Free Juniors by Kaui Hart Hemmings

watch people going into Montague with their instruments—cellos, violins, and guitars—and then I see Danny walking and I honk. A group of seniors sitting in front of the Mamiya building look my way, and I’m sort of glad to have them witness Danny getting into my car, lending me some cool. His brown hair has a gold tint from the sun. He seems above everyone, so tall that he doesn’t notice all the girls looking up at him.
    â€œWhat’s up, Little Donkey?” he says, getting in. He pats me on the head.
    â€œWhat’s up?” I say back. Ironically, if we weren’t good friends, we’d probably hug or kiss—everyone seems to do a lot of that here, this effortless affection between people who aren’t going out. They hug when they come and go, girls and girls, girls and boys. They walk with their arms over one another. They sit oneach other’s laps. It’s an intimacy I envy and that I look away from, in case the envy is apparent.
    I hit him on the leg.
    That’s as intimate as it gets.
    I head out of school, past the science center and theater, then slow at the Wo International Center until security waves me on.
    â€œTonggs or Diamond Head?” I ask when we’ve made it to the road.
    â€œWhy don’t we just go to your new house?” he says. “Paddle out from there.”
    I never considered doing that. Could I have people over on just my sixth day living there? I drive up the hill toward UH, then wait in the long line to merge onto the highway.
    â€œI don’t know if I can.”
    â€œOf course you can,” Danny says. “It’s where you live, right? You have your own access now. It’s killer. This is going to be so much easier.”
    â€œBut I don’t know if I’m allowed to have people over.” I reach across him to the glove compartment for my gum and hit his knees. His body seems to take up the entire car. “I can’t walk up by the house. Yeah. I don’t think I can do that.”
    â€œIt’s not like we’ll be rummaging through their fridge.” I hand him the gum; he takes a piece and puts the pack away. “We’ll just walk, walk, walk—” He uses his fingers on the console between us to imitate us walking. “We won’t make noise. We won’t litter or poop on the lawn—”
    â€œPoop on the lawn?”
    â€œWe won’t do anything. We will be upstanding citizens. TheWest home will not become a Genshiro Kawamoto property on our clock.”
    I laugh at the reference to the Japanese billionaire who bought more than two dozen properties along Kahala Avenue and invited native Hawaiian families to move in free of charge. Walls have been tagged with spray paint, pools filled with garbage, beer cans, even needles. Tennis courts are cracked and crumbling. He put marble statues around the properties and landscaped with rows of loud and busy plants and flowers. The homes look apocalyptic, like the remains of a once-grand society.
    â€œIt’s almost like performance art,” I say.
    â€œNo, I’ve told you already,” Danny says. “It’s a social experiment. Watch these Hawaiians ruin their riches. Embarrassing.”
    â€œI think he’s just nuts.” I pull my skirt down because it’s creeping up. Danny looks down, then quickly the other way, out the window, chewing his gum.
    â€œYou should totally invite him over. You’re his neighbor now! These are your peeps.” He wiggles his eyebrows.
    We cruise down H-1 quickly. The traffic’s going the other way. I don’t think I’ve ever driven here without tons of traffic going in one direction or the other, usually both. It’s like Hawaii is stuffed to the gills, bringing in but not putting out, like a hoarder. I take the Waialae exit, still not quite used to my new route home.
    â€œIt’s not my neighborhood. And I’m not inviting anyone over. I still