Making Waves (2 page)

Yeah, he wasn’t going there. The lack of a
tail was a sore subject.

“I’ll do your chores for a week if you do
it,” said Rod.

“Now you’re talking.” Yeah, he’d take that
bet. It’d be like plucking a silverside out of a shoal. “Okay, so
back up. I don’t want her to get a glimpse of you. Me, she wouldn’t
blink at. You with that big ol’ tail, that might be a problem.”

In more ways than one. Dad would flip a
flipper if he knew two Mers were this close to shore. Pop a gill
that those Mers were his sons. If he had gills, that was. He was
always preaching to steer clear of Humans. That they were
dangerous.

Well this one didn’t look dangerous. She was
actually kind of cute. Had the bluest eyes Reel had ever seen. They
looked like someone had put the sky underwater.

Oh, fish. He was a moron. Sounded like his
stupid cousin, spouting poems and bullshark shit.

“Let her get a breath first,” Rod said. “You
don’t want her to pass out if she gets scared.”

“Since when did you get to be the big
authority on Humans?”

“Since I read the anthropology book we were
supposed to read for Mrs. Fishburn’s class.”

That name is just wrong. Ought to call her
Mrs. Sushi and be done with it.

“Show off.”

“Deadbeat.”

Reel was about to give Rod a good punch in
the arm, followed by one in the gut, but, really, that
chores-for-a-week thing was a pretty good incentive to follow
through on the bet. He didn’t want to blow it by scaring her off.
“Shut up, bottom feeder. She’s coming back this way.”

“You’ll never do it.”

“Watch me.”

“I will.”

“Good. And you’re going to owe me.”

She was getting closer, her limbs fluttering
daintily. He’d never seen another set of legs up close. His were
the only ones he was familiar with since he was the only Mer
with
legs. Yeah, and if that didn’t bite the big kahuna…

She picked up something else from the seabed
and tucked it in the top of her bathing suit. Reel wanted to laugh.
If Humans thought seashells were a treasure, they’d probably go
coconuts over the big ol’ pile of diamonds dotting the ocean floor
a few hundred leagues off their coastline.

“Oh, crab!” Rod whispered, gripping his
shoulder and pointing to the giant clam shell at the end of the
rocks. “You left Mom’s gift in plain sight.”

“Well, duh. It was heavy. Besides, how else
was I supposed to get her over here?”

“You
planned
to touch her?”

“No, idiot. I just wanted to see her. She was
picking up little cowries along the water’s edge. I figured she’d
want to get a look at a real shell. And I was right.”

“You’re just going to leave it there?”

“Will you chill? It’s just a shell.”

“That they don’t have in this part of the
world. We’re going to get caught.”

“By her? Seriously? Come on, Rod, she’s just
a guppy.”

A guppy who was swimming their way. Reel
pushed Rod back behind the rocks some more.

“I’m cancelling the bet.”

Reel just
knew
Rod would flounder out.
“You can’t. You made it, you deal with the consequences.”

“It’s the consequences I’m worried about.
Dad’s going to hook us.”

“Dad’s not going to find out because
nothing’s going to happen. Now shut up. I don’t want her to hear
us.”

Rod muttered something, then scared the crab
out of him when he yanked him up by his hair.

“Rod, what in Hades—?”

Then
all
Hades broke loose. Rod kicked
his tail toward the open ocean, dragging Reel with him, and the
Human started screaming. A
lot
. Like shark-feeding-frenzy
screaming.

She screamed even louder when Reel’s hand
brushed her skin.

It felt nothing like his. It was warm and
soft, and like every other girl’s he’d copped a feel from. Not that
he’d gotten the
good part
, but a leg was still skin.

Fifty yards from shore, Rod finally slowed
his tail fins down. “Whew, that was close.”

“Just close enough.” Reel rubbed his scalp.
Not the optimum way to travel, but Rod’s tail had way more strength
than his measly legs.

“Just close—? You didn’t. Please, Reel, tell
me you didn’t.”

Reel grinned. “Oh yes I did. You owe me, bro.
I touched her. And it was great. But you want to tell me why you
did that? She saw us.”

“Because Drake’s nearby. Hackett had been
trying to wave us down with his pincers, but then he swam over and
latched onto my ear right before she showed up. I couldn’t let
Drake see us.”

“Yeah, but you let her.”

“She’ll forget about it. After all, she has
no idea what she saw. To Humans, we don’t exist.”

Rod had a point; there were a lot of times
Reel felt like he didn’t either.

***

Erica couldn’t stop screaming. Even when Tris
caught her under the arms and yanked her to the surface, she
couldn’t stop. What she’d seen—

“What is it? What’s happened?”

That was Dad’s voice. Del’s too. Anthony was
still running through the water as if there was a shark after
him.

Or a merman.

She’d seen a merman. Two.

“Erica!” Andrew grabbed her from Tris. “What
happened? Are you okay?”

“I don’t see any bite marks,” said Del.

“Check her feet,” said Tris. “Her legs. She
must have gotten stung.”

Her brothers passed her around as if she were
a fish at the market, poking, prodding, running their hands over
her legs and arms, and still, Erica just couldn’t stop screaming.
She knew she should, but she couldn’t.

Not even when a crowd of people started
running toward them. Not even when Dad yanked her into his arms and
ran with her to the beach. Her cries were muffled against his
shoulder and her tears were choking her, but she couldn’t stop
screaming.

“Sweetheart, sweetheart, please calm down.”
Dad laid her on the blanket and the tears in his eyes finally got
her to take a breath.

A big, gulping, shaking, breath. “Something
touched me.”

“What was it?” asked Andrew.

“Shark?”

“Jellyfish?

“Manta ray?”

Tris smacked Del’s head. “There aren’t any
manta rays around here, moron. What are you going to say next,
mermaid?”

“Well it had to be something. She didn’t just
start screaming for no reason.”

“I… I don’t know.” She hadn’t
really
seen a merman. Mermen didn’t exist. Right?

Then what had she seen?

She blinked. She couldn’t tell them. They’d
think she was crazy, like Mr. Byron’s mom. Erica had been on the
front lawn when the nurses had put Mrs. Byron in the ambulance in
that white jacket with the long arms. The old lady had never come
back.

Erica didn’t want to leave her family. She
couldn’t have seen what she’d thought she’d seen.

“I don’t know what it was. But it scared me.
It’s out by the giant clam shell.”

“Sweetheart, there aren’t any giant clams in
New Jersey waters.”

“But there is, Dad. I saw it. Out there. By
the rocks.”

Anthony put a hand on Dad’s back when Dad
rubbed his hand over his eyes. “We’ll go look for it, Dad.”

“No. I don’t want you boys in that water.” He
wrapped the blanket around Erica and picked her back up. “Let’s
just go home.”

***

She knew her brothers would go out. She’d
heard them talking out on the dock. They’d thought she couldn’t
hear them, but when the wind was blowing the right way and she held
her ear against the screen, she could.

They hadn’t found any big shell. She’d told
them exactly where it was, but now it was gone.

Whatever—whoever—had touched her had to have
taken it.

He’d
taken it. She’d heard his voice.
Both of them.

The mermen.

Because last time she’d checked, fish didn’t
speak English.

###

A few months ago.

“Is it her?”

“I dunno. It could be.”

“She looks sorta like him.”

“How would you know? You weren’t even hatched
back then.”

“I studied the pictures of him. I’m smart and
I pay attention.”

“Uh huh. When’s your mate’s hatch date
again?”

Livingston glared at the three herring gulls next to
him on the roof of the construction trailer. “Guys? If you don’t
mind? We’ve got a job to do.”

The gulls turned their bills back to the
construction site. It was fun watching Humans build their homes. So
many to build a house for so few. Ridiculous. Avians were much
better architects.

“So how we gonna do this?”

“I dunno. They want some DNA, whatever that
is. I don’t see any on her.”

“If you don’t know what it is, how do you
know she doesn’t have any?”

“Guys!” Livingston stomped his foot. “Listen
up. Nardo, you take the sandwich. Ace, you get the chips. Deuce, go
for the soda. I’ll take the hair.”

“Hair?” Three yellow bills dropped open with
decidedly fishy smells. “
Ick
!”

“Not to eat, you morons!” It
had
to be
a holiday, didn’t it? He’d gotten stuck with the skeleton crew.
You’d think, for a job this important, he’d get a top-flight flight
crew, but… no. He needed to talk to the chick in the office and
make sure these cuckoos were never assigned to him again. Not
without proper training.

“Look, guys, just go for your assigned
comestibles. But don’t eat them. We need every scrap of DNA we can
get. Got it?”

“Not even a taste?” asked Nardo.

“A nibble?” added Ace.

“Nothing. Or you’re back on convent detail.
Got it?”

That shut the birdbrains up. Those sisters
accounted for every scrap of food in their calling to help the
poor.

“
On my signal, we’re going to take off en
masse. In and out in ten seconds.”

“We’re going to mass?” Ace stood on one leg
and spoke through his closed bill in a very bad imitation of a
stuffed seagull. “I thought we were here to get DNA. If it’s at
church, why not get it there?”

“
En masse
, you idiot!” Deuce clipped
the back of Ace’s head with his beak. “It means together.”

“Hey, you really
are
smart.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Guys!” Livingston stomped his foot again. “Pay
attention. She’s getting ready to set up.”

“Mmmm, I can smell the bologna from here.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had bologna.” Nardo clicked his
bills together.

“It’s going to be a lot longer if you screw
this up.” Livingston shuffled to the left to line up with their
quarry.

“Oh. Right.”

“Okay, guys, on my signal, we’ll take
off.”

“What’s the signal again?”

Livingston just shook his head. He’d let the
“smart one” explain it to him—whichever one that was.

***

The seagulls were back.

Twice as many as yesterday.

Valerie Dumere upended two empty drywall
compound buckets beneath the four evergreens the excavating crew
hadn’t cleared, and set out her lunch on the opposite side of the
clearing from the guys. She removed her tool belt then shook her
hair free of the hardhat, finger-combing the plastered curls off
her scalp.

One of the birds shifted on the trailer roof
so they were all lined up like kewpie dolls at a state fair. A few
of the guys had taken pot shots at them with rocks over the past
two days but it hadn’t deterred the birds.

Good. Not that she had a special affinity for
the gulls, but there was no reason to hurt them. They were only
doing what they’d been put on this earth for.

At least someone was. Twenty-nine years and
she was still searching.

Val popped the top of her soda can, thanking God and
corporate America there wasn’t much difference between brands of
grape soda. Fizz, purple, sugar. Sweet and satisfying. If only she
could say the same for the generic bologna and cheese, but when on
a budget, sacrifices had to be made. At least the chips were good.
Everyone needed one vice, right? She snorted… then choked on the
fizz.