Emily Windsnap and the Siren's Secret (7 page)

I couldn’t stand to see her like that. Seeing my mom cry felt like someone was sticking a knife into my chest. I reached out and touched her arm. “Mom, it’s OK,” I said, feeling completely useless.

She shook her head. “No, it’s not,” she said into her knees. “It’s not OK at all. In fact, it’s about as un-OK as you can get.” She took hold of my hand and tried a feeble smile. “But thank you for trying, sweet pea.”

I think Dad must have felt as useless as I did, but he didn’t try to say anything helpful. He just kept on stroking her legs while we waited for her to cry herself out.

We ate a snack together in silence. It wasn’t the happiest silence in the world, but at least there were no tears. And we managed to discuss the situation enough to make one decision: I wasn’t going to start at Brightport High in a hurry.

Since there were only a few weeks of the school year left, Mom and Dad agreed I could wait till September. At least it meant I didn’t have to worry about the risk of being equally humiliated there — not for a while, anyway.

None of us had mentioned my grandparents again. I was dying to, though. Now that Mom had brought them up, I was aware that she never talked about them and that I never asked. Except for the moment last year out at the Great Mermer Reef, when she remembered everything. She told me then what had happened with them — how they’d practically disowned her because of her relationship with a merman. But that was it; that was all I knew. I didn’t actually know anything
about
them: what they were like, how things had been with them before it had all gone wrong. I realized I wanted to know all about them. But not now. This wasn’t the time to ask.

“Can I go to Aaron’s?” I asked instead, taking my plate over to the sink. I wanted to find out what his mom had said and what they were planning to do now. Hopefully she’d say the same as Mom and Dad, and Aaron and I could hang out together for an extra few weeks. Getting thrown out of mermaid school might not feel so bad, then.

I had a twinge of guilt as I realized that whenever I had some free time nowadays, Aaron was the first person I thought of spending it with, not Shona. Was it disloyal of me? Did it make me a bad best friend?

I couldn’t answer either question, and I certainly wasn’t going to ask anyone else. I pushed the guilty feelings away and went out.

I walked up the pier and was heading toward the cottages where Aaron and his mom were staying when a familiar figure rounded the corner. Mandy. This was it, then: truth time.

She was looking down at the ground while she walked and hadn’t spotted me yet. I held my breath, waiting till she did. Or would she walk straight past me without even noticing?

Just before we passed each other, she suddenly looked up. For approximately a millisecond, her eyes brightened. She looked as if she were about to smile. I started to smile back. She remembered!

And then, in an instant, her expression changed back to the sneer I was more used to seeing. “Well, look what the tide’s dragged in,” she said, leaning back on her hips. And with those few words, the slight hope I’d had that she would remember our friendship sank like a stone in a murky sea.

“Hi, Mandy,” I said glumly, and kept on walking. I wasn’t in the mood to hang around and listen to her taunts. I thought she’d call after me, but she didn’t. I quickly looked back before turning toward the cottages. She was still there, staring after me. Then she shook her head and set off back toward the pier. It could have been worse, I suppose. Still, it would be nice if
something
could go right soon.

I got to the cottage, and Aaron grinned as soon as he saw me. “Guess what?” he said. “Mom says I don’t need to start at Brightport High till the fall!”

“Me too!”

Something
had
gone right!

“Come on,” Aaron joined me outside. “Mom’s watching TV. Let’s go for a walk.”

I laughed. “I wouldn’t have thought your mom was the TV type.”

“We’ve never had a television before, so it’s her new toy. She’s hooked on the game shows. Says she’s learning all sorts of things from them.
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
just started. She won’t even notice I’ve gone!” He stuck his head around the door anyway. “Just heading out with Emily, Mom.”

“No, it’s
B,
you idiot!” she shouted at the television.

Aaron smiled as he shut the door behind us. “Told you!”

The sun was setting as we walked along the beach. Aaron chatted happily away about all sorts of things. My mind was too full of the events of the day to concentrate all that much on what he was saying.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” I broke in at one point.

He turned to me. “What?”

“You know. Today. What happened.”

Aaron shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “In a way, yes, of course it does. In another way, I don’t mind all that much. For one thing, everything about my life is a million times better than it was when all I could do was rattle around in a dark spooky castle with just my mom for company.”

“And what’s the other thing?” I prompted him.

He kicked at the sand and carried on walking. Looking down, he said, “Well, you know. I get to hang out with you for a few weeks.” Then he looked up. “I mean, not that you have to spend all your time with me. You’ve probably got lots of friends here that you want to catch up with.”

Suddenly I realized I was feeling just as happy as Aaron. “Actually, the hanging out with you thing is the best part of it for me, too,” I said shyly. I felt a tiny little flutter in my stomach. What was the matter with me? I’d never been like this with any other friends. What was so different about Aaron?

“Come on,” I said, pulling off my sandals. I started running along the beach. “Race you to the pier!”

Aaron pulled off his sandals too, and we ran through the sand. It was still warm from the day’s sun, and even though you didn’t melt into it like on the beaches at Allpoints Island, the softness of the sand on my feet made me want to run and run and run.

Except for what we ran into.

“Well, well, well. And she’s got a little friend with her, too.” Mandy stood under the pier, arms folded, sneer fully in place. She must have spied on me and come after us. What did she have in store for me now?

Aaron marched right up to her and stood facing her. “You must be Mandy, then,” he said, looking her square in the eyes.

For a flicker of a second, Mandy was thrown off guard. She clearly hadn’t expected that. She recovered pretty quickly, though. “Aww, has fish girl been telling tales about nasty-wasty Mandy Wushton?” she said in a mock baby voice.

“Actually, she hasn’t been telling tales at all,” Aaron replied. “In fact, she even thought you might remember that you and her made —”

“Aaron, no,” I said, stepping forward and pulling him away.

He turned to me. “Why?”

Mandy was looking at me, too. Her expression had changed a little. There was just a tiny hint of doubt in the sneer. “Made what?” she asked, her tone slightly less harsh.

“Nothing,” I said. “Come on, Aaron, let’s go. She’s not worth it.”

I thought for a minute that she was going to follow us down the beach so she could continue taunting and insulting us. But she didn’t. She stayed where she was. “Yeah, run away,” she called after us. “Like the cowards you are.” We didn’t turn around, and she gave up after that.

“Well, we got off pretty lightly there, I’d say,” Aaron said as we walked up the other side of the pier.

“Thanks to you, we did.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “Anyway, at least you know what she’s going to be like now.”

I nodded. Yeah. At least I knew.

I woke up with a feeling of heaviness. What was it?

Then I remembered the events of the previous day. Oh, yes. All that.

Mom and Dad were in the saloon, where we’ve got the biggest trapdoor. They were sitting on it together, Mom’s feet dangling in the water, Dad’s tail swishing gently backward and forward.

“Morning, sausage,” Mom said.

Dad looked up. “Morning, little ’un.”

I sat down to join them. “What’s up?”

Mom shook her head.

“It’s what we were talking about yesterday,” Dad said gently. “It’s made your mom think about her parents again. She’s just a bit sad. But she’ll be OK, won’t you, love?” He stroked her knee.

Maybe this was my chance to find out a bit more about my grandparents.

“Mom,” I said carefully. “What were they like, Nan and Granddad?”

Mom turned her sad eyes toward me. She opened her mouth, but before she could reply, there was a sharp rap on the door.

“Only me!” An uninvited head popped around the door. Mr. Beeston. “Just dropping by for a duty call with my colleague, ha, ha,” he said, winking at Dad. Now that the two of them were working together, he clearly saw it as a permanent invitation to stop by. Mom and Dad didn’t seem to mind him anymore, but I still couldn’t relax while he was around.

“Come on in, Charles,” Mom said. “The kettle’s just boiled. Help yourself to some tea.”

Mr. Beeston rubbed his hands together and rummaged through our cupboards for a tea bag and a mug. “Very well,” he said. “Don’t mind if I do.”

He brought his tea over and sat down on the shabby sofa. “Not interrupting anything, am I?” he asked in his usual completely oblivious way.

Durr! Er, yes. Our lives!

“Mary P. was just talking about her parents,” Dad said.

For some reason, Mr. Beeston shifted awkwardly on the sofa. He must have hit one of the loose springs. It’s not the comfiest sofa in the world. “Oh. Ah. Well, I’ll leave you alone then. Don’t want me hanging around, do you?” he said, and started getting up.

“Don’t be silly, Charles,” Mom said. “You’re virtually one of the family now. Sit down.”

It was just as well I didn’t have a drink of my own or I would have spluttered it everywhere. One of the family? I don’t
think
so!

“I was just going to tell Emily a bit more about them,” she said. “In fact, you remember them yourself, don’t you? Perhaps you can help out.”

“Me?” Mr. Beeston blustered, almost spilling his tea in his lap. “What can
I
tell you? I don’t know
anything
!” His face had practically turned purple, and he looked even more uncomfortable than people generally look on that sofa. What was his
problem
?

Mom shrugged off his reply and turned to me. “You remember what I told you, don’t you? Why they moved away?”

“They thought you were going crazy because you told them you were in love with a merman.”

Mom nodded. “That’s right. They thought I was delusional or that I was making it all up because I didn’t want to tell them who was the real father of my baby.”

“Didn’t they try to get you to leave Brightport and go and live with them somewhere else?” I asked.

Mom nodded. “But I wouldn’t. I didn’t even know why — I just knew I couldn’t leave. There are all sorts of things about it all that I’ve never understood.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Well, for one thing, like why Granddad left me the boat when they went off without me.”

“Why don’t you understand that?” I asked.

Mom shook her head. “There was just something about it that didn’t fit. I used to tell myself it meant that a small part of him forgave me, or even believed me. That maybe when things had calmed down a bit, they’d get back in touch.”