Bad Mermaids Make Waves

by Sibéal Pounder

  The mermaid grabbed Beattie’s hand, her eyes dancing from Mimi’s hands to Zelda’s and back again. Beattie spotted the piranha marks on her nails.

  “Extraordinary. You have no piranha marks,” the mermaid said, her thin lips splitting into a spindly smile. “You can move around the Lagoon undetected? Giles!” she shouted. “Get these mermaids some of our best Kelpskey! Arialla! Come and sort out this car! We’ll need to disguise it, or else some bad mermaid might notice it’s the stolen one. Yule! These girls need their nails done!” She turned and beamed at the three of them. “I’m Malory Swig, and thank the cods you passed by my door.”

  The next hour was a blur of trendy mermaids wearing shark-teeth crowns painting the clam car with cool cartoons, like a human-style sandwich (a nod to the three mermaids’ time on land), a piranha, and even a piranha in a sandwich. They added a shell-fringe curtain to the back window so no one could see in and a special shelf, which they stocked with supplies of Kelpskey.

  Beattie stashed her copy of Clamzine right at the back. It was a nice reminder that she and her mom were both on dangerous adventures. If her mom could do it, so could she. Or she couldn’t. She didn’t want to think about it too much . . .

  Mermaids whizzed by, handing them small shells filled with delicious Kelpskey jellies that you scooped out using an even smaller shell. Then Yule, a mermaid with a sculpted beard and square glasses, got to work on their nails at his tiny nail bar. Malory Swig pointed out that if Ommy or any of the Oysterdale mermaids spotted that their nails didn’t have the piranha marks, they’d know there was some thing fishy about Beattie, Mimi, and Zelda. So Yule painted little copycat piranhas on their nails using cool pots of Sinky, the best squid-ink nail polish.

  “Can I have my nails done?” Steve asked.

  Yule looked at him. “You don’t have nails. You’re a sea horse.”

  “Excuse you!” Steve said. “I’m not going to let the fact I don’t have nails get in the way of having my nails done!”

  Zelda rolled her eyes at Beattie. “Can’t believe you still have that thing.”

  Beattie inspected her left hand. Yule’s piranha paintings were perfect. She watched him flick his tail back and forth as he concentrated. His tail was all shark, right down to the tip, where it was covered in multi colored, fish like scales.

  “So, what’s your plan in Hammerhead Heights?” Yule asked as he finished off the piranha painting on Beattie’s thumb nail.

  “We’re going to find Ray Ramona,” Mimi said.

  “Mimi,” Zelda whispered, prod ding her arm.

  “You’ll be great,” Malory Swig said, squeezing Beattie’s shoulder.

  “Ray Ramona, eh?” Yule looked up. “Do you know where to find him?”

  The three of them looked at each other.

  “We know from Arabella Cod’s schedule that she met him at Jawella’s,” Beattie eventually said.

  Yule’s beard wafted in the waves as he nodded. “It’s his favorite restaurant.”

  “How do we find Jawella’s?” Beattie asked.

  Yule looked at Malory Swig and snorted with laugher. “Oh, my little fish. You can’t miss it!”

  13

  It’s You

  The side of Shelly Shelby’s shell cart was hanging off and a helpful little axolotl, a sweet-looking little fish with four little legs, was helping her and Rachel Rocker pull the cart back to the shop. Arabella Cod had installed vending machines in Swirlyshell, where, for only 10 clatters, you could rent a rare axolotl for a whole hour to help with heavy lifting or moving house. They were small but surprisingly strong. And they were always smiling.

  A swarm of piranhas surrounded the cart.

  “What?” Shelly Shelby said. “The cart’s always been like this. Nothing to see here!”

  The piranhas seemed unconvinced.

  “We’ve delivered all the shells for the day, and now we’re going back to the shop,” Rachel Rocker explained.

  A piranha turned and snapped a shell clip from Rachel Rocker’s hair, making her scream.

  “Okay! Okay! We get it,” Shelly Shelby said, but with a wobble in her voice. “We’re almost back at the shop.”

  They rounded the corner, and that’s when they collided with her.

  “OH, NOT AGAIN!” Shelly Shelby cried as the side of the cart fell off. The axolotl carried on enthusiastically and disappeared into the distance, completely oblivious to the fact it was now only pulling the cart’s handle.

  Rachel Rocker turned to the mermaid they’d crashed into. She floated silently, a lace veil covering her face, her tail completely covered in shell-like armor. “Oooh, shells!” she finally squealed. “I didn’t plan to stop by your shop, but your shop stopped by me.”

  “Who are you?” Rachel Rocker demanded as she began piecing the cart back together. “You’d better have permission to be out and about. The piranhas patrol Mottleton Alley all day and night, you know. Only we have permission to float freely in this area, because we hand out the shells for every one to make the shell tops.”

  A group of mermaids popped up from the window of the Mottleton Alley Fin-fu Supplies Shop and opened their mouths to sing.

  “NO! WE HEARD PLENTY OF SINGING ABOUT SHELL TOPS DOWN ON PERIWINKLE BOULEVARD, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!” Shelly Shelby roared.

  “Oh, the piranhas won’t be bothering me,” the mermaid in the lace veil said dismissively.

  “But they bother every one!” Shelly said. She floated closer to the mermaid, trying to see past the lace veil. She caught a glimpse of teeth. “Who did you say you were?”

  The mermaid laughed before leaning in close and whispering, “I’m The Swan.”

  She soared up toward the palace. “YOU’LL BE MY NEXT HAT!” she shouted at an unsuspecting stingray.

  Shelly Shelby gasped. “The Swan.”

  “What did you say?” Rachel Rocker said, fixing a new shell clip to her hair.

  “It’s her. I know—I’ve seen—”

  “I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME TO THE PALACE!” came Ommy’s cry from one of the turrets.

  “I’LL DO WHAT I WANT, BECAUSE I AM THE SWAN—AND I’M WELL HIDDEN WITH LACE AND SHELLS!” The Swan shouted back.

  Shelly Shelby wiggled with excitement. “The Swan,” she said with a grin. “Rachel,” she whispered, pulling the little mermaid close. “We need to find Beattie and the twins. We need to get the message to them that we’ve seen The Swan and she wears a lace veil and covers her tail in shells! It might help. I knew I’d save the Lagoon! What have I always said about myself?”

  “That you’re the mermaid who’s dressed the most dolphins?”

  “The other thing,” Shelly Shelby said faintly.

  “Oh,” Rachel Rocker said. “That nothing gets past you.”

  CLAMZINE

  RAY RAMONA

  RAY RAMONA HAS been chosen by Arabella Cod to rule over the crime-ridden streets of Hammerhead Heights. Here’s everything you need to know about him.

  NAME: Ray Ramona.

  RULER OF: Hammerhead Heights.

  STYLE SIGNIFIER: His mustache with fin-shaped ends.

  FAVORITE PLACE IN HAMMERHEAD HEIGHTS: Jawella’s restaurant. The Chomp Chops are his favorite dish.

  TOP TIP WHEN VISITING HAMMERHEAD HEIGHTS: Don’t prod the sharks.

  MOST LIKELY TO SAY: “Bring me the Mega Clatter Platter with extra Chomp Chops!”

  14

  Hammerhead Heights

  The kelp forest thinned out until there were only occasional kelp strands floating here and there. Up ahead it looked like there was nothing, but any mermaid who had ever visited Hammerhead Heights knew you had to look down to see it.

  Beattie nearly crashed the Clamorado 7 into a rock when she saw the place. Deep down in a huge canyon below sat Hammerhead Heights. Tall, robust rock towers stretched up from the depths, and Beattie could make out thousands of mermaids swim ming the streets—all with their trade mark shark tails. Sharks of all different shapes and sizes swarmed and swam around w
ith the mermaids, as if they were one and the same.

  The car glided down, past huge bill boards stamped with RAY RAMONA IS THE BOSS! and pictures of his face. He was a portly mermaid with huge round glasses and slicked-back gray hair. His bushy mustache flicked up into a shark-fin shape on either side, and his cheeks were so rosy Beattie thought he looked a lot like the man humans called Father Christmas, if Father Christmas was the type to get a trendy haircut.

  “I want that mustache,” Steve said.

  “You’re a sea horse,” Zelda said as Beattie stroked Steve’s head.

  “Excuse you! I’m not going to let the fact I can’t grow facial hair get in the way of my mustache!”

  “Can’t believe you still have him,” Zelda said, throwing Beattie a look.

  A group of hammer head sharks passed over head, making Beattie wince.

  “Sharks would never eat a mermaid, whether the mermaid was from Hammerhead Heights or not,” Mimi said, peeking out from behind the shell curtain at the back of the clam car. “They consider legs a delicacy—they’d never eat a fin. They’re the best things in the sea, if you ask me.”

  “WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING!” a mermaid shouted, thumping the car. She had wild gray hair and a shell back pack so large the three of them would have almost certainly fit inside it.

  “Whoa!” Beattie cried as thousands of mermaids, all with different kinds of shark tails, went shooting past.

  “GET OUT OF THE WAY!”

  “WATCH YOUR FINS!”

  “YELLING MAKES ME FEEL BETTER ABOUT MY LIFE!” came the shouts from the crowd.

  The three mermaids floated in the shell car, looking at all the fins wriggling past the windows.

  “It must be exhausting living here,” Zelda said.

  All the way down they spiraled, and Beattie could hear the thundering sound of shark fins and shouts growing louder and louder. The solid stone buildings seemed to groan.

  “Get your Clamzine here! Your Clamzine!” yelled a mermaid with a rickety old trunk full of Clamzines tied around his neck. He was being guarded by a fat piranha with a single snaggletooth.

  Mimi rolled down the window and stuck her head out. “Can you tell us the way to Jawella’s?” she asked the Clamzine seller.

  “Oh, very funny! You out-of-towners crack me up,” he said as the piranha snapped at him, forcing him down the street.

  “How rude,” Beattie scoffed. “What’s so funny about not knowing where Jawella’s is? Are we supposed to know where a little restaurant is in a city we’ve never been to before?”

  Just then a dark shadow fell upon them like a sinister blanket. The three of them poked their heads out of the window and looked up. Steve smooshed himself against the windshield.

  “Well, that explains the Jawella’s thing,” he said as they watched a monstrous shark float past, covered in human-style fairy lights and a sign that flashed JAWELLA’S.

  15

  Inside Jawella’s

  They parked the clam shell car in one of the rooftop shell parking lots, next to a tethered shark wearing a saddle.

  “Don’t forget to bring my bedroom,” Steve said, pointing his snout at the false teeth. “Someone might steal it.”

  Beattie reluctantly picked them up.

  They all climbed out of the car and cautiously swam up to the terrifying mass floating above their heads.

  The lights on the Jawella’s sign flickered as they approached, but the shark barely flinched.

  Beattie hovered awkwardly by the shark’s eye, unsure exactly what she was supposed to do. A mermaid with a thin face and long bangs hanging over her eyes appeared. “Use the mouth!” she shouted out to Beattie, making her somersault back ward. When Beattie regained her balance and peered back through the eye the mermaid was gone.

  “The mouth,” Mimi said casually, whistling her way around to the front of the shark.

  “We’re not going inside the mouth, are we?” Steve asked.

  “There is another way in, but that would be horrible,” Mimi said.

  Beattie gulped and made her way toward the shark’s teeth. “Hello,” she said quietly, peering through the teeth.

  The mermaid with the bangs appeared in the gaps. “Table for how many?”

  Beattie jumped. She looked at Mimi and Zelda. “Three, plus a sea horse?”

  Steve headbutted Beattie out of the way. “Excuse you! I’m practically the same as a mermaid; I just don’t have the fancy tail. Or the height. Table for four, please.”

  The jaws opened to reveal a long row of tables and mermaids with shark tails floating at them, picking at huge platters of food. “Table for three and a sea horse!” the mermaid shouted, ushering them inside. Everyone in the restaurant turned to look at them except for the mermaid at the very back, who was devouring a platter of jellied, seaweed-filled shells and four foam shakes.

  “Ray Ramona,” Beattie whispered.

  The mermaid with the bangs plunked some menus down on the table. Each of the menus had shark teeth sticking out of the sides. Beattie awkwardly picked one up, trying not to scratch herself.

  “Where does the name Jawella come from?” Mimi asked.

  “I’m Ella,” the mermaid with the bangs said. She turned and pointed at the shark’s teeth. “And them’s the jaws.”

  “I think we’ll have . . . the chomp chops with sand purée to share,” Zelda said, smiling and handing the menu back to Ella.

  Ella plucked the rest of the menus off the table and disappeared into the kitchen.

  JAWELLA’S

  STARTERS

  SPITTY’S EEL-SLAPPED SAND ROLLS—12 CLATTERS

  DEEP SEA JELLY BITES—25 CLATTERS

  MAINS

  SPITTY’S FIN SURPRISE—FREE IF YOU DARE

  CHOMP CHOPS WITH SAND PURÉE—30 CLATTERS

  SPECIAL: CLATTER PLATTER FEATURING ALL THE MAIN

  DISHES AND STARTERS IN A BIG PILE—200 CLATTERS

  DESSERTS

  SPITTY’S SLOPPY SORBET—12 CLATTERS

  ASSORTED SOFT SEA CHUNKS—12 CLATTERS

  DRINKS

  SPITTY’S FOAM SHAKE—5 CLATTERS

  STARFISH JUICE—7 CLATTERS

  “Our first secret mission has begun,” Beattie said, quickly glancing over at Ray Ramona.

  Zelda leaned in closer. “We’re crime fighters!”

  Mimi shook her head. “No. Right now we’re just lunch-eaters.”

  “Mimi’s right. How do we get closer to Ray Ramona?” Beattie asked nervously. He was picking up fistfuls of food and shoving them in his mouth, crumbs floating every where.

  “I’ll just go up to him and tell him I like his mustache,” Zelda said, getting up.

  “Oooh,” Steve said. “Yes, ask him where he got it.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Zelda,” Beattie hissed, pulling her back.

  “Wait,” said a mermaid at the table next to them. “Is that you, Zelda Swish?”

  Beattie turned—the mermaid was tall with bright blue eyes and shark teeth woven through his hair.

  “It is! It’s Zelda Swish!” he said, waving. His arm was covered in brace lets carved with sharks and going all the way up to his armpit.

  Zelda looked at him, confused.

  “I’m Riley? I play shockey for the Hammerhead Heavyweights?” He pointed at his mouth. “You knocked out my tooth last year?”

  “Ah!” Zelda said as Beattie watched. “Riley!”

  They embraced enthusiastically, knocking a platter of food over Beattie.

  “This is my friend Beattie,” Zelda said as Beattie flicked the bits of food off her tail. She noticed Riley was wearing a Hammerhead Heavyweights shockey T-shirt with a picture of gigantic shark jaws gnashing down on the HH.

  He flashed Beattie a spark ling smile.

  “Jaaaaaaaws,” Beattie said awkwardly, before she could stop herself.

  “Pardon?” Riley said.

  “I mean, sorry. Hi. Hello. I was . . . distrac ted by, um, your T-shirt. The jaws, I—”
/>   “And this is Mimi, my twin,” Zelda interrupted.

  Beattie turned as purple as her hair, while Mimi bowed.

  Steve coughed.

  “And this is Steve,” Zelda said begrudgingly. “Beattie’s talking sea horse.”

  “I’m a miracle,” Steve said.

  “Cool! What are you doing here?” Riley asked. “And how did you get here, with all the piranhas?”

  “We’re here to speak to Ray Ramona about the disappearance of Arabella Cod,” Mimi said.

  Beattie prodded her. “Very stealth, Mimi . . .”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?” he said, floating out from the table. “He’s my dad. I’ll intro duce you!”

  “Riley is Ray Ramona’s son?” Beattie whispered to Zelda as they floated reluctantly toward the table. “And you didn’t think to mention you knew Ray Ramona’s son before we got here?”

  “I didn’t know!” Zelda said. “I hardly know Riley. I’ve only played shockey with him a couple of times. And knocked his teeth out.”

  Steve shot past them and dived into Ray Ramona’s bushy mustache.

  “I look good in a mustache, don’t I?” Steve shouted. “Oooh, and it’s warm.”

  Riley Ramona introduced them all—except for Steve, who was lost some where inside Ray Ramona’s mustache.

  “They’re here to speak to you about the disappearance of Arabella Cod,” Riley explained.

  “Arabella Cod, you say?” Ray Ramona said, twirling his mustache. “Tell me one thing first. How were you able to get all the way here from Swirlyshell without alerting the piranhas?”

  Beattie and Zelda looked at each other. Mimi enthusiastically devoured a chomp chop, a sand-covered jellied lump that wiggled excessively.

  “We, um—” Beattie began.

  “The piranhas can’t trace us,” Mimi said through a mouthful of food. “Because we were on land doing a summer with legs when Ommy did the thing with the nails.” She held up her hand. “These are fake piranha nails.”

  Zelda slapped Mimi’s fin under the table.