To Catch a Mermaid (9 page)

“That corn doesn’t belong to you,” Boom said. He didn’t know that for sure, but he suspected it because no one in the neighborhood owned the field.

“Finders keepers,” Hurley whined. “You can’t have any. We’re gonna sell it to the store and I get to use the money to buy a new bike.” The Mumps weren’t going to eat the corn?

“Whatever,” Boom said, hiding his disappointment. Images of hot, buttery corn drifted from his head and evaporated like fog.

“Yeah. Whatever,” Winger chimed, standing slightly behind Boom.

As Boom and Winger started up the Brooms’ walkway, Hurley made a few clucking sounds. “Everyone at school is calling you a chicken, ’cause you chickened out of the tournament.”

Boom whirled around and glared at his archenemy. “You know I didn’t chicken out! I was in Prunewallop’s office. I want a rematch on Monday.”

“You should give him a rematch,” Winger said.

“A rematch?” Hurley laughed a fake horror-movie laugh. “Why should I? What’s in it for me? I’m the champion of the school, two years in a row. You’re just a loser.”

Winger grabbed Boom’s arm as Boom almost flew out of his sneakers. All he wanted to do, at that moment in time, was to pound on Hurley. Sure, it was wrong to hit someone and there would be big consequences, but he wanted to —
real
bad. “Boom,” Winger pleaded. “You’ll get into trouble again.”

Something unpleasant stepped between Boom and his archenemy. It was Daisy Mump. She was ten, just like Mertyle, and she was always dressed like she was going to a birthday party. Today her pink coat was trimmed in fake zebra fur and it matched her doll’s coat. The doll was about half Daisy’s size and she had tucked it under her arm. “I saw Mertyle’s new doll,” Daisy said to Boom. She pointed to the bedroom window. “I saw Mertyle holding it.”

“Huh?” Boom caught his breath and jerked his arm away from Winger.

“Why does she have a Molly Mermaid Faraway Girl Doll? I don’t have a Molly Mermaid doll. They’re impossible to find. The Faraway Girl Company doesn’t even make them anymore.” Daisy scrunched up her freckled face.

“Mertyle doesn’t have a whatever-you-call-it doll,” Boom said, glaring over Daisy’s curly blond head at Hurley.

“A
Faraway Girl
Doll,” Daisy corrected. She shoved her doll up to Boom’s face. “See, mine is from Sweden. Her name is Elsa and she cost one hundred dollars. Every pair of shoes costs twenty-five dollars, and she has twelve pairs. And we have six matching outfits and she came with a book that tells all about her life in Sweden. My friend Bula’s doll is from France and her name is Gigi —”

“Whatever,” Boom said, pushing the doll away, pushing away the desire to hit Hurley as well. He tried to walk up his walkway, but Daisy ran around and blocked him.

“Nobody has a Molly Mermaid doll. It’s superspecial. It’s the most expensive Faraway Girl Doll ever made. How come your sister has one?” Daisy hissed. “Your family is poor.”

“She doesn’t have one,” Boom insisted.

“But I saw it.” Daisy stomped her patent-leather rain boot.

“I saw the doll too,” Hurley said. “I saw Mertyle holding it yesterday in your kitchen. My dad says those dolls are impossible to find. He’s been trying for two years. They don’t even sell them on the Internet anymore.”

“I want a Molly Mermaid Faraway Girl Doll,” Daisy whined. “Tell Mertyle I want it.”

Hurley stood real close to Boom. They were about the same height but Hurley had thirty pounds on Boom. Boom knew he was no match for Hurley’s weight, but he flexed his kicking foot just in case. “Give me the doll,” Hurley whispered. “Give it to
me
so I can sell it, and maybe I’ll give you a rematch.”

A rematch? Boom’s heart soared, but only momentarily. Shortly after takeoff, it crash-landed on the pavement because —
there was no doll.
“L-leave me alone,” Boom stammered, clutching the bag of goldfish. He turned back up the walkway.

“You’re a loser, Boom,” Hurley called.

“I’m not a loser!” Boom cried. Every muscle in his body went tense and he tightened his grip until the plastic water-filled bag popped.

“Oh no,” Winger moaned as goldfish flew through the air.

“Oh no,” Hurley mimicked. “Was that your dinner? Your teeny, tiny fish stick dinner? Is that all you can afford?” Hurley started to laugh as Boom and Winger scrambled to collect the fish. Winger chased a flapping one under the tire of a parked car while Boom found one balancing on a dandelion.

“I want that doll,” Daisy whined, sniffling with fake tears. “Daddy! I want that mermaid doll!” Mr. Mump dumped an armload of corn into his truck and looked over at his daughter, who was stomping her boots on the sidewalk.

“Daisy Waisy,” he called, holding out his arms.

Boom pulled the final fish out of the newspaper box. He’d love to show
Daisy Waisy
the mermaid doll. He’d love to see the look on her face when he handed her a stinky, slimy, teeth-gnashing, yellow-squirting, green-faced merbaby. But that wasn’t going to happen because the last person he’d sell a Meet the Merbaby ticket to was a Mump person.

“Come on,” Boom said to his best friend. He and Winger dashed past the broken gate, leaving Hurley and Daisy watching from the street.

They avoided Halvor by going through the front door and straight up the stairs, where Boom dumped the goldfish into Ted’s fishbowl. The fish took to swimming right away and not one of them looked brain damaged. “Phew!” Boom said. He shoved his backpack under his bed. If Mertyle knew about the conch shell she might get all soft-hearted and want to take the baby back to the dock to find its family. That would mean no Meet the Merbaby tickets. No paying the bills or buying decent food. No brand-new Galactic Kickers. Boom collapsed onto his bed.

Winger, however, did not collapse. He stood as rigid as a wax museum statue. He had not closed his mouth since entering the room. It was possible he had not even breathed. He stared at the merbaby, who lay in a doll cradle at the foot of Mertyle’s bed. It was unraveling one of Boom’s socks with its teeth. The baby growled at the boys.

“What took you so long?” Mertyle asked. She looked a bit strange. Her face had a slightly green tinge to it. She must have forgotten that it was Saturday and that she didn’t need to fake being sick.

“There were no fish at the dock so we had to go to the pet store and get goldfish,” Boom replied with exasperation.

“Oh,” Mertyle said, looking sadly at the new goldfish. “I don’t think the merbaby is hungry right now. It ate that cod fillet from breakfast.”

Winger raised his arm and pointed at the baby. He took a huge breath and said, “Wow.”

“Look what I found,” Mertyle said to Boom, pinching something between her fingers. It looked like a small bluish Dorito. “It’s a scale from the baby’s tail. It fell off. It’s got that weird drawing on it, just like some of the other scales, but my magnifying glass isn’t strong enough to see exactly what it is. Could you take it to the print shop and have them enlarge it?”

Boom shook his head. “I’ve got to go to Mr. Jorgenson’s.” What was she talking about anyway? How could something be drawn on a scale?

“Winger?” Mertyle asked sweetly, holding the scale in Winger’s face.

Winger blinked, snapping out of his daze. Then he turned bright red. “Uh, sure, Mertyle. I’ll take it for you.”

Winger pocketed the scale while Mertyle stared at the swimming goldfish. “I don’t like the idea of feeding these to the baby,” she said. “It just seems so cruel.” She wiped some sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, obviously faked because the room was ice-cold. Her hands had a slightly green tinge.

“Big fish eat little fish,” Winger said matter-of-factly. “It’s not cruel. It’s the food chain.”

“Well, I think that the food chain is cruel.” Mertyle lay down on her bed. “I just wish we had lots of raw cod fillets so we wouldn’t have to sacrifice the goldfish.” Boom could have pointed out that a raw cod fillet had once been part of an
alive
cod, but he didn’t. That would be just another unpleasant bit of the real world that lay outside the dirt circle that Mertyle could not deal with.

Having reduced Boom’s sock to a drool-drenched wad of yarn, the baby burrowed beneath the doll blanket. Winger stepped back and started waving his hands around like a lunatic. “Forget about selling Meet the Merbaby -tickets. Do you guys realize how much money you could make selling this thing to a collector? Do you realize? Huh? Do you?”

Boom wished Winger hadn’t mentioned those tickets, because Mertyle was staring at him as if she wanted to burn a hole right through him with her laser beam eyes.

Winger continued. “I saw on the news that some billionaire bought a dinosaur egg for three million dollars because he wants to clone dinosaurs. Think how much some billionaire would pay for a real merbaby. You could have an auction. You guys would be the richest family in the world.”

Winger was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. That creature could be the best thing that had ever happened to the Broom family. Maybe circling March thirteenth on his calendar had been fate. Boom would be the richest twelve-year-old in the world! He could buy as many Galactic Kickers as he wanted — a different pair for every day of the week. Heck, he could build his own Kick the Ball Against the Wall arena.

“You told me I could keep the baby,” Mertyle snarled.

Boom turned away and tried to find something in the room to fiddle with. He hadn’t promised, had he? He had said, “Sure you can keep it,” but he hadn’t said for how long. He hadn’t thought out the bit about being rich. Halvor said the bill collector and bank needed to be paid. It they were rich, they could buy their own bank. If they had money, they could hire a gardener to cover up that horrible dirt circle so they wouldn’t have to be reminded,
every single day,
that a twister had ripped their family apart.

“But think about it, Mertyle,” Winger pointed out. “You could buy whatever your heart desires.”

“What my heart desires can’t be bought,” Mertyle said quietly.

“What does your heart desire?” Winger asked, looking at Mertyle with a goofy look on his face, as though soda bubbles were tickling his nostrils. Mertyle didn’t answer, but Boom knew what she wanted. It was what he wanted too. But it wasn’t going to happen. All the money in the world couldn’t bring back someone who was gone.

“I won’t let you two sell the baby,” Mertyle declared. “Bad people will put it in a cage or dissect it in a lab.” The baby poked its head out the end of the blanket and started chewing on the edge of the doll cradle.

Boom continued to imagine all the things they could do as the richest family in the world. He wouldn’t have to go to school because he could hire a tutor to follow him around all day and teach him while he was kicking things in his private arena. They would have enough money to hire a doctor for Mertyle’s mental problems. And Mr. Broom’s, as well. It worried him that Mertyle was starting to fake being sick on a Saturday. She had never done that before.

“The baby needs stuff we can’t give it,” Boom said, trying to coax his sister toward an agreeable decision. One that would benefit the entire family.

“Like what?”

“Well, like an ocean, for instance. We don’t have an ocean in our house.”

Mertyle hung her head and sadness crept over her face like a shadow. Boom tried hard to ignore his sister’s sadness. She was not the boss of this family. She hadn’t found the merbaby — he had. He was the one who should make the decision about what to do.

“Gee, Mertyle. You don’t look so good,” Winger said.

Mertyle crawled under her covers. “I’m sick. I feel fuzzy.”

Before Boom could remind Mertyle that she was wasting time pretending to be sick on a Saturday, a horn honked. Boom and Winger looked out the bedroom window. A delivery van had pulled up at the end of the walkway, and a guy in brown shorts was unloading boxes. Stamped on the side of each box in big red letters was,
COD FILLETS, RAW.

“Mertyle? Did you order some fish?” Boom asked.

“Of course not,” she mumbled from beneath her blankets.

“But didn’t you just say that you wished you had lots of cod fillets?”

“I remember her saying that,” Winger said. “Lots of raw cod fillets so we wouldn’t have to use the goldfish.”

Winger and Boom looked at each other and then they looked at the baby.

It smiled.

Chapter Fourteen:

Mertyle’s Wishes

B
oom and Winger ran down the stairs. This had to be some sort of weird coincidence.

“Slow down!” Halvor yelled as they ran into the kitchen, almost throwing him off balance. “You want me to impale myself on this fish knife?”

“Sorry,” Boom said. “Did you order a bunch of boxes of cod fillets?”

Halvor looked up from his project, which involved a cutting board and a pile of fish fins. “And how would I pay for a bunch of boxes of cod fillets?” he asked. Boom didn’t need any further information. If Halvor hadn’t ordered them, and Mertyle hadn’t ordered them, then . . .

Boom elbowed Winger so he could get to the front door first. He had to see what those boxes contained. He opened the door and bumped right into Daisy Mump, who held a white envelope in her zebra-gloved hand. “I want to talk to Mertyle.”