The Tail of Emily Windsnap - Liz Kessler [14]
It was only when we stopped and came up for air that I realized we’d been swimming underwater the whole time.
“How did I do that?” I gasped, breathless.
“Do what?” Shona looked puzzled.
I looked back at the rocks. They were tiny pebbles in the distance. “We must have swum a mile.”
“Mile and a quarter, actually.” Shona looked slightly sheepish. “My dad bought me a splishometer for my last birthday.”
“A what?”
“Sorry, I keep forgetting you haven’t been a mermaid very long. A splishometer shows you how far you’ve swum. I measured the distance from Rainbow Rocks yesterday.”
“Rainbow what?”
“You know — where we met.”
“Oh, right.” I suddenly realized I was out of my depth — in more ways than one.
“I wasn’t sure if it would be too far for you, but I really wanted to bring you here.”
I looked around. Ocean everywhere. What was so special about this particular spot? “Why here?” I asked. “And anyway, you haven’t answered my question. How did we do all that underwater?”
Shona shrugged and tossed her hair. “We’re mermaids,” she said simply. “Come on, I want to show you something.” And with that, she disappeared again, and I dove under the water after her.
The lower we went, the colder the water grew. Fish flashed by in the darkness.
A huge gray bruiser with black dots slid slowly past, its mouth slightly open in a moody frown. Pink jellyfish danced and trampolined around us.
“Look.” Shona pointed to our left as a slow-motion tornado of thin black fish came toward us, whirling and spiraling as it passed us by.
I shivered as we swam deeper still. Eventually, Shona grabbed my hand and pointed down. All I could see was what looked like the biggest rug I’d ever seen in my life — made out of seaweed!
“What’s that?” I gurgled.
“I’ll show you.” And with that, Shona pulled me lower. Seaweed slipped and slid along my body, creaking and popping as we swam through it. Where was she taking me?
I was about to tell her that I’d had enough, but then the weeds became thinner. It was as though we’d been stuck in the woods and finally made our way out. Or into a clearing in the center of it, anyway. We’d come to a patch of sand in the middle of the seaweed forest.
“What is it?” I asked.
“What d’you think?”
I looked around me. A huge steel tube lay along the ground; next to it, yards of fishing nets sprawled across the sand, reaching up into the weeds. A couple of old bicycles were propped up on huge rusty springs. “I have absolutely no idea,” I said.
“It’s like our playground. We’re not really meant to come out here. But everyone does.”
“Why shouldn’t you come here?”
“We’re all meant to stick to our own areas — it’s too dangerous, otherwise. Too easy to get spotted. And this is really far from where we live.” Shona swam over to the tube and disappeared. “Come on,” her voice bubbled out from inside it, echoing spookily around the clearing.
I followed her into the tube, sliding along the cold steel to the other end. By the time I came out, Shona was already flipping herself up the fishing net. I scrambled up behind her.
“Like it?” Shona asked when we came back down.
“Yeah, it’s wicked.”
Shona looked at me blankly. “Wicked?”
“Wicked . . . you know, cool . . .”
“You mean like swishy?”
I laughed, suddenly getting it. “Yeah, I guess so.” I looked around me. “Where’s all this stuff from?”
“Things fall into the sea — or get thrown away. We make use of it,” she said as she pulled herself onto one of the bikes. She perched sideways on it, letting herself sway backward and forward as the spring swung to and fro. “It’s nice to have someone to share it with,” she added.
I looped my tail over the other one and turned to face her. “What do you mean? What about