by Liz Kessler
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
Wakey, wakey!”
Mom’s voice called to me from the other side of a dream. “Rise and shine!” she added as she tapped on my bedroom door.
“I’m awake,” I mumbled, warm with sleep.
Mom poked her head around the door. “Come on, time to get up.”
I turned over and opened one eye. Mom came in and sat on the end of the bed. “Back to school!” she said, smiling at me. “Are you excited?”
“Too tired to be excited,” I said.
And too nervous. I didn’t say that, though. It wasn’t just the first day of the semester. It was my first day back after an adventure on a pirate ship that had pretty much changed my life.
Except it turned out that it hadn’t really changed much at all. I was back in Brightport, and everything here seemed about as ordinary as it could get. I’d come home before the holidays, but there had been so much going on in my life and in my head that my feet had barely touched the ground. I’d definitely done that now, though, and it felt as if I had come back to earth with a bump.
I still hadn’t figured out how to stop thinking about adventures out at sea and concentrate on sitting at a desk, following school rules.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to figure it out. A part of me wanted to be out there still, sailing the ocean on a pirate ship. Grammar tests and algebra somehow didn’t hold the same appeal.
But here I was, and, like it or not, I had to accept that the adventures were over and it was time to get back to normality.
“I’ll get you some breakfast,” Mom said. “Hurry up, now. You don’t want to be late on your first day back.”
I got dressed and joined Mom at the breakfast table. She’d made me poached eggs, sausages, bacon, and a crispy hash brown. We usually only had a breakfast like that on special days. Normally, I just had a bowl of cornflakes.
Mom saw me looking. “Back to school treat,” she said with a smile.
I knew why she was going to all this effort. My boyfriend — sorry, ex-boyfriend — Aaron, had gone away to live somewhere else. Meanwhile one of my best friends, Mandy, had barely spoken to me since I’d been home. I’d seen her a couple of times, but it felt like we didn’t have much to say to each other anymore.
Mandy and I used to be sworn enemies. When I first discovered that I could become a mermaid, she called me names like “freak” and “fish girl.” It was horrible. We made up last year, though, and ever since then she’s been one of my best friends.
But after coming back, I wasn’t sure how to pick up the pieces of our friendship again. I’d wanted to tell her all about the amazing time I’d had at Forgotten Island and on the pirate ship, but whenever I tried, it seemed like she wasn’t interested. She’d change the subject or look bored or start talking to someone else.
So I stopped trying. We hadn’t seen each other since before Christmas. And now it felt like the old days — the days when I dreaded going to school because I didn’t have any real friends.
Which made the prospect of my first day back at school about as enticing as a muddy puddle on a winter’s day.
I didn’t want Mom to worry about me, though, so I forced myself to smile back. “Thanks, Mom,” I said.
“Come on, love,” Mom said as I sat there looking at my plate of food. “Eat up. You’ll be late.”
“I’m not really hungry,” I confessed. “Sorry.”
Mom leaned over to kiss my cheek. “OK, chicken,” she said. “Leave it by the sink and I’ll give it to your dad. He never turns down a hearty breakfast.”
She got up from her seat, pulled her bathrobe around her, and went to the fridge. “At least take some fruit with you,” she said.
“I will,” I promised as I took my almost full plate to the sink and went to brush my teeth and finish getting ready for school.
Mom came out onto the deck in her bathrobe to see me off.
“Have a good day at school, darling,” she said, giving me a quick kiss before I hopped off Fortuna and onto the jetty.
Fortuna is our boat. It’s where we live. It sits on the seabed, half sunken, so the lower deck is underwater and the top half is dry. Mom lives upstairs, as she’s human. Dad lives in the watery part below, as he’s a merman. I’m a semi-mer. That means I’m a regular girl on land but I become a mermaid when I go in water. I mainly live upstairs with Mom but can hang out in the water, too, when I transform into a mermaid.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said. “Have a good day too.”
Just then, Dad swam around the back of the boat. “Hey, little ’un. Today’s the day,” he said as he wiped a strand of hair off his face. “It’ll be wonderful. I’m sure.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said.
I blew them both a kiss, threw my bag over my shoulder, and made my way up the jetty.
I didn’t know exactly what was in store for me at school today. But as I walked, I couldn’t help mulling over Dad’s words and wondering if I would ever again be likely to describe a school day as anything approaching “wonderful.”
“Come on, now, eighth-graders. Let’s settle down, shall we?”
The first day back after winter break was never the quietest day of the year. Mrs. Porter shuffled papers around on her desk while most of the class, still buzzing from the holidays, kept chatting, emptying bags, teasing each other, and swapping gossip.
But even normal Monday mornings could be like this. You’d think we didn’t spend any time together out of school. The truth was, most of those still talking generally spent their entire weekends and evenings either together or constantly messaging each other on their phones. It was hard to know what could be left to talk about.
It was especially hard for me today.
In the old days, Aaron would have been sitting on one side of me, nudging me and teasing me and making me laugh. Mandy would have been on my other side, talking about the adventures we’d shared over the weekend and hatching schemes and plans for the week ahead.
Today I sat on my own, an empty seat on either side of me as I unpacked my books and tried to look busy. I did my best not to notice the smiles, laughs, and whispered gossip all around me. I tried even harder not to notice that no one was laughing or whispering or gossiping with me.
Not that I could blame them. I’d been absent for weeks last semester. I’d missed so much school — and when I had come back, I’d been so distracted with my adventures that I’d barely given school any of my focus.
As I glanced around now, it hit me that if I had the chance, I would trade adventures on pirate ships and beautiful islands to be part of one of the smiling groups around me.
No one was offering the trade, though.
Aaron’s empty seat on my right felt like a flashing beacon with a notice over it and an arrow pointing to me.
Watch out! Person with no friends sitting right here! Don’t come near!
Then Mandy Rushton came into the room, pulled out the chair on my left, shoved her bag under the table, and sat down.
For a split second, my mood lifted. She’d sat next to me! Did that mean w
e were friends again? Could we get back on track?
It had been so horrible not seeing her much over the holidays. Thinking about it, I could understand her side of things. I know it must have been hard for her with me being away. Then I hadn’t paid much attention to her once I’d come home. But if she’d sat down next to me, maybe that meant she was ready to get back to normal too.
I decided to try saying hello. What harm could one little word do?
“Hey,” I said, nudging her arm. I smiled as she turned to look at me.
Mandy’s face might as well have had Leave me alone, loser! painted on it in permanent ink. She scowled at me, then very deliberately wiped her arm where I’d nudged her and turned completely away from me.
A moment later she was deep in a loud conversation with Julie Crossens, and I was left sitting there, feeling like a fool.
My face burned with shame and disappointment — and anger. I may have been away, but I hadn’t done anything wrong!
I tried to distract myself by thinking about Aaron instead. Even though we’d broken up, we were still good friends. He’d gone to start a new life at Forgotten Island a few weeks ago, and I still couldn’t get used to him not being here.
Thinking about him only made me feel even more alone.
“Come on, guys. Enough’s enough,” Mrs. Porter said, just loud enough to be heard over the din. Eventually, everyone hushed.
“Thank you,” she said calmly. “OK, come on. Let’s use our homeroom time to catch up. I’m going to call on you one by one to tell us your favorite thing from winter break. And I hope you all had a more interesting time than I did!” Mrs. Porter smiled as she glanced around the class.
I instantly looked down at my desk, dreading being picked first. What was I supposed to say?
My favorite part was swimming in the sea with Shona, the only friend I have left.
Shona’s my best friend. My other best friend. Maybe my only best friend now. She’s a mermaid. Full-time, not a semi-mer like me.
I might have been away from school for a while, but I hadn’t forgotten how it worked. Standing out from the crowd was not the best move. Telling everyone that my only true friend was a mermaid and that the only time I felt happy was in the sea was not going to be the best way of fitting back in at Brightport Junior High.
Sitting in the classroom, the fresh sea air felt a million miles away, and fitting in with my classmates felt more real and more important than sharing stories of my life on the high seas.
For the first time it hit me that maybe I was the one at fault, not Mandy. Had I talked about my adventures too much when I got back? Had I listened to her stories about what had happened while I was gone? Had I even asked about them? Or had I shown zero interest in her?
Was that why we’d barely even seen each other over the holidays?
Mrs. Porter’s voice broke into my thoughts. “Sherry Daniels, do you want to start us off?”
“I went out fishing on my dad’s boat,” Sherry said.
“Sounds good,” Mrs. Porter said. “Catch anything interesting?”
Sherry shrugged. “My dad caught a lot. I mainly just helped with the ropes and tried not to be sick.”
Mrs. Porter laughed. “Who’s up next?” she asked.
Tammy Bayfield put her hand up. Her mom’s the editor of the Brightport Times. “The newspaper closed for Christmas,” she said, “so I got to hang out with my mom every day.”
“Good for your mom,” Mrs. Porter replied. “We all need some time off over Christmas!”
Aiden Harris thrust his hand in the air. His dad owns the local landfill. “My dad took me for a ride in the dump truck,” he said. “We drove to the harbor together and looked out at the sea. Dad wanted to see a dolphin. He’s lived by the sea all his life and never seen one. He says it’s his biggest dream. We didn’t see any dolphins, but I still had a great day hanging out with my dad.”
“Succinct as always, Aiden,” Mrs. Porter said, in that special sarcastic way that teachers must learn at college, as they all do it.
On and on she went, around the class. Then she came to me.
“I . . . um . . .” I said. My mind had gone blank and my mouth was suddenly dry. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I couldn’t think of anything nice that had happened.
All I could think was that I’d come back from thrilling adventures on the ocean to a town where I was suddenly out of place, where nothing felt right, where no one wanted me. Either everything had changed, or everything had stayed the same and I was the one who’d changed. It was hard to know which.
Either way, the result was the same: I’d never felt so much like an outsider — or struggled so hard to think of something to say.
“Do you have anything to share with us, Emily?” Mrs. Porter asked.
Everyone was turning to look at me. I wanted to shrivel into a ball and hide under my seat.
I shoved my hands in my pockets so no one would see that they were shaking. My fingers closed around a stone that I’d been carrying with me everywhere. A smooth, oval stone that fit perfectly in my hand.
Millie had given it to me for Christmas.
Mystic Millie is a part-time fortune-teller, part-time hypnotist, and full-time best friend of my mom’s. She’d bought the stone at a craft fair when she was reading palms at the booth next door; it was deep, shiny gray with three bright white lines around its middle. Millie said it’s called a wishing stone because it gives its owner three wishes.
She still believes in magical things, even though she’s an adult, and she knew I’d like it, too. It was a beautiful stone and I liked having it near me.
Before I could stop myself, I’d pulled the stone out of my pocket and held it out. “This,” I said. “It’s a magic stone.”
Half the class burst out laughing.
My face burned. “I mean, obviously, it’s not real magic,” I went on quickly. “It’s just, well, it’s pretty. I like it.” My voice trailed off. I sounded like an idiot.
Then I remembered something. The stone had come with a poem attached to it. If I shared that, maybe I could rescue the situation and sound less ridiculous. I pulled out the piece of paper.
“I mainly like it because it came with a poem,” I said. Before Mrs. Porter could stop me, I’d unfolded the paper and started reading aloud.
“Make your wish and make it fast.
But don’t expect your dreams to last.
Hurry up, now, time won’t wait.
Slip through worlds and meet your fate.
When you have a magic stone,
Hold it close to take you home.
Life will never be the same
Once you’ve looked through its dark frame.”
The class was absolutely silent. Were they in awe of a beautiful poem, or did they simply not know how to respond to me making a complete fool of myself?
Finally Mrs. Porter cleared her throat. “That’s lovely, Emily,” she said. “Thank you for sharing something so special with us.”
I could detect sympathy in her voice. The look in her eyes said, Oh, you poor, friendless thing. The best thing in your life is a stone — and a piece of paper with a poem on it. How sad is that?
Just in case I needed to feel even worse, Mrs. Porter moved on to Mandy next.
Mandy sat up straight in her chair and said, “My favorite thing over the holidays was hanging out with my best friend.” Then she glanced quickly at me before moving her chair even farther away and adding pointedly, “Julie. The best best friend in the world.”
I felt winded. It was like a punch in my stomach, so hard I nearly doubled over. I shoved the stone and the poem in my bag and looked down at my desk, hiding my face so no one could see how hot my cheeks had gotten, red with embarrassment and shame.
I was completely adrift. All the fierce, happy independence that I’d found on the pirate ship felt as if it had been emptied out of me.
What was the point of being happy and thinking you were powerful
if you had no one to share your happiness and power with?
What was the point in learning about life on the high seas if it meant coming home to a place where no one liked you?
What was the point in telling yourself you didn’t care about society’s rules and opinions when it turned out that actually you did care? And that the more you cared, the more you realized what a self-important idiot you’d been to think you didn’t.
Mrs. Porter had moved on. She was giving us a few pointers about changes to the schedule and telling us about a new English teacher. I barely registered her words.
By the time Mrs. Porter looked at her watch and said, “Well, that’s all we have time for today,” and everyone leaped up from their seats to file out of the room, I knew one thing.
I had to find a way to get Mandy alone, to talk to her, to see if we could fix things.
I wouldn’t survive school unless I did.
I don’t know how I got through the day. I went to the nurse during English. I told her I had a stomachache, and she let me lie down in the sick room for an hour.
Only, it turned out even that was a bad move. Two minutes after I got there, a sixth-grader came in and spent the whole hour coughing, sneezing, and sniffing. If I hadn’t been sick when I went in there, I was pretty sure I’d picked up some kind of bug by the time I left.
At least it had given me some time to think. Mostly I thought about how much I wanted to fix things with Mandy. So I gritted my teeth and forced my way through the day.
And now it was time to go home — and I was ready to confront this head-on. A group of kids from my class were hanging around at the front gate. Aiden and his friends were there with Julie and Mandy. I gathered my courage and walked over to them. No one turned around as I approached, but I tapped Mandy on the shoulder.
“Are you walking home?” I asked her. I tried to keep my voice casual. I didn’t want to seem desperate.
Mandy turned slowly to face me. She stared at me for a second, then turned back to the others.
That was it. She was blowing me off again and was about to make fun of me in front of half the class. Well, I wasn’t going to hang around for that.
