Bad Mermaids Page 2

  ‘We’ll be back soon, Hilma,’ Beattie said. ‘Stay put. Don’t go anywhere.’

  Hilma stuck her nose in the air and crossed her arms. ‘Obviously I’m going to stay put.’

  Beattie nodded, and the three of them squeezed out of the porthole with a pop.

  ‘WAIT!’ Hilma cried. ‘You forgot your false teeth!’

  But the others were already outside and didn’t hear her.

  The false teeth floated slowly past Hilma’s face.

  She prodded them with her finger and gagged. ‘Eugh, yuck.’

  MARITZA MIST’S

  WATER WITCH CATALOGUE

  MERMAID DUPLICATION!

  Double trouble or DOUBLE THE FUN?

  Inspired by the water witches of Octopolli

  and their sublime potion-mixing skills,

  one sprinkle of this little powder will

  make two of you. Yes, that’s right!

  Create another you in minutes.*

  *Due to a slight quantity error when mixing this potion,

  your duplicate is likely to shout ‘FISH EYE!’ every now

  and again. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

  4

  Jellywich! Ringletti! Icetipple!

  ‘What a weird old ship,’ Mimi said with a smile. ‘Why in all watery bits has it taken us to the Crocodile Kingdom?’

  Beattie looked up at the grand old ship. ‘Look, on the flag! It’s a crocodile! The Merry Mary must be from here – the ship sailed home!’

  ‘The Merry Mary belonged to Mary Ruster, the mermaid queen who lived hundreds of years ago in the Hidden Lagoon,’ Zelda said. ‘How would she have a ship from the Crocodile Kingdom? And how did it make it all the way to our lagoon?’

  Mimi nodded thoughtfully. ‘She must’ve visited the Crocodile Kingdom and brought it back with her as a souvenir.’

  ‘A souvenir?’ Zelda said. ‘Mimi, last time you went on a trip you brought me back a rock with “Zizzle” carved on it.’

  ‘They didn’t have one that said “Zelda”,’ Mimi chirped.

  ‘Will you two shush and look at this place!’ Beattie said, spinning them both round.

  Ships were pulling into bays and mermaids in the most fabulous green outfits were unloading chests of jewels and shells and lace-patterned reams of seaweed.

  ‘Oh! The new clothes fabrics from Jewelport!’ one of the mermaids cheered. ‘Gimme.’

  ‘Jewelport?’ Zelda said, an eyebrow raised. ‘I’ve never heard of it.’

  Beattie turned to the twins. ‘It must be another place we’ve never …’ She trailed off. ‘Your hair!’ she cried. ‘It’s turning green!’

  ‘My hair is always green,’ Zelda said. She turned and pointed at Beattie. ‘Wait, but yours isn’t purple any more!’

  Beattie caught a glimpse of her hair in a mirrored trunk. She somersaulted backwards when she noticed the tail of the mermaid carrying it.

  ‘Crocodile-patterned tails,’ she whispered to Zelda and Mimi. ‘This proves it. We’re in the Crocodile Kingdom.’

  ‘It could be a coincidence,’ Zelda said. ‘Us being in the Crocodile Kingdom is as likely as a talking parrot.’

  ‘Zelda,’ Beattie said firmly. ‘Parrots can talk. And I thought you said you were going to stop using human words.’

  ‘Calm down, you microwave with eyes,’ Zelda said with a smug smile.

  Beattie groaned.

  ‘You love me really, Beattie,’ Zelda said, swimming over her head. ‘Come on, I thought we were exploring!’

  The three of them swam slowly down the dock, past a group of takeaway food stalls carved into the rock. All along the swimway were flashing neon signs in blinding green:

  FRESH JELLYWICH FROM JEWELPORT!

  RINGLETTI JUST IN FROM OCTOPOLLI!

  ICETIPPLE ALL THE WAY FROM FROSTOPIA!

  Mermaids were clustered in large groups around the stalls, elbowing each other and grabbing food.

  One threw a huge ice barrel into the Frostopia food stall.

  ‘Where’s the rest of it?!’ the mermaid behind the counter shouted.

  ‘You’re going to have to pay me extra for that one alone,’ the other mermaid scoffed, swimming fast back to his sunken ship. ‘You try getting into Frostopia! I had to outswim a pod of security whales on the outer ice walls just to get that one!’

  ‘It’s real,’ Beattie grinned, leaning against the Jellywich stall to steady herself. ‘The Crocodile Kingdom, Octopolli, other mermaid cities we never even knew about, they’re all real. It’s not just us out there in the Hidden Lagoon. There are millions of us all over the world. Just like my mum has been trying to tell everyone for years!’

  ‘No. I know what this is,’ Zelda said. ‘We’re dead.’ She flopped on to a rock. ‘This is obviously what death is. Some weird mermaid place where Beattie and her mum are correct about everything.’

  ‘We’re not dead,’ Mimi said, taking a bite out of a bright green jelly sandwich. ‘I’m eating a sandwich!’

  ‘How are we going to find a way home?’ Beattie said quietly as she watched mermaids swim in single file on to a ship. They all had large shell suitcases.

  ‘Make the most of your holiday in Pinkly Lagoon with these top tips!’ a mermaid handing out seaweed flyers shouted.

  ‘It’s not like we can get back on that old bathtub,’ Zelda said, gesturing towards the Merry Mary, just as its mast fell off with a bang.

  ‘No,’ Beattie said glumly. ‘We’ll have to sneak on to another one.’

  The boat going to Pinkly Lagoon began flashing a luminous green colour.

  ‘Why is it doing that?’ Zelda shouted, holding her arm up to shield her eyes.

  ‘It’s Upper Realm glue,’ the mermaid behind the Ringletti stand said, her curls wafting in the water.

  ‘What’s Upper Realm glue?’ Zelda asked as the ship stopped glowing.

  ‘They cover the boats in it, so when the boat is in Upper Realm territory, where the humans lurk, it’s completely sealed – no way in and no way out, for safety. Doors and portholes only open when the ship docks back in the Lower Realms, in safe mermaid territory. Why don’t you know about Upper Realm glue?’

  The three of them stood there blinking, then Beattie started fake laughing. ‘Oh, ha! Ha! … ha. Yes, I remember now! I’d forgotten! Obviously! Yes …’

  The Ringletti stall mermaid looked at them strangely, and then got back to scooping Ringletti rings into serving shells.

  ‘Great,’ Beattie mumbled. ‘So even if we did sneak on to a ship, we wouldn’t be able to get off until we got to the destination, which would just be another mermaid place no one in the Hidden Lagoon believes in or knows about. We’d be in exactly the same position we are now.’

  ‘We’ll find another way,’ Mimi said, biting into her Jellywich. ‘It’s us.’

  At the stall next to them, a strange mermaid dropped her shell full of Ringletti and gawped at them. ‘Water witches,’ she whispered, her eyes fixed on Beattie, Mimi and Zelda, but her head moving slightly to the left so some of the Ringletti she’d dropped could float into her open mouth. She chewed it quickly. ‘Water witches.’

  Steve popped out of Beattie’s hair. ‘WHERE’S MY BEDROOM?’

  The three of them looked at each other.

  Steve closed his eyes. ‘You left my bedroom on the sunken ship,’ he said faintly.

  ‘Oh no, we forgot the false teeth,’ Zelda said flatly. ‘Whatever will we do?’

  ‘We need to go back and get MY BEDROOM!’ Steve squealed.

  They didn’t notice but at that moment the strange mermaid pulled out a little sachet shaped like a fish. She tore it open and squeezed out some gloopy liquid, running her fingers through it as it wafted away.

  There was a snapping sound and the false teeth appeared in her hand. She grinned and held them up. ‘The perfect way to introduce myself.’

  ‘No one is stopping you from going to get your false teeth,’ Zelda said, sneakily trying to take a bite of Mimi’s
Jellywich.

  ‘My body is TINY!’ Steve scoffed. ‘I couldn’t possibly swim that far.’

  The strange mermaid plonked the false teeth down on the stall in front of them.

  They all stared at them.

  ‘Oh,’ Steve said. ‘My bedroom.’

  ‘You, and you, and you, and YOU,’ the strange mermaid said, pointing a finger at Steve, ‘are welcome.’

  ‘The teeth,’ Beattie said. She picked them up to make sure they were really Steve’s. ‘How did you get them? And … who are you?’

  The strange mermaid smiled. ‘I’m a water witch.’ She looked around to check no one was listening. ‘Just like you.’

  5

  Socks and Crabs

  Back in her bedroom at the sock-shaped stone tower Paris face-planted on her grand four-poster bed.

  ‘Oh limp little sock, you were very useful distracting the beach fools with the free ice cream,’ she heard her mother say from the doorway.

  Paris mumbled a ‘No problem’.

  She heard the tinkling sound of stilettos on the floor.

  ‘You’ve really helped with my plan to convert our sock factory.’

  ‘Convert it into what? A shoe factory?’ Paris mumbled into the covers.

  ‘No, silly socky – it will soon be Mermaid World.’

  Paris rolled over so she was staring up at her mother. ‘Mermaid World?’

  ‘No one will expect us to turn a sock factory into the number one destination for viewing real mermaids, because mermaids don’t have feet. And socks are for feet,’ Susan explained.

  ‘I get it,’ Paris said.

  ‘Everyone is going to go wild! We’ll be the talk of the world! We’ll be famous.’

  ‘Infamous,’ Paris said.

  ‘Well, that word has more letters so it’s probably even better.’

  ‘It’s not,’ Paris said. ‘Hang on … what’s that got to do with releasing crabs on the beach?’

  ‘I need to fish for some mermaids. According to my research, they use crabs to communicate. So I dumped a load of crabs with messages into the ocean. But I don’t know how their crab system works exactly. I’ve been sending a crab with every sock mail order. Millions of sock customers have opened their sock package and found a crab, which they will have thrown outside. And each crab will have made its way to the nearest sea!’

  ‘You’ve been sending crabs in the post?’ Paris said flatly. ‘Wait, is that why I saw an old woman with a crab in a sock earlier?’

  Susan Silkensocks beamed proudly. ‘It’s a foolproof plan.’ She leaned down to pull up one of her spotted socks. ‘Whip up the waters to catch a fish, is how the saying goes. My crabs are going to spread rumours, fake information. Soon everyone will be fighting among themselves – it’ll be chaos – and that’s when I’ll go fishing. I’ve already got one, you know.’

  ‘A mermaid?’ Paris spluttered.

  Susan Silkensocks squealed and threw her favourite shell box up in the air. She caught it triumphantly. ‘A REAL MERMAID.’

  Paris eyed the box like it was an evil little sibling. Her mother never went anywhere without it.

  Susan Silkensocks beamed at the thing. It was grubby and old with a giant ‘F’ engraved on it.

  ‘This is how I always knew mermaids were real!’ Susan Silkensocks said, gripping the box tightly. ‘Of course, no one believed me all those years ago. I leapt out at a mermaid and she dropped it. Oh, it had shimmering paste in it that looked like a glorious, liquefied mermaid tail! And then one day, you ate it.’

  Paris rolled her eyes. She’d heard the story a million times. She’d been punished for eating it a million more.

  ‘This box means more to me than anything. More than even you, Paris,’ her mother sneered.

  ‘So … you just mentioned you caught a mermaid? Where did you put it?’ Paris asked, trying to casually slip it into the conversation without sounding too desperate to know.

  ‘I put her in a tank in the factory!’

  Paris shook her head. ‘You are such a cliché.’

  ‘I’m fabulously unique,’ Susan Silkensocks spat. ‘I’m wearing spotted socks and stilettos for goodness’ sake!’

  Paris smooshed her face back into the covers as Susan Silkensocks stomped out of the door and down the corridor. As soon as the footsteps had faded, Paris leapt to her feet and grabbed her backpack covered in mermaid doodles. ‘I’d better get to work,’ she said with a determined nod – and with that, she climbed out of her bedroom window.

  MARITZA MIST’S

  WATER WITCH CATALOGUE

  SECRET’S OUT

  Ever wanted to know another mermaid’s

  secrets? Or are you keen to find out some juicy

  gossip? With this secret-shouting fish, you can

  discover something about a mermaid that

  they’d rather keep secret.

  INSTRUCTIONS: Remove the fish carefully

  from the box and rub it on the head of the mermaid

  you’d like to know a secret about. After

  rubbing the fish on the mermaid’s head, place

  the fish in the palm of your hand and wait.

  If done properly, the fish should shout the secret,

  and then swim away.

  WARNING: As per new Water Witch Council rules,

  and so that this spell is not misused, the fish will also shout

  one of your secrets, so it is fair. We discourage mean

  spells and suggest mermaids only use this spell in

  special circumstances.

  6

  Gadget Queen Strikes Again

  It was pitch-black inside the Silkensocks Factory and Paris only had an old torch from her backpack. It flickered as she sneaked in and spun down the corridor, stopping when she reached the SOCK STOCK room. It was the biggest room in the factory, and the one that led out on to the pier.

  If her mother was telling the truth, this was where the mermaid would be. It was closest to the sea, so easy to sneak a mermaid in after dark. Plus there were hundreds of boxes and stacks of socks everywhere: it would be easy to hide a tank.

  She pushed the doors open and fell backwards.

  A giant sparkly sign that read MERMAID WORLD swung overhead. Instead of the floor-to-ceiling boxes of socks, there were huge tanks, and a bar with FOAM SHAKES written on the sign above it. A massive poster of Clippee – a lobster wearing a dress – hung next to a huge fake shark that was suspended in the air. The writing on it said JAWELLA’S RESTAURANT THIS WAY with an arrow pointing into the shark’s mouth. Paris walked slowly to the middle of the room. There was a huge empty space. She shone the torch on the little sign on the floor.

  Genuine mermaid buildings dug up from the deep!

  ‘Oh SOCK!’ Paris cried. ‘She’s not just going to fish out mermaids – she’s going to dig the place up!’

  She hastily dropped to her knees and ripped her backpack open. She needed to find that mermaid and free her. She could swim back to the Hidden Lagoon and warn them all – they’d be prepared for a horrible Susan Silkensocks invasion. They’d thwart her plans! Quickly, she rifled around and pulled out a small shell, flipping it open to reveal a dial with a picture of a mermaid and a picture of a human. She pointed it at herself and a light came on next to the picture of the human.

  She stood up and pointed it around the room.

  The lights on the dial flickered.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  She shook it slightly. Maybe it was broken. Or maybe there wasn’t a mermaid in there. Maybe her mother had made it up. That would be a very Susan thing to do …

  Was that a squeak?

  Paris turned around slowly. There, floating in a tiny tank and tucked into the shadows, was the most beautiful mermaid she had ever seen. She was fast asleep, her face smooshed against the glass, with an assortment of dribble strands decorating her chin.

  She also had the wrinkliest hand Paris had ever seen.

/>   The mermaid snorted herself awake and barely blinked when she saw Paris staring at her hand. ‘Stagnant water does that to us. The Silkensocks human who fishnapped me hasn’t changed the water since I got here.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ Paris said, holding up her claw hand. ‘Mine is forever bent from constantly holding ice-cream cones.’

  They high-fived. Paris grinned. Ever since she was little, she’d watched mermaids emerging on the beach for their summer on land with legs. It was so obvious to her and she could never understand why the humans didn’t notice them. But Paris wasn’t like most humans – she spotted things others were too busy to see.

  ‘I’m Arabella Cod, Queen of the Hidden Lagoon,’ the mermaid said.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ Paris said. ‘I’m Paris, worker at the ice-cream stall and Gadget Queen.’

  ‘It’s nice to meet another royal,’ Arabella Cod said.

  Paris swallowed loudly. ‘Well … I’m not exactly roy–’

  ‘Can you help me escape?’ Arabella Cod asked. ‘I’ll reward you.’

  ‘No need for a reward,’ Paris said. ‘I’ll gladly thwart my mother’s evil plans for free.’

  She pulled a couple of large shoeboxes from her backpack and stuck them on either side of the tank. Arabella Cod leaned out to take a look just as a pair of mannequin legs popped out of the boxes and found their feet on the floor. The tank wobbled and rose up high as the legs made their way towards the factory doors. Arabella Cod grabbed a foam shake on the way past the bar. She spat it out instantly.

  ‘Oh cods, this is not the recipe. You know that horrible woman who fishnapped me said mermaid food sounded DISGUSTING. She’s obviously made some horrible human equivalent!’

  ‘She’s a fussy eater,’ Paris said as she heaved the heavy factory door open, revealing a short pier and the inky sea beyond. ‘After you.’

  There was a bang at the other end of the factory – followed by the horribly familiar sound of skipping stilettos.

  ‘She’s here,’ Paris said, her eyes wide. She hastily closed the factory door and raced over to the slow-moving tank.

  Arabella Cod leaned out and stared at the legs. ‘Can’t you make them go faster?’