Mermaid Magic (9 page)

Flora started to jangle her bangles in an irritated manner. “I probably wasn’t speaking to you at the time,” she snapped back. “Since you were just as much of a know-all ten years ago as you are now!”

“Well, really,” Octavius snorted, and the two octopuses started to bicker loudly.

Rani was stunned. Flora had met a red-haired mermaid with a pendant just like hers! And that mermaid had been about to have a baby – a baby who would be Rani’s age by now! What if ... What if ... What if the mermaid Flora had met had been Rani’s true mother?

Chapter Four

T
here was no time to ask Flora any more questions because by the time she had finished arguing with Octavius, it was almost time for the party to begin. But she promised to come and find Rani later so they could talk some more.

As the mermaids gathered together in the big hall, chattering excitedly, Rani thought that they all looked beautiful. Their long hair had been dressed up by Flora and decorated with shell-combs and flowers, and they all wore lovely jewellery made from shells or precious stones. The mermen looked very handsome too, with garlands of twisted leaves on their heads and colourful seaweed belts.

The band was the biggest Rani had ever seen. Mermaids and mermen were playing shell-horns, flutes and drums of all different kinds. There was even a harp with bind-weed strings. But Rani’s favourite thing was the glocken-shell – an instrument made up of lots of different-sized shells, each one sounding a different note when it was played.

Rani was scanning the room for Flora. Flora had said she was coming to the party too, when she had finished doing everyone’s hair. Where was she?

“First, everyone must have a turn at singing,” announced Rani’s grandmother.

Mermaids were known for their beautiful voices and most of them loved to sing, but Rani had always felt far too shy to sing in front of other people.

Rani’s mother sang first. She had a particularly lovely voice and everyone had tears in their eyes as they listened. Rani really wished that she could sing like that. As the other mermaids took their turns Rani started to feel nervous. She had to be the only mermaid whose voice always trembled whenever she tried to sing. What would the others think of her?

“Rani, it’s your turn now!” her grandmother said.

Rani was about to make an excuse when she happened to glance down at her pendant. It made her happy just to look at it and suddenly she felt like she could do anything if she really wanted to! She swam up on to the stage and – much to her amazement – found herself able to sing after all. In fact, she sang so beautifully that the whole room clapped and cheered when she had finished.

“I never knew you could sing like that,” whispered Kai afterwards.

“Neither did I,” gasped Rani, touching the pendant in awe. She was about to say more about it to Kai when their grandmother announced that it was time to have supper.

Rani and Kai swam to the table to choose what they wanted from the delicious spread of mer-cakes and sea-trifles and ocean-fruits. The grown-up mermaids were drinking lots of mer-wine and getting very merry indeed.

“This is yummy. Not a bit of seaweed in sight!” laughed Kai, who was always being told off for not eating her greens.

“And no stew either!” laughed Rani. Suddenly she spotted Flora across the other side of the room. “I’ll be back in a minute,” she told her sister.

“Wait, Rani! Where’s your necklace?” asked Kai, seeing that it was gone from Rani’s neck.

Rani looked down. “Oh, no! It must have fallen off.”

At that moment, Rani was surrounded by a group of mermaids who demanded that she sing for them again. Rani protested that she had to find her necklace first, but the others were very excited and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“Don’t be a spoilsport, Rani!” her grandmother called out from the other side of the room.

Rani didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t tell her grandmother that she had lost the necklace, but how else could she explain that she didn’t want to sing without it?

“I’ll look for it,” offered Kai. “Give them one song and then come and help me. Don’t worry. It’s got to be here
somewhere
. It must be.”

Reluctantly, Rani agreed but as she took her place on the stage again, she had a horrible thought. What if it was the pendant that had given her the ability to sing before? What if now – without it – she was just as hopeless as ever? Rani’s throat felt tight. Her stomach started to churn. She was sure that her voice would come out totally shaky and everyone would laugh at her. She quickly mumbled something about a sore throat and left the stage.

“I
can’t
sing without my pendant,” she told Kai.

“Maybe it fell off when you went to get your food,” Kai said.

They swam back over the top of the long table and looked in between all the dishes but they couldn’t see the necklace.

Rani felt like crying.

“Don’t worry. You can share
my
necklace,” Kai said, putting her arm round her sister. “Or maybe Grandma has another one you can have.”

But Rani knew that the amber pendant was far too special to be replaced.

“I’ve
got
to find it,” she told Kai.

And together, the two sisters started to search again.

Chapter Five

I
t was getting late and Rani was starting to feel sleepy. She still hadn’t found her pendant although she and Kai had searched the whole room. She kept checking to make sure that the little shell containing the sea-spell was still fastened to her belt.

Flora seemed to have disappeared from the party. Rani was just giving up all hope of speaking to her again when she heard an unmistakable jangling sound right behind her.

“Flora,” Rani gasped. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

“I’ve been avoiding Octavius,” Flora confided. “He’s just so
bossy
. It’s just as well I don’t live in Tingle Reef or he’d drive me mad!”

“He drives us mad too sometimes,” Rani grinned. “But we know he always
means
well!”

The party had livened up even more since Octavius had suggested they dance a few reels. The mermaids were swishing their tails as fast as they could in time to the music as they held hands and swung each other round. Octavius was dancing with eight mermaids at once and looking very pleased with himself.

“It’s getting very noisy,” Flora said. “I hope we don’t upset our neighbours.”

“What neighbours?” asked Rani.

Suddenly, as if in answer to her question, an incredible bellow sounded.

“Oh dear,” Flora said, looking out into the Deep Blue with a worried frown on her face.

“What is it?” asked Rani anxiously.

Flora pointed out into the dark water which had suddenly become very choppy, and Rani saw an enormous black-and-white whale charging towards them.

“Whales have got very sensitive hearing,” Flora whispered. “She’s probably come to complain about the noise.”

The furious whale banged against the side of the wreck and everyone stopped dancing.

The other mermaids made way for Rani’s grandmother as she swam to the edge of the room so that she was looking out at the whale through a gap in the side of the wreck. “We’re
terribly
sorry for disturbing you,” she began, politely. “Can we make up for it by offering you some refreshments?” She looked across to the table where Octavius was helping himself to the last of the trifle. “We have lots of mer-wine and sea-fruits and—”

“I only eat plankton!” barked the whale rudely. “And I’ve had a bellyful of that on the way here!” She belched loudly.

“Of course, we’ll stop the music—” Rani’s grandmother tried again, but the whale interrupted her.

“You shouldn’t have started it in the first place! I’m sick of you mermaids and your silly parties! You never think about anyone else but yourselves!” And she rammed her whole body against the side of the wreck again, in protest.

“The ceiling!” somebody yelled, as a loud ripping noise came from above their heads and splinters of driftwood and barnacles started to fall from above.

The mermaids looked up and screamed. The huge wooden beams that made up the ceiling were splitting down the middle.

“What are we going to do?” gasped Flora, as everyone tried to swim away at once. “The roof garden will cave in on us.”