Anywhere but Paradise Read Online Free Page A

blue from here. Hanu Road winds next to the beach, with occasional side streets angling to the water. If I could walk a straight line, the beach is across the road and eight houses away. Down a ways to the left, a beach park with coconut trees and tall,tall, ironwood trees with long needles and thimble-size pinecones stand just yards from the water.
    I close my eyes and pretend I hear a train. That I’m home.

Sharing
    “AN INDUSTRIOUS START,” says Mrs. Barsdale, the home ec teacher, the next morning at school. Her hair doesn’t appear to have strayed one strand since yesterday. She inspects my fabric pieces at a huge table in the back of the room. “Though I always check my students’ work before they cut.”
    I wrinkle my eyebrows. I must’ve missed hearing her say that. I stayed up late specifically to cut out the pattern.
    “But it looks like you did well.” Mrs. Barsdale reaches into her lab coat pocket, pulls out a scrap of paper and a pencil, and scribbles something.
    “Oh, no!” someone hollers from the front of the room.
    “Excuse me, I’ll be right back,” Mrs. Barsdale says, and hurries toward the girls congregating around a machine by the door. “Class,” she yells. “Sit down. Bequiet. Work.” She takes a breath and adds, “Eighth graders, I expect you to lead by example.”
    A girl in line for the ironing boards near the windows might be the same one from homeroom and hula. There’s a pink ribbon in her hair.
    Sewing machines drone. Hands wave every which way, but Mrs. Barsdale doesn’t seem to notice.
    “We share machines,” the teacher says when she returns, and motions me toward the front of the room.
    My eyes dart around the space. Every machine has two girls. Except one. Grams always says bad things happen in threes. It’s only my second day of school, and I am already over my limit.
    “Have you met Kiki Kahana?” Mrs. Barsdale asks.
    “I have,” I say.
    Kiki rubs her hands together and smiles all sticky sweet.
    Of all the girls, I have to partner with her?
    “Let Peggy Sue take the next turn,” says the teacher. “She is even further behind than you.” Mrs. Barsdale looks at the clock. “Switch places,” she hollers.
    “Piggy Sue, Piggy Sue,” whisper-sings Kiki as I sew. Over and over and over again.
    I’d give anything not to be me right now. Not to be haole.
    I don’t talk. I try not to listen. I sew.
    Maybe if I ignore her, she’ll stop.
    But she doesn’t.
    “You know Madame Pele, right?” she says a minute later.
    No, not personally. But I’ve heard of the volcano goddess. “Yes,” I say.
    “Don’t take pork over the Pali or she will send trouble your way. Bad trouble.”
    My shoulders squirm without my consent. Another threat? Or is she joshing? This girl won’t quit needling me.
    I purse my lips and press the foot pedal harder.
    I wish I could talk to a friend about Kiki. Ask about Kill Haole Day. But I don’t have a friend. Even if I did, everyone knows people keep secrets sometimes. Sometimes they don’t.
    Two girls sharing the machine next to us pop over. “My grandmother told me, never take bananas with you on a boat,” says one.
    “Or let your chopsticks stand in a full rice bowl,” says the other.
    Both bring bad luck. I sew in a seam and stop. But I don’t look up.
    “And don’t,” says Kiki, “pick a lehua flower unless you want it to rain.”
    “My cousins tested it out once,” says a girl. “Not a cloud in the sky. Sixty-four minutes after picking—
boom
—rain.”
    “This is not a social hour, girls,” says Mrs. Barsdale, clapping her hands. “Work, work, work.”
    The girls return to their seats.
    I’m spooked. Which I’m sure is their point.
    Kiki starts to sing again.
    And I count the days until summer.

Hawaiian History Again
    “I’M PASSING OUT A REVIEW sheet for your upcoming test,” says Mr. Nakamoto at the end of class that afternoon.
    I notice right off it’s not one sheet, it’s three or four stapled