Mom is wheeled to her spot behind the holographic screen.
First to enter is the President, escorted by several black-suited bodyguards. He comes right up to me, and we do an awkward handshake-introduction sequence. The President is seated in his special protected chair in the corner of the room, and then more people begin filing in, filling the rows from front to back. They look at me with interested eyes, prying at mine to unlock their secrets.
I look at the floor. Finally, I clear my throat. "Welcome, President, Congressmen, people of America," I say, fingering the notecards in my pocket. "Today I have a very special presentation for you." I meet the eyes of the gentleman directly in front of me. He smiles.
The smile melts into a gaze of utter awe as I flip on the presentation.
I click through pictures, mostly taken by Sander’s watch, of the reef creatures, the two unicorn seahorses in their living beauty, the green sea slug in its bright liveliness. As I show the pictures, I explain the ecological value of all of these creatures. Lastly, I flick the screen off. It disappears, revealing the tank with mom in all her mermaid glory.
A collective gasp ripples through the audience.
"Yes, we have officially discovered mermaids," I say with triumph. "They exist, and like all the other amazing creatures you’ve seen today, they need protection."
The gentleman in front of me raises his hand.
"Yes?" I point to him, feeling like a schoolteacher.
He stands. "So what?" He asks. "I mean, what’s the problem here?" A murmur of concurrence hums through the crowd.
Now Sander's dad, Peter, speaks up. "I’m the problem," he says, "or I was the problem until a very endearing little girl destroyed my animal-abusing, toxic-sludge-expelling factory and forced me to face the truth. I’ve been hiding things from the law and the public for years, Mr. President," he addresses the executive official, "and if you want to take me into custody I feel it’s the right thing to purify my soul."
"That won’t be necessary," the President says gently. "I trust you’ve learned your lesson. Heck, we’ve all learned a thing or two today!"
Epilogue
Sander
I grasp the pink, rubbery udder. Milk spurts out into my bucket. I speak in soothing tones to Bessie II, rub her forehead, and give her a handful of eelgrass. Then I swim across the pool. When I reach the next kraken grazing a quarter-mile or so away, I begin preparing her for milking.
My dad emerges from the cabin to survey my work, and the work of the other dozen or so employees here at KrakenGo Family Farm Number One. "Maybe I’ll get in with you, son," he says. "I just need to get my trunks on. Some of us aren’t lucky enough to have a fishtail."
"You could have one, if you wanted, Peter," Gayle giggles as Mary the kraken tickles Gayle's new fins with a pink tentacle. "I’m sure you’ve done enough good works in the ocean to become a merman."
"Maybe I will, someday," my dad says, in a voice that lets me know he’s never giving up his legs. And that’s all right with me. Everything is mostly perfect: new laws are springing up around the globe to protect the ocean and especially our island, thanks to Gayle’s talk and the blog she maintains. Gayle and I are free to roam the ocean – in our off hours. And we get paid good sand dollars working on the cruelty-free kraken milking farm my dad has set up, just like all the other workers across the world ocean earning the same benefits. Meanwhile, I’ve seen several new species I didn’t know existed, and just yesterday on our evening promenade Gayle and I spotted a couple of unicorn seahorses. The world is still full of wonders – all we needed to do was look a little closer.
Acknowledgements
Before I go, there are a few people I'd like to thank. Firstly, thank you to my editor, Alyssa Kress, who helped me through this whole process of creating a book of short stories. I'd also like to thank Karen Ronan for designing a wonderful cover and formatting the manuscript. My enduring gratitude is extended to Audrey Zhu and Justin Golden, the first readers of People with Fishtails. My whole extended family deserves thanks for supporting me in my creative endeavors from birth to present. Last but not least, I'd like to thank my Marine Biology teacher, Benjamin Kay, who rekindled my childhood interest in the ocean and all the creatures in it (though the mermaids were my addition.)
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