Free Primitive Secrets by Deborah Turrell Atkinson Page A

paper. “It’s a start. Check with me when you come back,” Lorraine said.
    â€œThanks.” Storm glanced at the list and shoved it into her purse. She walked away as Wang and Meredith Wo approached Lorraine.
    Warm, humid air drifted up Bishop Street from the ocean. A thick cloud layer lay over the city. Storm took a deep breath. She could smell the ocean; the breeze was from the south, instead of the northeast trade winds. Locals called them Kona winds, which meant storms and still, sultry air. She didn’t mind; it reminded her of lazy summer days on the Big Island.
    Storm wandered into the pedestrian area of Fort Street Mall, where fast food places lined the sidewalks. The smell of Chinese noodles, garlic and fresh ginger tickled her appetite. Her stomach growled again and a frozen yogurt stand caught her eye. Storm ordered a chocolate shake with walnuts. It was delicious, even though chunks of nuts clogged the straw. Maybe she’d have stir-fried noodles after she finished the drink.
    She sat on the edge of a fountain and watched a pair of mynah birds fight over half of a Big Mac someone had dropped on the cement. The sandwich was big enough for ten birds, yet the two squawked and carried on in a racket that attracted passersby. The birds quarreled as if their lives depended on the victory, rather than the food. Not unlike humans, Storm reflected. She slurped the rest of her shake and took a deep breath of briny air mixed with spray from the fountain.
    What she really needed right now was a trip to the Big Island. She needed to be in the small town of Pa’auilo with family who wouldn’t judge her. Life was simple there. She smiled at the memories of running a bit wild with cousins and second cousins of her mother’s. She could go visit them, see their kids, and spend time with Aunt Maile and Uncle Keone.
    There, everyone watched everyone else’s children and the kids darted through koa forests in the mists that drifted down from Mauna Kea and brought a coolness that never reached the hot southern part of the island. They rode old, rusty bicycles, probably the same ones their parents used to ride, along the cane haul roads. Drivers of the huge, muddy trucks knew to watch for them, and the sugar cane itself, with its great prickly leaves, kept them out in the open where they could be seen. The kids, like their parents before them, rode the bikes to the edges of the cliffs that jutted hundreds of feet above the ocean. There, they could watch the occasional humpback whale cavort with its mate in the indigo swells.
    Nothing was wasted. Storm remembered happily accepting a cousin’s faded overalls for school. Most weekends were spent with extended family; the adults supervised kids’ games from old lawn chairs while they shared a keg. There was usually a reason for at least a potluck, if not a ll‘aa.
    The very thought of an imu-roasted pig, lomilomi salmon, and laalaa made Storm’s mouth water. She got up and threw her empty paper cup into a nearby trashcan. The wrapper of the sandwich the mynah birds had torn apart drifted against her foot and left a grease spot on her shoe. She needed to get out of the city.
    It was Friday, why not? A pay phone perched on the side of a building at the corner of Queen Street, where the traffic around the pedestrian mall resumed. Storm picked up the receiver, got someone at the Aloha Airlines desk just as a bus bellowed by, spewing a diesel cloud in her direction. Storm coughed. “When’s your next flight to Kona? Or Hilo? I’ll take either.”
    The person at the airline desk chuckled. “Sounds like you’re downtown. Next one to Kona is at 3:55. There’s one to Hilo at 6:30. Which one ya want?”
    She’d never make the 3:55 and the drive from Hilo was a bit shorter than from Kona. “Hilo, thanks.” Storm leaned against the side of the little open phone box and read off her credit card number to the