When the bell rang and the students began to fill the driveway, he had a pang—they were so well dressed, so confident and clean, laughing, yet so orderly, so different from the after-school mob at Roosevelt. They wore shoes and socks. They carried book bags and briefcases. There was a seriousness about them, and even in their laughter a restraint and politeness. Their bags bulging with books, they were going home to study some more.

Harry was among them. Seeing Sharkey, he walked quickly toward him, and they smacked hands.

“Surf’s up big on the North Shore.”

“Yeah?” Harry weighed his sagging book bag by its strap.

“Come on—tomorrow!”

“And skip school?”

“Why not?”

Harry looked shocked, and then smiled. “Cannot. Maybe check out the waves this weekend.”

“It’ll drop by then.”

“Joe,” Harry said, and shrugged, holding his book bag, looking helpless, with no reply, and finally said, “I don’t know.”

But he knew; he had given his answer. He was a student in a high-pressure school, he took his studies seriously, he was aiming to go to college on the mainland, and though he was a passionate surfer he was purposeful—his schoolwork came first. For Sharkey, studies were no use, they taught him nothing he could apply to surfing. And the school was a battleground. What he learned at Roosevelt was the usefulness of being oblique, of never meeting a person’s gaze, all the Hawaiian evasions, making deference look like humility, not taking sides in negotiation, remembering he was a haole—a minority that was routinely picked on—and all the other public-school persecutions, unknown at Punahou.

He had earned a reputation as a geek and a loner, just another fucking haole. He was generally left alone, but he knew his place was on the margin, eating in the cafeteria alone, keeping to himself on the playground, vanishing as soon as the last bell sounded, and then off to the beach to surf. His scar had given him status, the death of his father had bestowed a measure of concern and protection, but really he didn’t matter anymore, not even as someone to be bullied, and these days Nalani had a new boyfriend. Sharkey did just enough work to get by and in that way remained inconspicuous, knowing it would be much worse for him if, like Blaine, he was teased for getting high marks.

But his dreams were lit with the turbulence of breaking waves—no longer unreadable in their turbulence but distinct in their changing forms, rising, cresting, tubing, far from chaotic, showing rideable contours. His dreams proved to him that his ambitions were huge, perhaps too great to reveal to anyone. Better surfers, or nonsurfers, would mock, they would laugh, they’d say, “How?” or “You’re dreaming”—and it was true, he was dreaming. His mother pressed him for his plans. And consumed by plans, he said, “I have no plans.”