The Tantalizing Tale of Grace Minnaugh

by Kaltman, Alice;

  Flicking her tail, Grace propelled herself back toward the beach, marveling at how quickly she had become accustomed to her fish tail, as if she’d had one all her life.

  Reaching the shallows, Grace emerged from the water and again became all girl. Her eyes readjusted, her hearing went back to normal, and her legs took their usual shape. Grace reattached her bikini bottom and waded toward the shore. Retrieving her towel from the beach, she slipped back inside the house where her family was sleeping, adrenalin coursing through her veins. Changing into her pajamas, she nestled under her bedcovers.

  What might I find on my next trip underwater? she wondered, with barely contained excitement. What if she ran into another mermaid? Or was she some kind of aberrant, one-of-a-kind mer-being? She was desperate to start researching this pronto, but first she had to face the dreaded beginning of school the next day.

  Chapter Ten: La Toya Middle

  Dear Mrs. S.,

  Guess what? You asked for shenanigans, and you are gonna get them! I’ll save the most amazing one for last. But first off, get this: I can talk to dolphins. Not like normal “blah blah blah” talking, more like through our brains talking. I know that sounds crazy, but it was sort of like with Nellie. You know how she always did everything I said and I understood what she needed? Well, this was like that, but just, well, bigger.

  I think it’s because of this scientific phenomenon called echolocation. That’s—

  “Come on, Gracie! You don’t want to be late on your first day of school!” Walter yelled from the driveway.

  “All right, all right! I’m coming,” Grace hollered back. She put the unfinished letter to Mrs. Shelby in her desk drawer and took a deep breath. The day had finally arrived—September 15, the first day of sixth grade at La Toya Middle. Grace felt as skittish as a butterfly—her stomach wouldn’t shut up, her face felt prickly and hot, and her hands were all clammy. She took a last desperate swipe at her wild hair, attempting to gather it into a neat ponytail, but thick red unruly curls sprang up in defiance like the bristling tail of a fox. Grace moaned in agony. Underwater she was a mermaid, but on land she was a walking scrub brush. Grace picked up her backpack and reluctantly trudged out the door.

  On the ride to school, Walter tried to cheer Grace up with his peppy approach to life, giving her all sorts of advice on how to handle first-day jitters. Grace was so nervous she barely heard a word. As they pulled up to La Toya Middle, Walter announced cheerfully, “Here we are. Looks like a fine place to me.”

  Grace looked across the parking lot at the old-fashioned Spanish-style building, with its white stucco walls, red tile roof, and central courtyard—complete with an ornate fountain. “This place looks more like a fancy hotel than a school,” she mumbled.

  “I think it used to be a hotel, back in the old days,” Walter said as he reached over Grace’s lap and opened her door. “Go on in, Gracie. Be yourself. Everyone will love you.”

  Being myself might not be the best idea, Grace thought, especially my underwater self. “Don’t hold your breath, Dad. There is a very good chance I am going to come home traumatized for life.”

  

  “Okay, class! It’s time to pipe down and pay attention to the teacher, Ms. Amelia Karp—who would be me, by the way,” the lanky woman called out in a sing-song voice, her back to the class as she wrote her name on the white board in gracefully flowing letters. She turned around with a wide smile, and Grace gasped aloud.

  Her new science teacher was the weirdly dressed woman she had met at the Dolphin Intervention Program! Ms. Karp gave Grace an almost imperceptible wink as she moved in front of her desk. She looked completely different. If it were not for the shriveled brain necklace that still hung around her neck, and the startling contrast of her dark skin and bright blonde hair, Grace might never have recognized her. Ms. Karp’s wild hair was now twisted and clipped into a neat bun at the nape of her neck, and she wore a drab gray suit with a white blouse and clunky black orthopedic shoes, so unlike the gauzy muumuu and beachy flip-flops of the DIP version of herself. Oversized glasses magnified her blue-green eyes, giving her the wide big-eyed gaze of a startled beetle. The only hint of her former outlandishness was the slightly demented twinkle that lingered in Ms. Karp’s eye and the quick wink Grace was almost certain she had sent her way.

  Ms. Karp clapped her hands. “Okay, enough chit-chatting. Time to focus on the wonderful world of science. This semester you are going to learn the principles of solid scientific research. There’s nothing more vital, more crucial, more urgent, than knowing how to look, to see, to really observe. There are fascinating things happening right here in this classroom that you’re not even noticing because your skills of scientific observation have yet to be developed.”

  Most of the class groaned. Grace sat petrified. When Grace had her fin and gills, she qualified as a fascinating thing! Instinctively reaching behind her ears, Grace felt the skin of her neck—no skin flaps here. Fingers clenched nervously in her lap, she hoped fervently that Ms. Karp wouldn’t—and couldn’t!—teach the class how to spot a mermaid in their midst, a mutant masquerading as a new kid.

  “Stop your whining, class,” Ms. Karp harrumphed. “You sound like a bunch of constipated sea lions. I have a fabulous exercise to help you hone your skills of observation. Everyone take out a piece of paper and a pencil. Beginning with the first row, every other row turn to face the person in the seat behind you.”

  Giggles and silly faces abounded, accompanied by the bustle of scraping chair legs and shifting backpacks.

  “Good,” Ms. Karp said. “Now please spend the next ten minutes collecting as much information—or as we scientists like to call it, as much data—about your subjects as possible. Then, when you are done, you will switch places.”

  Grace could barely pry her eyes from her desk. Was she really supposed to talk to some stranger? Ms. Karp had to be out of her mind to come up with a lesson like this: all right, kids, now pick out what’s weird about the person behind you so we can all make fun of it.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Karp,” a girl called out. Grace raised her head slightly to see Christi—the snobby girl from the beach—waving a braceleted arm in the air. Grace’s stomach felt like a twisting tire swing, lurching up, down, and every which way. Of course, she would be stuck with that horrid preteen Barbie in her very first class. Feeling self-conscious about her own outfit—red tank top, cargo shorts, and still slightly soggy Trail Blazers—Grace discreetly looked Christi up and down as Christi waved her hand ever more frantically in the air. “Ms. Karp! Ms. Karp!” she called impatiently.

  Christi wore a super short denim miniskirt studded with tons of rhinestones. Or maybe real diamonds. A plush, expensive-looking hoodie hung off Christi’s shoulders, and she wore the highest platform sandals Grace had ever seen on a sixth grader, or anyone else for that matter. Perched on Christi’s desktop was a handbag plastered with the logo of some hot designer. Her hair was done up in all sorts of carefully twisted braids, and Grace could swear Christi was wearing fake eyelashes and lipstick.

  “I really don’t see the point of this game. Most of us know each other already,” Christi continued, twisting around to shoot a glare at Grace. “We all went to La Toya Elementary together for, like, forever.”

  Twenty-two pairs of eyes, following Christi’s gaze, settled on Grace. Grace, sinking further into her seat, felt as if the word loser had been printed in bold letters across her forehead. She wanted nothing more than to bolt out the door, but nerves glued her to her seat. Grace swallowed hard, closed her eyes, and wondered if one could actually die of shame.

  “Well, Miss…” Ms. Karp looked down at her seating chart and shook her head ever so slightly before looking back up. “Miss Christi Worthington. I wouldn’t call this a game exactly. Good scientists never rely on what they think they already know. Ask any of the scientists employed at your family’s Worthington Laboratories. F
irst and foremost, they always observe in order to test their hypotheses.” Ms. Karp smiled at Grace. “So, whatever preconceived notions you may have of your classmates, undoubtedly you know far less than you think.”

  “Whatever,” Christi replied with a roll of her eyes. “After all, Ms. Karp, you’re, like, the teacher.”

  “Yes, and there is your first worthy observation, Miss Worthington. Let’s see how many more you can come up with, shall we? As I always like to say, class, gather your data”—she pronounced it dattuh—”and the rest won’t mattuh.”

  “Well, I guess that’s our cue,” said a boy in front of Grace as he scooted his chair closer to her desk. “So what’s your name anyway? Mine’s Alfie, Alfie DaCosta. Oops! I think I’m supposed to wait till you ask me that.”

  Alfie DaCosta smiled nervously at Grace and scratched the sides of his face. Scrawny shoulders emerged from a dark blue T-shirt—emblazoned with the picture of a large ship half-sunk beneath frothy waves above the words My Life Is A Wreck—and gigantic ears framed brown hair that sprouted from his head like an overgrown patch of lawn. He wore glasses that rivaled Ms. Karp’s in size and magnification, so his eyes looked like a frightened lemur’s, gigantic and alarmed.

  “I’m Grace Minnaugh,” Grace whispered. “I’m new, if you didn’t already know.”

  “Well, I figured you were since I’ve never seen you before, and I’ve lived in this town my whole pathetic life. So, what did you do to make Christi Worthington hate you on your first day?”

  Grace shrugged. “Before my first day.”

  Alfie looked impressed.

  “We had a talk on the beach a few weeks ago,” Grace confided. “She didn’t like my boots so I told her to take a hike.”

  “No way! No one ever talks back to Christi. Kids either worship the ground she walks on or are so scared of her that they run the other way.”

  “Why is everyone so wigged out by her, anyway?” asked Grace. “She’s just a well-dressed bully.”

  Alfie suppressed a laugh. Or maybe it was a sneeze. “Probably because the Worthingtons own the whole town. They’re like local royalty. The parents of half the kids in this class work for the Worthingtons in one way or another. My dad used to work in the legal department of the Worthington Foundation, but now he works for himself. All the time. Twenty-four/seven. From dusk till dawn.” Alfie shook his head and sighed. “Anyway, let’s get down to business. What brings you to this little dictatorship pretending to be a town?”

  “My dad got a new job, so, boom, like it or not, here I am.”

  “With the Worthingtons, right?”

  “No, at the university.”

  “Oh, the Worthingtons basically own that, too.” Alfie scribbled some notes. “So do you like it here or not?”

  “Is this a test or an interview?”

  “It’s an interview,” Alfie reassured her with a lopsided grin. “But don’t worry. If it were a test, you already passed.”

  “I’d say La Toya has its ups and downs,” Grace said. “If you’re not into hanging out on the beach all day and frying your skin to a crisp, and if you’re too young to drive, there isn’t a whole lot to do.”

  “I hear you,” sighed Alfie. “I’m not too into the beach myself. And who likes cars? I like boats, though. Shipwrecks, actually. Not that I’ve ever seen a real one. I haven’t even seen a fake one. But I’m really into them.” He pointed to his T-shirt. “But I’m probably the only kid in sixth grade who doesn’t know how to swim.”

  Grace was surprised. How could someone grow up in a beach town and not know how to swim? “Have you ever tried to learn?” she asked.

  “I tried when I was really young. We used to go to the beach all the time. We even had a little motorized rowboat. But when I was five my parents got divorced and my mom moved east to New York. My dad works too much to sleep, let alone teach me how to swim. And he was never really into the boat as much as my mom and I.” Alfie shrugged. “I’m more an inside-activities type guy, anyway. Hey, there I go again. I’m supposed to be asking you the questions.”

  Alfie pushed his glasses up on his nose and pretended to be very serious. “So, Grace Minnaugh, where do you live, who else is in your family, and…um…what’s your favorite color?”

  Grace clasped her hands together on top of her desk, sat up straight, and replied in a very proper-sounding voice. “I live at forty-five Leucadia Drive, in a house that looks like it was built by impoverished Martians. My parents are Walter, a psychology professor, and Minerva, a painter, and my annoying little brother is named Stuart, but we call him Stuey. He doesn’t do anything, but he loves anything related to Mary Poppins, and now he’s kind of obsessed with sea creatures. My favorite color used to be red but lately I’ve changed it to blue.”

  Alfie shot a few more questions Grace’s way. As he finished scribbling down Grace’s vital statistics, Ms. Karp sprang up from her desk, where she’d been cleaning microscope slides. “Okay, class, it’s time for the big switcheroo. Observees, you are now observers. Observees, observers. Hey, try to say that ten times fast!” Ms. Karp chuckled at her own joke while the class rolled their eyes and groaned.

  Grace picked up her paper and pen. “I don’t know what everyone’s problem is. I think Ms. Karp is sort of cool, don’t you?”

  “Totally. She’s the only decent science teacher in the whole school. She used to be some big-wig marine biologist up at Worthington Labs, but she quit a few years ago to come teach lousy middle schoolers. Go figure.”

  Grace wondered what would compel someone to leave a prestigious science job for a classroom full of obnoxious kids. Ms. Karp was either a saint or completely crazy. Or a crazy saint. Grace and Alfie chatted away for the next five minutes, and when it came time to share their observations with the rest of the class, they had more to say about each other than any other research team. Grace was secretly thrilled when Alfie ended his report by saying, “I believe Grace Minnaugh has a bright future at La Toya Middle, and I invite you all to give her a hearty welcome.”

  The kids just sat in their seats like robots, staring blankly at Alfie. Maybe that was their idea of a hearty welcome. Christi sure didn’t welcome her presence in the classroom, Grace thought ruefully, as she glanced over to where the Worthington heiress sat, fuming like a teakettle on a hot stove.

  Well, at least they didn’t laugh, Grace thought. That was something.

  

  The rest of the school day wasn’t half bad. Alfie was in all of Grace’s classes, except for gym and math. At lunch time they sat together at a table in the corner of the cafeteria—which looked more like a country club or hotel restaurant. Despite the fancy decor, the cafeteria served the same soggy French fries and frozen English-muffin pizzas that the school lunchroom in Ohio had done. Alfie, too, avoided cafeteria food, and both of them ate bagged lunches they had brought from home. A deep mistrust of cafeteria fare seemed to be another important opinion they shared.

  “So you spent all your formative years in Ohio?” Alfie asked, between bites of his ham-and-cheese-on-white. “I think I’d get claustrophobia if I lived that far from the coast, but it must be cool to have snow in the winter. I’ve only seen real snow once, when I went skiing with my stepfather in Upstate New York. Actually, he went skiing while I went falling. I’m really good at falling. I could have a career as a professional faller.”

  Grace giggled. “The weather’s definitely much nicer here,” she agreed. Was she actually saying something positive about La Toya? “Especially in the summer.” Apparently she was!

  “Well, I guess that’s one good thing about this lame town.” Alfie stood, sweeping the crumbs off his T-shirt. “Hey, I’m gonna get in line and buy ice cream. Do you want one? My treat. I’m loaded today. I got two extra dollars for helping my dad file some legal documents.”

  “Oh, yeah! That would be awesome,” Grace replied enthusiasti
cally. “Even cafeterias can’t get ice cream wrong.” While Alfie stood in line, Grace took in the lunchroom scene. For the most part, the La Toya lunchroom looked pretty much the same as the one in Floral Park—a bunch of goofball kids throwing food at each other or blowing milk bubbles through their straws. But now that it was middle school, kids were separated out into distinct cliques. Jocks sat by the windows, eating junk food and tossing a Nerf football when the lunchroom monitor wasn’t looking. The Nature Nuts sat on the floor eating tofu and whole grains. Goody-Goods sat prim and proper at one long table with nutritious, well-balanced meals on their trays. The Dudes played air guitar and threw popcorn at each other, while balancing on the edges of the lunchroom benches. And then, of course, there were the Fashionistas in their designer outfits, clustered around a central table as they thumbed through teen fashion magazines and played with their hair. All girls, with Christi Worthington front and center, taking dainty sips from Diet Cokes.

  “Hey, Grace!” Tanya poked her head up and waved from deep within the mass of Fashionistas. “How’s it going?”

  Grace grinned and gave Tanya a thumbs-up.

  “Why don’t you come over he—” But before Tanya could finish her sentence, Christi the Detestable put a hand over Tanya’s mouth.

  “Are you crazy, Tanya?” Christi hissed, loud enough for Grace to hear. “We don’t want her anywhere near us. Especially while we’re eating.”

  Tanya looked like a trapped squirrel, scared and furious at the same time. Grace felt worse for Tanya than she did for herself. How can Tanya stand Christi? thought Grace. Tanya seemed like such a cool kid, genuinely nice, while Christi was meaner than a junkyard dog.

  “Dessert, mademoiselle?” Alfie had returned with the ice cream cups. Grace turned back in her seat to face him.

  “Thanks, Alfie. Your timing couldn’t have been better.”

  Chapter Eleven: Freaks