Real Mermaids Don't Need High Heels (10 page)

Help
me!
I rang to Serena, but she was too busy trying to get the rope untangled from the goal.

Lainey's hair swirled around her limp body. I worked the knots, trying to get the rope to loosen so I could free her. We had to save her!

Without thinking, I took a huge gulp of water. The chlorine seared my throat as it burned through to my lungs. It may not have been the Atlantic Ocean, but the water in the pool was enough to set off a familiar big, red panic button inside me.

Before I knew it, a blast of water exploded from my legs, leaving in their place a slippery, icky, very inconvenient tail.

No!
I rang, trying to figure out how I was going to explain all this to Lainey Chamberlain once we got her back above water.
If
we got her back above water. Thankfully, keeping humans from drowning worked much better as an actual mer and I swam back to Lainey's side, untangled the rope, and pulled her to safety in a matter of seconds.

“Serena!” I yelled as soon as I surfaced. But Serena was nowhere in sight.

I yanked Lainey over the side of the pool and rolled her onto the pool deck to check her breathing.

She wasn't breathing! I forced a gulp of air down my lungs and tried to remember the steps for artificial respiration from my baby-sitter's course the summer before. I braced my elbows against the pool deck and tilted Lainey's chin back to give her a few breaths before she started coughing.

“Thank god!” I gasped as Lainey turned to her side and hacked out a mouthful of water.

“What…” Lainey held her head where she'd struck it and blinked, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

I was just about to hop out of the water to help her sit up when I remembered—I had a tail! A tail that was starting to burn because it was about to start turning back into legs the more I breathed fresh air. Maybe if I just stayed in the water, Lainey wouldn't notice?

“Omigod! What the heck is that? Omigod!”

Too late.

Lainey shrieked and pointed into the water. She stood slowly and wavered for a second, trying to get her balance. But she wasn't pointing at me—she was pointing at the other mer-girl. Serena. In all her tailish glory.

“Lainey, I can explain—” I started, but the pain shooting up my tail stopped me mid-sentence.

“And you?” Lainey's eyes grew wide. “You, too?”

The door from Coach Laurena's office flew open. She ran out onto the pool deck with Mom and Gran at her heels.

“Jade!” Mom called.

“Mom!” I called back without thinking.

Lainey stared in astonishment at Mom, then me. She backed away from the side of the pool, her hands up to her face as if not trusting what would come out of her mouth. Then she grabbed her bag, turned, and ran to the dressing room, limping along on a lone shoe as she went.

“Lainey, wait!” I cried.

But it was too late. Lainey was gone.

Thankfully, Mom, Gran, and Coach Laurena were there to help Serena and me. We could have been ambushed by news crews reporting live within the hour if anyone else had discovered two teenage mermaids swimming around in our small-town community pool.

I could just imagine the
National
Enquirer
headlines!

Actually, I was totally surprised no one
had
come looking for us since Lainey Chamberlain had run out of there like a girl on a mission. And, let's be honest, Lainey was always on the lookout for ways to be the center of attention. Making a mer discovery would have definitely boosted her popularity rating on a global scale.

But, nope. Nothing.

“Are you guys okay?” Coach Laurena asked as she returned from her office with a spare pair of gym pants after locking all the doors. Gran and Mom fussed around me as I tried to calm my breathing.

“Yeah, Jadie girl,” Gran said, rummaging through her handbag. “Can I get you a tissue or a cough drop or something?”

“I'll be fine, but we need to get Serena out of here.” I filled everyone in on what had just happened while I hurried to get dressed.

Hold
on, Serena,
Mom rang.
I'm calling Jade's dad to get the Merlin 3000 here as soon as possible.

Serena gazed back up through the water, a desperate look on her face.

“He's heading home to get the trailer right now,” Mom said once she hung up.

I texted Trey, Cori, and Luke to be on the lookout for Lainey while Gran kept Serena company until Dad arrived.

Finally, there was a knock on the emergency exit door to the back parking lot.

Gran stood guard as Dad, Mom, Laurena, and I quickly loaded Serena into the Merlin 3000. Then we all piled into Dad's and Gran's vehicles to make the trek to Dundee. Since it was Thursday, Serena decided to return to Talisman Lake a day early for her weekend visitation with her parents, which was just as well, considering Tidal Law was about to close in on us.

That whole pool drama had put us way behind schedule, and by the time the Martins and Cori got to Gran's cottage and we had everyone settled in Dad's Faraday room, it was 7:00 p.m. and getting dark. The bonging noise that I'd been hearing every night for the past week increased with every passing minute. That, combined with what had just happened at the pool, was seriously messing with my head.

“Are you
sure
you didn't see where Lainey went?” I asked Cori for the millionth time as she sat at a small table in Gran's den with Trey, playing cards with his parents. I flicked through the channels on the small TV perched on the bookshelf in the corner, hoping I wouldn't see a headline with my name on it. “What if she tells somebody what she saw? She could be juggling offers from a dozen different TV networks right now.”

“Like I said,” Cori said patiently, even though I could tell she was still annoyed with me for talking to Mrs. Chamberlain behind her back, “I was waiting for Trey by the front doors when she blew right by me with one shoe, talking to someone on her cell. I saw her get into one of those black sedans from her dad's company, probably getting picked up by his driver, but that's all I know.” She looked at her cards and set them down on the table with a self-satisfied smile. “Rummy.”

Just then, Gran called out from the kitchen next to the den.

“Dinner's almost done,” she said as she pulled the third foil pan of supermarket lasagna from her old-fashioned gas oven.

“Smells delicious, Gran,” Mom said as she brought plates into the den. She bumped into the table and I caught her arm to keep her from falling.

“You okay?” I asked.

Mom blinked. Her eyes were really red and swollen behind her glasses. “Yes, yeah. I'm sorry. I should have brought my eye drops. Everything's just a little blurry.”

“Is everybody here?” Gran asked as she set the lasagna on the coffee table. “I wonder if I got enough food.”

“It's plenty, Mom.” Dad kissed Gran on top of her silver-curled head. “Thanks for going to all the trouble.”

“No trouble at all, Dally.” She squeezed his cheeks and returned to the kitchen as the phone rang.

“
Is
everyone here?” I wondered aloud.

Four mers: me, Luke, Coach Laurena, and Mom.

Six two-leggers: Cori, Trey, Mr. and Mrs. Martin, Dad, and Gran.

That made ten people crammed into the den like sardines in a tin can. Getting Serena back into the lake had probably been a good idea because space was tight and the room felt like the inside of a toaster oven. Still, we were missing a mer.

“Where's Bridget?” I asked, looking around the room.

Coach Laurena pulled out her phone to check her texts. “Eddie and Daniel are out looking for her right now.”

“What do you mean,
looking
for her? Is she missing?” A kernel of worry grew in my belly. Tonight was not the night for a mer to be roaming the streets (or beaches) of Port Toulouse. As soon as the supermoon was in full force, any mer was a moving target.

“Bridget never showed up at the diner this morning,” Coach Laurena said. “Daniel knew she'd been camping out at the beach a few nights a week, looking for Reese, so he just figured she'd slept in. By noon, though, she still hadn't showed up. Daniel got worried, so he closed up the diner and has been looking for her ever since.”

“This isn't good.” I checked my phone, then placed it back on the coffee table and snuck a glance through the den door to the kitchen window. It was still a little light out, but it would be completely dark in half an hour or so. I turned to Dad. “Let's go, too. The more people looking for Bridget, the better.”

“No, it's not going to help to have everyone roaming around.” Dad looked at me and rubbed his head. “Eddie and Daniel are doing everything they can.”

“Here, Jade. Help me with the cutlery.” Gran handed me a box of plastic knives and forks.

“Oh, and by the way, Dally, that was Wilma on the phone. She said Principal Reamer needs Serena's records by Monday or else Serena won't be able to keep coming to school for insurance reasons. Any idea when those will magically appear?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Dad got up and closed the den door, shutting us off from the rest of the house—the rest of the world for that matter—in his foil-lined looney bin.

“I guess that's the least of our worries, huh?” Luke whispered to me. “No use planning anything beyond Tidal Law, isn't that what you said?”

That
was
what I had said during our completely discombobulated Fall Folly conversation. Urg. I smiled weakly.

“Well, then,” Gran called out and cut into the steaming lasagna before I could reply. “Let's eat!”

Amazingly, I'd just lost my appetite.

• • •

By 8:30 p.m., there was still no word on Bridget. With all the windows covered and the door closed, we had no way to tell how dark it was outside. But the bonging noise reverberating through my body was proof enough that the moon was out in full force.

“I haven't gotten a text from Daniel for half an hour,” Coach Laurena said as she rubbed her throat. “Something is wrong.”

Luke sat next to me on the couch. We hadn't really talked since his comment about not planning anything past Tidal Law. He'd only picked at his food, but he kept sucking on a piece of garlic bread as if trying to get all the taste out.

“I'll be right back,” he said, jumping up. “Just got to get the salt shaker from the kitchen.”

“No!” Dad stood by the door to stop him. “Nobody who's ever had a tail gets to leave this room until tomorrow morning.”

Coach Laurena pulled out her inhaler, shook it, and took a few puffs.

“Asthma still bothering you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she answered, taking off her sweater. She coughed a few times and cleared her throat. “Wow, it's warm in here, huh?”

“Hotter than hot,” I replied, standing up from the couch and crossing the room to see if I could find a pocket of cool air away from the crowd.

“Luke!” Mrs. Martin called from behind me.

I heard a thud and turned. Luke was on the floor, shaking all over.

“What's happening?” I cried, rushing to his side.

“He's been acting strangely for days,” his mom said, handing him another piece of garlic toast from the coffee table. He took it in his hands and sucked on it hungrily. “It's like he's hypoglycemic but for salt instead of sugar. I don't know what's going on with him.”

Luke's dad came over to help, too, and everyone started tripping over each other, trying to get around in the small space.

Meanwhile, Coach Laurena sat on the couch, her hands braced against her knees. Her breath came out in wheezy gasps, and her eyes were vacant like she was in a trance. That's when I noticed Mom staring over Dad's shoulder, her eyes red and swollen.

“It's Tidal Law,” I said under my breath, trying to piece everything together.

“What do you mean?” Dad asked.

I glanced from Luke to Mom to Coach Laurena and could feel them slipping away from us one by one.

“It's affecting everyone differently. Luke with his salt cravings, Laurena with her asthma, and Mom with her eyes,” I replied. “I'm just not sure why I don't feel any different.”

“Maybe since you weren't born a mer,” Cori chimed in.

“But that doesn't explain why Serena—” I began but was interrupted when Luke jumped up and lunged for the door. “He's trying to get out!”

Dad and Mr. Martin grabbed Luke but he flailed against them, trying to break free. Mom and Laurena were next, and soon it was a mer-versus-human struggle to keep Mom, Laurena, and Luke from breaking down the door.

Water!
All three of them kept ringing in their mer voices, as if in a trance. Coach Laurena's breathing was completely out of whack, and from what I could see amid the struggle, Mom's eyes had swollen shut, and Luke had resorted to licking people's faces for our salty sweat.

Charming.

Water!
they continued.

“I really thought the Faraday room would help, but the force of the moon is too strong,” Dad yelled. “They're being compelled to the ocean.”

“What are we supposed to do?” I yelled over the commotion. “We can't let them get anywhere near the coast.”

Dad and Mr. Martin still had Luke by the arms, but it was getting harder to hold him still. Trey and I grasped Mom, and Mrs. Martin helped Cori hold Coach Laurena back while Gran did her best to clear any furniture hazards.

With seven of us and three of them, we were able to control them, but I wasn't sure for how long.

Seconds after the thought crossed my mind, Luke broke free and grabbed for the door. He escaped and headed outside but not before grabbing the keys to his parents' car from the hallway table.

“Luke, no!” I ran after him and out the door. The sheer size of the supermoon made me stop for a split second at the top of the porch steps. It formed a perfect white circle and gleamed like a huge pearl against a black velvet backdrop.

I heard the car start and the taillights flickered on.

“You've gotta be kidding me!” The car was already rolling down the driveway by the time I reached for the handle of the passenger door. I opened it and launched myself inside.

Ocean! Water!

“Are you out of your mind? The ocean is miles away! And you don't even have a license!” How did he think he was ever going to make it to Port Toulouse without ending up dead in a ditch?

Water!
Luke rang.

“I should have thrown you in the lake with Serena when I had the chance!” That's when it hit me.

I grabbed the steering wheel and turned it toward the lake with all my might.

Water!
Luke rang even louder than before, struggling against me. But little did he know, I came from very sturdy stock. I elbowed him in the nose and gripped the wheel.

Ow!
Water!
he repeated.

“Oh, you're going to get water, all right,” I said between gritted teeth as I reached my foot over to the driver's side, feeling for the accelerator. I kept manhandling the steering wheel as Luke fought against me. I finally jammed my foot over his to put the pedal to the metal. We careened down the bank toward Gran's dock, and the car launched into the air when we hit the end of the deck.

“Dive! Dive! Dive!” I yelled for the split second we were airborne, which seemed like an appropriate chant for drowning your boyfriend. I found the down button for the passenger side window and waited for impact.

We hit the water in spectacular fashion and sank to the bottom of Talisman Lake.