Maybe a Mermaid Read online

  I put on my sandals and headed in their direction.

  Josh waved. “Hi, Anthoni!”

  I poked my fingers out from under my towel and wiggled them. Smile, I thought. Look friendly. Take initiative.

  “Anthoni?” A kid in long trunks snorted. “Are you a boy? ’Cause if you are, I gotta warn you—you’re wearing a girl’s swimsuit.”

  The rest of the group giggled. I rolled my eyes. Every town I’d lived in had a smart-aleck kid who wanted to show off by picking on the new girl. I knew from experience that the only way to deal with it was to nip it in the bud—instant retaliation. Show one sign of weakness on the first day and it’s over.

  “Are you a comedian?” I asked. “’Cause if you are, I gotta warn you—you’re not funny.”

  Josh grinned and gave me a thumbs-up.

  “Don’t be mean, Kurt.” Julie swatted the boy with a towel and took a protective stand next to me. “Anthoni was named after her grandfather, and that’s a really special thing. Not a lot of girls get to be named after their grandfathers. Besides, Anthoni’s my friend. You’re not allowed to make fun of her.”

  Julie tugged my arm free from my towel and linked her ice-cold elbow through mine. She was so short, she had to stand on her tiptoes a little.

  “Kurt’s my cousin,” she said in a confidential whisper. “You can ignore him.”

  I shifted uncomfortably. You had to be careful with girls like Julie who want to make sure they’re first to be friends with the new kid. Once the newness wears off and no one’s paying attention anymore, they don’t think twice about leaving you in the dust. In Indianapolis, Gracie O’Shay wouldn’t let anyone else sit by me for a month and a half, and made sure we were partners in every activity. Then, out of the blue, she told everyone I stole her creepy guinea pig. I had lunch alone a lot that year.

  “What’s your last name again?” Maddy asked.

  “Gillis,” I said.

  I’d barely said two words, but clearly, something had already gone wrong. Maddy’s voice had an edge to it, and she was looking at me like I’d punched her in the stomach. I followed her eyes to Julie’s hand on my arm. This was not good. In any new-girl scenario, the only thing worse than a pet-stealer is a friend-stealer. I tried to unlink elbows, but Julie’s grip was strong. What was she doing? Trying to sabotage my chances with Maddy? My plan to Make a Meaningful Connection didn’t account for girls with guinea pigs ruining things from the get-go.

  “Gills?” Maddy asked. “See, Kurt, she’s not a boy. She’s a fish! Must be why she’s such a great swimmer. That was some of the best bubble-blowing I’ve ever seen.”

  Kurt cracked up and gave Maddy a high-five. I groaned. It doesn’t matter where you go—Ohio, Illinois, or an eerie lake in middle-of-nowhere Wisconsin—people come up with the same stale jokes every time. Boy’s name. Gills. Like we’re all a bunch of robots with the same joke programming. But somehow, it hit harder coming from a girl in an X-Men towel.

  Josh crumpled his forehead, confused. “Anthoni didn’t blow any bubbles,” he said. “She was afraid to put her face in. Like I used to be!”

  Julie shushed him, and I took the opportunity to reclaim my arm and tuck it back under my towel. The rest of the group was in hysterics. I glared at Josh, and he shrugged his yellow floaties at me. “Well, it’s true,” he said.

  They whooped it up for a minute before Maddy held out her hands to calm everyone down. “Seriously, guys,” she said. She batted her eyelashes and threw me a pouty you-poor-thing look. “I think we should give her a break. Gills has a lot more to be scared of than the water.”

  “Like what?” I asked, and immediately wished I could take it back. It was a weak response. I should have come up with something that would show Maddy I wasn’t the enemy—I was on her team. I was the one who would show up when needed and blast the enemy off the page. She just didn’t know it yet.

  Maddy reached out and laid her hand on my shoulder, making her voice all low and dramatic. “My mom says your mom must need some serious help if you’re staying at The Showboat.”

  I couldn’t help it—I started to giggle. Partly because my nerves got the better of me, and partly because the boy with the cast had walked up behind her and was pretending to lick the back of his good hand and wipe it on her hair, like a cat cleaning another cat.

  “Hey,” she said, “if you’re not worried about it, that’s cool. But if it was me, I’d watch my back.”

  The boy took one last good lick and let out a surprisingly realistic “Meow!”

  It was so goofy, I burst out laughing, but none of the other kids made a peep. Maddy spun around and slapped at him. “Get away from me, DJ!” she said. “You are such a freak!”

  “I guess you should watch your back, too,” I said with a hopeful smile. I thought a joke might calm everyone down. We could all laugh and start over with a clean slate. It didn’t work. Maddy brushed past me, pulling Julie and Kurt behind her.

  As the rest of the Muskies scattered, I dug my feet into the sand. The surface was warm from the sun, but inches down, my toes hit a layer of cold, wet mud that sent a shiver up my legs. Action Step Two hadn’t just failed, it had gone up in spectacular, special-effect flames. Up the beach, I could see Mom hand Eileen a sign-up sheet. Eileen stretched out her hand, shook her head, and handed it back. That would be a no. Zero for zero for the Gillis Girls.

  I felt a tug on my arm. Josh stood next to me, looking up with a frown.

  “It’s Charlotte Boulay,” he said. “Maddy’s talking about Charlotte Boulay.”

  “What about her?” I asked, but Josh didn’t answer. Carefully, he took off his SpongeBob floaties and handed them to me.

  “You should take these,” he said. “So you feel safe.”

  11

  SPLASH!

  For the next three days, I set my alarm for five thirty to figure out the source of the splash. After the depressing events at swim lessons, I needed it to be something good. One of those incredible, amazing things Mom had promised would happen at The Showboat Resort. It could be an otter doing a backflip. Or a moose with huge antlers going for a swim. Even if it was something terrible—a wolf with fangs drowning its kill—I had to know.

  The first morning, I climbed onto the window seat and fell asleep until eight.

  The second morning, I was distracted by a nest I spotted high up in the tree next to the loft. I didn’t know it was a nest at first. It looked like a mess of twigs and leaves that had gotten caught in the branches of the tree. A squirrel scurried across the branch, and I wondered if it was something he’d built. I would have thought squirrels lived in tunnels, or tree hollows, or … SPLASH! I turned my head too late. The water rippled and left no trace.

  The third morning, I was focused. I watched the dock even when the squirrel started chattering and throwing things from his nest to the ground. When I felt my eyes closing, I pinched myself and patted my cheeks to wake up. And finally, I saw it. The shock of orange hair. Arms lifting to the sky. The dive. The splash. The widening circles of water.

  At first, I felt numb. After all that. Being woken up, terrified, every dawn for the last six days. The splash was Charlotte Boulay going for a swim.

  It wasn’t terrifying.

  It certainly wasn’t magical.

  Except: I waited five minutes, then ten. A bird with spindly legs and a long neck flew down from a tree and landed on the dock, but the orange-haired woman never emerged from the lake.

  12

  HONK FOR ASSISTANCE

  I talked myself out of it ten different times, but after lunch, I shrugged my backpack onto my shoulders and told Mom I was going outside to explore.

  “See? You’re going to love it here!” Mom looked relieved. I’d spent most of the week holed up in the cabin, re-reading old comics and helping Mom sort through her database for untapped Potentials. Neither of us was having much fun. “Need extra bug spray?”

  I shook my head. What I needed was another look at Charlot
te Boulay—for three reasons. I wanted to know if she was still alive, for one. Or had Thunder Lake swallowed her up? For two, I wanted to know what Josh was talking about. Why were they all so skittish about Charlotte? She was odd, but she didn’t seem scary. In comics, humans are always freaking out about mutants who are perfectly interesting and nice—and have cool powers to boot. That could be Charlotte. The risk, of course, is that sometimes mutants are terrifying monsters who want to destroy the world. It’s not always easy to tell which is which.

  The third reason I wanted another look at Charlotte Boulay was that I was completely, utterly, and powerfully bored out of my skull.

  I tucked a Honey Bee Wrinkle-Free sample pack in the main pocket of my backpack, and even though I didn’t believe any of Maddy’s watch-your-back hype, I put Josh’s floaties in, too. I stepped out into the pine air and headed down the path to the hotel.

  The front office was dead quiet. I blinked and tried to adjust my eyes to the pink glow of the mermaid lamp.

  “Hello?” My voice hung in the air.

  I unzipped my backpack and forced happy thoughts into my brain. It’s cozy in here, not creepy. Charlotte Boulay will love these samples. They’ll probably get rid of all her wrinkles and she’ll buy so many bottles that Mom will skip Queen Bee and get promoted all the way to Vice President.

  I set the sample pack on the front desk and noticed a tiny sign propped up on a miniature easel.

  HONK FOR ASSISTANCE

  Next to the sign was an antique silver horn with a black rubber bulb at the end. I squeezed the bulb, but the horn didn’t honk. It gave a soft whoosh of air, then something clattered loudly behind me. My stomach leaped to my throat. Slowly, I turned to face the mermaid lamp. It stood perfectly still in front of the bookshelf, the life-size tail shimmering, ivory arms holding the pink lampshade like a halo. The mermaid stared straight ahead at a picture frame that had fallen off the wall.

  I turned to pick it up. It wasn’t broken. The frame and glass were made out of some sort of heavy-duty plastic. Inside, an old black-and-white photograph showed two boys in white tuxedoes tap-dancing on top of a grand piano. Written across the photo were the words: To Mr. & Mrs. B—Thanks for keeping the dream alive! —Buck & Bubbles.

  When I turned back to face the front desk, a new sign was propped up on the tiny easel:

  I SAID, HONK FOR ASSISTANCE

  “Hello?” I called out again. “Ms. Boulay?”

  I weighed my options. There weren’t many: A) honk, or B) leave. My hand shook a little as I squeezed the bulb, and the horn wheezed. I squeezed it harder. It wheezed with a half-hearted squeak at the end.

  Another frame crashed to the ground, and my stomach lurched again. It was another old photo, but this one gave me a shiver. The woman in the picture looked normal enough—wide smile, long eyelashes, glamorous dress. Her arms were stretched out like she was about to give someone a big, lovey hug. Except all down those outstretched arms perched a line of small white mice. There had to be twenty mice balancing on each arm, and the woman was smiling like she was about to take them for a walk in the park. The signature read: For The Showboat—a true diamond in the rough! XOXO, Lady Alice and her Dirty Rats.

  Before hanging the photo back up, I checked out the hook it had been hanging on. When pressed, there was some sort of quick-release mechanism that made it pull back into the wall. Someone—or something—must have been releasing the frames when I squeezed the horn.

  There was a scraping noise on the desk behind me. Without thinking, I held Lady Alice’s picture above my head like a weapon and turned around fast.

  I was too late. A third sign was propped up on the desk easel.

  FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, I CAN’T HEAR YOU

  I hung Lady Alice back on the wall and, as quietly as I could, tiptoed toward the desk. This had to be another one of Charlotte Boulay’s weird jokes. I was sure she was crouched behind the desk, cracking herself up over her tricks. I tried to stay calm as I kneeled at the corner and waited a few seconds, listening. When I couldn’t wait any longer, I lunged behind the desk.

  “Gotcha!” I shouted.

  To nobody.

  I searched around for a door or passageway that might lead to a different room, but the only door out was the one I came in. There was nothing behind the desk except for the wall of books, the old woman’s step stool, and a broom.

  I stood on the stool. The room seemed different from this angle. All the photos, floor to ceiling, stared straight at me—hundreds of eyes watching me like a black-and-white audience of ghosts from the past. I felt weirdly embarrassed, and let my eyes drop to the desk. Charlotte’s calendar lay there, open to the month of June. I stepped down from the stool to get a better look.

  The calendar was practically blank. Carrie & Anthoni Gillis were the only guests listed all month long. I turned the page to July. Nothing. August, September. I closed the book—no one was staying here but us.

  It wasn’t a mind-blowing surprise, but still. The empty pages made me think about all the hours I’d spent dreaming about The Showboat Resort. All the things Mom and I did to try to get here. The miles, the makeovers, the Next Hive Destinations. It was all supposed to be worth it. Now it seemed like a hoax.

  My eyes stung, and I tried to shake it off. It wasn’t a big deal if there weren’t other kids at The Showboat. I’d already found my Best Potential, and even if our first encounter hadn’t gone so well, first impressions weren’t everything. When Rogue wanted to join the X-Men, everyone hated her, especially Storm. But Rogue worked hard to earn their trust and prove she was a true friend. I didn’t need more Potentials. I just needed the chance to prove myself.

  But Mom? We only had six weeks to get back on track and if nobody was coming to the resort … I sighed. Positive Thoughts Attract Positive Results. I tried to change my state. Mom could find Potentials anywhere. The beach. The Little Store. The church. I didn’t have to worry. Mom would pay back Mr. Li. She’d figure it out. She’d cheer up and find a place for us to live. It might be great, really—another fresh start. This time, we’d do it right, and we wouldn’t have to stress about groceries or rent. The best part was that I’d have Maddy. We’d visit and spend summers together, and it wouldn’t matter if no one sat by me at lunch because I’d have a True Blue Friend for life, and she’d always show up when needed.

  It was fine. It was all going to be fine.

  A drop of water fell onto the cover of the calendar, and I rubbed it out with my finger, swallowing and blinking until the threat of more tears went away. When I lifted my head, I saw Charlotte Boulay’s orange hair aglow under the mermaid lamp.

  She cleared her throat.

  “Looking for me, my dear?”

  13

  HUMBUG

  Charlotte’s hand was on the elbow of the mermaid lamp. It looked like they were old pals having a chat. I came out from behind the desk.

  “You’re supposed to honk for assistance.” She pointed to the sign.

  Her flyaway hair was slicked back in a tight orange bun, and she was wearing a man’s tuxedo with a sparkly butterfly brooch pinned to the lapel. She acted like nothing strange had been happening at all.

  “I tried,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound as shaky as it felt. “It doesn’t work.”

  “Oh, it works,” she said with a knowing nod. “That’s not at all what’s wrong with it.”

  “It’s not?”

  She shook her head sadly. “The poor thing.”

  She brushed past me, stepped behind the desk, and stroked the horn as if it were a lonely cat. Her eyes flicked to the calendar I’d been examining, then, with a shake of her head, she brought her attention back to the horn.

  “After all these years … this old horn just doesn’t give a hoot.”

  She slapped her hands in a ba-dum-bum! rhythm on the desk. “Ha!” she cried.

  My mouth hung open.

  “Doesn’t give a hoot! Get it? The horn?” She gave the horn a wheezy squeez
e.

  I was so stunned that I didn’t even feel the laugh coming. It burst out of my throat, shattering the gloom that had been gathering around me. My eyes stopped burning, and Charlotte Boulay nodded triumphantly, like she knew the laugh was there all along.

  “You’re not a bad audience, kid,” she said. “Now, what’s the story, morning glory? What can I do ya for?”

  I pointed to the Honey Bee Wrinkle-Free sample pack I’d set on the desk.

  “It’s for you,” I said. “In case you want to give it a try.”

  She plucked a monocle out of the breast pocket of her tuxedo and held it up to her eye. As she examined the samples, her giant, watery eyeball roamed back and forth behind the lens.

  “It’s got three things,” I said. “Night Cream, Day Cream, and None of Your Beeswax! Age Eraser.” I tried to make my voice sound chirpy and cheerful like Mom’s. “There’s a sale going on right now, but if you like the products, the best thing to do is to sign up to be a Worker Bee. That way, you get the deepest discount, plus you have the opportunity to sell the products to your own friends and clients. It’s a win-win.”

  Mom’s sales pitch flowed out of my mouth. I was killing time. I didn’t even know what I wanted to ask, let alone how to ask it. Hey, Charlotte, why do the kids at the beach act like you’re a man-eating alien? You know how you jumped in the water this morning? How come I didn’t see you get out? Or come up for air, even? Want to explain that to me?

  Charlotte focused the monocle on me and blinked her mutant eye.

  “Hm,” she said. “It’s a decent pitch, but not great.”