Real Mermaids Don't Need High Heels

by Helene Boudreau

  I wasn’t sure his brilliant intellect was going to get us out of this one, though.

  “This is the moon we’re talking about, Dad. Not a fridge magnet,” I said.

  Dad’s nervous babbling and enthusiastic plate scraping had me stressed out, too. I pushed my hash browns around my plate and tried to settle the roiling feeling in my gut that came from thinking about the Mermish Council’s plan.

  Serena munched on her breakfast and leafed through the Social Studies books I’d taken out of the library for our school project. She still couldn’t read, but she’d stared at the pictures and made me explain everything as we worked on our project together the night before. I’d never seen anyone so excited about “Rights and Responsibilities of Good Citizenship.”

  “Dalrymple, honey,” Mom said to Dad as she circled the next supermoon on our kitchen calendar with a red Sharpie marker. Thursday, September 17. Eight days before my life came crashing (or splashing) down around me. “Mermish Laws have been governing our species for hundreds of thousands of years. I’m not sure there’s a scientific solution to this problem. Plus, we can’t bring your work into this. That would definitely raise suspicion, don’t you think?”

  Dad returned to the table and sat down heavily. He leaned back against his chair and rubbed his hand over his head like he always did when he was upset.

  “Well, then we’ll just get a big bus and drive everyone to the middle of the country, far away from the ocean, and wait it out,” he suggested.

  “And then what?” Mom said quietly, reaching for Dad’s hand. “What about the next full moon? And the next? We can’t run away from this.”

  “So, what are we going to do?” Dad looked from Mom to me, then to Serena, then grabbed the jam jar from the middle of the table to soothe his worries with a piece of toast. “Because there’s no way I’m losing you guys now that I’ve got you all back under one roof.”

  Dad struggled to get the jam jar’s lid open, then gave up and set it back on the table. His face crumpled, and I knew he was about to lose it.

  “Don’t worry, Dad.” I twisted open the jar and spread jam over a piece of toast for him. “We’re not going anywhere. Who would open all the jars if we were gone?”

  Serena continued to take hair-styling tips from the eighth graders in our homeroom, and in a matter of days, half a dozen or so ninth graders were wearing their hair the same way. Serena could still barely speak English, but with her easy smile and enthusiastic attitude, kids flocked to her like preschoolers fighting over a newborn kitten.

  Without even trying, she had drafted a dozen new friends to help with her campaign for the next week’s school election, and by lunchtime on Wednesday, the hallways were filled with her colorful campaign signs.

  “It looks like a fourth grader colored them,” I heard Lainey Chamberlain mutter to one of her friends as she taped one of her own professionally silk-screened campaign signs to the wall as Cori and I walked with Serena to meet Luke for Chess Club. Honestly, Lainey looked like she was running for city mayor rather than ninth-grade rep, but if Trey’s story about her father’s resurrected mall project was any indication, Chamberlains didn’t exactly believe in doing anything halfway.

  “Let it go,” Cori whispered, sensing me tense up. Lainey had been getting her digs in all day with her snarky remarks.

  I was mentally rehearsing telling Lainey that spending a fortune getting signs silk-screened to run for class president was a desperate cry for help, but before I could line up all the words in my head, I heard the creak of Ms. Wilma’s office chair.

  “Oh, Jade, honey?” Ms. Wilma poked her head out of the school office door and called to me. “And Serena. Good. Can you ladies come in here for a second?”

  I stopped, inwardly cringing and hoping Ms. Wilma hadn’t heard about Serena’s episode with the slushie machine in the cafeteria or how she’d tried to kidnap the betta fish in Mr. Pagliaro’s class so she could release it in the ocean.

  “Yes?” I asked, walking into the office with Serena and Cori and bracing myself for whatever Ms. Wilma had to say.

  “I’ve been trying to get your grandmother on the phone—can you remind her to bring Serena’s school records to bingo for me?” She waved a file folder in the air, which I could only imagine was Serena’s mostly empty school file. “The county is cracking down on paperwork, and the Boss Lady wants all the t’s crossed and the i’s dotted for new registrations.”

  “Sure, no problem.” I faked a smile. But how exactly were we supposed to turn in school records when the only school Serena had ever been a part of was a school of mers? I tried to catch Serena’s eye, but she was too busy studying the map of Port Toulouse and Talisman Lake again. What was up with Serena’s fascination with maps?

  I pulled Serena by the arm and headed for the door. “I’ll make sure to get Gran on that right away.”

  “As soon as you can, okay?” Ms. Wilma rolled her chair to the door with us and glanced toward Principal Reamer’s office. “As you know, without those records we won’t be able to register Serena for school. That would be a shame.”

  “Sure thing,” I said as we made our getaway, but as Ms. Wilma wheeled away, I noticed Lainey Chamberlain looking over from where she was hanging her poster on the bulletin board. Lainey smirked, her brain gears turning so fast that I was sure I could see smoke.

  Great. Just what we needed—the fact that Serena’s registration was at risk on Lainey’s mental radar.

  “Hey, Lainey! Looks like your campaign is going well,” I said. Yes, I was tired of Lainey’s bad attitude, but I had to distract her from what she’d just heard.

  Lainey’s mouth twitched slightly.

  “My campaign couldn’t be going better.” She ripped off a piece of masking tape from the roll with her teeth and plastered it onto the poster. A wry smile grew on her lips. “But, honestly the school election is the least of my worries. I’ve been more focused on helping the planning committee with the upcoming Fall Folly. I really can’t decide what I should wear. What will you be wearing, Jade?”

  Fall Folly? What was that? It sounded familiar but I couldn’t quite figure out why. Was that some kind of party or dance? And why should I worry about wearing anything in particular? All the lame school dances I’d ever been to didn’t require anything more than a clean pair of jeans and a stain-free T-shirt. I glanced at Cori, who gave me a weak smile as if she knew something but wasn’t telling me.

  “I’ve got an idea!” Lainey continued in her high-pitched squeal that reminded me of the talking Barbie I used to have as a kid. “Why don’t you come by Mother’s boutique?”

  Mrs. Chamberlain was a clothing designer and had a fancy boutique in the completed part of the new wing of Port Toulouse Mall, thanks to Mr. Chamberlain’s construction company’s contract.

  “Oh…that won’t work.” Lainey waved her finger at Serena and Cori’s outfits. “We could probably rescue these two fashion disasters, but I don’t think Mother stocks plus sizes for you, Jade…”

  And there it was. It didn’t matter that I knew Lainey was only poking fun at my size because she was being a total turd and trying to get under my skin. It still pulled me down and inward to a place where I wanted to disappear. Instead, I did the next best thing.

  I shot off my mouth.

  “Listen up, you lip-glossed mouth breather!” I yelled, then motioned to Cori and Serena. “These outfits are Cori Originals. The same designs your mom said were amazing when she reviewed Cori’s portfolio last year.”

  I felt my rampage gaining steam.

  “Also,” I continued, “if you think for one second that you have a chance against Serena in this election, you can just go ahead and slip one of those designer shoes off your feet and beat yourself senseless with the pointy end because it is so on!”

  Serena blinked wildly, looking from me to Cori to Lainey, not really understanding what was going on. If Finalin wanted his daughter to have a “real” high-school experience, we were off
to a very good start!

  I stalked away before I actually yanked off Lainey’s shoe and carried out my suggestion. Serena and Cori chased after me.

  “Hey,” Cori said, grasping my arm for me to stop. “Don’t let that jerk get to you.”

  “I know, I know, she’s just being an idiot.” I stopped to take a few deep breaths to calm down and did my best to keep from crying. “But what is she talking about? What’s this Fall Folly thing and why would I have to worry about what I have to wear?”

  “Don’t freak out,” Cori said.

  “Freak out about what?” This couldn’t be good.

  “It’s just the fall formal dance,” Cori said casually. “I didn’t mention it because I know how you get about anything to do with clothes shopping.”

  It was true. I’d practically had a nervous breakdown in the middle of Hyde’s Department Store trying to find a bathing suit with Cori that past June. I shuddered at the thought of standing in front of the dressing room’s three-way-mirror Cone of Truth.

  “Well, that’s easy. If Luke asks me to go, I’ll just tell him no thanks,” I said matter-of-factly.

  “Yeah…the other part is that it’s a ‘folly’ dance,” Cori said.

  “What’s a ‘folly’ dance?” I asked cautiously.

  “It’s named after the first female sailor from Port Toulouse. This Folly Porthouse lady crossed the Atlantic Ocean with her sailboat after the Second World War to get her fiancé instead of waiting for the Navy to bring him back.”

  “Fortune’s Folly? The ship that sank in Folly Passage?” I asked, remembering Gran’s story. “The captain was actually a woman?”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of a ‘girl power’ story, so every fall, the high school starts off the year with a dance in her honor where the girl asks the guy out,” Cori said. “I’m already going with Trey and…”

  “And what?” I asked.

  “Luke was standing right there when I asked Trey.”

  “Oh,” I replied. It hadn’t occurred to me that now I had an official boyfriend, I’d have to go on actual dates with him. So far we’d just done a lot of hanging out as a group. Me and Luke, Cori and Trey, going to the movies, hanging out at Mug Glug’s, going to the skate park…it had been so easy. And so normal—nothing quite as drastic as a formal dance with frou-frou dresses and awkward dancing in uncomfortable shoes.

  What would happen if I just didn’t ask Luke to the dance? Would his feelings get hurt? Would he care?

  “So you mean I need to dress up in some fancy dress and ask a guy out to what can only be described as the least appealing night of my life, all in the name of girl power?” I asked.

  “Something like that,” Cori said.

  “Right.” I considered everything wrong with that picture. “Why do I get the feeling this has all the makings of a good shipwreck?”

  I played over my conversation with Lainey Chamberlain about a million times in my head. Something kept nagging at me, other than her “plus size” jab. I finally clued in to what it was when Gran and Mom took Serena and me to the mall later that day so we could get stuff for our first underwater hockey practice.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come in with us?” Mom asked as we stopped in front of Sport Mart and perused the list Coach Laurena had given us. We’d been venturing out more and more with Mom now that people thought she was my aunt and Serena’s mom. Everyone bought the cover so far, especially with Mom’s long dark hair now cropped in a bleach-blond pixie cut and with the funky glasses she’d started wearing lately.

  “A Speedo is a Speedo. Can you just pick up my size?” I was a little peeved that I had to go bathing-suit shopping in the first place, but I couldn’t find my tankini anywhere, despite searching high and low through my closet and drawers. “There’s actually something I really need to do.”

  “If you’re sure,” Mom said as Gran showed Serena how to push through the turnstile entry into the sporting-goods store. “But come find us once you’re done, okay?”

  “Will do,” I replied, then spotted the Chamberlain Construction Safe 2 Swim display with the free bathing caps. “Oh, and grab a bunch of those for our team in the meantime, could you? As long as Mr. Chamberlain hasn’t started charging for them to fund his new wing.”

  I turned toward the newly built mall extension past Hyde’s Department Store.

  As much as I had tried to block it from my mind, walking through the mall reminded me of when Cori and I had shopped for that tankini at Hyde’s in June. Cori was having her first-ever pool party, and she’d really wanted me to get a bathing suit so I could come. Turns out it was a surprise party in my honor to take my mind off the anniversary of Mom’s “drowning” and to celebrate my fourteenth birthday.

  That’s how awesome Cori was.

  Cori wasn’t just an awesome friend—she was also really talented. So talented that Lainey’s mom, Mrs. Chamberlain, had reviewed her Cori Original portfolio and said she loved her designs. She was even considering Cori for a mentorship.

  But Cori hadn’t heard from Mrs. Chamberlain since, and hearing Lainey diss Cori’s designs earlier made me wonder whether it was mostly my fault that things had turned out the way they had.

  It was time to set things right.

  Large panels of advertising announced the new stores being introduced to the mall, but several were open already. A lot of work still needed to be done, but the Rainforest Cafe was already buzzing with a growing dinner crowd, and a gift shop and a nutrition store were fully stocked and operational.

  Wow. Chamberlain Construction had obviously recovered from having to change their construction plan. I walked past the framework for a fountain where workers were scraping mortar on ceramic tiles while skids full of drywall were being wheeled into an empty storefront.

  Finally, I stood in front of a window display of teeny-waisted mannequins dressed in draping fabrics with gauzy tulle puddled at their feet.

  Boutique Chambre Laine

  The last store I ever thought I’d enter.

  I spotted Mrs. Chamberlain at the back of the store near a sewer’s mannequin. She wore a beautiful gray tailored skirt and a ruffled cream-colored blouse and had her hair pulled back in a low chignon. She pinned a piece of fabric onto the beginnings of a jacket to form a sleeve while one of her associates brought an outfit to someone in the dressing room. Several other customers browsed the New for Fall rack.

  “Bonjour,” Mrs. Chamberlain said when she saw me. She took a pin from her mouth and tucked it onto the lapel of her blouse. “May I be of assistance?”

  The French accent threw me off. I blinked three times and turned to look at a rack of scarves. I realized I must seem rude for not replying, but my mind had dumped all its thoughts, and I had no real clue why I’d entered the store. How had I not known Mrs. Chamberlain was French? Then again, had I ever spoken to her? What else didn’t I know about Lainey and her family?

  “Uh, um…” I began, trying to recover. “I never shop in places like this.”

  Great. Much more polite.

  “Oh, ma chère. Why not?” Mrs. Chamberlain asked kindly. “Every girl could use some sparkle in her life, non?”

  “I guess I’m not really a sparkle kind of girl,” I muttered.

  “There is a special occasion, perhaps?” Mrs. Chamberlain prodded.

  I thought about the Fall Folly.

  “Well, there is a dance at school but you probably don’t have anything in my size.”

  “Oh, surely I have quelque chose for you! Your skin tone is beautiful.” Mrs. Chamberlain stood squarely in front of me and eyed me closely. “I see you in a jewel tone. Possibly blue, oui?”

  Think, Jade, think. I was not there to talk about dresses; I was there to talk about Cori. I hadn’t even invited Luke to the Fall Folly anyway, and the thought of it made me want to puke.

  “Non!” I replied. Geesh. Mrs. Chamberlain probably thought I had been raised by wolves, but she’d obviously misunderstood the reason for my visit
, and I had to get the conversation back on track.

  But first I had to clear the air.

  “I mean…I don’t know if you recognize me, but I’m Jade Baxter. I caused a lot of problems for your family this summer when I told everyone about the fake environmental assessment for this mall extension.”

  “Ah, Mademoiselle Baxteur?” A look of recognition crossed Mrs. Chamberlain’s face.

  “Yes, but trust me, I was trying to protect that tidal pool for a very important reason. Although I know that’s one of the big reasons why your daughter, Lainey, and I don’t get along.”

  “You are not friends with my daughter?” Mrs. Chamberlain said. “But—Jade Baxteur—she speaks of you. How you are so funny.”

  Lainey Chamberlain talked to her mom about me? That was a surprise.

  “Well,” I said, almost losing my train of thought. “Sorry. That’s not exactly why I’m here. I just came here on behalf of my friend. Cori Blake?”

  “Mademoiselle Blake is in need of a dress?” Mrs. Chamberlain looked confused.

  “No, no. You looked at Cori’s fashion portfolio back in the spring.”

  “Ah, oui! Cori!” Mrs. Chamberlain replied. “She is talented. Very talented indeed!”

  “And since Cori helped with the protest against your husband’s company, I really hope that won’t affect your decision to mentor her for our school’s work-study program. She really admires you—”

  “But, it has not affected a thing! I had hoped Cori would come to me for mentoré, what is the name? But I have not heard from her.”

  A spark of hope rose in my chest. Was Mrs. Chamberlain still considering Cori for the mentorship? But why hadn’t she heard anything?

  “You mean, she still has a chance?” I asked.

  “Why, yes! I asked Lainey to give her the, mon Dieu, how you say—paperwork?” Mrs. Chamberlain said. “Lainey was to tell Cori to telephone me, but she says she has not yet spoken to her?”

  I grr-ed internally. Had Lainey been withholding the paperwork from Cori all this time? I wondered.

  “I think that is mainly my fault,” I said. “Cori and Lainey are not friends anymore because of me.”