From One Boy, No Water

Book 1 of The Niuhi Shark Saga

“The shark,” said Uncle Kahana, finally blinking. “It wen come tangled in the net.” He shook his ice and looked in the bottom of the glass, seeing what we couldn’t imagine. “He jumped in to save the shark.” He gave his glass another shake. “Daddy knew the shark would make die dead if no cut free. He jumped in the lehua water with his long boning knife, grabbing the net through the bloody blossoms, sawing away. When Daddy left the boat, I leaned over the side and looked down into the water. Daddy stay so small and the shark so big! But he kept working, sliding his knife along the side of the shark, slicing through the net. When Daddy got to the last piece of netting trapping its tail, the shark turned, and his knife wen slip, just nicking the tip of the shark’s tail. I thought Daddy was make die dead. He’d freed the shark so it could feed on him more better. But the shark turned and paused. It looked him in the eye, with that fierce, cold Niuhi manō eye, jet black in the water.” Uncle Kahana shivered in the warm night. “Later, I saw that same eye, just one time that day, wen Daddy started for the surface. It looked up into my young eyes peering over the edge of the boat, and I saw its Niuhi heart. I no know what it saw in mines.”

Excerpted from One Boy, No Water by Lehua Parker. Copyright © 2012 by Lehua Parker. Excerpted by permission of Jolly Fish Press, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.