Cori and I laughed out loud.
“Sorry!” I called out, trying to stop laughing. “But you gotta admit—that was pretty funny.”
Serena, on the other hand, looked horrified over Luke’s stumble. She ran to his side and offered her hand to steady him.
“Luke okay?” she cried, her voice high pitched and strained.
“Yeah, I’m okay.” Luke smiled his curvy-lipped, trying-not-to-smile smile and took the hand Serena offered but helped her onto his skateboard instead. He looked at us and gave us a scathing look. “Now at least I know who my real friends are. So she gets a free ride to the corner.”
“Oh, I’m so jealous,” I joked, admiring how sweet Luke was with Serena as he showed her how to hang onto the loop of his backpack so he could tow her along the sidewalk. It reminded me of the time I’d used the Beckers’ canoe to tow Mom from Gran’s cottage to the bridge so I could get her back to the ocean.
Serena wobbled on the board and grinned a huge smile. “Skate rolling!”
“Go, Serena!” Cori laughed.
“Woo-hoo!” I called, rushing after them. It felt good being just normal teenagers goofing off on a normal day. For a few minutes, I actually forgot that in three days we’d be facing Tidal Law and might be pulled to the bottom of the ocean.
“So, what else is new?” I asked as Cori and I caught up with Luke. We tossed our empty hot chocolate cups into the garbage.
“I heard another boat went missing close to here.” Luke steered Serena around the garbage can. “The Howsers’ canoe?”
“The Howsers who live by the point close to the bridge?” Cori asked.
Mr. and Mrs. Howser came into the ice cream parlor at least once a week over the summer and shared a sundae on the park bench outside the diner.
“Yeah, that’s what they said at the flower shop when I was helping my mom pack a few orders into her van,” Luke replied. “Mrs. Howser had left the canoe at the edge of the water on the beach below their house and someone took it overnight.”
“Are you kidding me?” I whispered to Luke. I glanced back at Serena but she was too busy concentrating on keeping her balance on the skateboard. I nudged Cori. “I bet Finalin’s behind this.”
What the heck were Finalin and Medora trying to prove with that stunt? Gran had said the couple would stop vandalizing the boats on the lake (or worse) if we took Serena during the week to give her a “real teenage girl” experience. Had I spent a week mer-sitting her, practically drowning at underwater hockey practice, and dealing with Lainey Chamberlain’s wrath over the school election for nothing?
I couldn’t say all that out loud, though. Not with Serena there. She couldn’t help it that her parents were ungrateful troublemakers.
“I dunno,” Luke said. “There might be another explanation.”
“Yeah,” Cori agreed. “It could be just a coincidence.”
“Coincidence, my foot,” I muttered.
Luke slowed down when we got to a red light at the corner and steadied Serena so she could get off the skateboard.
“So, new best friend,” he asked, “how was your weekend with your mom and dad?”
“Weekend was right,” Serena said, though a strange look passed over her eyes as though she felt guilty for having fun on land just then. “I told about election for Mother and Father. And maps. And Folly Dance, too.”
I cringed and snuck a peek at Cori. Serena’s English was getting a lot better, and that wasn’t always a good thing. I still hadn’t officially asked Luke to go to the Fall Folly dance because I hadn’t had a chance to figure out what I could possibly wear. I’d looked in my closet the night before, but the fanciest thing I had was a pair of jeans I’d bejeweled with Cori during one of our sleepovers last winter.
“Folly dance?” Luke asked. “Oh, that’s the thing you and Trey are going to, right?” he asked Cori.
“Yeah.” Cori nodded. “The Fall Folly.”
“Jade go with Luke!” Serena said enthusiastically.
“Serena…” I muttered, then turned to Luke, trying to act casual. “It’s this thing where the girls need to ask the guys to go or something.”
“When is it?” Luke asked.
“The nineteenth,” Cori replied brightly.
I made a mental note to kill Cori later.
“Of October or September?” he asked.
“September, which I guess is after the supermoon so we shouldn’t really be making plans beyond Tidal Law, considering,” I babbled. “Although October nineteenth has kind of a ring to it. Why does that date sound familiar?”
“Seriously?” Luke got a weird look on his face, making me wonder what was going through his mind. What if he actually didn’t want to go to the dance with me?
I glanced at Cori, and an awkward silence fell over our group. Luckily, the light changed and we were off again.
Dodged another bullet.
• • •
Thankfully, Cori took Serena to Junior Environmentalists Club during Monday lunch so I didn’t have to listen to Cori chew me out for messing up a perfect opportunity to invite Luke to the Fall Folly dance.
The whole conversation had turned out to be so confusing and weird that I wasn’t sure I could bring it up again with Luke anyway. Had I sort of invited him? Not really. Had he kind of accepted? I wasn’t sure.
So basically, I had no idea if I had a date, needed a dress, or was going to the dance at all.
I took advantage of the Serena break by researching some final details for our joint Social Studies project without the risk of her deleting it on us again. Mom and Dad had been hovering around me since school started, making sure I was finishing my homework so I wouldn’t have a repeat performance of last semester, so I really didn’t want to mess up on my very first assignment. I was at the library computers, caught up in a Google and Wikipedia time warp, when I heard the “toc, toc, toc” of Lainey Chamberlain’s inappropriate shoes winding their way through the aisles of library shelves.
I sank low in my seat and peeked over my monitor. I hadn’t really spoken to Lainey since going to her mother’s boutique the week before. Sure, I got why Lainey was always so angry, considering everything she had to deal with at home, but I couldn’t get over the fact that Lainey hadn’t let Cori know that Mrs. Chamberlain wanted to do the mentorship with her. How could I be friends with someone like that?
Thankfully, Lainey didn’t notice me as she sat with her back turned at another computer a few rows over, flanked by her entourage.
“There’s just something not right about that girl,” Lainey muttered. Her nails click-clacked on the keyboard as she chattered with her friends. “She shows up here like she owns the place, and everybody falls all over her like she’s some kind of celebrity.”
Well, she definitely wasn’t talking about me, though I had a feeling Lainey’s little rant had something to do with Serena.
“And why does she even get to run for class president? She’s not even registered for this school. I went to Principal Reamer to lodge a formal complaint but she said that since her registration was still pending, she was allowed,” Lainey continued. “How is that fair?”
Yup. Definitely Serena.
“Don’t worry,” Lainey’s friend said. “I asked around and everybody says they’re voting for you.”
“Well, that’s not the point,” Lainey said. “She’s not even from here. She’s from some weird tropical place I’ve never even heard of.”
Never heard of it because I wasn’t exactly sure if Tonganesia was a real place. What if Lainey found that out? What if she used it against us? What if we were forced to send Serena back to Talisman Lake, and Finalin got ticked off and kept sabotaging boats or worse? He’d pulled Mom underwater while she swam in the lake last summer. What was keeping him from doing it again?
“Oh!” I heard Lainey exclaim as she focused on something from her screen. “That’s interesting…”
Oh-oh. That didn’t sound good.
�
�In it to win it. Dive, dive, dive! In it to win it. High, high, five!”
Things were still a little awkward with Cori after our mentorship talk, but she’d come out for our first underwater hockey game and made up a catchy cheer. She had all the fans in the stands joining in and high-fiving each other as Serena and I stepped onto the pool deck with the rest of our team.
When I say “all the fans,” I mean Cori, Luke, Trey, Gran, Tanti Natasha/Mom, and about a half-dozen other people. When I say “stands,” I really just mean two of the long wooden team benches they used in the school gym during basketball and volleyball games, which Trey and Luke helped carry onto the pool deck. Underwater hockey didn’t exactly draw big crowds, especially since the team had only won two games the season before.
The team from IMDH walked onto the pool deck with their fancy unitardy swimsuits and matching swim caps. They looked like they were on the fast track to the Olympics with those get-ups. Meanwhile, I scanned our mismatched outfits and old equipment and wondered if there had been some kind of scheduling mistake. The IMDH girls definitely looked like they were in a whole different league.
“Is this the same team you played last year?” I asked Marcelle under my breath as we slipped into the pool to warm up.
“Yup,” Marcelle answered, her usual cheery smile dissolving into a frown. “That’s Georgia Frum with the equipment bag.”
“The one with the massive feet,” Devon said as she dunked underwater to test her mask.
Georgia’s Speedo flip-flops clip-clopped across the pool deck, and the sound reverberated through the pool.
“She does have huge feet,” I marveled.
“And hands,” Marcelle’s own hand went automatically up to her throat. Her brown eyes squinted as she looked across the pool at Georgia’s large hands gripping the equipment bag.
“In it to win it!” Cori kept chanting. Honestly, I appreciated her enthusiasm but I wasn’t so sure we were going to win anything that day. Our practice the week before had started off well enough with Serena outswimming everyone, but she lacked focus.
Coach Laurena had put us on the same team for the three-on-three scrimmage, but Serena kept swimming back and forth underwater and basically ignored the puck, so the other team kept scoring on us.
“Serena,” I said, swimming up to her. “Remember, this is a sport, which means we need to try to win.”
I’d been wondering all day whether Lainey Chamberlain had uncovered something at the library that would put Serena’s school registration at risk. It would help if I could figure out a way to make Serena indispensable to the school just to be on the safe side. Taking one of our teams up in the regional standings would be a good start. She just needed to focus.
“I need you to imagine that the puck is the key to a lock, okay?” I continued as I treaded water. “You need to help the rest of the team get the key to the net to unlock it. Then we score a goal.”
“Like lock at canal? To free Freshie friends of Talisman Lake?” Serena asked thoughtfully.
Oooh, I may have hit on something without even realizing it.
“Yeah—if that helps, then yes.”
“All right, team. Hustle!” Our captain, Devon, called us to the side of the pool where Coach Laurena was kneeling so she could give us our last-minute pep talk.
“Okay, so remember”—Coach Laurena took a puff from her inhaler before continuing—“keep feeding the puck to Devon, Charlotte, and Serena on offense. Serena, you have the best speed so I’m counting on you to help Jade, Ella, and Marcelle on defense when you can, too. Jade, you hang back and guard our goal like your life depended on it.”
The referee’s whistle blew and everyone swam to the middle of the pool to take their places for the face-off.
Like my life depended on it? Yeah, I was kind of getting used to that concept.
• • •
“In it to win it. Dive, dive, dive! In it to win it. High, high, five!” Cori kept chanting, bless her optimistic little heart.
The rules of underwater hockey were actually pretty simple for anyone who knew anything about sports. Six players per team, one puck, two nets—and stay underwater long enough to pass the puck or score in the opponent’s net. Sounds simple enough? Not really. Even though I technically should have been a better swimmer than most of the people on my team, given I was a mermaid and everything, that was so far from the truth it was almost a joke.
I spent most of my time coming to the surface to clear my snorkel and catch my breath, while Devon, Ella, Marcelle, Charlotte, and Serena passed the puck back and forth, trying to get it to the other team’s net to score a goal. Since underwater hockey wasn’t exactly a popular sport, we didn’t have any spare players to trade off and had to play the whole game no matter how tired we were.
Oddly, Serena couldn’t hold her breath any longer than I could and had to come up for air just as often, but she made up for it with how fast she could swim.
“Go, Serena!” I yelled, whenever we surfaced at the same time.
“Stealing the key!” she yelled once, waving the puck in the air.
“No, no!” I called back. “The puck needs to stay on the bottom of the pool!”
So, yeah. We still hadn’t worked out all the rules of the game. In fact, we hadn’t managed to score an actual goal by halftime and were down by two, but at least we were giving the IMDHers a run for their money, judging by how they were panting for breath while we took our halftime break at the side of the pool.
“Good hustling down there,” Coach Laurena said as we climbed out of the water. “They may have gotten a few goals on us but their team is wearing down.”
“Yeah,” Devon agreed. “Georgia looks like her head is about to pop off.”
It was true. Georgia and all her teammates were red-faced and huffing and puffing, just like us, which I guess was a good sign.
“That’s a good look for her,” Marcelle said.
“This half, I want you to focus on passing,” Coach Laurena said, putting a hand to her chest and pausing for a breath. “And we need a little more hustle out there from some of you.”
She obviously was talking about me since I was the one spending the most time above water.
“Ella and Marcelle, tighten up the defense, and Jade, hang closer to the net,” Coach Laurena said to us as she wrote on a small whiteboard with a dry-erase marker to demonstrate. “Serena, keep the puck on the bottom of the pool and pass to Devon and Charlotte whenever you get a chance so they can get some shots on net.”
“Yeah,” Devon chimed in. “Let’s get a goal on these guys!”
“Remember, this is a game of offense and defense,” Coach Laurena continued. “Each position is as important as the other.”
The whistle blew to start the second half, and we all swam to the middle of the pool to take our places.
Coach Laurena’s pep talk about passing the puck must have lit a fire under Serena’s tail because the girl was a stick-handling whiz, scooting the puck along the bottom of the pool, passing it to Devon and Charlotte, and assisting with Devon’s first goal of the game partway through the second half.
“Yay!” I sputtered as we all came to the surface for the next face-off after Devon’s goal.
“Great pass!” Devon high-fived Serena as she swam over to us, while Georgia Frum sulked with her teammates at the edge of the pool.
Our fans on the bench went wild, and I could see Cori, Trey, and Luke jumping up and down and high-fiving each other. I wondered, was this what being part of a team felt like?
With five more minutes left in the half, we dove back down to the bottom of the pool to continue the game. IMDH took possession of the puck right away so I hustled to our end to guard the net, but by the time I got there, I’d run out of breath and had to resurface.
“Dive! Dive! Dive!” Cori chanted.
Through the water, I could see Georgia and her teammates making a drive for our net. I cleared my snorkel and adjusted my mask, then popped bac
k down into the water and swam to the bottom with all my might just as Serena was swimming to the surface mid-field.
IMDH still had control of the puck, but Marcelle was digging in, trying to get possession, while Ella came to help. Marcelle’s hair came undone from under her bathing cap and swayed in front of her face, blocking her sight long enough for one of the IMDHers to steal the puck and break away toward me.
She came at me like a nuclear submarine, but thanks to my, ahem, larger size, I was able to block her shot and clear the puck away to my right. I hoped someone from my team was able to grab it because by then my lungs were about to burst and I pushed off the bottom of the pool to resurface.
I smiled around my snorkel as I saw Serena dive past me on a mission for the puck. Georgia Frum was down there, too, trying to gain control of the play, but quick as lightning, Serena slapped the puck away and swam after it as it rolled along the bottom of the pool. We got lucky and caught the IMDH defenders off guard—they were either at the surface or at the wrong end of the pool.
Serena caught up to the puck and looked for someone to pass it to, but she was the most open.
Go! I rang to her as I dove back underwater to take my place on defense.
Passing? Serena rang back to me, then looked for Devon, who was way behind her. Passing the puck?
Just go, go! Score! I replied.
Serena looked to the other team’s goal and took off, pushing the puck ahead of her as she swam.
One of the IMDH defenders dove down to the bottom just as Serena got to their end, but Serena faked right, then left, leaving the defender in a fizz of bubbles. She flicked the puck into the goal just before the buzzer rang, ending the game.
We all swam back to the surface with such force and enthusiasm that the whole school probably heard our yells.
“Serena! Serena! Serena!” our fans chanted from the stands. Serena’s face broke into a huge smile, realizing what she’d done.
“You did it!” I grabbed her around her shoulder as we bobbed in the water. “You tied the game!”
Real Mermaids Don't Need High Heels Page 8
