected to take over as Chief someday. It was enough trying to master use of said tail, and Okawiian verbs, not to mention sorting out her feelings for Keoni and Andrew.
As she entered her hut, she sat on her bed and smiled to herself, putting all of her worries aside, she consciously took note that she had spent another day here in paradise.
She swung her legs up onto her bed meaning to take a quick power nap when she realized her legs were crunching something. Her eye squinted and she picked up an old, brown piece of parchment and unfolded it. Unable to see it clearly in the dimly lit hut, she went outside.
“Grandmother? What is this?” she asked, then looked up and saw that Nukuluve had gone from the area.
Mina sat down on a log and rubbed the parchment between her fingers. It was coated in a sealant of some kind that clearly made it water-proof. She slowly opened the parchment and was surprised to find it covered in circles, lines, and odd shapes. She studied it for a few minutes, not understanding its importance, when she made out some tiny letters in the middle of the paper next to largest irregular shape spelling out the word ‘cave.’ Then she realized it was a map. To the lower right of the cave was a small square with an outline of a shell in it. The shell looked familiar to her and she took off her necklace and laid it on the outline. It was a perfect match.