Emily Windsnap and the Siren's Secret (8 page)

“But they didn’t?” I prompted.

“No. Not once. Nothing. Apart from the cards they sent for birthdays and Christmas. That was it. They never even wrote more than their names. Not even
Love.
Just
Mom and Dad,
or
Nan and Granddad
on yours.” She smiled sadly at me. “It was so strange, so unlike them. They were always so warm and friendly. Everyone knew that about them. But what could I do? They just didn’t want to know me.”

Mom fell silent. There wasn’t much any of us could say. Dad held tightly on to her hand. Mr. Beeston was still fidgeting and twitching. All the time Mom was talking, he’d been sitting there looking around the room, pulling at a loose thread on his jacket, tapping his foot nervously. It was as though he were trying not to listen.

Oh, I’m sorry,
I felt like saying.
Are we boring you?
His life was obviously
much
more important than anyone else’s.

The second Mom stopped talking, he slurped his tea down in one final glug and jumped up from the sofa. Pulling up his sleeve, he looked at his watch. “Gosh, is that the time?” he said in his I’ve-got-much-more-important-things-to-do-than-waste-my-time-with-you-people tone of voice. “I’d better get going.”

And before we could say “Oh, really, do you have to? Won’t you stay for another cup of tea?”— as if!— he’d shuffled over to the door, nodded quickly at the three of us, and made his exit.

“Whoops, sorry, didn’t see you there!” we heard him exclaim. “Good grief, what the blazes are
you
doing here? Anyway, can’t stop — things to do and all that. Catch you later.”

Who was he talking to? I jumped up and ran to the door. I don’t know who I was expecting, but when I saw who it was, it was the most welcome surprise I’d had since we’d gotten here.

I threw myself into the arms that were waiting wide open for me.

“Millie!” I hugged her tightly as she laughed and squeezed me back.

Then she let go and clambered through the door. “Looks like I got here just in time,” she said, looking around and tutting loudly. “Can’t you folks go five minutes without getting yourselves mixed up in some sort of trouble?”

Mom leaped to her feet. “Millie! What on earth are you doing here?”

Millie threw her arms around Mom. “Couldn’t stand it without you,” she said. “Archie said I was the biggest misery fins he’d ever seen. There was another team heading out this way for a couple of weeks, so he arranged for me to hitch a ride.”

“I thought you couldn’t bear to be parted from him,” Dad said with a mischievous grin.

“Yes. Well, turns out I can’t bear to be parted from you all even more.” She pursed her lips. “And from the sound of things, it seems like you’re not much good without me, either.”

“From the sound of things? You mean you’ve been listening outside the door?” I said.

Millie flushed slightly. “I was trying to work out the perfect moment to make a grand entrance,” she admitted. “Except Beeston ruined that one for me, didn’t he? Typical.” She headed for the kitchen. “Now, what does a weary traveler have to do to get a cup of Earl Grey around here?”

“If you ask me, it’s time to stop whining about your parents and do something about it,” Millie said with her usual bluntness. She’d plonked herself down on the same sofa Mr. Beeston had been on. Somehow she made it look a lot smaller.

“What do you mean, Millie?” Mom asked, her voice strained and raw. “How can I do anything about it? I don’t even know where they went.”

Millie blew on her tea. “Yes, you do,” she remarked, then took a loud slurp from her cup.

“You know where they are?” I burst out. “But I thought —”

“I don’t know where they are at all. Millie, what are you talking about?”

“Postmarks,” she said simply.

“Postmarks?” I repeated.

Millie sighed. “Come on, Mary P. You’re telling me you didn’t hold on to every card, every envelope?”

Mom shook her head. “Well, actually, no. I didn’t,” she said, a note of bitterness creeping into her voice. “They weren’t exactly full of touching sentiment.”

“And you never looked at the postmarks?”

Mom didn’t reply.

“I know you did, Mary P. Because you showed them to me. We talked about it. We looked it up on a map. Remember?”

Mom looked down. “Yes, I remember,” she said eventually.

“Where was it, now? Bridge something, wasn’t it? Bridgehaven? Bridgemeadows?” Millie tapped her lip and furrowed her forehead in concentration.

“Bridgefield,” Mom said flatly. “Not that it matters.” She got up and walked over to the kitchen. “Who would like something to eat? I’m starving.”

“Mom, why doesn’t it matter?” I said, biting my lip while I waited for her to reply. Mom doesn’t take kindly to being pushed on a subject that she’s decided is closed.

“Because I’m not planning to try to get in touch.”

“Why not?” I persevered.

Mom turned to face me. “They’ve made it clear that they don’t want to have anything to do with me. I’m not going to go begging them.”

“But Mom,” I insisted, “we’ve been assigned to try to bring the mer and human worlds together. Maybe this could be how we start.”

Mom drew in a breath, pausing just long enough to give me a bit of hope that she might be about to change her mind.

Then she shook her head. “No, I’ve decided. We’ll find another way to get our task started. We’ve still got this whole development thing to sort out, too. And, so far, we haven’t had any bright ideas on
that
. If we don’t make progress soon, we might as well give up and tell Neptune to find another family for the job.”

“But Mom —”

“No buts,” Mom said firmly. “I’m not putting myself through that again. It took me long enough to get over what they did. I don’t intend to give them the chance to do it all over again. Subject closed. Now let’s have some breakfast.”

And with that she got some bread out of the cupboard and started to slice it.

I opened my mouth to say something else, but Dad shook his head at me. “Best leave it,” he said softly. “You know what your mom’s like once she’s made up her mind.”

I looked at Millie. She was scribbling something in a velvety notebook while Mom was making breakfast. Then she shoved the notebook in her bag and winked at me. “Don’t worry, pet,” she said in a whisper. “It’ll be OK.”

I don’t know what made her think anything was going to be OK. As far as I could see, since we’d gotten to Brightport, things had just gone from bad to worse.

But there was nothing I could do now. I decided to let it drop, even though it felt as if the conversation were still hovering all around us like a heavy mist.

I suddenly had a longing to see the one person who might help me feel better. And for the first time in ages, it wasn’t Aaron. It was the person who always cheered me up, always made me look on the bright side of life, and always helped me find a solution when things were looking hopeless.

“Can I go over to Shiprock after breakfast?” I asked. I needed to see Shona.

It was still early enough to catch Shona before school. We swam out toward the playground where we used to hang out. It’s really just a sandy patch where bits of rope and anchors and seaweed had been gathered and turned into things to climb over or crawl under. We swam through a large abandoned porthole and sat on a long plank of wood. Nearby, a lobster poked its head out through a gap in a rock, its black eyes facing us, pincers sticking out like a giant handlebar mustache.

As we swam, I caught her up on everything that had happened.

“It all sounds a bit grim,” Shona said. “Poor you.”

“Yeah, I know. The only decent thing is that I don’t have to go to Brightport High till the fall,” I said.
And I get to hang out with Aaron
. I had a feeling that Shona had started to get a bit tired of me talking about Aaron, and right now I didn’t want to do anything to annoy her, so I didn’t say that part out loud. I wasn’t going to risk upsetting Shona on top of everything else. I decided to change the subject.

“What’s it been like here?” I asked.

“Miserable! School’s no fun without you,” she said. “Nothing’s the same without you,” she added, making me feel even more guilty about the fact that I’d been so pleased that Aaron and I would get to spend even more time together. I hadn’t thought about missing Shona till this morning.

“In fact, nothing’s the same at
all,
” she went on. “The atmosphere at school is awful. Mrs. Sharktail’s been in a foul mood, and everyone’s scared of getting hauled up for a major telling-off in front of the school.”

“I wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” I said, remembering the shame of all those eyes on me while Mrs. Sharktail made me feel like I was the most disgusting thing on the planet.

“And all anyone can talk about is what’s happening over in Brightport and how it might affect us. We felt the walls shaking at my aunt’s last night — it was pretty scary. She thinks we should just pack up and move, but Dad says it’ll die down and we shouldn’t leap into anything drastic. The worst thing is just not knowing what’s going on. Have you heard any more about it?”

“Mom was talking to someone at the Laundromat,” I said. “They told her the council’s going to decide what to do at their next planning meeting.”

Shona nodded. “So all we can do is wait?”

“Looks like it,” I said. “I’m sure coming back here was meant to be better than this.”

“I know. The only good thing is Sirens and Seas. We’ve got a new teacher, and she’s been telling us some new siren tales that we’ve never heard before.” Shona’s eyes brightened in that way that only siren talk can make them.

“Like what?”

“The lost sirens!” Shona got up from the log and swam over to the anchor on the other side of the playground. She darted around it, swishing this way and that, making a shoal of tiny purple fish turn and dart away as one.

“There was a group of sirens who disappeared years and years ago. One of them was known all across the oceans for her singing. Fishermen deserted their boats and threw themselves into the seas to find her.”

Shona hesitated. Before we’d met, she thought nothing of the idea of luring fishermen to watery graves. Since we’d been friends and she’d realized humans could be OK, she wasn’t so comfortable about that part of a siren’s job anymore. And with a bit of luck, no one would see it as part of the job soon, if Neptune was serious about the two worlds coming together — and if we managed to make it happen!