“It’s Aunt True and Professor Rusty!” The butterflies retreated a bit. Aunt True had promised to help shield me from Carson Dawson. I couldn’t imagine how, but she’d said she had my back, and my aunt always kept her promises.
Sirena stuck her head in the cabana. “Curtains up, ladies!”
Delphine flipped a switch by the door, and all the floodlights went out. Excited murmurs rippled through the audience.
“Positions, everyone!” Sirena said in a stage whisper.
All the mermaids except me scooted across the deck to the edge of the pool. They sat there in the dark, backs to the bleachers and tails out of sight, just as we’d practiced. Delphine waited until everyone was in place, then nodded to her mother.
The loudspeaker crackled. “Ladies and gentlemen, families and friends!” Sirena’s voice floated out into the warm summer night. “May I present to you Sirena’s Sea Siren Academy All-Star Mermaid Revue!”
A single spotlight flared, illuminating Zadie at the far end of the lineup. As the music started, she swiveled around and leaned back, hoisting her tail into the air expertly. She smiled and waved, and the audience clapped enthusiastically. I watched, counting to myself: “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi…” On the stroke of five, down went Zadie’s flukes into the pool with a splash, and her head snapped left as she looked over toward the next mermaid in line. The spotlight followed her gaze to one of the girls from St. Louis, who repeated the exact same moves. Each time the spotlight landed on a new mermaid, the audience clapped again.
“There’s Cha Cha!” I heard Baxter, Cha Cha’s little brother shriek. Cha Cha grinned and waggled her fingers at him.
After the entire row of mermaids was facing the audience, tails in the water, Sirena’s voice came over the loudspeaker again: “And now, we bring you tonight’s feature, straight from Hollywood—A Tribute to Esther Williams!”
The bleachers erupted as the music swelled and the floodlights came up and one by one the mermaids peeled off the edge of the pool, diving into the water like dominoes. Carson Dawson’s cameraman was filming everything. I glanced anxiously at Aunt True, who was busy whispering to Erastus Peckinpaugh. She hadn’t forgotten me, had she?
Out in the middle of the pool, arms and legs began rising and lowering in unison, and flukes swished this way and that. The choreographed routine was proceeding like clockwork. The tails looked fantastic in the water, I had to admit, and so did the bikini tops, bling, and even the stupid glitter. It wasn’t exactly Million Dollar Mermaid, but it wasn’t half-bad, either.
Our revue didn’t have an elaborate plot like the performance at the Jolly Roger showquarium, just a bunch of synchronized swimming moves leading up to my appearance in the shimmertail. The whole thing would actually have been kind of fun, if it weren’t for the fact that there was a news camera out there just waiting to humiliate me on TV. And if the boy I liked hadn’t been sitting smack-dab in the middle of the bleachers, where he was about to have an excellent view of me wearing mermaid underwear.
I glanced over at Aunt True again, hoping for a sign—something, anything!—that would let me know she had a plan to foil Carson Dawson. But she didn’t even glance my way. This time she wasn’t just whispering to Professor Rusty—she was kissing him. In public!
I was on my own.
Cut and run! urged the butterflies.
Mermaid up! ordered my conscience sternly. This was no time for stealth mode. It was time to step up and be tall timber, like Aunt True was always telling me. My fellow mermaids were depending on me. Besides, I wouldn’t get very far in a thirty-pound tail anyway. Whether I liked it or not, Romeo Calhoun was about to get an eyeful.
Reaching under the bench for the skateboard that was stashed there waiting for me, I lowered myself onto it, hoisted my legs and shimmertail into place, and propelled myself into position by the door. As the music swelled, Mackenzie and Cha Cha and Jasmine and the rest of the mermaids formed a circle in the center of the pool and slowly sank beneath the surface of the water. Delphine cut the floodlights.
That was my cue! I rolled to the edge and slid into the water as quietly and unobtrusively as I could. Taking a deep breath, I did a silent surface dive and dolphin-kicked my way underwater to where the others were waiting.
When the lights came up again a few seconds later, I was hidden within a tight circle of bodies. And then it was good-bye, Truly Lovejoy, and hello, Grania the Mermaid Queen.
“Hey!” I heard Carson Dawson exclaim as the bodies fanned out like petals on a flower and I emerged, tiara sparkling in the spotlight. “I’ve seen that girl somewhere before!” The news host peered at me, his overly tan forehead wrinkling in concentration. He turned to his colleague. “Zoom in!”
Here it comes, I thought, bracing myself.
But nothing did.
Aunt True hopped down from her seat and disappeared behind the bleachers. She reappeared almost immediately, smiling a big Cheshire cat smile. I’d seen that smile before. It was the one that said, I’ve been up to something.
A few seconds later, Carson Dawson tapped his microphone and frowned. He said a few words to his tech, who inspected the camera, then shook his head and shrugged.
Aunt True must have unplugged their power cable!
As the two men trotted off to investigate, my fellow mermaids circled around me in formation while I used the powerful shimmertail to propel myself slowly straight up out of the water. Beneath the surface, my legs were pumping furiously back and forth. Above, I was cool as a cucumber, regally smiling and waving to the audience.
“Go, Truly!” Calhoun shouted, and he and my brothers and Scooter whistled and stamped their feet in the bleachers. A school—make that an academy—of mermaids rotated slowly around me, arms
