Real Mermaids Don't Need High Heels

by Helene Boudreau

  “At least the Jet Skis and boats of Talisman Lake are safe for another week,” I muttered.

  “Oh. And the humans!” Cori wrapped her hoodie around her shoulders to keep out the evening chill. She and Trey got up and walked to the end of Gran’s dock to put their feet in the water.

  “But we’re no further ahead on that other mer problem,” I said to Luke as we sat alone at the campfire.

  “There have been a few developments,” Luke said.

  “What kind of developments?” I asked.

  “I saw Grandpa at Bridget’s this afternoon. He said he had to let a boat through on Wednesday so all those mer prisoners waiting in the canal are now in the lake,” Luke replied. “He felt really bad.”

  “I agree it’s sad, but is it really Eddie’s problem? Or ours?” I knew that sounded horrible of me, but I was getting tired of the underwater mer world messing up my above-water life. “We’re humans now, not mers.”

  “That might be a totally different story by Thursday,” Luke said quietly as he kept strumming his guitar. It was true. The only difference between us and them was the upcoming supermoon.

  “So what about Uncle Alzear? Or Reese?” I asked. “Can’t they help somehow?”

  “Unfortunately, Grandpa says Alzear was one of the prisoners,” Luke replied.

  “Oh.” It felt different now that I actually knew one of the new Freshies.

  “And speaking of Reese,” Luke nodded to one of the peanut-butter-cup wrappers, “Bridget says she hasn’t seen him since earlier this week.”

  Right. Reese—another friend who was at the mercy of the Mermish Council. Now I felt like an even bigger jerk.

  “So now we have no way of knowing what’s going on?” I asked. “We’re worse off than before.”

  “Bridget thinks Reese might not be able to get away during the day or something,” Luke said. “She’s going to camp out at the beach this weekend to see if she can catch him.”

  “I still can’t believe Bridget is Reese’s mom.” I folded Serena’s clothes and stuffed them in my backpack. “I just don’t get how she could have left him behind in the ocean like that.”

  “It’s not like she had much of a choice to take him with her. It’s the Mermish Council that decides who get to be Webbed Ones. They control everything.” Luke stopped strumming his guitar. “And if Bridget would have stayed in the ocean, Reese wouldn’t even have a mom.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Reese told me once that Bridget was born with a tail defect called scaliosis,” Luke said as he put his guitar back in its case. “It got worse and worse as Bridget got older until she couldn’t swim at all by the time he was born.”

  “And not being able to swim is like a death sentence to a mer,” I said, feeling really bad for judging her in the first place. “Which is why the Mermish Council let her be a Webbed One.”

  At the rate I was going, I definitely wasn’t going to win an empathy award at my school’s next Character Counts! assembly.

  “And which is why it’s probably a good idea that Bridget never becomes a mermaid again,” Luke added quietly as he poked the campfire’s embers with a stick.

  “Wow. I feel like a jerk. I really didn’t mean—”

  “I know you didn’t.” Luke smiled and took my hand. “This whole mer stuff is messed up.”

  “You’re not kidding.” I thought back to Reese and how he carried Bridget’s ID card in his satchel. Sure, it sounded like they kept in contact at Port Toulouse Beach, but stealing a few minutes together with Reese in the water and Bridget on shore was nothing like having my mom finally home with me, sleeping under the same roof. Now Reese might get his mother back if Tidal Law was put into effect, but for how long?

  “Hallo!” Dad called out. He and Mom had arrived to pick me up. They walked down the hill from Gran’s cottage and joined us on the beach. Dad spotted Luke holding my hand. He did this choking, squawking noise and his eyes bugged out like he was having an allergic reaction.

  “Don’t take it personally,” I whispered to Luke. “My dad thinks I should only start dating after I’m married.”

  “Got it.” Luke laughed and waved. “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Baxter.”

  “Hello, Luke.” Dad spoke slowly and kept staring at Luke, then me, then our entwined hands.

  Luke squirmed. “Um, I think I’ll go get a bucketful of water to put out this fire.” He excused himself and headed to the edge of the shore.

  “Oh, Dalrymple.” Mom gave Dad a whack on the arm.

  “What?” Dad asked, looking innocent. “All I said was ‘hello.’”

  “And practically vaporized him with your death stare,” I said.

  “Well, anyway,” Mom turned to me, “I hope you kids had fun. Did Serena get away all right?”

  “Yep,” I replied. “She dove in a little while ago, so she’s back in the watery pool of despair with her charming mother and father.”

  Mom laughed. “Believe me, Serena could do a lot worse for parents than Finalin and Medora.”

  I stared at Mom, not believing what she was saying. “How can you say that after everything those guys did to you?”

  “I’m just saying that as far as parents go…” Mom began but then waved her hand as if to swat the words away. “Oh forget it—don’t mind me.”

  “So, anyway,” Dad gave me a quick peck on the cheek and stole a leftover marshmallow from the bag. “Sorry we’re late, but I had to make a few pit stops along the way.”

  Dad popped the marshmallow in his mouth with a mischievous smile.

  “Why do I get the feeling one of those stops was to Home Depot?” I joked.

  “You know me so well,” he replied, wiping his marshmallow-y hand on his shirt. “Actually, I’m glad you guys are all still here. I could use some help unloading the truck.”

  • • •

  I was beyond itchy by the time we’d unloaded all the sheets of foil-lined pink insulation into Gran’s small den off the kitchen. Mr. Martin had picked up Luke, Trey, and Cori by then, so I was left on my own to help Dad with whatever half-baked plan he had in mind.

  “What’s this stuff made of, anyway? Itty-bitty machete-wielding demons?” I shook my arms, trying to free myself of the prickly fibers along my skin.

  “Just some foil-lined R4 fiberglass insulation,” Dad said.

  “Oh, that’s good, Dally,” Gran said, “because this room can get a bit drafty when the wind is coming off the lake. Could you fix the seal on the windows, too?”

  “Sorry, Mom,” Dad said to Gran. “This isn’t to insulate your den, but I’ll get to those windows before the winter, okay?”

  “I’m holding you to that.” Gran slapped his shoulder a few times on her way back to the kitchen. “There’s a Hungry Man turkey dinner in it for you if you get it done by Thanksgiving.”

  “So what is this stuff for then?” I asked, surveying the piles of pink insulation.

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with Tidal Law, does it?” Mom asked, coming into the room with the toolbox from the truck. “I thought we agreed there was no scientific solution this time.”

  “There is always a scientific solution,” Dad said as he flicked open the latch of his toolbox and waved a screwdriver in the air. “Did Archimedes’s wife doubt him when he solved the mystery of water displacement while taking a bath? Did Newton’s wife debate his theory of gravity when he got bonked by an apple?”

  “But Mom isn’t exactly your wife, now is she?” The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them, but my conversation with Coach Laurena had obviously been weighing on my mind.

  Mom and Dad stopped what they were doing. They glanced quickly at each other, then back to me.

  “No,” Dad began. “She isn’t, but—”

  “Let me.” Mom put a hand up to stop him, then took my hand and led me to the couch to sit down. “I guess you figured that out, huh?”

  “Took me long enough,” I joked.

  “Ar
e you okay?” Mom asked. “Because being married or not has nothing to do with how we feel about you. You get that, don’t you?”

  “I’m okay, but does it bother you guys? Not being married?”

  Dad cleared his throat. “I would marry your mom a million times if I could.”

  “Aw.” Mom stood and kissed Dad on the cheek. “And I would say ‘I do’ a million times in return.”

  “Oh, gag!” I cried. I guess Mom and Dad were annoying enough as it was, married or not. But, still…

  “But since I don’t exist on paper,” Mom continued, “you’re just going to have to keep on pretending to listen to your wife.”

  “Well, you’ll be happy to know, I did take your advice and decided the wind tunnel at my work would be too obvious and might raise a few questions,” Dad replied.

  “So you decided to build us a padded room at Gran’s house instead?” I asked, looking at the three-inch-thick rectangular slabs of insulation stacked on the floor. “We’re mers, not crazy people. Though, I’m wondering about your mental health right now.”

  “Well,” Dad pulled out his measuring tape and sized up the far wall, “some say there’s a fine line between genius and insanity, but in this case I think I’ve come up with a very inspired solution to our supermoon problem.”

  “Which is—to keep us toasty warm in Gran’s den?” I joked.

  “Well, it’s the aluminum foil layer I need. The insulation part is just to give the foil a bit of structure,” Dad said. “It’s the best I could come up with at Home Depot. Here, help me with this.”

  Dad lined up several slabs of insulation on the floor, foil up, so their edges matched. Then he taped them together with metallic duct tape.

  “What we’re going to do is line this whole room with a foil layer and create a magnetic-free zone for all of you to hide in so that you can escape the magnetic properties of the moon. It’s based on the scientific principles of the Faraday cage.”

  “The Faraday cage?” I asked. “Isn’t that the experiment where the cat’s in a box and nobody knows if it’s alive or dead? Because I don’t think that worked out so well for the cat.”

  “No, that’s Schrödinger’s box. A Faraday cage is an enclosure that blocks out external electromagnetic fields.” Dad pulled the couch to the middle of the room and propped up his patched-together sheets of insulation against the wall. “They’re used to protect sensitive computer equipment from lightning strikes and power surges. Hand me another one of those.”

  I picked up another slab of insulation for Dad while Mom watched with a concerned look on her face.

  “I’m really not sure this is going to work, Dal,” Mom said.

  “My theory is that if a Faraday cage can deflect something as powerful as a lightning bolt, it might just do the trick against a supermoon,” Dad said cheerily.

  “I just don’t want you to get your hopes up.” Mom put a hand on Dad’s shoulder as he worked.

  “Well, apart from three new rolls of duct tape, the only thing I have left is hope,” Dad whispered. He pulled off another strip of foil duct tape and fastened two more slabs together without looking our way.

  We spent most of the weekend remodeling Gran’s den into a foil-lined looney bin.

  Despite the use of Gran’s rubber dishwashing gloves, my forearms were raw from the fiberglass insulation, and by Monday morning I looked like I had scratched them to bits with a metal rake.

  “What’s that smell?” Cori asked as we walked to school with Serena after popping into Mug Glug’s for our Monday morning hot chocolates.

  “Some aloe vera cream Bridget gave me,” I muttered, trying not to scratch. I’d gone to check on Bridget at the diner the day before. I felt bad about judging her for “abandoning” Reese. We had a good chat, but unfortunately, she hadn’t seen Reese over the weekend. “She uses it for her legs and thought it might help, but all I want to do is rip my arms off.”

  “I noticed she was limping last week,” Cori said.

  “Bridget is okay?” Serena asked.

  “Not really. She thinks it might be her scaliosis acting up from when she was a mer. Everybody seems off these days,” I replied, taking another sip of hot chocolate. “My mom’s eyesight is getting really bad, Luke keeps knocking back packets of salt, and Coach Laurena’s asthma is really acting up.”

  “How are you guys feeling?” Cori asked Serena and me as we walked along Main Street.

  “Goodly!” Serena replied. Actually, she seemed to have an extra flick in her flip-flops that morning.

  “And other than being sleep deprived, I feel completely normal,” I added. Every night, the moonlight was getting brighter and brighter through my bedroom window, plus a weird bonging noise from somewhere in the neighborhood was keeping me awake, so I was beginning to feel like a zombie.

  “Hopefully everyone will return to normal once we get through the supermoon on Thursday,” Cori said.

  “If we get through the supermoon,” I said. “We actually caught my mom sleepwalking around the yard last night.”

  Once we got Mom back inside, she said the bonging reminded her of the sound mers used in their nurseries to train the mer-babies to sleep and eat. Dad couldn’t hear the noise, but he said something about Pavlov’s dog, which brought us back to the subject of Schrödinger’s cat, then a tense conversation about the Faraday cage, so we all dropped it.

  “Dundee that way, right?” Serena pointed northward as we crossed the bridge at the canal.

  “Yes,” I replied. “You can get there by boat or by car like we did last night coming back from Gran’s, remember?”

  “Yes.” Serena nodded and smiled. She’d obviously been paying attention when Gran showed her where everything was on the map at the school office. She snuck in one last peek at the lake before we stepped off the bridge and headed along Main Street toward the school a mile or so away.

  “So…” I snuck a peek at Cori between sips. I had been dying to ask her if Mrs. Chamberlain called to tell her about her mentorship, but Cori hadn’t said a word. “Anything new?”

  “Not really,” Cori replied.

  “Anybody call?” I asked.

  “No, why?” She narrowed her eyes at me.

  I just couldn’t help myself; I had to know.

  “I was just wondering if you heard anything about your mentorship.”

  Cori looked at me skeptically, then a flash of anger crossed her face. “You were at the mall last week. Did you say something to Mrs. Chamberlain?”

  Busted. “Maybe?”

  “Ugh. Jade! Why would you do that?” Cori shook her head and walked quickly ahead of me.

  “Cori, wait!” I called after her.

  “Whether or not Mrs. Chamberlain wants to mentor me should be her decision.” Cori stopped and turned to face me while Serena looked on, confused. “You can’t just swoop in and save everyone, Jade. It doesn’t work like that in the real world.”

  “That’s not what I was trying to do—” How could I explain to Cori that I did it because I felt responsible for screwing things up in the first place? It was my fault for dragging Cori in on the plan to stop Chamberlain Construction from landfilling the tidal pool where my mom was transforming into a human. It was my fault Lainey had it in for Cori. Everything was my fault.

  “Well, whatever. Mrs. Chamberlain hasn’t called,” Cori said sternly, walking onward.

  “It’s still early. The mentorships don’t start until November,” I said, following her and hoping she wouldn’t stay mad for too long.

  “I’m starting to think I’m not cut out to be a fashion designer anyway,” Cori said quietly.

  “Don’t say that. Your designs are amazing,” I replied. “Better than anything I could ever come up with.”

  Cori shook her head in irritation.

  “And what about you, huh?” she asked. “Have you made any plans?”

  “No.” It was true. I hadn’t given any thought at all to what I’d wanted to do for my school men
torship. The past few months had been so focused on Mom and all the mermaidy stuff happening. But what about me? What was it that I truly wanted? I wasn’t sure.

  “Well, how about if you worry about your mentorship and I’ll worry about mine.”

  “I’m sorry—” I began.

  “No, I’m sorry. Whatever. Just forget it.”

  But I could tell Cori was still peeved.

  Should I not have butted in? Was Cori right? Did I think I could just sweep in and fix everything when I didn’t even have my act together?

  The three of us walked in silence until we reached the bank and I could hear Luke’s skateboard as he swerved down Queen Street. He appeared at the corner of Queen and Main and flipped his board into one hand, adjusting the canvas guitar case slung across his chest with the other. We held onto our hot chocolates and jogged up to meet him.

  “Hey, guys. Hi, you.” He reached for my free hand and gave me a kiss on the cheek, making my heart race. Though my thumping heart might have been from running twenty feet down the sidewalk, something I usually avoided at all costs.

  “Where’s Trey?” Cori asked, looking over Luke’s shoulder. Luke and Trey usually hitched a ride with their mom to her work at the flower shop on Queen Street and then skateboarded the rest of the way together.

  “He went with my dad to take his driving test,” Luke said as he fell into step with us on the way to school. “Again.”

  “Just imagine,” Cori joked. “By midday there could be one more student driver terrorizing the streets of Port Toulouse.”

  “Yeah,” Luke agreed. “So lock up your pets and look twice before crossing the street!”

  “Thankfully, we’ll only have one Martin boy to worry about,” I teased. “I can’t imagine what it will be like when both of you have your licenses.”

  “What do you mean?” Luke gave me a wry smile and dropped his skateboard to the sidewalk, squeezing my hand before pushing away with three strong strides. “I think I would make an excellent driver—” But a crack in the pavement made him stumble forward and he almost wiped out.