Cry of the Sea (18 page)

Carter laughed then. It wasn’t an outright
guffaw like he was making fun of me, but it had a teasing tone to
it. “Little Miss Activist. You really are the product of your
parents, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not!” I barked back too quickly.

“Wow,” he said, pulling his hand back to the
wheel. “Touched a sore spot, did I?”

Heat flushed my face. Anger? Embarrassment. I
didn’t want to talk about the fact that despite everything going on
at the moment, I still had this nasty gut reaction at the mention
of my parents’ work. You’d think I could be a little more mature,
especially as I was up to my eyeballs in activism at the moment.
But no. At the slightest comment that I might be anything like my
parents, who were nearly psychotic with their activist movements, I
turned right back into one of those brainless teenage girls Carter
had said didn’t interest him.

Whatever tender moment had been building a
moment ago between us was now lost. After a minute of silence,
Carter turned on the radio, and we listened to classic rock the
rest of the way.

He didn’t cut the engine when he pulled into
my driveway. As I opened my door to get out, Carter sighed and
asked, “Do you want any help?”

I didn’t. Not really. I had Haley for that.
However, my impulse was to say yes. Even if there was nothing for
him to do, I would have liked him stay with me.

“Thanks. No,” I answered instead. “I’ll call
you later and tell you how things are going.”

“I guess that’ll have to do,” Carter said. He
turned up the radio volume and didn’t even say goodbye. I closed
the car door and stood on the front path and watched him drive
away.

I was blowing it right and left with him. How
many more things could I say and do wrong? If I waved my arms at
him and signaled for him to come back, I might have been able to
fix this. I could tell him I was sorry. I’d say I was just in a
‘mood’ or really focused on what I had to do and not thinking.
Maybe he’d understand and hold my hand again.

But I didn’t wave him back. I just watched
his car disappear around the corner, not knowing when or if I’d see
him again.

Disappointed with myself, I went inside and
dropped my backpack on the kitchen floor. I was glad my dad wasn’t
home, so he wouldn’t get in my way as I worked. Knowing him, he’d
want to take over and do it all himself. He was definitely not the
“helpful hint” kind of dad. He was more like the “I’ll take care of
it, you can watch if you want” kind of dad.

Frankly, he’d really screw this one up since
he knew nothing at all about computers, editing videos, or
uploading them to the Internet. Thanks to him and Mom I knew next
to nothing. They didn’t put me in front of a computer much as a
kid. Books, books, books, they preached all the time. God bless
Haley and a couple good computer teachers in 7
^th
and
8
^th
grade. Without them, I’d still be living in the
1980’s world my parents are stuck in.

My phone jingled, and my heart jumped. Was
Carter texting to say he was coming back? I flipped the phone open,
but the message wasn’t from him. Haley wanted to know if I was home
yet. I typed that she needed to come over already. I only had time
to pop open a soda before she was at the door.

With Regina and Marlee in tow.

I put an arm around Haley and ushered her
inside, closing the door on the other two. “I didn’t tell you to
bring them.”

“They wanted to come.”

“Haley!”

“Do you want me to tell them to leave?”

“Yes!” I said, but as I did Regina took it
upon herself to open my front door and step inside. I should have
locked it.

“That wasn’t very hospitable,” she said to
me.

“So rude,” Marlee agree, stepping in behind
her best friend. She took a quick glance around my living room and
sneered.

Right
, I thought.
I’m the rude
one.

“Just go away,” I said to Haley. “I’ll do
this without you.”

Haley raised an eyebrow. “Really? Your text
said you needed help editing the mermaid video. Do you have any
idea how to do that?”

“No. But I’ll figure it out.”

Regina put out her hand for me to shake. I
didn’t take it. “Look, June,” she said in a very even, non-chiding
voice. It was the kind of voice that I guessed won her over with
teachers and parents and made her so damn successful at school. “We
really don’t want to be a problem. I think the mermaids are very
interesting. Truly. Finding them like you did really impresses me,
and I want to help somehow. I mean this, I really do.”

I studied her brown eyes and perfect eye
shadow that she had to have redone recently because it was very
fresh. Her gaze didn’t waver. No sneer formed on her glossy lips.
She actually seemed sincere. So, I took her hand and shook it.

“I’m in charge,” I said. “What I say
goes.”

The other three nodded and then followed me
up to my room where I promptly turned on my computer and opened the
file with the mermaid video. I continued to buy their sincerity
because there wasn’t one single comment about the authentic
American Indian quilts hung all over the walls. My grandmother and
her sister made them, and my parents insisted I keep them up to
remind me of my heritage. I imagined Regina and Marlee’s rooms were
covered with posters of celebrities. Or large mirrors. Regina and
Marlee both probably had make-up tables and walk-in closets. They
probably had pink desks with satin comforters on their beds, their
own HD flat screen TVs and shelves of old Barbies they used to play
with as girls but now just sat on display in fancy get-ups they
wished they could wear. But instead of comparing or insulting, the
two popular girls simply sat on the floor, leaning against my bed
patiently until I was ready. Regina kept her eyes on Haley and me
at the desk while Marlee grabbed a book from the bottom row of my
bookshelf and read the back cover.

The size of the video on my screen was only
about two inches square. Between that and the dark quality, it
really was hard to tell for sure that these were pictures of
mermaids and not just large fish. I told Haley that I wanted the
picture brighter, with the mermaids enhanced so you could see them
very well. I looked like Hell, but that part of the video couldn’t
be changed, unfortunately. She dickered with it for a moment and
then raised her face to squint at me.

“Your computer sucks. You know that,
right?”

I cocked my head. “Does that mean you can’t
do it?”

“Oh, I can do it,” Haley said. “But not with
this. Hold on.”

She put up a finger signaling me to wait and
then dashed out of the room. I glanced at Regina who just shrugged.
“I’m not good with computers either,” she said. “Do you have a
pillow I could use?”

I handed her one off my bed and she plumped
it and put it behind her. Other than that she didn’t say anything
else or move, choosing to inspect her nail polish. Marlee opened
the book and flipped to the front page with a strange caution that
made it look like she was afraid something might jump out at her.
She squinted as she began to read and then her body visibly relaxed
as she realized the book wasn’t going to harm her. I plopped into
my desk chair and tried to come up with something to say to break
the awkward silence, but I couldn’t think of anything nice. I
figured Regina was pretty much in the same boat, so we just sat
there with the uneasy tension between us until I heard my front
door open again and Haley pounding up the stairs.

“Thank goodness,” I heard Regina whisper a
second before Haley reappeared at my bedroom doorway with her
laptop in her arms.

“Ah ha!” Haley cheered. “Now we are armed and
ready!”

I moved my own laptop out of the way and let
her set up. It only took moments for her to pull up the video I had
sent her last night and get to work. On her computer the picture
was nearly full screen but for the tools on the side from the
editing program she was using—an editing program I didn’t have on
my computer. Better than I hoped, she used her genius to brighten
the color a touch and added a bit of contrast. Now, I could clearly
see the bodies and tails of the creatures. I warned Haley that I
didn’t want to adjust the picture too much. Then people might think
the pictures were fakes. “They have to look genuine,” I said.

“Yeah, naturally,” Haley said with a nod,
keeping at it until it looked just right.

As soon as the images looked clear enough, I
tackled my dad’s voice-over narration. The waves from the ocean and
the shakiness of his voice made it really difficult to hear him. I
wrote down what he said on a pad of paper, changed it ever so
slightly for impact, and then re-recorded the narration myself into
the video camera’s microphone.

Regina raised her hand as soon as I was done,
which I thought was pretty funny. Imagine, her asking permission to
speak. I nodded for her to say whatever it was she had on her
mind.

“I don’t think it makes sense to hear your
voice as the voice-over, when you are clearly the one on screen.
That makes it look fake.”

I hadn’t thought about that. She was right.
“What should we do, then?”

She cleared her throat. “Well, I am the
captain of the debate team at school. I’m pretty good at speaking.
Let me do it.”

Haley shook her head, and Regina gave her a
sharp “don’t mess with me” look. Haley stopped and nodded instead.
“Yeah, good idea.”

I understood Haley’s hesitation, though.
“Yours is still a girl’s voice. No one will know the difference if
it’s you or me talking. Plus, a lot of people have already heard my
dad’s voice on it.”

Marlee looked up from the novel. “What about
more of a narrator. You know how in books there’s, like, a guy that
tells everything in between what the characters are saying? What if
Regina kind of says stuff in between your dad’s voice-over, to, I
don’t know, make it clear what he’s talking about?”

“We know how narration works, Marlee,” Regina
said to her friend. She offered a weak smile to me and said, “She’s
more of a magazine kind of girl.”

Still, as convoluted as Marlee’s suggestion
was, it made sense to all of us. We worked out a few new statements
and recorded Regina’s voice. It pained me to admit it, but her
speaking voice was way better than mine. Haley edited the new
voice-over onto the video and then played the whole thing back for
us.

It was perfect.

Piggy-backing on the WiFi from her house,
Haley logged onto the Internet and in the time it would take me to
type my name, she had it whizzing through cyberspace. Regina
immediately popped up and opened her personal page and typed the
new hyperlink on her wall with a note: “Updated and so much easier
to see and understand. Everyone check it out and pass it on.
Mermaids are real! Isn’t that the coolest thing ever?
J
”

Okay, that was cheesy, but she had like eight
hundred “friends”, so right there we had a head start on our video
going viral for the second time.

“All done,” Regina said, logging off to be
sure I couldn’t hack her page.

I addressed Haley. “So, if I want to send
that to someone specific, all I have to do is give them the link,
right?”

“That’s it,” Haley said with a big grin.

“Awesome.”

I thanked them all for coming and told Marlee
she could borrow the book. It was nice to see her reading. It was
kind of like watching a kid discover popcorn for the first time the
way she flipped the pages with such enthusiasm. They wanted to stay
and talk, but I told them I still had a lot more work to do.

“We can help,” Regina said.

I smiled at her as politely as I could. “I’ll
call you if I think of anything for you to do.”

“Okay,” she said. Then she grabbed me up into
a hug. In the bubbliest voice I’ve ever heard, she said, “Love
you!”

“Uh, yeah,” I said, pulling back away from
her. “You too.”

Haley gave me a more uncomfortable wave as
she stepped outside, while Marlee tripped a little over the
landing, refusing to look up from the book while she walked. Regina
followed them out and I closed the door before they said or did
anything else. I felt sure I’d hear from Haley again and that
things were mended between us. I just wasn’t sure we were best
friends anymore. That, I suspected, was changed.

I went straight to my parents’ office and
turned on their computer. Next, I opened up the e-mail list of news
correspondents. I wrote a quick press release with the link to the
video and then CC’d all those addresses. All I had left to do was
press “send”.

I held off, though. I wanted to talk to my
mother first.

My mom was still a little on edge with me at
first; we still hadn’t had time to talk things out. But when I told
her what I was going to do, her enthusiasm jumped through the
phone. “Push the button, June,” she cried. “Do it right now. No
hesitation.”

“Mom,” I said, my finger hovering over the
“enter” key on the keyboard. “Are you sure this is the right thing?
Could anything go wrong, do you think?”

“I don’t see what could possibly go wrong,”
Mom answered. “Expose these Affron hypocrites and let the world
know there are people who live in the ocean. This is your finest
moment, June. I am so proud of you.”

My mother was proud of me. I couldn’t
remember that last time my mom had said that. It always seemed like
the other way around: I was rooting for my mom. “Go Mom, save the
whales!” “That’s it, Mom, rescue the owls!” “Right on, Mom, you
saved that Redwood tree! You’re so amazing!” What did I ever do
that could make parents like mine proud?

Up until now—nothing.

I pressed send.

Chapter
Twelve

The mermaid images zipped through cyberspace
and opened on the desktops of over two thousand news editors across
the United States. They went to the magazines, newspapers, major
news, and some minor web sources, and all the television news
channels. For good measure, I sent a couple more releases to places
my parents wouldn’t think of, like MTV, VH-1, TMZ, and Comedy
Central. By the following morning you couldn’t open your eyes
without seeing some image from the video.