Maybe a Mermaid Read online

  All the hope and tingly excitement I’d felt on the drive disappeared like the air in a popped balloon. Mom stared straight ahead, recalculating. I knew she was running through the possible options—throwing out the bad ideas, categorizing the potentially good ones and analyzing them for flaws. I knew we’d sit in the Beemobile until she could come up with a new plan that would be as good, if not better, than the first.

  Except the longer we sat, the thicker the silence got. Mom wasn’t offering any options.

  “Is there another hotel?” I asked.

  Mom shook her head. “We can’t get the deposit back. I already called and asked.”

  “You did?” That was news to me. “Why?”

  Just then, a light went on in the big bay window of the hotel. Someone pretended to fuss with the curtains—probably wondering what kind of creepy people lurk around a deserted parking lot in a car that looks like a bee.

  The shadow behind the curtain was short and appeared to be wearing a long dress. From her height, I guessed she was my age or younger. She disappeared, and seconds later, the bottom of the curtain started to lift. A pair of binoculars appeared on the windowsill, and the shadow crouched behind them, peering at us like a spy.

  I didn’t know what else to do. I waved.

  The shadow shot straight up. Then the girl reached her hand under the curtain and waved back a wiggly-finger wave. Something about it made me breathe easier. Maddy Quinn used to wave like that, each finger dancing individually in the air. She used to wave at me when we were in Silent Time-Out—which happened a lot when Gramps pretended to storm the castle. Every time he roared his dragon roar, we’d get so scared and worked up that one of us would scream, and for some reason, that always made us laugh. We’d laugh and scream until our stomachs hurt, and Mom would have to make us go to Time-Out so we could calm down.

  It would be nice. Having a friend like that again.

  I thought it over. Things always turned out best when Mom and I had a goal and stuck to the plan. In Milwaukee, Mom had the worst sales quarter of her life. She could have cried her eyes out and given up, but she didn’t. She stayed positive. She stuck to the plan. If she hadn’t, we’d be celebrating the last day of fifth grade eating beans and rice in our tiny apartment and arguing with Mr. Li about rent. Instead, we were at The Showboat Resort. It didn’t matter if it was beautiful. It mattered that we were here.

  “Mom,” I whispered, but she was either still thinking or she’d been telepathically frozen by a mutant with psionic powers like Emma Frost. She never took this long to recalculate.

  I reached for the glove box and took out a stick of Honey Blossom Bee-You-tiful Lipstick.

  “It might be nicer on the inside,” I said. “And we can still make s’mores.” I put the lipstick in Mom’s hand and gave her the best can-do smile I had in me. “Gillis Girls Always Stick to the Plan, right?”

  Mom studied the lipstick, turning it over in her hand. She looked at me. She looked at the beaten-down hotel. Then, slowly, she uncapped the tube and pulled the rearview mirror toward herself. She applied a thick, rosy layer, and smacked her lips.

  “This place could use some sprucing up,” she said. Like all it needed was a good volumizing shampoo and a set of organic loofahs. “But I’ve seen worse. You’re right, Anthoni. Positive Thoughts Attract Positive Results. Let’s go check in.”

  Yes. Positive thoughts. I opened my door and let the pine air swallow me whole.

  4

  THE BLUE HERON

  The door marked Front Office creaked on its hinges and shut behind us, sucking up every last bit of outside light with it. At first, I thought I saw two women standing in front of a wall of books, but as my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I realized that one of the women was a lamp—a life-size statue of a mermaid holding a light bulb and a pink shade over her head.

  An elderly woman with bright-orange hair stood next to the lamp, waiting in the glow. She wore a silver evening gown covered with butterflies—the kind of dress a movie star might wear if they had the Academy Awards when Abraham Lincoln was alive. The gown shushed as she stepped toward the “front desk,” which was actually a stacked-up set of old-fashioned traveling trunks plastered with stickers that read Chicago: The Palace, New York: Hippodrome Theatre, and San Francisco: Orpheum Opera House. Around us, the walls were covered with framed newspapers, black-and-white photos, and posters advertising strange things like MASTER HOMER, CHAMPION BOY WHISTLER and UPSIDE-DOWN STANLEY, THE TOPSY-TURVY FELLOW.

  The room felt like a forgotten museum, not a hotel.

  “Are you the person I talked with on the phone?” Mom asked. “I know you said the deposit is nonrefundable, but I was wondering if special circumstances might…”

  Special circumstances? I thought Mom had said “positive thoughts.” Special circumstances sounded like leaving.

  Silently, the woman handed Mom a form that had Carrie & Anthoni Gillis: Six Weeks, Paid in Full written at the top in swirly pink script. She stabbed a bony finger at a line that read All Deposits Are Nonrefundable. No Exceptions.

  Mom shook it off with a smile. She put on her chirpy Chief Pollinator voice and said, “I’m so glad to be back at The Showboat Resort. I always felt like magical, impossible things could happen here.”

  I relaxed a little. Mom was back on track. Mostly. But her voice was a notch too cheerful.

  “Do they still have swimming lessons in town? Anthoni’s never been here before, and if she can get the basics, we could have Mr. Boulay get her up on water skis…”

  At the mention of Mr. Boulay, the woman shook her head, dangly butterfly earrings swinging from her lobes.

  “Oh, he didn’t … He’s not … gone, is he?”

  A slow, steady, flame-orange head nod.

  Mom stopped talking, and an awkward silence filled the room.

  “Have the Quinns checked in?” I asked. “I saw a girl in the window.”

  The butterfly woman gave me a confused look. I realized she hadn’t said a single word yet.

  I tried again. “She waved at me. Behind the curtain.”

  The woman smiled, revealing a smudge of lipstick on a crooked front tooth. She shook her shoulders like she’d heard a good joke, then lifted her hand into a wiggly-finger wave.

  The girl behind the curtain wasn’t a girl at all. She was a very short old woman in a party dress with lipstick on her tooth. Happy thoughts, I reminded myself. Focus on the positive.

  Mom put her hand on my back. “It’s only the middle of June. Maddy’s school might not be out yet.” She turned to the woman behind the desk. “Could you please tell us when Mary Pepper is checking in?”

  The woman didn’t respond.

  “Mary Pepper,” Mom repeated with an edge of irritation. She caught herself and added in a friendlier voice, “Mary and I became True Blue Friends at this very resort. Life comes full circle, doesn’t it?”

  The woman flipped through a calendar without looking. Then she opened her mouth and spoke for the first time. Her voice was flat.

  “No Pepper.”

  Mom didn’t flinch. “Of course. She used to be Pepper. You must have her down as Mary Quinn.”

  This time, the woman didn’t even check. “No Quinn.”

  Mom bit her lip, then handed over the completed form and beamed like we’d checked into the Taj Mahal.

  “We’re so excited to be here at your beautiful resort!” she said, even chirpier than the first time. She reached into her purse and pulled out a Beauty & the Bee brochure. “We’re having a special on the Honey Bee Wrinkle-Free product line for the entire month of June!”

  I nudged Mom’s foot. I knew selling B&B was a natural reflex for her, but this woman was older than the sun. A whole gallon of unicorn tears wasn’t going to help with her wrinkles.

  The woman studied the before-and-after pictures of a wrinkle-free woman on the center spread. She let her eyes float dramatically to the ceiling like an actor on a stage. Then, without warning, she shouted
, “An elixir of youth!”

  I was so surprised that I flinched, and a nervous laugh threatened to burst out of my throat. I choked it down.

  “My dear departed grandfather was once a master of the humbug.” The woman waved Mom’s brochure at a poster on the wall behind her.

  DOCTOR HERACLITUS BARNABUS BOULAY

  VENTRILOQUIST, MEDICINE MAN, AND TRICK BICYCLIST

  ONE NIGHT ONLY (AT POPULAR PRICES!)

  Mom flushed. “That’s not at all the same…”

  The woman slapped the brochure down on the desk and stepped onto a stool. She reached her pale arm to a row of keys, and chose one attached to a wooden carving of a skinny bird with a long beak.

  “You’ve been upgraded,” she said. “The Blue Heron: your own lakeside cabin.”

  “We’re not going to be in the hotel?” Mom sounded disappointed, but I felt relieved. We’d be fine on our own. Better, even.

  “The great blue heron is an extremely self-reliant creature,” the woman said. “Surprisingly adaptable to change.”

  The butterfly dress crinkled as she bunny-hopped off the stool.

  “Herons,” she announced, “have also been known to choke to death. Trying to swallow fish too big for their skinny throats!”

  She leaned over the counter toward me, stretched out her neck, and sucked in her cheeks so hard her face hollowed and her jawbone jutted out beneath her skin. Her eyes bugged like they were going to pop out of her head and roll around on the floor.

  Mom froze in place, smile and all, and I started to worry. Was the old woman sick? Was she going to keel over and die right there at the front desk? There probably wasn’t a hospital around for miles.

  Then she winked at me and began to gulp. She gulped and gulped at the air like a panicky heron with butterfly barrettes who’d swallowed a fish too big for her throat.

  Mom gasped, but I couldn’t help it—I started to laugh. I tried to hold it in, but the harder I tried, the more giggles bubbled up and flowed out like too much soap in the dishwasher.

  The woman paused mid-swallow and studied me, surprised. “You like that?” she asked.

  I hiccupped helplessly through my giggles, and the orange-haired woman grinned, showing off the lipstick on her tooth again. She slapped her hand on the desk and chucked a fist under her chin.

  “I got a million of ’em,” she said in a new, wisecracking voice. “Ask me to do Bear-in-a-Beehive. That one kills ’em every time.”

  Mom put her purse on her shoulder and tugged on my arm. “I think we’re all set,” she said. “Thank you very much, Mrs.…”

  “Boulay. Charlotte Boulay atch’r service.”

  5

  IMPOSSIBLE THINGS

  It was a shriek that woke me the first time.

  I tugged the sheet close to my face and lay still as a statue, my heart pounding and my eyes fixed on a tall, lean shadow draped across my bed. Each time I breathed, the shadow swayed.

  “Mom?” I whispered.

  I scanned the loft of The Blue Heron. There was no bear behind the dresser. No woodsman with an axe climbing the ladder from the living room. I propped myself up on my elbow and slowly turned to look at the window seat tucked under the eaves next to my bed.

  The cushioned seat glowed in the moonlight—empty. I relaxed. It was only the moon shining through the window, throwing the shadow of a pine tree across my bed. Probably the shriek had been a dream.

  Wide-awake, I wrapped myself in a blanket and climbed onto the window seat. I was glad my window faced the lake and not the woods. The Showboat Resort had eight private cabins—all named after animals—built in a semicircle around the main hotel. But while the main building was set in the middle of the open, weed-filled clearing, all of the cabins were hidden along the field’s edges in what seemed like the deepest, darkest part of the forest. A curved path that could have been a set piece for Hansel and Gretel connected The Red Fox to The Whitetail to The Osprey and eventually wound down toward the water.

  The Black Bear and The Blue Heron were the two cabins farthest from the main building and closest to the water. Between them, the path led to a wide set of stairs that looked like bleachers. From my window seat, I could see a dilapidated dock at the bottom of the stairs, stretching out over Thunder Lake. The lake was the shape of a lopsided jelly bean, and larger than I’d expected, but The Showboat was tucked into a small, isolated crook of the bay. In the dark, the trees on the shoreline made a wall of shadow, penning in the cabins, the bleachers, and the moonlit dock.

  A breeze rustled in through the screen. I shivered. There was something odd about the resort. Something stranger than run-down cabins and an empty parking lot. It was like Mom said. A feeling. Like impossible things could happen. Mom seemed to think that was a good thing, but I wasn’t sure.

  The shriek came again.

  Ooo-OO-oooo

  The howling rang across the lake like a woman wailing. Was someone hurt? Was a wild animal out on the hunt? For a brief minute, I let myself wonder if werewolves were a real thing. I thought about going down to the back bedroom and climbing into bed with Mom, but I knew what she would say. Change Your State. Negative Thoughts Attract Negative Results.

  I tried to pull the window shut, but it stuck. Everything in The Blue Heron seemed to have a malfunction. The kitchen counter was chipped and coffee-stained, the cushions on the wicker furniture sagged, and the pipes made clunking noises when you turned on the water. So far, the loft was the only thing that wasn’t disappointing—the walls slanted up toward the ceiling, and from the foot of the bed you could see down to the kitchen and living room. It was like a cozy tree house you could sleep in. Except for the shrieking.

  One more time, I thought. If I hear it one more time, I’ll go get Mom.

  I drew the blanket closer around my shoulders, leaned my back against the wall, and tried to stay vigilant.

  * * *

  It was a splash that woke me the second time. Loud, like a boulder crashing through the water’s surface. I jerked awake and almost fell off the window seat.

  In the early morning light, the lake water rippled in large circles in front of the dock like something big had fallen, jumped, or been thrown into Thunder Lake right below my window. The circle of ripples grew larger and larger, then faded away, and the lake returned to glass.

  * * *

  “It was a loon,” Mom said at breakfast. “They’re like ducks, but they call each other in the night.”

  “It didn’t sound like a duck. It sounded like a human. Or a banshee.”

  “Like this?” She put her hand under her chin, and made a high-pitched ooo-OO-oooo sound in the back of her throat.

  “How’d you do that?”

  “Loon call.”

  I didn’t think she would make it up or steer me wrong. But it didn’t seem right. Birds shouldn’t make shrieking sounds in the middle of the night.

  “We’ll get you some earplugs. You’ll sleep like a log.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  6

  POTENTIALS

  “I hope you guys don’t need any live bait. It’s super icky, and my mom had to run next door, so I’m holding the counter for her. But I can help you with anything. Except bait. Unless you really need it.”

  The girl on the stool behind the counter of Anna Lee’s Little Store was small enough to be a third grader, but she wore glittery eye shadow that matched her lime-green Waterbugs Water-Ski Club T-shirt, and she was painting her nails with a putrid-smelling lime-green polish. Her fingers were splayed out on a giant glass-topped cooler, like the kind that regular convenience stores use to hold ice-cream bars and popsicles, but this one had a sign advertising NIGHT CRAWLERS, LEECHES, FATHEADS, and SUCKERS—FRESHEST IN TOWN!

  “How about earplugs?” Mom asked, and the girl breathed a sigh of relief. She capped the polish and blew on her nails.

  “Those are in the back, by the aspirin and toothpaste. I haven’t seen you guys before. Where are you from? My name is Juli
e. I’m eleven and a half, but I’ll be twelve in October, so that’s practically three-quarters.”

  “Anthoni’s eleven, too! You girls should chat.” Mom jabbed me with her elbow and gave me one of her seize-the-day nods. “F.E.T.s,” she whispered. Then she turned on her heel and left me alone with Julie and the night crawlers.

  F.E.T.s were Beauty & the Bee’s First Encounter Tactics. They were easy-to-remember things like “Introduce Yourself,” “Share a Personal Story,” and “Find Something in Common” to help a first meeting get off on the right foot.

  Julie grinned at me, revealing a mouthful of braces with lime-green bands. “I always thought Anthoni was a boy’s name,” she said, “but it’s nice. I once knew a girl named Sam, but it was short for Samantha. You could go by something short. Ann, or Toni? How about Annie?”

  “Just Anthoni,” I said. “It’s my grandpa’s name.”

  Julie scrunched her eyebrows, clearly waiting for more information.

  “My mom thought I was going to be a boy, and she always sticks with the plan,” I said.

  “That’s funny. What about initials? The new boy in our class is named Dana, which is kind of like a girl’s name, but he goes by DJ. He’s an odd duck, though. Not that I think you are or anything.” She picked up the polish. “Want me to do your nails? It glows in the dark, but don’t wear it around my guinea pig, Lavender. It freaks her out.”

  I looked around the store for something else to talk about. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but I hate the smell of nail polish and guinea pigs creep me out. I spotted some Archie comics on a rack with postcards.

  “Do you have any X-Men?”

  “Oh my gosh.” Julie huffed like I’d brought up a touchy subject. “My best friend is obsessed and I can’t figure out why. Who wants to read about mutates fighting and blowing each other up all the time?”

  “Mutants,” I said. “The Fantastic Four are mutates. Not X-Men.”

  Julie scrunched up her nose. She was the only living, breathing person my age I’d seen in Eagle Waters, so I had to put her on my Potential Friends list, but we weren’t exactly scoring points on the compatibility test.