Teenage Mermaid (5 page)

S
omebody die?” Robin teased, as she and Chainsaw found me spacing out at my open locker—a dumping ground for CDs, video games, candy wrappers, and books I'd never opened.

Robin was a mother's laundry dream. All dark colors. Never an accidental red bleeding into white. No need for bleach, no need for separate washes. I think the only reason Robin had a crush on me was because I changed my hair color with my changing mood. And my colors were all dark as well: black, purple, blue. She thought I was her soulmate. One day, I'll show up with white hair to see how much she really cares.

“Yeah, Droopy, one minute you're skipping like a
schoolgirl in love and the next you look as if your mommy took away your Nintendo,” Chainsaw razzed.

“Go away,” I said, grabbing my Gameboy from my locker shelf.

“It's that fantasy girl,” Robin teased, with more than a hint of jealousy. “I'm sick for one day and some babe steps in and wins your heart. Or should I say swims in?”

“Yeah, ever since yesterday morning he's been on a major mood swing,” Chainsaw quipped.

“Was she really pretty?” Robin asked hesitantly, like she was waiting for a bomb to drop.

“She was beautiful!” Chainsaw answered. “And never to be seen again!”

“Too bad.” Robin smiled, cozying up to me. “But I'm here, if you need someone to resuscitate you again.”

“Maybe she was a swimming instructor,” Chainsaw suggested.

“She was alone,” I said, shaking my head.

“Maybe she was a lifeguard,” Chain said.

“Seaside's lifeguards wear red. She was wearing green,” I said, glaring.

“Then maybe she was a mermaid!” he declared loudly.

“What makes you say that?” I exclaimed, dropping
my books on the floor. I hadn't said anything to Chainsaw about my crazy hallucination.

“Makes sense. She's beautiful, swims in the ocean better than you do, saves your life, and disappears in the water.”

“Sure, a mermaid,” Robin teased dramatically. “And you know what mermaids are like—they demand pearls and lobster, live in underwater castles, have kings for fathers and stare at themselves in their mirrors. You'd better stick with humans, Spence. We're not so vain.”

“Enough!” I said.

Chainsaw opened his locker and he and Robin giggled to themselves.

“Maybe I should start wearing green,” Robin said.

I slammed more texts into my backpack, wondering if I'd ever see her again, wondering if I'd ever really seen her in the first place.

I
chewed on my backpack strap, anxiously waiting for Calvin while he gathered notebooks from his locker.

“You've got to help me! I'm looking for this guy,” I shouted urgently. “He has my necklace, and I desperately need to get it back!”

“Did he steal it?” he asked angrily.

“Not exactly, but I have to get it back, now!”

“Is he your boyfriend? You didn't tell me—”

“I don't even know his name.”

“Then how did he get your necklace?”

Enough with the questions! I didn't have time for this. But instead I was cordial. “I saved him when he was swimming and he accidentally yanked it off.”

“So you're a heroine,” he said flirtatiously.

“And you can be a hero by finding him,” I said, with a wink.

“All right. What does he look like?”

I stared across the hallway and noticed an Earthdude with dark-blue hair picking up textbooks up from the floor and cramming them into his locker. I couldn't see his face, but his build was similar to Earthdude's.

“Kind of like him,” I said pointing. “But with dark red hair.”

“We'll find him at lunch,” Calvin promised, slamming his locker shut.

N
othing is as boring as the predictable Mr. Parker's quarterly lecture as he laments the horrors of our class's GPA. We're close to our final exams—two weeks until summer break. But instead of making plans for my freedom, I was daydreaming about my enslavement to a fair maiden's kiss. I wrote her name in my notebook: Cassandra, Margaux, Juliet. And then I gazed out the window and there she was!

I mean really! I wasn't daydreaming—it was her! Walking on the grass, bright as sunshine, twinkling blue eyes, glistening, sparkling smile, her yellow hair dangling against her porcelain skin.

All that separated us was the window, a row of
hedges, and Seaside's answer to Troy Aikman—Calvin Todd.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I shouted, gathering my books and standing up, without ever taking my eyes off her.

“Excuse me, Spencer?”

“I have to go!”

The class roared with laughter.

“Seems you'll be doing more reading in the can than in my class,” Mr. Parker said, referring to the stack of books in my hand.

“Oh…yeah.” I stammered awkwardly, and slammed the books on his desk as I ducked out of class.

My heart pulsed out of my chest. I felt the adrenaline surge through my body just like when I drive the 3-D mega-speedboat racer at the Seaside Arcade. And just like my boat in hyper-overdrive, I slammed into walls and other obstacles.

“Hey! Watch out, jerk!” one student yelled.

What was I going to say when I found her? Would I thank her or just stare into her ocean blue eyes? Or would I mumble nonsense? Or groan in pain after Calvin Todd obliterated me for stepping on his turf?

Thump thump thump!
My engine was throbbing overtime as I threw open the front doors, sped down the front stairs, and raced across the lawn.

She wasn't there! I couldn't swallow, my heart was pulsing up through my throat. Had it been a mirage? But why would I hallucinate Calvin Todd?

I ran back into the building and started searching the first floor. I passed the senior classes, since she didn't seem old enough. But why would she be with Calvin? If she were his girlfriend I would have seen her before. Was she a transfer?

I stepped into Mr. Green's English class.

“Yes. Can I help you?” the weaselly-looking teacher inquired.

“Uh…,” I said, glancing at the students whose heads were buried in texts.

“Yes?”

“I…uh…need chalk.” I stammered, stalling to get a better look at the students. I didn't see her or Calvin Todd.

“Chalk?”

“Yes, chalk!”

“You don't have to shout at me,” the Weaselman said, suddenly unweasellike.

“Uh, sorry, man.”

“Do you need one piece or a whole pack?”

“One piece,” I answered quickly, waiting for a blonde girl in the third row to lift up her head. But it was just head cheerleader Linda Wilson.

I inched my way into the aisles and craned my neck
to see the girls in the last row.

“Here,” the Weaselman said, offering a piece to me, but suddenly pulling back.

“Is this for a teacher…or for graffiti?”

“No one uses chalk for graffiti, Mr. Green. They use spray paint.”

“Quite right. Do you need an eraser?”

“No, thanks!” And I dashed out of class.

I gasped for breath as I climbed the stairs to the second floor and pressed my face into Franklin's English lit class. No Calvin Todd, no Cassandra.

I headed straight for Johnson's bio lab. I flew up and down the lab aisles while students prepared to dissect frogs.

“Move!” Sherri Leonard commanded as I backed into her. “You aren't even in this class.”

“Yes, Spencer, what are you doing here?” Mr. Johnson inquired. “You have bio on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Need more chalk?” he asked, referring to the single piece I was still holding.

“I…uh…seemed to have lost my safety goggles—”

“I didn't see an extra pair this morning,” Mr. Johnson said, trying to remember. “But let's take a look.”

He was truly searching for them!

I tapped my fingers nervously against my jeans, the
chalk streaking my leg, while the entire class checked underneath desks and tables, and around beakers.

“That's okay, Mr. Johnson. I'll just use my ski goggles,” I said, inching toward the door.

“Here they are!” Kim Ling called, swinging a pair of goggles from her fingers.

I quickly grabbed them, muttered thanks, and ducked into the hallway.

“Those were mine!” I heard a guy call out.

The hallways were empty, except for me running frantically through the school with goggles and chalk.

I peeked my head in Michaels' U. S. history class. “Is Calvin Todd in this class?” I asked. “I have an urgent message for him.”

“No,” Mr. Michaels replied. “He has this class first bell.”

I peeked my head into the music room. Students were dressed in white-and-blue uniforms for band rehearsal, tuning squeaky tubas and trombones.

I was running out of classrooms to check. Soon the principal would notice the lone student sprinting through the corridors, stealing school supplies! I bumped into Mr. Caldwell, a wiry school security guard whose fiery glance could give you sunburn.

“No running in the halls,” he said, grabbing my shoulder.

“I'll have to remember that,” I responded breathlessly.

“Where's your hall pass?”

“My hall pass? I'm on an errand,” I said, wiping the chalk streaks off my jeans.

“A hall pass is mandatory, even for errands.”

I glanced past Mr. Caldwell into Hanover's geography class and glimpsed Calvin Todd sitting in the front row.

“What class do you have now?” Caldwell demanded.

“Uh? Class? This one.”

“Next time I'll need to see a hall pass or you'll receive a detention,” he warned, opening Mrs. Hanover's geography class door for me. I boldly stepped inside. The teacher was using her pointer to highlight Germany.

Calvin Todd stared at me from the front row. And in the back row sat my dream girl!

She was a glistening angel girl. The air around her sparkled. My glistening angel girl chewing anxiously on her pencil, staring at the clock above the window, looking frightened and agitated, as if she were late for an appointment.

I stood frozen as the door closed behind me. I gazed straight at her, but I felt the other students eyeballing me. And especially Mrs. Hanover.

“May I help you, Mr. Stone?”

That caught the attention of Angel Girl. Her blue
eyes stared up at me with delight just as they had in the ocean.

“May I help you?” Mrs. Hanover bellowed again.

The class waited for my answer.

“Mr. Stone!” she said, tapping her pointer against the chalk board, breaking my spellbound gaze. My own chalk was melting in my sweating hand.

“Uh…” I stammered, glancing around for help. My angel girl had saved my life in the water, but in Mrs. Hanover's bone dry classroom I was on my own. “I need a map,” I said, noticing all the maps on the wall.

“A map?”

“Yes…uh…for English class.”

“A map for English class? Whose English class?”

“Uh…Mrs. Brockman's.”

“Why do you need a map for English class? What are you studying?”

My mind was a blank. I desperately scoured the room with my eyes for inspiration. I spied a copy of
Hamlet
poking out of a student's book bag.

“Shakespeare.”

“The author? Or one of his plays?”

I glanced back at my dream girl, who was staring back at me with the same glow that had warmed the cold Pacific.

“Mr. Stone!”

“Uh…
Hamlet
. We need a map of London.”

“But
Hamlet
takes place in Denmark!”

The class laughed at my stupidity. I scratched my head like an idiot. “Oh, yeah,” I mumbled. “That's why we need the map—no one in class knew where Denmark was, since they don't play in the NFL,” I joked.

Everyone laughed, even dream girl. “One kid even thought it bordered Germany!” I announced, hamming it up.

“It does, Mr. Stone!” Mrs. Hanover corrected, using her pointer to highlight Denmark and Germany.

“Oh,” I said, no longer the comedian but the fool.

The class giggled again, at my expense. Mrs. Hanover fumbled through her metal cabinet and pulled out a weathered world map.

“Now this is England, where Shakespeare lived,” she said condescendingly. “And over here is Denmark, where Hamlet lived. And this, Spencer, is America, where you live, and are standing like an idiot in front of my class making a complete fool of yourself.”

Most kids are afraid of bullies. The biggest bully in our school was Mrs. Hanover.

I was surprised she didn't hit me over the head with the map. I could see from her glaring eyes she was thinking about it. The giggles continued as she handed me the rolled-up map. I could no longer bear to look at my angel girl.

In my fantasies of our reunion, I had imagined her running toward me on the beach as I waxed my surfboard, embracing me with passion—not watching me drown again, this time in a sea of geography. She had seen me get hit in the head by my own surfboard and get hit over the head by Mrs. Hanover's sarcasm. She must have thought I was the biggest dork in the world. After trying so hard to find her, I suddenly wanted to be anywhere else but in front of her eyes. She should have let me sink to the ocean floor.

I
jumped up from my seat. I was really getting used to these legs. But Mrs. Hanover got to the door first, her pointer extended—blocking my way.

“I'm in the middle of my lesson,” Mrs. Hanover growled. “Where do you think you're going?”

“It's an emergency!” I said.

I hadn't recognized Earthdude when he'd first entered class, with his dark-blue hair, black
Abbey Road
T-shirt (just like my CD!) and torn jeans, instead of dark-red hair and a wet suit. But when I saw those velvet lips, that chiseled jaw, I knew I had my Earthee! He was quirky and totally lunar, changing his hair color with the changing tide. I laughed when he didn't
seem to know anything about Earth at all. And then he was gone.

“Find your seat!” Mrs. Hanover commanded. “You're disrupting my class.”

Mrs. Hanover walked back toward her desk, but I didn't move and she bumped into me. Her pointer dropped to the floor.

“Child!” she said with an evil glare, bending her titanic body over, leaving a clear path to the door.

I raced out of the classroom and into a hallway filled with glittery white-and-blue students wearing huge feathery hats and carrying musical instruments that sounded like bellows from a whale. I pushed my way through. Which way had Earthdude gone? Left? Right?

I chose left and raced down the stairwell, where a teacher was holding the door open for her musical students. “Did you see a guy in a black shirt with blue hair?” I asked desperately.

“The guy kicking the lockers from one end of the hall to the other?”

I nodded my head with a cheeky smile.

“I told him to get a drum,” she said, pointing toward the exit.