The Tantalizing Tale of Grace Minnaugh

by Kaltman, Alice;

  An hour into her swim, Grace suddenly sensed a charge running up her spine, as if her whole tail had been plugged into an electric socket. She remembered another fishy fact she’d read at the library—electroreception. Dolphins, sharks, cuttlefish, sturgeons, and a whole bunch of other underwater creatures could sense electric voltage through canals running deep through their bodies; they could even detect the heartbeat of a fish five hundred miles away! Electroreception was mostly an ocean-based superpower, because water was a much better electrical conductor than air. But Grace had read that bees used it also, as did wacky-looking platypuses, better known to Grace now as monotremes, the only kind of mammals that laid eggs.

  Grace’s forehead began throbbing while her tail continued to buzz. Electroreception and echolocation—talk about a double whammy! She’d electro-received and echo-located something with a whole mess of karma and a pretty sizeable heartbeat. And this whatever-it-was was probably coming closer. Swishing around, Grace saw a flash of silver disappear through the tall fronds of a field of seaweed. Was it a dolphin? Instantly, Grace flicked her tail and swam in swift pursuit.

  As she followed the elusive creature it occurred to her that if she could locate other beings with her senses, and maybe even eventually understand them on some karmic level, they could probably sense her too. What if she was inadvertently advertising herself as some larger creature’s breakfast treat? Who knew what kind of freaked-out, excited, confused, jazzed karma Grace was transmitting? Meanwhile, the silver-tailed whatever-it-was kept just out of sight, a flash of bright scales here and there, then whoosh!—gone, as if it were a figment of Grace’s imagination. After a long swim over smooth, desert-like sand, Grace gave up. No dolphin anywhere, just a long stretch of boring nothingness. She was just about to turn back when she noticed the drop-off; the stretch of sand ended in a rocky escarpment that descended downward in a deep cliff. Grace drifted toward the edge, peering into the blackness below. Even Grace’s light-refracting fish eyes had trouble adjusting. The dolphin must have swum down there, she concluded, and the only way to know for sure was to follow it.

  Grace flipped her tail and plunged downward, staying close to the rock wall. Her eyes adjusted as she dove, but there was little to see, just gray rock and murky water. As Grace swam deeper, the temperature dropped and goosebumps prickled across her skin. Eventually, the rock wall ended at another sandy bottom. The sand here, however, gleamed in shades of pink-gold, yellow, and silver, as if all the world’s rainbows had fallen in crystals from the sky. Feathery white plumes and purple fronds that resembled elephant ears sprouted from the sand, and strands of fleshy seaweed curled from rocks like beckoning fingers. Neon orange crabs crawled from crevice to crevice, skittering across the rocks on their delicate claws. Pale pink sea anemones pulsed demurely, and lime-green starfish protruded from tight nooks and crannies.

  A school of fish appeared from the darkness, veering this way and that in perfectly choreographed patterns. Grace twisted to follow their movements as they darted past her; then she stopped, transfixed by what she saw a little further down the sandy slope: looming up from the ocean floor was a massive shipwreck! Grace felt as if she’d landed on the set of a blockbuster pirate movie! A mast rose into the gloom, easily six stories high, from the splintered deck. Parts of the hull had rotted away, but portions of it retained bright red patches of paint that glistened in the water like Chinese lacquer. Excited by her discovery, Grace swam closer. The hull looked like moldy Swiss cheese, pocked with holes and covered by a film of fuzzy green algae. At the stern of the ship, Grace could still make out the letters, in faded gold—S LLY M E.

  Grace peered through holes in the hull and through broken portholes to try to catch a glimpse of what lay within the belly of the ship. Through one porthole she saw a dark and gloomy kitchen with old-fashioned crockery scattered helter-skelter, rusting utensils covered with slime, and seaweed sprouting from pots like lunatic cabbage stews. Crawling crabs and pecking fish feasted on the fuzzy growth that covered broken chairs, tables, cabinets, and tools.

  Through a breach in the hull, Grace saw a formerly elegant bedroom. Now, however, something brown and prickly grew out of an ancient armoire, and thick yellow sea-vines twisted around the legs of a fancy desk. Wood-paneled walls were embedded with thousands of tiny barnacles. The biggest shock was the huge octopus that rested peacefully on the giant sleigh bed, its eight fleshy tentacles sprawled across a rack of coiled springs.

  “Whoa, buddy,” Grace said in her deep underwater voice.

  The octopus trained a beady eye in her direction, then catapulted upward, causing half the springs to dissolve in a cloud of rust. Sparkly bits of residue were reflected from a tall mirror propped upright in the corner of the room.

  “A mirror,” Grace gasped, squeezing through the splintered planks. Steering clear of the octopus, who was now plopped in the corner by a barnacle-encrusted trunk, she recalled reading that octopuses were very intelligent and very curious; they had even been known to pull people into their tanks at aquariums with their powerful suction-cupped tentacles. Keep your distance, she thought, better safe than octopus-squeezed and sorry. Grace fanned her tail back and forth, lowering herself in front of the mirror.

  What she saw was riveting. The gills flapping on the sides of her neck shifted and swayed like diaphanous scarves, and her eyes, unusually large and round, were brilliant and of a slightly golden hue, as if Grace were wearing tinted contact lenses. Her skin appeared mottled, like the shell of an exotic tortoise, and her mermaid hair was thick and silky enough to land her a job as a shampoo model. But best of all was her tail. It was a work of art—tapering, muscular, and graceful, gleaming in shades of purple and silver. There were no knock-kneed, scrawny legs to contend with and no big, galumphy feet to get in her way.

  Grace could not help but stare at herself like an awestruck fangirl—the mermaid reflection was so different from what she was accustomed to seeing in her bathroom mirror. Grace Minnaugh is no ordinary mermaid, she thought. Grace Minnaugh is a goddess of the deep!

  As Grace twisted this way and that to better examine her tail in the mirror, she was startled by a renewed tingling sensation up and down her spine. Through the hole in the hull, Grace saw a flash of silver, passing like lightning in the gloomy depths. The dolphin, she thought. Finally!

  Determined not to lose another opportunity to make contact with the dolphin, Grace bolted through the hull. As she approached the front of the ship, she stopped short, her mouth falling open in astonishment. Another mermaid leaned against the bow!

  The mermaid gazed downward with a slight smile. Auburn curls tinted with green surrounded her pretty face, spread over her shoulders, and spilled down her bronzed arms. Her silver tail rested flat against the ship. Grace looked at the mermaid’s silver tail and realized she hadn’t been following a dolphin after all. She had been following something even better.

  “Hello!” Grace cried, fluttering over to where the mermaid waited. But her heart sank like a stone as she approached the bow. It was obvious why the mermaid hadn’t noticed Grace. How could a wooden statue notice anything? This mermaid was made of wood and was nothing more than a cute ship mascot, like a stuffed animal attached to the grille of a truck, or a wobblynecked plastic puppy on a dashboard. She was as capable of talking to Grace as a slab of concrete was of playing the cello. Whatever, or whomever, the real silver fish tail belonged to remained a mystery.

  “So much for my social life,” Grace muttered. As she turned away, Grace noticed that the broad expanse of the port side of the vessel looked different from the starboard side. The wood looked black and bumpy, as if covered with charcoal blisters. Perhaps some terrible fire had caused the boat to sink, Grace mused. She made a mental note to do a web search about fires and shipwrecks off the coast of La Toya on her next trip to the library.

  Grace swam slowly back toward the multi-colored sand dunes, the strange plants, and the s
crambling neon crabs. A school of brilliant purple guppies passed beneath her, just as black striped fish darted above, their shadows stippling Grace’s tail in patches of shade and light. Grace was surrounded by life. Though she couldn’t have a real conversation with anyone or anything underwater, she had to admit that she didn’t feel at all alone.

  So get over yourself, Minnaugh, she told herself as she worked her way back up the steep rocky wall, and count your aberrant, mutant, freakazoid blessings.

  Chapter Fourteen: Boxy Blues

  Tuesday was Swim Level Placement Day in P.E. All of the students in sixth grade were being tested to see if they could “float, fly, or flounder.” Grace was so appallingly cloddy at land-based sports that she usually turned red with embarrassment a whole period before P.E. classes even began. But swimming was now Grace’s forte, and she was eager to get in the pool and strut her stuff. There would be no balls to drop, no throws or passes to miss, just smooth, easy strokes and kicks. Grace would be safe as safe could be in a school pool. Chlorine might make her skin itchy but it wouldn’t turn her legs into a tail.

  “No question, sweetie, you’re definitely a small,” Mrs. Presser declared as she distributed blue tank swimsuits outside the girls’ locker room.

  “You’re kidding,” said Grace, holding the suit between thumb and forefinger, her nose wrinkling in distaste. It smelled like disinfectant and looked like something only a grandmother would wear. If it were purple, Mrs. Shelby might like it. “I have to wear this to swim class?”

  “You and all the other sixth-grade girls,” Mrs. Presser told her. “Look at it this way, sweetie, everyone wears the same bathing suit in swim class, so everyone looks awful. No competition for who looks the most fabulous, so there’s no first-place beauty or last-place loser.” Mrs. Presser grinned at Grace like the Cheshire Cat. “Towels are at the end of the counter. Next!”

  Grace grabbed a scratchy white towel and shuffled reluctantly into the locker room. While other girls talked and laughed as they changed into their boxy blue bathing suits, Grace found an empty locker at the far end of the last aisle. As she pulled her Ohio State T-shirt over her head, someone asked, “Mind if I sit here?” Grace poked her face through an armhole and saw Tanya on the bench next to her.

  “Go ahead,” Grace answered with a smile.

  Tanya held up her own stiffly starched bathing suit. “My older sister warned me about these yucko things, but I never thought they’d be this foul.”

  Tanya spoke with a slight accent, Grace noticed, wondering where Tanya was from, but she felt too shy to ask. “Ugh! It feels even worse than it looks,” Tanya groaned, slipping her brown arms through the suit straps. “So, Grace, how do you like school so far?”

  “It’s okay, I guess,” Grace replied. “Some of my teachers are interesting, but others are pretty dim.”

  “I know, right? Mr. Conrad, my English teacher is, like, so boring I want to scream sometimes. But you’re lucky—I heard you got Karp for science.”

  Grace narrowed her eyes. “I guess Christi told you we were in the same class, huh?”

  “Yeah, she mentioned it.” Tanya glanced awkwardly at the floor. “Listen. Don’t get the wrong idea about me and Christi. It’s not like we’re BFFs or anything, it’s just that....”

  Before Tanya could finish her sentence, Ms. Hayes, the gym teacher, burst into the locker room. She wasn’t much taller than her students, but she was built for jockdom, with tree-trunk legs (the better to play soccer with), broad shoulders (the better to swim with), and a voice that boomed like a foghorn (the better to intimidate with).

  “All right, girls,” she yelled, “time to get wet! Everyone stop gabbing and head out to the pool, pronto!”

  Grace and Tanya walked out of the locker room together. They inched toward the pool deck, where boys and girls stood in awkward clusters. The boys’ swimsuits were even more pathetic than the girls’—the same bleached-out shade of blue that hung to their knees. Mrs. Presser was right—everyone looked horrible.

  But the indoor pool was spectacular. Like the lunchroom, it looked as if it belonged in a country club rather than a middle school. It was edged with beautiful mosaic tiles and surrounded by large panoramic windows that boasted picture-postcard views of the ocean.

  “I’m not big on pools,” Tanya groaned. “They make me antsy. I like the ocean much better.”

  Grace was only half-listening, spellbound by the glittering surface of the school pool. She felt as drawn to the pool as she was to the ocean outside and couldn’t wait to dive in.

  “All right, kids,” Hayes barked. “No dilly dallying. Everyone in the water!”

  No problemo, Crazy Haysie, thought Grace. She took two quick steps and was in a midair dive as Tanya said, “At least this pool’s salt water, straight from the Pacific. So what’s the point? Why not just take us down to the beach?”

  Grace froze in panic, just as she felt the water hit her fingertips. Why had she stupidly assumed the school pool was a regular skin-drying, eye-reddening chlorinated pool? These rapid thoughts came together in her head as a single word—disaster!

  With a strength she never knew she had, Grace hurled herself from a dive into a flip. Her feet flew over her head, her upper body followed, her legs plunged into the water, and she landed hard on the concrete bottom. But luckily she was standing, with her head and shoulders above, and out of, the water.

  Tanya was now in the water, too, but oblivious to Grace’s freak-out. “Did you know that back in the 1920s,” Tanya continued, “saltwater pools were all the rage around La Toya? They were, like, uber-cool, especially with the Hollywood set that came down here to de-stress. Did you know this school used to be some fancy spa back then?”

  Grace—terrified that her gills might form and her legs transform into a tail—was speechless. She shook her head and tried to hide her trembling.

  “There’s a plaque on the side of the building, but it’s sort of hard to see behind the oleander bushes. I think the whole school was called the La Toya Pool and Tennis Club. Weird, huh?”

  “Yeah, weird,” Grace managed, watching as kid after kid jumped into the water. She was doomed. If Hayes expected them to put their heads under water, Grace would transform in front of everyone. What if one of the hooligan boys decided to knock her over and get her soaked? Or what if Tanya pulled her underwater for pool-bottom handstands? What if Ms. Hayes expected them to hold their breath underwater? Well, she knew exactly what would happen—the entire class would scream in fear as her purple tail swished toward them; they would flee in terror at the sight of Grace’s shimmering scales, mottled skin, and the strange flapping gills on her neck.

  Tanya shook Grace’s shoulder. “Grace, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I ca..ca..I can’t...” Grace croaked.

  “Come on, Grace. Hayes may look like a twelve-year-old, but she’s a drill sergeant. She’ll kill us if we don’t make it look good.” Tanya grabbed Grace’s hand and started pulling her toward the deep end.

  “You do...don’t understand!” Grace yanked her hand away and hoisted herself out of the pool. “I ca...ca... CAN’T! I CAN’T!”

  Ms. Hayes marched over to the shallow end, fists on her hips, elbows jutting out sharply. “No stalling, girls!” she hollered. “Get back in the pool, Minnaugh. I want everyone swimming now!”

  “Can’t what?” Tanya asked Grace quietly.

  “I can’t swim,” Grace squeaked, peering up at Hayes, who towered over her like an angry giant.

  “No excuses, Minnaugh,” Hayes snapped. “You may not be swim team material, but you won’t drown. The water is only three and a half feet deep. You can join the other beginners holding on the pool edge and practicing your underwater breathing.”

  Feeling nauseous and dizzy, Grace was paralyzed by fear—her heart thumping in her chest like a wild bongo drum. The walls,
the windows, the glistening pool began to whirl around.

  “Grace? Are you all right?” asked Tanya. “You look like...” but before Tanya could even finish her sentence, Grace fainted.

  Chapter Fifteen: Excuses, Excuses

  Grace woke up on a cot in the school nurse’s office, with Tanya holding her hand.

  “Hey, Grace,” said Tanya. “You sure freaked us out. Especially Hayes.”

  As Grace struggled to sit up, Mr. Shotz, the school nurse, bounded into the room, Ms. Karp close behind him, her thick-soled orthopedic shoes thumping across the linoleum floor. Shotz—unusually tall and meticulously dressed in a gray three-piece suit—reminded Grace of the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz.

  “Oh, good!” Shotz exclaimed. “You’re awake. Here, drink some water. It’ll make you feel better.” He handed a paper cup of ice-cold water to Grace, who gulped it down as if she had just run a marathon.

  “What happened?” Grace asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer. She remembered talking to Tanya in the locker room, the sight of the massive blue swimming pool, walking out to the pool and then…nothing. It felt as if a giant eraser had wiped out a chunk of her day.

  Ms. Karp shooed Tanya to the end of the cot and sat down close to Grace. She leaned in close and whispered in her ear, “Ya fainted, sister. Collapsed like a stack of cards.” Ms. Karp winked at Grace, then sat upright, placing her palm lightly on Grace’s forehead. “No fever, thank goodness.” Ms. Karp looked up at Mr. Shotz and asked, “What do you think, Sheldon? You’re the medical expert.”