The Tail of Emily Windsnap - Liz Kessler [15]
“Well, I’ve got friends. Just not a best friend. I think the others think I’m too busy cramming to be anyone’s best friend.”
“Well, you do seem to work pretty hard,” I said. “I mean, sneaking out at night to study for a test!”
“Yeah, I know. Do you think I’m really dull?”
“Not at all! I think you’re . . . I think you’re swishy!”
Shona smiled shyly.
“How come there’s no one else around?” I asked. “It’s kind of creepy.”
“It’s the middle of the night, gill-brain!”
“Oh, yeah. Of course.” I held on to the handlebars as I swayed forward and back on my swing. “It would be cool to meet some other people like us,” I said after a while.
“Why don’t you, then? You could come to my school!”
“How? You don’t have extra lessons in the middle of the night, do you?”
“Come in the day. Come on Saturday.”
“Saturday?”
She made a face. “We have school Saturday mornings. Why not come with me this week? I’ll tell them you’re my long-lost cousin. It’d be evil.”
“Evil?”
“Oops — I mean, wicked. Sorry.”
I thought about it. Julia actually had invited me over on Saturday. I could easily tell Mom I was going there and then tell Julia I couldn’t make it. But I was only just getting to know Julia — she might not ask me again. Then who would I have? Apart from Shona. But then again, Shona was a mermaid. She was going to take me to mermaid school! When else would I get a chance to do that?
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do it!”
“Great! Will your parents mind?”
“You’re kidding, aren’t you? Nobody knows about my being a mermaid.”
“You mean apart from your mom and dad? If you’re a mermaid, they must be —”
“I haven’t got a dad,” I said.
“Oh. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I never had one. He left us when I was a baby.”
“Sharks! How awful.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t want to know about him anyway. He never even said he was leaving, you know. Just disappeared. Mom’s never gotten over it.”
Shona didn’t reply. She’d gone very still and was just staring at me. “What?” I asked her.
“Your dad left when you were a baby?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t know why he went?”
I shook my head.
“Or where?”
“Nope. But after what he did to Mom, he can stay wherever he is, as far as I’m —”
“But what if something happened to him?”
“Like what?”
“Like — like — maybe he got taken away, or he couldn’t come back to you or something.”
“He left us. And we’re fine without him.”
“But what if he didn’t —”
“Shona! I don’t want to talk about it. I haven’t got a dad, okay? End of subject.” I watched a shoal of long white fish swim across the clearing and disappear into the weeds. Seaweed swayed gently behind them.
“Sorry,” Shona said. “Are you still going to come on Saturday?”
I made a face. “If you still want me to.”
“Of course I do!” She swung off her bike. “Come on. We need to head back.”
We swam silently back to Rainbow Rocks, my head filled with a sadness stirred up by Shona’s questions. Of course they were not so different from the ones I’d asked myself a hundred times. Why had my dad disappeared? Didn’t he love me? Didn’t he want me? Was it my fault?
Would I ever, ever see him?
I waved to Mom as I made my way down the pier. “Bye-bye, darling, have a lovely day,” she called.
Go back in, go back in, I thought. “Bye!” I smiled back at her. I walked woodenly along the pier, glancing behind me every few seconds. She was smiling and waving every time I looked.
Eventually, she went inside and closed the side door behind her. I continued up to the top of the pier and checked behind me one last time, just to be sure. Then, instead of turning onto the boardwalk, I ran down the steps onto the beach and snuck under the pier. I pulled off my jeans and shoes and shoved them under a rock. I already had my suit on underneath.
I’d never done this in the daytime before. It felt kind of weird. The tide was in, so I only had to creep a short way under the pier. A few people were milling around on the beach, but no one looked my way. What if they did? For a second, I pictured them all pointing at me: “Fish girl! Fish girl!” Laughing, chasing me with a net.
I couldn’t do it.