Real Mermaids 2 - Don't Hold Their Breath

by Helene Boudreau

  Chelse glanced out our awning-covered window to check for customers, then sat back on her stool in front of the till.

  “So, I guess you heard about the Facebook thing?”

  I nodded and gave an embarrassed smile.

  “I’m sure that can’t be fun for you. I’m sorry.” I suddenly felt really bad for watching the video in the first place. How embarrassing would it be to have something like that splashed all over the Internet?

  And there I was, watching the video just like the other 374 dopes who’d thought it would be funny to make stupid jokes in the comments. Did those people even know Chelse? Did they even care? And what did that make me if I couldn’t resist the temptation to have a look too?

  “Yeah, well. First of all, my boyfriend promised me he’d deleted that video like I’d asked.” Chelse squinted, as if remembering something, and shook her head. “But after we broke up, he thought he’d have fun with it and post it all over Facebook. A couple hundred mouse clicks later, here we are.” She stuffed her phone into her purse and folded her hands in her lap.

  “Your ex-boyfriend did this to you?” I stared at her in surprise. “What an idiot.”

  “Wow.” Chelse laughed. “Thanks. You’re the first person to actually talk to me about it.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  “The video was kind of funny, though,” Chelse said quietly. A smile crept over her lips.

  “And I see Buster is just as hyper as ever,” I joked, thinking back to all the fun we used to have when I visited my Gran’s cottage across the water from the Beckers’. “Remember when we tried to teach him how to water-ski that time?”

  Chelse laughed. “And he kept licking the water, then he puked all over your Gran’s dock.”

  “Yeah and then my mom stepped in it before we could clean it up?”

  Chelse was giggling like crazy by then.

  “Sorry!” She held a hand to her mouth. “I shouldn’t be laughing.”

  “Why not?” I smiled. “It was pretty hilarious.”

  Chelse wiped the laughter tears from her eyes. “Your mom was so much fun. It’s been weird not seeing her this summer.”

  “Yeah, she was,” I agreed, remembering our summers in Dundee. “Anyway, about the video? Forget about it and that loser ex-boyfriend of yours. I can’t believe anyone would want to hurt you like that.”

  Chelse looked down at her hands like she was missing something now that her cell was stowed away in the bag under her stool.

  “Thanks, Jade. The problem is…I’m not the only one who could get hurt by this,” she said quietly.

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly, but just then Bridget came by to fill in for my break.

  “Made you some fries. Extra salty.” She motioned to the counter where a huge plate of waffle fries sat waiting.

  “Bridget, did I ever tell you I love you more than puppies and rainbows? Because I do.” I hugged her and went around the counter, parking myself on the swivel stool in front of my plate of fries. My mouth watered in anticipation for the salty, starchy goodness, but I restrained myself and called Dad to get an update.

  “Hey, Dad. How’s it going?” I asked when he picked up the phone.

  “Jade! I’m so glad you called. I made a few inquiries about the construction site and found out a few interesting things.”

  “Like what?” I looked around to make sure no one was listening.

  “Apparently, Chamberlain Construction has special permission from the Land Development Department to work over the weekends,” Dad said.

  “You mean they’re landfilling at the mall right now?” Panic rose in my chest. “How can they do that?”

  Dad paused. “I get the feeling Mr. Chamberlain is a well-connected man.”

  “We’ve got to do something.” I could feel the tears gathering up in the corners of my eyes. “What if—”

  But I stopped myself when I saw Bridget look up from scooping up a banana split. She quickly turned away when her customer asked for extra peanuts.

  “I’m working on something right now. We’ll talk about it when you get home, okay?” Dad said.

  “Okay,” I whispered before saying good-bye.

  Bridget tended to the coffee pot while there was a lull at the ice cream counter. She stopped when she saw I hadn’t touched my fries yet.

  “Too salty?” she asked.

  “Oh.” I looked down at my plate and popped a fry in my mouth. “No, no. They’re perfect.”

  Bridget paused. “I couldn’t help but overhear. Are they expanding the mall? I haven’t been shopping there since the spring.”

  “Yeah. They’re putting in a new wing and landfilling the back part by the shore.” I looked down at my plate imagining each load of dirt going into the tidal pool. What would happen to Mom if we didn’t get to her on time?

  Chelse called over from her perch. “Is that what all those trucks are for? I could barely find a parking spot last time I was there.”

  “It’s too bad they’re filling all that in.” Bridget poured the old coffee in the sink and began to make a fresh pot. “It’s really pretty back there with the pond and everything.”

  “You know where I mean?” I asked. My eyes stung. I wiped a tear away.

  “Yeah. Hey.” Bridget reached out and touched my arm. Chelse looked over from the ice cream counter. “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s just…” How could I explain why I was so upset without revealing the fact that Mom was floating in the mall’s tidal pool? “That place is—was—really special to my mom.”

  “It is pretty special,” Bridget said thoughtfully. “Especially when the Monarch butterflies are migrating.”

  “Oh, I have a picture of that.” I scrolled through the pictures on my phone to find the one of Cori from the day before. I held it up for her to see. Bridget smiled as if remembering a similar time.

  “How can they just landfill a place like that?” Chelse took my phone in her hands and studied the picture.

  “Well, they shouldn’t really,” Bridget said slowly. “Considering.”

  “Considering what?” A hopeful feeling rose in my chest.

  “Monarchs are a ‘species of special concern.’” Bridget finger-quoted the last bit. “Kind of one step away from being endangered.”

  “I didn’t know you were such a nature lover,” Chelse said.

  “Kind of a sucker for a good cause, more like.” Bridget pressed the button on the coffee maker and wiped down the counter with a cloth. “I actually tried to get that area protected by the town a few years ago.”

  “What happened?” I tried to keep cool, but the possibility of protecting the tidal pool somehow was the first glimmer of hope I’d had all day.

  “I couldn’t get enough people behind it.” Bridget rinsed her cloth in the sink and hung it to dry over the faucet.

  I sighed, unable to hide my disappointment.

  Chelse looked from me to Bridget, a look of disgust on her face.

  “Are you kidding me?” Chelse asked. “Over a thousand people will watch a stupid video on Facebook but you couldn’t get enough people to speak up for an almost-endangered species? What is wrong with people?” Then a smile grew on her lips. “Or maybe…”

  “What?” I looked from Bridget to Chelse. “Maybe what?”

  Chelse pulled out her phone.

  “I’m friending you on Facebook. Send me that picture?” She nodded to the picture of Cori with the butterflies.

  “Sure, but what are you going to do with it?”

  “I’m going to attempt to restore my faith in humanity.”

  By dinnertime, Chelse had set up a Facebook page and had 37 likes. Dad was reheating Mrs. Blake’s lasagna in the microwave while I filled Cori in on the news over the phone.

  “Butterflies versus Boutiques.” I read the title of the Facebook page as I surfed the web at the kitchen counter.

  “She used my butterfly arm. Cool!” Cori said.

  Chelse had
cropped the picture from my cell phone to show just Cori’s arm and a dump truck off in the distance. In the description she’d written, “Mall construction is destroying Monarch butterfly habitat. Join our protest to save this beautiful butterfly from becoming endangered.”

  “Do you think it’ll work?” Cori asked.

  “Not sure.” I scrolled through the page’s members but only recognized a few people. Some wondered what the group was all about. Some agreed with how wrong it was to destroy Monarch butterfly habitat for the sake of a larger mall. Others posted pictures of their cats.

  “Guess it can’t hurt,” Cori said. “I’m going to share the link with my friends.”

  I clicked the Share button and did the same. Not that I thought my 258 friends would make much of a difference, but by the time I returned to the Butterflies vs. Boutiques page, seven more people had joined.

  I clicked on Chelse’s profile. “Chelse is popular, huh? Over a thousand friends.”

  “Oh wow,” Cori said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Did you see what she just put on her wall?”

  “No. What?” I refreshed Chelse’s page but it took forever to reload on my decrepit laptop. “Oh!”

  I know you’re all wondering about THE VIDEO! :) Watch it on the Butterflies vs. Boutiques page and while you’re there, help support a good friend, a great listener, and a worthy cause.

  I clicked back to the Butterflies vs. Boutiques page. Chelse had posted a video with the caption “New and Improved!”

  “What does ‘New and Improved’ mean?” I asked.

  “Shh…I’m watching it now,” Cori said.

  I pressed Play and waited for the video to buffer. It was the same video her ex-boyfriend had posted but with new captions.

  gurl1: hey gurl!

  gurl2: hey gurl! whatcha doing?

  gurl1: figuring out that my ex-boyfriend is a moron. whatcha doing?

  gurl2: agreeing with you.

  The dog ran in front of Chelse and made her trip, just as before, but this time the video stopped while she was in midair. A new caption flashed at the end.

  WARNING: Don’t fall for morons because they might put stupid videos of you on Facebook.

  “Oh, ha-ha! That’s awesome,” I said.

  “I know, right?” Cori replied.

  “What’s this?” Dad leaned across the counter to see. He placed a bowl of steaming lasagna in front of me.

  “Call you later,” I said before hanging up.

  “This is what you were saying earlier?” Dad scrolled through the page. “About the Monarch butterfly?”

  “Yeah. We’ve already got”—I refreshed the page and felt a rush of excitement—“154 likes! Cool, right?”

  “I dunno, Jade. Do you really think a Facebook page is going to do any good?”

  A roiling anger boiled up inside of me. Here we were, trying to do something to make a difference (well, actually it was Chelse’s idea, but whatever), and our parents still didn’t take us seriously. “Do you have any better ideas?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. Eddie and I are going to work on the Merlin 3000 tonight.” Dad bobbed his eyebrows then dug into his bowl of lasagna.

  If they got the Merlin 3000 up and running and if we could somehow get to mom, then it wouldn’t matter if she had finished her transformation yet. That was more ifs than I was comfortable with.

  The doorbell rang as I glanced at the Facebook page again. 247 likes.

  “Oh good. Gran’s here.” Dad went to the front hall to answer the door.

  “Gran?” I stabbed my fork into my lasagna. Not only was I not allowed to date but now I needed a baby-sitter?

  I guess going to the movies was out of the question.

  •••

  With Dad and Eddie playing mad scientist, there was nothing left to do but watch TV bingo with Gran, surf the net, and worry and wait.

  Gran sat on the couch next to me with two TV tray tables full of bingo cards. Her hands were a bingo dabbing blur, marking each number as the local cable announcer called out the numbers.

  “I’m honored you gave up your Sunday Roulette Night at the casino to hang out with me,” I kidded.

  “Oh, not roulette, silly. Sunday night is half-price slots.” She slapped my knee and squeezed it with a giggle, never missing a bingo number in the process. “But anything for my little Jadie.”

  I had to admit, it didn’t feel quite as condescending when Gran called me little. She was my grandmother, after all. So maybe she wasn’t a typical grandma, but at least she had an excuse for talking to me like a six-year-old.

  “Watch my cards while I go to the little girls’ room, will you, Jadie?” Gran got up and adjusted her Embrace Your Inner Cheesecake T-shirt around her wide hips. “Otherwise, I’ll have to rip a toot and it won’t be pretty.”

  Like I said: not typical.

  “Got you covered.” I put my laptop on the side table next to the couch and grabbed her bingo marker to start dabbing dots over all her N-42s. Gah! She had a lot of cards.

  The phone rang.

  I fumbled to answer it while trying to listen to the announcer call the next number.

  “Hey,” Cori said.

  “Hi. You got my text? Sorry about the movie.”

  “No worries. My knee is still killing me and my mom wasn’t too keen on the idea anyway. That’s not why I called. Did you see the invitation?”

  “What invitation?” I asked.

  “B-7,” the TV announcer called.

  “Check Facebook,” Cori replied.

  I dabbed as many B-7s as I could find then refreshed the screen on the Butterflies vs. Boutiques Facebook page. We were up to 473 members and Chelse had created an event and invited everyone to attend.

  BUTTERFLIES vs. BOUTIQUES RALLY

  “What’s this all about?” I asked.

  “Chelse is trying to get a bunch of people together for a protest,” Cori said.

  “O-72,” the announcer called out from the TV.

  “Just a sec.” I scanned Gran’s cards to find all her O-72s.

  “What the heck are you doing, anyway?” Cori asked.

  “You don’t want to know.” I laughed.

  Thankfully, Gran got back from her washroom break and shooed me away so she could take over bingo duty. I scooted over to the side of the couch with my laptop to have a better look at the invitation.

  Time: Monday, August 1, 10:00 a.m.

  Location: Port Toulouse Mall

  Created by: BUTTERFLY vs. BOUTIQUES

  More Info: Chamberlain Construction says they are a GREEN company, but their Port Toulouse Mall expansion is threatening the Monarch butterfly’s precious habitat. Wear GREEN to help stop the Port Toulouse mall construction. Do your part to save this special species.

  “This is for tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but I can’t go because I have to work, which totally bites,” Cori said.

  I scanned the invitation again. “Chelse really has taken this butterfly idea and run with it, huh?”

  “No kidding.”

  “Oh, what the heck, it can’t hurt.” I accepted the invitation, but almost wished I hadn’t since the only people who’d confirmed were Chelse, Trey, Luke, and me. I hated to admit it, but maybe Dad was right. Did this Facebook thing stand a chance?

  “Oh! BINGO!!” Gran called out, nearly making me fall off the couch. “Bingo! Bingo! Get off the phone, Jadie. I need to call it in!”

  “Sorry, Cori! Gotta go!” I hung up so Gran could call the TV station to claim her prize and stared at the four lonely profile pictures in the rally’s Attending column. Would tomorrow’s rally help save my mom or just be another huge disappointment?

  Four kids wearing green T-shirts in front of a mall didn’t exactly qualify as a rally. People kept handing us their shopping carts to take them back into Hyde’s Department Store, mistaking us for parking lot attendants. One asked Luke and Trey if their Boy Scout troop was collecting donations for
the Food Bank.

  The chances of stopping the mall construction and saving Mom were not looking good.

  “We should get ready. It’s almost ten.” Chelse handed me a pair of dollar-store butterfly wings. “Here, I brought extras.”

  “Thanks!” I said. Chelse had worked so hard, making signs, setting up the Facebook page—everything—to help protect the Monarch. Little did she know she might be helping another endangered species too: Mers. “My mom would really appreciate all this.”

  “Don’t mention it. It’s for a good cause.” Chelse grinned a mischievous smile. “Plus, my video has almost as many views as my ex-boyfriend’s. My faith in humanity has been restored.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, well, you’re making a difference.”

  How much of a difference, I wasn’t sure, since just then a dump truck rumbled up the gravel road behind McDonald’s. I shivered at the thought of Mom getting buried under one of those piles of dirt and turned to Trey and Luke while Chelse checked her phone.

  “The trucks have been streaming in and out of the construction site ever since we got here.” Dread sat in my belly like a heavy stone. “Do you guys know if anyone else is coming?”

  Trey and Luke looked at each other for a brief second and Luke let out a little laugh.

  “What? Didn’t anybody else sign up?” I asked.

  Luke pointed out to the parking lot and smiled. “See for yourself.”

  I looked out at all the parked cars and didn’t understand what he meant at first. Then, people in green T-shirts began to get out of cars and trucks, come out of the McDonald’s, disembark from a huge yellow bus with the words CAMP WHYCOCOMAGH written across the side, and make their way toward us through the parking lot.

  “Green means green! Green means green!”

  There were dozens at first, then many, many dozens, and soon after, a sea of green appeared.

  “Butterflies not Boutiques! Butterflies not Boutiques!”

  “Wow. These people are all for the rally?” I asked in disbelief.

  “That or they were having a sale on green T-shirts at Hyde’s.” Luke handed me a sign and smiled.

  “Over here!” I yelled, waving the sign high into the air so the crowd could see us. There was “butterscotch sundae” Maeve from the post office, “banana-split” sharing Mr. and Mrs. Howser, and the lady with baby Olivia and the gelato-loving little boy, plus many, many more.