Cry of the Sea (19 page)

I’d already heard an earful from my dad when
he got home from the beach all the way up until I went to bed
(which I did early just to be done with him). He was ticked at my
mom and me for making this decision and was “astounded” that we
would be so “damn stupid”. Well, this was a change: to have Mom’s
approval instead of Dad’s. The world must have been tipped on its
axis.

After a brief and unfulfilling text-only
conversation with Haley, where she told me the video already had
like 300,000 hits or something like that, I called my mom to say
goodnight. She assured me one more time that I had done the right
thing while I cried in her ear. “I’ll be coming home tomorrow,” she
told me. “Be strong.”

Dad never came back in to say he was sorry,
but I heard him say as much into the phone when Mom called him
right after I hung up. He hollered at her some more, loud enough
for me to hear through both his and my closed bedroom doors.
Eventually, though, he got quiet, and I drifted off to sleep.

He was up and gone when I woke up for school
in the morning. He’d left the newspaper spread out on the kitchen
table, the leading headline reading: LOCAL ACTIVISTS CLAIM TO HAVE
DISCOVERED REAL MERMAIDS. I read enough of the article to get that
it was suggesting that we were trying to make a bigger deal out of
the so-called oil spill by inventing a story to garner attention.
It said something to the effect of, “Well known activist, Peter
Sawfeather, has been known to stretch the truth on occasion to
further his causes, and now he appears to be teaching his daughter
to do the same.” In another paragraph it let the reader know that
photographic experts would be studying the video for any fakery.
Basically, they thought it was all a hoax and we were nothing more
than the weirdos that chase after Big Foot and the Loch Ness
Monster. The article belittled all the work my dad really did as
though it were nothing more than bellyaching.

I thought about calling Dad to see if he was
okay, but Haley honked her horn from the street and I had to
run.

When I got to school I was mobbed by students
wanting me to sign their newspapers or printed web pages. All of
them had questions about the mermaids and wanted to know which
beach they should visit to see more of them. The biggest question
of all, over and over again: “Where are they now?” Each time
someone asked it, my stomach flipped. I didn’t know, and I didn’t
know how to find out. My mermaid was probably dead.

Suddenly, Regina was at my side. She grabbed
my hand. “Leave my friend alone,” she said firmly to the crowd. “We
will answer all your questions later. Right now, we have to get to
class.” Like Moses parting the Red Sea, I saw a corridor full of
teenagers split down the center so Regina could lead me through and
drop me at my Homeroom classroom door. “I’ll come back in twenty to
help you to 1
^st
period, if you want.” Haley was
practically jumping up and down behind her with glee.

“Sure, thanks,” I mumbled before slinking
into my classroom and going straight to my desk to sit down. I put
my forehead down on the cool, flat desk and closed my eyes for a
second. The buzz of all those people talking at once calmed down,
and I began to single out individual voices again. My teacher
calling role up at the front of the room. The kid in the front row
saying “here.”

“Juniper Sawfeather.”

Had my ears been that messed up? I swear my
teacher suddenly sounded like she was right in front of me.

“Here,” I said, lifting my head.

It hadn’t been my teacher. Mrs. Slater stood
to the side of me, a rolled up newspaper in one hand, smacking it
against the other like she was deciding whether or not to hit me
with it. “You missed the second half of school yesterday, Miss
Sawfeather. Do you have an excuse?”

“No, Ma’am. At least not one you’d probably
accept.”

“Then come with me.”

As I stood up and slung my backpack over my
shoulder, I was careful to push my cell phone as far down to the
bottom of the pack as my arm would reach. Let her work for it, I
thought. A few stragglers paused to gawk at us in the hall. Mrs.
Slater clapped her hands and hissed at them to get on to class.
Each of them skittered into a room followed immediately by half a
dozen heads popping back out to watch us head toward the front
office.

As we rounded the corner into the front hall
where the offices were located, Regina came practically skidding
toward us from the other direction. “Mrs. Slater,” she called.
“Where are you taking June?”

“It’s not your business, Regina,” Mrs. Slater
said, passing the school favorite right by without so much as a
glance. “You’d do better to associate with other students. Not
liars like this one.”

“But Mrs. Slater,” Regina said, keeping pace
with us as we walked. “I need June to come with me. The Student
Council and the Recycling Club are going from classroom to
classroom to make presentations about the new rewards program we’re
starting on Monday.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Mrs.
Slater said. “It’s not on the calendar.”

“We just planned it at our meeting two days
ago, and we were so excited we wanted to get started right
away.”

Mrs. Slater stopped then and turned so
abruptly on Regina I actually saw the girl lose her cool for a
second and stumble backward. “Juniper Sawfeather is going to be
doing an in-school suspension today and possibly all next week.
Your presentations will have to wait.”

“But Mrs. Slater, it’s such a good
cause...”

“Another week of soda cans in the trash won’t
bring about the end of the world any sooner, Regina. Go to class.
Now.”

Regina flashed the sorriest look at me that
I’ve ever seen. I gave her a weak smile to thank her for trying.
Mrs. Slater put a firm hand on my back and led me toward the
office. She sat me down at a skinny, rickety old school desk that
was stowed by the file cabinet behind the reception area and
informed me that my classwork would be gathered and brought to
me.

“If I so much as see you touch your cell
phone, you’ll never see it again. Is that clear?” she asked. I
nodded, glad I’d put the thing on silent because I could feel it
buzzing through the canvas of my backpack against my leg. I hoped
it was just Haley trying to find out what was going on and not
Carter or my dad trying to reach me for something vital.

I’d seen so many kids stuck at this very desk
over the past three years. They were always the kind you’d expect,
I guess. Troubled kids with stringy hair, tough bullies who barely
fit, trampy girls who had their bra straps showing, and
occasionally a skinny Freshman just choosing to hide out for a bit.
Never did I look at one of those kids and wonder what it would be
like to be them. The times when I’d popped into the office because
I was late for school or turning in the attendance for a teacher,
or something like that, I would see those kids and figure they
deserved to be there for whatever stupid thing they had done. It
had never occurred to me that some of them might not have done
anything wrong and were being forced to sit there for no other
reason than being on the nerves of that crazy woman. And I never,
not once, thought that I would be sitting in this chair.

It was going to look so bad on my college
transcripts.

I slunk as deep in that uncomfortable wooden
seat as I could and sulked. I didn’t try very hard to get my class
work done with any hurry or accuracy. Mostly, I just doodled in the
margins and tapped a pencil on my books, which were full of blurry
paragraphs. I couldn’t help it. My attention was seriously being
tested because the phones in the front office rang off the hook.
Mrs. Campbell, the school secretary, and the
Mom-volunteer-of-the-day receptionist could barely catch their
breath for answering them. From what I could tell, a handful of the
calls were regular school business: a kid getting called out for an
appointment, someone had the flu, the paper order was running late,
blah blah blah. The rest of the time, though, the calls were all
about me.

At first all I noticed was how their eyes
kept shifting to me as they talked on the phone. Then I started to
really listen to what they were saying.

“She’s in class right now, ma’am.”

“No sir, we can’t get her out of class for an
interview.”

“She’s going to be busy until 3:00.”

“We have no information for you about that.
You’ll have to talk to her parents.”

“No, you absolutely may not come here and
find her.”

“A press badge does not give you the right to
interrupt her education.”

And on it went until right before lunch when
one reporter was tired of getting the brush off and barged through
the front door with a cameraman right behind him. I recognized him
from the Channel 4 News but couldn’t think of his name. He was
pretty decent as reporters go. My dad often sent him releases, and
this guy actually reported it once in a while.

“I am Juarez Peña, correspondent for Channel
4 News, and I am looking for Juniper Sawfeather.” That was it, the
guy with two last names. I used to laugh at that when he came on
the news, and my parents would bark at me for making too much noise
when they were trying to watch.

I smiled at him, but Mrs. Campbell rushed at
him, waving her arms like a maniac at the camera, so he didn’t
notice me.

“Out! Out!” she screeched. “The news camera
needs to be off the school property. I told you on the phone that
Juniper Sawfeather is in class.”

“I know what you told me,” he said, “but I
need to talk to her now before anyone else gets to her. And don’t
try sending someone else. There’s already a blonde girl out on the
front steps giving interviews to everyone like she knows something,
but she’s not the girl who found the mermaid. I need Miss
Sawfeather.”

I stood up. “What blonde kid? Regina?”

Peña waved me off, “Yeah, I think that was
her name. Says she’s the voice you hear on the video. Who cares
about that? I want the face.”

“She can’t do that!” I said, digging through
my backpack to find my phone. “She has no business talking to
reporters.”

“That’s what I say,” Peña agreed. Then he
turned back to Mrs. Campbell, “So, what’s it going to be? Call her
out of class, or my team is going from room to room looking for
her.” He pointed at the door, and the camera guy swiveled as though
he were going to take off running.

“Hold it! Hang on!” Mrs. Campbell was
frantic. “Wait!”

That was finally enough noise to pull Mrs.
Slater out of her office. Naturally, her beady eyes went straight
to me and not to the actual problem. And, of course, right at that
moment I had freed my phone and had it square in front of my
nose.

“Juniper Sawfeather, I said no cell phone!
Hand it over!” She put out her hand.

Juarez Peña’s head snapped so fast I’m
surprised he didn’t get a crick in his neck. He leapt over the
receptionist’s desk and got to Mrs. Slater’s side before she had a
chance to put together what was going on. “Did you say Juniper
Sawfeather? Is THIS Juniper Sawfeather?” Then he took in my long,
black hair and dark complexion. “Of course you are. Who else would
you be?” He leaned in to me and handed me a business card. “You are
the spitting image of your father. He’s a friend of mine.”

Sort of
, I amended in my head.

“Yeah, I’m Juniper...” I tried to get out
before Mrs. Slater’s hand popped on top of my lips to stop any
further noise.

“That is none of your concern, and may I add
that you are trespassing.”

Peña snapped at the cameraman, who had to
maneuver around the furniture rather than leap like a gazelle. His
camera was on his shoulder, the red light on.

“Miss Sawfeather, the video suggests that you
found the mermaids at Grayland Beach, is that correct? If so, where
are the mermaids now?”

Mrs. Slater stepped between Peña and the
cameraman, so the back of her spiky hairdo filled the shot. “There
is no point in interviewing her, Mr. Peña. She is a liar. This
mermaid story of hers is just a trick and a lie and nothing you
need to report. She is suspended for truancy, and you will have to
go find another ridiculous tale to chase somewhere else.”

Peña nodded at the imposing woman, but he
didn’t budge. He simply asked me, in a quieter voice that gave me
the impression that he as a person, not a reporter, really wanted
to know, “Are they real? Is this a lie?”

“Mr. Peña!” Mrs. Slater bellowed. “You will
leave now or I will call the police! Mrs. Campbell, get the police
on the phone. I want all the reporters off the school property
now.”

He started to back up, but he kept his face
toward me as he moved. A huge smile crossed his face. Although I
didn’t answer him, something about my expression must have
convinced him, because he looked so excited his eyes were slightly
teary. “I knew it. I just knew it.” Mrs. Slater pushed him toward
the door, but he poked his head in one last time to say, “When you
get out of school, call me at Channel 4 News. We’ll give you and
your parents an exclusive!” Mrs. Slater slammed the door so fast it
nearly cut off Peña’s fingers.

Mrs. Campbell held the receiver up toward
Mrs. Slater. “I’ve got the police on the phone. What do you want me
to tell them?”

“To get their butts over here and get these
reporters off our front steps.” She turned to the poor volunteer
mom, who actually flinched as though the Vice Principal might
strike her. “And would you get Regina in here. I am about done with
her. I don’t care how popular she thinks she is, she does not get
to break school rules just for a chance to be on TV.” The poor
little woman hustled out of the front office without a word.

“The policeman says that they can move the
reporters off the steps, but all they’ll do is stand in the street
out front, which is public property, and obstruct traffic. He says
the best thing to do is to just let Juniper go out there and talk
to them and get it over with.”