"The Kite of Kilauea"

The Kite of Kilauea

by Carl L. Biemiller

This unpublished manuscript is an enjoyable tale of a boy fighting a disease
and his Uncle who introduced him to Hawaii, kites and more.

Eric's notes: I found a letter from an editor or book reviewer with this manuscript. It was dated July 15, 1967. Apparently, Carl L. Biemiller wrote an earlier version of this story titled The Spear and the Rainbow . Will Yolen, the master kiter, was the added addition and some Hawaiian legends were deleted from the orginal version. Since I have both versions, I've some work to do to dig out the deleted lore.

Dad made many trips to Hawaii when he was with Holiday Magazine. He was on the first dawn to dusk flight from San Francisco to Hawaii. I'm guessing that was United Airlines. He came back to Hawaii to visit me when I was in the Navy, stationed at Pearl Harbor. Ironically, my submarine based out of Pearl, but berthed in Apra Harbor, Guam was the
USS Kamehameha, SSBN-642. I was a member of the Gold Crew from 1968 to 1970. King Kamehameha consolidated the Hawaiian Islands.

I returned to Hawaii in December 1999, to catch a ride on the carrier, the USS Constellation, CV-64. My son, a Navy pilot, was returning from the Persian Gulf. We rode the "Connie" back to San Diego along with other "Tiger Cruise" members. You can read about that trip at: Tiger Cruise 1999

What goes around comes around.

Preface: All the characters in this book are pretty real except Will Yolen who is an actual person.

Chapter One

Terry Tobias was in bed. He was not asleep. He was thinking. This is as good a thing to do in bed as anything else when one is not sleeping, especially if you are a boy eleven years old, all knees and elbows, and much too skinny -- especially if you are a boy with problems.

Terry was thinking that everybody ought to watch out, that's all, just watch out. Things happen which are nobody's fault

A year ago he was in Haddonfield, New Jersey, teaching Kermit, his cat, the new math from the seventh grade book, getting his Second Class Scout badge, and oiling his glove to play third base in the Little League. Then the pains came. His ankles, knees, elbows and shoulders turned into shooting stabs of fire. He gasped for breath and his chest suddenly held a giant hammer pounding to get out, and he fainted three times in one week.

The doctors said that he had rheumatic fever. They were very brisk and busy. They poked and patted and listened to his chest. They put him to bed. And, Terry knew because his mother and father were so cheerful and full of jokes while the smudges deepened under his mother's eyes and his father's lips grew thinner and thinner, that he might never get out of bed again.

But he did. He got out of his own bed and into one of Uncle George's 6,000 miles away on the windward side of the island of Oahu in Hawaii in a snug house on the beach at a place called Lanikai.

That's where he was now, and moonlight, spilling into the room, turned his straw hair silver, made his green eyes glow, and outlined a small smile on his lips. He was thinking about Uncle George, and he had to smile a little.

Just a week ago, Uncle George had stormed into the Tobias house in Haddonfield, spun Terry's father in a bear hug, kissed his mother, and started yelling orders. He yelled them at the doctors, and yelled them into the telephone. He yelled them at Kermit, the cat, who went outdoors on a sudden errand, and he yelled them at Terry.

"That boy is not going to get well in New Jersey," he yelled.

George Tobias, Terry's father's younger brother, was a positive man.

"I am not anti-New Jersey," he yelled. "I am pro-nephew, and besides you all need a change."

In a crowd of 100,000 people, George Tobias alone was a majority.

And Terry was in Hawaii. He had been there two days. He stopped thinking and slept, only ever so faintly aware of the lulling sounds outside his windows.

The night breezes rattled the palm trees, and the surf went shush-shuush-shuush as it curled and foamed on Uncle George's white, if terribly gritty, beach. There were little rustling sounds in the shrubs of cape plumbago and ginger and hibiscus, which is Hawaii's official flower.

The rustles were made by some island mongooses, creeping about on mongoose business. Long ago, some deep thinkers brought the whiskery-nosed little animals to Hawaii, but not to kill snakes as they do in countries like India, because there are no snakes in Hawaii. The thinkers thought that the mongooses might kill rats. Rats eat up the sugar cane in the fields, and sugar is a valuable Hawaiian crop. But the mongooses do not bother rats. The mongooses steal chickens instead, and creep and rustle around in the night under Uncle George's bushes. If they feel like it, they creep and run about in the daytime, too.

The sun awakened Terry. It spilled through the windows which reached from floor to ceiling, and laid slashes of light on the bamboo drop curtain which served as a door between him and the lawn outside.

He felt fine, sort of light and floaty. He rubbed his eyes and wiggled his toes, and consciously examined the room. After all, he'd only slept in it two nights. At home, his mother might have been around when he awakened, all set to tidy up for some visiting doctor. At Uncle George's, there was Uncle George and Kimo, Uncle George's house boss and chauffeur and cook and whatever else he felt like being.

Kimo was a wide, tawny man with a vast and peaceful sureness. He had met Terry and Uncle George at the airport when they flew into Honolulu. Terry felt warm and comfortable with him, and not at all embarrassed about being sick.

"Kimo is my friend," explained Uncle George. "I think he's the last of the great Hawaiian kings, and if you are lucky enough to have Kimo like you, he might give you an island. Furthermore, when I'm not around, he's the man to see."

Terry eased out of bed and peeked between the slats of the bamboo curtain. The ocean was dancing in a blue uniform today, and Uncle George's dull green, crab-grassy lawn stretched away to meet the sand of the beach. There were some shiny, dark birds holding a meeting. They had yellow legs and yellow beaks and big, shining eyes and quarreling voices. They chattered and squawked. They hopped and crackled.

Terry didn't know it, but he was looking at a patrol meeting of mynah birds, sometimes, and unkindly, called Hawaiian crows. Mynah birds can talk if someone trains them and fixes their tongues so they can make word sounds. But few people would care to listen to what they have to say.

Terry went into the bathroom and had a drink of water. His toothbrush was neatly stowed in a wall holder so he used it. He guessed he might as well wash his face, so he did.

He wandered back into the bedroom, and there was Uncle George. Uncle George was bulky. Terry decided that he looked something like his Scoutmaster back home, the one who played football with the Philadelphia Eagles, and made the Troop lift weights. Uncle George was barefooted. He had on the pants part of bright red pajamas, and they flapped in the mild breeze leaning into the room from the sea. The same wind fluffed the hair on Uncle George's chest, which was orange.

"Hi, man," said Uncle George. "We are going to get organized around here today, and the first thing we organize is breakfast. And, if we don't mess that up too badly, I'll tell you what else I have in mind. Are you hungry?"

"Yes, sir," said Terry, "a little."

"Fine, you can have fish and poi, Kailua pig or octopus picked in pineapple vinegar. What would you like?"

"Cereal," said Terry gravely. "And where are my clothes?"

"What clothes? Nobody wears clothes in this house from now on unless I tell 'em. Will you settle for a pair of green bathing trunks that match your eyes?"

"I'm pretty skinny for a bathing suit," said Terry.

Uncle George laid a gentle hand on Terry's shoulder.

"You know," he said. "I keep forgetting that there are guys going to college at age twelve today. Oh well, eat nine eggs and bulge out some."

"You mean we'll eat breakfast in bathing suits?" asked Terry.

"You will. I am dressed," said Uncle George with some dignity. "And right out on the lanai which is that tiled veranda that runs around the house out there, and where I can supervise the ocean."

Terry did not have nine eggs. He did not have cereal. He had a slice of papaya with lime juice and two eggs. Kimo cooked them. Uncle George drank pineapple juice and ate a tremendous slice of fish which he called mahi-mahi.

Kimo smiled as he served them. He wore a creamy white shirt and dazzling white trousers, so white they made his bare, brown feet look like dark, carved wood.

"Where is Kim's bathing suit?" asked Terry softly.

Uncle George peered at him over a mouthful of fish for a long moment.

"It is out at the laundry getting the collar starched," explained Uncle George firmly.

Terry giggled.

As they ate on the lānai, Uncle George explained the view and drank coffee.

"Out there is Kailua Bay. Up the beach a far piece is Kaneohe. Out there another piece is Maku Manu, an island full of birds. Behind us where you can't see are mountains and the Pali road and tunnel which runs into Honolulu. Now you know almost as much geography as I do. Right out there forever is the Pacific Ocean. I give it to you. Change its name to Tobias Pond and sit in it all day.

Uncle George paused.

"Now to business," he said. "You're a bright fellow. You know how sick you've been. You know that you are not completely well, and that you still need a doctor or two to look you over from time to time. We're going to have one, a friend of mine, and he'll live here with us for a spell. I promised your mother and dad."

Uncle George slurped his coffee, and waved the cup.

"I happen to know more about the doctor business than sixty-five and one-half billion doctors. They are too busy curing diseases to worry about the people who have 'em. I personally, your great Uncle George, am a people curer. If the people are well, who cares whether or not the diseases are sick? In my opinion, you are in great shape for the shape you're in right now.

Uncle George was yelling again, decided Terry, who felt suddenly very cheerful.

"I'm going to run you ragged," yelled Uncle George. "No more flopping around with books all day. You're so far ahead of your school class now your pals would need a rocket to catch up. You are going to swim the way I taught you to swim when you were three and a quarter years old. You are going to soak up sunshine until you give out heat enough to melt a New Jersey snow bank. You are going to be so busy that you'll have to wait for a weekend off to scratch. You have one single job to do. Do you know what that is?"

"Yes, sir," said Terry. "Run."

"Well," grunted Uncle George, throwing a piece of toast at a mynah bird who hopped on the lanai to admire Uncle George's voice. "We may walk a little at first. I may have to try out Plan A, and Plan B, and Plan C or whatever occurs to me as I get my organization confused enough to work."

Terry nodded his head. He understood perfectly. He looked across the breakfast table, and down the beach.

"I think you have company," he said.

Uncle George swiveled his head and squinted.

"You do, too," he said. "That's Doctor Tommy Alamedia who's going to stay with us, and the parade is the Pacheko kamali'i, your Hawaiian-Portuguese American neighbors who live down the road. They've been spear-fishing off the reef. Just look, Terry…"

"I see," said Terry very quietly.

Chapter Two	Chapter Three	Chapter Four	Chapter Five	Chapter Six
Chapter Seven	Chapter Eight	Chapter Nine	Chapter Ten	Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve

If you have any comments about this manuscript, please contact me at: eric@biemiller.com

To the Harvest of Memories

C.L. Biemiller's Home