The sad song crawled down the stairs like a creature from a nightmare and enveloped the angry neighbors. They stopped yelling as the song twisted itself around their limbs and slithered into their clothing. Mr. Mump shivered. Mrs. Filburt’s eyes filled with tears. Mr. Piles’s face went as slack as an empty balloon and he turned as white as vanilla ice cream. The merbaby hit a particularly low note, like a foghorn, that vibrated every bone in Boom’s body.
The only thing to do when attacked by pure, undiluted sadness is to get as far away from it as possible. That’s why the neighbors turned and ran down the walkway. As soon as they reached Prosperity Street, the singing stopped. When it came to chasing people away, that song worked better than a vicious Doberman.
I wish they’d just go away.
Another wish granted. Another Mertyle wish.
Winger pushed past Mr. Piles and charged up the walkway. “Boom? What happened to your house?” he asked, his words muffled by a mouth full of banana. “You can see the pink glow all the way to my house.” Once inside, Boom shut the door and got real close to Winger, like he always did when something really important needed to be said.
“It’s still granting Mertyle’s weird wishes,” he informed his best friend.
“That stinks.” Winger sat down at the table and offered the rest of his banana to Boom, but Boom wasn’t hungry anymore. “If it’s not going to grant your wishes, then you should go ahead and sell it to a collector. I asked my dad —”
“You what? You told your dad?” Winger’s dad knew everyone on Fairweather Island because he ran the island’s only bank. Word about the merbaby would spread like measles.
“I didn’t tell my dad.” Winger looked hurt, as though Boom had punched him in the stomach. “I wouldn’t do that. I just asked him what was the best way to sell something that’s worth a lot of money.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“He said that by using the Internet a seller could set up an auction and people all over the world would bid.”
Boom had been to an auction once, when one of Mr. Broom’s paintings — a seascape with a two-masted sailing ship — had been for sale. Boom remembered the frenzy as people raised their hands and waved little signs when the auctioneer asked for bids. His dad had made twice as much money as he had expected, and they had all gone out to the Fairweather Bistro to celebrate. There had been fancy drinks with paper umbrellas and an ice cream dessert that the waiter actually lit on fire.
“Maybe I shouldn’t sell it. What if it keeps granting wishes?” Boom asked. “Maybe it will start granting some good wishes.”
“Maybe, but its not granting your wishes, is it?”
No, it wasn’t, the ungrateful little monster. It wasn’t even being nice to Boom. Spitting in his chowder. Growling at and biting him. Was there a new pair of Galactic Kickers on Boom’s feet? No, not even an old pair. Was he asking for the world on a silver platter? No, just a pair of shoes. Boom had saved the merbaby’s life, for goodness’ sake!
“What’s that?” Boom pointed to a piece of paper jutting out of Winger’s pocket.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” he said, unfolding the paper. “I went to the print shop, just like Mertyle asked. I gave them that scale and they enlarged it. Look, there really is a drawing on the scale, and here it is.”
It was a drawing all right, but Boom had no idea what it was a drawing of. A line ran across the page with a shape above that looked like a witch’s hat and a shape below that looked like an upside-down witch’s hat. But the hat on top was white surrounded by black and the one on the bottom was black surrounded by white. A string of strange shapes lined the bottom edge — like hieroglyphics. The only thing he recognized was a little shape at the top of the drawing. “It’s a half-moon.”
Winger nodded. “It’s weird, isn’t it? Where’s Mertyle? I’ve got to show her.”
“She’s upstairs.” Boom held the paper closer. Mertyle had been right. She had actually seen something through the magnifying glass that wasn’t her crazy imagination. But what was something like that doing on a merbaby’s scale?
The bedroom was dark except for the glow of the television. One of Mertyle’s game shows was playing, the one where if you kept answering correctly you would win a million dollars. Mertyle was smart enough to go on one of those shows, but she never would because she’d have to go beyond the dirt circle.
Mertyle lay in her bed, hidden beneath her comforter. How could a person spend so much time in bed? Didn’t she know that people who stayed in bed got bedsores? That would be something she wouldn’t have to fake. The baby, on the other hand, sat perched at the end of the bed, her tail dripping green droplets onto the carpet. She stared at the television screen, her violet eyes widened to Ping-Pong-ball size. The light cast an eerie glow and the blue-green scales sparkled like phosphorescence. The baby held the remote control and clicked steadily through the channels. The cable company had cut off cable service when Halvor couldn’t pay the bill, so the only channels that came in were the three that floated by the Brooms’ rooftop antennae.
Boom and Winger made a wide arc, steering clear of the baby’s spit trajectory. She watched them from the corner of a wet eye as they moved cautiously. Boom leaned over the bed. “Mertyle?” he called. “Mertyle?” He slowly peeled back the corner of the comforter, but Mertyle pulled it out of his grip.
“Go away. I don’t feel good.”
“But, Mertyle,” Winger said. “I went to the print shop. It’s some kind of drawing, just like you said.”
Mertyle threw back the comforter, scrambled out of bed, and grabbed the paper from Winger’s hand. She examined the drawing, not noticing that both Boom’s and Winger’s mouths had opened so wide that they were likely to catch flies. White fuzzies had sprouted all over Mertyle. They peeked out the ends of her sleeves and covered her neck. They poked out through her long brown hair like unplucked weeds.
“Wow,” Winger said.
“Wow is right. This is an amazing drawing,” Mertyle declared. “Look at the detail. Such graceful lines —”
“Uh, Mertyle,” Boom interrupted.
“The black part of the drawing isn’t solid. It’s actually composed of teeny, tiny dots. Did you notice that?” She traced her finger over the drawing.
“Uh, Mertyle.”
“And these symbols on the bottom look like some kind of writing. I bet it’s the merbaby’s language!”
“Uh, Mertyle.”
“What?” Mertyle asked, scratching her neck. “What’s the matter with you two?”
“Nothing’s the matter with us,” Boom said, pushing his sister toward the pink bedroom mirror.
When Mertyle caught her reflection, she began to shriek.
Chapter Eighteen:
Ick
Mertyle tried to pull out the fuzzies, but they couldn’t be pulled out. Boom tried too, grabbing a tuft from under Mertyle’s ear, but he only managed to make Mertyle shriek louder. She cried and cried, running around the room like a lunatic as she grabbed at her fuzz-covered skin. The baby flicked her tail a few times, then turned up the volume on the remote control. Apparently a talk show about weight loss was more interesting than Mertyle’s plight. Boom was beginning to really dislike the creature.
“Mertyle? Is this one of your wishes?” Boom asked.
“Huh?”
“Did you wish to actually be sick?”
She pulled at some wrist fuzz. “Do you think I’m crazy? Why in the world would I wish to actually be sick?” She grabbed the magnifying glass and examined her arm. “It’s growing right out of my skin! It’s so itchy.”
“You look like my goldfish,” Winger said. Winger didn’t usually say things that made no sense. Boom assumed that, in light of the shocking situation, Winger was simply having a brain fart.
“That’s so mean,” Mertyle cried, her face turning red. “That’s just a horrible thing to say.” But Boom strongly disagreed. Telling Mertyle she looked like a goldfish, though it made little sense,
was actually a compliment at the moment. What she really looked like was a giant dandelion seed ball.
“I didn’t — didn’t mean it like that,” Winger stammered as Mertyle started to cry again. “I said you look like my goldfish because my goldfish has Ick. It’s a goldfish disease. He’s all covered with white fuzz too, just like you. It’s some kind of fungus.”
“Fungus?” Mertyle’s eyes widened and she pulled at her hair again. “I’m covered in fungus?” She had faked fungus before, but it had infected only her nostrils. This was the real thing, Boom realized with that sinking feeling that comes when the truth punches you in the gut. Mertyle was sick — disgustingly sick. “How could I have gotten Ick?”
The baby started to smash the remote control against the bed frame.
“You caught it from that,” Boom said, pointing at the mer baby. “It’s some kind of mermaid disease.” That totally made sense. Mertyle had been the one carrying the baby around. The creature had slept in her bed. No one else had fuzz.
“There’s medicine for Ick,” Winger said. “I gave some to my goldfish, but I used it all up.”
Mertyle grabbed Winger’s shoulders, panic breaking her voice. “You’ve got to get me some of that medicine. I can’t let people see me like this.” What people? Mertyle never left the house. It wasn’t like she had guests dropping in unexpectedly. It wasn’t like she gave parties or anything.
“Uh, Mertyle, there’s something I forgot to tell you,” Boom said. “Daisy Mump has invited you to give a party here, tomorrow, for her weirdo doll club.”
“What?” Mertyle now looked like a crazed dandelion seed ball. “Here? Tomorrow? Sunday?”
“She thinks you’ve got some kind of mermaid doll and she wants it.”
Mertyle gasped. “She thinks I’ve got the Molly Mermaid Faraway Girl Doll?”
“Yeah. That sounds right.”
Mertyle scratched her scalp. The baby began to chew on one of Mertyle’s stuffed animals. “She really invited me? She invited me to join her club?” Mertyle acted as though it were some kind of an honor to be invited to Daisy Mump’s party. It sounded more like torture to Boom. “Everyone at school used to talk about Daisy’s parties. She’d have party-planning meetings by the water fountain and then she’d pass out her invitations at recess. But I never got one.” Mertyle paused to scratch her wrist.
“So? Neither did a lot of other girls,” Winger pointed out.
“But the girls in Daisy’s gang would always talk about how much fun the parties were and they’d never say why. They’d say it was a secret. One time, they all had matching flower leis, and another time they had matching purses. But they’d never tell the rest of us what happened at the parties.”
“Why would you care?” Boom asked. “You don’t even like those girls.”
“I guess I’m just curious. It’s like a secret club and I just want to know what goes on.”
Now that was something Boom could understand. Just like when Halvor talked about the Sons of the Vikings but wouldn’t reveal the secret handshake or the secret ceremonies. Boom would love to go into that big hall, just once, and see what the fuss was all about.
“I thought I’d never get invited. What will I wear?” Mertyle started rummaging through her closet. “I don’t have any party dresses.”
“I like that dress you wore at Christmas,” Winger said, turning as red as cherry cough syrup.
“Oh, good idea.” She rummaged around until she found the dress. “Maybe Daisy and her friends will like me, and then they’ll stop yelling ‘Mertyle, Mertyle, hides like a turtle’ whenever they walk down the street.”
But she was forgetting something. “Earth to Mertyle,” Boom said. “You can’t have a party here.”
“Why not?”
Boom pointed to the obvious reason why not. It was spitting out shredded bits of stuffed panda.
“Don’t tell me what I can’t do,” Mertyle snapped. “I’ve never been invited to a Faraway Girl party before. Never!” She started rummaging again.
Winger shrugged his shoulders. “Faraway Girl Doll parties are very trendy,” he told Boom.
“But what about the fungus?” Boom asked, trying again to reason with his most unreasonable sister.
“I’ll hide it.”
“Why not ask the baby to get rid of the fungus,” Winger suggested.
Of course! Winger was brilliant. “Go on, give it a try,” Boom said, pushing Mertyle toward the baby. He sat down beside Winger to watch as Mertyle gently pried the mutilated panda from the merbaby’s hand. Then Mertyle turned off the television and knelt down beside the bed. As the television’s light faded, the room grew dark.
“Baby,” Mertyle whispered. Both Boom and Winger leaned forward. “Baby, I wish I didn’t have this fungus. I wish it would go away.”
The merbaby yawned and leapt back into the cradle. Mertyle ran and flicked on the light and stood in front of the mirror. She was still covered in white fuzz. She hurried over to the cradle. “Baby,” she said again. “Please make the Ick go away.” The merbaby rolled over on her side and closed her eyes. Mertyle held out fuzz-covered hands and began to whimper.
“Come on, Baby,” Boom said angrily. “She needs your help.”
“Maybe it takes time,” Winger suggested hopefully. “Maybe the fuzz will be gone by morning.” He looked out the window. “I’d better get home or I’ll be late for dinner.”
In the hallway, Winger hesitated on the top step. A sand crab made its way across the railing. “Boom,” Winger said. “If the Ick is still there in the morning, you have to get to that pet store right when it opens. You have to get the medicine first thing.”
“Okay, but the doll party isn’t until one o’clock. I’ve got some time.”
“No, you don’t understand.” Winger got real close. “Ms. Kibble told me that if I didn’t give my goldfish his medicine, he would die. Ick is fatal!”
Chapter Nineteen:
The Captain’s Story
Boom didn’t sleep at all that night, but it wasn’t nightmares about Principal Prunewallop, killer twisters, or lousy neighbors that tormented him. It was the knowledge that his little sister was sick — for real. An uncomfortable feeling way down low ached, until he thought he might throw up — the same feeling that had come right after the twister. Just when things looked promising, the universe conspired again to torment the Brooms. The discovery of the twenty-first century was supposed to bring his family fortune, not fungus.
But blaming the baby would change nothing. It was really all his own fault, he decided, for kicking that apple into Mr. Jorgenson’s window and starting the chain of events that had led him to the reject seafood bucket. Why couldn’t he have grabbed a crab, or a reject flounder, rather than a contagious merbaby?
Halvor came home after dark on Saturday night, so he didn’t notice the banana tree. He ate some fish stew, then went straight to his room in the garage. Now it was Sunday morning, the only morning when Halvor slept in, so Boom had a bit more time before he had to explain things. He dressed quickly, careful not to wake Mertyle and the baby. He checked his coat to make sure he still had the three dollars, hoping that Ick medicine was cheap.
The neighbors had taken advantage of the abundance of bananas, so the scent of freshly baked banana bread greeted Boom as he stepped onto Prosperity Street. His mouth watered at the thought of a thick, warm slice for breakfast, but no one came outside to offer him one as he hurried by. The fruit had attracted an assortment of seabirds that didn’t normally hang out in the Brooms’ front yard. A family of raccoons and a group of rats were gorging themselves as well. The banana tree’s monkey was sitting on the Mumps’ mailbox, playing with the little red flag.
The wind was strong and pushed against Boom so that he had to pump his legs extra hard to keep up his pace. Cold air stung his lungs as he took quick breaths. The wind tickled his left foot through the hole in his shoe. He didn’t bother stopping at the Winginghams’. He knew that Winger would
be at church, suffering through a long, boring service in a starched button-up shirt and a tie. Then he’d sing off-key in the choir’s back row. Boom used to go to church with Mrs. Broom. She always stuffed her purse with hard candies, to help Boom get through all the blah, blah, blahs that never made much sense. Why was everyone so worried about the next life when there was so much to worry about in this one?
Ms. Kibble’s pet store was supposed to be open on weekends because Ms. Kibble took Mondays and Tuesdays off. Boom was relieved to see that the CLOSED TODAY DUE TO A HEAD COLD sign had been removed. Two customers stood at the counter. Principal Prunewallop, the first in line, held a bag of crickets. Boom darted behind a tall stack of dog food bags to avoid having to talk to the woman he had recently moved up to the number one position on his enemy list. He was considering adding the merbaby to the list as well. After all, something that spits and growls at you should definitely be on an enemy list. Something that gives your sister a fungal disease should be on the list, for sure.
Boom found the Ick Curing Solution on a shelf next to worm-ridding pellets. He crouched, waiting while Principal Prunewallop complained about the price of crickets. “Up two cents from last year,” she snarled. “Nine cents per cricket is a ridiculous price. I shall report you to the Better Business Bureau.”
“It’s the same price as everywhere else,” Ms. Kibble gently explained.
Principal Prunewallop held up the bag of crickets. “You can’t expect me to pay for that one.” She pointed at the bag. “That cricket isn’t jumping as high as the others. And I demand that you charge only half price for this other one because it’s a runt. I should have you arrested for trying to overcharge me.”
What was it about power that turned some people evil? Principal Prunewallop was picking on poor, shy Ms. Kibble, just as she had picked on Boom on Friday. She could have had Boom make up his tardy time any other day of the week, rather than forfeit the tournament. But she wielded her power like a pillaging Viking wields an axe. Leave no survivors! When Boom sold the merbaby to a superrich collector and became rich himself, he wouldn’t wield his power for evil. He’d open his own school — the Boom Broom Non-Evil Elementary School — the kind of place where no one’s lunch was better than anyone else’s and if you had holes in your shoes you could just pick up a new pair in the New Shoe Room. And if you wanted to play in a tournament, so you could become a champion like you deserved, NO ONE STOPPED YOU!
To Catch a Mermaid Page 9