“Truly! I’ve been looking for you!” I turned to see Dr. Calhoun crossing the room toward us. “Now that we’re going to be using Dreamboat as our stage instead of the H dock, perhaps we should rethink your opening number.”
We’d planned to have me embedded with the crowd of actors making their way toward the H dock—our original stage—before the performance. While they acted as a sort of human shield, I’d pull on the shimmertail and slip into the water unnoticed.
“Dreamboat is anchored in the cove on the other side of camp,” Calhoun’s father explained. “We’re going to have Artie tow it around the point and surprise the audience after your opening number.”
I saw the dilemma. With the cast aboard Dreamboat, how was I going to get into the water without the audience seeing me? Six-foot-tall mermaids were pretty hard to miss.
Suddenly I had a brainstorm. “Hey, Mr. Jefferson!” I called to Bud. He was standing over by Mrs. Winthrop as she helped make a few last-minute alterations to the Pirate King’s costume. Hearing me call, he came right over.
“What’s up, Truly?”
“Do you have your canoe with you?”
He nodded. “I always have my canoe with me.”
That’s what I’d been counting on.
“Would you be willing to be my camouflage? To help get me into place for the opening number, I mean. We could drive over to the public beach, and while you paddle I could hitch a ride back to camp along the far side of your canoe, where the audience won’t see me.”
“Brilliant!” said Dr. Calhoun. “What do you say, Bud?”
“Sure, no problem.”
Five minutes later, Bud and I took off for his car as the pirates and maidens headed down to the cove where Dreamboat was waiting.
“I just have to put this thing on,” I told Bud, patting my duffel bag as we pulled into a parking spot at the beach.
“No rush,” he said. “It’ll take me a few minutes to get the canoe into the water.”
As I wiggled and squirmed my way into the shimmertail, the sensation was both familiar and strange. Sirena’s Sea Siren Academy felt like a million years ago.
“Say, that thing looks real!” said Bud when I was done.
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool.” I scooted forward on the sand into the water, then propelled myself over to the far side of the canoe. Holding on to the gunwale while Bud paddled, I let myself be towed along the shoreline toward Camp Lovejoy. It was only a short distance from the public beach, and soon Bud was cutting over toward the center of the H dock. He drew up beside the leg closest to the water-ski beach. The waiting audience paid us no attention—to them, he was just another boat in the water.
“How’s this?”
“Perfect,” I said. “Thanks!”
As he paddled away, I held my breath and slipped below the surface of the water, emerging a moment later under the dock, where I clung to one of its supports and waited for my cue. I had a good view of the beach from here. People were spreading out towels and setting up folding chairs for the performance, including my parents, who were talking to Cha Cha’s family. Bud had paddled his canoe to shore and joined Mrs. Winthrop; Ella Bellow was sitting with Belinda and Augustus. I spotted Amanda Appleton talking to Aunt True, who had a pleasantly bland expression on her face. I also spotted the tall red-haired girl from the road race—Cassidy something?—and Felicia Grunewald, Professor Rusty’s assistant. They were both surrounded by their campers.
As the loudspeakers crackled and the first notes of the overture floated out over the water, Dr. Calhoun gave me a thumbs-up.
“Showtime,” I whispered, determined to make Esther Williams—and Zadie and Lenore—proud.
Taking a deep breath, I dove down and dolphin-kicked my way underwater out to what I guessed was about the center of the area in front of the beach. Swishing the shimmertail back and forth mightily, I breached the surface like a rocket, then arced forward and dove down again, smacking my flukes against the water hard. Dr. Calhoun had asked me to “make a splash,” and that was exactly what I planned to do.
The rest of my opening routine was made up of moves pieced together from the revue at Sirena’s. After a few more dolphin dives, I flipped over onto my back and, sculling the water with my arms, held my legs up in the ballet leg position, waving my flukes back and forth.
“THAT’S MY SISTER!” I heard Pippa shriek, and I smiled wide and blew her a kiss.
Swim pretty, I reminded myself, and I did my best, smiling and waving just like I’d been taught at mermaid academy. The audience ate it up. As the overture neared its finish, I crisscrossed the water in front of the beach in a series of butterfly strokes, ending with one final dive and powerful splash of my flukes. As the onlookers clapped and cheered, I swam over to the H dock and pulled myself up onto it, perching on the edge to watch the rest of the performance.
Hearing the low thrum of the water-ski boat, we all craned to watch as it came into view around the edge of the point.
“Dreamboat!” someone called, and the audience hooted and shouted “aaargh!” at the sight of the flag bearing the skull and crossbones that fluttered from a pole on the roof. When the floating cabin was in position directly in front of the beach, Artie hopped aboard, dropped an anchor, then hopped back into the ski boat and putt-putted away.
The music swelled, the front door and windows of Dreamboat flew open, and pirates came flooding out. The crowd roared as they launched into the rousing opening number.
Dr. Calhoun stepped forward when the pirates were done singing and sketched in the plot for the audience. It was lame but funny. Today was
