The Tail of Emily Windsnap - Liz Kessler [29]
“Subject!” I spluttered. “Is that me?”
Shona winced.
Careful watch? Had he been stalking me? What if he was watching us now? I shuddered and swam over to close the office door. A lone blue fish skimmed into the room and over my head as I did.
We scanned the rest of the file. It was all the same: subjects and initials and weird stuff that didn’t make sense.
I picked up my mom’s file.
MPW Zero: Objectives.
MPW — greatest risk to merworld detection. Constant supervision by CFB. M-drug to be administered.
Shona gasped. “M-drug. I know what that is! They’re wiping her memory!”
“What? Who is?”
“Mr. Beeston is. He must work for Neptune!”
“Work for Neptune? But how? Then he’d be a . . . I mean, he can’t. Can he?”
Shona rubbed her lip. “They usually send people away after they’ve been memory wiped.”
“Why?”
“It can wear off if you go near merfolk areas. We learned all about it in science last term.”
“So you think they did it to my mom?”
“They probably still are. One dose is usually enough for a one-time incident — but not for a whole series of memories. They must be topping it up somehow.”
Topping it up? I thought about all Mr. Beeston’s visits. He wasn’t lonely! He was drugging my mom!
We looked all the way through Mom’s file. Page after page noting her movements. He’d been spying on us for years.
“I feel sick,” I said, closing the file.
Shona picked up Jake’s file. There was a note stuck on the front with something scribbled on it. East Wing: E 930. We read in silence.
JW Three: Bad influence.
JW continuing to complain about sentence. Sullen and difficult.
JW Eight: Improvement.
Subject has settled into routine of prison life. Behavior improved.
JW Eleven: Isolation.
Operation Desert Island discussed openly by prisoner. Isolation–three days.
“Operation Desert Island!” Shona exclaimed. “So it’s true after all. There is a place! Somewhere merfolk and humans live together!”
“How do you know that’s what it is?” I asked. “It could be anything.”
We read on.
“None of it makes any sense,” I said, swimming backward and forward across the room to help me think.
Shona continued flicking through the file. “It’s all numbers and dates and weird initials.” She closed the file. “I can’t make fin or tail of it.” She grabbed another file from the chest. “Listen to this,” she said. “‘Project Lighthouse. CFB to take over Brightport Lighthouse until completion of Windsnap problem. Ground floor adapted for access. Occasional siren support available with unreliable beam. Previous lighthouse keeper: M-drug and removal from scene.’” Shona looked up.
“What are we going to do?” I whispered.
“What can we do? But, hey — at least you’ve found your dad.”
My dad. The words sounded strange. Not right. Not yet. “But I haven’t found him,” I said. “That’s just it. All I’ve found is some stupid file that doesn’t make any sense.”
Shona put the file down. “I’m sorry.”
“Look, Shona, we know Jake’s my — my father, don’t we?”
“Without a doubt.”
“And we know where he is?”
“Well, yes.”
“And he can’t come out. He’s locked away. And he didn’t choose to leave me. . . .”
“I’m sure he never wanted to —”
“So we’ll go to him!”
Shona looked at me blankly.
I shoved the files back in the chest, locked it firmly. “Come on, let’s go!”
“Go? Where?”
“The prison.” I turned around to face her. “I’ve got to find him.”
Shona’s tail flapped gently. “Emily, it’s miles away.”
“We’re mermaids! We can swim for miles, no problem!”
“Maybe I can, but it’s definitely too far for you. You’re only half mermaid, remember?”
“So you’re saying I’m not as good as you?” I folded my arms. “I thought you were supposed to be my friend. I thought you might even have been my best friend.”
Shona’s tail flapped even more. “Really?” she said. “I want you to be my best friend, too.”
“Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it. You won’t even help me find my father.”
Shona winced. “I just don’t think we’d make it there. I’m not even sure exactly where it is.”
“But we’ll never know if we