by Liz Kessler
The walls were covered with collages made from shells and seaweed. Light filtered in through tiny cracks in the ceiling. Then Mrs. Tailspin came in and we all jumped off our rocks to say good morning.
Shona put her hand up right away. “Is it all right if my cousin sits in with us, please, ma’am?”
Mrs. Tailspin looked me up and down. “If she’s good.”
Then she clapped her hands. “Right, let’s get started. Shipwrecks. Today, we’re doing the nineteenth century.”
Shipwrecks! That beats pre-algebra!
Mrs. Tailspin passed various objects around the room. “These are all from The Voyager,” she said as she passed a huge plank of wood to a girl at the front. “One of our proudest sinkings.”
Proudest sinkings — what did that mean?
“Not a huge amount is known for sure about the wreck of the The Voyager, but what we do know is that a group of mermaids who called themselves the Siren Sisters were responsible for its great sinking. Through skillful manipulation and careful luring, they managed to distract the entire crew for long enough to bring the great ship down.”
Shona passed me a couple of interlocked pieces of chain. I examined them and passed them on.
“Now, the only problem with this sinking was what one or two of the Siren Sisters did. Can anyone think what they might have done?”
Shona thrust her hand in the air.
“Yes, Shona?”
“Ma’am, did they fall in love?”
“Now, how did I know you were going to say that? Ever the romantic, aren’t you, Shona?”
A giggle went around the room.
“Well, as a matter of fact, Shona is right,” Mrs. Tailspin went on. “Some of these sisters let down the entire operation. Instead of dispersing the crew, they chose to run away with them! Never to be seen again. It’s not known whether they attempted to return once they discovered the inevitable disappointments of life ashore. . . .”
I shuffled uncomfortably on my rock.
“Although, as you know,” Mrs. Tailspin continued, “Neptune takes a very dim view of those who do.”
“Who’s Neptune?” I whispered to Shona.
“The king,” she whispered back. “And you don’t want to get on the wrong side of him, believe me! He’s got a terrible temper — he makes thunderstorms and typhoons when he gets in a bad mood. Or unleashes sea monsters! But he can calm the roughest seas with a blink. Very powerful. And very rich, too. He lives in a huge palace, all made of coral and gems and gold —”
“Shona, are you saying anything you’d like to share with the class?” Mrs. Tailspin was looking our way.
“Sorry, ma’am.” Shona blushed.
Mrs. Tailspin shook her head. “Now, one rather sorry piece of The Voyager’s legacy,” she went on, “is that it has become somewhat of a symbol for those who choose to follow their Siren Sisters’ doomed path. Instances are rare, but merfolk and humans have been caught together here. I needn’t tell you that the punishments have been harsh. Our prison is home to a number of those traitors who have attempted to endanger our population in this way.”
“You have a prison?” I whispered.
“Of course,” Shona replied. “Really scary, from the pictures I’ve seen. A huge labyrinth of caves out beyond the Great Mermer Reef, near Neptune’s palace.”
I couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the morning. What if they found out that I wasn’t a real mermaid, and I ended up in that prison?
Shona grabbed me as soon as lessons finished.
“I’ve had an amazing thought,” she said. “Let’s go to the shipwreck. Let’s find it!”
“What? How?”
“Don’t you remember? Mrs. Tailspin told us the exact location. I thought you were daydreaming then!”
She ran her hand along the side of her tail. Then she did this totally weird thing. She put her hand inside her scales. She felt around for a bit, then pulled something out! It looked like a cross between a compass and a calculator. Her scales closed up as she withdrew her hand.
“What was that?” I screeched.
“What?” Shona looked baffled.
I pointed to her tail, where her hand had disappeared.
“My pocket?”
“Pocket?”
“Of course. You have pockets.”
“In my denim jacket, yeah. Not in my body.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
I fumbled round the sides of my tail. My hand slipped through a gap. Pockets! I did have them!
Shona held up the object she’d pulled out. “We can find the shipwreck with my splishometer.”
I hesitated. It’s true that Mom wasn’t expecting me home until four o’ clock. Should I go?
“Come on, Emily; it must be such a romantic place!”
I thought for a second. “Okay, let’s do it — let’s go this afternoon!”
Underwater, we made our way slowly out to sea, with Shona checking her splishometer every few yards. After a while, we came up to look around. A lone line of gulls skimmed the surface. Ahead of us, other sea birds shot into the water like white arrows.
We ducked under again. Rays of sun shone in dusty beams under the water. Moments later, Shona’s splishometer beeped. “We’re getting close,” she breathed as we dove lower.
The sea life was becoming weirder. Something that looked like a peach with tentacles turned slowly around in the water, scanning its surroundings with beady black eyes. Farther down, a see-through jellyfish bounced away from us — a slow-motion space hopper. A rubbery gold crown floated silently upward. Everywhere I looked, fish that could have passed for cartoon aliens bounced and twirled and spun.
Shona grabbed my arm. “Come on,” she said, pointing ahead and swimming away again. Lower and lower, the sea grew darker and darker. As we pressed forward, something came into view. I couldn’t make out the shape, but it was surrounded by a hazy, golden light. The eerie light grew stronger as we carried on swimming toward it, and bigger. It was everywhere, all around us. We’d found it! The Voyager!
We darted along its length, tracing the row of portholes all the way from the back end to its pointy front, then swam away again to take it all in. Long and sleek, the ship lay on a tilt in the sand: still, silent, majestic.
“That is so-o-o amazing.” My words gurgled away from me like a speech bubble in a comic strip. It made me laugh, which sent more bubbles floating out of my mouth, up into the darkness.
I couldn’t stop staring at the ship. It was like something out of a film — not real life. Especially my life! It shone as if it had the sun inside it, as though it were made of gold.
Made of gold? A shipwreck made of gold? A queasy feeling clutched at my insides.
“Shona, the masts —”
“Are you okay?” Shona asked, taking a look at me.
“I need to see a mast!”
Shona pointed up into the darkness again. “Come on.”
Neither of us spoke as we skirted around the hundreds of tiny fish pecking away at the ship’s sides and swam up to the deck. Yard after yard of wooden slats: some shiny, almost new-looking; others dark and rotting. We swam upward, circling one of the masts, wrapping our tails around it like snakes slithering up a tree, my heart hammering loud and fast.
“What is it?”
“What?”
“What’s the mast made of?”
Shona moved back to examine it. “Well, it looks like marble, but that’s —”
“Marble? Are you sure?”
A golden boat with a marble mast. No!
I let go of the mast and pushed myself away, scattering a shoal of blue fish as I raced back down to the hull. I had to get away! It wasn’t right! It didn’t make sense!
“Emily, what’s wrong?” Shona was behind me.
“It’s — it’s —” What? What could I say? How could I explain this awful panic inside me? It didn’t make sense. I was being ridiculous. It couldn’t be — of course it couldn’t! I pushed t
he thought from my mind. Just a coincidence.
“It’s nothing,” I said, laughing off my unease. “Come on, let’s go inside!”
Shona slithered along the hull. Fish nibbled at its sides next to her. I shivered as a silky plant brushed against my arm, swaying with the motion of the sea.
“Found one!” She flapped her tail excitedly.
I slithered over to join her and found myself in front of a broken porthole.
She looked at me for a second, her bright face reflecting the boat’s light. “I’ve never had a real adventure before,” she said quietly. Then she disappeared through the empty window. I forced the fear out of my mind. Shona didn’t think there was anything to be afraid of. Then I held my arms tight against my sides, flicked the end of my tail, and followed Shona through the porthole.
We were in a narrow corridor. Bits of wallpaper dripped from the ceiling in watery stalactites, swaying with the movement of the sea. Below us, the slanted floor was completely rotten: black and moldy, with random floorboards missing. The walls were lined with plankton.
“Come on.” Shona led the way. Long thin fish silently skirted the walls and ceiling. Portholes lined the corridor on our left; doors with paint peeling and cracking all the way down faced them on our right. We tried every one.
“They’re all locked,” Shona said, wiggling another rotting doorknob and pushing her weight against another stubborn door. Then she raced ahead to the end of the corridor and disappeared. I followed her around the corner. Right in front of our eyes, a white door seemed to be challenging us. It was bigger than the others, shining and glowing, its round brass handle begging to be turned. A big, fat, beady-eyed fish hovered in front of it like a goalie. Shona tossed her head as she leaned forward to try the handle, her hair flowing out in the water. The fish darted away.
The door swung open.
“Swishing heck!” she breathed.
I joined her in the doorway. “Wow!” Bubbles danced out of my mouth as I stared.
It was the grandest room I’d ever seen — and the biggest! Easily as big as a tennis court. At one end, a carpet made out of maroon weeds swayed gently with the sea’s rhythm. At the other end was a hard white floor.
“Pearl,” Shona said, gliding across its shiny surface.
I swam into a corner and circled one of the golden pillars shining bright light across the room. With every movement, rainbow colors flickered around the walls and ceiling. Bright blue-and-yellow fish danced in the light.
Below huge round windows, benches with velvet seats and high wooden backs lined the walls, large iron tables dotted about in front of them. I picked up a goblet from one of the tables. Golden and heavy, its base was a long skirt, the cup a deep well waiting to be filled with magic.
Above us, a shoal of fish writhed and spun along the yellow ceiling. The ceiling!
“Shona, what’s the ceiling made out of?”
She swam up to its surface. “Amber, by the looks of it.”
I backed quickly toward the door, flicking my tail as hard as I could. A ceiling of amber, a pavement of pearl. No! It couldn’t be! It was impossible!
But I couldn’t brush away the truth this time.
It was the boat from Mom’s dream.
“Shona, we’ve got to get out of here!” I pulled at her hand. My fingers shook.
“But don’t you want to —”
“We have to get away!”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. Something’s not right. Please, Shona.”
She looked at my face, and for a moment I saw shock — or recognition. “Come on,” she said.
We didn’t speak as we slithered back down the narrow corridor in silence, Shona following as I raced ahead. I swam in such a panic that I went straight past the broken porthole and almost all the way to the other end of the boat! I turned and was about to start swimming back when Shona tugged at my arm.
“Look,” she said, pointing at the floor.
“What?”
“Can’t you see?”
I looked closer and noticed a shiny section of wood, newer than the other floorboards, the size of a manhole. It had a handle on it shaped like a giant pair of pliers.
Shona pulled at the trapdoor. “Give me a hand.”
“Shona, I’ve got a really weird feeling about all this. We really have to —”
“Just a quick look. Please. Then we’ll go — I promise.”
Reluctantly, I pulled at the handle with her, flipping my tail to propel myself backward. Seconds later, it creaked open. A swarm of tiny fish darted out from the gap, shimmering in a flash of silver before disappearing down the corridor.
Shona flipped herself upside down and poked her head into the hole, swishing her tail in my face. “What can you see?” I asked.
“It’s a tunnel!” Shona flipped back up and grabbed my hand. “Have a look.”
“But you said we could —”
“Five minutes.” And she disappeared down the hole.
As soon as we got into the tunnel, the golden light virtually disappeared. Just tiny rays peeping through the odd crack. We felt our way along the sides — which wasn’t exactly pleasant. Slimy, rubbery things lined the walls. I decided not to think about what they might be. An occasional fish passed by in the shadows: slow and solitary. The silence seemed to deepen. Inside it, my unease grew and grew. How could it be the same? How could it?
“Look!” Shona’s voice echoed in front of me.
I peered ahead. We’d reached another door, facing us at the end of the tunnel. “Locked,” Shona said quietly. “Hey, but look at —”
Suddenly a luminous fish with huge wide-open jaws sprang out of the darkness, almost swimming into my face.
I screamed and grabbed Shona’s arm. “I’m getting out of here!” I burst out, forgetting about the ballroom, the slimy rubbery walls, the trapdoor. All that mattered was getting away from that ship.
We sat on Rainbow Rocks, low down by the water’s edge, out of sight from the coast. Water lapped gently against the stones. Shona’s tail glistened in the chilly light. Mine had disappeared again, and I rubbed my goosepimply legs dry with my jacket. Shona stared. She obviously found the transformation as weird as I did.
“Do you want to tell me what that was all about?” She broke the silence.
“What?”
“What happened to you back there?”
I threw a pebble into the water and watched the circle around it grow bigger and wider until it disappeared. “I can’t.’”
“You don’t want to?”
“No, I mean, I really, actually can’t! I don’t even know what it’s about myself.”
Shona fell quiet again. “I understand if you don’t trust me,” she said after a while. “I mean, it’s not like I’m your best friend or anything.”
“I haven’t got a best friend.”
“Me, either.” Shona smiled a little bit, her tail flapping on the rock as she spoke.
Then we fell quiet again.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” I said after a while. “I do. It’s just . . . well, you would think I’m crazy.”
“Of course I wouldn’t. Apart from the fact that you’re a human half the time and a mermaid who sneaks out to play at night, I haven’t met anyone as normal as you in ages!”
I smiled.
“Come on, try me,” she said.
So I did. I told her everything; I told her about the swimming lesson and Mystic Millie and about Mom’s dream and the ship being exactly the same. I even told her about seeing Mr. Beeston on my way home that first night. Once I’d started letting things out, I couldn’t seem to stop.
When I finished, Shona stared at me without speaking.
“What?”
She looked away.
“What?”
“I don’t want to say. You might get mad, like last time.”
“What do you mean? Do you know something? You’ve got to tell me!”
Shona shook her head. “I don’t know anything for sure. But do you remember when we first met, and I thought I’d heard your name before?”
“You said you’d got it wrong.”
“I know. But I don’t think I did.”
“You had heard it?”
She nodded. “I think so.”
“Where?”
“It was at school.”
“At school?”
“I think it was in a book. I never knew if it was true, or just an ocean myth. We studied it in history.”
“Studied what in history?”
Shona paused before saying in a quiet voice, “Illegal marriages.”
“Illegal? You mean —”
“Between merpeople and humans.”
I tried to take in her words. What was she trying to tell me? That my parents —
“There’ll be something in the library at school. Let’s go back.” Shona slid down off her rock.
“I thought you finished at lunch time on Saturdays.”
“There are clubs and practices and stuff in the afternoon. Come on, I’m sure we can find out more.”
I slipped into the water and followed her back to mermaid school, my thoughts as tangled as a heap of washed-up fishing nets.
Back through the hole in the rock, back along the caves and tunnels and tubes until we came to the school playground. It was empty.
“This way.” Shona pointed to a rocky structure standing on its own, spiral-shaped and full of giant holes and crevices. We swam inside through a thick crack and slithered up through the swirls, coming out into a circular room with jagged rocky edges. A few mergirls and boys sat on mushroom-shaped spongy seats in front of long pieces of scratchy paper that hung from the ceiling. They wound the paper up or down, silently moving their heads from side to side as they examined the sheets.
“What are they doing?” I whispered.
Shona gaped at me. “Reading! What do you think they’re doing?”
I shrugged. “Where are the books?”
“It’s easier to find stuff on scrolls. Come on. I’ll show you where everything’s stored.” She led me to the opposite side of the room and swam up to the ceiling. We looked through different headings at the top of each scroll: Shipwrecks, Treasures, Fishermen, Sirens.
