Leilehua High School - Ka Leilehua Yearbook (Wahiawa, HI)

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SHORT STORIES First Prize GEORGINE ONO, Senior LAST GLIMPSE ON THE morning that the ship Lina was alive with preparation for her sailing that afternoon, Mary Torres was up early in her country home. The benevolent Hawaiian sunshine illuminated her plump little figure as she joyfully visited each of her friends, who enviously bade her good-bye. Mary felt that Fortune had indeed bestowed her most radiant smile upon her when she was given this opportunity to lift herself out of her dull home and surroundings, and travel in a fascinating strange land. The last house she visited belonged to an old Hawaiian mama who wept inconsolably while she murmured incoherently through her tears, My girl going away, my baby going away. Mary did not understand but she dutifully comforted the aged woman, and was rather embarrassed as most children of thirteen are at witnessing such a scene. When she went home, her sisters and brother stayed close bv her, as if that would keep her spirit with them when she was gone. She looked at the comfort- able but stolid-looking home and compared it with the enchanting dream-castle which she felt awaited her if only she could get away from this dull brown place. Looking critically at her family, she thought, lf l could leave them for- ever, I know l'd grow: l'd be happy. At noon the family of five escorted her to Honolulu. The day was of the type that leads tourist advertisers to base their claims in their work. lt was trans- parent, promising everlasting life to those touched by its magic. Mary caught this message and was elated by its sweetness. An hour's ride brought the group to Honolulu. The Lina floated in oily. unmoving water of an intense, steady blue. She fingered her sun-glasses and stared at the water with hidden dismay in her eyes. She saw in her mind end- less miles of blue water before her. She walked up the gangplank with a slightly depressed feeling. As she looked around the gorgeous liner, however, her deiection vanished magically, and she gazed at everything and everyone with insatiable curiosity. With one sister tagging along after her, she skipped all over the ship, while her family rested in her cabin. She was flushed and excited as the confused murmur of farewells and greetings swung round and round about her. Mary started as a loud blast, trailing hot clouds of steam in its wake, boomed impressively. Those who were later to wave to the Lina left the ship slowly, reluctantly, looking back again and again. Mary watched her family slowly file down the gangplank and realized with a disagreeable shock that they were leaving her. Unbearable loneliness filled her, as inky water from a faucet quickly fills a cup to its brim. Why, why did every member of her family suddenly become infinitely dear? What reason made Hawaii safe, familiar and precious? She needed those sun-glasses now and searched clumsily in her handbag for them. lt seemed as if she had stood on deck for hours while she waved and waved until her arm felt as though it had been subjected to a local anesthetic. She blessed the dark glasses, for behind them she desperately fought a stormy flood of tears. Her heart felt numb and heavy with a dull weight. A long half hour later, the people on the pier were scarcely distinguishable. A sharp, searing pain milled and churned within her, as Hawaii, with her mountains and trees, gradually receded. She turned and ran down to her cabin as if she were fleeing from an enemy: flinging herself on her bed, she lay there absolutely motionless and inert. A long while passed, then she jumped up with a late-born purpose and rushed out on deck to scan the horizon for a last glimpse.

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SHORT STORIES Second Prize MAISIE EDEN, lunior BALLET Place: Imperial Marinsky Theatre, Moscow, Russia Time: 1912 ANASTASlA's eyes grew big with wonder as she entered her grandmother's opera box and slowly sat down. To the front, on both sides, and beneath the box, sat people. Oh, such gor- geous people! The jewels on the rich gowns gltttered like stars on a cold night. The men were immaculate in black and white. Everybody talked, but their lowered voices as they sat waiting for the enter- tainment to begin, were soft, almost musical. When the gas lights were dimmed, Anastasia could hardly control her hap- piness. For the first time she was to see that greatest ballerina of all, Anna Pavlowa. How often she had longed for this night! The orchestra played selected bits from famous symphonies. Tonight, how- ever, Anastasia's interest was not in orchestras. Her eyes wandered lingeringly along the other boxes overlooking the stage. There sat the fat old Duchess, her kindly husband by her side. Anastasia knew both well. Often she had visited the Duchess and Nick, the name by which the Grand Duke was popularly known. Suddenly, with a burst of music, the curtains began to part. Anastasia's eyes flew to the stage. Much to her surprise, all that could be seen was a dead blackness, a black- ness that clung to the stage with the softness of velvet. Now a beam of light stole out from the stage. lt seemed to creep from around a corner. What were those fluttering, floating, animated figures in white that kept pace with the light? All at once Anastasia realized that they were the dancers of the ballet. A dream of motion was Pavlowa, as she suddenly appeared in the light before the dancers. Her eyes were deep, dark pools in her powder white face, her movement that of a swan gliding through still water. Soon Anastasia lost herself in the beauty of it all. She felt that she too glided and dipped with the animated white figures down on the stage. Like Pavlowa, she floated through space in a joyous daze, on the wings of a butterfly. After what had seemed to her subconscious self to be no more than a minute, Anastasia again was looking at a velvet blackness. The gas lights glimmered brightly. White gloved women and bearded men arose and slowly started homeward.