A Fish Out of Water: Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The Warrior

No sooner had Keoni woken up and crawled out of bed when his mother came into the bedroom, picked him up, and carried him out to the dining table where a bowl of cereal was waiting for him on the tray of his high chair. Keoni took a little plastic spoon in hand and carefully began to scoop up spoonfuls of cereal and shove them in his mouth -- when he wasn't occupied by playing with his food, that is. Even so, Keoni managed to get through his breakfast by eating it instead of yeeting it.

Leimomi let Keoni out of his high chair, took his cereal bowl to the kitchen sink and washed it. Meanwhile, Keoni answered the call of the potty. When he was done, Malie came into the bathroom to check on him. "How about a nice bubble bath, Keoni?"

"Bubbles! Yay!" Keoni exclaimed in reply.

After Keoni was done with his bath, he felt all revved up from splashing in the bubbly water. He immediately started to bop and boogie down to some tune he was making up in his head. When he was finished dancing, he toddled out of the bathroom, and looking around, he saw Malie in the kitchen. He went over to her and reached up towards her, exclaiming "Mommy!"

Malie knelt down, and she and Keoni gave each other a big hug.

Then, Keoni launched into a monologue about various fascinating topics such as trucks, superheroes, and how blue was the best color ever. Malie listened politely to her son's rambling, then when he was done with his monologue, she decided it was time for a parental life lesson. "Listen closely, Keoni. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes. Everyone hurts other people's feelings sometimes. If you do something wrong to someone else, even if it's an accident, it's very important to say you're sorry afterwards..."

Malie continued to try to explain the importance of good conflict resolution skills to her son, but he didn't quite seem to understand everything she was attempting to convey. After his mother had prattled on for a while, he was starting to get tired of the lecture, so he stamped his little foot, made a pouty face and said "Sometimes I don't wanna say sowwy!"

Malie decided not to press the issue, and she went to the refrigerator, got out a variety of fruit, and started to chop it up to make a nice fruit salad for dinner. Keoni went into the bedroom and gave his best friend Beach Bear a hug. Then he spent some time bopping to his imaginary tune again, and after that, he went outside. As he was down the beach in front of his family's house, he heard a knock on the front door behind him, and then he heard his aunt Hokulani's voice welcoming whoever had just knocked and inviting them into the Ka'aukai's home.

 

 

However, Keoni was too preoccupied with his current plan to think much about whatever was going on at the house. You see, Keoni thought playing in the sand was fun, but the beach sand itself was just so monochromatic. Keoni went around to the side of the house and took out a bottle and a cup of paint, intending to paint the sand and turn it lots of fun colors!

Unfortunately for the toddler, and fortunately for the ocean life in the lagoon, Leimomi happened along as her grandson was creating a modern art masterpiece with the beach as his canvas. "Keoni, don't make a mess on the beach. The paint will get into the lagoon water and hurt the fish, and then what will our family do?" She reached down to try to hug it out with Keoni, but once again, the toddler couldn't help but feel like something was 'off,' and he tried to push her away.

Leimomi started to clean up as much of the paint-splattered sand as she could, while Keoni headed back towards the front door, intending to play with his blocks. However, once he got inside, he stopped. There was a stranger standing in the Ka'aukai family's living room, having a conversation with Malie and Kapena.

Something about this stranger didn't seem quite as strange to Keoni as most other strangers, even though his manner of dress was certainly unusual. He looked almost exactly like one of the warriors of old from grandma Leimomi's stories about Sulani's history, and Keoni found it riveting and exciting that a real warrior had come to his family's home!

"Thank you for coming to visit, Mr. Koa," Malie said to the stranger.

"There's no need to thank me," Mr. Koa replied. "I'm just seeing what Ohan'ali Town is like and meeting some of the people who live here."

"I'd heard rumors that a hermit had recently taken up residence on a sandbar near Mua Pel'am," Kapena commented, "but I didn't think they were true."

"There's no need to call our guest a 'hermit,' dear," Malie whispered to Kapena. Then she turned her attention back to the visitor. "It must not be easy living all on your own on in the middle of nowhere. If there's anything we can do to help you, please let us know."

"I don't consider my new home to be 'in the middle of nowhere,' Mr. Koa replied. "And while I appreciate your offer of assistance, one of the reasons why I'm living there is for the self-sufficient lifestyle."

"Speaking of self-sufficiency, Mr. Koa, what do you do for work?" Kapena asked.

"I'm a corporal in the military."

Kapena gave his guest a suspicious look. "So... why is a soldier living on some sandbar? Don't you have a military base to stay at or something?"

"Wilderness survival is part of my mission, at least for the time being. I'd advise you not to pry any further into the military's business."

"Well, I'm glad I don't have to be all secretive for my work. Being a fisherman is the most honest profession there is!" Kapena boasted.

"Honest?" Mr. Koa practically spat the word out, scornfully mocking Kapena. "The only thing a fisherman does is take the lives of ocean-dwelling creatures, and you have the gall to inflate yourself like a pufferfish and boast about your misdeeds? The people of this town claim to honor the ocean, but what they really want is to use her for their own selfish gain, and you're the worst of them all!"

Keoni had better things to do than listen to his father and this stranger argue. Beach Bear needed another hug right away.

Malie followed Keoni into the bedroom, and after Keoni hugged Beach Bear again, she brought her son over to his blocks and used the pictures on them to help teach him shapes. By the time the lesson was over, Keoni was tired of playing with blocks. Then Malie left the bedroom, and Keoni cried a little bit because he was just so sick of the blocks, but then she came back, picked Keoni up, and brought him out to his high chair where there was a bowl of peas waiting. Keoni ate his dinner, Malie let him out of the high chair, and then he went to use the potty while she took the bowl from the high chair's tray and went over to the kitchen sink to wash it. When Keoni had finished his business, Malie came into the bathroom, picked up the toddler, brought him into the bedroom, and helped him change into his pajamas. Then he crawled into bed, and she read him a bedtime story until he fell asleep.