by Liz Kessler
“What strain?”
“Fatherhood. Good-for-nothing slacker. Never willing to grow up and take responsibility.” Mr. Beeston looked away. “What he did — it was despicable,” he said, his voice becoming raspy. “I will never forgive him.” He got up from the bench, his face hard and set. “Never,” he repeated. Something about the way he said it made me hope I’d never get on his wrong side.
I followed him as we carried on along the boardwalk. “Didn’t anybody try to find him?”
“Find him?” Mr. Beeston looked at me, but it was as though he were seeing right through me. His eyes wouldn’t meet mine. “Find him?” he repeated. “Yes — of course we tried. No one could have done more than I did. I traveled around for weeks, put up posters. We even had a message on the radio, begging him to come home and meet his — well, his . . .”
“His daughter?”
Mr. Beeston didn’t reply.
“So he never even saw me?”
“We did everything we could.”
I looked down the wide boards of the promenade, trying to take in what I’d heard. It couldn’t be true. Could it? A young couple ambled toward us, the man holding a baby up in the air, the woman laughing, a spaniel jumping up between them. Farther down, an elderly couple were walking slowly against the wind, arms linked.
“I think I need to go now,” I said. We’d walked all the way around to the lighthouse.
Mr. Beeston pulled me back by my arm. “You’re not to talk to your mother about this, do you hear me?”
“Why not?”
“You saw what happened. It’s far too painful for her.” He tightened his grip, his fingers biting into my arm. “Promise me you won’t mention it.”
I didn’t say anything.
Mr. Beeston looked hard into my eyes. “People can block things out completely if the memory is too much to cope with. That’s a scientific fact. There’ll be all sorts of trouble if you try to make her talk about this.” He pulled on my arm, his face inches from mine. “And you don’t want trouble — do you?” he said in a whisper.
I shook my head.
“Do you?” he repeated with another yank on my arm.
“No — of course not,” my voice wobbled.
He smiled his wonky smile at me and let go of my arm. “Good,” he said. “Good. Now, will I be seeing you when I come over this afternoon?”
“I’m going out,” I said quickly. I’d think of something to do. I couldn’t cope with Sunday coffee with Mom and Mr. Beeston. Especially now.
“Very well. Tell your mother I’ll be over at three o’clock.”
“Yeah.”
We stood by the lighthouse. For a moment, I had a vision of him throwing me inside and locking me in! Why would he do that? He’d never done anything to hurt me — before today. I rubbed my arm. I could still feel the pinch of his fingers digging into my skin. But it was nothing compared with the disappointment I felt in my chest. Jake wasn’t my father, after all, if Mr. Beeston was to be believed. And he had no reason to lie — did he? Nothing made sense anymore.
“Now, let’s see, where’s the, hmm . . .” Mr. Beeston talked to himself as he fumbled with his keys. He had about five key rings rattling on a long chain. But then he gasped. “What — where’s my . . .”
“What’s wrong?”
He ignored me. “It can’t be missing. It can’t be.” He felt in his pants pockets, pulling the insides out and shaking out his handkerchief. “It was here. I’m sure it was.”
“The lighthouse key?”
“No, not the lighthouse key, the —” He stopped fumbling and looked up at me, as if he’d only just remembered I was there, his eyes dark and hard. “You’re still here,” he said. “Go on. Leave me alone. But don’t forget our chat. It’s between you and me. Remember, you don’t want to cause any trouble.” Then he unlocked the lighthouse door. “I’ve got some important things to do,” he said. Squinting into my eyes, he added, “I’ll see you again soon.” For some reason, it sounded like a threat.
Before I had a chance to say anything else, he’d slipped inside and shut the door behind him. A second later, a bolt slid across.
As I turned to leave, I kicked something up in the dust. It glinted at me. A key ring. I picked it up. There was a brass plate on the ring with crystals around the edges. There was a picture of a pitchfork or something engraved on one side.
Two keys hung from the ring: one big chunky one, the other a little metal one, same as Mom has for our suitcase. A tiny gold chain hung from the plate; a clasp at its other end was broken and open.
I banged on the lighthouse door and waited. “Mr. Beeston!” I called. I banged once more.
Nothing.
I looked at the key ring again, running my fingers over its crystal edge. Oh, well. I could always give it back another time.
I buttoned the key ring into my pocket and headed home.
This was it. The moment I’d been dreading. The school board had only gone and re-opened the pool! Apparently some parents made a fuss. So here we were again. I stepped through the trough of icy cold water on the way to the pool. Back at the gym, I had tried telling Mr. Bird I had a planter’s wart on my foot, but he just gave me a couple of rubber socks to put on. So now the game was up, plus I looked ridiculous. Great. What was I going to do? Five more minutes and my secret would be revealed. Everybody would know I was a freak!
“Come on, people; we haven’t got all day.” Bob clapped his hands together as I walked slowly to the side of the pool and joined the rest of the class. “It’ll be time to get out again before you set foot in the water.”
My heart thumped so loud I could feel it in my ears.
“Okay, those who can swim already can jump right in,” he said. Please, please don’t remember that I can swim, I prayed silently. Time was running out.
“That means you.” Mandy Rushton elbowed Julia and pointed to me. “What’s up, fish girl?” she sneered. “Have you gotten water shy all of a sudden?”
I tried to ignore her, but Bob was looking our way. “What’s going on over —” Then he recognized me. “Oh, yeah. You’re the one who got a cramp, aren’t you?”
I stepped back toward the wall, hoping it might swallow me up and then I could disappear forever. I couldn’t do it — I couldn’t!
“You can get in when you’re ready.” Yeah, right — no way. “Take it easy, though. We don’t want the same thing to happen again.” He turned back to the others. “Come on, you guys. Let’s get on with it, shall we?”
“Let’s all see how the fish girl does it!” Mandy said loudly, and everyone turned around to look at us. Then she pushed me forward and I lost my footing. Tripping on the slippery floor, I went flying into the pool with a loud SPLASH!
For the tiniest moment, I forgot all about Mandy. She wasn’t important. All that mattered was that I was in the water again, losing myself to its creamy smoothness, wrapping myself up in it as if it were my favorite dressing gown, keeping me safe and warm.
Then I remembered where I was!
I swam to the surface and looked up to see thirty pairs of eyes facing my way — at least one of them glinting nastily at me, waiting for my freakness to be revealed!
I had to fight it — I had to — but it was starting already! My legs were going numb, joining together. And, like an idiot, I’d swum halfway across the pool!
I heaved myself through the water, splashing and dragging my body along, keeping my legs as still as possible to try to stop my tail from forming. Bit by bit, I propelled myself to the side, my arms working like a windmill. I had to get there before it happened. Hurry, hurry!
Gasping and panting, I finally heaved myself out of the pool — just in time! The second I dragged my body over the side, my legs started to relax. Wheezing and breathless, I pulled myself out of the pool and sat on the side.
Bob was over in a second. “Have you hurt yourself?” He stared down at me, and I suddenly had an idea. I grabbed my foot.
“It’s my ankle,” I said. “I think I’ve sprained it.”
Bob narrowed his eyes. “How did that happen?”
I was about to say I’d fallen in when I saw Mandy’s face. Sneering and jeering at me. Why should I let her off the hook? “Mandy pushed me,” I said.
“Okay, well, there’ll be no swimming for either one of you this week,” he said. “You can sit in the corner for the rest of the lesson,” he said sternly to Mandy. Then he turned to me. “And you put that ankle up and rest it.”
He clapped his hands as he went back to the class. “That’s it, people, show’s over. Let’s do some swimming!”
It wasn’t the cold that made me shiver as I limped back to the changing room. It had more to do with Mandy’s words, hissed at me through clenched teeth so quietly no one else could hear.
“I’ll get you back for this, fish girl,” she said. “Just wait.”
I hung back while Shona swam ahead, my tail flapping as we drew closer to the shipwreck. The night was crunchy with a million stars, but no moon.
“We’re nearly there.” Shona dove under the water. I followed her, trailing a few yards behind.
Soon, the golden light was filtering through weeds and rocks, pulling us toward the ship.
“Shona, we can’t do it!” I blurted out. “There’s no point.”
Shona swam back to me. “But you agreed —”
“It’s no good. He’s not my father.”
She stared at me.
“My father left us. Just like I thought he had.” I told her what Mr. Beeston had said — and about his strange threat.
“Are you sure?” she asked when I’d finished.
Why would Mr. Beeston bother to lie? I’d asked myself that question so many times over the last three days. I still wasn’t sure I believed him — but it was better than building up false hopes.
“I was so certain. . . .” Shona looked over her shoulder at the ship. “Look — why don’t we go anyway? We’re nearly there.”
“What’s the use?”
“What have we got to lose? And there was something I wanted to show you. Something about the door in that passageway.”
What did it matter? If the ship didn’t have anything to do with me, there was nothing to fear. “Okay,” I said.
We slithered along the dark corridor, feeling our way back down those slimy walls. I tried hard not to make eye contact with the open-jawed fish that had followed us down.
“So what did you want to show me?” I asked as we swam.
“There was a symbol on the door. I completely forgot about it after everything that happened.”
“What symbol?”
“A trident.”
“What’s a trident?”
“Neptune’s symbol. He carries it everywhere with him. It’s what he uses to create thunderstorms — or islands.”
“Islands? He can create whole islands?”
“Well, that’s only when he’s in a good mood — so it doesn’t happen much. More often he makes the biggest storms out at sea!” Shona’s eyes had that wide shiny look they always did when she talked about Neptune.
“Some merfolk say he can turn you to stone with his trident. His palace is filled with stone animals. I heard that they were all animals who had disobeyed him at one time. And he can make ships disappear, just by waving it at them — or produce a feast for a hundred merpeople, or create volcanoes out of thin air.”
“Cool!”
We’d arrived at the door. “Look.” She pointed at the top corner of the door. A brass plate. An engraving. Quite faint — but there was no mistaking what I was looking at.
The picture from Mr. Beeston ’s key ring.
“But — but that’s —” I pulled at my pocket. “It’s impossible. It can’t be!”
“What?” Shona swam up to my side. I handed her the key ring. “Where did you get this?” she asked.
“It’s Mr. Beeston’s.”
“Sharks!” Shona breathed. “So do you think . . .” Her words trailed away into the watery darkness. What did I think? I didn’t think anything anymore.
“Shall we try it?” Shona took the key from me.
I watched in amazement as it turned smoothly in the lock.
The door slid open.
Silently, we slithered inside. We were in a small office. It had a desk stacked about a yard high with laminated folders and papers held down by rocks, and a stool nailed to the floor in front of it. Shona swam to the desk and pulled on something. A second later, an orange glow burst out above me. I blinked as I got used to the sudden glare, then looked up to see where the light had come from. A long slimy creature with a piece of string on its tail clung to the ceiling.
“Electric eel,” she explained.
We looked at each other in silence. “What about the other key?” she said eventually, swimming over to a metal filing cabinet in the corner. I tried the drawers, but they wouldn’t pull out. I almost closed my eyes as I tried to put it in the lock at the top. Please don’t fit, please don’t fit, I said to myself. What would I find if it did?
I couldn’t even get it halfway in.
I let out a huge breath and was suddenly desperate to get out of there. “Shona, maybe this is all a big mistake,” I said, backing out of the office. But then I knocked my tail against the stool and slipped backward. A swarm of tiny black fish escaped from under the table, spinning out of the room and away from us.
“Emily!” Shona tugged my sleeve and pointed at something under the table.
I leaned forward to get a closer look. There was a wooden chest; quite big, with brass edging and a chain looped all around it. It was like something out of Treasure Island. I swam under the table, and Shona helped me drag it out. “Flipping fins,” she said quietly, staring at something dangling at the front of the chain. A brass padlock.
As I slipped the key easily into the lock and the brass hook bounced from the tumbler, I wasn’t even surprised. A line of silver fish pecked at the chest as I opened it. It was full of files. I grabbed a handful of them. The colors changed from blue to green as I lifted them toward me. Rummaging through the pile, I tried to pull the rest of them out. Then I came to a folder that was different from the others. For one thing, it was thicker. For another thing, it looked newer.
And for another, it had my name on it.
I don’t know how long I looked at the file. I realized at some point that my hand had almost gone numb from clutching it so tightly.
“What is it?” Shona came to look over my shoulder at the files. That’s when I noticed another one at the bottom of the chest. I reached down to get it. It had my mom’s name on it. Below that was another. I almost didn’t dare to look. I shut my eyes as I picked it up. When I opened them, I was looking at a name I’d been dreaming about for a week: Jake Windsnap.
I traced the words with my fingertips. Jake Windsnap. I said his name over and over, wondering if there was any way it could be a mistake or a practical joke or something. “Jake is my father,” I said out loud. Of course he was. I’d known it in my heart from the first time I’d heard his name. It just took seeing it in writing to convince my brain.
I opened the file, my hands shaking so much I almost dropped all its contents. The sheets inside it were plastic. And they all had the pitchfork image at the top: Neptune’s trident.
“But what in sharks’ name does Mr. Beeston have to do with any of this?” Shona asked.
“Maybe he knows where my dad is, after all. I mean, if they were best friends, maybe he’s trying to help him. Maybe they’ve been in touch all along.” My words came out in a rush, none of them convincing me — or Shona, by the look on her face.
“There’s only one way to find out,” she said.
I held the files out in front of me. Once I’d looked inside, there would be no going back. I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t seen whatever was in there. Maybe I didn’t want to know. I pulled at my hair, twiddling, twisting it around and around. I had to look. W
hatever it said, I needed to know the truth.
I opened the file with my name on it. A scrappy bit of paper with a handwritten note scrawled across it fell on the floor. I picked it up, Shona looking over my shoulder as I read.
EW One: All clear.
Nothing to report. No mer-gene identified. Possibly negative. (50% chance.) Scale detection nil.
“What in the ocean is that supposed to mean?” asked Shona.
I shook my head, pulling a bigger sheet out of the file.
EW Eight: Moment of truth?
Subject has requested swimming lessons again. (See MPW file for cross-ref.) CFB present to witness request. Denied by mother. Unlikely to be granted in near future. Needs careful attention. Almost certainly negative mer-gene but experiment MUST NOT be abandoned. Continued observation — priority.
“Subject!” I spluttered. “Is that me?”
Shona winced.
Careful watch? Had he been stalking me? What if he was watching us now? I shuddered and swam over to close the office door. A lone blue fish skimmed into the room and over my head as I did.
We scanned the rest of the file. It was all the same: subjects and initials and weird stuff that didn’t make sense.
I picked up my mom’s file.
MPW Zero: Objectives.
MPW — greatest risk to merworld detection. Constant supervision by CFB. M-drug to be administered.
Shona gasped. “M-drug. I know what that is! They’re wiping her memory!”
“What? Who is?”
“Mr. Beeston is. He must work for Neptune!”
“Work for Neptune? But how? Then he’d be a . . . I mean, he can’t. Can he?”
Shona rubbed her lip. “They usually send people away after they’ve been memory wiped.”
“Why?”
“It can wear off if you go near merfolk areas. We learned all about it in science last term.”
“So you think they did it to my mom?”
“They probably still are. One dose is usually enough for a one-time incident — but not for a whole series of memories. They must be topping it up somehow.”
