“Now what?” Aaron and I had stopped for a rest, perched on the side of a rock.
I fought back an urge to burst into tears. But the tears were there, jamming up my throat so hard I couldn’t reply. I just shook my head.
“I mean, did that really happen?” Aaron asked. The sound of his voice dislodged the tears I was holding back, and they started to trickle down my face.
“Hey, don’t cry,” he said in a voice so soft it only made me cry harder. He reached a hand out, as if he were going to wipe the tear from my face. His hand hovered in midair for a moment, before he changed his mind and let it drop. I noticed that his cheeks had turned pink.
“We were supposed to bring the human and mer worlds together,” I croaked. “What chance do we stand of doing that if the merpeople don’t even want us around?”
“I know,” he said. “I think we might have a harder job than we realized.” And then he reached out again. This time he didn’t change his mind. He stretched across and put a gangly arm around my shoulders. It felt weird. But nice. And it stopped me from wanting to cry quite so much.
“Come on,” I said after a while. “We should probably go home and tell our parents what’s happened.”
Aaron plopped back into the water, and I followed him. As we swam slowly back, I could only hope that Mom or Dad would have some idea of what to do next. Because if they didn’t, life in Brightport was about to take a nosedive.
On the way back to Brightport, Aaron asked about Brightport High. What could I say? I wanted to tell him it was great, but when I opened my mouth to describe it, all I could think of was one thing. Or rather, one person.
“Look, if we’re starting at Brightport High, I’d better tell you about someone,” I said. “You’ll come across her soon, so you might as well be prepared.”
A shoal of yellow and green fish swam beside us, gliding along with the tiniest flicks of their tails. “Go on,” he said.
“Mandy Rushton.”
Aaron’s face brightened. “The girl who helped you save everyone from the kraken. I remember you talking about her. Hey, at least we know we’ll have a friendly face waiting to see us there.”
I half laughed and half choked, swallowing about a gallon of seawater in the process. “Erm, it’s not exactly like that,” I said. Then I explained about how mean Mandy used to be to me at school. How she used to call me names, and make fun of me, and try to get me into trouble with the teachers.
“But you made up at Allpoints Island, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes, but it’s not that straightforward.” I told him about the memory drug that Neptune had given all the humans before they left the island so they wouldn’t remember seeing the merpeople and the kraken.
“And you think the memory drug will have made her forget that you were friends?”
“Exactly.”
“Is there any chance that the memory drug didn’t include that part and she’ll still be friends with you?”
I’d wondered the same thing myself, but I wasn’t holding out much hope. “We’ll find out soon enough,” I said. “But I thought you should be warned, just in case.”
We swam the rest of the way in silence, accompanied by a single silver fish that looked like a sword, slicing along the seabed, silent and somber.
“Jake, I want you to march right into Shiprock School and give them what for!”
We were out on the deck of the boat, and Mom was on the warpath. “Our children are as good as anyone else’s, and have as much right to attend that school as all the others!”
Dad was in the sea below us. He swam backward and forward across the bow of the boat. Despite everything that was going on, it felt nice to discover that he paced when he was trying to work out what to do, just like I do. I’d only known my dad since last year, and there were still loads of things I was discovering about him.
“It’s not as simple as that,” he said. “I mean, they’ve got their rules and —”
“Rules? Since when did you give a hoot about rules when the rules are downright silly and unfair?” Mom fumed.
Dad swam right up to the side of the boat and reached out for her hand. She folded her arms.
“Penny, I’m working for Neptune now,” he said. “Things aren’t like they used to be.”
“No,” she said pointedly. “They’re not.”
Dad reached out farther for her hand. “Come on, don’t be like that,” he said. “I’m as outraged as you are. I just think we need to be careful about how we approach this.”
Mom shuffled farther away. “In case you’ve forgotten, your new boss is the same Neptune who told us to go and bring the human and the mer worlds closer together. He ordered us to do it! He told us this would be our first test, remember? And you want to sit back and do nothing while our daughter is humiliated in front of an entire school and shown very clearly what the mer world thinks of the human one. How is that being loyal to your precious Neptune?”
Mom’s face was scarlet. Why was she so angry? She hadn’t even wanted us to go to Shiprock in the first place!
“It’s the principle of the thing,” she snapped as though she’d read my mind.
Dad’s face was almost as red as Mom’s. Please don’t argue, I thought. I couldn’t go through all that again. They’d argued so much when we’d first arrived at Allpoints Island, I’d thought they were going to split up.
“Look, I understand what you’re saying,” Dad said calmly. “But we’re going to have to tread carefully. I’m not going to sit doing nothing while Shiprock makes an example of Emily.”
“And Aaron,” I butted in.
Dad nodded. “And Aaron. I’ll do something. But I want to make sure that whatever we do, it’s the right thing. If we go charging in there shouting our gills off now, how’s that going to help our cause?”
Mom turned away.
Dad tried again. “Come on, Pen, we’ve got to be a team; we’ve got to work this out together. That’s what Neptune instructed us to do as well.”
Mom let out a huge sigh, then she sat on the edge of the deck and took Dad’s hand. “I suppose you’re right,” she said grudgingly. “Naturally.”
“Naturally? Why naturally?” Dad asked.
“Well, look at me. Who am I to think I can build bridges between people? We should tell Neptune to pick someone else.”
“Mary Penelope, what on earth are you talking about?”
Uh-oh. Dad had called her by her full name. He only called her Mary Penelope when it was really serious. It was time to step in.
“Look, I don’t mind all that much, now that it’s over and done with,” I said quickly. “I’m happy to go to Brightport High, and so’s Aaron. I’ve told him all about it. So why don’t we just forget it and carry on as though nothing’s happened? We’ve got each other, and that’s all that matters really, isn’t it?”
Mom looked down at the deck. Shaking her head, she mumbled, “That’s not the point.”
Now it was Dad’s turn to sigh. “If that’s not the point, then what is?”
She muttered something.
“What was that?” Dad asked, a sliver of impatience creeping into his voice.
Mom looked up. A tear had slipped from her eye and was snaking down her cheek. “My parents,” she said numbly.
Dad reached up and stroked her leg. “Oh, Penny,” he said. She gulped back a sob.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “What about them? I thought you hadn’t seen them for years.”
“Exactly!” Mom said woodenly. “That’s my point! What chance do I stand of building bridges between two worlds if even my own parents haven’t spoken to me in more than ten years? Neptune’s picked the wrong person!”
And with that, she wrapped her arms around her knees and threw herself wholeheartedly into crying very loudly.
I couldn’t stand to see her like that. Seeing my mom cry felt like someone was sticking a knife into my chest. I reached out and touched her arm. “Mom, it’s OK,”
I said, feeling completely useless.
She shook her head. “No, it’s not,” she said into her knees. “It’s not OK at all. In fact, it’s about as un-OK as you can get.” She took hold of my hand and tried a feeble smile. “But thank you for trying, sweet pea.”
I think Dad must have felt as useless as I did, but he didn’t try to say anything helpful. He just kept on stroking her legs while we waited for her to cry herself out.
We ate a snack together in silence. It wasn’t the happiest silence in the world, but at least there were no tears. And we managed to discuss the situation enough to make one decision: I wasn’t going to start at Brightport High in a hurry.
Since there were only a few weeks of the school year left, Mom and Dad agreed I could wait till September. At least it meant I didn’t have to worry about the risk of being equally humiliated there — not for a while, anyway.
None of us had mentioned my grandparents again. I was dying to, though. Now that Mom had brought them up, I was aware that she never talked about them and that I never asked. Except for the moment last year out at the Great Mermer Reef, when she remembered everything. She told me then what had happened with them — how they’d practically disowned her because of her relationship with a merman. But that was it; that was all I knew. I didn’t actually know anything about them: what they were like, how things had been with them before it had all gone wrong. I realized I wanted to know all about them. But not now. This wasn’t the time to ask.
“Can I go to Aaron’s?” I asked instead, taking my plate over to the sink. I wanted to find out what his mom had said and what they were planning to do now. Hopefully she’d say the same as Mom and Dad, and Aaron and I could hang out together for an extra few weeks. Getting thrown out of mermaid school might not feel so bad, then.
I had a twinge of guilt as I realized that whenever I had some free time nowadays, Aaron was the first person I thought of spending it with, not Shona. Was it disloyal of me? Did it make me a bad best friend?
I couldn’t answer either question, and I certainly wasn’t going to ask anyone else. I pushed the guilty feelings away and went out.
I walked up the pier and was heading toward the cottages where Aaron and his mom were staying when a familiar figure rounded the corner. Mandy. This was it, then: truth time.
She was looking down at the ground while she walked and hadn’t spotted me yet. I held my breath, waiting till she did. Or would she walk straight past me without even noticing?
Just before we passed each other, she suddenly looked up. For approximately a millisecond, her eyes brightened. She looked as if she were about to smile. I started to smile back. She remembered!
And then, in an instant, her expression changed back to the sneer I was more used to seeing. “Well, look what the tide’s dragged in,” she said, leaning back on her hips. And with those few words, the slight hope I’d had that she would remember our friendship sank like a stone in a murky sea.
“Hi, Mandy,” I said glumly, and kept on walking. I wasn’t in the mood to hang around and listen to her taunts. I thought she’d call after me, but she didn’t. I quickly looked back before turning toward the cottages. She was still there, staring after me. Then she shook her head and set off back toward the pier. It could have been worse, I suppose. Still, it would be nice if something could go right soon.
I got to the cottage, and Aaron grinned as soon as he saw me. “Guess what?” he said. “Mom says I don’t need to start at Brightport High till the fall!”
“Me too!”
Something had gone right!
“Come on,” Aaron joined me outside. “Mom’s watching TV. Let’s go for a walk.”
I laughed. “I wouldn’t have thought your mom was the TV type.”
“We’ve never had a television before, so it’s her new toy. She’s hooked on the game shows. Says she’s learning all sorts of things from them. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire just started. She won’t even notice I’ve gone!” He stuck his head around the door anyway. “Just heading out with Emily, Mom.”
“No, it’s B, you idiot!” she shouted at the television.
Aaron smiled as he shut the door behind us. “Told you!”
The sun was setting as we walked along the beach. Aaron chatted happily away about all sorts of things. My mind was too full of the events of the day to concentrate all that much on what he was saying.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” I broke in at one point.
He turned to me. “What?”
“You know. Today. What happened.”
Aaron shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “In a way, yes, of course it does. In another way, I don’t mind all that much. For one thing, everything about my life is a million times better than it was when all I could do was rattle around in a dark spooky castle with just my mom for company.”
“And what’s the other thing?” I prompted him.
He kicked at the sand and carried on walking. Looking down, he said, “Well, you know. I get to hang out with you for a few weeks.” Then he looked up. “I mean, not that you have to spend all your time with me. You’ve probably got lots of friends here that you want to catch up with.”
Suddenly I realized I was feeling just as happy as Aaron. “Actually, the hanging out with you thing is the best part of it for me, too,” I said shyly. I felt a tiny little flutter in my stomach. What was the matter with me? I’d never been like this with any other friends. What was so different about Aaron?
“Come on,” I said, pulling off my sandals. I started running along the beach. “Race you to the pier!”
Aaron pulled off his sandals too, and we ran through the sand. It was still warm from the day’s sun, and even though you didn’t melt into it like on the beaches at Allpoints Island, the softness of the sand on my feet made me want to run and run and run.
Except for what we ran into.
“Well, well, well. And she’s got a little friend with her, too.” Mandy stood under the pier, arms folded, sneer fully in place. She must have spied on me and come after us. What did she have in store for me now?
Aaron marched right up to her and stood facing her. “You must be Mandy, then,” he said, looking her square in the eyes.
For a flicker of a second, Mandy was thrown off guard. She clearly hadn’t expected that. She recovered pretty quickly, though. “Aww, has fish girl been telling tales about nasty-wasty Mandy Wushton?” she said in a mock baby voice.
“Actually, she hasn’t been telling tales at all,” Aaron replied. “In fact, she even thought you might remember that you and her made —”
“Aaron, no,” I said, stepping forward and pulling him away.
He turned to me. “Why?”
Mandy was looking at me, too. Her expression had changed a little. There was just a tiny hint of doubt in the sneer. “Made what?” she asked, her tone slightly less harsh.
“Nothing,” I said. “Come on, Aaron, let’s go. She’s not worth it.”
I thought for a minute that she was going to follow us down the beach so she could continue taunting and insulting us. But she didn’t. She stayed where she was. “Yeah, run away,” she called after us. “Like the cowards you are.” We didn’t turn around, and she gave up after that.
“Well, we got off pretty lightly there, I’d say,” Aaron said as we walked up the other side of the pier.
“Thanks to you, we did.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “Anyway, at least you know what she’s going to be like now.”
I nodded. Yeah. At least I knew.
I woke up with a feeling of heaviness. What was it?
Then I remembered the events of the previous day. Oh, yes. All that.
Mom and Dad were in the saloon, where we’ve got the biggest trapdoor. They were sitting on it together, Mom’s feet dangling in the water, Dad’s tail swishing gently backward and forward.
“Morning, sausage,” Mom said.
Dad looked up. “Morning, little ’un.”
&nbs
p; I sat down to join them. “What’s up?”
Mom shook her head.
“It’s what we were talking about yesterday,” Dad said gently. “It’s made your mom think about her parents again. She’s just a bit sad. But she’ll be OK, won’t you, love?” He stroked her knee.
Maybe this was my chance to find out a bit more about my grandparents.
“Mom,” I said carefully. “What were they like, Nan and Granddad?”
Mom turned her sad eyes toward me. She opened her mouth, but before she could reply, there was a sharp rap on the door.
“Only me!” An uninvited head popped around the door. Mr. Beeston. “Just dropping by for a duty call with my colleague, ha, ha,” he said, winking at Dad. Now that the two of them were working together, he clearly saw it as a permanent invitation to stop by. Mom and Dad didn’t seem to mind him anymore, but I still couldn’t relax while he was around.
“Come on in, Charles,” Mom said. “The kettle’s just boiled. Help yourself to some tea.”
Mr. Beeston rubbed his hands together and rummaged through our cupboards for a tea bag and a mug. “Very well,” he said. “Don’t mind if I do.”
He brought his tea over and sat down on the shabby sofa. “Not interrupting anything, am I?” he asked in his usual completely oblivious way.
Durr! Er, yes. Our lives!
“Mary P. was just talking about her parents,” Dad said.
For some reason, Mr. Beeston shifted awkwardly on the sofa. He must have hit one of the loose springs. It’s not the comfiest sofa in the world. “Oh. Ah. Well, I’ll leave you alone then. Don’t want me hanging around, do you?” he said, and started getting up.
“Don’t be silly, Charles,” Mom said. “You’re virtually one of the family now. Sit down.”
It was just as well I didn’t have a drink of my own or I would have spluttered it everywhere. One of the family? I don’t think so!
“I was just going to tell Emily a bit more about them,” she said. “In fact, you remember them yourself, don’t you? Perhaps you can help out.”