Real Mermaids Don't Sell Seashells (4 page)

Sheesh, I was jumpy. But what was there to be jumpy about? I was on school break, on an awesome tropical vacation, with a great friend and a new one too.

Life was good.

I crouched to get a better look at the collection of conch shells laid out on the colorful cloth. The edges of the cloth flapped in the warm tropical breeze.

“Five dollars each, three for fifteen.”

“That's not a deal.” I turned to see the source of the voice.

“Dillon's Treasures, best deals in the market,” said a bored-looking teenage guy with dreadlocks, sitting on a ripped lawn chair leaned up in the shade of the back of one of the Straw Market stalls. “And rich girls like you should know you get what you pay for.”

“What makes you think I'm rich? And how do I know these are even yours?” I asked good-naturedly. “Are you Dillon?”

“The one and only,” he muttered. A toothpick traveled from one side of his mouth to the other.

I picked up a shell and wondered how many I might need for the wedding when I heard the sound of something calling over the water. Was it a dolphin? I'd never seen one near Port Toulouse so I was really hoping I'd get a chance this trip. Cori was totally gung ho to see a dolphin on one of the Snuba diving excursions offered at the hotel, but I was hoping to catch a glimpse of one from the safety of land, thank you very much.

“Do you have dolphins around here?” I asked. “I thought I heard something.”

Dillon peeked an eye out from under his hat.

“I didn't hear nothing,” he muttered.

I shaded my eyes from the sun with one hand and looked over the water to see if I could spot a dolphin surfacing, but all I saw were a few whitecaps over the tropical water. When I heard the sound again, I realized it was a man's voice from the passing cruise ship.

“That's a person, not a dolphin, by the way,” Dillon said.

“Yeah, I kinda figured that out.” I spotted the man in one of the lower portholes of the cruise ship, pushing something out of the porthole and into the ocean. It fell into the water with a big splash.

“And that's definitely not a dolphin either.
That's
a body!” Dillon yelled.

A body! Being thrown overboard?

At least I
thought
it was a body. Legs, arms, a head—plunging toward the water from the porthole, followed by a sickening splash.

Yes! A body.

Or was it…

“Emergency! Emergency!” I yelled. I had no idea if that was what you were supposed to yell after you thought you saw a body being (possibly) thrown overboard from a cruise ship, but it blurted out of my mouth like a voice-over from one of those burglar alarm commercials on TV. “Someone call 911!”

Dillon's lawn chair toppled over as he stood. He pushed his dreadlocks away from his face and adjusted his hat. “You saw that too, right?”

It was amazing that we'd seen anything. It had all happened in a split second.

“You really think that was a body?” I asked, glancing at the harbor then back at him.

But by then, Dillon had disappeared like a phantom between the booths of the Straw Market. My heart pounded like a jackhammer. Now I was all alone on a pier in a strange city thinking I may have just witnessed a homicide. Was my life ever going to go back to being simple and uncomplicated?

And was that really a person I saw falling out of one of the cruise ship's portholes? Being
pushed
out of one of the cruise ship's portholes? I waved my hands high in the air on the off chance that someone from the ship could see me so I could tell them what had just happened. There was no way anyone could have spotted anything from the upper decks since the balconies hid the view of the lower row of portholes.

But the only person who saw me from the ship was the man left in the porthole opening. It was too far for me to make out what he looked like except that he was bald and that he was watching me through binoculars.

“Oh no.” Turning quickly, I hid my face and ran to the safety of the aisle between the booths so the man with the binoculars couldn't make out who I was. But I ran straight into Cori, Rayelle, and her mom.

“We heard you scream!” Rayelle said.

“What's going on?” Cori was suddenly on high alert. “Did someone try to grab your wallet? Where is he? I'll rearrange his face!”

“No, it's nothing like that. I think—” But I wasn't quite sure what to say. Cori was used to my crazy-sounding stories about killer mers and mortal peril, but I'd just met Rayelle. And maybe I hadn't exactly seen what I thought I'd seen. Maybe the cruise-ship people were just dumping something in the water, like garbage or leftover food. Not like that would be a good thing either, but at least it wasn't a suspected homicide.

But before I could think of how to phrase what I thought I saw, Dillon arrived with an officer in an official-looking uniform.“I'm telling you, man,” Dillon said. “I know what I saw.”

We all followed Dillon and the officer back onto the pier, but by then the cruise ship had passed. We could only see the stern with the name “Wonderment Cruiselines” as the ship continued into the harbor to dock at the pier by the bridge.

“And I'm telling
you,
if this is another one of your stunts, I'm going to have to ban you from the Straw Market again,” the officer replied. He had a name tag with the name “Ensel.” I wasn't sure if he was a cop or a security guard. I couldn't see a revolver, yet he could have one hidden somewhere. He had a club attached to his belt, plus a set of handcuffs, so that seemed legit enough. “I swear, Dillon. First I hear you're hassling those necklace kids and now this. Your days here are numbered.”

“But listen, man. This girl here saw it too.” Dillon turned to me.

“Hi.” I lifted my hand in a feeble wave. Now I felt even more unsure of what I'd seen. If this guy Dillon was the troublemaker the officer made him out to be, maybe it was all a huge misunderstanding. Given the past couple months of my life, I wasn't surprised I'd jumped to the worst possible conclusion. But yet, Dillon seemed so convinced.

Officer Ensel took out a notebook and pen and started scribbling in his notebook. “And you are?”

“I'm Jade. Jade Baxter.” Should I really be giving out my personal information to someone I just met? Was he really a police officer or some kind of security guard? Maybe I should text Dad to leave his umbrella drink and come over from Señor Frog's. But, urg, my cell phone didn't work here. “I'm not really from around here so I don't know how things like this work.”

“Just tell him what you saw,” Dillon insisted.

“Well…” I looked from Dillon to Cori and then to Rayelle. “I think I saw a guy throw something out of one of the portholes of that ship out there.” I waved my hand toward the disappearing cruise liner.

“It was a body. She saw a body just like me,” Dillon added.

“Can you confirm you saw an actual body being dumped into the harbor?” Officer Ensel looked at me with an intense glare. “Could you describe the victim's hair color or approximate height?” I could tell by his tone that he didn't particularly consider Dillon a reliable witness, and as far as he was concerned, this was just another annoyance in his already frazzled day.

“Well, I'm not exactly sure…” If I was just imagining things, which was highly possible, I shouldn't really make a federal case over what just happened. Considering the secrets I had to hide, it was probably best to be vague and let the officer do what he had to do. “It was about the size of a body but—”

“See? Just like I've been telling you,” Dillon interrupted. “This ain't just me making up stuff.”

“Cool it, Dillon.” Officer Ensel held up his pen to stop him before scribbling a few more things in his notebook. “I'll report this and see what I can find out,” Officer Ensel said to me while Dillon turned away and stood at the edge of the pier, staring off at the cruise ship as it sailed farther into the harbor.

“You ain't gonna do nothing about it just like when I told you about that necklace crew,” Dillon said to Officer Ensel. Then he turned to me. “It was a body. Tell him!”

My mind was a muddle. “It was kind of far away.”

Had I thought it was a body because Dillon had
said
it was a body? I wasn't sure if I could really trust what I saw.

Officer Ensel wrote my mom's and dad's names in his notebook along with our hotel information.

“We'll call if we have any more questions,” the officer said before disappearing through the aisle back into the Straw Market.

“This is so jacked up.” Dillon folded up his lawn chair with a snap and started tossing stuff in his backpack then glared at me. “You know what you saw. Are you too much of a princess to do anything about it? Rich girl like you don't want to get her hands dirty to help anyone like me, huh?”

“No, it's not like that. I just—” I was about to go over to him to try and explain when Rayelle's mom caught my arm.

“Don't mind Dillon,” Rayelle's mom whispered in my ear. “I've had to report him half a dozen times for causing trouble around the market.”

“Like for what?” I asked.

“Stealing food, panhandling,” she replied. “I think he got caught pickpocketing once.”

“That was a while ago,” Rayelle said quietly.

“It doesn't matter,” her mom continued. “Boys like Dillon are trouble.”

“Come on,” Cori added as she took my arm and led me back to the stalls. “Let's get out of here and get a bit more shopping in before Faye gets back from the airport.”

A knot of guilt grabbed at my throat. Maybe Rayelle's mom was right and Dillon was a troublemaker, but that didn't keep me from feeling like I should have backed him up more with Officer Ensel. Even though I wasn't so sure what I'd seen, it hadn't been fair to let Dillon hang out to dry and look bad.

But before I could turn around to apologize, Dillon had gathered all his conch shells in the colorful blanket, loaded them into a small, battered green speedboat, and was sailing off into the Caribbean sun.

He never even looked back.

•••

Cori and I exchanged emails with Rayelle and planned to meet her at the beach by our hotel the next afternoon so she could show us the best place to get our hair braided. By the time we found Dad at Señor Frog's, he'd already had three umbrella drinks. Within five minutes of getting him piled into Faye's van, he was snoring like a lumberjack with an actual Mexican frog in his throat. I grabbed a spot beside him so he wouldn't topple over.

“Poppa's been enjoying the island life, eh?” Faye said with a laugh.

“Yeah, it's kind of nice to see him relax. He's had a bit of a rough year,” I said as the van traveled through town on our way back to the hotel. Faye was on her last run of the day, and thankfully she was taking the corners at less than warp speed so I could actually see the beautiful palm trees and blue water from the passing ocean side. “We've all had a pretty crazy year so we're down here to get away from it all. As a matter of fact, my dad and mom are getting married here in a few days.”

“A tropical wedding!” Faye beamed. “How wonderful!”

“Yeah, if we can get everything organized and find a wedding officiate to marry them by then, that is,” I replied. Then I realized I hadn't bought the conch shells, hadn't looked for flowers, and hadn't even found a tropical shirt for Dad.

Sheesh.

“A wedding officiate, huh?” Faye looked up into her rearview mirror and caught my eye.

“Yeah, all our reservations got canceled and we have to rebook everything from scratch,” I replied.

“Which wouldn't have happened if Taylor 'n Tyler hadn't got us kicked out of the Eutopia!” Cori called out from the seat behind me.

“Taylor 'n Tyler? Really?” A girl of about twelve perked up in the backseat.

“I heard Taylor 'n Tyler are doing a secret concert somewhere in Nassau in a few days,” Faye said, wiggling her eyebrows as we crossed the bridge to Paradise Island.

“Aha!” Cori exclaimed. “I told you it was them. Those jerks. I don't care if their latest album just went platinum. They're on my hate list.”

“I'm sure they're shaking in their very expensive flip-flops,” I joked.

“Ha-ha. Hey, isn't that the ship you just saw?” Cori continued, pointing to the ship next to the Disney Cruise liner. The ship had a huge W on the top, and the words “Wonderment Cruiselines” were scrawled across the stern.

“Looks like it,” I replied.

“Look at that waterslide!” Cori exclaimed.

The ship had an enclosed waterslide that ran across the deck's railing and over the ocean. Kids zipped through the waterslide's see-through tube, hundreds of feet above the harbor. It made me want to puke just looking at it.

“That looks horrifying,” I said.

“That looks
awesome
!” Cori leaned over my lap to get a better look as we reached the other side of the bridge.

Other than the slide, the rest of the ship looked like all the other ships, with its gleaming hull and sparkling pools on the upper deck. Perfectly normal. Nothing to see. It certainly didn't look like the kind of place where someone would be murdered then dumped into the ocean.

Despite how the last year had gone, not every day was supposed to be filled with plots of murder and mayhem.

Cori was right. I really just needed to chill out.