“I see them,” said Troy, skillfully taking out two of the five mermobiles with a single shot. “Tree, did you sense Kyle again? Is that how you knew to come for us?” he asked, nearly knocking out another of Kyle’s men.
“Sure did. It started just before the two of you left,” she said, doing a complete roll to avoid the deadly strikes.
Troy managed to take out all but Kyle, who continued following us, but did not fire his trident.
“Marina, I used to be engaged to Kyle Zale,” she said, soaring over a succession of floating mermobiles.
“You used to be what with whom?!” I yelped.
“In a nutshell, he once was kind, I loved him, he changed, and I left him…something he has never gotten over. His hate for me is strong…so strong that when it reaches a certain level, I can sense his feelings—what he’s doing, where he’s going, and the like. It’s because…oops,” she said, nearly hitting an ancient mermaid. “Sorry, Granny! Anyway, merps never lose the love they once had for someone. Some have a tiny spot, deep down, where they keep that love. Others defile their love and make it something violent, like Kyle did. My retired love for him will always sense his anger, enabling me to predict his actions.” She zoomed around the toy store on the corner, heading for the archway to the garden. “Wow. Great crowd outside the toy store. Almost home now. Marina, you’ll stay with me. I have plenty of room, and dad won’t have a clue. Not sure why I didn’t think of that before. Must’ve had the ditz-ies.”
“Thanks,” I said, grabbing the ceiling when she made a sharp dive to the left.
“Kyle won’t fire at us,” said Troy, watching him closely.
“Correction,” I said, “he won’t fire at Treeva.”
I could see the faintest of smiles tickling Treeva’s plentiful pink lips. “Even after he disfigured his love for me, the core remains the same…love. We’re past the threshold of the garden. We’re safe.”
I turned in time to see Kyle glaring at us from outside the garden. He looked older than Treeva; perhaps the years of hate had hardened him. He was tall, but broadly built. His shaggy, red-streaked locks hid the darkness beneath his fuming brown eyes. For a moment, I could have sworn I saw something other than hate in his dark eyes, something more befitting of a lonely, longing heart.
Troy placed his hand on my shoulder. “He can’t follow us inside. Castle grounds are protected.”
“By what?”
“No idea,” he said, setting down his trident. “Now, Tree, tell me how in Hades you could afford a model M Tide two-lift-door floatster with disappearing roof?”
“Do you remember that business I told you I was interesting in buying?”
“Yeah, some shop in the city,” said Troy.
“Well, I bought it, and money has tripled since I took over,” she said proudly.
“Thanks for letting me in on the fun,” said Troy glumly.
“Which shop?” I asked.
“The one you call Toys R Merps…Mist’s Toy Emporium. Even kept the name.”
“No way! It’s like the chocolate factory of toys, and you’re its eccentric, but totally loveable owner!” I said.
“You brat,” said Troy, smirking at his sister.
“Why’d you keep the name? Mist is cute, but I’m sure you could have come up with something better, something that’s more you,” I asked.
After a brief pause, Treeva said, “Because Mist was what our dad called our mom.”
Insert foot in mouth.
Chapter Seventeen
Misty Eyed
For the past week, I have lived in a fantasy. Staying with Treeva has been the coolest part of the entire experience; she was literally the best parts of a BFF and a big sister all rolled into one. She made sure I had a wad of ulva daily, helped me use her merpmal (merperson-to-Normal phone) to call Mom throughout the week, and shared a bunch of cute Troy stories from when he was a little merboy. While Troy took care of “obligations,” Treeva dragged me all over the city.
We visited the luxury mermobile showroom where, thanks to Treeva’s dazzling pink fin, the salesman let me test drive the Uprush 570xi. Not even stock car drivers know that kind of speed. She took me to Merlahmega Ridge, the merp equivalent of Rodeo Drive. There, I found a gorgeous starfish hair clip, and Treeva treated herself to some fin frills. I found the sweetest baby dolphin at Merlafa, a sanctuary for premature and underdeveloped aquatic life, and enjoyed petting him until an obnoxious baby whale farted in my face. Nothing compares to the smell of a whale fart.
One of the most fascinating moments was when Treeva took me to a village hidden under the sea’s floor. Sandtala reminded me of a cluster of inverted pyramids; it was quiet, secluded, and home to the friendliest Merpeople in the sea. Not ascribing to the current ways of merps, the Sandtalians maintained an ancient way of living, even speaking prehistoric Mermish. The eldest Sandtalian presented me with an exquisite bracelet crafted from pink mermaid tail to show their acceptance of Normals.
Saturday: The last day of my stay. Today, I finally get to visit Treeva’s store, but not until after another one of Troy’s mystery meetings. To kill time, Treeva decided to take me to a “special” hideout.
“What do you think? This place is so happening,” she said, holding out her hands, greeting one merperson after the other.
“Happening in a grungy, shabby sort of way,” I commented, looking around the murky, seaweed-covered walls, crumbling coral tables, and grimy floors.
Embedded within a grubby shell wall at the end of a dark alley alongside Treeva’s toy store was The Scaly Fin. For a dump, the all-Fairhair clientele was surprisingly chic and cheerful.
“Hey, Tree! Show us some leg!” yelled a cute merman from the bar area.
Treeva, never one to hold back, gave them some leg and garnered loads of hoots and hollers in the process.
“Tree! Who’ve you brought?” asked a scholarly-type merman.
“Hiya, Nic. This is Marina Valentine, my brother’s human girlfriend,” said Treeva. Everybody in The Scaly Fin bombarded me with words of support and encouragement. “Okay, y’all, settle down. It’s time to get this girl fed! You must be starving. A diet of sea lettuce is hardly food,” said Treeva, sliding into a corner booth.
“Hey, I’ll take crispy ulva any day over scales. Besides, I think I’ve finally dumped my candy-inflated butt over the past week.”
“Oh, well, if you aren’t hungry,” she said, weakly trying to snatch my menu.
Reading down the menu, I shouted, “Human junk food! I thought y’all couldn’t eat Normal food!”
“Some of us don’t like being told what to do. Sorry I couldn’t bring you here sooner, but I dared not chance any of the Zale clan following us here. This place has had to move six times in order to stay operating. So far, this location has been perfect. My store is a major attention whore, so nobody even sees this little wallflower. Anyway, I knew the Zale’s would be too preoccupied today to care about following you.”
“Does it have something to do with why Troy’s been sneaking off?”
Treeva nodded. “And don’t ask me any questions. You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Are you ready to order?” asked the waiter.
“I’ll have the chicken finger basket with curly-q fries, a chocolate shake, the Boston crème pie, and, well, a cheeseburger, hold the onions, and a plate of nachos with hot salsa. Oh, and a cola…two of them…make one cherry.”
Treeva laughed. “I’m glad my brother has taken a liking to someone who knows how to eat. I’ll have the cheeseburger, fries, shake, and tater tots. What she can’t eat, I’ll finish up. You and I have very similar diets, bad as they are.”
“How does this place even exist?”
“Remember when I alluded to a brilliant mind that made the mini-tridents? Well, he also created a way for us to get Normal food down here. He even designed the universal panel so we could get all the programming y’all get.”
“Sounds like a wrinkly old genius!”
“Only way sexier,” she said, fiddling with her napkin. “You know, I’m genuinely happy my brother has found you. After his last girlfriend, I never thought he’d date again.”
“Katrina?”
“Oh, that daft wench? I don’t even count her. No, I mean his first real girlfriend, Mary Ella."
My face twitched. “Never heard of her.”
“Insert awkward moment, thanks to baby brother. Mary Ella Tinsel is a Christmas mermaid. They met a couple of years ago while our dad held a three-month summer conference in her hometown. She broke up with him when he had to return home. He was only fourteen. Plus, she was a goody-goody and a serious yawn.”
“Uh-huh.” Luckily, the food arrived, so I didn’t have to shower her with inane questions. The crunching and chewing sounds effectively drowned out the insidious thoughts pounding my brain. His first real girlfriend was a little miss perfect and a Christmas mermaid. How does any girl, human or mermaid, compete with that? Must chew louder.
Predictably, I very nearly ate everything I ordered. What I couldn’t finish, Treeva inhaled.
“How good was that?” she asked, rubbing her bloated belly.
“Is it weird that I feel slightly triumphant eating my kind of food in your world?”
“Not even a smidge,” she said, giggling. “Since you introduced Troy to Normal food, he can’t get enough of this place.”
“Hey girls.” Troy swam up and slid in next to me. “Wow. You two didn’t eat all of this did you?”
“Nah,” said Treeva, scrunching her nose.
“Not us,” I said.
Troy grabbed a couple of lonely leftover fries, raised an eyebrow, and placed his hand on my tummy. “Very full you feel. Much to eat you had.”
“Thanks, little green dude,” I said, pushing his hand away. “Ugh, I’m so uncomfortable.”
“Well, the best bet for tummy relief is shopping!” said Treeva, clapping her hands. “Ready to go to my store?”
“Am I ready?! Move! Out!” I said, shoving Troy out of the booth. Troy immediately put me on his back. “You know, your sister gave me five packs of Gravity Gum, so I can walk on the ocean floor. You really don’t need to carry me.”
“I know, but I want to,” he said, kissing my hands.
“How can I argue with that?” The three of us carefully exited The Scaly Fin and scooted around the corner, effortlessly melting into the crowd.
Mist’s Toy Emporium was hard to miss. Amongst the dainty, tastefully elaborate, hoity-toity shops and buildings stood Treeva’s store: A starfish-shaped structure with flashing lights, moving signs, and a couple of octopus tentacles that literally reach out and pull passersby inside. If these extremes weren’t enough to grab attention, the talking signs hanging outside the foamy windows certainly would.
“Tired of never having a date? Sick of your friends always going out while you stay at home, dateless? Want to shove it in your ex’s face? Then try My Merp Mate by UpUrs!” said one of the signs.
“My Merp Mate?” I asked.
“Fantastic product,” said Treeva. “Great way to silence an arrogant ex who flaunts his new girlfriend in your face. There are still a few kinks, though. After twelve hours, the male merp mates sound like they have a farting problem. Still, it’s a best seller. Huge crowd today. Follow me. I’ll clear a path.”
Treeva morphed into her legs, causing mermen to either gawk or whistle and mermaids to twitter off in gossiping groups.
“Works every time,” she purred.
Just call me Alice because I think I’ve entered Wonderland. Because of the crowd, I couldn’t get near the crooked, floor-to-ceiling shelves, which gave the impression of waves around the room. Above our heads, merps floated upside-down while reading and testing various products.
“Merpeople really don’t have a sense of upright versus upside-down,” she said, watching me ogle the upside-down merps. “So, I thought it might be fun if some stuff is only accessible while on your head. I’ve seen some pretty funny stuff because of it.” If this was Wonderland, then Treeva was the Mad Hatter. “First floor is for teens and adults. You’ll find all your beauty products here, like Pouf Powder, and social saving products like Octo-ink and Toss’em. Oh, and Hook’em is great for snatching the date you really want. Whether he sticks around or not is entirely up to him…for now.”
I spotted a group of teens around a black coral bin with a sign that read, Octo-ink—The Quickest Way to Avoid a Bad Date, Bully, Enemy, or Hovering Parental. Nearby, a couple of girls were trying out Toss’em on some unsuspecting boys. Invisible fishing line shoots out of a bracelet-cuff, lassos the unwanted date and, with a flick of the wrist, tosses him far enough for you to make your escape. Of course, the opposite was true of Hook’em, which I saw for myself when one of the girls tried to lasso Troy. Luckily, he dodged it, much to their chagrin.
“Whoa!” I said, watching a tiny little merchild go zipping up a twisting tube.
“The twisty tubes. Kids love them. They have amazing resilience. Parents simply float up to meet the kids. I’ve been meaning to install regular transport tubes, but I hate to give up all this shelf space,” said Treeva. “Did you notice the pathways throughout the store?” she asked, pointing down at the turquoise tiled walkways. “I had hoped to encourage more merps to use their legs, but they haven’t caught on…yet.”
“Treeva, you could sell your clothing line here,” I suggested. “Mermaids would have a chance to actually see the clothes without being afraid someone will find out. Look at all the activity in here. No one cares what anyone else is looking at. I mean, they haven’t given me a second look. Heck, they could probably secretly buy one of your tops without anyone knowing.”
Treeva looked at me, stunned. “Why that has to be the most scathingly brilliant idea ever! If I introduced them down here, added some up in the kids’ section…yes, that might work,” she said, thinking aloud. “Troy, I like this girl. Please, keep her.” Her voice was suddenly somewhat desperate when she said those last three words.
“It’s nearly evening,” said Troy, rubbing his neck. “We should get going.”
Treeva stared at him for a moment. “Yes, of course, but not before I put together a goody bag for Marina to take with her.”
After another twenty minutes of Treeva zipping around, filling a bag with goodies, we were finally ready to leave.
“Thank you so much, Treeva,” I said, barely able to grip the silky shopping bag.
“No problem, sweetie. Here, cram it in your backpack,” she said, helping me find what little room I had left in my bag. “Now, let’s all jump in my floatster and head to our final surprise. And this one, Marina, is truly spectacular.”
Chapter Eighteen
The Race
Ten minutes of unsolvable hints and endless coursing through the empty outskirts of Fairla tested my thinly veiled patience.
“C’mon, just tell me where we’re going,” I said.
“Nope. I want you to see it,” said Troy, smiling.
“Baby brother has this whole experience planned for you. I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to. Although, if you start looking around, you might notice a few things,” said Treeva.
Like what? There’s nothing but dark, spooky water…with literally thousands of brightly lit mermobiles appearing from every direction. All of them, including us, continued across the deserted sea like a school of lost fish.
Five minutes later, a large, flashing screen floating next to a gaudy tortoise shell gate swam into view; as we slowly passed through the gate, the sign flashed the words, WELCOME TO THE GULF SUPER ZOOMWAY! BUCKLE UP TIGHT! Just beyond the gate, I could barely make out a ghostly glow from within a massive crater in the bottom of the ocean’s floor.
“Do a flyover, Tree. I want Marina to see down inside it,” said Troy, placing a hand on my shoulder.
Leaning over the side, I peered into a crater so enormous, seven football stadiums could sit comfortably inside it. Thousands of merps file
d in and occupied colorful, jagged seats, which sat eye-level with a velvet-smooth racetrack carved into the seabed. In the middle of the track were about forty numbered, brightly painted mermobiles, each parked next to an equal number of individual trenches.
“It’s a stadium! It’s mer-stock car racing!” I said, bouncing in my seat, nearly falling over the side. “It’s amazing…but…”
“But why are the seats set eye-level with the track?” said Troy, finishing the question I couldn’t quite form in my brain.
“Yeah, that I don’t get. And the pit boxes are set even lower, like under the track. In stock car racing, the stands tower over the track, so we can see the cars at every point.”
“Oh, you’ll still see them from every point,” Troy teased.
“Marina, you know those board games where you have to keep tilting and tipping the board in order to get a ball through a maze, past traps, and into a pocket on the other side?” asked Treeva.
“Yes.”
“Well, this is absolutely nothing like those, apart from the tilting and tipping. We have jagged seats so no one has an obstructed view. You’ll see soon enough. Ugh, here comes the annoying souvenir salesman,” said Treeva, falling in line with the other mermobiles. “Too bad I have the roof dissolved. We could’ve ignored him.”
“Uh, maybe not, Tree,” said Troy, pointing at me.
I was just shy of salivating over the souvenirs.
Treeva laughed and playfully tugged my hair. “She’s so cute! Okay, let’s get this girl some souvenirs.”
Donning bright green aprons and hats, the salesmen whizzed up to each mermobile, offering trays full of extraordinary goodies. Blue hats let fans listen in on their favorite driver during the race, and flowing flags cheered when waved; tiny moving models of each race mermobile, along with larger collectible mermobiles with life-like figures of famous drivers waving from behind the wheel, zoomed around the salesman’s head and tray; there were even shell bras painted with the faces of the most popular drivers.
FINNED (The Merworld Water Wars) Page 19
