Sharks In The Time Of Saviors

In media interviews, Nainoa’s parents recount the shark miracle and describe the family’s impoverished state. The publicity results in donations, easing the family’s move to O‘ahu. In addition, Nainoa writes about the shark incident on his prep school application, and the story helps him get admitted to the prestigious Kahena Academy.

Nainoa describes “vaulting past [his] classmates” in his schoolwork (22), and he becomes a talented ukulele player as well. His teachers regard him as “some kind of prodigy” (22), and his parents speak openly about how special he is around his siblings.

Nainoa’s emerging reputation as the family’s savior causes his brother Dean to resent him. On New Year’s Eve, Nainoa endures a painful fist pounding in a game of Bloody Knuckles with Dean’s friend Skylar, which Dean encouraged.

Later that evening, a second miracle occurs. Skylar is injured when a firework goes off in his hand. Driven by some mysterious force, Nainoa steps forward and touches Skylar’s hand. His touch has a mysterious healing effect: “it was better already, I swear, the skin closing back” (28). He then feels faint, falls to the ground, and passes out.

Nainoa’s healing touch is confirmed at the hospital when doctors unwrap Skyler’s injured hand and discover “underneath was nothing but clean strong skin” (31). News of Nainoa’s supposed healing powers spread, and neighbors show up at the family’s home to seek healing from diabetes, cancer, and other ailments. They pay cash for Nainoa’s healing services, which improves the family’s financial situation.

Kaui resents Nainoa’s elevated status in the family, referring to him as “the new King Kamehameha” (34). However, she also notices that something is bothering Nainoa and asks him what’s wrong. Nainoa reveals that he is not completely comfortable with his role as a healer: “I didn’t ask for this,” he says (34).

Nainoa’s emergence as a healer and academic star prompts Dean and Kaui to push themselves to impress their parents with their own talents. Dean, who plays basketball for his high school team, dramatically increases his practice time and develops his on-court talents. His parents take notice and talk about Dean’s potential to become a basketball star. They also encourage Nainoa and Kaui to attend Dean’s games. Meanwhile, Kaui takes extra-credit courses, improves her already good grades, and develops an interest in hula dancing.

A man drops by the house and angrily confronts Nainoa about his failure to heal his Parkinson’s disease. This failure profoundly affects Nainoa, who stops seeing people and begins to play sad songs on his ukulele. Kaui walks in on him in the garage after he has cut himself on the leg with a hunting knife.

Dean reluctantly admits that his brother Nainoa is a “crazy smart” special person. However, he reassures himself that his gift is his physical prowess: “he could never beat me footracing, or in any sports” (50). He is determined to make the family rich through his basketball skills.

Dean sees Nainoa taking money from their mother’s purse. When he confronts Nainoa about it, Nainoa acts like he’s entitled to it because he has made money for the family through his healing sessions. Dean responds that Nainoa is “not making shit anymore” since he stopped seeing people (52). When Nainoa mentions Dean’s C average at school as a put down, Dean punches him in the nose. When their mother tries to break up the fight, Dean hits her too.

After the fight, Dean falls into a basketball slump and turns to selling drugs. When Nainoa finds his stash in a shoebox and confronts him about it, Dean rejects his pleas to stop dealing. However, he does make up with his mother and regains his basketball confidence.

Malia compares Nainoa to Ku, a god who turned into a tree “to bear fruit for his starving wife and children” (68). Malia notes that Ku “was a god of war, but he was also a god of life. Sometimes he came as a shark… So I wonder if some of him is you, and if some of you is him” (68). However, looking back, Malia admits it was a mistake to place so much faith in Nainoa’s ability to cure Hawai‘i’s ills and solve the family’s financial problems:

It was what I believed at first: That you were made of the gods, that you would be a new legend, enough to change all the things that hurt in Hawai‘i. [...] With shame now I see that could never have been the case. But I remember when I was especially full of faith, and it was the day your father and I discovered your graveyard (68).

Malia recalls when she and Augie found Nainoa in a “graveyard” for a plastic robot and other items from his childhood. There, Nainoa was sitting in the grass. He was trying to revive an owl that had collapsed at his feet, but the owl died. Nainoa told them he also tried to heal a dog that was hit by a car, but that effort also failed. Though he fixed one part of the dog, another part then started to die. Other injured and dying animals had come to him, too, and he wanted to fix them. Malia reveals that this day was “the first time [they] truly understood the scale” of their son (74).