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 a.s.signed 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!
"Anyway," she went on quickly, "she was one of the top sirens, and then one day she vanished - just like that. Gone without a trace. There was a group of them. She and her friends sang together sometimes, and all of them disappeared overnight."
"For good?" I asked.
Shona nodded and swam back to me, swinging on an abandoned rope and brushing the seafloor with it as she swam. A shoal of bright blue fish rushed out from underneath, zigzagging away from us. "None of them have ever been seen again." Her eyes sparkled. "The legend says that they went off to a magical place that"s so well hidden it"s virtually invisible! And guess what else?"
"What?"
"Miss Merlin"s done loads of research into it. Siren legends and mysteries are her favorite thing, and she knows more about them than anyone in the whole ocean! She told us the last place they were reported to have been seen."
"And?"
Shona looked as if she were about to burst with excitement. "And it"s near here!"
I knew instantly what she was thinking. Before Shona met me, she"d never really had an adventure. Since we"d been best friends, we"d hardly had anything but!
"You want to see if we can find them?"
Shona nodded excitedly. "Look, I need to get to school. But think about it. Maybe we could look this weekend. It might distract you from everything else that"s going on."
She had a point. And anyway, it did have an interesting ring to it - a group of sirens all vanishing into thin air overnight, never to be seen or heard from again. We could at least pretend that we were going to find them. Anything had to be better than sitting around getting more and more miserable about - well, about pretty much everything.
"You"re on," I said with a grin. I knew Shona would manage to make me smile. She always does.
"Swishy!" She grinned back at me. "I"ll see if I can find out any more from Miss Merlin. We could go on Sunday."
"Let"s do it!"
With that, we headed back. I had a slight twinge when we went our separate ways and she swam off to school. I don"t even know what the twinge was. A whole mix of things, I suppose. A bit sad seeing her go off on her own to school without me. A bit jealous of her still going to mermaid school and learning about things like sirens disappearing into invisible hiding places while I would soon be back to French and fractions.
And, yes, if I"m honest, there was a little bit of guilt in there, too, at the fact that I was excited about getting back to Brightport and spending the rest of the day with Aaron.
I waited for Shona to stop and wave before she rounded a corner, then I turned and swam back toward Brightport. A group of long black fish swam parallel with me, as though we were racing. Ahead, a stripy blue-and-pink fish swam across my path. Seaweed swayed below me, feathery ferns brushing the end of my tail as I swam over it. A feeling of peace washed over me. I smiled to myself as I headed home. Everything was going to be fine; I could tell.
And things were fine all week. Mom was back at the bookshop where she used to work. She"d gone in one day to say h.e.l.lo and it turned out one of the new a.s.sistants had just left, so they grabbed her right away and got her back on the job. That seemed to make her happier - as did the fact that Millie was around again. Millie had loads of friends in Brightport, so hadn"t had any trouble finding somewhere to stay. Mrs. Swindale, who ran one of the guesthouses on the waterfront, said she could stay there free of charge for as long as she wanted in exchange for a daily tarot reading, a couple of Reiki sessions, and a chakra cleansing or two.
Dad was busy working with Mr. Beeston, and Mom had even managed to get Aaron"s mom a part-time job helping out at the local thrift shop - which just left Aaron and me.
I showed him all my favorite parts of Brightport: the back streets where you could get lost if you didn"t know your way around, the walk along the promenade, where you could watch the sun set over the sea. We even went to look at the Rushtons" new theme park. We only looked in from the outside, though. I didn"t want to b.u.mp into Mr. and Mrs. Rushton. After what had happened with Mandy, I couldn"t face it.
Once I"d shown Aaron the town, I decided to show him the other side of Brightport, the side I"d only known about since I"d discovered I was a mermaid - in particular, Rainbow Rocks. We swam there together. I told him that it was where I"d first met Shona, and where my mom had said good-bye to my dad when I was only a baby. That was the last time she"d seen him till last year.
"It"s very special here, isn"t it?" Aaron said, swimming slowly around the rocks. The water was so clear that you could see every pebble and every fish below us, even the ones that were virtually see-through, little stick-thin things flicking through the water like darts.
I was glad he could feel it too. Rainbow Rocks was possibly my favorite place in the world. My favorite place in Brightport, anyway.
It had been a magical week so far and I didn"t want it to end. Soon everyone would be done with school and it wouldn"t feel as though we had the whole place to ourselves anymore.
But the week would end.
And so would the wonderful, magical feeling.
Friday morning I was at home on my own when a thud on the front deck signified that someone had arrived. And by the way the boat rocked with their arrival, I had a good guess who it might be.
"Where is she?" Millie burst through the door, breathless and scarlet. "Where"s your mom?"
"At work," I said. "Why?"
Millie shook her head. "Not there. Can"t find her."
"She might have gone to the store," I said. "Millie, what is it? Are you OK?"
Millie nodded as she caught her breath. "Oh, blast! We"ll come back for her as soon as we can. I can"t wait - I"ll have to take you on your own first. Come on!"
"Come on what?" I asked.
Millie grabbed my hand. "You"re not to say anything. We"ll bring them over as soon as your mom"s back, OK?"
I decided to overlook the fact that Millie wasn"t making sense. "OK," I agreed, and followed her out of the boat.
Millie marched up the jetty, her cape billowing out behind her. I scampered along behind her. "Millie, are you going to tell me what this is about?" I asked when I caught up.
"You"ll see soon enough," she replied in that mysterious way that she says most things.
We took a turn down toward the beach cottages where Aaron and his mom were staying. "Is it Aaron?" I asked. "Has something happened to him?"
"Nothing has happened to anyone. Come on. Nearly there now." She took a sharp left turn, paced to the last cottage in the row and stopped. "This is it," she said. Then she wiped her palms down the side of her dress, pulled a wisp of hair off her face, and swallowed hard.
She turned to me. "Ready?" Her voice had a breathless wobble in it. She was clearly nervous - but why? What was inside the cottage? What was I meant to be ready for?
"I guess so," I said. Then I followed Millie up the path. She took a deep breath. And then she knocked on the door.
The door opened. A woman was standing in the doorway. She was thin and spindly, with gray hair and gla.s.ses hanging from her neck on a chain. She looked elderly, but kind of sprightly too.
A man came up behind her, same age, taller than she was, but thin and gray-haired too. They both stared at us.
"Can we help you?" the woman asked with a friendly smile. Her eyes crinkled up and turned green and shiny when she smiled. Something about her smile seemed familiar, but I couldn"t put my finger on what it was. She couldn"t be familiar. I"d never seen either of them before!
"I - it"s - don"t you -" Millie began. She was even more fl.u.s.tered than she"d been before we knocked on the door.
The man came to the front door step. "You must be the lady from the compet.i.tion," he said.
Compet.i.tion? What compet.i.tion?
"Come on in," he went on. "We"re so pleased to meet you. What a wonderful surprise, winning something like this out of the blue. It"s all happened so fast; lucky we were free! And the place is lovely."
What on earth was he talking about? Had he mixed us up with someone else? I turned to Millie.
She just gave me a quick nod and ushered me in. The man spotted me. "Ah, you"ve brought your daughter with you." He reached down to shake my hand. "Well, come on in, both of you."
I glared at Millie. "Daughter?" I mouthed. She shook her head and frowned a silent Shhhh! at me.
The four of us stood in the front room in an awkward circle, looking at each other.
"Well?" Millie said, grinning broadly at the couple. "Now that you can have a good look, surely you remember me?"
The two strangers stared blankly at Millie.
"This is Emily!" she said.
They turned their blank stares on me. I stared blankly back.
I"d had enough. "Millie, are you going to explain what"s going on here?"
Suddenly, Millie looked just as bewildered as the rest of us. "You won"t even acknowledge me?" she asked. Her voice cracked as she spoke. I thought she was going to cry. "Well, I knew you felt strongly about it all, but I didn"t think you"d take it this far!"
The couple continued to stare at her, mouths open, puzzled expressions across their faces. The woman spoke first. "Look, it was very nice of you to let us know we"d won, and we really are grateful, but I"m sure I don"t know what -"
"h.e.l.lo?" a voice called from the front door. We"d left it open behind us and a second later, Aaron"s face appeared. He glanced around the room and grinned when he saw me. "Hey - I thought it was you. I was just pa.s.sing," he said. "What"re you doing here?"
Good question!
"Can I come in?" he asked, stepping into the small room before I had a chance to reply.
"This is my friend Aaron," I said as he squeezed in next to me - not that anyone took any notice. They were all still too busy staring blankly at each other. I felt Aaron"s hand brush mine. Immediately my face got hot and my heart started hammering so loudly I was positive someone would hear it - especially while we were all standing there in this shocked silence.
And then something else happened. The feeling of his hand touching mine - well, I know it"s going to sound ridiculous and corny and stupid, but it sent shivers and tingles all the way up my arm. I glanced at him to see if he"d felt it too. He looked at me, but he didn"t move away. In fact, a moment later, he smiled shyly, then he opened up his fingers and took my hand in his.
Which was pretty much the same moment that the woman"s face turned as gray as her hair.
"Emily?" she whispered. She turned to her husband.
He clutched her arm and took a step toward me. "It"s really you? Our Emily?" he said.
I looked at Millie for some help.
"About time, too!" she exclaimed with a broad smile.
"It"s Mary Penelope"s friend Millie!" the man exclaimed. "Why, it must be, what - twelve years?"