Aloha, Kristy

[anzuhana]

Disclaimer: I don't own the BSC.

A/N: Any reviews, criticism and ideas are welcome

Chapter 1

"Done," I said as I put the last item into my suitcase.

I was finally finished packing and that meant that I could do something else. Who am I? I am Kristy Thomas and I'm thirteen years old. I'm in the eighth grade at Stoneybrook Middle School (SMS). I have brown hair and brown eyes and I'm the shortest person in the eighth grade.

Now, where did I just finish packing to? I'm going to Hawaii with my family. Most of my friends already went there. The only exceptions are Mallory and Shannon. Mallory was here in Stoneybrook with me, where we helped Mrs. Stone with her farm and Shannon was at camp. Unfortunately, they're not going to Hawaii later this summer and they probably won't go to Hawaii later this year.

I suddenly heard some singing out in the hallway. I peeked out of my room and saw David Michael and Karen as they sang about Hawaii. As soon as they saw me, they stopped.

"You can keep singing," I told them.

They smiled before they resumed singing. It wasn't always like that. For one thing, me and Karen weren't siblings. Also, I didn't live in this house. Let me explain.

When I was younger, my dad just got up and left. He rarely calls and he didn't help mom. Mom had to struggle for many years to support me, my older brothers, Sam and Charlie (fifteen and seventeen) and my younger brother, David Michael.

After years of struggling, mom met Watson and they began dating. I didn't like him very much at first but now, I think of him as my own father. When they got married, we moved into his mansion. It's a good thing, too, since a lot of people live at Watson's mansion. Besides, me, my brothers, mom and Watson living there, Karen and her four-year-old brother, Andrew (they're from Watson's first marriage) live here every other weekend. And then there's Emily Michelle, who's two. She was adopted from a Vietnamese orphanage. There's also Nannie, my grandmother. She moved in soon after Emily Michelle was adopted.

I closed my suitcase and I went down for dinner where I talked with my family about the trip.

"So, do you have any ideas about what you want to do or see?" Watson asked me.

"Not really," I replied.

"I'm surprised," mom said. "You usually have an idea. Well, more like several ideas."

"Well, my friends are going to give me a list of what they saw. Maybe we could go to some of those places," I said.

They nodded. We continued talking about our trip. After dinner was over, I helped David Michael, Karen and Andrew finish whatever little packing they had left (Emily Michelle's stuff was already packed).

When I went finally to bed, I dreamed of the sun and surf in Hawaii.

[anzuhana]

Chapter 2

"Don't worry, Kristy, I will do a good job as president while you're away in Hawaii," said Abby Stevenson with a grin.

I just groaned while my friends laughed. It was the last BSC meeting for me before I went on my trip to Hawaii.

Let me explain what the BSC is. It's a club that I created when I saw what a hard time was having when she tried to find a sitter for David Michael. That's when I came up with the idea of a group of sitters that parents could call when they needed someone to watch their kids. We meet every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 5:30 to 6:00 pm. We have seven members, one honorary members and two associate members.

I am the president since I'm the one who came up with the idea of the club. It's my job to think of new ideas for the club and to keep the club running smoothly.

Claudia Kishi is the vice-president since we meet in her room. We meet in her room since she has her own phone so that the regular line won't be tied up by clinets calling for baby-sitters. As the vice-president, she has no official duties but she makes it her job to make sure that we have something to eat during meetings. She hides her food all over her room because her parents don't approve of her eating junk food. She also hides her Nancy Drew books all over since her parents believe in reading educatonal books as well as eating healthy.

Claudia has long black hair and almond shaped eyes. She's really talented with art and has won several awards. Unfortunately, Claudia doesn't do as well in school as she does in art. It's not that she's dumb, it's just that she doesn't care much about school. To make thingas more difficult, her older sister, Janine, is a real life genius. She takes college classes, even though she's still in high school.

Claudia's best friend is Stacey McGill. Stacey is the treasuer because she's good in math. Every Monday, we pay dues to help Claudia's phone bill, to pay Charlie to drive me and Abby to and from meetings and to buy things for our Kid-Kits. If there's any money left over, we have a pizza party. Pizza is one of the few food that Stacey can eat since she has diabetes. Diabetes is when a person can't process sugar correctly. She has to be careful about what she eats. She also has to test her blood and give herself injections of insulin.
Stacey has blonde hair and blue eyes. Before she lived here in Stoneybrook, she used to live in Manhatten. Her parents are divorced and she lives here with her mom. Her dad still lives in the city and she visits him often.

My best friend is Mary Anne Spier, despite the fact that we're opposites. Mary Anne is the club secretary. It's her job to keep the club notebook organized. She's short like me and she also has brown hair and brown eyes. Unlike me, she's quiet, shy and very sensitive. Despite being quiet and sensitive, she's the only one to have a steady boyfriend. His name is Logan Bruno and he's an associated member of the BSC. Part of the reason she's so quiet is because of her family.

Mary Anne's an only child. Her mom died soon after she was born, so she grew up mostly with her dad. (Soon after Mary Anne's mom died, her dad sent her to live with her grandparents and after going through some loopholes, he managed to get her back.) In fact, her dad was very strict with her until recently. Now that he's married again, he's loosened up.

Mr. Spier married the mom of the honorary member, Dawn Schafer. She's Mary Anne's other best friend and as well as her stepsister. Here's how it happened. Mrs. Schafer had gotten divorced and she moved to Stoneybrook from California with Dawn and Jeff. Mary Anne and Dawn looked through their parent's yearbooks and they found out that their parents dated each other. They got their parents to dates and before long, they got married.

When Dawn was in the club, she used to be the alternate officer. It was her job to take place in case someone wasn't able to make it to the meeting. Dawn has long blonde (it's almost white) hair and blue eyes. She has since moved back to California since she missed her family in California, the We Love Kids club and the mother of her best friend had lung cancer and she wanted to be there for her. (Jeff moved back to California before Dawn since he was really unhappy here in Stoneybrook.)

Abby is now the alternate officer. Abby is very activate in sports, despite having many allergies and asthma. She also has a sense of humor and enjoys making bad puns, some of which are at her expense. She moved here with her twin sister, Anna, and their mom. They used to live on Long Island, in New York. Mrs. Stevenson works at a publishing company in New York City. She commutes to work by train. Abby's dad died several years in a car crash. She still misses him, even if she doesn't admit it and I think she jokes around to remember her dad.

When Abby moved here, she and Anna were both invited to join the BSC. Abby joined but Anna didn't because she said that she was too busy. She's a violinist and she spends a lot of time practicing and performing. Even though Abby and Anna are identical twins, everyone can tell them apart. They wear their curly hair in different styles (Abby's is longer than Anna's) and they have different personalities (Anna is more quiet and reserved).

Everyone that I mentioned is thirteen and in eighth grade. Jessi and Mallory are eleven and in the sixth grade. They're the junior officers and they're not allowed to sit at night except for their own family.

Jessi and Mallory are best friends and like any best friends, they're similiar but they're also different. They're similiar in that they're the oldest children in their families and they feel like their parents treat them like babies. They also like reading horse stories. But that's where the similiarities end. For one thing, Jessi's African-American while Mallory is white. In addition, Mallory has seven brothers and sisters. They are Bryon, Adam and Jordon, who are ten and are triplets; Vanessa's, who's nine; Nicky, who's eight; Margo, who's seven; and Claire, who's five. Jessi only has two younger siblings. They're Becca, who's eight, and Squirt, who's still a baby. Jessi's aunt, Cecelia, also lives with the family. Also, Mallory wants to be an author while Jessi wants to be a ballet dancer.

There are two associate members. They're Shannon Kilbourne and Logan Bruno. They don't come to meetings since they're busy with after school activites but they help us out when we're swamped with work.

Just as our meeting was ending, Mary Anne held out a piece of paper towards me and said, "Here's a list of what we saw and where. Maybe you and your family could go there. Also, I did a little research on Hawaii and I found some places that you might want to visit."

"Thanks," I said as I took the paper with a smile. I wasn't surprised that Mary Anne added places that she and everyone else on the vacation haven't been to. She's our walking and talking guidebook.

[anzuhana]

Chapter 3 -

Abby and I got a ride home once the meeting was over. Once I got home, I saw the rest of my family making sure that everything was in place. We were going to leave soon so that we wouldn't somehow get stuck in traffic. When we got to the airport, we handed in our suitcases and we walked around since we were too excited to sit still. We looked at the things that were in the stores but we didn't buy anything. According to Watson, those things cost too much.

After waiting around at the airport, we got on the plane and it took off. I looked at my watch and saw that it was slightly after nine pm. During the flight, Emily, Michelle, Andrew, David Michael and Karen fell asleep since it was way past their bed time.

We chatted amongest each other to pass the time and before I knew it, we arrived in Caifornia.

"Why did we land in California?" I asked as we were getting out of our seats.

"It's because the flight from JFK to Hawaii is too long. We have to stop here in California and from here, we'll fly again and this time, we'll arrive in Hawaii," explained Nannie.

We woke up the kids that fell asleep while the passengers were leaving the plane. When we left the plane, we sat down at the terminal where our next flight, which was in an hour. I was starting to fall asleep when the annoucement woke me up. The annoucement woke up my younger brothers and sisters and it scared Emily Michelle, so she was crying. Nannie managed to calm down Emily just before we got on the plane.

The flight didn't take that long, mostly because I fell asleep. I wondered how long we flew, so I asked a flight attendent how long we were flying.

"Five hours," she answered.

Five hours?! I always imagined Hawaii and California to be near each other. I looked around and saw that it was dark outside. I wondered what time it was. I looked at a clock and saw that it was one am!

"Can you tell me what time it is in Stoneybrook?" I asked a person behind the counter.

"It's six am."

I thanked her and rejoined my family. We picked up our suitcases and we got inside two cars since there was not enough seats for us in one car. Before long, we arrived in our hotel. When we got there, we just laid down on our beds and fell asleep. We were still tired.

When we woke up, we went for breakfast.

"So, where are we?" asked Andrew.

"We're on the big island of Hawaii," answered Sam.

"Big island of Hawaii?" asked Karen.

"Yeah. The state of Hawaii is made of eight islands. There are more islands but only eight are the major islands of Hawaii. We're on the big island. It's called that because it's obviously the biggest island in the Hawaiian chain," answered Charlie.

I pulled out the piece of paper that Mary Anne gave to me. I read her suggestions for what we could do here. "Can we go to Mauna Kea and Volcanoes National Park?"

"We can go to Volcanoes National Park but not Mauna Kea," answered mom.

"Why can't we go to the top of Mauna Kea?" I asked.

"It's because you're not old enough. You have to be sixteen years old or older to go there," explained Watson.

Darn it!, I thought.

"So, who wants to visit Volcanoes National Park?"

All of us wanted to go there. We got into two cars and mom and Watson drove the two cars.

[anzuhana]

Chapter 4

We got to Volcanoes National Park without a problem. We got a map after we paid the $10 and we decided that we would go on the Kilauea Summit: Crater Rim Drive. We started driving at Crater Rim Drive. As we drove, we saw a rain forest, which surprised me. I didn't expect there to be a rainforest where there were volcanoes. We stopped at the Kilauea Iki overlook. We saw steam coming out of the crater. Not only did I see steam, I saw people making their way around the crater.

"Anyone want to go with me down there?" asked Nannie.

"Sure," I said and everyone else agreed.

We drove our cars to the Kilauea Iki parking lot since that's where the Kilauea Iki Trail started. We began our walk. We walked down a forest until we reached the bottom. I was happy that there were some steps when we went down so that walking was easy.

As we walked alongside the crater, we saw trees and shrubs growing. I guess life could find a way, even among an active volcano. As we continued walking, we ate a light snack to keep our energy up. We walked some more before we finally reached the parking lot. I looked my watch to see how long it took us and I saw that it took us three hours!

"Can we go to Devastation Trail?" I asked as I looked at the map.

"It sounds scary," Andrew said, looking scarred.

"I'm sure that it only sounds scary and that it's not as bad as it sounds," said Charlie, trying to reassure Andrew.

It seemed to work as Andrew agreed. We then drove to Devastation Trail. It was supposed to be a quick hike, around 20 minutes each way.

We started our walk and on both sides, there were trees. But as we walked further down the trail, we were surprised at what we saw. Among the trees and shrubs were dead trees. We even saw some steam coming out in the distance.

"What happened?" asked Karen before I could ask that very same question.

Before anyone could say anything, a boy was reading from a guidebook as he walked on the trail. He was telling his family that there was an eruption in 1959 and that forest was killed by falling cinders from the volcano. He read some more information about Kilauea Iki and Volcanoes National Park. He was like a male version of Mary Anne.

We resumed our walk and when we reached the end of the road, we turned around and headed back to the parking lot.

"So, where to now?" asked Watson.

"Beach!" we all exclaimed.

"How about two?" he asked.

"Two?" I asked.

Watson smiled. "You'll see."

I tilted my head to the side questionly as we went to the car to go to the beach. After we left the park we drove to a beach called Punalu'u Black Sand Beach. And what we saw surprised us. There was actual black sand! Sure, it's in the name but I didn't think that there would be actual black sand! We walked around and we even saw some turtles. Some were resting on the sand while others were going back into the ocean or coming out on the sand.

Emily Michelle began to run over to one but Nannie stopped her and tried to explain that the turtles should be left alone. I'm not sure if Emily Michelle understood but at least she didn't cry and throw a tantrum.

We spent a few more minutes walking around before we drove back to the hotel. We quickly put on our bathing suits and our clothes over the bathing suits before we went to Hapuna Beach State Park. We spent as much time swimming as we did resting on the sand. I guess we were still tried from our flight and that it was only now noticeable now that we were able to get some rest.

Kilauea Iki is Hawaiian for "Little Kilauea"

[anzuhana]

Chapter 5

Today it turned out that we are going to go to Maui, so we quickly checked that everything was in our suitcases. Apparantly, Watson and mom forgot to tell us about the island hopping (we were going to visit the other Hawaiian islands as well) since everything went so well yesterday. We quickly got to the airport since we were going to get there by plane since it was the fastest way to get from island to island.

At the airport, we quickly got on the plane. I was relaxing as the plane flew to our new destination when all of a sudden heard a sniffle. I unbuckled my seatbelt and walked to the seats in front of mine. David Michael, Karen and Andrew looked upset. Andrew was even crying.

"What's wrong, guys?" I asked.

"Well, we're flying to another island, so we're going to miss a day of fun," said David Micahel.

"Uh, no, we're not. The flight is only 20 minutes, so we still have a day to do whatever we want," I explained.

After I finished my explanation, Watson said, "Elizabeth and I thought that one of the places we'd go to on Maui would be Haleakala National Park but that it'd be at the end of the day. Does anyone have any ideas on what you want to do before we go there?"

I took out Mary Anne's list and saw that it was one of the suggestions for the islands. "Hey, Mary Anne suggested that as well." I looked at some other suggestions that Mary Anne wrote.

Before I could make any suggestions, I was taken out of my thoughts by mom saying, "Okay, before we go to the park, we're going to the beach. And when you're told to leave, there'll be no complaining."

Just then, the pilot said that the plane was going to land soon and that we had put on our seat belts. We quickly got in our seats and buckled up. The plane landed and we got our luggage.

We drove to the hotel before we changed and went to the beach. Time flew by as we spent the time swimming and building sand castles.

After the beach, we changed and drove to Haleakala. We drove staight to the summit so that we wouldn't waste time and so that we'd be able to park. We stopped when we reached the top of Haleakala.

At the top of Haleakala, I saw a weird looking plant. It had branches coming out everywhere and the branches even looked different than the branches I was used to seeing. The plant was also surrounded by a fence.

Before I could say anything, Karen asked, "Why is that plant surrounded by a fence?"

Everyone looked at it. I now saw that there some flowers on the plant that are in bloom.

"That's the silversword. As for the fence surrounding it, it's to prevent animals, such as cattle and goats, from eating it," explained Nannie.

"So what if animals if animals eat it? They could just bring the silversword from somewhere else," said David Michael with his arms crossed.

"The silversword is only found on Haleakala National Park. It's find only here since it doesn't grow anywhere else. So once all of them are eaten, they're gone forever," Nannie added.

I took a photo of it. As we waited for the sunset, we walked around to keep from getting bored. Soon enough, the sunset came.

We drove back to the hotel.

"Okay, everyone, we're going to bed early today," said Watson as we walked into the lobby of the hotel.

"Why?" asked Andrew.

"Because we're going to be getting up early to see the sunrise at Haleakala National Park. And it's popular. I want us to be able to find a parking space. Also, after going to Haleakala National Park, we're going to visit the island of Lanai."

We went to bed early. It took a while for some of us to fall asleep since we're not used to going to bed at an earlier time. I finally fell asleep and before I knew it, the phone in the hotel room was ringing.

"Who would call this early?" I asked as I picked up the phone. "Hello? Hello?! Strange how no one answered the phone when I picked it up," I said as I put it down.

"That was just the alarm for us. No one was supposed to answer the phone," explained Charlie. "It was to wake us up."

All I could say was, "Oh."

We dressed quickly and warmed and got into the cars. It was still dark out. We quickly got to Haleakala National Park since there weren't many people on the roads but when we got inside, there was a bit of a traffic jam.

"I hope we can find a parking spot," said mom worriedly.

We went outside and it was freezing on the top. It was definitely colder during sunrise than sunset. I hoped that the sun would rise soon so that I could feel warm again.

I looked around and there were a lot of people here. Just how popular is the sunrise here?

It was rough waiting for the sunset. As everyone waited, Karen, Andrew, Emily and David Michael slept until the sunrise started. When the sun started to rise, Nannie woke them up. I began taking photos of the sunrise and of the surrounding area as the sun continued to rise.

I had to admit that I felt rather excited. I wasn't sure why but I guess because this was a great way to start the day when all was said and done.

[shannon86]

I love it! Can't wait to read the rest.

[anzuhana]

Thanks! I'm glad you like it.