To Catch a Mermaid

by Suzanne Selfors

  Lost in thought, Boom had not noticed Principal Prune wallop looking down at him. “Wasting time, I see,” she hissed. Boom crouched lower as her breath threatened to eat his flesh.

  “I’m not wasting time. My sister’s sick,” he told her.

  “I’ve heard that excuse far too often. You are a time- waster, Mr. Broom, and time-wasters never amount to anything.” Her enormous bottom squeezed through the pet store door and swayed out of sight.

  Next in line was the fishing boat captain who had let Boom take the merbaby from the reject seafood bucket. He placed a couple of cat food cans on the counter. “There be a strange smell a-coming from Prosperity Street,” he said to Ms. Kibble. “A storm be a-brewing. I can feel it in me bones.”

  “Oh?” Ms. Kibble asked, batting her droopy lashes. Her nose was still red and she dabbed at it.

  He handed her a five-dollar bill. “Don’t that be the same street where that twister touched down last year?”

  “Why, yes it be.” Ms. Kibble giggled, then put the cans into a bag. “I mean, yes it is.”

  “Looks like they might be in for another round,” the captain predicted. “The scent of bananas and mud be in the air. That can only mean the wind is a-coming from the tropics. Hot, tropical wind makes the worst twisters.”

  Boom peered out from behind the stack of dog food bags. Another twister? Just as his father feared. Ever since his wife’s disappearance, when he came downstairs for a quick meal, Mr. Broom always looked out the kitchen window and warned that another twister would come and get them all. Just the thought of it made Boom’s stomach queasy.

  “Have a nice day,” the captain said, tipping his captain’s hat as Ms. Kibble giggled again. He almost tripped over Boom on his way out of the shop. “Why, hello there, lad. How’d things work out with that fish?”

  “Fine,” Boom lied. “Fried up real nice.”

  The captain tucked his bag under his arm. “Glad to hear it, but it seems a shame. Never seen a fish like that one. Kind of regretted giving it to you after you left. Caught that fish just off Pelican Beak Island. Don’t usually fish in those waters, but I was drawn there by . . . Oh well, you don’t want to hear an old captain’s tale.”

  “Yes, I do,” Boom said excitedly. Any information about the merbaby could prove useful. “What were you going to say?”

  Ms. Kibble came out from behind the counter as the captain cleared his throat. “Well, I got this urge to fish there. Seemed the right spot for some reason. Put in me net and dragged it a bit. There be a lot of splashing so I pulled me net out. Then came a strange sound. It surrounded me boat and the air got real cold. Storm clouds rolled in so fast that the peaceful morning turned black as tar in a blink of me eye. Me teeth started to chatter as that darned sound came closer. I went into the galley and it followed me. Shut meself in the cabin but it found me. It weren’t no natural sound. It made me feel so . . .”

  “Sad?” Boom asked, holding back a shiver.

  “Aye, sad. And lonely. So very lonely.” The captain’s eyes glazed over.

  “Lonely,” Ms. Kibble repeated.

  The door to the pet store blew open. The gust toppled a tower of plastic pooper-scoopers and sent the lovebirds to squawking. The captain peered outside. “Storm’s a-brewing. I’d better go and make sure me old boat is well tied. Good day to both of you.”

  Ms. Kibble watched the captain get on his bicycle and pedal down the street. She sighed like she’d just eaten a -really creamy chocolate.

  “Ms. Kibble, can people get Ick?” Boom asked. She peered over the rims of her fish-shaped glasses and pulled a twig from Boom’s hair.

  “Dear boy, you really should take a bath.” She was one to talk. She was covered in more cat hair and bird droppings than a cat that slept beneath a bird feeder.

  “I need to know about Ick.”

  “Ick’s a goldfish disease.”

  “I know, but can people get it?”

  “I’ve never heard of a person getting Ick. I suppose it’s possible. We all arose from the same primordial ooze, as you so elegantly put it. If we share feelings, then I guess we can share sickness, too.”

  “If you got Ick, would you use this?” He held up the bottle of Ick Curing Solution.

  She took the bottle and read aloud from the back label. “‘For use on aquarium fish only. Do not inhale — can cause madness. Do not get into eyes — can cause blindness. Do not get onto skin — will burn. Do not drink. Do not add to bath water. Do not use as a food preservative, and certainly do not sprinkle on marmalade.’ Hmmm. This doesn’t sound very safe for people.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Would you use it anyway?”

  “As I do not wish to go mad, or blind . . . No, I would not use it.” She put her hand over her heart. “Oh dear, does your sister’s goldfish have Ick? And all the new little friends? You take that bottle home, right away. It’s perfectly fine for goldfish. I won’t charge you for it.” She pushed him out of the store. “Hurry, hurry. Don’t let the little creatures suffer.”

  How could he explain that it was Mertyle who was suffering? As he took the shortcut home, he knew he’d have to tell Halvor right away. He shoved the bottle of Ick Curing Solution into his pocket, next to the three dollars and the lifetime supply of listermints. As soon as Halvor knew that Mertyle had caught a disease from a Viking enemy, then someone would probably come and take the baby away. A lab would dissect it for sure. The government would hide the body in that secret place in Nevada where they hide the aliens. That would be terrible. Even though he was beginning to believe they might be better off without it, so it wouldn’t make anyone else sick, he certainly didn’t want the thing to get dissected.

  Boom ran down Prosperity Street. He stumbled past Hurley, who, despite the wind, had set up his old summer lemonade stand. He had crossed out the word “lemonade” and replaced it with “Hot Buttered Corn” and “Bananas on a Stick.” He seemed to be doing brisk business, because a line of neighbors wound up the street.

  “Loser,” Hurley called to Boom, waving a wad of money.

  Neighbors stood on the sidewalk outside the Brooms’ house, their lips smeared with butter as they ate corn and stared at the hot pink siding. Some very snoopy people reached their hands through the fence to grab a lavender or vermilion dandelion. More raccoons had arrived for the banana feast.

  “There’s a neighborhood rule against feeding wild animals,” Mr. Mump said, waving another piece of paper at Boom. He finished the last of his banana-on-a-stick, then threw the stick into Boom’s yard.

  Boom ignored Mr. Mump. He took a deep breath, preparing to go inside and tell Halvor everything. If only his father were back to normal. He’d drive Mertyle to the hospital and get her cured. And since Mr. Broom wasn’t a direct Viking descendant, he wouldn’t try to kill the merbaby. He’d probably just want to paint its portrait and it would become the most famous portrait of the twenty-first century. But Boom’s father was as lost as Boom’s mother, so someone else had to get Mertyle to a doctor. Someone big and bearded and fond of chopping fish.

  Just as Boom mustered his courage to tell Halvor, and just as he was about to step over the broken gate, a hand tapped him on the shoulder. “Leave me alone,” he snapped, thinking it was Mr. Mump. “I don’t care about neighborhood rules.”

  “Hello, Boom.”

  Boom turned and found himself staring into the cloudy eyes of Dr. Buncle.

  Chapter Twenty:

  Dr. Buncle

  It didn’t matter that Dr. Buncle was practically one hundred years old, and that he was so bent over it looked as if he were talking to the grass most of the time. It didn’t matter that he was so old he called computers “confounded contraptions,” pants “slacks,” and couches “davenports,” and that he sometimes forgot that Franklin Roosevelt was no longer president of the United States. None of those things mattered because Mertyle needed a doctor right away. Dr. Buncle had seen Mertyle many times over the past year, and there he stood, in front of Boom�
��s house, gumming a banana.

  “Dr. Buncle,” Boom said, taking the old physician’s hand. “Can you come upstairs right away and see my sister? She’s real sick.” Boom bent sideways so he could see the doctor’s face.

  “Oh, that’s just wonderful,” Dr. Buncle said with a large, toothless grin. Wonderful? How can being sick be wonderful? “Your sister is a delight. Such a vibrant imagination. She always gives me a good chuckle. Why, I’ll never forget the time she used bubble gum to make chicken pox pimples.”

  “No, she’s really sick this time,” Boom said, pulling gently on Dr. Buncle’s arm, afraid that it might snap like a twig. He had heard that old people’s bones did that sometimes. “She has fungus.”

  “Then you are in luck, young man. I have fungus expertise, having treated countless itchy feet during World War II.”

  “Can you come and look at her? She needs some -med icine.”

  “All your sister needs is a pat on the head and a lollipop.” Dr. Buncle took a stick of candy from his coat pocket and twirled it. “It is my experience that girls are most fond of tangy tangerine.”

  Boom pulled a bit harder. “Please,” he urged. “She needs your help.” But then a terrible thought occurred to him. “How much do you charge?”

  “I am happy to see your sister at no charge,” the doctor said. “Lead the way, young man.” He began to shuffle his feet up the walkway in superslow motion.

  “Can’t you go any faster?” Boom asked.

  “The trouble with your generation is that you are all in a hurry.” Shuffle, shuffle.

  Boom kicked some rocks out of the doctor’s path. He let go of the old man’s arm and tried pushing him instead.

  “Whoa, Nelly,” the doctor cried, almost losing his -balance.

  “Sorry,” Boom muttered. Shuffle, shuffle.

  The scent of coffee drifted from the Brooms’ house, and that meant that Halvor was at work in the kitchen. Boom did not want to take the doctor through the kitchen door and face Halvor’s questions — not yet. Best to get Mertyle treated first so Halvor wouldn’t have another reason, other than being a direct Viking descendent, to hate the merbaby.

  “Kitchen floor’s just been waxed,” Boom lied as he led the doctor around to the back door. “Don’t want you to slip and break a hip or something.”

  “In my day,” Dr. Buncle began. Like Mr. Jorgenson, Dr. Buncle enjoyed talking about the old days, except his days were at the beginning of time. “In my day we didn’t wax floors. Wax was hard to come by in my day, so we used bacon grease and hair tonic.” Boom pushed Dr. Buncle over a broken garden hose and around a garbage can where a chipmunk was stuffing banana into its cheeks. “In my day we didn’t have bananas in the winter. Everyone got scurvy.” Shuffle, shuffle. Boom considered pushing Dr. Buncle in the wheelbarrow to speed things up, but the tire was flat.

  After an eternity they reached the Brooms’ back door. Boom put his finger to his lips. “Shhh,” he told Dr. Buncle. “Halvor doesn’t like to be disturbed on Sunday morning.”

  Up the stairs they went, which took forever because Dr. Buncle had to stop every two steps to catch his breath. Boom kept his ears tuned to the kitchen, where Halvor hummed and chopped. One step, then another. Rest and breathe. Get a move on, Boom wanted to yell. What was it about getting old that made people so slow? No way was Boom ever going to be that slow. He’d buy one of those motorized chairs and get huge tractor wheels and a really loud horn and blast his way down the street.

  Boom stood one step lower than the doctor and pushed his back against the doctor’s bony bottom, trying to hasten their progress. “Confounded stairs,” the doctor said between great intakes of breath. “In my day, if you had this many stairs, you’d stop in the middle for a picnic.”

  Mertyle emerged from the bathroom just as Boom and the doctor reached the second-floor landing. Fortunately, except for the magnifying glass, her hands were empty. “Where’s the baby?” Boom whispered.

  “In the bathtub.” She shut the bathroom door. “Hello, Dr. Buncle.” Mertyle’s fuzz had come in so thick that the skin on her neck and hands could not be seen at all. “I’m sick,” she told him.

  Dr. Buncle adjusted his spectacles and twisted his neck. He clapped his hands with glee. “Oh, wonderful, wonderful. What an imagination.”

  Mertyle offered the magnifying glass. “Look, it’s real. I’m really sick. I have Ick.”

  “Ick?” The doctor peered through the glass.

  Boom tried to convince himself that everything was going to be okay. He had found a doctor for Mertyle and the doctor would give Mertyle some medicine. The baby was happy in the tub, and after church, Winger was coming over to start making plans to sell the special Meet the Merbaby tickets. The money would flow in and good things would start happening.

  “Boom?” Halvor called from downstairs.

  “Don’t tell Halvor,” Mertyle whispered over the doctor’s head. “Boom, do whatever you have to do, just don’t tell him about the merbaby. If he finds out that the baby made me sick, he’ll send her away. I don’t want anyone to take her away. Please.”

  Boom wasn’t about to let anyone send the baby away. If there was one thing he was certain of, that was it — that, and the fact that Dr. Buncle had really bad gas.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he assured his little sister.

  Boom hurried to the kitchen, surprised to find Mr. Broom sitting in one of the painted chairs. “The wind is getting into the attic,” Mr. Broom mumbled, wrapping his palms around a steaming mug of Halvor’s thick coffee. “I don’t like the wind.” The father who had often hiked around Fairweather Island looking for windswept places to paint, and who had taken his children bike riding down breezy country lanes, had been replaced by a stranger all jittery with nerves. How different he was. How much older he seemed to Boom, as if time had picked on him like a bully.

  “Hi, Dad,” Boom said, wanting to tell him everything.

  “Hi, Boom.” Mr. Broom reached out and patted Boom’s shoulder. “Stay inside, where it’s safe.”

  Boom wanted to ask him stuff like, How are you? and When will you stop being afraid? and What would you do if you met a merbaby? but his father’s gaze darted around the room, uncertain and distant.

  “Boom!” Halvor got right in his face, shaking a spatula. “What happened to the bathroom? Why would you turn the bathtub into an aquarium? Why would you plant a banana tree in the floor? Do you know how much it costs to repair a roof?”

  Even though Boom had been the one to pour salt into the bathtub, everything else had been the result of Mertyle’s stupid wish. Yet no one would ever suspect Mertyle. No one ever blamed Mertyle for anything. But Boom couldn’t be mad at Mertyle, not at that moment. Not when she was really sick.

  Halvor drummed fingers on his bulging belly. “Did we agree that you could get a new pet? No, we did not. That cat is bad enough, stealing my big fish, but now there’s a seagull walking on the counter. What do you have to say for yourself, Boom?”

  No excuses came. Think, think. Should he begin with the banana tree or the crab that was scuttling behind Halvor at that very moment? Boom’s brain felt like a big black hole, like you could see through one ear and out the other. “Sorry?” was all he managed to say. He took a deep breath, steadying himself for more ranting and bellowing. After all, a banana tree through the roof was not like stealing a pack of gum from the drugstore, or kicking an apple into a window. It was bigger and it was messier.

  But Halvor almost knocked Boom off his feet with a powerful wink. He got real close and whispered so Mr. Broom couldn’t hear. “Brilliant, Boom. You’ve made your father come out of the attic. He certainly can’t stay up there with a hole in the roof.” Another wink.

  It was true. For the first time, Boom was grateful to the merbaby for granting one of Mertyle’s wishes. If his father couldn’t hide in the attic, maybe, just maybe, he’d start to get better.

  “And good idea about giving Mertyle a party,” Halvor added.
“It’ll do her some good, for sure.”

  Boom glanced at the kitchen clock. The stupid party was only twenty minutes away and Dr. Buncle was still upstairs. “We have to cancel the party,” Boom said, ready to race across the street and tell Daisy Mump to forget about it.

  Halvor’s expression turned grim. “Erik the Red will rise from his grave and curse you if you do,” he warned. “Mertyle left me a note and it says that she’s busy getting ready for the party, so I’m making appetizers. We can’t really afford the extra food, but you’ve got Winger for a friend and Mertyle’s got no one. She needs this party, for sure.”

  How could Boom explain that the odds of fuzz-covered Mertyle making friends at this party were about the same as the odds of Erik the Red rising from his grave?

  “The wind is picking up,” Mr. Broom nervously reported while staring out the kitchen window. “We should all hide under the beds.”

  “Oh, just a bit of wind,” Halvor said. “Nothing to worry about.” The branches swayed more than usual and the nosy neighbors standing outside pulled up their coat collars and held on to their hats. A bad feeling tugged at the back of Boom’s mind. The captain had warned about an incoming storm.

  Halvor poured more coffee into Mr. Broom’s mug. “Yah, you just sit right there and relax while I make appetizers. A party will do us all some good.” He opened the refrigerator. “Do you think the little girls will prefer fish kebobs or deep fried fish skin?”

  Halvor didn’t ask any more questions — like, How’d you get a banana tree into the house or Where’d you get all that white sand? Like Boom, all he could think about was Mertyle. Except, while Halvor was focused on making Mertyle happy, Boom was focused on saving her life.