Real Mermaids Don't Sell Seashells (12 page)

“Seriously?” Trey said. “That's whacked.”

“I'm not saying it was actually a body,” I replied, but saying it out loud like that stirred up a new mixture of doubt. “A police officer was there, and he's been investigating.”

“And I've been telling her to just forget about it—there's no way you got away from all that mer business in Port Toulouse only to fly halfway around the earth to jump into another pool of craziness,” Cori said.

“I know you're right, which is why you'll notice I haven't mentioned it to the guys until now,” I said with a satisfied grin.

“That and the penalty of death your father threatened if you did anything to stress your mom out on this trip,” Cori joked.

“True,” I replied. We walked a bit more and kept up our movie-star watch.

Cori and Trey walked ahead, leaving Luke and me to trail behind walking in silence. Luke squeezed my hand.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“'Cause you seem a little weirded out,” Luke said. “And for what it's worth, any time you're weirded out, it's usually for a good reason.”

“It's just that this guy Dillon was so convinced he'd seen something.”

As I said the words, I spotted a dark shadow on one of the boats leading down a side jetty. The person looked my way. His face was in shadows and it took me a half second to register what kind of hat he was wearing. But before I could call out, he dove overboard, hat and all, and disappeared into the dark, inky water without making so much as a splash.

“Holy moley! Did you guys see that?” I yelled and pointed at the boat.

Trey and Cori turned to see what I was talking about.

“What?” Luke asked, trying to see what I'd just seen.

“Someone just jumped overboard from that boat over there!” I called out as I ran toward the boat. I was grabbing the ladder to climb down onto the boat's deck when Luke caught up to me and grasped my arm.

“Jade! You can't just go down there. Someone owns that boat. That's trespassing,” Luke said. “If you think you saw something, let's just call for help.”

“None of our phones work in the Bahamas, remember?” I touched down on the deck and crossed to the other side of the boat to see where the guy had dived in. “Besides, we have to do something now before it's too late.”

“Jade, wait!” Cori said as she and Trey arrived at the side of the boat with Luke. “Don't do anything stupid. Or wet!”

“Cori, I think we might know this guy.”

“Who? Dillon?” Cori asked. She ventured down the ladder too and peered over the side of the boat with me. I spotted a hat in the water and snatched it before it floated away.

“Not Dillon. The guy Rayelle saw talking to Officer Ensel the other day. You know—the one with the Wonderment Cruiselines baseball cap?” I held up the hat, which sported the same white W as the ship.

“Lots of people could own one of these hats,” Cori said, taking it in her hand.

“And unless he hit his head or something, he's gotta come up for air sometime,” Luke added.

Something jumped out of the water about forty feet away from the docks, scaring me out of my skin.

“It's just a dolphin,” Luke called out from the pier where he stood with Trey.

Swim…away…

“It's saying something.” I turned and said to Luke, “Do you hear that?”

“Oh, wow! Yeah, but are you sure you actually saw something jump out of the boat and into the water?” Luke asked.

I scanned the water again. What
had
I seen? There were lights on most of the boats, but this one was dark. The only light around was the lamp on the pier that cast dark shadows along the boat's deck.

“I'm not sure.” Just like the time Dillon had said he'd seen a body getting dumped from the cruise ship, shivers of doubt rippled through my gut. “Maybe it was just some guy messing around where he doesn't belong who doesn't want to get caught.”

“Hey, Jade,” Cori called out from the stern. She pointed to a rope tied at the end of the boat. “Look at this.”

I followed the rope to a beat-up green speedboat.

“That's Dillon's boat,” I replied right before I dove into the water.

“
Have you gone completely banoonoos? What are you doing?” Cori yelled as I surfaced seconds later.

By then, Luke and Trey had jumped down onto the boat deck and joined in.

“You don't know what's down there,” Luke said. “Didn't you say there were sharks around here?”

“Oh, rrrightt…” I said slowly, peering along the surface of the water, hoping a tiger reef whatcha-ma-call-it didn't come jumping out at me, teeth a-blazing. “But they wouldn't come all the way into the harbor, would they, Cori?”

“How should I know?” Cori asked.

“You're supposed to be the shark expert!” I yelled.

“You can always get out of the water,” Cori said, crossing her arms.

“No,” I decided. “I need to find out what the deal is with this guy.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Cori asked.

“But first—turn around!” I ordered Luke and Trey. They kind of figured out what I was up to because, thankfully, they did what I asked.

Also thankfully, I'd flicked off my flip-flops before I dove in, but now I had the job of struggling out of my jean shorts as I treaded water next to the boat. Not an easy task! I left my baggy T-shirt on (of course!) but tossed my shorts to Cori, so they would escape the carnage when I dove back into the watery depths of the harbor and my legs exploded into a tail.

“You've got to be kidding me with this,” Cori said as she bundled up my shorts in her hands.

“Yeah, we should really get our parents,” Trey called over his shoulder.

“No, wait!” I said as I prepared to dive back underwater to check things out. “They're all the way on the other end of the marina. Just let me see what the heck is going on before we drag everyone over here.”

“You're just saying that because you know your mom and dad will freak and insist that you get out of the water,” Cori said, putting a hand on her hip. “I know how you operate.”

“At least let me go with you,” Luke said, and I could tell he was getting ready to take off his shoes.

“Think about that one,” I said with a laugh. Because I was only
part
mermaid, all I had to do was climb out of the water and start breathing air to turn back into a human. Luke, on the other hand, was born a mer, so things were much more complicated for him. The only way he could turn back from mer to human was with a special tidal pool that brought tides in and out at the right rate for the transformation to occur. My engineer dad had built a man-made version in our garage with a second hand hot tub, wires, tubes, and a computer, but it wasn't something you could pack for a trip to the Bahamas.

“Yeah, I guess you're right,” Luke said.

“Don't worry—I'll be back before you can miss me,” I said. Then I dove in again before anyone else could object. The water wrapped around me like a warm blanket, so different from the chilly waters off the coast of Port Toulouse. But just like my mer adventures back home, I knew all I had to do was breathe in a few deep breaths of water and it would be Tail City.

Breathe
, I reminded myself. Ocean water stung my throat as it rushed deep into my lungs with each breath. At first I felt like gagging, and I sputtered, trying to cough the water back out, but then my body began to crave my next breath of water as if it were air. I took a few more deep breaths, and soon the ocean rushed around me with the force of my exploding tail.

Argllllup!
I rang in my daintiest mermaid voice. There I was once again—Jade the Legless Wonder.

Swim, swim.

The first thing I heard was the ring of the dolphins off in the distance. From what Bobbie had said, dolphins and mers didn't mix so I let them make their getaway, hoping I hadn't bothered them. Hopefully, sharks hated to be around dolphins as much as dolphins hated being around mers.

My eyes stung and I blinked away the harbor water until my sight adjusted to the evening light. I spun around in the warm Caribbean water with the taste of salt in my mouth and moved my tail awkwardly, trying to get the feeling back into it just like when your legs go to sleep after sitting cross-legged for too long.

Luke, can you hear me?
I rang up to the boat.

Yeah
, he rang back. Trey and Cori probably just heard an annoying low ring, but I knew they'd been around Luke and me long enough to know we were talking to each other in our mer voices.
Are
you
okay?

Yeah, I'm fine
, I replied.
Tell
the
others
not
to
worry, okay? I'm getting to be an expert at this
, I joked.

That's what I'm afraid of
, he replied, but I could tell he had a smirk on his lips.

I swam under the hull of the boat and along the floating pier, trying to catch a glimpse of the man who'd just dived into the water. He couldn't have gone too far. No human could stay underwater that long.

Unless he was a mer—and if he was a mer, why would he want to jump into the water and get stuck sporting a tail? Were there tidal pools in the Bahamas where mers could be transformed back into humans?

Focus,
I told myself. Cori was right. There weren't mers looming on every corner of the Bahamas trying to do me in. I really needed to chill.

I started hunting around the boats and swimming along the maze of piers but after ten minutes or so, I'd seen nothing and had lost vocal contact with Luke. Maybe Cori and the guys were right. With the darkness, the unfamiliar waters, and the risk of decapitation by a large, carnivorous, aquatic animal, this was probably a stupid idea.

Swim, swim.

But maybe…

I swam out of the shelter of the marina's docks toward the source of the dolphins' rings and hunted around the darkened waters to see if I could spot them. A current of water bounced off me like a wave against the shore, alerting me that something was nearby. The dolphins were swimming away from me—I could sense it.

Hey, wait!
I rang out. It was the strangest thing, but I could almost feel them slowing down in the distance at the sound of my rings.
Can
you
hold
up? I just want to ask you something.

There was silence for a few minutes but I could sense the dolphins were still there. I swam a few more dozen feet away from the marina, trying to find them.

Stop
, one of the dolphins replied.

The dolphin rings weren't exactly like mer rings. They were more abrupt and squeakier, but I could figure out a bit of what they were saying, like how I could understand simple phrases in French even though I'd only studied Spanish. I could sense the dolphins swimming in circles, planning what to do next.

I
just
want
to
talk
, I rang out as softly as possible. I didn't want to spook them since they were probably a little freaked to sense a mermaid in their midst.

Danger
, another dolphin said, and I could feel it turn away like a nervous horse or a shy puppy.

Whoa
, I rang.
Easy
does
it. I'm not going to hurt you.
I said the next few words slowly so the dolphins could hopefully understand.
Do
you
know
what
I
am?

More ripples tickled the scales of my tail. I could tell the dolphins were still on the move, but they were staying close by. I thought I heard more rings from them, but these were harder to understand, as if they were speaking very quickly in nervous chatter. Finally, one of them replied.

Ocean
human.

Ocean human? Huh. Okay, close enough, I guess.

Yes, ocean human
, I rang.
But
have
you
seen
an
actual
human
swimming
near
here? I think he may be in danger.

Danger, danger
. The call came back. I could tell the dolphins were getting agitated by the vibrating energy all around me. It was weird but it felt as though I'd dialed into their frequency—and that frequency was on the high end of “stressed out.”

Please, if you could help me
, I rang out into the dark waters.
Then
I'll leave you alone. I promise.

A few moments later, a long silver beak appeared in the darkened waters a dozen feet or so away.

Never
before, ocean humans
, the dolphin rang
.

It was obvious the dolphin thought I was a bit of a freak show by the way it swam all around me, inspecting me from all angles. There was also a pained expression in the dolphin's eyes, as though it hurt to be around me.

Yeah, sorry about that. I heard you guys don't particularly like us. Have you seen an actual human, though? You, know—with two legs? Just now?
I rang.

No
humans
, the dolphin replied.
One
ocean
human….now two…you…different.

What did the dolphin mean, two mers? There was me, of course, and it sounded like he could tell I was different, probably because I wasn't a full-fledged mer, but who was the other one? Did the guy who dove overboard just turn into a mer too? Was he a Webbed One?

Where
is
he? The other ocean human?
I asked.

But just as my words rang out, a boat from the marina must have started up because the water vibrated around us and the dolphin took off like a shot.

No, wait a second!
I tried to swim after the dolphin but it was too fast.

Danger.
The dolphin's word rang through the water as it disappeared into the night.

Darn
, I rang to no one in particular. Now I was stuck underwater as a mermaid with more questions than ever. Who was the other mer the dolphin was talking about? And why were mers popping up off the coast of the Bahamas where there hadn't been any before? And did this have anything to do with Dillon?

One thing was for sure—I had to find my way back to Cori, Luke, and Trey before they went to get Mom and Dad, or I'd be in a world of trouble. I'd been underwater for about half an hour by then and figured the gang would probably be getting worried.

I swam back to the safety of the docks of the marina and tried to find the jetty with the boat where I'd dived in. All the jetties looked kind of the same so I followed a row of boats until I found an empty berth with a ladder I could climb.

“Guys?” I called out as I surfaced. The warm evening air burned my throat, and my baggy T-shirt billowed around me in the water as I sucked in several deep breaths. Turning
into
a mermaid was fairly fast and painless, but turning back into a human was slower and involved a fair amount of pain. I only came out of the water waist deep, keeping my tail submerged. It was only a matter of a few minutes before my tail started to grow hot, and I braced myself for the intense pain of the change back to legs and feet and toes.

“Jade?” I heard Cori call out in the distance. She sounded like she was a jetty or so over. “Jade, where are you?”

“Over here!” I called out, hoping no one in the nearby boats would hear me and come outside to discover a teenage mermaid in a baggy BAZINGA! T-shirt.

Shots of pain burned through my tail as the scales turned back to skin. By the time the gang reached me a few minutes later, I was in full leg mode.

“There you are,” Cori said with a sigh of relief. Trey arrived at her side moments later. “We were dangerously close to getting your mom and dad.”

“But you didn't?” I said hopefully.

“No, but I should have. Wasn't this supposed to be a drama-free trip?” Cori asked.

“I'm sorry. I just had to know what was going on with that guy,” I said. “Hey, where's Luke?”

“We all split up to try and look for you,” Trey said. “He should be around here somewhere. Did you find the guy?”

“No, but I was able to communicate with a dolphin, and get this—one of them said they've seen another ocean human around here,” I said.

“A mer, you mean?” Cori asked. “Do you think it was the guy with the hat?”

“Maybe,” I replied. “Hey, did you bring my shorts?”

Cori tossed down my shorts so I could get dressed. She tapped Trey on the shoulder and waved her finger for him to turn around.

“Oh, here comes Luke,” Trey said as I struggled to pull on the wet shorts.

I could feel the jetty bounce a bit as Luke ran toward us. I finished getting dressed and climbed the ladder with my unsteady legs to get up onto the dock. Luke held out a hand to help me.