Sirena and Delphine were too busy discussing the idea to notice my expression, though. A moment later, Sirena clapped her hands. “Ladies! The vans will be leaving Mermaid HQ at two o’clock sharp! Don’t be late.”
I stalked out of the dining room after my cousin and friends, who were chattering happily about the Jolly Roger and tonight’s unveiling and tailing. There was no talk of any of them being sea serpents, I noted bitterly. Obviously they were perfect mermaid material.
Me, on the other hand? Mermaid camp—pardon me, mermaid academy—hadn’t even started yet, and I was already flunking out.
CHAPTER 10
“Wow!” Mackenzie whispered. “Those ladies can really swim!”
We were sitting front and center in the Jolly Roger’s “showquarium,” as the theater was called, watching Beauty and the Buccaneer. Any closer and we’d have been onstage ourselves.
Onstage underwater, that is.
All that stood between us and the quartet of mermaids currently performing their routine was a thick pane of glass. It was like sitting in front of a giant fish tank. Most of the showquarium, including the seats we occupied, was underground. All we could see was a carefully constructed “amazing undersea world,” as the program trumpeted, complete with a fake castle, fake seaweed, fake seahorses that the mermaids rode in on, and a fake sparkly coral reef. A fake treasure chest in one corner spilled over with the kind of plastic jewelry that my sister Pippa loved to play dress up with. The only thing that was real, as far as I could tell, were the fish that darted here and there. Far above, sunlight filtered down through the water, illuminating the whole scene.
It was incredibly cheesy.
If only Hatcher were here to poke fun at it with me! This kind of thing was right up his alley. It was usually up Mackenzie’s alley too, but when I glanced over at her, I could tell by her shining eyes that she was not in the mood for mockery. Ditto Cha Cha and Jasmine. I seemed to be the only one who noticed how silly it all was. Especially the pink seahorses. They looked like giant pool toys.
Mackenzie was right about one thing, though, I had to admit. The professional mermaids really could swim.
I watched the four women glide through the water, propelling themselves with an effortless flip of the flukes at the bottom of their surprisingly realistic tails. They swam in and out of the castle, waving at us from the windows (Mackenzie waved back, like she was five). They looked at themselves in hand mirrors and pretended to brush each other’s hair. They performed what looked like underwater ballet moves, arcing forward and back in graceful somersaults. They swam over to the treasure chest, where they pulled out strands of fake beads and pearls and hung them around each other’s necks. Occasionally, one of them would dart over to the back corner, grab one of the long black tubes hidden among the fake seaweed—oxygen tubes, I presumed—and take a quick breath. Otherwise, they just swam around with their eyes open, big smiles on their perfectly made-up faces (hello, waterproof mascara), as if water really were their natural element.
“Ooo, look! Here comes Beauty!”
Behind us, Hayden suddenly came to life. She’d been watching mostly in silence until this moment, when the quartet of mermaids pointed in excitement toward the castle as a fifth mermaid emerged. She wore a gold bikini top and a gold crown, and she was riding in a carriage shaped like a giant gold shell. It floated toward us, pulled by two of the pink seahorses, although I was pretty sure there was a motor involved somewhere.
“Check out her tail!” Mackenzie whispered, mesmerized, as the carriage stopped directly in front of us, and Beauty emerged. She swam out and hovered before the window, waving and smiling at us as she showed off her long golden tail, which was much fancier than the ones belonging to the other mermaids.
“A shimmertail!” breathed Hayden.
I was impressed in spite of myself. Glimmering scales in iridescent shades of peacock blue and green were scattered up and down the tail’s golden surface, and the oversized flukes at the bottom looked like butterfly wings.
“Wow!” Mackenzie exclaimed, her eyes shining again. I was guessing “shimmertail” had just shot right to the top of her Christmas list.
All of a sudden the mermaids drew back in mock horror. A sinister figure plunged into the water from above. Dressed in a black-and-white-striped T-shirt and what looked like the bottom half of a wetsuit, he descended toward the bottom of the showquarium on a big black anchor. In one hand he held a fluttering black flag with a white skull and crossbones on it.
“The buccaneer!” exclaimed one of the girls from St. Louis at the same time that Mackenzie said, “The pirate!”
“Boo! Hiss!” called Zadie, who was enjoying the show almost as much as my cousin.
The pirate gave an evil grin, revealing a gold tooth. He hopped off the anchor and swam toward the mermaids, who fluttered their hands in pretend panic.
“C’mon, Team Mermaid!” I shouted. “Whack him with your tails!”
Whether it was my encouragement or just the script, the mermaids finally sprang into action, forming a guard around Beauty. The pirate tried to reach over them and grab her crown, but they successfully fended him off. Finally, he gave up and turned his attention to the treasure chest.
“Not the treasure!” hooted Zadie, who was surprisingly feisty for someone who was nearly ninety, if you asked me, which nobody ever did.
As the pirate rifled through the contents
