Emily Windsnap and the Siren's Secret - Liz Kessler [1]
Like I said — crazy. How could anything about my life not be right?
There was something, though, and I couldn’t ignore it. What’s more, I had the feeling that Mom felt the same way. Once or twice, while she was making dinner or reading a book, I’d seen her eyes get all distant and gray, as though she were looking for something far away, something she was missing.
I think deep down inside, I knew what was eating at us both; I knew what we were missing, even before the conversation with Archie that changed everything.
“Knock, knock. It’s me!” a familiar voice trilled through the doorway, followed by a familiar thump as Mom’s best friend, Millie, landed on the deck.
Fortuna, the boat we lived on, was moored out in the bay, half-sunk in the sand so that the lower level was underwater. With Dad being a merman, and me being a semi-mer, this meant we could both swim around on the lower level. Mom’s bedroom was upstairs, but all the trapdoors in between made it easy for us to live here together. And the long jetty leading out from the beach to the boat was handy for getting on the boat without having to swim — which made it very easy for Millie to visit us without getting more than her feet wet.
She stuck her head around the door. “Anyone home?”
I dragged myself out of bed and gestured for her to come in. Not that she needed an invitation. She’d already clambered in through the door and was busily wringing out the bottom of her dress over the side.
“Is your mom up?” she asked.
I rubbed my eyes and yawned. “Not yet, I don’t think. Why?”
“Someone’s coming home!” she said excitedly. “I just heard it on the seaweed vine.”
“The seaweed vine?”
“Just trying to keep up with the mer-speak,” Millie said, frowning. “I meant I heard it on the grapevine. Archie’s back today!”
That was when I noticed her face. Well, obviously I’d already noticed her face — I was looking straight at it. But I finally noticed the bright blue eye shadow arching high over each eye and the thick red line of lipstick smeared across her mouth — and across a few teeth. I pointed this out, and she peered into the mirror by the door.
“It’sh been nearly tcho weeksh,” she said, wiping lipstick off her teeth with the edge of her sleeve. “I’ve misshed him sho much!”
Archie is Millie’s boyfriend. He’s a merman, and he’d been away on an assignment for Neptune.
“Is that Millie?” Mom’s voice warbled out from her room. “Come on in, Mill, and put the kettle on, would you?”
Half an hour later, Mom was dressed and sitting upstairs with Millie in the saloon — that’s what you call the living room on a boat. I wanted to go out and play with Shona and Aaron, but Mom said we should all wait with Millie; she was far too excitable to be left on her own.
I waited downstairs with Dad. We had a gymnastics day coming up soon at school, and he was helping me with a tricky triple back-spin I had to do. I could do two spins perfectly but couldn’t manage the third without swallowing a gallon of water.
I was just recovering from my fourth attempt when there was a sharp rap at the door.
“Archie!” I exclaimed.
“I doubt it, little ’un,” Dad said. “When did Archie ever knock?”
I laughed. Archie was much more likely to turn up at one of the portholes. Mermen don’t usually walk up to the front door.
We both poked our heads up through the trapdoor to see who it was. “Charles,” Mom was saying crisply. “How nice to see you.”
Mr. Beeston. Not exactly our best friend. Well, someone who’s spent your entire life lying to you about who you really are, drugging you so you won’t remember the truth, and spying on you so he can report back to Neptune on your activities doesn’t tend to fill your heart with love and warmth, in my experience.
However, after our latest batch of disasters, Neptune had made