Meanwhile, for a few sweet weeks in December, hoes and knives are forgotten and we sneak down to Hilo whenever we can to meet Franklin. Franklin Abe is a friend of my cousin who’s a year older and lives down in Hilo. The three of us have become fast friends and Koji and I can’t get down to town fast enough, yeah. We help Salvador, the engineer of the sugar train, and the workers load the burlap bags of sugar onto the train, so we can hitch a ride from the mill down to Hilo wharf. We also pay Salvador with loose cigarettes pinched from other workers or a bottle of soda pop or coconuts Franklin has climbed the trees to cut down. We take turns shoveling coal into the furnace and hang out of the open windows, wind whipping our faces. Below, the big ocean spreads out gray and choppy as the sky clouds over and a warm rain soothes our hot skin. Moments later the sun pushes through the dark clouds again, forming a sun shower, leaving us sticky with sweat and laughter.

“Stay out of trouble,” Salvador tells us once we jump off at the Hilo train station. We’re already halfway down the platform when he yells, “And get back here on time, or you’ll be walking back up the mountain. You hear?!”

Outside the station, we meet Franklin and walk to Hilo bay or a beach close by. Koji and I act like we do this every day, like we’re town boys, not cane boys. Along the way, Franklin pulls out the slingshot he made from a branch of red manzanita. He’s a natural with it, yeah, shattering bottles and clipping mangoes, and even hitting lychees off of trees from twenty feet away. There’s not much Frank can’t do, and the girls like that, his tall, skinny body, his cocky grin, his pretty-boy good looks so different from us. Koji’s strong and quiet. Me, I’m short and persistent. What I don’t have in height, I have in stubbornness. Like a dog clutching a bone, Koji teases, never going to give it up. But we can’t hide the dirt under our nails, while Franklin has an excitement that draws attention to him.

It’s no different today when we meet the three girls down at Onekahakaha Beach for the first time. It’s a windy day, the palms swaying, whitecaps on the ocean looking like a thousand white birds on the surface of the water. Koji and I watch the girls walk across the beach toward town, laughing and talking, fishing poles and buckets in hand. Other than Koji’s sister, we don’t know many girls.

“Three for three,” Franklin says, as he tucks his slingshot into his back pocket. “I’ll be right back.”