By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

This is the time of year when plumeria trees are in such demand that even the limp and wilted pua on the ground are scooped up. It's the time when perfectly good pillowcases get sacrificed to make little costumes; when parents go around with green-stained thumb nails from shredding and stapling a thousand ti leaves to decorate the edge of the plywood stage.

Admit it. As cute as those keiki are in their little pillowcase kikepa or construction-paper hats, there's a definite dark side to May Day. It's more than the hours of work it takes to make 45 fake maile lei out of mock orange leaves and masking tape. It's more than having to wrangle out of work to see your kid dance to "Locomotion" or "Who Let the Dogs Out." It has to do with the inherent but unspoken competitive nature of May Day. It has to do with who gets to be on the court.

Ask any adult who grew up in Hawai'i about their memories of May Day. They'll start out with their royal status, as in "I was Princess of Lana'i in eighth grade! I think so I still get the costume" (probably a pillowcase dyed orange).

For men, it's different. There's not quite the same stigma of being left a commoner while some of your classmates get the exalted positions of sitting on stage for three hours in the sun.

"I was never on the court," said one man, almost ruefully. But then he countered, "But that was okay because the boys on the court had to take off their shirts."

At Wailupe Valley School, they've found a way to make the royal court a lot more democratic and inclusive.

Each year, the entire sixth-grade class gets to be on the court. It's a small school, so the entire sixth grade means just 26 students, but still, this means breaking with the common practice of having one queen and eight princesses representing each of the major Hawaiian islands. At Wailupe, every sixth-grade girl gets to be a princess. Not only that, says sixth-grade teacher Eda Kaneakua, but a princess of her own island.

"So you get to the little ones like Molokini, Manana, Nihoa and sometimes the girls are saying, 'What island is that?!' But we show them on the map that there are islands further, past Kaua'i."

One year, there were 14 girls in the sixth grade. They went through a lot of creative geography that year.

As for the king and queen, all the students are taught a hula and then there are auditions for the top spots. The students are also judged on a written statement of purpose.

"They have to write an essay about why they would want to be king or queen," says Kaneakua, "or why they don't want to!"

Of course, the whole royalty thing has a different meaning for a sixth-grade boy. It usually has no meaning at all, or at the most, the meaning is SHAME. But years later, when asked, it will all be worth it when they can say, "Yeah, I was conch shell blower in the sixth grade! I think I still have the pillowcase!"

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172.