Aquamarine

by Alice Hoffman

  “Already?” he said mournfully. All last night he had dreamed of the ocean, and now it seemed to him that he might be dreaming still.

  “It’s not time,” Aquamarine insisted. “It can’t be over.”

  But it was. Beneath the wheelchair a circle of fish scales the color of moonlight had collected. Each one was now evaporating into fine, green dust.

  “Can I have your phone number?” Raymond asked the mermaid as the girls hurried to wheel her out the door. “Your address?”

  “No,” Hailey and Claire said at the same time. “She’s going away.”

  “I’m going away, too,” Raymond said, confused.

  “Well, she’s going farther,” Claire told him.

  “She’s going someplace you can’t ever get to,” Hailey added.

  But Aquamarine knew better. She unhooked one of the shells from her beautiful blue dress and gave it to Raymond. She promised that if he said her name into the shell, she would hear him, no matter where she might be.

  “I don’t think that’s possible.” Raymond shook his head. He’d read so many books that he thought he knew how every story ended.

  “Anything is possible,” Aquamarine told him, and when the girls looked at her face, they knew that this was true.

  Aquamarine didn’t say a word when the girls brought her back to the pool. If she was crying, she didn’t let them see. Tomorrow at noon, high tide would race in. Aquamarine was sure of this because a mermaid can always tell the tide, just as easily as a person can distinguish night from day. It was then she’d have to leave.

  The girls stored the wheelchair in an abandoned cabana and promised they’d be back in the morning, first thing. Aquamarine had become so weak from her stay on land she hadn’t any strength left. She was too exhausted to swim and was forced to stay in the shallow end of the pool. All the same, she refused to take off the blue dress, even though it weighed her down. By now, Aquamarine was as pale as those fish you find beached on the shore, and she’d begun to labor for breath.

  “This is the most beautiful night there has ever been,” the mermaid whispered.

  The girls ran to the parking lot where Maury was dozing behind the wheel of his car.

  “So,” he asked when they got in the car. “Was your mermaid happy with tonight’s results?”

  “She said it was the most beautiful night there had ever been,” Claire said.

  When the girls looked around them, they saw that this was true. Hailey and Claire peered back through the Capri gates, to the beach where the white crests of the waves broke on the shore. They could see the stars sparkling above. To have a night like this could make almost anyone believe in the future.

  The furniture in Claire’s grandparents’ house was gone now, and because of this they were all supposed to sleep at Hailey’s. But the girls begged and pleaded and at last the grown-ups gave in and allowed them to take their sleeping bags and camp out in the empty living room at Claire’s house. It felt funny to be there without the sofa and the table and the pillows and the books and everything else that had made this Claire’s home. Their voices echoed off the bare walls.

  “Do you think she’ll really go tomorrow?” Hailey asked.

  “She has to,” Claire said. “She doesn’t have a choice.”

  “Well, I wish she could stay.” Hailey’s voice sounded strange, as though she were about to cry, but of course it was Claire who had always been the crier, not Hailey. Or at least this had been true up until now.

  “You know what?” Right then Claire felt certain that some things really did stay the same. “I think she wishes that, too.”

  ON SATURDAY, the owner of the Capri Beach Club returned, along with his wife, his children, his grandchildren, all his uncles and aunts, and everyone who had ever worked at the Capri. A good-bye party was being held, with live music and a barbecue and more people than the beach club had seen all summer long. The line at the snack bar crisscrossed the patio, with crowds calling for sandwiches and sodas.

  Streamers and balloons had been strung over the entranceway. Even the bulldozers had been decorated. But despite the crepe paper necklaces and the headdresses of streamers, the machines looked like yellow monsters. No one could disguise that their purpose was to dismantle the club.

  “Where have all these people been all summer?” Hailey grumbled when she and Claire arrived. The girls made their way through the crowd. “The one day we want some privacy, this place is mobbed.”

  They spied Raymond, who had already packed up his books and was leaving for Florida later that day. He was working hard, trying to keep up with the demand of the crowd, but when he noticed the girls, he left everything and came over. He had the white shell Aquamarine had given him on a chain around his neck. He looked as though he hadn’t had a wink of sleep.

  “How can I leave without saying good-bye to her?” he said to the girls.

  “You’ll just have to,” Hailey said.

  “We all have to do what we don’t want to do sometimes,” Claire added.

  The girls looked nervously at the pool. At least the warning ropes were still up and none of the crowd had yet ventured near.

  “Is there something you’re not telling me?” Raymond asked.

  One little boy was approaching the deep end. He had a fishing net in his hands and a look on his face that spelled trouble.

  “Fishy,” the little boy said.

  “If there’s something we’re not telling you, we’re not telling you for your own good,” Claire said. “And for Aquamarine’s good, too.”

  The little boy was standing at the very edge of the pool, teetering on the cement.

  “Oh, no!” Hailey said.

  “Get back here!” Claire cried.

  But the little boy didn’t listen, and as they watched, he fell with barely a splash into the murky water. When Raymond saw what had happened, he ran so fast the girls could hardly keep up. He dove into the pool with his clothes and his shoes on. The girls could hear the little boy’s parents calling to find their dear Arthur who was always such a wanderer.

  His parents had no idea that Arthur had already been saved, and was secure in Raymond’s and Aquamarine’s arms. Someone else might have been shocked to see the silvery tail which guided Aquamarine through the water, but if anything, Raymond’s eyes shone even brighter when he looked at her. As for the mermaid, she had used her last bit of strength to catch the boy when he fell. She was now as pale as moonlight, and so weak Raymond had to help her back to the shallow end of the pool. Thankfully, Arthur was so surprised to find that the fish he’d discovered was a girl that he didn’t say a word.

  “We have to take her back now,” Hailey said. “We can’t wait another minute!”

  Raymond and Aquamarine looked at each other. Neither one wanted the other to leave, but without the ocean Aquamarine would fade into dust. By now, everyone was searching for Arthur and the crowd was coming dangerously close.

  “Go on,” Raymond told the girls. “I’ll take care of things here.”

  Aquamarine turned to him then. Her voice was light as sea mist. “Wherever you are,” she said. “I’ll find you.”

  While the girls carried Aquamarine out of the pool to place her in the wheelchair she whispered something that sounded like thank you. She had become so dehydrated from her time on land that she was now surprisingly light and all that was left of her voice was a trickle.

  Raymond went to the far end of the pool and waved his arms in the air. “Over here,” he called to the crowd. He had wrapped Arthur in a blanket and now he lifted the boy up for all to see. Everyone turned to look, and in that moment the girls slipped away with Aquamarine.

  The crowd surged around the rescued Arthur. People cheered and called Raymond a hero, and not one of them noticed that Raymond was paying no attention to their acclaim. He was looking to make sure the girls were on their way to the sea, wishing only that Aquamarine would be safe.

  Hailey and Claire were already racing the whee
lchair past the tennis courts where the weeds were as tall as trees, past the cabanas that hadn’t been used all summer long, past the snack bar where Raymond would never work again. The owner of the beach club spied them, and he yelled for them to stay off the beach, but they went on anyway, past the bulldozers, until the sand was too deep to roll the wheelchair along. They had reached the seawall, made of cement and stones, which stood four feet tall.

  “We have to carry her over,” Hailey said.

  By now, the mermaid was light as air, dusty and dry as the sand. The girls made a seat for her out of their crossed arms and Aquamarine held onto their shoulders. Together, they made their way over the cement wall, then jumped down into the water. It was high tide and the surf was rough, but it was the time when the mermaid had to go. They could hear the owner yelling at them, but his words were lost in the crashing noise at the shore.

  “We’re going to have to bring her all the way in, past the breaking waves,” Claire said.

  Hailey looked at her friend who had always been so afraid of water and felt immensely proud of her.

  Together they carried Aquamarine. Her long hair blew out behind her and her skin gave off puffs of greenish dust, as if she were already turning to ash, right there in their arms.

  “Hurry,” Claire shouted over the sound of the surf. “We’re losing her.”

  They went in past the whitecaps that shone like stars, past the water that was wilder than horses. Over the crashing they could hear the sound of the mermaid’s six sisters singing to her, urging her to quickly return to where she belonged.

  Aquamarine seemed too weak to swim. At first, she was so limp she could not lift her head, but the farther into the water they brought her, the more she revived. Soon she splashed her tail, and before long she began to shimmer again, and when she laughed her watery laugh, they could tell it was time to let go. By then, the girls were up to their necks in the surf, doing their best to stay afloat in the rolling waves.

  “We’ll never forget you,” the girls told her, and at the very same moment, they opened their arms. Before they could blink, she was gone, deep into the waves, to the very bottom of the sea where her sisters were waiting to rejoice and take her home and keep her safe all the rest of her days.

  By the time the girls helped each other back to shore, their arms and legs were aching, but they didn’t want to let go of one another. They had both swallowed quarts of saltwater. They pulled strands of seaweed from their hair as they watched the sea, but all they could see were the waves. Aquamarine had disappeared without a trace. The girls might have felt as though they’d imagined her completely if they hadn’t found the two white shells Aquamarine had left for them on the seat of the wheelchair. They were beautiful shells, as white as the surf in the sea. When you held one up to your ear you could hear the sound of your best friend talking to you, even if she was a thousand miles away.

  “What did I tell you girls!” the owner of the Capri shouted when Hailey and Claire waved to Raymond as he headed for the parking lot and roared off on his motorbike. “Stay off the beach!”

  “We just wanted to say good-bye,” they told him. And then they hugged the startled owner and thanked him for the best summer of their lives.

  That evening, while dusk was spreading across the sky, Claire’s grandparents loaded up their car. The moving men had taken most of their belongings, but Claire had set aside anything that was irreplaceable. These items would be taken along on the ride down to Florida, to ensure they wouldn’t get lost. There was the pearl necklace that had belonged to Claire’s mother, and the photograph albums, and one of the white shells left by Aquamarine.

  Hailey’s mom had made up a picnic basket, with deviled eggs and chocolate cupcakes and a Thermos of pink lemonade, and she’d thrown in the necessities for anyone who leaves home: a compass, a map, and a photograph of the house that was left behind.

  “It’s all right if you talk to the girl who moves in here,” Claire told Hailey as her grandparents were buckling their seat belts and waving good-bye. “I’ve thought it over, and I really want you to.”

  “I might say hello or something. Just to be polite.”

  “Even if there isn’t a fire,” they both said at the very same time, the way they were still known to do.

  Hailey and Claire hugged each other right there on the lawn that Claire’s grandfather had cared for so meticulously. It was still the best lawn in the neighborhood, and Hailey would be around to make certain the new people watered early in the morning, which was always best for any garden.

  Hailey stood where she was and waved until Claire’s grandparents’ car disappeared. After that, she stood there a while longer. It was still August, but it didn’t feel like summer anymore. All of a sudden the crickets’ call was faster, as if they knew that in only a week school would begin. It was obvious, even to the insects, that it would be quite some time before the weather turned hot again.

  That night, Hailey’s mom fixed rainbow sundaes, which had always been Claire and Hailey’s favorite treat. Vanilla ice cream, strawberries, blueberries, hot fudge, and butterscotch. But Hailey couldn’t eat. She went to the kitchen window even though it wasn’t possible to see anything next door. Just an empty house, without any curtains, or any people, or anything at all. Hailey got out her white seashell and she held it to her ear. The whooshing sound within was exactly like Claire’s voice, and Hailey hoped that if she spoke into the shell Claire would hear her, no matter how far away she already was. Safe trip, that’s what she called to her friend. Here’s to the future, she said.

  ON THE DAY THE BULLDOZERS knocked down the Capri Beach Club, the weather changed at last. The sky was as gray as fish scales and the air was salty and wet. Hailey and her mom stood in the parking lot to watch. Before long, the entranceway was crushed, the patio was leveled, and the fence around the pool was shoved aside. Hundreds of seagulls and terns circled in the sky.

  The pool had already been drained, and in no time the bulldozers set to work breaking down the concrete. It was hard to tell which was noisier, the sound of the machines at work or the rumble of the wild surf.

  Hailey had brought her camera along, and she’d planned to take a photograph to send to Claire so that she could see what had happened to the Capri, but it didn’t even seem like the same place anymore.

  “I think it’s better if she just remembers it the way it was,” Hailey told her mother.

  True enough, some things were best kept as a memory, but some things changed for the better. Claire, for instance, had taken up swimming, which only made sense since she now lived right on the beach. As it turned out, she was good at it. She took to the water if not like a mermaid, then at least like a fish.

  Of course, if she hadn’t started swimming, she would have never run into Raymond, who was on his college team and often practiced in the blue bay that Claire could see from her window. The first time she spotted him, Claire thought Raymond was a seal, that’s how far out in the water he was, but then he waved to her and swam over.

  “I never thanked you and your friend for introducing me to Aquamarine,” Raymond said.

  “I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” Claire said.

  “But it did.” Raymond was surprised. “She said she would find me, and she did.”

  When he swam back into the sea, Claire could see that he wasn’t really alone. There in the deepest blue water was a girl who was waiting for him, far beyond the breaking waves. For some time afterward, Claire brought her camera down to the beach, hoping for a photograph of Aquamarine to send to Hailey. But after a while she put her camera away. Hailey would be coming to visit next summer and that wasn’t so very far away. If they were lucky, if they watched carefully, they might still be able to spy Aquamarine. Far beyond the tide pools and the jellyfish, beyond starfish and snails, she is swimming there still.

  Alice Hoffman is the author of over thirty acclaimed and best-selling novels which have been published in more than twenty languages,
including The Dovekeepers, which Toni Morrison called “beautiful” and “harrowing”; The Museum of Extraordinary Things, which People Magazine called “spellbinding”; and most recently, The Marriage of Opposites, which USA Today called “lush” and “evocative”. She lives in Boston and can be found online at www.alicehoffman.com.

  Copyright © 2001 by Alice Hoffman

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, a division of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC and SCHOLASTIC PRESS and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  This is a work of fiction. The events described are imaginary, and the characters are fictitious and not intended to represent specific living persons. Any similarity to real events or persons is purely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 00-055718

  First edition, May 2001

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-04647-2

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