A Place to Call Home | 15

Today, Noelani's family and friends have gathered for a very important birthday party. She can't wait to become a "big kid" like Nani and Malia so they can get into all kinds of trouble together. She barely has the patience to let Gaby take one last look at her before she grows up and everything changes.

While their daughter eagerly blows out her birthday candles, Gaby and Alvin try not to dwell on the fact that this means they're getting older, too. Time has gone by so quickly in Sulani. It's hard to believe they've now lived here for the bulk of their adult lives.

After gobbling up a piece of cake, Noelani is excited to give her newfound self-sufficiency a spin. "What do you say we make a run for it?" she proposes to her friends. "We'll be to the beach before anybody even notices we're gone!"

"Ugh, gross!" Nani exclaims as they make their way past Mele and Alika, who have taken advantage of the opportunity for a rare display of public affection. "Let's get out of here before all our parents start making out!"

As Noelani predicted, once the drinks are freely flowing and the music is cranked up on high, the adults don't even notice the girls' disappearance. They're too busy catching up on all the island gossip they've missed out on while occupied with their own work and family lives.

Meanwhile, the girls can hardly contain their excitement at the thought of taking their first unsupervised dip in the ocean.

Gaby orders a round of drink for her friends. "It's so great to finally be able to hang out as adults for a change," she says, taking a generous gulp from her cocktail. For the first time in years, her daughter is the last thing on her mind.

In fact, everyone at the party seems to have forgotten the entire reason they've gathered here in the first place. If anyone is thinking of the children at all, they hardly want to be the one to ruin the jolly, carefree mood by bringing them up - so nobody does.

Luckily, by virtue of spending their entire lives so far on an island, the girls are all strong swimmers. They spend hours splashing around in the water and, with every passing minute, find themselves feeling more and more grown up. Even the encroaching dark of night can't dampen their moods. Who needs parents after all?

Finally, Gaby gets her wits about her enough to start searching for her missing daughter. She's not too worried. She knows she can't have gone far. In fact, she finds her just a couple hundred feet away, bobbing in the water like it's her natural home. In a way, Gaby realizes, it probably is. Noelani may not be a mermaid yet, but the potential is clearly there. She's still fully human for now, though, and can't stay in the ocean forever, as much as she complains when Gaby shouts at her to come to shore.

"But, Mom, I'm having so much fun!" Noelani whines, shaking droplets of water off her shriveled, shivering body.

"Well, you're not going to have any fun ever again if you turn yourself into a raisin," Gaby counters. "It's time to go home now."

"This is so lame!" Noelani extends her lower lip into a pout, but her protests soon die out. She's still young enough to take her parents' demands seriously, which Gaby is grateful for. She doesn't think she's ready to have a rebellious teenager-in-training on her hands yet.

By the next morning, all signs of defiance have dissolved, and Noelani is back to being as adorable as ever as she gives Meli a cuddle. Gaby figures now is as good a time as any to begin introducing Noelani to her work as a conservationist.

Unfortunately, it doesn't take long for Noelani's newfound attitude to kick in. While Gaby is busy observing the local flora for any signs of infestation, all Noelani can do is moan about how boring it is and how she'd rather be doing anything else. "Anything else?" Gaby asks, raising an eyebrow.

Soon enough, she's got Noelani helping her pick up litter and debris on the beach. "You can't complain," Gaby says cheerily every time Noelani so much as rolls her eyes. "We could still be gathering data on the plants, but you just couldn't stand to spend one second longer doing that, could you?"

Crafty as she is, though, Noelani manages to find an abandoned pail and shovel and turn work into play.

"You're supposed to be helping me," Gaby reminds her.

"I am!" she insists. "You never told me I had to use my hands to do it!"

Eventually, Gaby eases up a little. "I guess you did end up helping after all," she tells Noelani. "I think we both deserve a little break."

All of a sudden, there's nothing left for Noelani to complain about when they reach the waterfall. She could spend hours trying to catch the speedy, slippery frogs that hop and glide around within the shallow pool at its base.

By the end of their day together, Gaby is teaching Noelani how to seek out signs of poaching and educate any wrong-doers they encounter. She's a little overzealous now, but she's certainly got the right spirit. She just needs to work on her delivery. Then again, maybe her aggressive approach will actually work at scaring off this unlawful fisherman for good.

The next day, it's Alvin's turn to take Noelani out so they can practice swimming together.

"Dad, this is stupid!" she shouts as she grudgingly follows him into the water. "I can already swim. Why do I need these dumb lessons?"

"You'll see," Alvin replies and smirks to himself knowingly.

Abruptly, he takes on his merman form and begins leaping and diving in the water with the easy, seamless grace of a dolphin. Noelani tries her best to match him, but only ends up sucking in a lungful of water and coming up gasping and coughing. "No fair!" she finally manages to exclaim when she can breathe again. "How am I supposed to keep up when you've got an actual tail?"

Sadly, Noelani can't spend her entire childhood roaming Sulani's beaches and bathing in its oceans. She has to attend her first day of school eventually, which she's a little nervous about, but a hug from her mom makes all the butterflies in her stomach flutter away.

Over breakfast, Gaby and Alvin commiserate over what feels like their swiftly approaching old age now that their daughter is officially an elementary school student.

"We might as well pack up and head for the retirement home," Alvin deadpans. "It's only going to be downhill from here."

When she gets home, Noelani catches her mom up on the day's happenings in minute detail. "We've already got homework, can you believe it? We have to make a model of that stupid volcano you kept going on and on about the other day! What's so special about that thing anyway?"

"Well, lucky for you," Gaby says, "the answer to that question lies just a few hundred feet beyond our back yard. Come on, I'll show you."

Before Noelani knows it, her mom is jogging off up the side of the cliff without her and she has to sprint to catch up.

Gaby is right: before long, they're standing at the very edge of the imposing volcano itself, so close that the heat radiating from its center makes sweat instantly pool on their foreheads. Figuring she's old enough now, Gaby tells Noelani the story of Alvin's parents and their tragic end, and her attitude immediately sobers. It's hard for her to call the volcano stupid when it's pretty clear she could take one wrong step and be swallowed and scorched alive.

Still, there's also an intense beauty about it, especially when Gaby takes her around the other side to swim up next to it, where they can press their palms against its long-cooled outer shell of igneous rock. Noelani is impressed. She doubts any of the other kids will be able to get close enough to the volcano to replicate every inch of it almost exactly.

The next morning, it only takes a minute or two of begging on Noelani's part to get her mom to agree to help her with her model.

Inevitably, though, they run up against disaster as they attempt to mix the volatile chemicals that will mimic the volcano's lava flow. Noelani buries her face in her hands in desolation. "Mom, I thought you were a scientist!"

"Success!" Gaby exclaims several hours later, when they finally see the fake lava flow down the sides of the papier-mâché volcano.

But Noelani's brow is furrowed in concern as she stares at her mom's arms. "What is that weird rash all over your body?"

Gaby looks down in confusion, only to find her skin covered in odd bright red welts. "I don't know," she murmurs. "It must be some sort of allergic reaction to one of those chemicals. I'm really questioning your teacher's decision to give you kids access to that stuff."

Meanwhile, Alvin wakes up with his head spinning, which means he has to take a rain check on their regularly-scheduled swimming lessons for the day. "Well, what am I supposed to do now?" Noelani asks in exasperation, absolutely crushed by the thought of a day without the constant attention of her currently incapacitated parents.

Luckily, her Aunt Kaimana is free to take on babysitting/entertainment duty. At first, Noelani is sulky, missing her mom and dad, so Kaimana summons one of her good friends from deep below the surface to cheer her up.

"Oh, wow!" Noelani exclaims. "I keep begging my dad to call up a dolphin for me, but he always says it's too dangerous and we have to wait until I'm older!" Tentatively, she reaches for the dolphin's slippery skin and it squeaks in delight at her touch.

"Aunt Kaimana, you are so much cooler than my parents! Can I move in with you?"

"I'm not sure your parents would like that. But let's see how long I can keep you before they demand you come back home. I bet we'll make it to at least tomorrow afternoon."