Frutta e Fiori

Chapter 2. Grow Like Flowers from the Page.

"Girls!"

Lena and Nana rushed down the stairs like a wave crashing on sand.

The bags of fruit resting on the kitchen floor were quickly swept into eager arms.

Lychees, mangos, bananas, guavas, apples, tangerines, and a pineapple or two sat on the bench, two sets of hands moving in and out of the pile to choose and taste. Living in Hawaii was living a cliché.

The ocean, the mountains, the trees, the sand, the fruit, the sunshine, it was all there, always.

Bay hadn't been far off when he said they lived in Heaven.

Their father pulled a pan from the cupboard. "What were you up to this morning?"

Nana peeled a lychee. "We went swimming." "As per usual." He smiled.

"We met the neighbour boys" Lena threw in with a happy sigh.

A true romantic.

"The ones staying with the Fiores?"

"Yeah!" came the reply, mango-kissed words falling from her lips.

"That's nice." Her father replied, in that absent warm way that only fathers can manage to muster.

Their mother floated through the door, dropping a soft kiss on to each of her daughters' cheeks.

"Good morning, my sweethearts." She said, gently thumbing through yesterday's mail.

"How is my family today?" she said, looking up and smiling.

"Good. Do you have plans?" Nana asked, rinsing her hands, letting the cold water wash over the sticky syrup.

"I do believe the mountains are calling my name, asking to be framed and represented by the dabs of paint upon my canvas!" She sighed "But they will outlast any art of their likeness."

Lena rolled her eyes. She may be the romantic, but you could see exactly where Nana had adopted her dramatic monologues.

Her father interrupted everyone's individual streams of quiet thought, voicing his own.

"When does the Kauwela Camp open up this year?"

The camp was only a few houses down, on a giant piece of land that had been a public campsite until it fell out of government funding, and was eventually sold off to the Fiore's, who had been both living on the island and running the camp for the past 13 years.

The Fiore's had always dreamt of having a giant family. They bought a big house in the California countryside, reminiscent of the property Mr. Fiore had grown up on in Tuscany. They made lists of names, of schools, of pets. They waited for years.

They waited, and waited, until Mr. Fiore happened upon an ad for a far-away piece of land and thus was born their only child, a camp to raise other's children, if only for three months at a time.

It brought them every happiness in the world.

Nana checked the pamphlet that had been sitting on the table for weeks.

"This year" she said, flipping through the pages. "In two days"

The Fiore's always kept the Grace family, and others nearby, up to date with the Camp happenings. It caused a little, but surprisingly not much, neighbourhood disturbance having 100 odd children learning to become one with nature.