The Tail of Emily Windsnap (9 page)

I don’t know how long I looked at the file. I realized at some point that my hand had almost gone numb from clutching it so tightly.

“What is it?” Shona came to look over my shoulder at the files. That’s when I noticed another one at the bottom of the chest. I reached down to get it. It had my mom’s name on it. Below that was another. I almost didn’t dare to look. I shut my eyes as I picked it up. When I opened them, I was looking at a name I’d been dreaming about for a week: Jake Windsnap.

I traced the words with my fingertips. Jake Windsnap. I said his name over and over, wondering if there was any way it could be a mistake or a practical joke or something. “Jake
is
my father,” I said out loud. Of course he was. I’d known it in my heart from the first time I’d heard his name. It just took seeing it in writing to convince my brain.

I opened the file, my hands shaking so much I almost dropped all its contents. The sheets inside it were plastic. And they all had the pitchfork image at the top: Neptune’s trident.

“But what in sharks’ name does Mr. Beeston have to do with any of this?” Shona asked.

“Maybe he knows where my dad is, after all. I mean, if they were best friends, maybe he’s trying to help him. Maybe they’ve been in touch all along.” My words came out in a rush, none of them convincing me — or Shona, by the look on her face.

“There’s only one way to find out,” she said.

I held the files out in front of me. Once I’d looked inside, there would be no going back. I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t seen whatever was in there. Maybe I didn’t want to know. I pulled at my hair, twiddling, twisting it around and around. I had to look. Whatever it said, I needed to know the truth.

I opened the file with my name on it. A scrappy bit of paper with a handwritten note scrawled across it fell on the floor. I picked it up, Shona looking over my shoulder as I read.

EW One: All clear.

Nothing to report. No mer-gene identified. Possibly negative. (50% chance.) Scale detection nil.

“What in the ocean is that supposed to mean?” asked Shona.

I shook my head, pulling a bigger sheet out of the file.

EW Eight: Moment of truth?

Subject has requested swimming lessons again. (See MPW file for cross-ref.) CFB present to witness request. Denied by mother. Unlikely to be granted in near future. Needs careful attention. Almost certainly negative mer-gene but experiment MUST NOT be abandoned. Continued observation — priority.

“Subject!” I spluttered. “Is that me?”

Shona winced.

Careful watch?
Had he been stalking me? What if he was watching us now? I shuddered and swam over to close the office door. A lone blue fish skimmed into the room and over my head as I did.

We scanned the rest of the file. It was all the same: subjects and initials and weird stuff that didn’t make sense.

I picked up my mom’s file.

MPW Zero: Objectives.

MPW — greatest risk to merworld detection. Constant supervision by CFB. M-drug to be administered.

Shona gasped. “M-drug. I know what that is! They’re wiping her memory!”

“
What?
Who is?”

“Mr. Beeston is. He must work for Neptune!”

“Work for Neptune? But how? Then he’d be a . . . I mean, he
can’t.
Can he?”

Shona rubbed her lip. “They usually send people away after they’ve been memory wiped.”

“Why?”

“It can wear off if you go near merfolk areas. We learned all about it in science last term.”

“So you think they did it to my mom?”

“They probably still are. One dose is usually enough for a one-time incident — but not for a whole series of memories. They must be topping it up somehow.”

Topping it up?
I thought about all Mr. Beeston’s visits. He wasn’t lonely! He was drugging my mom!

We looked all the way through Mom’s file. Page after page noting her movements. He’d been spying on us for years.

“I feel sick,” I said, closing the file.

Shona picked up Jake’s file. There was a note stuck on the front with something scribbled on it. East Wing: E 930. We read in silence.

JW Three: Bad influence.

JW continuing to complain about sentence. Sullen and difficult.

JW Eight: Improvement.

Subject has settled into routine of prison life. Behavior improved.

JW Eleven: Isolation.

Operation Desert Island discussed openly by prisoner. Isolation–three days.

“Operation Desert Island!” Shona exclaimed. “So it’s true after all. There
is
a place! Somewhere merfolk and humans live together!”

“How do you know that’s what it is?” I asked. “It could be anything.”

We read on.

“None of it makes any sense,” I said, swimming backward and forward across the room to help me think.

Shona continued flicking through the file. “It’s all numbers and dates and weird initials.” She closed the file. “I can’t make fin or tail of it.” She grabbed another file from the chest. “Listen to this,” she said. “‘Project Lighthouse. CFB to take over Brightport Lighthouse until completion of Windsnap problem. Ground floor adapted for access. Occasional siren support available with unreliable beam. Previous lighthouse keeper: M-drug and removal from scene.’” Shona looked up.

“What are we going to do?” I whispered.

“What
can
we do? But, hey — at least you’ve found your dad.”

My dad. The words sounded strange. Not right. Not yet. “But I
haven’t
found him,” I said. “That’s just it. All I’ve found is some stupid file that doesn’t make any sense.”

Shona put the file down. “I’m sorry.”

“Look, Shona, we know Jake’s my — my father, don’t we?”

“Without a doubt.”

“And we know where he is?”

“Well, yes.”

“And he can’t come out. He’s locked away. And he didn’t
choose
to leave me. . . .”

“I’m
sure
he never wanted to —”

“So we’ll go to him!”

Shona looked at me blankly.

I shoved the files back in the chest, locked it firmly. “Come on, let’s go!”

“Go? Where?”

“The prison.” I turned around to face her. “I’ve got to find him.”

Shona’s tail flapped gently. “Emily, it’s
miles
away.”

“We’re mermaids! We can swim for miles, no problem!”

“Maybe
I
can, but it’s definitely too far for you. You’re only half mermaid, remember?”

“So you’re saying I’m not as good as you?” I folded my arms. “I thought you were supposed to be my friend. I thought you might even have been my best friend.”

Shona’s tail flapped even more. “Really?” she said. “I want you to be my best friend, too.”

“Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it. You won’t even help me find my father.”

Shona winced. “I just don’t think we’d make it there. I’m not even sure exactly where it
is.
”

“But we’ll never know if we don’t try. Please, Shona. If you were
really
my best friend, you would.”

“Okay,” she sighed. “We’ll try. But I don’t want you collapsing on me miles out at sea. If you get tired, you have to tell me, and we’ll come back, okay?”

I shoved the chest back under the table. “Okay.”

I don’t know how long we’d been swimming; maybe an hour. I started to feel as if I had heavy weights attached to each arm; my tail was practically dropping off. Flying fish raced along with us, bouncing past on both sides. An occasional gull darted into the sea, like a white dart piercing the water.

“How much farther is it?” I gasped.

“We’re not even halfway.” Shona looked back. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” I tried not to pant while I spoke. “Great. No problem.”

Shona slowed down to swim alongside me, and we carried on in silence for a bit. “You’re not okay, are you?” she said after a while.

“I’m fine,” I repeated, but my head slipped under the water while I spoke. I coughed as a mouthful of water went down the wrong way. Shona grabbed me.

“Thanks.” I wriggled away from her. “I’m all right now.”

She looked at me doubtfully. “Maybe we could both do with a rest,” she said. “There’s a tiny island about five minutes’ swim from here. It’s out of our way, but it would give us a chance to get our breath back.”

“Okay,” I said. “If you really need a rest, I don’t mind.”

“Fine.” Shona swam off again. “Follow me.”

Soon, we were sitting on an island barely larger than the flat rock that had become our meeting place. It was hard and gravelly, but I lay down the second I dragged myself out of the sea, the water brushing against me as my tail turned back into legs.

It seemed only seconds later that Shona gently shook my shoulder. “Emily,” she whispered. “You’d better get up. It’s starting to get light.”

I sat up. “How long have I been asleep?”

Shona shrugged. “Not long.”

“Why didn’t you wake me? We’ll never get there now. You did it on purpose!”

Shona squeezed her lips together and scrunched up her eyes. I thought about her pretending she needed a rest, and about taking me to her school and everything. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know why you did it.”

“It’s too far. It’s probably even too far for me, never mind you.”

“I’m
never
going to see him. I bet he doesn’t even remember he’s got a daughter!” I felt a drop of salty water on my cheek and wiped it roughly away. “What am I going to do?”

Shona put her arm around me. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have been mean to you. You’ve been amazing. Really helpful.”

Shona made a face at me, as if she was trying not to smile but couldn’t stop a little grin from slipping out through her frown.

“And I know you’re right,” I added. “There’s no way I could get there tonight, not if we’re only halfway.”

“Not even that. Look.” She pointed out to the horizon. “See that big cloud that looks like a whale spurting water — with the little starfish-shaped one behind it?”

I looked up at the sky. “Um, yeah,” I said uncertainly.

“Just below that, where the sea meets the sky, it’s lighter than the rest of the horizon.”

I studied the horizon. It looked an awfully long way away!

“That’s it. The Great Mermer Reef. It’s like a huge wall, bigger than anything you’ve ever seen in your life, made of rocks and coral in every shape and color you could imagine — and then about a hundred more. The prison’s a mile beyond it. You have to go through the reef to get there.”

My heart felt like a rock itself — dropping down to the bottom of the sea. “Shona, it’s absolutely
miles
away.”

“We’ll work something out,” Shona said. “I promise.” Then she scrabbled around among the rocks and picked up a couple of stones. She handed one to me.

“What’s this?” I looked at the stone.

“They’re friendship pebbles. They mean that we’re best friends — if you want to be.”

“Of course I want to be!”

“See? They’re almost exactly the same.” She showed me her pebble. “We each keep ours on us at all times. It means we’ll always be there for each other.” Then she said, more quietly, “And it’s also a promise that we’ll find your dad.”

I washed my pebble in the water; it went all shiny and smooth. “It’s the best present anyone’s ever given me.”

Shona slipped hers into her tail and I put mine in my jacket pocket. I didn’t want it to disappear when my legs returned! I looked at the patch of light that was spreading and growing across the horizon.

“Come on.” Shona slid back into the sea. “We’d better get going.”

We slowly made our way back to Rainbow Rocks.

“See you Sunday?” I asked as we said goodbye.

Shona’s cheeks reddened a touch. “Can we make it Monday?”

“I thought you couldn’t get out on Mondays.”

“I will. I’ll make sure of it. It’s just that the Diving and Dance display is Monday morning, and I don’t want to be too tired for the triple flips.”