Marina dropped her hand away from my forehead. “All right. Go to school, behave, and we won’t tell Dad about your latest surface excursion.”
Daphne sent me an encouraging smile. “Tonight there’s a party at that new shipwreck. We can cruise around for cute merman. I bet we’ll find someone you like.”
Yeah, no matter how cute the guy, I wasn’t going to be able to get past the whole scaly tailfin issue. I know, call me a hypocrite.
I glanced around the room again. I needed to get out of here. I knew what happened in The Little Mermaid story. The prince’s ship had an accident, and the Little Mermaid saved him drowning. Would that event happen soon? Later tonight? Tomorrow maybe?
A closed door stood behind me, most likely leading to other rooms in the castle tower. The window offered my best bet for escape—although with so many merpeople swimming around the city, it wouldn’t be easy to swim back to Jason’s ship unnoticed.
If Chrissy didn’t show up soon, at least I knew how to get out of being a mermaid. In the story, the Little Mermaid traded her voice to the sea witch in exchange for being human. Not being able to talk would sort of suck. Ditto for living in a century without electricity or indoor plumbing, but at least the story ended well—with me being human, getting back my voice, and the prince falling in love with me.
At that moment I remembered an important fact. When Disney made The Little Mermaid into a movie, they changed the ending of the story. In the original version, the prince married someone else, the Little Mermaid died brokenhearted, and angels carried her soul away. I’d only read that story once—been horrified—and then pretended the Disney version was the real story.
My heart was beating so hard I thought it might start rattling my clamshell bikini. Which version had Chrissy put me in? She wouldn’t have put me in the sad version, would she? I’d wished for Jason to love me.
But then, loving someone and marrying them were two different things. I vaguely recalled that the prince loved the Little Mermaid in a platonic, totally unsatisfying, let’s-just-be-friends sort of way.
How could I figure out which version I was in? I drifted closer to Daphne, brushing away a couple passing clownfish that had taken an interest in my hair. “Um, do I have any friends who are singing crabs?”
Daphne raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know. Do you?”
No good. I would have to come out and ask a direct question. “What’s my name?”
Marina put her hand back on my forehead. “The sunstroke must be worse than I thought.”
“It’s Ariel, right?” My voice went higher, as though hope and the right inflection could make it true.
Daphne frowned. “Last time I checked, it was Sadie.”
Sadie. My name. Had Chrissy changed the story so now the Little Mermaid had my name? Or could Sadie have possibly been the mermaid’s name in the original story? Now that I thought about it, the author only ever called the main character the Little Mermaid . . . which meant her name could have been anything—even Sadie.
Crap.
I was so not selling my voice to the sea witch if it meant I would die a tragic death, unloved by Jason. Hello, I was already unloved by Jason in my real, normal life. I didn’t need to live it in fairy tale form too.
Daphne and Marina were still regarding me, worry etched on their expressions. “Maybe we’d better have Dr. Gills stop by.”
“No need,” I said quickly. “I totally remember my name is Sadie . . . and I should be getting ready for school.” I glanced around the room again. I had no idea what mermaids did to get ready for school. Did they wear uniforms? Carry backpacks? My eyes stopped at a mirror hanging on the wall, and for the first time I caught sight of myself as a mermaid.
Strings of pearls twined through my hair along with flower-like pink anemones. Weirder still, several clownfish were poking through the anemones. They followed the movements of my head like little orange fish groupies.
I moved my tailfin forward and back, searching for any sign of my legs underneath it. I couldn’t get used to the shiny teal scales. My scales had a ridge where my fish half connected to my hips—as though the tailfin was a size bigger than the rest of my body. That didn’t seem right.
I twisted so I could see my back. “Does this tailfin make me look fat?”
“You’re right,” Daphne told Marina. “She’s delirious.”
“Maybe I should rest instead of going to school.” I attempted to look wan and tired, slowly floating toward my bed. I also let out a sputter of a cough. Coughing is not lying, so my nose didn’t grow.
Marina eyed me suspiciously. “Is that why you’re spouting off nonsense? You want to skip school?”
Daphne folded her arms, tapping her nails against the crook in her elbow. “If you need to rest, you should. And to make sure you stay in your room all day, we’ll ask one of castle guards to keep an eye on your window.” She raised a challenging eyebrow. “Still want to skip school?”
I nodded even though I felt like a mermaid juvenile delinquent. What else could I do? I needed to contact Chrissy. It was better to do that alone in my room than to try and fake my way through whatever subjects they taught in aquatic high school.
Daphne sent me one last disapproving look, then she and Marina turned, scales glinting in the water, and swam out of my window. I put my elbows on the windowsill and watched as they made their way to the castle’s courtyard. Rows of coral and kelp trees lined the square, interspersed by stone archways. A dozen large mermen with turtle shell armor were patrolling the castle grounds, hefting hooked spears on their shoulders.
Daphne and Marina swam to the nearest guard and pointed in my direction. He turned his gaze at the window, surveying me. I half expected him to leave his post, swim to my window, and stand watch there. Instead he moved a few feet so he had a better view of my window. He leaned against one of the archways in a bored manner, every once in a while glancing in my direction.
I retreated back into the bedroom, out of his sight, and sat on a stone chair. One thought repeated through my mind: I needed to get hold of Chrissy and tell her she’d made a mistake. My mother was going to come back to the empty hotel room and assume something horrible had happened to me. Besides, I couldn’t just leave my whole world and live out a mermaid fantasy. I had homework due on Monday. I had to rehearse for the end-of-the-year choir concert. And I had a phobia of sharks.
I called Chrissy softly, letting her name drift upward on the water currents. I called her sternly, pleadingly, desperately. I hung out of my window and searched for her among the swaying kelp trees and coral gardens.
Nothing. I knew she had a job interview, but really, how long could that take?
In between calling, I explored my room, hoping to find something that would help me. I found a harp and a flute. Not much help. Inside a shell-encrusted dresser, a dozen stiff bikini tops waited to be worn. Another drawer held jewelry and hair combs. I slipped on a pearl bracelet to see how it looked. Pretty. I may be a mermaid, but at least I was a rich mermaid with style.
A jumbo snail made its way—leaving a trail of slime—across the top of my dresser. Was it a pet or just something that had wandered inside? Really, those were the sorts of details Chrissy should have told me before dropping me into a story.
A metal cup with an English insignia sat on the dresser. Probably from a shipwreck. It held quill pens whose pale feathers undulated in the current. Did quill pens work in the water? I picked one up and realized it wasn’t a pen. It was some sort of thin spiny creature that let out a tiny shriek, pulled its feathers inside its shell and squirted black liquid from its bottom. I quickly dropped the thing back into the cup and wiped black stuff off my fingers. Gross. Butt ink.
You know, mermaid life seemed more quaint and charming in the movie.
A short knock sounded on my door, and then the door swung open revealing a large merman. He didn’t look like Disney’s King Triton. Instead of white hair, his hair and beard were a brownish green, as thou
gh algae had taken hold there. He was also younger than his cartoon version, but I still knew he was the undersea king.
A coral crown sat atop his head, and he wore a gilded breastplate. But even if he hadn’t worn these adornments, I would have still pegged him as the Little Mermaid’s father. It was in the look he sent me. Half concern, half frustration.
He swooshed into the bedroom with one flick of his powerful tailfin. “Your sisters said you were sick.”
I sat down on the bed and attempted to look ill. “I threw up earlier.”
He cocked an eyebrow like he didn’t believe me, but didn’t press the subject. Instead he sat beside me and put an arm around my shoulder. “Are the mermaids at school still giving you a bad time about your . . .” He sounded uncomfortable saying the words. “. . . your crush on that human fellow?”
I was getting mocked at mermaid high school? Honestly, how did Chrissy think this life was an improvement on my real one? I shrugged nervously. Anything I said would be a lie.
“Are they?” he prompted.
I gave him another shrug. “You know how mermaids are.” He knew better than I did.
The king patted my shoulder consolingly. “It’ll all wash over soon and they’ll forget. Especially if you go study with the Sirens for awhile.”
I shifted away from him. “I don’t think I could do that. I mean, it just seems cruel to lure sailors to their doom. They probably have families and stuff.”
The king made a low, disapproving sound in the back of his throat. “Humans are nothing but selfish, arrogant creatures. The fewer of them, the better.”
“They’re not all like that.” I wasn’t. Although, come to think of it, when Chrissy offered me three wishes, I’d never even thought about asking for something altruistic. I vowed to change that. Next wish I’d do something good for the world.
The king let out an unhappy sigh. “Prince Jason is like the rest of his kind. What you feel for him is infatuation, not love. You need to learn the difference or you’ll never be happy.”
I wanted to say I did know the difference. I wasn’t in love with Jason. I just thought the possibility for love existed.
“You don’t really know anything about that boy,” the king went on.
The Little Mermaid might not have known much about her prince, but I’d seen Jason interviewed. I knew all sorts of things about him. He loved snowboarding, dancing, and his dogs. He wrote his own songs, worked hard, and did charity benefits. He’d always seemed so nice. Back on the ship when he’d yelled and acted like a prima donna—he’d just been in shock. And who wouldn’t be?
“How can you tell the difference between infatuation and love?” I’d meant the statement as a challenge. It tapered off somewhere in the middle, becoming a question instead.
The king dropped his hand and looked at me solemnly. “When you can tell me the difference, I’ll believe you’re really in love.”
I couldn’t reply to that. What did I know? I’d never even had a boyfriend.
The king gave my shoulder another pat and stood. “I’ve meetings to attend, and you need your rest.” He swam toward my door, but turned back before he left. “Think about what I’ve said.” Then he was gone.
I did think about what he’d said—especially the part about me living with Sirens. I had to get out of here, had to get Jason out of here too.
I called Chrissy again.
Still nothing.
I floated around my room in a pacing sort of way and wondered what Jason was doing. Had he realized he was now the prince in the Little Mermaid? Had he figured out who I was? Did he know he needed to kiss me to break the sea witch’s hold on me?
I’d never kissed a guy before, although I’d imagined more than once what it would be like to kiss Jason Prescott. Was it possible he’d be my first kiss? Instead of feeling expectant and dreamy, the thought prickled me with anxiety.
I knew you were supposed to shut your eyes when you kissed a guy, but if I shut my eyes, how could I tell where to put my mouth? What if I missed his lips altogether? Like most things I did the first time, I’d probably be horrible at it.
I called Chrissy again. She didn’t come. My anger built as minutes stretched into hours. I circled around my room so fast the clown fish hovering near the anemones in my hair had a hard time keeping up. “You can’t leave me at the bottom of the sea.” I muttered. “My contract says I have three wishes.”
Another knock came at the door, sending a spike of hope through me. Maybe Chrissy had come.
An older mermaid with a seal tail glided inside. “I thought you might be well enough for lunch.”
“Oh. Thanks.” I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and I’d deposited most of that food on the America’s Top Talent stage.
A large sea turtle swept into my room, carrying a covered dish on his back. His eyes were half-lidded, like he was bored or sullen or both. He stopped by my bed, sunk to the floor, and sat there like a grumpy coffee table. He had been carrying utensils in his mouth but dropped them to nibble on the edge of my seaweed blanket.
Well, that was another difference between the mermaid world and mine. Unsanitary room service.
“Thanks,” I told the woman.
She curtsied, swam back to the door, and shut it behind her.
I drifted over to the turtle table and lifted the dish lid to see what was for lunch. Fish slices. Raw fish, I supposed, since a fire would be impossible in the ocean. Even from where I stood, the fish smelled oily. The meal came with a seaweed salad, sprinkled with something I hoped weren’t fish eggs.
I was going to starve here. The only seafood I liked was breaded, fried, and dipped in sauce. I took a spear from the floor and jabbed one of the slices. Maybe now that I was a mermaid, fish would taste good.
Lots of people ate sushi. And caviar was an expensive delicacy. Ditto for escargot and oysters. Instead of regarding the food here like it was something my cat would refuse, I should pretend I was in an exclusive, elitist restaurant.
“So,” I said to the turtle, delaying taking a bite. “How long have you worked as a table?”
The turtle only stared back. Either he wasn’t the talkative type or, despite what the Disney movie depicted, sea creatures weren’t actually capable of speech. I didn’t know which.
Sheesh. If someone had asked me yesterday if I thought crabs and fishes could perform song and dance numbers, I’d have laughed along with everyone else. Now that I knew fairies, leprechauns, and mermaids existed, anything seemed possible.
I turned the spear, peering at the fish slice from a different angle. “Is any of the castle food better than this?”
Again, no response.
“Okay, I’m ordering you to speak. I’m using my royal power and all that.”
The turtle turned its attention to the food in my hand.
I tried again. “If you understand me, blink.”
He didn’t blink, in fact his head squished backward like he was trying to shrink into his shell.
This was not a reaction to my words. A shadow had blocked the light coming in from the window. Someone was there. Probably my guard. And he was most likely wondering why I was having a conversation with my table. I was going to end up with Dr. Gills for sure.
I turned to face him and stopped short. Instead of a merman, a huge squid was squeezing through my window.
Chapter 5
Maybe I was still jumpy because I hadn’t fully adjusted to my mermaid surroundings, but having a giant squid invade my bedroom didn’t seem like a good thing. I let out a startled scream, dropped the fish, and shot upward. This might have been a good way to escape if it hadn’t been for the ceiling. I thunked my head into the stone there.
By the time my brain processed that I should have dashed out the door, the squid had slithered inside. He was enormous, eight feet tall at least, and coming toward me with unfurling tentacles. Each arm was covered in rows of suction cups; made for grabbing things.
I trembled and
edged toward the door. Slow movements were best, weren’t they?
The squid’s overly-large black eyes surveyed me with interest. His beak looked like it could snap a hand off.
What, I wondered, was the point of having a guard watch my window if a huge squid could get by him? How did someone not see an eight-foot-long sea creature swimming toward my window?
I decided it would take too long to open the door. I should go around the squid and dash out the window—or maybe I should just throw my turtle table in the squid’s direction and hope squids preferred shelled creatures to mermaids.
I was inching toward the window, when I noticed one of the squid’s reaching tentacles held an envelope. There were several odd things about the envelope—odd beyond the fact a large squid clutched it. The envelope looked like it came from my century, it wasn’t soggy, and my name was written on the front.
Was this how mermaids delivered mail? I drifted downward, warily keeping my eyes on the squid’s still-waving tentacles. Either Chrissy or a mermaid must have sent it, which meant the squid was tame and wouldn’t eat me. I supposed that was the reason the courtyard guard hadn’t stopped it from coming inside. He was used to squid post. I put my hand to my chest, waiting for my heart to resume its normal rate.
The squid, determined to deliver the letter, advanced toward me, arm fluttering the letter in my direction.
I plucked the envelope from his tentacle and hoped he would leave now that his task was done. Instead, he hovered in front of me. Either his arms were drifting in a current, or he had no concept of personal space because his tentacles kept brushing against me, wavering like streamers in a strong wind.
I backed away, opened the envelope, and unfolded the letter. In a bouncy sort of handwriting, it read:
Sadie,
I hope your first day as a mermaid is everything you dreamed it would be!
Oh yeah, I’d always dreamed of abandoning my own culture in favor of dwelling in the bottom of the ocean and eating raw fish. And the squid that kept frisking me—bonus.