Mackenzie bounced up and down on the seat beside me. “We’re going to mermaid camp!”
“Mermaid academy, please, mermaid academy,” Sirena corrected, wagging an aqua-tipped finger in the rearview mirror. “This is not camp! What we are undertaking this week is much too serious an endeavor to be trivialized by that term.”
I snorted, and Mackenzie elbowed me in the ribs.
As we left bustling Hyannis, Sirena turned onto a quieter, tree-lined road. It wound along past tidy houses whose white picket fences spilled over with roses and hydrangeas. We passed through several little towns, some of them with village greens nearly identical to the one back home.
“Cape Cod looks like an overgrown version of Pumpkin Falls,” said my cousin.
“Isn’t it awesome?” Jasmine replied. “The Cape is one of my favorite places in the whole world! We come here on vacation every year—wait until you see the beaches!”
We drove along in silence for a while. My eyelids drooped. A few minutes later Jasmine shrieked, and they flew open again.
“What?” boomed Cha Cha, and the minivan swerved as Sirena glanced at her in alarm. Cha Cha’s voice always surprised people the first time they heard it.
“It’s the Brewster Store!” Jasmine exclaimed. “It’s like our General Store back in Pumpkin Falls, only better. Their penny candy counter is amazing. And they have homemade ice cream, and fudge, and all sorts of cool stuff for sale!”
Sirena smiled. “The Brewster Store is always a big hit with our guests. It’s just a short walk from the academy.”
A few moments later she turned onto a narrow lane. Up ahead, I spotted Sirena’s Sea Siren Academy. Like the minivan, it was hard to miss, thanks to the sign out front with a life-size mermaid painted on it.
I peered out the window as Sirena pulled into the driveway. The academy was a little more run-down than it appeared in the flyer. The white clapboards of the large house at the front of the property were peeling, and the lawn was ragged around the edges and rapidly turning brown in the summer heat. The window boxes were cheery, though, painted a soft blue and filled with bright red geraniums. And there were matching window boxes on the row of tiny cabins that stretched out behind the main building.
“Here we are,” said Sirena, parking the minivan next to an identical one. She gestured toward the main house. “This is Mermaid Headquarters—Mermaid HQ for short—where you’ll find the dining room, the communal living room, and everybody’s favorite, the screened-in porch. We call it Mermaid Crossing.”
Of course you do, I thought crossly. I was already sick of all the mermaid references. This was shaping up to be a long week.
“And that will be your second home while you’re here!” Sirena pointed toward a large pool beyond the cabins. Its blue water gleamed invitingly. There were bleachers set up on the far side, partially shaded by the fringe of pine trees that I assumed marked the edge of the property.
I caught a quick flutter of yellow on a branch high up in one of the trees, and my spirits lifted a bit. A goldfinch! Maybe I’d end up adding a bird or two to my life list while I was here. That would be some consolation. That and the fact that I’d be in the water most of the day. I wondered if I’d have time to sneak down to the pool for a quick dip before lunch.
“One of the most important rules of Sea Siren Academy,” Sirena warned, as if reading my thoughts, “is to never swim alone. Always make sure you have an experienced buddy to watch you when you’re in the pool. Now, let’s get you girls settled into your quarters. Delphine will be ringing the lunch gong shortly.”
Lunch gong? Seriously? My gaze slid over to my cousin. Normally, something like this would strike Mackenzie as funny too, and we’d share a smirk, if not an outright laugh. But she was oblivious, her eyes shining in rapturous anticipation of all things mermaid.
We unloaded our luggage and followed Sirena down the path toward the cabins. Like the driveway, the path was made of what looked like white gravel, but on closer inspection turned out to be some sort of crushed seashells. They made a pleasant crunching sound underfoot. I figured it must be a Cape Cod thing, as I’d seen a lot of similar driveways on the ride over from Hyannis.
“We’ve put you down at the end, in Whelk,” Sirena told us.
What the heck is a whelk? I wondered. Then I noticed the signs over the doors to the cabins. They were painted the same shade of blue as the window boxes, with each cabin’s name carved into them and painted a contrasting gold: NAUTILUS, ABALONE, OYSTER, and SAND DOLLAR. There was a pattern here, I quickly realized. A whelk must be a shell.
“Your quarters, ladies,” Sirena told us, opening our screen door with a flourish.
It was dark inside. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I could see that the space was small and cramped. Two bunkbeds, two dressers, two windows in front, two in back. One tiny bathroom, and one even tinier closet.
Good luck with that, I thought, eyeing our collective suitcases.
“Your tails arrived earlier this morning,” Sirena told us, gesturing to a pile of packages at the foot of one of the lower bunks.
This brought fresh squeals from Mackenzie and my friends.
“Please don’t try them on yet,” Sirena cautioned. “The unveiling and tailing ritual is part of our evening activity tonight.”
Unveiling and tailing? My gaze slid over to Mackenzie again, but there wasn’t even a flicker. She was taking this all completely seriously.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said automatically, knowing an order when I heard one. No calling it mermaid camp. Never swim alone. No trying on of tails. Sirena had as many rules as Lieutenant Colonel Jericho T. Lovejoy.
After Sirena left, there was a scramble for the bunks. Jasmine and Cha Cha each
