Cry of the Sea (7 page)

The mermaid made that squeaking noise again,
much more urgently this time. She was definitely trying to tell me
something.

I turned to Carter. “We should move the dead
mermaids out of her sight,” I said. “It’s upsetting her to see them
like that.” My dad and Dr. Schneider stared at me like I was crazy.
“Would you be okay to look at the dead bodies of your sisters while
people poked at them and talked about them?”

My dad scrunched up his face. “Come on, June.
I agree she might be aware of her surroundings and trying to reach
out to us, but I don’t believe she thinks that clearly.”

I stared at him hard. “Imagine standing there
and having to watch the autopsy of my dead body. How would you
feel?”

My dad blinked and shot a look back at the
mermaid. The creature squealed again.

Carter didn’t need any more convincing. He
responded to that third cry right away by picking up one of the
bodies and carrying it down the hall to the examination room. The
two grown men were a bit slower to understand that I was serious,
so I lifted the other body by myself until Carter came back to help
me. When we came back, I could tell the mermaid was still trying to
see what was happening by the way she swam back and forth along the
glass, but she seemed a bit more relieved.

“Thank you,” I said to Carter quietly.

He did the sweetest little half smile. “Not a
problem.”

The men discussed possibilities of origin and
the likelihood of there being more creatures like this in the ocean
for another fifteen minutes or so before my dad looked at his
watch.

“Oh boy,” he said. “We’ve got to run. If the
pictures we took this morning are going to do us any good, we’ve
got to rush them to the papers and television news stations. You’ll
take care of the, um, creatures, then?”

Dr. Schneider nodded, but I thought I could
see his fingers twitching.

“Please don’t dissect them,” I said. “Not
until we have a better understanding of what they are. Please.”

Dr. Schneider’s eyes went dark. “We can’t
understand them without dissecting them,” he told me.

My father stepped in at that point. “I think
June is right on this one,” he said. “We should hold off from
cutting them open just yet. I’ll give you a call later on and we’ll
discuss a plan of action.”

“We don’t have long, Peter,” Dr. Schneider
said. "The smell is only going to get worse, and you know there
will be more animals coming as soon as the oil spill is
reported.”

“I’m aware of that,” my dad said. “I just
need a couple hours, and I’ll be back.”

I followed my dad out to the truck.

“Dad,” I said. “You won’t have time to drive
all the way home, do business, and get back here in a couple of
hours. It’ll take two hours round trip just to drive.”

He sighed and put his hand on the hood of the
truck. “No. You’re right. And I really need to get back to the
beach, too.” He looked up at the sun well above the horizon. “I
left my laptop at home.”

“I’ve got one,” came Carter’s voice from the
door. He had followed us out.

My dad straightened up at the sight of the
college intern. “With Internet?”

Carter laughed. “Are you kidding me?”

I had to laugh too. My dad could be so
outdated sometimes. I still could hardly believe his stories about
going through high school with only an electric typewriter. Half my
assignments at school require work done on computers and research
from the Internet. I had to do a presentation in PowerPoint just
last week for English.

I groaned slightly. School. I kind of forgot
it was a school day.

“You okay, June?” Dad asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I just remembered
something.”

I let my dad and Carter figure out the
details of going to Carter’s place and using his computer while I
walked away from them and called Haley on my cell.

She answered on the first ring.

“Where are you?” Haley said. “I had to leave
without you.”

Haley had her own car. She usually drove us
to school.

“Sorry. I should have called earlier, but I
lost track of time. We’re doing work for the good of all mankind
this morning.”

“Oh. Well that’s a surprise.” With a tone
like that, I could imagine the frown on her face. Or was it a
scowl?

I tried to ignore her frustration and
continued explaining. “So, I’m kind of gross and very far from
school. There’s no way I can make it to school today.”

“Unh-uh,” Haley snapped. “Not today. I need
you today. We’re making our case before Student Council at
lunch.”

“Oh crap!” I shouted too loudly. Dad and
Carter turned their heads my way. I walked further away from them.
“Today is not a good day. I’ll never make it.”

“You have to make it,” Haley insisted. “You
know they won’t reschedule it, because they hate us and want to
make our lives miserable. If we don’t appear today, our club is not
going to happen.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll try to be there by
lunch. I don’t know how right now, but I’ll try.” I got off the
phone and went back to Carter and my dad. “I’ve got a problem,
Dad.”

“What is it?”

“I need to get to school by 11:30.” I paused,
but when my dad didn’t act like that was a big deal, I added, “and
I can’t go looking like this.”

He woke up. “Oh!”

Carter, my new hero, stepped up again with
his chivalry. “How about you both come over to my house? June can
clean up while I get you started on the computer, Mr. Sawfeather.
Then I’ll drive June to school.”

My dad nodded. “Sounds perfect.”

“Clothes?” I asked, gesturing to my stained
and smelly outfit.

Carter winked. “I’m sure we can come up with
something.”

It could have been a tease or a flirt.
Winking was a deceptive thing. My mind argued that it was just an
innocent eye twitch to let me know he had things in control. The
hot lava rushing through my veins and my heavy pulse led me to hope
that wink was code for something much more romantically
devious.

Chapter
Five

Can’t say how I managed to get into the truck
and put my seatbelt on. I don’t remember any of that. Next thing I
knew I was there, beside my father, with a plan to follow Carter up
the road into town. My dad started the engine and backed out of the
parking lot. He sported a goofy little smile, his first smile of
the day.

“Looks like someone’s got a crush.”

I tried to be nonchalant about it, but
instead I sputtered out a totally fake, “What are you talking
about?” As if I didn’t know.

“He’s going to drive you all the way to
Olympia,” Dad pointed out. “He doesn’t have to do that.”

I blushed a little and rolled my eyes. “No.
That’s not it. He wants to impress
you
, that’s all. He knows
about you from his professor at school. He thinks you’re some kind
of idol probably, and he’ll get extra credit for knowing you.”

My dad shrugged his shoulders. “If you say
so.”

As much as what I said to my dad made sense,
I couldn’t help but hope my dad was right about Carter. Maybe his
graciousness was a little about me too. Everything about him was
turning out to be wonderful.

Dad clicked on the news as we rode along. It
was seven-thirty in the morning, and the local stations had now
received word of the oil spill. So far the reports weren’t anything
but headlines, not offering a lot of information. Within an hour
that would change. Affron leaked news as much as it did oil, only
their version would be skewed to express that no real damage had
been done. ‘Nothing for the public to worry about,’ their report
would attest. The news anchors across the country would soon be
reporting that the oil spill was just a small one and easily
cleaned up. Then it would be forgotten.

No one would mention how many animals,
including two apparent mermaids, had died—or would continue to die
for the next few years.

That was my father’s job. He’d be on the
Internet all week, trying to get reporters to acknowledge the
seriousness of the situation. With his buddy, Randy, they’d add new
statistics and the photographic evidence to his web site and make
sure that all of the politicians on the West Coast were aware of
crisis. Most of all, he’d be working closely with Mom to make sure
Affron was punished for sending out that leaky vessel.

Carter turned into a gated neighborhood of
houses with matching red tile roofs and procured a parking pass for
us. We followed him down a couple winding streets and ended up in
front of a beautiful house that was angled on a hill to have a view
of the ocean from the upstairs bedroom windows. Each bedroom had
its own balcony. I envisioned myself leaning over one, a glass of
cool iced tea in my hand, a wide summer hat on my head and a silk
scarf fluttering off my neck in the warm salt-water breeze. Dressed
in a white silk button down shirt and slacks, a very tan Carter
stepped up behind me and put his hand on my waist...

A honk pulled me out of my reverie. Carter
waved us over to the circular driveway where he’d stopped his car.
But my dad parked along the curb in the street, regardless. Our
ugly, old pickup did not belong anywhere on that lovely
property.

We got out of the truck and met Carter at the
front door.

“You live here?” I asked. “You don’t have
your own place?”

“Don’t be too disappointed,” he said,
pretending to pout.

“Oh, I’m not,” I said, eager to see what the
house looked like on the inside.

“This is my parents’ house,” Carter
explained, unlocking the door. “I have a dorm room at school, but I
stay here on weekends and when I don’t have early classes. It’s too
noisy at the dorm, and I have a hard time sleeping without the
sound of the waves.” Once inside, he typed in a code into the
security box on the wall.

“You know,” I said. “They have those white
noise machines now. You can set them to ocean waves or streams or
whatever.”

“It’s not the same,” Carter said.

“Yeah, I guess not. Listening to something
like that would probably just make me want to pee all night.”

Did I say that? I felt my face heat up.

I walked through the doors into his world of
white décor, pivoted and stepped right back outside. My nasty boots
weren’t allowed to enter this perfect domain, so I slipped them off
and left them on the porch. Truth be told, I felt like I should
remove every article of my clothing, because I was afraid to bump
up against anything.

Carter laughed at me. “My mother thanks
you.”

My dad had finished getting out of his boots
and stepped inside behind me, lugging the camera tote bag over his
shoulder. “This is very nice, Carter. Tell your mother she has done
a beautiful job with the place.”

Carter grinned. “Actually, it’s my dad who’s
the stylist. Mom is an accountant. Go figure.”

We all laughed.

“And the shower?” I asked. “I must take one
now before I accidentally sit on something.”

“Follow me.” Carter turned to my dad. “Why
don’t you go sit in the kitchen down that hall, Mr. Sawfeather.
I’ll get some coffee going and pull out the computer.”

“Sounds great.” My dad shuffled down the
shiny wood floor in his socks.

Carter grabbed my hand and led me
upstairs.

It turned out that there were three bedrooms
upstairs, a laundry room, and an entertainment room with a huge
flat screen TV and all the gadgets one could wish for. Haley would
be in tech-geek heaven if she saw this place. I hoped I’d have a
chance to bring her here sometime.

“I can see why the dorm wouldn’t compare,” I
told him.

“You think?” he said.

He opened the door to his own bedroom and led
me inside. It was fairly neat, which surprised me a little. I won’t
say everything was in its perfect place, but nothing was lying
where it shouldn’t. No underwear on the floor or socks on the
pillowcases. I was also surprised to find that he didn’t have any
posters on his wall of models, sports players, or even
rock-and-roll bands. Instead, he had some really interesting
abstract splatter color paintings in frames. Like fake Pollock
pieces.

“Did your dad decorate your room, too?” I
asked.

Carter laughed. “No,” he said. “I actually
put all this together. The paintings are all by animals. There are
two painted by a dolphin down in Florida and one is painted by an
elephant.”

“You’re kidding!” I said.

“Not one bit,” he told me, straightening one.
“I got them on vacations. I thought they were really cool. I still
do, actually. I can’t even paint that well, and I have hands.” He
pointed to a door on the far side of the double bed. “The
bathroom’s there. It’s between the two bedrooms. There are clean
towels in the cabinet.” I must have looked uncomfortable, because
he headed for his dresser drawers and kept talking. “Is your school
dress code or wear-anything-you-want?”

“Dress code, actually,” I said and winced.
“It’s not a strict uniform, but we have to wear collared shirts and
either tan or navy pants or skirts. I suppose I could just wear a
pair of your sweats, and you could swing me by my house on the
way...”

“Nah!” Carter said. “I’ve got what you need.
These are a little snug on me.” Carter pulled out a collar shirt
and a plain navy-colored sweatshirt to go over it. “No need to rush
more than we have to.” As he handed the clothes to me, he added,
“I’m sure my mom’s got a skirt or some pants that’ll fit you. She’s
tall like you. Not quite as thin, but she tries. Yoga and Pilates
once a week.”

“She won’t mind?” I asked.

He shook his head. “You’re not going to
rescue any more mythical creatures covered in oil, are you?”

“No,” I said. “I’m afraid I’m just tackling
the Student Council at school. A totally different kind of messy
situation.”