Real Mermaids Don't Need High Heels (6 page)

I played over my conversation with Lainey Chamberlain about a million times in my head. Something kept nagging at me, other than her “plus size” jab. I finally clued in to what it was when Gran and Mom took Serena and me to the mall later that day so we could get stuff for our first underwater hockey practice.

“Are you sure you don't want to come in with us?” Mom asked as we stopped in front of Sport Mart and perused the list Coach Laurena had given us. We'd been venturing out more and more with Mom now that people thought she was my aunt and Serena's mom. Everyone bought the cover so far, especially with Mom's long dark hair now cropped in a bleach-blond pixie cut and with the funky glasses she'd started wearing lately.

“A Speedo is a Speedo. Can you just pick up my size?” I was a little peeved that I had to go bathing-suit shopping in the first place, but I couldn't find my tankini anywhere, despite searching high and low through my closet and drawers. “There's actually something I really need to do.”

“If you're sure,” Mom said as Gran showed Serena how to push through the turnstile entry into the sporting-goods store. “But come find us once you're done, okay?”

“Will do,” I replied, then spotted the Chamberlain Construction
Safe
2 Swim
display with the free bathing caps. “Oh, and grab a bunch of those for our team in the meantime, could you? As long as Mr. Chamberlain hasn't started charging for them to fund his new wing.”

I turned toward the newly built mall extension past Hyde's Department Store.

As much as I had tried to block it from my mind, walking through the mall reminded me of when Cori and I had shopped for that tankini at Hyde's in June. Cori was having her first-ever pool party, and she'd really wanted me to get a bathing suit so I could come. Turns out it was a surprise party in my honor to take my mind off the anniversary of Mom's “drowning” and to celebrate my fourteenth birthday.

That's how awesome Cori was.

Cori wasn't just an awesome friend—she was also really talented. So talented that Lainey's mom, Mrs. Chamberlain, had reviewed her
Cori
Original
portfolio and said she loved her designs. She was even considering Cori for a mentorship.

But Cori hadn't heard from Mrs. Chamberlain since, and hearing Lainey diss Cori's designs earlier made me wonder whether it was mostly my fault that things had turned out the way they had.

It was time to set things right.

Large panels of advertising announced the new stores being introduced to the mall, but several were open already. A lot of work still needed to be done, but the Rainforest Cafe was already buzzing with a growing dinner crowd, and a gift shop and a nutrition store were fully stocked and operational.

Wow. Chamberlain Construction had obviously recovered from having to change their construction plan. I walked past the framework for a fountain where workers were scraping mortar on ceramic tiles while skids full of drywall were being wheeled into an empty storefront.

Finally, I stood in front of a window display of teeny-waisted mannequins dressed in draping fabrics with gauzy tulle puddled at their feet.

Boutique Chambre Laine

The last store I ever thought I'd enter.

I spotted Mrs. Chamberlain at the back of the store near a sewer's mannequin. She wore a beautiful gray tailored skirt and a ruffled cream-colored blouse and had her hair pulled back in a low chignon. She pinned a piece of fabric onto the beginnings of a jacket to form a sleeve while one of her associates brought an outfit to someone in the dressing room. Several other customers browsed the
New
for
Fall
rack.

“
Bonjour
,” Mrs. Chamberlain said when she saw me. She took a pin from her mouth and tucked it onto the lapel of her blouse. “May I be of
assistance
?”

The French accent threw me off. I blinked three times and turned to look at a rack of scarves. I realized I must seem rude for not replying, but my mind had dumped all its thoughts, and I had no real clue why I'd entered the store. How had I not known Mrs. Chamberlain was French? Then again, had I ever spoken to her? What else didn't I know about Lainey and her family?

“Uh, um…” I began, trying to recover. “I never shop in places like this.”

Great.
Much
more polite.

“Oh,
ma
chère
. Why not?” Mrs. Chamberlain asked kindly. “Every girl could use some sparkle in her life,
non
?”

“I guess I'm not really a sparkle kind of girl,” I muttered.

“There is a special occasion, perhaps?” Mrs. Chamberlain prodded.

I thought about the Fall Folly.

“Well, there
is
a dance at school but you probably don't have anything in my size.”

“Oh, surely I have
quelque
chose
for you! Your skin tone is beautiful.” Mrs. Chamberlain stood squarely in front of me and eyed me closely. “I see you in a jewel tone. Possibly blue,
oui
?”

Think, Jade, think.
I was not there to talk about dresses; I was there to talk about Cori. I hadn't even invited Luke to the Fall Folly anyway, and the thought of it made me want to puke.

“
Non!
” I replied. Geesh. Mrs. Chamberlain probably thought I had been raised by wolves, but she'd obviously misunderstood the reason for my visit, and I had to get the conversation back on track.

But first I had to clear the air.

“I mean…I don't know if you recognize me, but I'm Jade Baxter. I caused a lot of problems for your family this summer when I told everyone about the fake environmental assessment for this mall extension.”

“Ah,
Mademoiselle
Baxteur
?” A look of recognition crossed Mrs. Chamberlain's face.

“Yes, but trust me, I was trying to protect that tidal pool for a very important reason. Although I know that's one of the big reasons why your daughter, Lainey, and I don't get along.”

“You are not friends with my daughter?” Mrs. Chamberlain said. “But—Jade
Baxteur
—she speaks of you. How you are so funny.”

Lainey Chamberlain talked to her mom about me? That was a surprise.

“Well,” I said, almost losing my train of thought. “Sorry. That's not exactly why I'm here. I just came here on behalf of my friend. Cori Blake?”

“
Mademoiselle
Blake is in need of a dress?” Mrs. Chamberlain looked confused.

“No, no. You looked at Cori's fashion portfolio back in the spring.”

“Ah,
oui
! Cori!” Mrs. Chamberlain replied. “She is talented. Very talented indeed!”

“And since Cori helped with the protest against your husband's company, I really hope that won't affect your decision to mentor her for our school's work-study program. She really admires you—”

“But, it has not affected a thing! I had hoped Cori would come to me for
mentoré
, what is the name? But I have not heard from her.”

A spark of hope rose in my chest. Was Mrs. Chamberlain still considering Cori for the mentorship? But why hadn't she heard anything?

“You mean, she still has a chance?” I asked.

“Why, yes! I asked Lainey to give her the,
mon
Dieu
, how you say—paperwork?” Mrs. Chamberlain said. “Lainey was to tell Cori to telephone me, but she says she has not yet spoken to her?”

I grr-ed internally. Had Lainey been withholding the paperwork from Cori all this time? I wondered.

“I think that is mainly my fault,” I said. “Cori and Lainey are not friends anymore because of me.”

“Lainey and Cori are no longer friends as well?” Mrs. Chamberlain asked. She pulled over a stool from her worktable and sat down. “Oh. I never thought—”

But she didn't finish her sentence. Something about how the smile faded from her lips made me wonder what she was thinking.

“Mrs. Chamberlain, would you mind if I spoke openly?” I asked.

Mrs. Chamberlain looked up at me. She waved a hand to the other stool at her worktable, indicating for me to sit. “
Oui. Oui,
of course.”

I sat down and hooked my foot on the crossbar of the stool.

“Well…sometimes it's really hard to be Lainey's friend.” I chose my next words as carefully as I could. “It's like she's angry at everyone or something.”

Mrs. Chamberlain blinked a few times, and I was afraid I'd messed things up even more. She'd already said she was still considering Cori for a mentorship. What did I have, a death wish or something?

“Angry? That is perhaps true,” Mrs. Chamberlain said quietly. “Ever since we adopted Lainey—”

“Lainey is adopted?” Why didn't I know that? But maybe I had never spent enough time to ask. “I had no idea.”

“Oh, yes. Mr. Chamberlain has an unfortunate genetic condition,” Mrs. Chamberlain said. “We thought it would be best to open our home to a deserving child overseas instead of trying to have our own. Lainey has been with us since just before we moved to Port Toulouse.”

I did the mental math—Lainey was adopted when she was in fourth grade? Had she been in foster care before that? An orphanage? It didn't feel right to ask.

“Since we moved here from Europe,” she continued, “Lainey seemed to fare well. She has always been so strong—
très independente
. So, we go on as before! Mr. Chamberlain throws himself into his work and charities, and I am consumed with my designs. But perhaps she is not as strong as she lets on? I fear we may have let her down now that I hear she's been so sad.”

“I'm sure I haven't helped the situation,” I replied.

Mrs. Chamberlain reached out and squeezed my hand.

We both sat silently. I wasn't sure what to say. Had I been so wrapped up in my own stuff that I'd never bothered to find out that Lainey Chamberlain was adopted?

“I think we're all just trying to do our best,” I added. “Then someone comes along to show us how we could do better.”

“And I think you are not lacking in sparkle,
chère
Jade.” Mrs. Chamberlain stood from her stool and smiled. “Tell
Mademoiselle
Blake I would love to be her mentor.”

“Really?” I jumped up from my stool. “But would you mind telling her yourself? I think it would mean much more coming from you.”

“
Absoluement
,” Mrs. Chamberlain replied.

Getting Serena into a bathing suit for our first underwater hockey practice was like trying to slip a tank top onto an octopus. She wanted nothing to do with it.

“Come on, Serena,” I whispered, holding out the Speedo Mom had picked out for her at Sport Mart, while the rest of the team got ready in the dressing room. “You're the one who wanted to join the team in the first place. You need to put this thing on.”

“Swim clothes without,” Serena kept saying.

Devon and Ella from eleventh grade looked over from the other end of the dressing room. Devon was probably our strongest swimmer, considering she was also on the regular swim team. Ella was on the basketball team. They had probably cringed when they saw my name on the sign-up sheet because I was definitely
not
the sporty type. They glanced at each other as if wondering if they'd heard Serena correctly.

“The swimsuits in Tonganesia are just a little different,” I said, waving off Serena's protests. “I think they use bamboo fibers instead of Lycra or something.”

“Oh, I wonder if that's a new thing,” Ella said as she tucked her long blond hair under her bathing cap. “That team we're playing next week has those new sharkskin suits like they use in the Olympics.”

“They also have Georgia Frum,” Devon reminded her. “Remember how she almost drowned Marcelle last year?”

“Don't remind me.” Marcelle was a pretty brunette with a cute laugh from tenth grade. She rubbed her throat as if remembering a particularly bad memory. “My food tasted like chlorine for three days after that game.”

“Yeah, they beat us every single game last year,” Ella replied. “We're going to need some sort of secret weapon if we want to stand a chance against those guys.”

“Okay, ladies,” Coach Laurena called from the door leading out to the pool deck. “Let's hustle it up in there.”

“Do you want us to wait for you?” our other teammate, Charlotte, asked as she tucked her fuchsia-streaked hair behind her multi-earringed ear. She was in tenth grade with Marcelle. In fact, Serena and I were the only ninth graders on the team.

“No, no, you guys go ahead.” I smiled and waved them onward. “Just let Coach Laurena know we'll be there in a sec.”

It was only Thursday, but I visualized sending Serena back a day early for her weekend with her parents in Talisman Lake if she didn't cut it out with this bathing-suit thing. In only her first week of school, Serena had managed to almost set the science lab on fire with a Bunsen burner, delete our Social Studies project from my hard drive so we had to start all over, and get us both called into the office to be told that shoes were mandatory in school.

“But, house inside. No shoes?” she'd asked when we'd left the office.

I had to sit her down on the bench outside the office for a full ten minutes to explain that yes, we took off our shoes at the house but that the school was not a house. We finally agreed Serena could wear flip-flops instead of shoes except for gym and science class (lab rules), but I wasn't sure how we would explain that once winter hit.

I collapsed into my bed each night, exhausted from constantly having to cover up for her weird ways or explain things for the millionth time.

It was like babysitting six toddlers and a puppy.

Once I heard the door to the pool deck whoosh closed behind Marcelle and Charlotte, I turned to Serena and looked at her sternly. “You've got two minutes to get into your bathing suit and cap, or else I'm quitting this team and taking you with me.”

Serena's bottom lip quivered. “No water swim?”

“Only if you put this on.” I held the suit out and pointed to the dressing room for her to get changed. If I had to squeeze myself into a Speedo and bare my gleaming white thighs, Serena would have to suck it up and get with the program.

“Everything okay?” Coach Laurena asked as she came in from the pool deck.

“Yeah. Serena's just having a little trouble with the uniform.” I looked around to make sure no one else had followed her. Thankfully, Laurena would understand Serena's mer-to-human adjustment period. She was the one who came to our rescue on the barefoot front when she saw us getting pulled into the principal's office.

“Got it.” Coach Laurena laughed. “I remember the first time I wore a bathing suit a few years ago. It felt kinda wrong to me, too. Actually, I'm glad I caught you. I was at the diner picking up coffee before work, and Daniel told me Bridget's been having trouble with her legs lately. She keeps saying it's nothing, but do you remember her having trouble walking when you worked at the ice cream parlor this summer? Daniel sounded worried.”

I thought back. I knew Bridget had really dry skin on her legs and always carried skin cream around, but I couldn't remember her having trouble walking. “No, I don't think so. But I
did
see her limping the other day. Maybe she twisted her ankle or hurt her knee or something.”

“Yeah, maybe you're right.”

“Hey, I was wondering.” Something had nagged at me since I found out Laurena was a mer. “My mom has never worked or had a driver's license so it hasn't been an issue, but how did you get this job if you're not actually human?” I asked. “And don't you need some sort of birth certificate to get married?”

Which got me thinking. Did that mean Mom and Dad weren't actually married, either? Gah! What if they weren't? Things were certainly getting complicated.

“Well, Eddie got me this job.” Coach Laurena laughed. “And I've been engaged for two years now and will probably stay that way for the foreseeable future. Daniel understands, though. It's not such a big deal, I guess.”

But something in her eyes suggested otherwise.

“And Bridget?” I asked.

“Eddie's sister's name is Bridget. She lives in Australia now but sent Eddie just enough of her old paperwork for our Bridget to get a driver's license and set up the diner.”

“This is all so messed up. I just wish…” I began.

“That things were different? Me, too, kiddo—” but Coach Laurena's words were cut off when she coughed. She pulled out an asthma inhaler from her pocket and coughed a few more times before taking a few puffs. “Oh, excuse me. The air's been really dry around here lately, don't you think?”

“Not really.” I looked around the dressing room. The mirrors by the sinks were still steamed up from when the girls took showers before going out to the pool deck.

Coach Laurena put a hand to her chest. “Well, anyway, come on out when you're ready. I'm going to get the girls started on a few underwater drills.”

“We'll only be a few more minutes,” I assured her as I watched her go.

But something was weird about what had just happened. I hadn't known Coach Laurena for very long—in fact, she'd only moved to Port Toulouse a few years before—but I couldn't remember her ever using an inhaler before. And Bridget with her limp? Then Luke with all that salt on his fries. And Mom with her new glasses?

Something was definitely up, and I wondered if it had anything to do with the upcoming supermoon.

“Jade! Helping me? Helping me!” The dressing-room door slammed open, and Serena stumbled out. She had her bathing suit on (mostly) except the straps were wrapped around her neck three times and her arms flapped in desperation, trying to get free.

Friday could
not
come soon enough.

• • •

Serena and I stepped onto the pool deck with our fins, masks, and snorkels after I rescued her from her wardrobe malfunction. Marcelle, Charlotte, Devon, and Ella were already in the water swimming lengths.

Just
remember,
I rang to her in my mer voice to make sure none of the other girls could understand.
A
few
breaths
of
water
and
you'll be sprouting a tail again, so use the snorkel like I showed you on that YouTube video.

Serena nodded. Coach Laurena heard my mer rings and gave us a thumbs-up.

I helped Serena with her diving mask and snorkel, but she fought me like a ten-pound salmon.

“Hold still,” I said, snapping her mask strap against my finger hard enough to send a sting through my hand. “Ouch!”

Finally, Serena stood still long enough to get the mask on. She actually looked exactly like everyone else once she had the whole ensemble together. Nobody would have guessed that she secretly lived as a mermaid in Talisman Lake. My confidence about whether this whole plan could work grew. Maybe we could pull this off after all. For now, Serena was just a regular high-school kid from Port Toulouse Regional High.

Well, until she and the rest of us got dragged back to sea in exactly seven days.

I got my snorkel and mask on while Coach Laurena and Serena rifled through the equipment bag full of small handheld hockey sticks and pucks.

“So, since you two are new, I'll explain the basics and you'll get to learn more when we play one on one later,” Coach Laurena said.

“Sounds good. But fair warning? I'm not really the sporty type,” I warned her. “Last time I played any kind of organized sport, I nearly gave myself a concussion with a badminton racket.”

“Well, hopefully this will turn out better for you.” Coach Laurena laughed. “Underwater hockey is like ice hockey, but there's a lot less body-checking involved, so it's safer.”

“And a lot wetter, apparently,” I jumped back as Devon dove in and splashed me.

“Basically, two teams fight for control of a puck at the bottom of the pool,” Coach Laurena continued and held up a small stick. “You move the puck around with one of these handheld sticks. The object of the game is to pass the puck to your teammates until you score a goal in the opponent's net.”

“Sounds complicated,” I muttered. I had trouble keeping up with the rules of table tennis, so this was not a surprise to me.

“You'll get the hang of it. Don't worry.” Once Coach Laurena explained the rest of the equipment to us, she stood and blew her whistle.

“Okay, team! We have our first match against IMDH next week so we don't have much practice time. Let's make the most of it,” Coach Laurena called out. “Get a few more laps in to get warmed up, and then we'll get right into some shooting and skills.”

I walked over to the side of the pool and tested the water with my hand. “Geesh, don't they heat this thing? It's colder than the Atlantic Ocean.”

I turned to Serena but she'd already dived in and was three quarters of the way across the pool, underwater, without having to take a single breath.

“Holy-moley,” Marcelle said. Charlotte blinked.

Devon and Ella hung to the edge of the pool, staring as Serena flip-turned and swam back to our end. She popped her head out of the water, a huge grin around the mouthpiece of her snorkel. Ella nudged Devon.

“I think we just found our secret weapon.”