“I don’t think so,” I whispered back.
She wasn’t. Sirena circulated among us, collecting “shell phones.” Mackenzie wasn’t the only one who was reluctant to part with her hers. Hayden looked equally appalled, as did the girls from St. Louis.
“You will thank me for this later, ladies, I promise,” Sirena reassured us. “This is an exercise that all of our classes here at the academy find instructive and restorative. Just imagine—an entire day disconnected from the world, recharging body and soul!” She struck a dramatic pose, her mane of red corkscrew curls looking as if they’d just been plugged into an outlet and were recharging too. “And we’re going to start our restorative morning by plunging into the silent world beneath the sea.”
“You’re taking us to the beach?” squealed Hayden.
“Indeed I am! Now that you are all comfortable swimming in your tails, it’s time for me to release my mermaids into the wild. I shall take you to the ocean and set you all free!” She struck another pose, lifting her hands toward the sky. Delphine tapped her watch discreetly, and Sirena dropped her hands and motioned us toward the minivans. “Ladies, your chariots await! Time and tide wait for no man—and no mermaids.”
As everyone loaded up their tails and towels, my cousin and friends and I told Sirena about the book signing.
“Hmmm. We have a pretty full slate for this evening. It’s Sea Siren Night.”
I gave her a blank look.
“It’s an opportunity for the musically inclined to show off their vocal talent as we learn some sea shanties,” Sirena explained.
Singing? I thought in dismay. She’s talking about singing?
Noting my expression, she continued, “However, we do like to support community events, and a trip to the Brewster Store would give me a chance to talk to the owner about publicizing our revue. I’m sure she’d be thrilled to meet Zadie and Lenore—I happen to know she’s a big Esther Williams fan.”
Sirena took a quick vote. Half were in favor of Sea Siren Night, and the other half, including Mackenzie and Cha Cha and Jasmine and me, voted for the book signing.
“Very well then,” said Sirena. “We’ll do both. Delphine, you can manage Sea Siren Night without me, right?”
“Sure, Mom. No problem.”
“We’ll try and be back in time for dessert. I know you’re planning something special.”
I perked up at that, although I couldn’t imagine how Delphine could top Mermaid Chip Cookies.
Sirena made a right turn out of the driveway, away from the Brewster Store. “This is Breakwater Road,” she told us. “It leads to the breakwater, or jetty—sort of a wall of rocks that juts out into the water, creating a sheltered cove. You’ll see when we get there.”
Jasmine gazed out the window as we drove and gave a contented sigh. “The houses are all so pretty!”
Cape Cod was definitely Jasmine’s happy place.
“Which house would you guys pick if you had to choose?” asked Mackenzie. This was one of our favorite games. The two of us had ben selecting our future fantasy homes since we were little.
Jasmine and Cha Cha joined in with gusto. Jasmine chose a huge colonial-style house that looked like Gramps and Lola’s. Mackenzie did the same. Cha Cha and I went for cozier Cape Cod–style ones with rose-covered picket fences.
Sirena, who’d obviously been eavesdropping, pulled over to the side of the road for a moment. “The house you like is called a ‘half cape,’ Truly,” she said. “Only two windows on one side of the front door. A ‘full cape,’ on the other hand”—she pointed to Cha Cha’s choice, directly across the street—“has four windows, two on either side of the front door.”
Cha Cha’s forehead puckered. “Why would somebody only build half a house?”
“Yeah, someone Truly’s size wouldn’t even fit in it,” muttered Hayden. I pretended not to hear her.
“It was the starter house of its day,” Sirena explained. “The story goes that sea captains would build a half cape so that their spinster daughters could live independently, and then, if they ever got married, their husbands would build the other half.”
“What a dumb idea!” scoffed Mackenzie. “I’d much rather have a big house.”
She wouldn’t if she had to help clean it, I thought. Mackenzie’s parents had a housekeeper who came once a week. Our family had—well, us. “Chores build character,” my parents loved to remind us every Saturday morning, when they rousted us out of bed and organized a full-on blitz starring the Magnificent Seven, as my father called our family. I’d had enough dusting and vacuuming to last me the rest of my life. Half a house would suit me just fine. I’d take a quarter, even.
There weren’t many people on the beach this early in the morning. I noticed a couple walking their dog, a scattering of joggers, some kayakers out on the water, and a lone fisherman standing far out on a line of boulders that must be the jetty, or breakwater, that Sirena had described. Down by the water’s edge, a woman was talking on her cell phone while her daughter busied herself in the sand with a plastic bucket and shovel.
“Look, Mommy! Mermaids!” The little girl tugged on her mother’s shorts, pointing to where we had spread out our towels and were busy wiggling into our tails. The woman turned, peered over her sunglasses at us, then began talking animatedly into her phone. She must have alerted the entire neighborhood, because inside of five minutes a line of cars started pulling into the parking lot.
Delphine was still helping me into my shimmertail when the news truck showed up and two people got out.
I looked at one of them and froze. No way. It couldn’t be! But it was. I’d recognize that big phony anywhere. The last time I’d run into Carson Dawson, host of Channel Five’s Hello, Boston!, had been right after we’d moved to Pumpkin Falls. He’d managed to embarrass me on television then. But I sure wasn’t about to let him do it again now.
“Hurry up and get
