The Tail of Emily Windsnap - Liz Kessler [21]
“What are they doing?” I whispered.
Shona gaped at me. “Reading! What do you think they’re doing?”
I shrugged. “Where are the books?”
“It’s easier to find stuff on scrolls. Come on. I’ll show you where everything’s stored.” She led me to the opposite side of the room and swam up to the ceiling. We looked through different headings at the top of each scroll: Shipwrecks, Treasures, Fishermen, Sirens.
“Sirens — it might be this one,” Shona said, pulling on the end of a thick roll. “Give me a hand.”
We pulled the scroll down to the floor, hooked it in place on a roller, then wound an old wooden handle around and around, working our way through facts and figures, dates and events. Stories about mermaids luring fishermen into the ocean with songs so beautiful they were almost impossible to hear; of fishermen going mad, throwing themselves into the sea to follow their hearts’ desires; mermaids winning praise and riches for their success; ships brought down. We searched the whole scroll. Nothing about illegal marriages.
“We’ll never find anything,” I said. “I don’t even know what we’re looking for.”
Shona was swimming around above me. “There must be something,” she muttered.
“Why is it so illegal, anyway? Why can’t people marry who they want?”
“It’s the one thing that makes Neptune really angry. Some say it’s because he once married a human and then she left him.”
“Neptune’s married?” I swam up to join her.
“Oh, he’s got loads of wives, and hundreds of children! But this one was special, and he’s never forgiven her — or the rest of the human race!”
“Shona Silkfin — what are you doing here?” A voice boomed from behind us. We both spun around to see someone swimming toward us. The history teacher!
“Oh, Mrs. Tailspin. I was just, we were —”
“Shona was just trying to help me with my homework,” I said with an innocent smile.
“Homework?” Mrs. Tailspin looked at us doubtfully.
“At my school, in — in —”
“Shallowpool,” Shona said quickly. “My aunt and uncle live there; that’s where she’s from.”
“And I’m supposed to do a project on illegal marriages,” I continued as an idea came to me. Maybe the teacher would know something! After all, Shona did say she heard my name in a history lesson. “Shona said that she’d studied them. She was trying to help me.”
Mrs. Tailspin swam down to a mushroomy sponge-seat and beckoned us to do the same. “What do you want to know?”
I paused, glancing at Shona. What did I want to know? And — did I want to know at all?
“Emily’s doing her project on Shiprock,” Shona said, picking up my thread. “That’s why she’s here. We need to find out if there’ve been any illegal marriages around here.”
“Indeed there has been one,” Mrs. Tailspin said, patting the bun on her head. “Rather a well-known incident. Do you remember, Shona? We covered it last term.” She frowned. “Or were you too busy daydreaming at the time?”
“Can you tell me about it?” I asked.
Mrs. Tailspin turned back to me. “Very well.”
I tried to keep still on my sponge while I waited for her to carry on.
“A group of humans once found out a little too much about the merfolk world,” she began. “There had been a yacht race nearby. A couple of the boats went off course and capsized. Some mermen found them and helped them. They had to have their memories wiped afterward.” She paused. “But one was missed.”
“And?”
“And she didn’t forget. Word spread, both in her world and our own. They started meeting up. Humans and merfolk. At one point, there was talk of them all going off to a desert island to live together. The rumor was that there was even a place where it was already happening.”
“Really?” Shona said.
“Like I said, it was a rumor. I don’t believe for one moment that it existed, or for that matter, exists. But they kept meeting. As I’m sure you can imagine, Neptune was not pleased.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“There were storms for weeks. He said that if he ever caught anyone consorting with a human, they would be imprisoned for life. He visited every merfolk area personally.”
“He hardly ever does that!” Shona said. “He always stays