Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings (8 page)

“Ah!” Lainey’s hands flew up. She looked down at her white capris, now bedazzled in Technicolor orange. “Great. Just great! Good one, Jade. And look what you did to Cori’s dress!”

Cori’s dress! The outfit she’d been working on all spring! It was now splattered in a spray of orange specks as well.

“Oh, no! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

Of all the times in my life to be a klutz, this had to be the worst.

“It’s okay,” Cori whispered.

“No…here. Let me help you.” I searched the table for a roll of paper towels and ripped off a large brown strip. “I’m such a jerk. I wasn’t looking…” I dabbed Cori’s dress, my heart in my throat.

“Really. Don’t worry about it.” But Cori’s voice was tight and small.

“Don’t pat it!!” Lainey brushed my hand away. “You’ll crush the fibers. This is going to need a special stain remover. We’ll take it to Mother’s dry cleaner.” She took Cori by the shoulders and led her back to the school. Her voice rang across the school yard, a hundred times more piercing than Finalin or Medora’s screeches.

Dad would say that every action has an equal and opposite reaction and this was no different. I turned the other way and ran off the field, head down, mumbling apologies.

As I brushed past Luke I thought I heard him mumble something too.

“I guess I’ll take that as a no?”

T
O HER CREDIT
, C
ORI
called and left a message. I called back and left another. The whole situation went all sideways and as days turned into weeks, it got harder and harder to say anything without looking like a big jerk for letting so much time slip by.

The Great Wall of Lainey didn’t help with her snide comments and withering looks. Plus, the long nights spent with Dad, combing the banks of Talisman Lake for Mom, didn’t put me in the best mood for relationship building.

So, between the Great Gatorade Fiasco and Mom disappearing, a huge gaping hole grew in my heart, threatening to bust wide open.

The only good news was that I managed to last three weeks as a two-legged, land-dwelling mammal. The bad news was that the boat lock was still closed (though Dad had gently suggested they dredge some of the rocks out of the lake to avoid another “rock slide”), Shaky Eddie was still on vacation, exams were looming, and I’d barely had time to study.

“English tomorrow?” Dad asked one evening.

I looked up from my study notes and took another bite of grilled cheese. With ketchup. And a chaser of grape soda. Dinner of champions.

“Mm-hmph,” I mumbled and nodded to the leather-bound book opened at Dad’s spot. “Whatcha reading?”

He flipped the book closed for me to see.

I swallowed.

“Mermaidia: Fact or Fiction?”

“I special-ordered it from Copenhagen.”

Dad stifled a yawn. I knew he returned to the lake every night once he thought I was asleep. His yellow fog lights caught the reflection of the disco ball hanging from the curtain rod in my bedroom window, sending shards of dancing light across the darkened walls. Each night while he was gone, I lay awake, listening for his key in the door, his footstep on the bottom squeaky stair, and the soft whoosh of the office door next to my room. It wasn’t until I heard the whirr of the computer booting up before I was finally able to fall into a body-numbing sleep.

Dad pushed the book toward me and went to the fridge to get milk for his granola. Another complete and balanced meal.

“Did you find anything good?” I leafed through the raw-edged pages of the book.

“A few interesting tidbits, but I’m finding it hard to make heads or tails of it all.”

“Heads or
tails
?” I asked, rolling my eyes.

“Oh, ha!” Dad returned to the table and sat down with a satisfied smile. “I can be quite clever when I’m not trying.”

I took another bite of grilled cheese and flipped through to the middle section with the photos and illustrations, but the pictures were hand drawn in pen and ink and were really weird looking.

“Is this what people think mers look like?” Snake-like hair, three pronged spear thingies, and webbed hands? Sheesh. One merman looked like he was throwing a sailboat across the water. A mermaid seemed to be luring a human into the water. I leafed through the rest of the book but stopped when a chapter heading made my breath catch short. “Oh!”

“What?”

I pointed to the words:
The Webbed Ones.

“Like what Mom told you about?” Dad pulled his chair closer.

I nodded and began to read the page-long excerpt.

“There is a large body of evidence suggesting that humans descended from pre-historic aquatic mammals or Pesco-sapiens.”

“See?” Dad tapped the page. “There’s that word again. I don’t just make this stuff up, you know.”

I smiled and continued reading.

“The human body supports this theory. Human hair is found in lesser quantities than that of their ape counterparts and is arranged toward the midline of the body. This works to reduce aquatic drag. Humans also have a descended larynx like that of a seal, making it possible to regulate breathing while diving and surfacing…”

I turned to Dad.

“It all kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Dad wiped his hand on a napkin and pulled the book toward himself to read on. There was a part about how some of the pre-historic Pesco-sapiens may have kept evolving in the water while humans evolved on land.

“It says that small populations of aquatic Pesco-sapiens are believed to exist throughout the world.”

“But how do they
know
all this?” I asked.

“Wait a sec.” Dad brought a spoonful of cereal to his mouth and mumbled as he scanned the page. “Here’s a medical report of a
Webbed One
from the Liverpool Psychiatric Hospital. It’s dated 1908.” He pointed, farther down the page.

I read the passage aloud.

“A 38 year-old male, rescued from a near-fatal cliff dive, insisted he was attempting to ‘return to the sea.’ The patient identified himself as a ‘Webbed One’ claiming his webbed third and fourth toes were proof that he had transformed from a ‘merman’ to a human. The subject required restraint to prevent further harm to his person. After extensive psychiatric evaluation, he continued to maintain his story, elaborating that the transformation had taken many weeks of breathing a combination of air and water in a magical tidal pool. The patient could not pinpoint the location of the tidal pool, citing amnesia. After extensive shock and drug therapy, the patient spent his remaining days in a catatonic state.”

I turned to Dad.

“They just locked him up like he was crazy, didn’t they?” I said quietly.

Dad nodded and covered my hand with his. “His story
was
pretty unbelievable, when you think of it.”

“But
we
know it’s true. The same thing happened to Mom! All of it is true.” I fanned through the pages. Then I caught another sight of the webbed hands and the airborne boats. “Well, maybe not
all
of it.”

Dad rose and took our dishes to the sink. He ran the faucet and squirted a stream of dish soap into the steaming water. “I’m getting the feeling the title says it all.”

I slammed the book shut.
Mermaidia: Fact or Fiction?

“So they just jammed a bunch of mermish trivia together and we’re left to figure out what’s real and what’s fake?”

“It probably took years to compile all this data, but it would be impossible to verify it in any substantial scientific way.” Dad took a scrub brush to the frying pan.

“If only they had actual proof in here. Something else to go on.” I sat back in my chair and folded my arms across my chest.

Dad shook his wet hands over the sink. “Oh, I remember reading something about a supposed mermaid discovery back in the ’80s or ’90s. Maybe that’ll shed some light.” He wiped his hands on a dish towel and returned to the table, then turned to the index at the back of the book and ran a finger down the rows of text. “Where was that?”

“An actual mermaid?” I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the table to have a look. “Why is this the first time we ever hear about it?”

“Well, if the Mermish Code of Silence I’ve been
researching is true, it seems mer-people are very good at keeping their identity a secret.”

“Who can blame them after what happened to that poor guy.” I wondered if the man from the hospital had felt as alone with his secret as I did with mine. Was that why he felt like he had to tell someone? But what did that get him other than a one-way ticket to the looney bin? Dad had been right: no good would ever come from revealing this part of me.

“Where was that thing…” Dad kept flipping through the pages. “Oh, here, under
Witness Accounts
.

“Mermaid remains were reportedly found in the Gulf of Mexico, 1991. No physical evidence is available to authenticate these claims, though a scientific study was presented by Dr. E. Schroemenger. (
Pesco-Sapien: Myth or Fact? Journal of Marine Biology, 1992, Vol. 32.
) The report was later dismissed as anecdotal.”

“Everyone probably thought that Schroemenger guy was a kook too.” I took one last sip of soda and crushed the can in my grip.

“Yeah, but maybe he wasn’t such a kook after all. In fact, maybe I could pay him a visit on my way back from my Finite Element Analysis conference in Dallas.” Dad studied the book. “It looks like he was based in Florida.”

“You’re still going to Dallas?” My soda can clattered onto the table.

“Jade, we talked about this. I need to go to this conference to present my paper on integrated theories of flow dynamics.”

I went to my happy place until he was done talking about the merits of unified fluid theories.

“…you’ll stay with Gran. And I checked with Mrs. Blake for the night of Cori’s pool party.”

Not like I was going.

“But what about Mom?”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.” Dad paused and shut the book. He placed his hands on the table and exhaled a long, deep breath. “I don’t need to tell you how rough these past couple of weeks have been. This trip is probably just what we need right now. If we still haven’t made any progress finding Mom by the time I leave, it might be a good chance to take a bit of a break from looking.”

“Stop looking?” My jaw slackened. I blinked several times, not quite believing what he’d just said. My mind flashed back to the summer before, when the Search and Rescue guys had said the same thing. But that was when we thought there was no hope for a person who’d sunk to the bottom of the lake. Now we had proof that Mom was alive. How could Dad even think of giving up?

“Not stop”—Dad ran his hand across the book’s leather cover, his eyes downcast—“but I think we should take a step back and get a bit of perspective. At least until I can do more research.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Honey, it’s been almost a month and all we’ve got are dead ends.” Dad took off his glasses and pinched the
bridge of his nose. “Of course we’re going to keep looking but I’m worried about you, Jade. Cori hasn’t been around for weeks, plus neither of us is getting any sleep. And the guys at the office have been working overtime to help me prepare for this presentation.”

“But what if something happens while you’re gone?”

“That’s why I got you this.” Dad reached into his briefcase and pulled out a new cell phone. “My number’s programmed in there. You can call me if anything comes up. Even if it’s just to talk.”

He pushed the phone across the table toward me. Any other day, a new cell would have been awesome, but just then I had the urge to throw the thing across the kitchen.

“But Dallas?” He may as well have said Neptune.

“Aw, sweetie.” Dad rested his hand on my forearm. “I would do anything to find Mom, you know that, but we can’t keep putting our lives on hold. You know Mom wouldn’t want that.” His voice grew quiet. “And if this Mermish Code thing about protecting their identity is true, there may come a time when we have to accept the fact that we might never find her.”

My whole body fired at once.

“No! You don’t know that!” I shrugged his hand away and stood, toppling my chair onto the floor behind me. “We
will
find her. We just…”

Dad stood too and pulled me into a hug.

“Mom has to come home.” I murmured, wetting the cotton of his shirt with my tears. “She just has to…”

T
HE
C
ORI SITUATION SEEMED
to take one step forward and two steps back. I’d managed to sit with her in the cafeteria one day without a Lainey audience. The conversation started out well enough.

“So you and Trey seem to be getting along well,” I began.

“Yeah.” Cori poked her salad with a plastic fork. She looked up and I think I caught a teensy bit of a smile. Good start. “He’s really amazing. We all went to the beach party on Saturday. I wish you could have been there.”

And yes, she’d invited me. There was a message. But my nights had become a bit occupied.

“Luke brought his guitar and Lainey kept wanting to sing ‘Kumbaya.’ It was so funny.”

I must have had a physical reaction to Lainey’s name because Cori dropped her fork into her bowl and stared at me.

“You don’t like her, do you?” Cori held my gaze.

“It’s not that, it’s just…” How could I describe what I was thinking without sounding petty? And to be fair, I
hadn’t said anything to Cori about my feelings for Luke. I wasn’t even sure how I felt about him myself. But Luke aside, Lainey and Cori actually had a lot in common. They both loved fashion and I knew how important Mrs. Chamberlain’s mentorship was to Cori. I couldn’t begrudge her of that.

“Because,” Cori continued, “I hope you know who I’d pick if it came down to a choice between you and Lainey.”

This wasn’t the conversation I’d meant to have. The plan was to sit down, lead in with some casual banter and finish up with a heartfelt apology about ruining her dress. How had things gotten so off track?

“Did I hear someone say my name?” Lainey flounced over with her cafeteria tray and installed herself between Cori and me. She adjusted an oversized coat over her shoulders and prattled on about how cold it had been at the beach party and wasn’t it sweet of Luke to loan her his jacket?

End of conversation.

And I hadn’t even gotten to the part where I apologized.

End-of-school exams passed with a blur. Somehow, I’d banked enough points during the school year to get me through, but just barely. It must have been those extra community credits from Sports Day.

Dad’s Dallas trip arrived without any sign of Mom and my desperate optimism turned into a ticked off feeling I didn’t like. Of course it was irrational, it wasn’t like Mom
stood a chance against Finalin and his crew, but the whole thing got all confusing and weird and everything became Mom’s fault. My trouble with Cori, my crappy grades, it all got mixed up with the fact that if Mom had just figured out a way to escape from the Freshies while I’d gone to get Dad, everything would be on its way to becoming normal again.

I imagined Mom waiting for me at home every day, ready to help me study or to sort out the Cori/Luke/Lainey thing over milk and a plate of cookies. And since it was my fantasy, I made the cookies oatmeal chocolate chip.

Not like Mom was ever the baking-cookies-type, and unfortunately, Gran wasn’t exactly Susie Homemaker either. Dad dropped me off at her cottage in Dundee on his way to the airport just in time for dinner. I punched the numbers on the microwave keypad to zap my frozen entrée.

“Watch out for the steam when you peel the plastic wrap off the dish, Jadie. Those suckers will rip the skin right off your fingers, I tell ya.”

Gran’s cottage embodied lakeside living with its low ceilings and faux paneled walls. The tiny vintage kitchen had barely enough room for the two of us, given the fact that I’d inherited her “pleasantly plump personality” as she liked to put it. I guess I had to inherit
something
from Dad’s side of the family, though I would have settled for the Baxter family’s genius-level brain power. It might have saved me a bit of final exam angst.

“Thanks, Gran. Oh, the Salisbury steak, huh? Looks yummy.”

It wasn’t Gran’s fault that Dad had bailed on me and left me there so I did my best to keep the mood light. But it was a struggle, as the black tray limped around the microwave’s turntable while steam collected on the glass door.

“My pleasure. I’m just so happy you’re here. It gets lonesome up in this part of Talisman Lake without all those Jet Skis and the late night carousing.”

Gran wasn’t exactly a “commune with nature” kind of gal. The only reason she lived so far north was for the easy access to the local casino where she could apply her keen, analytical mind to managing thirty Bingo cards at once.

I rolled my eyes. “You don’t fool me. I bet Mr. Whitehouse is keeping the car warm at the end of the driveway so you can make your getaway. Isn’t Thursday night Winner-Take-All?”

She giggled and patted my arm.

“Well, I worry about how your dad is coping with a teenager in the house. You need any new bras, Jadie? Oh, is that deodorant I got you working out okay?”

Morbid embarrassment set in.

“Yes, Gran. It’s fine,” I muttered.

After dinner, Gran offered to stay and watch movies with me, but I knew the jackpot had been building for six weeks so I convinced her to go. It would be nice to have a bit of time to myself and Gran’s rubber arm was easily twisted.

“Only if you’re sure,” Gran called out from the passenger window as Mr. Whitehouse’s car pealed out of the driveway in a cloud of dust.

I waved good-bye and went back to the kitchen to raid the pantry for ingredients to make my standby chocolate fix: Chocolate Mug Cake. The Salisbury steak just hadn’t cut it and with no Wigwags in sight, I was desperate. I spooned the cocoa powder, sugar, flour, and other ingredients in my mug and zapped it in the microwave for five minutes. When the bell dinged, I grabbed a tea towel to pull out the mug of steaming chocolate cake, drinking in the sweet scent.

Bliss!

I plopped a spoonful of vanilla ice cream on top and went to sit on a deck chair down on the dock with the massive, dog-eared
Mermaidia
book tucked under my arm. I’d read almost the whole thing since Dad brought it home during exams, which may have explained my pathetic grades.

After reading through the last fifty pages of mind-numbing mermaid trivia, and under the effects of my current chocolate buzz, I decided a couple of things must be true:

1. Whoever put that book together probably wasn’t much fun at parties.

2. The mer/human evolution thing had to be true. Along with the larynx and hair thing, some other stuff cropped up as I read.

• Humans have an extra insulating layer of fat, perfect for swimming. (Big checkmark in that box from me!)

• Our salty tears and sweat probably meant we had
been ocean-dwellers at one time, just like Mom had said.

• Human sweat may act as a waterproofing system.

• And some other stuff about hooded noses and
vernix caseosas
that I had no clue about.

3. And the
Webbed One
stuff was definitely true, since Mom was the one who’d mentioned it in the first place. Some stuff I wasn’t so sure of:

4. I hadn’t decided if that Schroemenger guy was a kook or not, but maybe Dad’s trip would uncover the truth.

5. Did any of this matter if we never found Mom again?

I shut the book and looked out over the water. Dundee may have only been five miles north of Port Toulouse but Talisman Lake looked totally different here. Instead of the narrow bay by the boat lock, the water was about two miles across in this area. Cottages dotted the shorelines of several islands a short boat ride away. Others poked out along the lakeside amid the crooked pines and granite landscape.

For an evening in late June, the lake was unbelievably quiet. But that would soon change since the only thing standing in the way of summer was the next day’s school-end reports. I considered skipping the whole thing and calling the school secretary to fake a deadly wood tick bite or porcupine attack, but I’d chickened out.

Thankfully, it was a morning dismissal since it was the last day, plus, faking a deadly wood tick bite might raise suspicion.

I could make out the whirr of a Jet Ski farther down the
lake. Sounded like someone was getting a jump on summer after all.

Lucky them.

I scraped the last bit of cake from the bottom of the mug with my spoon, contemplating what the summer had in store for me. But a whole summer without Mom or my best friend bordered on unbearable.

I hated to admit it but maybe Dad was right. Maybe it
was
time to take the pause button off life and start making plans. No amount of obsessing would bring Mom back, but I
could
do something about the Cori situation. Yes, the conversation in the cafeteria hadn’t gone so well, but I should at least give it one last shot.

I set my mug down and fished my new cell phone from the pocket of my hoodie, then dialed Cori’s number before I could change my mind.

“Cori?”

“Jade.”

Was it too late to apologize?

“Um, we didn’t really get a chance to finish talking the other day. I was wondering if we could meet at Mug Glug’s after school tomorrow. I’d really like to see you.” I’d keep the apologies for when I could do it properly, face to face.

“Yeah, sure. I think I could swing that.”

Easy as that.

“Okay, see you tomorrow.” We said our good-byes and I clicked the phone closed.

Huh. That wasn’t as bad as I’d built it up to be in my
imaginary obsessive world. I’d just apologize and offer to pay for the dry cleaning. Anything to make up for my super loser Gatorade maneuver.

Did it make me a bad person if I hoped Lainey didn’t show up? Either way, I wasn’t going to let Lainey Chamberlain get in the way of apologizing to Cori this time.

I leaned forward in my chair and gazed down the lake past the islands to see if I could spot the Jet Ski coming around the bend. Maybe it was the Hendersons from the next cove. Or maybe the Beckers were already at their island cottage. Dr. Becker’s daughter, Chelse, went to private school and usually got out a week early.

Yep. The Beckers
were
here. A plume of smoke curled up from their chimney and I could see their canoe tied up at their access dock next to Gran’s property.

Oh! Maybe Chelse would teach me how to use their Jet Ski this year.

The excitement about learning to Jet Ski caught me off guard, but between that and meeting Cori to look forward to, I was already feeling more hopeful than I had been for the last few weeks combined.

Whoever
was
on the Jet Ski didn’t seem to be getting any closer though. In fact, its engine just whirred steadily, without the usual revving sounds Jet Skis made when they sped up and slowed down.

Although…was that a whirr or a ring?