Fins Are Forever

by Tera Lynn Childs

  “Nice to meet you,” Shannen says, offering Doe her hand.

  Doe, of course, stares blankly at the hand before rolling her eyes and stalking into the room. Prithi is fast on her heels. “Where can a mergirl find a glass of kelpberry juice in this place?”

  Typical Doe. Walking in like she owns the world, treating everyone like sludge, and expecting them to cheerfully serve her. Well, if she thinks she can pull off that attitude on land, then she’s in for a very harsh lesson. One I’m not going to teach her. She can sink or swim on her own in this world—I’m not going to be her guiding current. I’ve got my own life to get in order.

  Ignoring Doe—and Shannen’s questioning look—I hunker over my study guide and reread the directions for the math section for the fifteenth time. (Note: They still don’t make sense.)

  I’m trying to interpret the meaning of the obscure instructions when Aunt Rachel sweeps into the room.

  “Good morning, girls,” she says, her long, flowing skirt fluttering behind her. “Hard at work already?”

  “Yes, Ms. Hale,” Shannen replies.

  Aunt Rachel’s stopped asking Shannen to call her by her first name. She’s practically family—especially now that she knows my big, fin-shaped secret—but she can’t seem to shake a lifetime of respect-your-elders training.

  “Good morning, Dosinia,” Aunt Rachel says, setting her newspaper on the table and heading for the coffeemaker. “Did you sleep well?”

  Doe snorts.

  The fine hairs on the back of my neck, just above my mer mark, stand up. I force myself to take a deep breath and release some of my fury on an exhale. It’s a technique I learned from Quince, and I’m going to need it if Doe is here for more than a day or two.

  Especially if she keeps insulting my nearest and dearest.

  With my jaw clenched, I snarl, “You didn’t even give it a ch—”

  “Would you like some juice, dear?” Aunt Rachel asks before I can scold—er, explain to Doe about her inappropriate behavior. “There’s a pitcher in the fridge and glasses in that cupboard.”

  Doe’s gaze follows the wave of Aunt Rachel’s arm to the refrigerator and then stops. “The fridge?”

  “Don’t you have refrigerators in Thalassinia?” Aunt Rachel asks, sounding truly intrigued. Then she laughs at herself. “No, I don’t suppose you would need them.”

  “On land we need to keep things cold,” I explain before Doe can spit out the biting comment that’s already sneering across her lips. “So they don’t spoil.”

  To save us all from some sort of incident, I shove back from the table and stomp to the cabinet. In Doe’s defense, this world is completely foreign to her. Not that ignorance excuses her rudeness.

  “This is a glass,” I explain, holding one up for her to see. We have glasses in Thalassinia—which is why Doe rolls her eyes at me—but they’re not for juice. Since everything back home is surrounded by liquid, juice wouldn’t stay in a glass for long. We have bottles for things like kelpberry and sand strawberry juice. I jab the glass into her hand and then pull open the fridge. With the pitcher of orange juice in hand, I pour a generous amount into her glass. “It’s orange juice.”

  “The juice of an orange?” she asks, sounding confused.

  It’s not that we never have oranges in Thalassinia—we do a lot of trading with land-based merchants and have a pretty astounding variety of land-grown produce. Especially at the palace. But we only ever eat oranges in segments. No one ever thought of juicing them.

  “Yes,” I answer sharply. “Orange juice.”

  All of us watch expectantly, or maybe fearfully, as Doe cautiously takes her first sip of orange juice. It’s a small sip, barely enough to give her a real taste, but enough for her to decide what she thinks about it.

  It’s like we’re all holding our breath, waiting for her reaction. I’m not sure why Aunt Rachel and Shannen are so expectant, but I’m bracing myself for a Doe-style explosion. A tirade, maybe, and orange juice flying across the room.

  Never one to live up to expectation, Doe betrays no emotion. Just shrugs and takes another sip.

  I’m not sure whether to smile or scowl.

  “If everything is all right here,” Aunt Rachel says, pouring her coffee into a car mug and tucking her newspaper under her arm, “I’ll be off. I have an early class at the studio.”

  “Fine,” Doe says with a sunny smile. Totally fake.

  Prithi meows contentedly as she circles Doe’s ankles.

  “Yeah, I need to go, too,” Shan says. “Promised Mom I’d help her clean out the garage today.”

  She shudders as she gathers up her things.

  I give her a pleading do-you-have-to?!? look.

  “Keep working through the sample test,” she says, pushing the book toward me. “I’ll call later to check on your progress.”

  Moments later, Doe and I are alone in the kitchen, with only Prithi’s pleased purring interrupting the tense silence. In a completely negligent manner, Doe holds her glass over the sink, twists her wrist, and lets the juice pour out. The look on her face dares me to say a word.

  Oh, I’ve got more than one.

  My anger needs to wait, though. First, I need to find out why she’s here.

  “Dosinia,” I say, trying to sound stern while keeping the rising anger out of my voice, “why exactly did you get exiled?”

  She shrugs as she sets the glass on the counter. “I have no idea. I certainly didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Nothing wrong?” Wrong, in this case, I suppose, being up to Doe’s own interpretation. No one gets exiled for doing nothing wrong. “Daddy wouldn’t exile someone for no reason. Especially not a merperson of royal descent and especially not with revoked powers.”

  Revoking a merperson’s powers is even more serious than exile. That means Doe can’t breathe underwater, can’t transfigure, and can’t control the temperature of liquids. She can’t use any of the personal magical powers that make us mer. She’s still a merperson and subject to the rules and magic of our people, but as far as anyone can tell, she’s completely human.

  That must bug the carp out of her.

  Fine. If she won’t tell me why, then she can at least tell me how long.

  “So you’re exiled—for no reason whatsoever,” I say, with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “And without your powers. How long will we be stuck with you?”

  She shrugs again. “Uncle Whelk didn’t say.”

  My teeth grind slowly together. “Then what did he say?”

  Pulling back a chair at the table—the chair that neither Aunt Rachel nor Shannen had been using, as if she might get human cooties from them—she seats herself directly across from me. “He said you have to teach me to fit in here, in Seaview.”

  Is that all? Well, if Daddy had to give me a task, at least this is an easy one. Fitting in has never been a problem for Doe. Although she can be—and usually is—a total sea witch, she’s not a social leper or anything. She’s beautiful, and boys fall over their fins to please her. In Thalassinia she’s pretty popular. Shouldn’t be too tough to translate that into Seaview terms.

  The biggest difference will be the clothes. She didn’t bring anything with her, so at the moment she’s wearing the tank top she swam here in and finkini shorts made from hot pink and purple scales. Daddy must have left her just enough magic to maintain her modesty. Some of my clothes might fit her, but her curves are definitely, um, curvier than mine.

  I’m not exactly eager to share with her, but I can make do for a few days.

  “Don’t like my outfit?” she asks with a sneer when she notices me evaluating her attire. “You used to dress just like this. Then again, you used to be a mer princess.”

  I ignore her jab. “Your clothes aren’t exactly land appropriate.”

  “Here.” She tugs a small pouch from her deep cleavage and drops it on the table. “Uncle Whelk sent this to cover my expenses.”

  I tug open the drawstring pouch to find an eyeful of p
earls. Beautiful white, cream, pink, and even a few rare black pearls, all in perfect condition. These will fetch a significant amount.

  They will cover a lot of expenses.

  “How long do you expect to be here, Doe?” I ask. The money we’ll get for selling the pearls would pay all of our household expenses for a month. “When do you get to go home?”

  Her gaze drops to the table, and she absently rubs at the scratch I made in the paint the first time I tried to make frozen pizza. Some of her attitude ebbs, and I see, for the first time, that she’s just as uncertain about this situation as I am.

  Sometimes she makes it too easy to forget she’s just a sixteen-year-old kid.

  “I don’t know,” she admits. “Uncle Whelk said I needed to stay here until I learned to appreciate humans.”

  Great. For Doe that could mean never. Not that I completely blame her, of course, given her history, but it’s a semi-impossible task.

  “Did he say how to determine if you’ve succeeded?”

  “He said you would make the call.” She looks up, her blue eyes glowing with unshed tears. “You decide when I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “Well, that’s easy,” I say, jumping up, uncomfortable with her sudden display of emotion. “You stay here a few days, hang with my friends, act like you don’t want to kill them all with a death ray from your eyes, and we’ll be good to go.”

  Even before I’m finished, she’s shaking her head slowly.

  “He also said to tell you,” she whispers, “to consider this your final duty as princess of Thalassinia.”

  Duty.

  With that one word I drop back into my chair. It’s the one word that can completely sink me. I’ve been raised my whole life to appreciate the responsibility of my position, to understand that duty comes before almost everything. And even though Daddy encouraged me to follow my heart—which means giving up my place in the succession—that sense of duty is not so easy to dismiss. And if Daddy is calling on my sense of duty to deal with Doe, then that means I have to see it through to a legitimately successful conclusion.

  It also means that whatever she did to get exiled is really, really bad.

  “Oh, Doe,” I say sadly, shaking my head. “What did you do?”

  I don’t expect an answer, and she doesn’t give one. But I know there’s no way I can give her an easy pass. I have a feeling there’s more at stake here than just my inconvenience.

  Settling in on Doe’s toes, Prithi lets out a sad wail.

  My feelings exactly. Well, if Daddy thinks it will serve Thalassinia to help Doe get over her human hate, then that’s what I need to do. Because responsibility is difficult to ignore, and until my eighteenth birthday I am royally bound to fulfill my duty. Whether I like it or not.

  “Let’s get you dressed,” I say, pushing to my feet. “We’re going shopping.”

  Chapter 3

  Monday morning, Aunt Rachel drives me and Dosinia to school. Quince gave me a kiss when I told him I wouldn’t be riding with him on his motorcycle and promised me another one when I meet him at my locker. That will have to sustain me.

  While I’ve become a fan of his motorcycle—kind of—sometimes I wish one of us had a car. His mom needs her clunker for work, just like Aunt Rachel needs her station wagon. On days when the Seaview weather verges on hurricane-force winds or torrential tropical downpour, a vehicle with a roof would be a definite advantage. Not to mention the fact that we could be on our way to school together right now, with Doe safely in the backseat—or maybe the trunk—rather than him roaring off on Princess alone and me stuck listening to Doe whimper the whole ride.

  Until I get a job or Quince starts working full-time, it’s motorcycles and borrowed rides for me.

  “It’s fine,” I explain to Doe for the twentieth time since Aunt Rachel turned the ignition and put the station wagon in gear. “Just think of it as a wakemaker on wheels.”

  The wide-eyed, nostrils-flared look Doe shoots at me indicates she is not thrilled with the analogy. I’m surprised her death grip on the back of my seat hasn’t punctured the worn upholstery. I’m even more surprised that Doe is allowing this break in her I’m-too-cool-for-everything facade.

  She must really be freaked out. For a girl who can swim at a rate of almost fifty knots, you’d think a quick cruise through a residential area would be no big deal. I will admit that Aunt Rachel drives like she’s commanding a high-powered race car instead of a rattletrap station wagon, but I’ve gotten used to it. Mostly I just close my eyes.

  By the time we pull into a visitor parking spot near the Seaview High front entrance, Doe’s practically a statue. I climb out onto the sidewalk, my backpack slung over my shoulder, and grab the handle on the back door. She doesn’t move when I swing it open.

  “You can get out now,” I explain, hiding the fact that I consider her terror a little entertaining. “We’re here.”

  The look of grateful relief on her face washes away my joy. It’s the same look I see on my best friend Peri’s face after a near-encounter with a jellyfish. Definitely no laughing matter.

  I’ve never seen Doe look so vulnerable.

  “Grab your bag and come on,” I say, uncomfortable with these soft feelings for my squid-brained cousin. “Aunt Rachel’s going to get you registered.”

  Dosinia climbs out of the wagon on shaky legs, her new briefcase clutched in her fist. Yes, a briefcase. I couldn’t believe it either—I mean, how uncool can you be—but she said she couldn’t stand the feel of the straps from backpacks and messenger bags. I tried to explain Seaview social law to her, but she didn’t care. Typical.

  Everything else about her is trendy perfect. A flowy-yet-curve-hugging purple tunic, black leggings, and knee-high black leather boots. Her stylishly straight caramel blond hair, makeup that would make a Hollywood stylist proud, a big (fake) diamond-encrusted starfish hovering just above her cleavage. She’s on land one weekend, and she has more style than I’ve developed in three years.

  Sea witch.

  “You girls wait out here,” Aunt Rachel says as we reach the front office. “I’ll get things taken care of in a jiffy.”

  As we sit, waiting, on a vinyl-covered bench in the front hall, I evaluate my own lack of style. A brown ruffle-tiered skirt that falls just below my knees. A lime green tank top with little gold bits sparkling around the neckline. Gold ballet flats that Doe practically forced me to buy. (“You might as well get something out of this deal,” she said. Then, with a judgmental once-over, “And you can definitely use the help.”)

  Today’s selection is not horrible as far as outfits go. It’s when you get to my head that things go awry. Frizzy blond hair I can never hope to control and face devoid of all makeup save lip gloss, because attempts at anything more result in pure disaster.

  How is it that my human-hating cousin manages to pull off the movie-star look and I still look like I’m fresh off the boat? For three years I’ve blamed it on some mystical human-girl knowledge that no mergirl could ever hope to obtain. Now I have to admit that it’s just me. I’m style challenged.

  “So this school thing lasts, what?” Doe asks. “A couple hours?”

  I try not to laugh myself right off the bench. “Look, I know you’re used to the relaxed schedule of the royal tutors, but this is a whole different thing.”

  I give her a quick rundown of how school works on the mainland—seven hours of classes, homework after hours, sports and other extracurriculars. If I know Doe, she’ll jump up and be out the door before I can say, “Truancy is a punishable crime.” Doe thinks responsibility is a four-letter word.

  But she just slouches—fashionably—against the wall, crosses one leg over the other, and starts humming the Thalassinian national anthem. “No big,” she says. “I’ve been on an advanced study track for the past year.”

  She can’t be serious. When I still lived at home we had lessons together with the royal tutor. Being two years apart, we were never studying the same thing, but she a
lways seemed beyond bored and wholly uninterested in academic learning. I wasn’t much better, I know, but Doe doing advanced studies? That’s ridiculous.

  “What do you mean, an advanced—”

  “Morning, Lil.” Brody emerges from the front office, looking like his carefree, charming self. “How are you?”

  Forcing the Doe-induced scowl off my face, I smile. “I’m great.”

  “Did you get the email about the news team meeting after school?” he asks. “It’s time to start planning our graduation coverage.”

  I forget all about Doe and her advanced study track. News team calls.

  “Not yet. When did it go out?” I ask, shaking my head.

  It took me a while, but I’ve finally got the hang of using the computer. We don’t have much—okay, anything—in the way of electronic technology in Thalassinia. Water and electricity don’t exactly mix.

  But I’m mostly computer literate.

  “Just now.” He jerks his thumb toward the office. “I was showing Principal Brown how to see the final earthquake safety video and managed to sneak a peek at email.”

  “I’ll ask for a computer-lab pass in homeroom so I can check.”

  “Don’t bother,” he says with a charming grin. “We’re meeting in the studio after school. That’s all the email said.”

  “What’s an email?” Doe asks.

  Next to me, Doe looks Brody up and down before focusing her attention on his golden brown eyes. Oh. No.

  All of a sudden, life drops into slow motion. I see Brody’s attention slowly shift around me to Dosinia’s—fashionably—slouching form. Doe bats her heavily mascaraed eyes at him, each bat taking three full seconds, I swear. Her glossy pink lips purse out into an extra pout.

  On my other side, an even more charming smile spreads across Brody’s lips.

  Warning, Lily Sanderson. Danger approaching.

  Brody steps around my knees to stand in front of Doe, on the pretext of making a polite introduction. I feel like I’m watching a school of tuna swim into a gang of great whites, but I can’t look away from the inevitable feeding frenzy. Not when there’s nothing I can do to stop the catastrophe. I feel completely helpless.