Ocean: The Awakening Read Online Free PDF Page A

money than ever.”
    “Is that so? Did you raise your prices?”
    “A little,” Kimo admitted. “The tourists are willing to pay, so why not?”
    “Yes, why not? Well, I’ll soon be out on the water to show you how to really make money.”
    “I’m sure you’re right, Father. Your fishing buddies stop by to ask about you almost every day.” And this was true. They all missed Tiny’s ebullient personality, and the grand stories he liked to tell about his adventures in small boats.
    Weakly, Tiny swung his legs over the side of the bed, and with Kimo’s help he walked with the cane to the outhouse, which was connected to the little house by a short, tin-roofed breezeway. Presently he came out, moving slowly, and Kimo helped him to the small screened porch on the other side of the kitchen, where he liked to sit each morning and listen to the birds. Despite the old man’s size, he seemed frail and weak to Kimo.
    “I hear the birds singing for me already,” Tiny said, as he slipped into a wicker chair that afforded him a view of the garden, with its tall coconut palms, hibiscus trees thick with pink, yellow, or orange flowers, and the deep-green jungle beyond.
    The small house had walls made of black-lava rock and scrap wood, and louvers in the glassless window openings that could be opened and closed for ventilation, depending upon the strength of the trade winds. The roof was metal, with numerous patches. Little more than a shack, the place was rented from one of the old Hawaiian families, and stood in a clearing on the slopes of the volcano, with a partial view of the ocean. This was a sad state for the Pohakus in comparison with the thirty acre tract the family used to own at a lower elevation—but Tiny’s grandfather had lost it more than a hundred years ago to the thieving, deceitful ways of the haoles —the white people who had taken over the islands.
    Kimo had heard the disgraceful details recounted many times. Tiny was the last of the local Hawaiians who refused to give up his native-land claim against the greedy whites—over property that had originally been given to the Pohakus under the mahale law, in which King Kamehameha granted one-third of all Hawaiian lands to the indigenous people in 1848. Kimo’s ancestors had filed the proper paperwork to secure their real estate title and had paid the taxes for years, until they were wrongfully accused of not making their payments, and were cheated out of the land by a dishonest haole , Preston Ellsworth I.
    Kimo was ambivalent about the issue. He was angry and outraged at the terrible injustice, to be certain, but he was also realistic in realizing that his family did not have the resources to continue the fight. His mother thought that the ongoing conflict kept her husband alive and feisty, but Kimo wasn’t so certain, fearing that the stresses had taken their toll. There was no way to prove it one way or the other, because Tiny was seventy-six now, and had lived a full life. For decades he’d been a fisherman, going out to sea in small boats and bringing back his catch to the fish markets in Wanaao Town. But he had not worked for more than two years, not since the cancer began to take its toll on him and sap him of energy.
    Yet, even in his weakened state, Kimo’s father was not a man to give up a grudge easily, especially one that was so deep-rooted, and which had affected his family so adversely. For the proud old Hawaiian man, it was a matter of restoring family honor.
    A light rain began to fall, and the birds grew quiet. Then, suddenly, a powerful wind bent the banana fronds and trees over, and a heavy rain poured down, creating a torrent of loud, roaring noise on the metal roof.
    In only a few minutes, by the time Ealani brought out the food and set it on a small table by her husband, the rain slacked off, and the birds began to sing again.
    Kimo caught a glance from her, just a quick look that his father did not notice as he took a plate of fruit