A Fish Out of Water: Prologue

 Keoni Ka’aukai really liked his home. The sun shone bright and friendly almost every day, plants grew big and green, and half the neighborhood was bordered by pretty blue water. Keoni loved water because it was fun to splash in, and it sparkled in the sunlight. Plus, right alongside the water there was more than enough sand for a whole army of toddlers to play in. Keoni was a busy tot at Ohan’ali Town Beach this evening as he did his part to help a few of the neighbors build a sand sculpture.

However, before the sand sculpture was finished, someone swooped Keoni up. The tot found himself in the arms of a fashionably dressed young woman with her black hair pulled back in a ponytail; this was his aunt, Hokulani Kalua. “Come on, little guy,” she said to him. “Your parents won’t be happy if they find out I let you stay out past your bedtime.”

Hokulani carried a reluctant Keoni down the street until they arrived at a small blue-painted house with a corrugated metal roof. The house stood on a foundation of wooden pilings that held it up over the sand and water, and there was a dock sticking out from the back of the house with a ladder and a place to tie up a boat, but nothing was moored there. Hokulani carried Keoni into the house and sat him down on a loveseat near the front entrance. “Now, how am I supposed to get you to go to sleep?” Hokulani mused out loud, more to herself than to the child she was addressing, since he didn’t know how to talk yet. “Well, maybe a nice relaxing bath will calm you down. Now, where do they keep the bubble stuff…? Wait right here, kiddo.” With that, Hokulani ducked into the bathroom to look for a bottle of bath suds.

Normally, the prospect of a bubble bath would’ve seemed like one of the best things ever to Keoni, but at the moment his mind was on the sand sculpture he’d left unfinished. While Hokulani was busy looking for the suds, Keoni slipped out of the house and toddled back to the beach as fast as his little legs could carry him — which wasn’t particularly fast at all, since he was still getting the hang of walking.

He arrived back at the beach to find that the neighbors had finished the sand sculpture without him, and that they’d left already. It was a little disappointing that Keoni hadn’t been able to see the building of the sand sculpture through to its completion, but on the bright side, Keoni had never been out this late before as far as he could remember. Everything familiar seemed so different in the fading light.

 

 Keoni thought it was a perfect time to explore the beach.

 

With zero experience of late walks on the beach before, Keoni didn’t know to keep an eye out for people on bicycles!

Luckily, the cyclist was able to swerve around Keoni in time, and he watched her zoom away, admiring the fast black bike and wishing he was big enough to ride something that fast himself. But the one fast vehicle he liked even more than bikes were those aqua-zips that people rode around on the water.

Keoni was so intent on making it to the other side of the beach, he didn’t notice his mother, Malie Ka’aukai, playing chess with a neighbor.

Before Keoni knew what was happening, he found himself getting swooped up again. When Malie had seen her son wandering the beach after dark, she immediately forfeited her chess game, hurried over to him, and picked him up. “What are you doing out this late, Keoni? Where’s Aunt Hokulani? She was
supposed to be watching you. Come on, let’s get you home.”

Malie carried her son back to the house and went through the front door to find a panicking Hokulani holding a bottle of bath suds in one hand. “Oh, thank goodness!” Hokulani sighed in relief as soon as she saw her sister with Keoni held snugly in her arms. “I only let him out of my sight for a minute, I swear! But then I turned around and he was gone!”

“That’s how toddlers are, sis,” Malie explained. “I wasn’t exaggerating when I told you you’d have to keep an eye on him all the time.”

“I am so not cut out for this whole childcare thing,” Hokulani complained.

“Well, if you’re not getting the hang of giving me a hand with Keoni, you could spend less time babysitting and pick up an extra chore or two to make up for it. ‘Ohana helps each other, and you agreed to help us out around the house in exchange for the free room and board we’re giving you while you get back on your feet.”

“I know,” Hokulani tried to hide the slightly irritated tone in her voice as she grudgingly acknowledged that family wasn’t a one-way street. Perhaps many people in other parts of the world would have considered Hokulani’s sister, brother-in-law and his mother to be very generous in letting her share their home rent-free, but in Ohan’ali Town, generosity, hospitality, and helping a family member in need were all part of the culture. However, that also meant that Hokulani was expected to reciprocate her family’s generosity in some way, and if she was perfectly honest, she would’ve preferred to get help when she needed it without having to give help in return.

“Could you bring that bottle back into the bathroom, sis? I have my hands full.”

“Sure.”

“Thanks. I bet Keoni would love a bubble bath right now. Wouldn’t you, my little minnow?”

Keoni burbled happily in an attempt to communicate that he would really love a bubble bath right now — or just about anytime.

Thus, Keoni’s first late-night beach excursion came to an end, but he didn’t really mind that the adventure was over. After all, every day promised more adventures just waiting for a little boy growing up on the islands of Sulani.

(Author's Note: I first came up with the character of Hokulani Kalua as part of a Create-A-Sim Casting Call for SoulGal's Bachelor in Paradise Challenge. I liked her, so I decided to bring a slightly updated version of her back as a side character in this story.)