Emily Windsnap and the Siren's Secret (6 page)

“Yes, well, not now they’re not,” she snapped. “But they were. Semi-mers,” she said with that same disgusted tone that I was starting to get a bit sick of. “To think — coming to
my
school, and I didn’t even know it. Luckily for all of us, the issue has recently been rectified.”

The issue had been rectified? These were our
lives
she was talking about! We weren’t some problem that needed fixing. I’d had enough. I had to say something. If I could stand up to Neptune in his own court, which I had when I’d rescued my dad from prison, then surely I could speak out now.

“We haven’t done anything wrong,” I said in a voice that came out much smaller than I was expecting. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Semi-mers aren’t against the law. Neptune’s even changed all the intermarriage laws. He wants humans and merfolk to get along.”

With the slightest flick of her tail, Mrs. Sharktail whizzed over to me. “Did I ask you to say anything?” she snarled. She turned back to face the school. “Of course, strictly speaking, semi-mers are
not
against the law,” she said. “Although, if I had my way, they certainly would be,” she added under her breath. “But as of the last few weeks, they
are
against our
school’s
rules, and at a time like this, when our ways are under such threat from humans, it is more important than ever to enforce
all
of our rules.”

She turned back to me and Aaron. “As of this moment, the pair of you are no longer welcome in our school.”

She stared at us. We stared back at her. And then, in case we were in any doubt about exactly
how
unwelcome we were in her school, she added in a deep rumble, “Leave — now!”

There was a swishing noise at the back of the hall. Shona! She was pushing her way past the rest of her class to get to us.
No, Shona, don’t! You’ll only get yourself in more trouble.

I grabbed Aaron’s arm. “We’re going,” I said, staring into Mrs. Sharktail’s sharp beady eyes. “We know when we’re not welcome.” Which, OK, wasn’t the cleverest retort ever. You’d have to be the most ignorant person in the world not to have known you weren’t welcome after all that. But I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

We swam away from the stage and away from the chamber with every eye in the school watching us go. I don’t think even Mandy Rushton had ever made me feel so humiliated. And to make matters worse, do you know what I heard as we swam off? Clapping. Mrs. Sharktail started it. I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to see how many others were joining in.

“Now what?” Aaron and I had stopped for a rest, perched on the side of a rock.

I fought back an urge to burst into tears. But the tears were there, jamming up my throat so hard I couldn’t reply. I just shook my head.

“I mean, did that really happen?” Aaron asked. The sound of his voice dislodged the tears I was holding back, and they started to trickle down my face.

“Hey, don’t cry,” he said in a voice so soft it only made me cry harder. He reached a hand out, as if he were going to wipe the tear from my face. His hand hovered in midair for a moment, before he changed his mind and let it drop. I noticed that his cheeks had turned pink.

“We were supposed to bring the human and mer worlds together,” I croaked. “What chance do we stand of doing that if the merpeople don’t even want us around?”

“I know,” he said. “I think we might have a harder job than we realized.” And then he reached out again. This time he didn’t change his mind. He stretched across and put a gangly arm around my shoulders. It felt weird. But nice. And it stopped me from wanting to cry quite so much.

“Come on,” I said after a while. “We should probably go home and tell our parents what’s happened.”

Aaron plopped back into the water, and I followed him. As we swam slowly back, I could only hope that Mom or Dad would have some idea of what to do next. Because if they didn’t, life in Brightport was about to take a nosedive.

On the way back to Brightport, Aaron asked about Brightport High. What could I say? I wanted to tell him it was great, but when I opened my mouth to describe it, all I could think of was one thing. Or rather, one person.

“Look, if we’re starting at Brightport High, I’d better tell you about someone,” I said. “You’ll come across her soon, so you might as well be prepared.”

A shoal of yellow and green fish swam beside us, gliding along with the tiniest flicks of their tails. “Go on,” he said.

“Mandy Rushton.”

Aaron’s face brightened. “The girl who helped you save everyone from the kraken. I remember you talking about her. Hey, at least we know we’ll have a friendly face waiting to see us there.”

I half laughed and half choked, swallowing about a gallon of seawater in the process. “Erm, it’s not exactly like that,” I said. Then I explained about how mean Mandy used to be to me at school. How she used to call me names, and make fun of me, and try to get me into trouble with the teachers.

“But you made up at Allpoints Island, didn’t you?”

“Well, yes, but it’s not that straightforward.” I told him about the memory drug that Neptune had given all the humans before they left the island so they wouldn’t remember seeing the merpeople and the kraken.

“And you think the memory drug will have made her forget that you were friends?”

“Exactly.”

“Is there any chance that the memory drug didn’t include that part and she’ll still be friends with you?”

I’d wondered the same thing myself, but I wasn’t holding out much hope. “We’ll find out soon enough,” I said. “But I thought you should be warned, just in case.”

We swam the rest of the way in silence, accompanied by a single silver fish that looked like a sword, slicing along the seabed, silent and somber.

“Jake, I want you to march right into Shiprock School and give them what for!”

We were out on the deck of the boat, and Mom was on the warpath. “Our children are as good as anyone else’s, and have as much right to attend that school as all the others!”

Dad was in the sea below us. He swam backward and forward across the bow of the boat. Despite everything that was going on, it felt nice to discover that he paced when he was trying to work out what to do, just like I do. I’d only known my dad since last year, and there were still loads of things I was discovering about him.

“It’s not as simple as that,” he said. “I mean, they’ve got their rules and —”

“Rules? Since when did you give a hoot about rules when the rules are downright silly and unfair?” Mom fumed.

Dad swam right up to the side of the boat and reached out for her hand. She folded her arms.

“Penny, I’m working for Neptune now,” he said. “Things aren’t like they used to be.”

“No,” she said pointedly. “They’re not.”

Dad reached out farther for her hand. “Come on, don’t be like that,” he said. “I’m as outraged as you are. I just think we need to be careful about how we approach this.”

Mom shuffled farther away. “In case you’ve forgotten, your new boss is the same Neptune who told us to go and bring the human and the mer worlds closer together. He
ordered
us to do it! He told us this would be our first test, remember? And you want to sit back and do nothing while our daughter is humiliated in front of an entire school and shown very clearly what the mer world thinks of the human one. How is
that
being loyal to your precious Neptune?”

Mom’s face was scarlet. Why was she so angry? She hadn’t even wanted us to go to Shiprock in the first place!

“It’s the principle of the thing,” she snapped as though she’d read my mind.

Dad’s face was almost as red as Mom’s.
Please don’t argue,
I thought. I couldn’t go through all that again. They’d argued so much when we’d first arrived at Allpoints Island, I’d thought they were going to split up.

“Look, I understand what you’re saying,” Dad said calmly. “But we’re going to have to tread carefully. I’m not going to sit doing nothing while Shiprock makes an example of Emily.”

“And Aaron,” I butted in.

Dad nodded. “And Aaron. I’ll do something. But I want to make sure that whatever we do, it’s the right thing. If we go charging in there shouting our gills off now, how’s that going to help our cause?”

Mom turned away.

Dad tried again. “Come on, Pen, we’ve got to be a team; we’ve got to work this out together. That’s what Neptune instructed us to do as well.”

Mom let out a huge sigh, then she sat on the edge of the deck and took Dad’s hand. “I suppose you’re right,” she said grudgingly. “Naturally.”

“Naturally? Why naturally?” Dad asked.

“Well, look at me. Who am I to think I can build bridges between people? We should tell Neptune to pick someone else.”

“Mary Penelope, what on earth are you talking about?”

Uh-oh. Dad had called her by her full name. He only called her Mary Penelope when it was
really
serious. It was time to step in.

“Look, I don’t mind all that much, now that it’s over and done with,” I said quickly. “I’m happy to go to Brightport High, and so’s Aaron. I’ve told him all about it. So why don’t we just forget it and carry on as though nothing’s happened? We’ve got each other, and that’s all that matters really, isn’t it?”

Mom looked down at the deck. Shaking her head, she mumbled, “That’s not the point.”

Now it was Dad’s turn to sigh. “If that’s not the point, then what
is
?”

She muttered something.

“What was that?” Dad asked, a sliver of impatience creeping into his voice.

Mom looked up. A tear had slipped from her eye and was snaking down her cheek. “My parents,” she said numbly.

Dad reached up and stroked her leg. “Oh, Penny,” he said. She gulped back a sob.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “What about them? I thought you hadn’t seen them for years.”

“Exactly!” Mom said woodenly. “That’s my point! What chance do I stand of building bridges between two worlds if even my own parents haven’t spoken to me in more than ten years? Neptune’s picked the wrong person!”

And with that, she wrapped her arms around her knees and threw herself wholeheartedly into crying very loudly.