Real Mermaids Don't Need High Heels

by Helene Boudreau

  “Key in the lock!” Serena exclaimed.

  “Key in the lock,” I agreed.

  Our underwater hockey season was off to a splashy start.

  Thursday, September 17, arrived like a double final-exam day. Not only was Tidal Law supposed to take effect tonight, but it was also Election Day, and the school cafeteria had been turned into a polling station during lunch hour. Our homeroom teacher had given me permission to help Serena fill out a ballot, since she’d never voted before.

  “Just put an X in the box of the person you want to vote for in the different categories.” I pointed to the different sections of the ballot to explain how it worked to Serena.

  Serena marked her choices for school president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary after having heard their speeches at that morning’s general assembly. For the ninth-grade class rep, though, she hovered her pen over the choices.

  Lainey Chamberlain

  Serena Finora

  Raymond Fresco

  After a few moments, she checked the box next to Lainey’s name.

  “You’re voting for Lainey?” I asked, not believing what I’d just seen. “Haven’t you noticed she’s done nothing but be rude to us?”

  “But she hard worked on her signs,” Serena said.

  I laughed. No wonder so many people liked Serena. There was no way I’d be able to vote for Lainey after how mean she’d been. I still couldn’t get over the fact that Lainey hadn’t let Cori know about the mentorship, and since Cori hadn’t mentioned whether Mrs. Chamberlain had gotten in touch yet, I was having trouble letting that go.

  “Okay…if you’re sure,” I checked off my choices, including Serena’s name.

  “Serena!” Devon walked over to us with a bunch of other eleventh-grade girls and put an arm around Serena. She addressed her friends. “This is the girl I was talking to you guys about. She helped us finally tie a game against IMDH on Tuesday. You should see her swim!”

  “Awesome.”

  “Cool.”

  A group of ninth graders looked up from their table and turned our way. As luck would have it, one of them was Lainey Chamberlain.

  “Pftt,” Lainey said under her breath and rolled her eyes. “Don’t get used to it. She’s not going to be here for long.”

  Devon nodded Lainey’s way. “What does that girl mean? You’re not moving, are you?” she asked Serena. “You just got here.”

  “No, no—nothing like that.” I shot a glance at Lainey, then turned to Devon. “We’re just having a little trouble getting Serena’s old school records so she can officially transfer here.”

  “Well, I hope it all works out,” Devon said before she headed to the cafeteria line with her friends. “Because I have a feeling we’re going to have a great season. See you at practice!”

  “Just a little mix-up,” I said to the table of ninth graders. “She’s still running for School Council rep, so make sure you vote!”

  A few of the girls whispered among themselves. They looked from Lainey to Serena, then went to the voting station to pick up their ballots.

  “Mix-up, right.” Lainey narrowed her eyes and stood up from the table. Then she stalked off in the direction of the library.

  This wasn’t good. Not good at all.

  • • •

  Serena took forever to brush through her super-long hair and get dressed after our underwater hockey practice after school. Everyone had pretty much cleared out of the dressing room, yet there I sat, waiting for the aquatic goddess to finish packing all her things in her swim bag. She kept rooting through the bag, arranging and rearranging things.

  My cell phone buzzed. It was a text from Dad.

  @geeksrule: gran and ‘tanti natasha’ are on their way. tonite is the nite! faraday to the rescue!

  “Will you hurry up?” I asked. It was the night of the supermoon and we were going to put Dad’s foil-lined Faraday room to the test. “Gran and Mom are on their way, and Coach Laurena is waiting for us in her office.”

  If Dad’s plan worked, we’d avoid being forced back to the ocean to help the Mermish Council squash the political uprising. If it didn’t, me, Luke, Serena, Mom, Bridget, and Coach Laurena could be sleeping in a very soggy bed.

  “Flip-floops!” Serena cried, searching in her bag.

  Oh, her beloved flip-flops. She’d collected six pair so far and had been wearing them morning, noon, and night since we had the conversation about her going barefoot in school.

  “Didn’t you have them when you came in?” I searched all the small cubby lockers to see if she’d stashed them in a different spot.

  Serena looked at me hopelessly.

  “Maybe they’re back on the pool deck,” I suggested. Honestly, it was like getting a five-year-old ready for kindergarten. “Come on, I’ll help you look.”

  Just then Coach Laurena called out from the rec-center hallway.

  “You ladies almost done in there? I need to lock up the dressing rooms.”

  “Yeah, almost,” I called back. “Serena forgot her flip-flops, so I’m helping her look for them.”

  “I’m just going to get the equipment bag in my trunk for next week’s game,” Coach Laurena replied. “Come to the office to find me once you’re done, okay?”

  “Got it,” I said.

  It was eerily quiet as we stepped onto the pool deck. I kicked off my street shoes by the door. The soles of my feet made a flapping noise that reverberated through the empty space.

  “You look over by the diving board, and I’ll check by the lane markers.” Charlotte and Marcelle were supposed to have been in charge of replacing the lane markers after our practice, but they were still lying along the deck at the side of the pool. Sure enough, Serena’s flip-flops were hidden underneath.

  “Got ’em!” I called out. “Help me get these things back in place, then we can meet Coach Laurena.”

  The door to the girls’ dressing room squeaked open and someone walked onto the pool deck.

  “We’ll be right there,” I called out as I pulled a blue and white lane marker out and over the surface of the water to get the pool ready for lane swimming.

  I heard the “toc, toc, toc” of high heels behind me and my stomach cramped. Lainey Chamberlain. What the heck could she possibly want?

  “Lane swimming isn’t for another hour,” I said, turning toward her.

  Lainey kept walking toward us, her face set in a determined scowl. “I’m not here for the lane swimming.”

  “You don’t say?” I tried to stay cool. Serena and I hooked the lane marker in place and crossed the deck to get the next one. Lainey’s heel slipped a little, but she kept her balance. “Oh! Be careful there—you’re not really supposed to wear shoes on the pool deck.”

  But Lainey just kept toc-tocking toward us.

  “You’re the one who should be careful,” Lainey said smugly. “Especially considering the circumstances.”

  Today of all days was not the time to get into it with Lainey Chamberlain. If the Mermish Council got its way, Serena (and the rest of us) would be out of the picture for good anyway. Not that I was planning on that happening.

  “I have no idea what you mean, Lainey.” I glanced at Serena and then at my watch. It was already past five o’clock. The days were getting shorter, and we needed to get to Gran’s cottage before the sun went down because once the supermoon was in full force and Tidal Law took effect, we’d be like sitting ducks.

  “Well, I’ve been doing some digging around,” Lainey said. “And you’ll never guess what I came up with.”

  She knows something, Serena rang to me. Her English comprehension was getting quite good. Even she could tell that Lainey was getting ready to go for the kill.

  Maybe she’s bluffing, I rang back. But Lainey knew something—I just wasn’t sure what it was yet.

  “If you’ve got something to say, Lainey, just spit it out,” I replied.

  “Well, as you know, Serena can’t become a student here unless she gets
all her school records.”

  “Wow, that’s some really excellent investigative reporting, Lainey.” I tugged at the end of another lane marker to get the rope untangled. “Especially since that’s the same thing you overheard while I was talking to Ms. Wilma.”

  “Oh, there’s more,” Lainey said as she continued to pace along the pool deck.

  Serena looked from Lainey to me, trying to follow the conversation as best she could.

  Am I in trouble? she asked in her mer voice.

  Just play it cool, I rang back.

  “There is no possible way of getting her school records,” Lainey said, “because the school you claim Serena used to go to doesn’t exist.”

  My insides cramped into a tight ball of agony. Had Lainey actually snooped around to find all this out?

  “Furthermore,” Lainey continued, “I had Daddy’s attorney look into it, and apparently there’s no record of a Serena or Natasha Finora traveling into this country for the past six months. So, how exactly did they get here? Seems to me that’s a question for the immigration officials.” Lainey came to a stop by the remaining lane markers and adjusted her shoulder bag over her shoulder. Her knuckles grew white as she grasped its handles.

  “There must be a mistake.” I struggled to keep my voice from wavering. “My grandmother is getting all the paperwork straightened out. This will all be taken care of next week.”

  “We all know that’s not true!” Lainey stalked toward me, waving a finger in the air. But before she could make it two steps, her high heel slipped on the wet deck and got caught in the loose rope at the end of the lane marker. She tumbled forward, whacking her head on the side of the pool. Lainey hit the water with a sickening plash and sank to the bottom of the pool in a tangled mess.

  What Bridget had said about how ancient mer laws controlled us was true because just then a powerful force took over me. Before I knew it, I dove into the pool after Lainey. Serena did the same, and we both zipped to the bottom. The rope was wrapped around Lainey’s neck and arms and had gotten snagged on the hockey goal under water. I tried to set it free from around her neck, but it held tight.

  Help me! I rang to Serena, but she was too busy trying to get the rope untangled from the goal.

  Lainey’s hair swirled around her limp body. I worked the knots, trying to get the rope to loosen so I could free her. We had to save her!

  Without thinking, I took a huge gulp of water. The chlorine seared my throat as it burned through to my lungs. It may not have been the Atlantic Ocean, but the water in the pool was enough to set off a familiar big, red panic button inside me.

  Before I knew it, a blast of water exploded from my legs, leaving in their place a slippery, icky, very inconvenient tail.

  No! I rang, trying to figure out how I was going to explain all this to Lainey Chamberlain once we got her back above water. If we got her back above water. Thankfully, keeping humans from drowning worked much better as an actual mer and I swam back to Lainey’s side, untangled the rope, and pulled her to safety in a matter of seconds.

  “Serena!” I yelled as soon as I surfaced. But Serena was nowhere in sight.

  I yanked Lainey over the side of the pool and rolled her onto the pool deck to check her breathing.

  She wasn’t breathing! I forced a gulp of air down my lungs and tried to remember the steps for artificial respiration from my baby-sitter’s course the summer before. I braced my elbows against the pool deck and tilted Lainey’s chin back to give her a few breaths before she started coughing.

  “Thank god!” I gasped as Lainey turned to her side and hacked out a mouthful of water.

  “What…” Lainey held her head where she’d struck it and blinked, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

  I was just about to hop out of the water to help her sit up when I remembered—I had a tail! A tail that was starting to burn because it was about to start turning back into legs the more I breathed fresh air. Maybe if I just stayed in the water, Lainey wouldn’t notice?

  “Omigod! What the heck is that? Omigod!”

  Too late.

  Lainey shrieked and pointed into the water. She stood slowly and wavered for a second, trying to get her balance. But she wasn’t pointing at me—she was pointing at the other mer-girl. Serena. In all her tailish glory.

  “Lainey, I can explain—” I started, but the pain shooting up my tail stopped me mid-sentence.

  “And you?” Lainey’s eyes grew wide. “You, too?”

  The door from Coach Laurena’s office flew open. She ran out onto the pool deck with Mom and Gran at her heels.

  “Jade!” Mom called.

  “Mom!” I called back without thinking.

  Lainey stared in astonishment at Mom, then me. She backed away from the side of the pool, her hands up to her face as if not trusting what would come out of her mouth. Then she grabbed her bag, turned, and ran to the dressing room, limping along on a lone shoe as she went.

  “Lainey, wait!” I cried.

  But it was too late. Lainey was gone.

  Thankfully, Mom, Gran, and Coach Laurena were there to help Serena and me. We could have been ambushed by news crews reporting live within the hour if anyone else had discovered two teenage mermaids swimming around in our small-town community pool.

  I could just imagine the National Enquirer headlines!

  Actually, I was totally surprised no one had come looking for us since Lainey Chamberlain had run out of there like a girl on a mission. And, let’s be honest, Lainey was always on the lookout for ways to be the center of attention. Making a mer discovery would have definitely boosted her popularity rating on a global scale.

  But, nope. Nothing.

  “Are you guys okay?” Coach Laurena asked as she returned from her office with a spare pair of gym pants after locking all the doors. Gran and Mom fussed around me as I tried to calm my breathing.

  “Yeah, Jadie girl,” Gran said, rummaging through her handbag. “Can I get you a tissue or a cough drop or something?”

  “I’ll be fine, but we need to get Serena out of here.” I filled everyone in on what had just happened while I hurried to get dressed.

  Hold on, Serena, Mom rang. I’m calling Jade’s dad to get the Merlin 3000 here as soon as possible.

  Serena gazed back up through the water, a desperate look on her face.

  “He’s heading home to get the trailer right now,” Mom said once she hung up.

  I texted Trey, Cori, and Luke to be on the lookout for Lainey while Gran kept Serena company until Dad arrived.

  Finally, there was a knock on the emergency exit door to the back parking lot.

  Gran stood guard as Dad, Mom, Laurena, and I quickly loaded Serena into the Merlin 3000. Then we all piled into Dad’s and Gran’s vehicles to make the trek to Dundee. Since it was Thursday, Serena decided to return to Talisman Lake a day early for her weekend visitation with her parents, which was just as well, considering Tidal Law was about to close in on us.

  That whole pool drama had put us way behind schedule, and by the time the Martins and Cori got to Gran’s cottage and we had everyone settled in Dad’s Faraday room, it was 7:00 p.m. and getting dark. The bonging noise that I’d been hearing every night for the past week increased with every passing minute. That, combined with what had just happened at the pool, was seriously messing with my head.

  “Are you sure you didn’t see where Lainey went?” I asked Cori for the millionth time as she sat at a small table in Gran’s den with Trey, playing cards with his parents. I flicked through the channels on the small TV perched on the bookshelf in the corner, hoping I wouldn’t see a headline with my name on it. “What if she tells somebody what she saw? She could be juggling offers from a dozen different TV networks right now.”

  “Like I said,” Cori said patiently, even though I could tell she was still annoyed with me for talking to Mrs. Chamberlain behind her back, “I was waiting for Trey by the front doors when she blew right by me with one shoe, talk
ing to someone on her cell. I saw her get into one of those black sedans from her dad’s company, probably getting picked up by his driver, but that’s all I know.” She looked at her cards and set them down on the table with a self-satisfied smile. “Rummy.”

  Just then, Gran called out from the kitchen next to the den.

  “Dinner’s almost done,” she said as she pulled the third foil pan of supermarket lasagna from her old-fashioned gas oven.

  “Smells delicious, Gran,” Mom said as she brought plates into the den. She bumped into the table and I caught her arm to keep her from falling.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  Mom blinked. Her eyes were really red and swollen behind her glasses. “Yes, yeah. I’m sorry. I should have brought my eye drops. Everything’s just a little blurry.”

  “Is everybody here?” Gran asked as she set the lasagna on the coffee table. “I wonder if I got enough food.”

  “It’s plenty, Mom.” Dad kissed Gran on top of her silver-curled head. “Thanks for going to all the trouble.”

  “No trouble at all, Dally.” She squeezed his cheeks and returned to the kitchen as the phone rang.

  “Is everyone here?” I wondered aloud.

  Four mers: me, Luke, Coach Laurena, and Mom.

  Six two-leggers: Cori, Trey, Mr. and Mrs. Martin, Dad, and Gran.

  That made ten people crammed into the den like sardines in a tin can. Getting Serena back into the lake had probably been a good idea because space was tight and the room felt like the inside of a toaster oven. Still, we were missing a mer.

  “Where’s Bridget?” I asked, looking around the room.

  Coach Laurena pulled out her phone to check her texts. “Eddie and Daniel are out looking for her right now.”

  “What do you mean, looking for her? Is she missing?” A kernel of worry grew in my belly. Tonight was not the night for a mer to be roaming the streets (or beaches) of Port Toulouse. As soon as the supermoon was in full force, any mer was a moving target.

  “Bridget never showed up at the diner this morning,” Coach Laurena said. “Daniel knew she’d been camping out at the beach a few nights a week, looking for Reese, so he just figured she’d slept in. By noon, though, she still hadn’t showed up. Daniel got worried, so he closed up the diner and has been looking for her ever since.”