Karen's Mermaid

by Ann M. Martin

Fun in the Sun

  Mallory and Jessi led us down the street, back toward town. Andrew and I looked at the Pikes. Even though Margo was Miss Boss, the bossy bragger, I was glad to have so many kids to play with in Sea City. Andrew can be fun, but he is little, and sometimes he is boring. I decided I could put up with Miss Boss for two weeks. How bad could she be?

  We walked down our street and turned left onto a wider street. It was lined with beach houses. Most of them had no lawns, just yards filled with white gravel. Some of the walks were decorated with big seashells. Lots of the houses had decks on top. They looked nice, but I thought, why would you sit on a deck when the beach was so close by, and you could sit on the sand and look at the ocean?

  After awhile, the houses became little shops. We had reached the edge of town.

  “Welcome to Sea City,” said Margo grandly.

  I almost said, “We have already driven through Sea City,” but I did not want to start a fight. Not right away. And not in front of Jessi and Mallory.

  Andrew was looking at Margo. “Thank you,” he said politely.

  Margo smiled at him. “What do you know about Sea City, Andrew?” she asked.

  “Not very much,” he admitted. “I asked Karen, but she could not tell me anything.”

  I scowled at my brother. Tattletale.

  “Well, I know everything,” said Margo.

  “Margo,” Mallory interrupted her sister. “You do not know everything.”

  “I know almost everything. Now, Andrew, here is one of the most important things about Sea City. Candy Heaven.”

  “Oh, goody! I was hoping someone would take me here,” said Andrew.

  We stepped inside. I really did feel as if we were in candy heaven. I had never seen so much penny candy. There was even more than in the candy store in Stoneybrook. (I bought two jaw breakers, one for Andrew and one for me.)

  Next we came to a restaurant called Burger Garden.

  “This is the coolest place,” Margo said. Then she leaned over to me. “Ask Claire what this place is called,” she whispered.

  “Hey, Claire. What is this place called?” I said.

  “Gurber Garden,” Claire replied, and everyone laughed.

  “Margo? What is a putt-putt course?” Andrew wanted to know. He was reading a sign a block or two away.

  “Don’t you know?” she replied.

  “No, he does not, Miss — ” I started to say. “I mean, no he doesn’t.”

  “It is miniature golf,” Jessi spoke up.

  “Goody!” squeaked Andrew.

  “Sea City has Trampoline Land, too,” said the bossy bragger.

  “Mallory? Can we get ice cream?” asked Nicky.

  “Sure,” she replied. “Let’s go to Ice-Cream Palace.”

  Miss Boss led the way, of course.

  When we left Ice-Cream Palace, we were each holding a cone. (Andrew’s was dripping down his hand.) I had chosen a flavor called Fruit Rainbow — even though Margo had said, “That is not the newest flavor, you know.”

  We walked along with our cones, dripping and slurping and crunching.

  “Look at that!” I was pointing to a poster on the front of a store. “Fun in the Sun Festival,” I read aloud.

  “A festival,” said Andrew. “Tell me about it, Margo.”

  “I — I don’t — it must be new,” stammered Margo.

  At last. Something Miss Boss did not know about.

  “I will tell you about it,” I told Andrew. I turned back to the poster. “The first annual festival,” I read aloud. “Food, contests, entertainment, shopping.”

  “Cool,” said Mallory. “I hope we can go.”

  Boy, so did I.

  Sand Castles

  The next day was Sunday. When I woke up that morning, the first thing I thought about was Margo. Then I thought about the festival. Then I smiled. Margo had not known anything about the festival, since it was new. She had not known it was going to be held on Friday, the day before we would leave Sea City. She had not known that it would last a whole day. She had not known anything about the contests or the food or the entertainment.

  But that had not stopped her from being a bossy bragger all the way home. I wondered if she would be Miss Boss for the next two weeks. Probably. Oh, well. I was not going to worry about that. I would not let her spoil my vacation.

  Sunday was a busy day. Andrew and I ran outside the moment Mommy said we could go. “Stay by the porch!” she called. “Do not go near the water!”

  “Okay!” I called back.

  As soon as Mommy and Seth had put on their bathing suits, they let us dash across the sand to the waves. Mallory and Jessi and the Pike kids were already on the beach. They had brought along toys and floats and books and flippers and decks of cards. We were ready to play.

  “Let’s make sand castles!” called Margo when she saw me.

  “No, let’s go in the water,” I said. So we did. We jumped over little waves. We looked for fish. We swam and splashed and shouted.

  After awhile, we began to shiver, so we found our towels and dried off. Then we hunted for shells. (Mostly we found clam shells.) Then the Pike kids wanted to hold races on the beach. At first we just ran regular races. Then we made up new races. Byron invented a towel race. Vanessa invented the slow race — the last person across the finish line was the winner. Guess what. It is hard to move so slowly.

  After the slow race (which Nicky won), Margo said, “Okay, Karen, now can we make sand castles?”

  “Sure,” I replied.

  “Great. We will have a sand castle-building contest.”

  “We will?”

  “Whoever builds the best castle wins.”

  “Who will decide which is the best castle?” I wanted to know.

  “I will,” replied Margo. And that was that.

  We set to work on our castles. Margo built a plain old castle. She patted wet sand into the shape of a cone. Then she carved a moat around it.

  Big deal.

  I made a special dribble castle. I used dribbly wet sand from down by the water to decorate it. When it was finished, my castle looked like a birthday cake with icing dripping down the sides. It was a wonderful fancy castle. I even built a drawbridge over the moat.

  Guess what Margo did. She looked at her castle. She looked at my castle. Then she said, “I win!”

  I stuck my tongue out at her. I decided not to play with her anymore.

  Down the beach I saw Mallory, Adam, Byron, Nicky, Claire, and Andrew playing with some toys I had not seen before. I ran to them. “What are those?” I called.

  “Skimboards,” replied Byron. He was holding a round, flat board. He tossed it onto the shallowest water he could find, then ran after it, jumped on it, and skimmed across the water. Behind him, Nicky did the same thing.

  “Cool!” I cried. “Can I try?”

  “Sure,” said Byron. He offered me his board.

  “Here, Andrew,” said Nicky. “You can try, too.” (Andrew shook his head.)

  I did what I had seen Byron do — and I fell off the board. I fell four times in all. But soon I was skimming away the rest of the long, sunny day.

  I did not play with Margo again.

  Karen’s Mermaid

  On Monday morning, Seth woke up Andrew and me with a surprise. He poked his head first into Andrew’s room and then mine, and he said, “Who wants to play miniature golf today?”

  “At Fred’s Putt-Putt Course?” asked Andrew. “I do!”

  “Me too!” I cried.

  We spent the morning at Fred’s. Andrew and I were not very good players. Andrew even knocked his ball into someone else’s game. He got a hole in one, but it did not count, since it had flown through the air and landed in the wrong hole. We had fun anyway, though.

  I did not see Margo Pike until after lunch. She was on the beach with her brothers and sisters. They were playing with the skimboards again. Except for Margo. She was lining up her shell collection.

  “Hi, Karen! H
i, Andrew!” called Jessi Ramsey. “Want to try the skimboards again?”

  I did. Andrew did not. He watched me, though.

  After a few rides on the board I ran to Margo. “Did you see me? Did you see how good I was?” I asked. (I was still mad about the sand castle contest. I did not want the bossy bragger to think she was the best at everything.)

  “Yup,” replied Margo. “You are pretty good. You still fall sometimes, though. I never fall anymore.”

  “Well, I almost won at miniature golf this morning. And, hey! Look at this shell I found. It is the prettiest of all our shells.”

  Margo looked over her shell collection. “I have the biggest one,” she announced.

  “I have the one with the most colors.”

  “I found a starfish today.”

  She did? All I had found was a dead blowfish. “Well, Andrew found — ” I paused. I looked around for my brother. He was gone, and so was Seth, which was too bad. Andrew had found a piece of driftwood that looked exactly like an owl. “Well, I mean I found … I mean, I saw a — a mermaid. In the ocean.”

  “Oh, you did not.”

  “I did too! I saw her this morning. She was swimming out past the waves…. She was,” I insisted, when I saw Margo’s face. “She had long, long hair and a bright green scaly fish tail. And she waved to me.”

  I told Margo such a good story I almost believed it myself.

  Neptuna’s Visit

  Tappety-tappety-tap.

  I stirred in my bed. Then I lay still and listened.

  Tappety-tappety-tap.

  I heard the sound again. I groaned. It could be only one thing. Rain. Rain at my window. “Bullfrogs,” I muttered.

  It was early Tuesday morning. I was lying in my bed in my room at our beach house. I could not believe it was raining. I wanted to play outside in the sand and the ocean. I did not want to be stuck inside.

  Please, please, please, stop raining soon, I thought.

  I listened for the tappety-tappety-tap. I did not hear it. Had it already stopped raining? I leaped out of bed. I pulled up the window shade.

  Surprise! The sun was shining brightly, and the sky was clear and blue. It had not been raining at all. I wondered what the tapping noise had been. And that was when I saw it — something outside on the windowsill. I opened the window and pulled the something in.

  It was a clam shell. I was sure it had not been there the night before. A folded piece of paper was stuck in it.

  I opened the paper, and I found … a letter:

  I stared at the note. I had never felt so surprised. A mermaid named Neptuna was writing to me? And she wanted me to be her friend? That was so exciting.

  And yet … hadn’t I made up the story about seeing a mermaid? Hadn’t I made it up for Margo?

  I thought for a moment. Maybe not. Maybe I thought up the story about the mermaid because I really had seen one, just a little glimpse of one out of the corner of my eye.

  Boy, I could hardly wait to tell — I paused. Hmm. Who could I tell about Neptuna? Certainly not Mommy or Seth. They were grown-ups. I wondered whether I could tell Hannie and Nancy. They were not grown-ups. On the other hand, Neptuna had asked me to keep her a secret. If I told anyone about her, then I would not be keeping the secret.

  I decided I better keep Neptuna a secret from everyone. I would not tell grown-ups or Hannie or Nancy or Andrew or Margo or Mallory or Jessi about her. This was not going to be easy. My big mouth has a little trouble keeping secrets. But Neptuna was worth it.

  My very own mermaid.

  Neptuna Visits Again

  All that day I kept my secret. I did not tell one single person about Neptuna. Also, I did not see her. When I played on the beach, I kept looking out at the ocean. I hoped I would see her head bobbing around, or see her tail flip out of the water. But all I saw were seagulls and fishing boats and a couple of buoys.

  “What are you looking for?” Margo asked me once.

  “Oh, um, sharks,” I replied.

  I reminded myself that Neptuna had said mermaids are hard to see.

  Four times that day I left the beach and ran to our house. I checked my windowsill for more notes from Neptuna. By dinnertime, none had shown up. After dinner, we went to Ice-Cream Palace for a treat. When we returned, I ran straight to my room and looked out the window.

  I found another note! This is what it said:

  A fork. That was easy. Mommy had packed a bag of plastic forks, spoons, and knives for our trip. A plastic fork would probably be okay for clam-eating. I tiptoed into the kitchen and found a clean fork. Then I hurried back to the bedroom with it. I left it out on the sill.

  I left a note for Neptuna too:

  * * *

  When I woke up the next morning the first thing I did was pull up the window shade. I checked the sill. The fork and the note were gone. I hoped Neptuna was happily eating clams out in the ocean.

  On Wednesday, I kept the secret again. And I looked and I looked for Neptuna. But I did not see her.

  “Now what are you looking for?” Margo asked me.

  “Um, pirates,” I replied.

  I checked my window again that day, but I did not find any notes. I did not really expect to. If Neptuna came out of the water during the day, everyone on the beach would see her. That night I found a note, though. I found it right after Mommy and Seth and Andrew and I came home from the movies. (We saw a fun old movie called Pollyanna.)

  Yes! Another note! This time Neptuna needed a barrette for her hair. She said her hair was always getting tangled up in seaweed. And it was floating in front of her eyes. I looked on my dresser. I had an extra barrette. So I set it on the windowsill for my mermaid.

  In the morning it was gone.

  Karen’s Note

  “Karen, Karen! Look, I can turn a one-handed cartwheel!”

  Margo ran across the sand to me. I was just leaving our house. It was Thursday, and I was ready for another day at the beach.

  “A one-handed cartwheel?” I repeated. Hmm. That was pretty good. I could turn a very nice cartwheel — but I needed both hands to do it.

  “Sure,” replied Margo. “It’s cinchy. Watch.” Margo put one hand on her hip. She left it there while she turned a perfect cartwheel. “Ta-dah!” she said when she was finished.

  “That was … great,” I told her.

  “You know what else, Karen?” Margo grabbed me by the hand. “Come down to the water. I will show you a trick on the skimboard.”

  I did not want to see a trick on the skimboard. But I walked to the water with Margo anyway. Most of the Pikes were already there. They were taking turns on the skimboards. As usual, Andrew was watching them. He had not tried the skimboards once.

  Margo showed me how she could leap onto a board and skim along one-legged. “Isn’t that cool?” she bragged.

  I wanted to brag to Margo about something. I really wanted to. And I could think of only one thing to brag about. Neptuna. I tried to remember Neptuna’s first note. She had said not to tell any grown-ups about her. That was all. (Wasn’t it?)

  I was bursting with my secret.

  “Margo,” I said suddenly. “I have something amazing to tell you. You are not going to believe this, but it is true. You know that mermaid I saw the other day?”

  A funny look crossed Margo’s face. “Yeah?” she said.

  I moved Margo away from the rest of the Pikes. Then I whispered in her ear, “Well, her name is Neptuna, and we are friends now.”

  “You are friends with a mermaid?”

  “Yes! Honest.” I told Margo about Neptuna’s notes, and how she needed a fork for the clams and a barrette for her hair. “In the night she comes and gets the things I leave for her,” I added.

  “Oh, of course.”

  “She does! She really does. Do you want to see Neptuna’s notes? I saved them all. You can see them for yourself.”

  Margo and I ran to the beach house and I led her to my room. I had hidden Neptuna’s notes in a secret po
cket in my suitcase. I pulled them out and showed them to her. “There,” I said.

  The funny look was on Margo’s face again. I could tell she was jealous of Neptuna. She wished she had a mermaid of her own.

  “Let’s go back outside,” said Margo.

  So we did. The Pike kids were still skim-boarding. Andrew was gone, though, and so was Seth. Margo and I decided to bury Mommy in the sand. She was very patient about it. After we had finished, and after we had let Mommy out, I remembered something.

  “Margo,” I said, “you have to keep Neptuna a secret from grown-ups, okay? If a grown-up saw Neptuna, he would try to catch her. That would be awful. So do not tell.” Margo just giggled. “Honest. This is important,” I added.

  I had to be sure Margo would not tell. I decided that maybe if she saw Neptuna for herself, she would know just how important the secret was. So that night I left another note for Neptuna. I told her I really, really needed to be able to see her. Just for a moment. I asked her how I could do that.

  “Come to the Light!”

  I left my note for Neptuna on the windowsill on Thursday night. On Friday morning when I woke up, I found a note from her. (I wondered why I never heard Neptuna at my window. I decided mermaids must be very quiet creatures.)

  Neptuna’s note was long. This is what she told me to do: Stand on the rocky jetty in the ocean, wave my arms in circles, and shout out a mermaid-calling chant.

  I practiced the chant in my bedroom until I had memorized it. Then I tried waving my arms while I sang, “Mermaid, my mermaid, green and bright, appear from the water. Come to the light!”

  I could hardly wait to see Margo that morning. When I did, I ran to her, crying, “Guess what! Guess what!”

  Margo looked up from her shell collection. “What?” she said.

  “I have mermaid-calling instructions.”

  Byron was standing next to Margo, and he said, “You mean, like dial 1-800-M-E-R-M-A-I-D?”

  “No, silly,” I replied. I turned back to Margo. “Did you tell your brothers and sisters about Neptuna?” I asked her.