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  The man in the plaid jacket stopped. “You work in this shop, son?”

  Kai nodded. By now, other people on the sidewalk had stopped to see what the commotion was about.

  “Why don’t we go inside and talk this over,” said the man in the plaid jacket.

  They went in. Not surprisingly, Sean and Pat had vanished. The man in the plaid jacket turned to Kai. “Would you ask the older gentleman to come out, please?”

  Kai went into the back room. It was empty and the back door was slightly ajar, allowing a thin slice of sunlight in. Pat and Sean had bailed. Kai pulled the door closed and went out front again. Mr. Asoki and the man in the plaid jacket were waiting by the counter.

  “They’re gone,” Kai said.

  The man in the plaid jacket didn’t seem surprised to hear that. He held out his hand. “I’m Eric Blake, with the Sun Haven Chamber of Commerce. And you’re?”

  “Kai.” They shook hands.

  “Just Kai?” Mr. Blake asked.

  Kai tried to remember which South Park character’s last name Pat was using this time. “Garrison.”

  “Well, Kai, it seems Mr. Asoki has a problem with what you charged him for his shirts,” Mr. Blake said. “Mr. Asoki, can we see that receipt?”

  Mr. Asoki handed the credit card receipt for the shirts to Mr. Blake, who turned it over to Kai. “Mr. Asoki has discovered that other shops in town will sell him the same shirt for considerably less.”

  “Twenty-two dollar,” Mr. Asoki said.

  “Seventy-five dollars a shirt seems a little extreme, don’t you think?” Mr. Blake asked.

  “Sure does,” said Kai. “Must be a mistake.”

  “One that I imagine you can correct very easily,” Mr. Blake said, tilting his head toward the cash register.

  Kai opened the cash register. Twenty-two times four was eighty-eight. Three hundred minus eighty-eight was two hundred and twelve dollars. Kai counted out ten twenties, one ten, and two ones and handed them to Mr. Asoki. “I’m sorry about that, sir.”

  “Well, Mr. Asoki,” Mr. Blake said, “I hope that helps remedy your problem.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a light blue certificate. “In addition, for your trouble I’d like you to have this gift certificate to my restaurant, the Lobster House. I’d like you and your family to have a free dinner on behalf of the citizens of Sun Haven.”

  “Thank you very much, sir,” Mr. Asoki said. “Thank you.”

  “And thank you for bringing your family here to Sun Haven,” Mr. Blake said. “I hope you will tell all your friends about your very pleasant visit to our town.”

  “I will, thank you.” Mr. Asoki left the store.

  Mr. Blake didn’t.

  Fourteen

  “Kai Garrison.” Mr. Blake placed the elbows of his plaid jacket on the glass counter and leaned toward Kai, holding him steady in his eyes. “Where’re you from, Kai?”

  “No particular place,” Kai answered.

  “Here and there?” Mr. Blake guessed. “Move around a lot?”

  Kai nodded.

  “Change your name about as often as you change your address?”

  Kai didn’t answer.

  “You know, Kai, many of us who live here in Sun Haven take a great deal of pride in our little town. We like to think that when people come here to visit they have a good time and they get what they pay for. They leave Sun Haven with smiles on their faces and fond memories that they share with their friends, so that the following year, their friends might want to come here as well. Now you may be surprised to hear this, Kai, but even before Mr. Asoki came to my office today, I’d been hearing rumors that there might be a problem at this particular location. Actually, I bet you’re not surprised to hear that, are you?”

  Kai shook his head.

  Eric Blake had not taken his eyes off Kai, nor had Kai taken his away from Blake. If this was a staring contest, Kai had no trouble playing. Blake raised one eyebrow and glanced toward the door that led to the back room.

  “Your friends really gone, Kai?” he asked. “Or are they back there waiting for me to leave?”

  “They’re gone. You’re welcome to go back there and see for yourself.”

  “No, thanks, I believe you,” Mr. Blake said. “So the older gentleman, he saw trouble coming and he ran, leaving you behind to deal with it. How old are you, Kai?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Little young to be left minding the store, don’t you think?” Blake asked.

  “Family business,” Kai answered.

  Now both of Blake’s eyebrows went up. “The one who left you here … He’s your father?”

  Kai nodded.

  Mr. Blake took a moment and gazed around the store. He stepped over to a rack of T-shirts and thumbed through them. Then moved over to another rack. Then studied some of the transfers displayed on the walls. He looked back at Kai. “None of these items has a price attached to it. How are people suppose to know what it costs?”

  That, of course, was the key to his father’s scam. The items in the store cost whatever Pat thought the buyer would pay. If you looked like you could pay thirty dollars for a shirt, Pat charged you thirty dollars. But if you looked like you could pay seventy-five dollars, that would be the eventual price once the heat transfers and other “extras” were added on.

  Mr. Blake came back to the counter. “Any idea when your father might be coming back?”

  “Not a clue,” Kai replied.

  “When he does, I want you to give him a message,” Mr. Blake said. “State law requires that the price of every item be clearly marked on or near that item. Next time I visit this store—and believe me, that’s going to be very soon—I expect to see that all the items are in compliance with state law. Can I count on you to relay that message?”

  For the first time, Kai smiled. “You bet.”

  Fifteen

  “Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” Pat stomped around the store like a little kid throwing a temper tantrum. Kai had just relayed the message from Mr. Blake that all the items in the store had to have clearly marked prices.

  “How the hell am I supposed to make any money?” Pat asked.

  “You could sell the T-shirts at normal prices like everyone else,” Kai said.

  Pat glared at him, and Kai could almost read his mind: Sell a three dollar T-shirt and a seventy-five-cent heat transfer for twenty dollars? Make only sixteen dollars and twenty-five cents profit when he used to make fifty dollars? Was Kai crazy?

  “Don’t give me any lip, sonny boy,” Kai’s father snarled.

  “Why don’t we just pack up and go somewhere else?” Sean asked.

  “You want to know why, Mr. Mud-for-Brains?” Pat snapped. “Because yesterday that SOB Buzzy Frankenstein or whatever his name is came in here and made me pay the whole summer’s rent in advance. We leave now, I’ll lose all that money and it’s too late in the season to open a new shop in another place.”

  “But if we can’t make no money,” Sean said.

  Pat was quiet for a moment. Kai imagined all sorts of bent gears churning around in that sick mind. “We’ll make money,” he growled. “Believe me, one way or another, we’ll make money.” He looked at Kai and made a face, as if he’d just bitten into something sour. “So what happened with that Chinese guy?”

  “Japanese,” Kai said.

  “Whatever.”

  “I gave him a refund.”

  “You what!?” Pat went to the cash register and pulled it open. He quickly counted out the money inside. The Alien Frog Beast always knew exactly what was in the cash register.

  “Two hundred twelve dollars! You son of a bitch! Why’d you do that?”

  “I had no choice,” Kai said.

  “The hell you didn’t!” his father shouted. “You tell him you don’t know how to work the register. You tell him it’s broke. You tell him any goddamn thing you want, but you never give back my money, you hear? You ever do that again, I’ll send you packing so fast you won’t k
now what hit you.”

  Kai was tempted to say that maybe if his father hadn’t run away and left his son to fend for himself it wouldn’t have happened. But he knew it wouldn’t matter. Meanwhile the Alien Frog Beast’s face had turned red. He was fuming. “You are nothing but trouble for me, hear that?”

  Again Kai was tempted to remind his father that it was he who’d found them a place to stay the night before, when Buzzy had given them half an hour to get out. Meanwhile the Alien Frog Beast pulled out a half-smoked cigarette and lit it. As usual he immediately started to cough. Then, watery eyed and gasping, he gazed around the shop, squinting his eyes. He turned back to Kai. “You’re always drawing crap. Why don’t you come up with a logo?”

  Sixteen

  That night while Pat and Sean watched TV in the motel room, Kai pulled a chair out onto the second-floor balcony and sat under the outdoor light. With bugs and moths making kamikaze orbits above him, Kai sat with his notebook in his lap, sketching logos. At first he’d resisted the idea of doing anything for Pat, but then he’d decided what the hell, if Pat wanted him to create a design, he’d create one. Besides, it would give him something to do at night.

  In the dark below, someone wandered out into the yard. It was Curtis with a bottle in his hand. He looked up at Kai. “Doin’ your homework, grom?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Then I’ll leave ya alone.” Curtis pulled out a rusty old beach chair held together with string and tape and sat down with his back to Kai, facing out toward the surfboards scattered around the backyard. Kai sketched for a moment more, then closed his notebook and went down the steps.

  “Mind if I join you?” he asked, pulling a folding chair next to Curtis in the dark.

  “Only if your homework’s done and you’re ready for school tomorrow,” Curtis joked.

  “I think I’m okay on that score,” Kai said.

  They both looked up at the night sky. The stars twinkled between ghostly drifting cotton ball clouds.

  “They’re daring me to enter a competition in Fairport in a couple of weeks,” Kai said.

  “What do you care?” Curtis asked.

  “You used to compete,” Kai said.

  “True. I used to think it was the only thing that counted. The only standard by which a surfer could be judged.”

  “What changed?” Kai asked. “You didn’t just wake up one day and decide it was all garbage.”

  “That’s true too,” Curtis said. “It was a gradual enlightenment. You know, grom, judging surf competitions is a pretty subjective business. You’re sitting on the beach watching guys who might be a quarter of a mile away perform tricks and throw spray. And all in all it’s a fairly small close-knit world. Judges and competitors know each other pretty well. Some like each other, some don’t. Sometimes the judges are even competitors themselves. So it can be pretty hard to say just who the best surfer is sometimes.”

  “You didn’t like it because it was subjective?” Kai asked.

  “Well, let me put it this way,” Curtis said. “Suppose you got two surfers. One of ’em is a real nice guy. Friends with everyone. The other one’s kind of abrasive, gets on people’s nerves. Now these two boys go out and compete and it’s a dead heat. From the beach you really can’t tell who was better. Now which one do you think is gonna get more points?”

  “You’re saying some judges might score one guy higher because they like him more?”

  “Damn straight. And I’m not even sure they’d know they were doin’ it. If they like one of those boys, it just may appear to them that he’s doing a better job. On the other hand, if they don’t like one of those boys, they may judge him with a more critical eye. It’s just human nature, is all. Although there are other, darker aspects as well.”

  “Such as?” Kai asked.

  “Well, let me caution you that I’m not saying that I know for a fact that anything like this has ever occurred,” Curtis said. “But let’s just suppose for a moment that you’ve got this young phenom with a half-million-dollar sponsorship deal with some huge company. Now it is definitely in that company’s interest to make sure their boy wins a lot of competitions and gets his name and picture in a lot of surfing magazines.”

  “So you think the company might bribe some of the judges?” Kai guessed.

  “Well, I think that’s putting it a bit too harshly,” Curtis said. “Could be a nice all-expense paid trip to Tahiti, or maybe just a free lifetime supply of widgets, or whatever that company happens to make. Like I said, I don’t actually know of any cases where that happened, but it does seem like a possibility. And that’s just part of the answer to the question of why I think I lost interest in the competitive side of surfing. Another part is that big box of trophies under my kitchen counter. See, as a competitive surfer, for a while you’re hot and then you’re not. New guys come along and they’re younger and cooler and crazier and the next thing you know you’re getting less ink in the magazines. Now I guess for some people that’s enough. To know that they were once on top of that heap. And for other guys like Buzzy, if they can’t be on the top of one heap anymore, they just find another heap to climb to the top of.”

  “I don’t care about any of that,” Kai said.

  “Right,” Curtis said. “So you’re sitting here feeling like you’ve got no earthly reason in the world to want to go over to Fairport in a couple of weeks. And yet there’s just this thing, this little part of you that wonders why not? That wonders if maybe there’s something wrong with you because you don’t subscribe to the great American notion that anything and everything can be turned into a competition. That wonders if maybe you are a little scared or uncertain.”

  Kai gazed up at the stars. What Curtis didn’t know was that he’d been ultra-competitive once. He’d dreamed the dream. And paid the worst price imaginable for it.

  “The irony is, once you look at competition that way, you’ll never be the champ,” Curtis said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s just not that important to you anymore. The training, skipping the parties and the girls, taking the crazy risks … what’s the point? The guys who become the champs really are the ones who just have to win no matter what. You go through all those trophies under my sink, you won’t find a single first place. There’s some runners-up—times I got real lucky with a move or a wave—and a whole bunch of thirds and fourths. Just enough to score that next plane ticket to Bali or Oahu or wherever. Then when the time came, and I couldn’t even get the thirds and fourths, I was prepared and able to walk away.”

  “Or maybe not taking it seriously is just an excuse for not being good enough to be the champ,” Kai said.

  “Aw, now look at the psychology major.” Curtis chuckled. “Sure, could be just an excuse for not being good enough, or tough enough, or dedicated enough to be champ. But the reason I figure that ain’t the case is that I have no regrets. At least, not about that part of my life.”

  “But you regret not being immortalized like Da Bull,” Kai said.

  “That’s something else. There’ve been guys who rode bigger waves since Makaha. You ever hear of Ken Bradshaw or Alec Cooke?”

  Kai shook his head.

  “They both rode bigger,” Curtis said, “but hardly anyone remembers them. Now quick, name all the world surfing champions between nineteen eighty and the year two thousand.”

  “Uh, well, Kelly Slater, Sunny Garcia, Shane Dorian …”

  “And? What about all the other guys?”

  Kai shrugged.

  “My point exactly,” Curtis said. “Even a world championship doesn’t buy immortality. There’s something else you need. And whatever it is, that’s what I regret not having. But tough luck on me, grom. Now back to your original question. Should you surf in the Fairport competition? Here’s my answer: Sure, as long as you’re realistic about what you’re gonna get out of it. A brief moment of glory, and the admiration of those who you already count as your friends. At best, maybe a tiny step tow
ard something bigger in the world of surf competitions, if that’s what you really want.”

  “What about a chance to open up Screamers to everyone?” Kai asked.

  Curtis chuckled again. “I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

  Seventeen

  The next morning Kai slept in later than usual. He’d stayed up half the night talking to Curtis, and anyway, the forecast hadn’t been very promising, so he didn’t think he’d miss much in the way of surfing. He woke up around eight and went through the dunes behind the Driftwood and checked out the waves anyway. As predicted, they were ankle slappers to knee-highs. A month ago the sight of any wave would have been enough to get him stoked, but now it wasn’t that exciting, and besides, the short board was practically useless in these conditions. Even Buzzy must’ve called off the morning’s practice session with Lucas, because the only surfers out were Bean and Shauna.

  As Kai walked down the beach to wave hello he noticed that there were now more piles of scrap wood. Some were just disorganized heaps. Others were beginning to take the form of bonfires. Bean and Booger’s pile in front of Sewers was half heap-half bonfire.

  Kai looked out at Bean and Shauna, excited to see that they were surfing Screamers. Part of the reason was that Sewers was unrideable today. But it was still a huge step, since up till now, people who weren’t in Lucas’s crew were afraid to surf that break even when no one else was around.

  Kai went down to the water’s edge and watched Bean and Shauna. The waves at Screamers tended to jack up faster and steeper than the mushburgers at Sewers, and Shauna was having trouble catching them. But she was definitely getting better at positioning herself for the wave and, when she did catch one, she popped up without going to her knees first. Bean was just fooling around. He’d left his leash on the beach and was trying to do head-stands and walking to the nose backward.

  Feeling a bit sleep deprived, Kai sat down.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  Kai looked to his left and found Spazzy standing there, hopping and blinking and flapping his hands.