A Mischief of Mermaids (17 page)

“What are you talking about?” asked Coralie.

Poppy glanced at Nerissa and gave a little nod. Nerissa reached into her pocket and pulled out the brochure for the mermaid show.

This is it
, Poppy thought, crossing her fingers and holding her breath. Everything depended on the mermaids reacting the way she thought they would. . . .

“Here,” Nerissa said, holding out the brochure. “Look at this.”

Coralie snatched it from her hand. A small crease appeared on her forehead as she stared at it.

“What is this?” she asked with a hiss of displeasure. “Humans pretending to be . . . mermaids?”

“Exactly!” Poppy said brightly. “The show is starting this afternoon.”

“This is . . . unfortunate,” Coralie said. It was just a murmur, but Poppy felt the hairs on her arms stand up. The air seemed to chill several degrees. Her kayak rocked as the ripples on the water suddenly turned into waves.

“What harm does it do?” Poppy asked. “So what if people think that mermaids—”

“Have tea parties? Swim in parades? Wave flags?” Coralie asked in a dangerous voice.

“Well . . . yes,” Poppy said. “It sounds like fun, doesn't it?”

Thunderclouds formed on the horizon.

“Fun?” Coralie spat out. “To watch mortals pretend to be mermaids—and make mermaids look like fools?”

There was a distant roll of thunder.

“But the audience loves it,” Poppy said helpfully. “Especially when they play a game of touch football—”

Lightning crashed. Wind whipped across the lake. Coralie's hair rose into the air and writhed around her head as she turned to Kali, Ariadne, and Franny.

“This show,” she said in a steely voice, “must be stopped.
By any means necessary
.”

“A
re you sure this is going to work?” Will asked nervously.

“It better,” Poppy answered shortly. She was lying on the ground and tugging on an orange mermaid tail. It was made of spandex and so far she had only managed to pull it up as far as her knees. “This is horrible! Who invented this stupid costume?”

“Some human,” Nerissa snapped. She was struggling with a purple tail. “Obviously. I told you they aren't that smart.”

Poppy stopped to wipe the sweat off her face. She was wearing her swimsuit, which was bright pink. She now realized, too late, that the combination of a pink swimsuit and an orange tail was not going to help her slip into the mermaid parade unnoticed.

“This is the hardest part,” she assured Nerissa. “Once we get our costumes on, everything will be fine.”

Will was standing at the door of the mermaid hut, keeping watch. He glanced over his shoulder and said, “Hurry up! The show's going to start any minute.”

Poppy took in a deep breath, then pulled hard on the stretchy fabric. “There!” she said triumphantly. “I've got it on.”

“Me, too,” said Nerissa. “Now what?”

“Now we just need to wait until the rest of the mermaids take their places and sneak in with them,” said Poppy with a confidence she didn't quite feel. “Piece of cake.”

“Are you sure you can breathe okay underwater?” Henry looked concerned.

“The mermaids have air hoses,” Poppy reassured him. “And I took scuba diving lessons when we lived in Laguna Beach. We'll be fine. Will, do you have the mirror?”

Will pulled a small hand mirror out of his backpack and handed it to her. “Are you sure you can get close enough to Franny to use this?” he asked.

Poppy tugged on her tail, then tucked the mirror into the waistband. “Look, we've gone over this a million times,” she said as patiently as she could. “Nerissa will swim right next to her and keep edging her over in my direction. As soon as I can, I'll take it out and hold it in front of her face. She'll remember who she is and that will be that.”

There was a short silence in the changing hut.

“Yeah,” said Will. “So like I keep saying, we need a Plan B.”

Poppy tried walking a few steps and immediately fell over.

“Even if Plan A doesn't work, she'll still be in the lake,” Henry pointed out as he helped Poppy get to her feet. “It's not like Franny's in the Atlantic Ocean. We could find her again if we search hard enough—”

“People have been searching for that big catfish for years,” Nerissa pointed out. “He's still out there somewhere. And”—she lifted her chin proudly—“no one has ever caught even a glimpse of us.”

Us. The mermaids, living in a lake for centuries without anyone noticing . . . and now Franny was about to join their ranks. . . .

“Look,” said Poppy. “This is our last chance. If Franny decides to disappear, she'll be lost forever.”

As soon as they saw the mermaid show performers heading for the changing station, Will and Henry slipped away with whispered good-byes and good lucks.

Poppy and Nerissa tried to look casual as the door opened and a half dozen young women entered the room, chattering and laughing.

“Honey, I'm beginning to think I've been doing this mermaid gig a little too long,” said one in a syrupy drawl. She had dark hair that had been teased into a pile on top of her head and then hair sprayed until it barely moved. “I swear I'm going to find webs between my toes one of these days.”

“That would be brilliant, Allyson!” said another girl. She was small and looked like an arty type, with long, flowing hair and two small earrings in each ear. “It would show that you were really getting into your role.”

“And people would point and laugh any time I went to the pool,” Allyson said dryly. “Thanks, Chloe, but I'll pass.”

Poppy could feel Nerissa stiffen, so she put her hand on Nerissa's arm to calm her.

“Let it go,” Poppy whispered. “We've got an act to do, remember?”

Nerissa relaxed enough to nod, just as the eyes of the performers turned their way.

“Well, hi, there!” said Allyson. “Don't y'all look adorable!”

Poppy gritted her teeth. The last time she had been called adorable, she was playing a flying monkey in a school production of
The Wizard of Oz
. And she had only been five years old.

She forced a smile on her face. “Thank you,” she said. “You look great, too. Very, um, authentic.”

This made the mermaids laugh.

“Well, it's true that some of us did lots of research for this role,” said Chloe, pulling a spandex tail out of her backpack.

The other mermaids rolled their eyes at this.

“Chloe's an actress,” one of them explained. “You'd think this was Shakespeare, the way she studied her part! I'm Shannon, by the way.” She pointed to another girl with brown curly hair and an impish smile. “And that's Crystal.”

“Hey, it's important to know the character you're playing,” Chloe said good-humoredly. “You have to know how a mermaid waves and when she'll wink at someone and when she won't and what she thinks about all day under the sea—”

Poppy's eyes met Nerissa's and they shared a secret smile.

If you only knew, Poppy thought. All your questions could be answered right here. . . .

But then the conversation moved on, to gossip and talk about movies that were opening that weekend and who was interested in going out for dinner after the show. The other mermaids sat on benches around the room, pulling on their costumes as they talked. They were a lot better at this than Poppy and Nerissa, probably because they'd had more practice.

“But hey, what are you two doing here, anyway?” asked Allyson.

Poppy took a breath. Now it was time for her to act. “We're going to be in the show today,” she said with a big smile.

The other performers looked at one another.

“You are?” said Shannon. “Bud McCray—he's the guy who runs the show—he didn't tell us anything about that—”

“It was a last-minute thing,” said Poppy smoothly. “Just for this one performance.”

“That doesn't sound right,” she said, frowning. “I mean, you both look cute and all that, but we had to train for months—”

“Yeah, the swimming isn't as easy as it looks,” said Crystal. “And you have to know where the air hoses are hidden and how to take little sips of air as you swim by—”

“We know how to do all that,” Nerissa said abruptly. She added, in a firm voice that did not invite any argument, “We took lessons.”

A few of the mermaids looked unconvinced, but just then there was a loud knock on the door and the sound of someone shouting, “Five-minute warning! Five minutes to showtime!”

Allyson looked at Chloe and shrugged. “I guess Bud knows what he's doing,” she said.

“Well, he sure knows how to please the crowd,” Chloe said. She turned to Poppy and Nerissa. “I bet you two will be a sensation! But listen, if you get into any trouble out there, just swim for the surface, okay? Don't worry about the show.”

“We won't,” Poppy promised.

“That's right,” Crystal said. “Even if something unexpected happens, the audience always thinks we planned it that way.”

Poppy and Nerissa hopped with the other performers to a hidden spot behind the changing station. One by one, they slipped into the water and swam toward the glass-bottom boats, which were arranged in a circle about fifty yards off shore. Just before they reached the boats—and before any of the audience members crowded on the boats could see them—each mermaid dove down, swimming toward a formation of rocks on the bottom of the lake.

Poppy had spent some time researching the mermaid show. She knew that several tanks of air were cleverly hidden in those rocks. The performers could dive down anytime they needed a breath and take a sip of air from the hoses attached to the tanks. She also knew that, in order to perform in the show, mermaids had to be able to hold their breath for two-and-a-half minutes, so she and Nerissa had practiced.

It turned out that Nerissa, even without her tail, had kept some of her mermaid abilities. Although she couldn't breathe underwater anymore, she was still able to hold her breath for ten minutes at a stretch.

Poppy, on the other hand, was gasping for breath after a minute.

I'm okay, she thought with a confidence she didn't quite feel. I know where all the air hoses are hidden. If I need air, I'll just swim over to those rocks and take a little sip.

Now they formed a circle with the other mermaids. Poppy looked up. She could see the glass-bottom boats above them; she could even see curious faces peering down. Somewhere up there, she knew, Will and Henry had joined Mr. and Mrs. Malone and Rolly on one of the glass-bottom boats. They had all bought tickets for the show that had everyone on the lake talking.

Allyson raised her hand and pointed. One by one, the mermaids swam to the spot where the audience on the boats and on the dock could see them.

They swam in a long line, as if they were in a parade. Mermaid Shannon went first, holding a pole with a Texas state flag. The edges of the flag had been stiffened with wire, so it looked as if it were rippling in a strong breeze. The other mermaids swam after her with strong, powerful strokes, smiling up at the glass-bottom boats and waving cheerfully.

Even underwater, Poppy could hear the cheers. She swam down to the rocks, took a quick breath of air, and followed the mermaids out.

It was much harder to swim with spandex wrapping her legs, so she settled on lurking in the background and watching the show. Once in a while, she even remembered to smile. Most of the time, though, she was too busy watching the fake mermaids—and wondering when the real mermaids would show up—to think about performing.

Nerissa, on the other hand, joined in as if she'd been in front of an audience all her life.

When Allyson, Shannon, Chloe, and Crystal swam in a circle and drank bottles of soda, smiling and winking at the audience, Nerissa juggled two bottles and then popped the caps off. When the carbonated soda sprayed through the water, the crowd burst into applause.

While the other mermaids sat at a table and drank tea from fine china cups, Nerissa sipped hers while turning slow, graceful loop-de-loops in the water.

The mermaids performed underwater ballets, played touch football, and even pretended to strum guitars as part of a mermaid band—and Nerissa was always right in the middle, managing to steal the show.

All the performers timed their trips to the air hoses perfectly, so that the audience's attention was always on the show. No one noticed when one or two mermaids slipped away to get a breath of air. And none of the mermaids noticed that Nerissa never had to use the air hose at all.

Poppy would have enjoyed being a part of this spectacle if she weren't so worried about Franny. The plan depended on Coralie feeling so insulted by the mermaid show that she would try to disrupt it—and on Coralie being so focused on what she was doing that Poppy could get close enough to Franny to break the mermaid spell. But they had reached the salute to Texas heroes (the show's finale), and nothing had happened.

Poppy glanced at Nerissa and gave her a questioning look. Nerissa shrugged and shook her head.

It was hard for Poppy to read Nerissa's expression underwater, but she thought she looked upset.

Of course she does, Poppy thought, checking her watch. We only have a few hours left before the moon rises.

And when that happened, she knew they would see a moon that was slightly less than full. Which would mean the blue moon was over, and there would be no going back for Franny.

For a moment, Poppy let herself think about how she would tell her parents what had happened. She allowed herself a horrible moment of imagining how they would react, and an even more horrible moment of thinking about how she would feel to know that she had lost Franny, perhaps forever. . . .

And then she felt a swirl of water around her. She looked at Nerissa and saw her pointing, wide eyed, at something behind her.