Honestly, I can't believe my parents are making me change schools in my senior year!
I love South Pacifica High where I'm the captain of the water polo team, a champion diver, and head of the debate team. Okay, I've never been out on a date, but now my chances for ever finding a boyfriend have dropped to zero.
You would think with my debate skills, I could change my parents' minds. But this is what happened earlier today:
I was lying on my hammock in my underwater bedroom cave, weaving seagrass into a basket for charity and daydreaming about Finn Reefcraft's perfect torso and bad boy grin, when my mom swam past the heart-shaped fissure in the wall of my bedroom. The last thing I wanted to do was endure another interrogation about why I wasn't doing my algebra homework, so I rolled out of the hammock to hide underneath.
As I twirled through the water, I managed to cut my finger on a sharp-edged blade of seagrass. The water tinged pink. I sucked on my finger to stop it, grimacing as the taste of metal coated my tongue. Of course, I gagged, though. Blood is so disgusting.
Suddenly, Mom swam into my room through the strands of shells in the doorway, appearing out of nowhere like a pop quiz. My heart raced, and my hair shot off orange sparks. (Uncontrollable sparking hair is so embarrassing. I'm the youngest of seventeen brothers and sisters, yet I'm the only Fishwater fingerling with this super-fun genetic anomaly.)
"Waverly!" Mom said in tele-speak. (Underwater, merfolk don't actually say anything aloud. We use telepathy, which is sort of like thinking, only more purposeful. Thinking just happens. With telepathy, you have to project your thoughts outward by transmitting brain signals.)
"Mom! You scared me," I whined, not immediately seeing how this might've made me look like I was hiding something.
(I must work on sounding innocent in front of parents at all times. See, we mermaids can modulate our tele-speak in any old way, and because I'm seventeen, I'm really good at 'whiny' and 'condescending.' Besides 'innocent,' I'm also trying to nail 'sexy,' but I think my inner sexy voice sounds like I've been swimming laps from the coast to the Farallon Islands for a week solid. It's all breathy and a little desperate too.)
The partially completed basket I was working on floated past Mom's face. She scowled. (But even with the scowl, my mom is so beautiful it's insane, partly because she's one-quarter fairy. She has glowing scales in shades of purple and aqua, and her hair is moonlight silver, barely tinged with green. It hangs past her waist and doesn't spark like mine. Ever. She has rainbow eyes, like all mers, but hers are mostly bright purple. Sadly, her beauty doesn't prevent her from making terrible wardrobe choices. Right now, she's wearing a ridiculously ancient shell bra, dripping with strands of pearls. The thing should be in a museum.)
She swam toward me, wrapped her arms around my shoulders, and kissed my head before flicking her tail and swimming in front of me with a pitying expression you might give to someone about to cage-fight a shark. Uh, oh. Something had to be wrong. (Moms don't hug you when you've been caught red-handed avoiding polynomials.) "Didn't mean to scare you, angelfish," she said, using the hated nickname she'd given me when I was two, as if I was some kind of fingerling and not a fully grown seventeen-year-old mermaid.
"That's okay, Mom," I said in an innocent tone. I wisely did not scoff at the odious nickname, because for some reason, Mom thought it was endearing, not infantile, and I could tell this wasn't the time to make her mad.
"You seem upset. Did Finn not ask you to the Boardwalk Boogie tonight?" Mom said, changing the subject.
"Mom, no. Ew! He's Carla's brother. I don't like him that way." (I was totally lying. There is simply no good way to convey to my best friend that I have a crush on her brother, so I certainly wouldn't tell my mother. Also, Finn has no idea. I'm more the pine-in-isolation type.)
"Sure," Mom said, narrowing her rainbow eyes.
(Note to self: must work on my deception skills.) "Mom, what is it? I can tell you're trying to avoid telling me something. Did my report card come in? Because I can explain."
Mom pursed her lips. "I have some fantastic news."
Eels meals! I knew this had to be bad. Parent-speak for 'fantastic news' translated to: I'm about to ruin your life. "What?"
"Your father has a new job opportunity up north. We're moving!"
I grinned. "Good one, Mom."
"Good what?"
"Joke."
"Angelfish, I am not joking. We leave tomorrow. It's a new, experimental, cross-cultural school up the coast called West Marin Heights. You'll love it."
"But Mom!" I said. "I can't go."
"Waverly Marie Fishwater," my mom snapped. "Your father cannot give up this opportunity. We are moving north, and you will like it." She brushed my floating green hair away from my shoulders and kissed my forehead. "You'll be fine, honey." Her telepathic voice softened. "Everyone loves you. You'll make new friends."
(Yeah, Mom thinks she can say something like this, and it will automatically come true. She is part fairy, but she doesn't practice her skills much, so usually, she predicts stuff that doesn't happen. She's a lazy prognosticator.) "You don't understand. You're ruining my life."
(It's totally unfair. I'm the only one of the Fishwater fingerlings* that has to move. My siblings have their own grown-up lives in college or their own fingerlings.)
"Pack your shells and bikini tops. We swim at sunrise tomorrow. Say goodbye to your friends. You can see them next summer," she said brightly. She flipped around gracefully with a little flick of her tail and left my room.
So, now I'm swimming over to Carla Reefcraft's place to break the news. Carla and I have been best friends since we were six. Carla will be devastated. Why does this make me feel better? I am a terrible mermaid.
On my way to Carla's, I pass through a field of kelp that undulates against my scales in the current and watch as thousands of fish dart through pursuing their dinner, swimming from hungry predators, or searching for mates. An orange-red rock crab scuttles sideways down a vertical slab of nearly black granite, and a speckled skate emerges like a phantom from beneath the sand.
The water in the Reefcraft's lagoon is warmer than in our place. They are a wealthy family. Mrs. Reefcraft has a mermaid scalecare line (saltwater wreaks havoc on the scales), and Mr. Reefcraft plays golf all day with humans. Oh, I don't think I mentioned, when we're not in the water we sprout legs and look pretty much human except for our opalescent green hair and rainbow-colored eyes. We have wigs and contacts so we can blend pretty well when we need to. Humans smell bad, though, like sun-baked algae.
"Hey, Wave. Wassup?" Carla asks, swimming out of her luxurious cave. Her hair is braided in an intricate design that makes it look like she's wearing an oversized tiara. "I wasn't expecting you yet. You're not even dressed for the Boardwalk Boogie. But that's okay; I have a new shell-bra that'll look so cute on you! Wait, is something wrong?"
I can't help it—I burst into tears. Mermaid tears are iridescent and have magical properties, so we don't cry much because the part of the ocean where we cry can start having weird after-effects, like palm trees growing from the ocean floor and birds diving into the water, developing gills, and turning into fish. She knows I'm super upset because I can't stop the stupid tears. "I'm moving," I tell her in a super pathetic tone. Yeah, I guess I'm good at 'pathetic' too.
"What?" She swims up to me and hugs me way too hard. Carla may be the size of a shrimp, but that doesn't mean she doesn't hug like a giant octopus.
This makes me cry harder. A palm tree pops up from the ocean floor, disrupting some crabs. They give me the stink eye. "Sorry," I say telepathically, though I don't think they understand Mermish, which is pretty similar to English. But I don't speak Crab either, so I guess we're even. "My mom just told me. My dad's got a new job up north." Dad's a math teacher who works at my high school. As if that's not totally embarrassing enough, some of my friends think he's cute, which is super gross!
Carla releases me and takes my hands in hers. "Can't you stay here? I'm sure my parents would let you live with us so you can finish at Pacifica. We have to go to grad night at Great America together. It's our dream."
"I know, but my parents seem to enjoy having me around so they can destroy my life. There's no way they'll let me stay. I'm the last kid, and parents hate that whole empty-nest concept. Poseidon's beard, I hate not being able to control my own life."
"When are you going?" Carla asks.
"Tomorrow morning."
"Holy crab! Well, we still have twelve hours. Let's not waste them."
"Okay," I say. I've finally stopped crying, but not before five pelicans have switched species.
Carla's older brother, Finn, jets over to us. I suddenly wish mermaids could disappear under the sand like a flounder because I must look horrendous after all the crying. I try to hide my face behind my floating hair.
"Hey, Sis. Hey, gorgeous." He has the 'sexy' telepathic voice down. No matter how cold the water, when I'm around Finn, it's like I'm in a geothermal hot spring. "What's up?"
"Nothing, Finn. Don't you have a date with Shelly Sharkweather?" Carla says.
Shelly Sharkweather? Ugh! The most gorgeous girl in our school. Great body, naturally. Her hair practically glows, and so does her skin. Her scales are the color of an oil spill on the water's surface. It's really pretty, but deadly too. "You're dating Shelly?" I manage to say in a pretty controlled tone. I hope.
"Why? Don't like that, Fishwater? Do you want to date me?" He loves to tease me.
"Eww, no," I snap. "You're like my brother." I say this, but inside I want to die. If mermaids could blush, the light from the glow would make the water look like it does right after a shark attack.
"She's moving," Carla says.
"No way."
"Yeah. We're going north. My dad's got a job working for some new experimental high school, and I have to go there. He says it's about integration and stuff. Learning from other cultures. It's landside."
"Not West Marin Heights?"
"Yeah," I say. "How'd you know?"
"I hear things." He's dragging his fins across the thick sand, then flicks a snail into a nearby stand of seaweed. "But I can't believe your parents are sending you there. Don't they love you?"
"They do," I insisted. Uh, oh, maybe they don't. Maybe they're punishing me for my whining and occasional sullenness. I'm supposed to do that at my age. It's part of the separation process. "Why? What's wrong with West Marin Heights?"
"Not much," he says. "Other than the vampires."
"What?"
"Yeah. It's a vampire school."
"But I'm a mermaid."
He looks at me like I've sprung a second tail. "Better watch your tail—I mean back."
"I gotta go," I say.
"Wait, the Boardwalk Boogie—" Carla says.
"I'll see you later," I say, swimming for home like a torpedo, my heart thumping so loud I'm afraid sharks will hear the blood moving inside my body. Why are my parents trying to have me killed? I'm not that horrible. But what other explanation could they have? Everyone knows mermaid blood is like vampire crack.
This chapter is dedicated to my incredible editor, amandatferreira. Amanda totally got the story, and her gentle yet wise suggestions have turned it into something I could never attain on my own—a story that maintains all the humor and "voice," but is professional, logical, and masterful. I will be forever grateful to her.
And thank you to iamRodneyVSmith for the killer video!!!
Britt/Deb ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️