Kick me out, just let me go, he thought. But in his solemnity and slowness Dr. Chock seemed determined to make a big deal of it and deliver a lecture. And Sharkey could see that the headmaster was enjoying it, seeing himself as pono and Sharkey wicked and untrue, whereas he regarded himself as neither good nor bad but only fourteen and foreign in this place, a haole among locals.

In her humiliation, his mother was afraid, tipsy with confusion, and when Dr. Chock said, “I was hoping your husband would also be here,” she got tearful, sounding drunk, saying in a trembling voice, “My dear husband, Colonel Sharkey, is in the army, on a tour of duty, serving his country in Vietnam,” as though pleading for sympathy.

“We have many children of servicemen of all kinds,” Dr. Chock said, and “army brat” was implied in “all kinds.” He tapped his cheek to call attention to the corresponding part of Sharkey’s cheek, the waxen flesh of the C-shaped scar and the roulettes of the oversized stitches, as though indicating disobedience.

“That was an accident,” Sharkey’s mother said. “That was a dog bite.”

Blinking at “dog bite,” Dr. Chock recovered and said, “And they don’t habitually dabble in drugs.”

But they did, all the time, everyone did, one corner of the parking lot was a haze of blue smoke after school. The only difference was that they did not get caught. And “dog bite” to Sharkey made him wince at the memory of the hoarse choking bark that gnawed at his throat, the bark saying I am coming for you.

“I wonder if he’s listening,” Dr. Chock said. “If he understands his kuleana.”

The way he put it, with a jowl shake, enraged Sharkey, so he said nothing. It was over, he was finished.

“I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” his mother said. “I don’t know what to do with him.”

“Joe is not the first of our students to be involved in drugs.”

Sharkey’s mother clasped her handbag tighter on her lap and leaned forward, looking hopeful.

“But the others showed some remorse,” Dr. Chock said. “And they were more cooperative because they understood their kuleana. They demonstrated kokua—help, in the Hawaiian way.”

“I know he’s sorry. He told me—didn’t you, Joey?”

The petals of the plumeria seemed to blink as more honeyed raindrops fell.

“How would I know that?” Dr. Chock said, tapping a fingernail like a claw onto the expulsion form. And before Sharkey’s mother could speak, he added, “Sorry is just a word. I am looking for a deed. What I want to hear is real contrition, something pono.”

Sharkey’s mother canted her head to the side, as though assessing Sharkey’s remorse, but she frowned, unable to read him.