The Tail of Emily Windsnap - Liz Kessler [0]
Text copyright © 2003 by Liz Kessler
Illustrations copyright © 2003 by Sarah Gibb
First published in Great Britain in 2003 by Orion Children’s Books a division of the Orion Publishing Group
Published by arrangement with Orion Children’s Books
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2010
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Kessler, Liz.
The tail of Emily Windsnap / by Liz Kessler ;
illustrated by Sarah Gibb. — 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Summary: After finally convincing her mother that she should take swimming lessons, twelve-year-old Emily discovers a terrible and wonderful secret about herself that opens up a whole new world.
ISBN 978-0-7636-2483-5 (hardcover)
[1. Mermaids — Fiction. 2. Swimming — Fiction. 3. Houseboats — Fiction. 4. Neptune (Roman deity) — Fiction.] I. Gibb, Sarah, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.K4842Tai 2004
[Fic] — dc22 2003065284
ISBN 978-0-7636-2811-6 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-7636-5240-1 (electronic)
Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
Can you keep a secret?
Everybody has secrets, of course, but mine’s different, and it’s kind of weird. Sometimes I even have nightmares that people will find out about it and lock me up in a zoo or a scientist’s laboratory.
It all started in seventh-grade swim class, on the first Wednesday afternoon at my new school. I was really looking forward to it. Mom hates swimming, and she always used to change the subject when I asked her why I couldn’t learn.
“But we live on a boat!” I’d say (we actually do). “We’re surrounded by water!”
“You’re not getting me in that water,” she’d reply. “Just look at all the pollution. You know what it’s like when the day cruises have been through here. Now stop arguing, and come and help me with the vegetables.”
She had kept me out of swimming lessons all the way through grade school, saying it was unhealthy. “All those bodies mixing in the same water.” She’d shudder. “That’s not for us, thank you very much.”
And each time I asked her, that would be that: End of Discussion. But the summer before I started middle school, I finally wore her down. “All right, all right,” she sighed. “I give in. Just don’t start trying to get me in there with you.”
I’d never been in the ocean. I’d never even had a bath. Hey, I’m not dirty or anything — I do take a shower every night. But there isn’t enough room for a bathtub on the boat, so never in my life had I been totally immersed in water.
Until the first Wednesday afternoon of seventh grade.
Mom bought me a special new bag to carry my new bathing suit and towel. On the side, it had a picture of a woman doing the crawl. I looked at the picture and dreamed about winning Olympic races with a striped racing suit and blue goggles just like hers.
Only it didn’t happen quite like that.
When we got to the pool, a man with a whistle and white shorts and a red T-shirt told the girls to go change in one room and the boys in the other.
I changed quickly in the corner. I didn’t want anyone to see my skinny body. My legs are like sticks, and they’re usually covered in scabs and bruises from getting on and off The King of the Sea. That’s our boat. I admit it’s kind of a fancy name for a little houseboat with moldy ropes, peeling paint, and beds the width of a ruler. . . . Anyway. We usually just call it King.
Julia Cross smiled at me as she put her clothes in her locker. “I like your suit,” she said. It’s just plain black with a white stripe across the middle.
“I like your cap,” I said, and smiled back as she squashed her hair into her tight, pink swimming cap. I squeezed my ponytail into