Bad Mermaids Read online

  14

  The Out-of-Bounds Whale Bus

  Paris was somersaulting and spluttering in the water, expecting a great white to take a bite out of her at any sockond. She was struggling to breathe.

  A shark came up behind her and grabbed her plait in its teeth.

  Paris squeezed her eyes shut.

  It shook her – just once – and then let her go.

  She winced and waited, but nothing happened.

  She dared a peek. The sharks were still there, circling her, but she felt strange. Her legs felt longer and more floppy. She sighed with relief, and then realised she shouldn’t be able to do that underwater.

  Her little mermaid compass floated down past her. The light next to the word ‘MERMAID’ was flashing. ‘But – wait, WHAT? WHOA,’ Paris said as she looked down. ‘MY LEGS!’ she cried, as clearly as if she was speaking out of water. ‘THEY’VE GONE!’

  In their place was a beautiful, pearly-coloured tail!

  The smallest shark in the group swam up and pushed its nose towards her necklace.

  ‘Is that what transformed me?’ Paris said. ‘When you shook me? It must be magic.’

  Another shark floated next to her and offered her its fin. Reluctantly, she grabbed hold – and off they shot! The other sharks followed. They were giving her a swimming lesson. She flicked her tail back and forth, and they went even faster. Her crab friend sailed past on the back of another shark.

  ‘WOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!’ Paris yelled, letting go of the shark’s fin and somersaulting through the sea. ‘I’M A GADGET QUEEN AND A WEIRD MUTANT FISH HUMAN! THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIIIIIIIIIIFE!’

  A dark aeroplane-shaped shadow descended and the sharks scattered.

  ‘Wait!’ Paris cried. ‘Come back!’

  There was a strange whirring noise that echoed so loudly she had to cover her ears.

  Then came a SPLOSH! And the thing that made it came speeding towards her.

  ‘Mother?’ Paris said, blinking in disbelief. Her mouth hung open as her mother, eyes tightly closed, arms outstretched, shot past in a perfect dive pose. Her legs were concealed by a magnificent fake mermaid tail!

  The Susan Cam that was sinking to the depths began beeping out of control.

  Paris swam as fast as she could. She was going to beat her mother to the Crocodile Kingdom and warn them all!

  A horn sounded – about an inch from her head.

  ‘OW!’ she cried, rubbing her left ear and half expecting it to have blasted right off.

  A strange jellyfish with a hollow horn strapped to the top of it floated on the spot.

  ‘YOU ARE FLOATING IN DANGEROUS HUMAN TERRITORY,’ came a voice from the horn.

  Paris poked her eye right in it to get a look. ‘Who’s saying that?’

  ‘QUENTIN WILL ENSURE YOU BOARD THE WHALE BUS TO SAFETY. WHAT IS YOUR NAME AND HOME REGION?’

  Paris looked down at her tail. They thought she was a mermaid!

  A huge whale emerged from the depths and pulled up next to her, with a rickety old green human bus strapped to it.

  Behind the wheel was an ancient-looking mermaid with only one tiny tuft of hair. She pulled a lever and the door opened.

  ‘I’m Jelly,’ she said. ‘We chatted earlier on my horn, which I strapped to Quentin’s head. Quentin is my jellyfish. Now, where are you from?’

  ‘The … crocodile one,’ Paris mumbled nervously. She glanced around, looking for help. She couldn’t get caught, and she couldn’t let her mother get ahead of her.

  ‘Well, technically there’s two crocodile ones,’ Jelly said. ‘You’ve got the Crocodile Kingdom, but then occasionally Rainbow Landing also has crocodiles.’

  ‘The first one – the Crocodile Kingdom,’ Paris said, faltering slightly.

  Jelly peered out from behind her glasses. ‘You don’t seem very sure?’

  ‘Oh I am, I’m just, you know … bad day.’

  Jelly nodded and pulled out an old human telephone. ‘I’ll call the Crocodile Kingdom and tell them you’re here, since you look underage. Name?’

  ‘Oh, no, it’s –’ Paris said, giggling nervously. ‘Wait, does that phone work down here?’

  ‘Like a charm,’ Jelly said, punching in some numbers. A small fish popped out of the receiver. ‘Crocodile Kingdom mermaid,’ she said to the fish. ‘Name is Ohnoits, found and to be returned to the Shelmont City stop.’ The fish popped back into the receiver and Paris saw the wire bulging where the fish was swimming along fast inside it. The wire wafted in the water and came to an end not far from the whale bus. Paris watched as the fish shot out of the end of the wire and went swimming off.

  ‘You know that’s not how humans use phones,’ Paris said.

  ‘It is,’ Jelly said. ‘Only they don’t use fish. I believe they use spiders. Now, swim on board.’

  Paris did her best but she was still a little unsteady manoeuvring her tail.

  Human paintings were tacked to the bus walls, and a tiny shoal of fish was attempting to eat the one of a bowl of oranges.

  Paris took a seat next to an old man and an old lady mermaid. They had wrinkled tails and matching Chops & Slinky T-shirts. The old lady mermaid was holding on tightly to a human shopping trolley.

  ‘It’s a souvenir,’ she said when she spotted Paris looking at it. She tapped her nose and winked. ‘We’ve been on land.’

  ‘With your tails?’ Paris asked.

  ‘It’s amazing how far you can get on land with a shopping trolley and an oar,’ the old man mermaid said, coughing.

  Quentin swam past with the horn strapped to his head. ‘HIGHLY ILLEGAL BEHAVIOUR,’ Jelly’s voice bellowed through the horn. ‘DON’T LISTEN TO THESE TWO, OHNOITS.’

  The two old mermaids leaned back on the bench and grinned.

  ‘Worth every police car chase,’ the old lady mermaid said.

  Paris smiled and inspected the necklace Arabella Cod had given her – she could still see things swimming around in there. A crocodile. A shark. A jellyfish. A lobster. A fat fish. A dolphin.

  She gasped.

  The mermaid was gone! But she’d been replaced with something else. There was a human – a tiny little Paris in her pom-pom-fringed summer dress.

  ‘NO WAY!’ Paris said, shaking the thing back and forth twice.

  She felt tightness in her tail. There was a small pop and suddenly her head felt bigger, and her arms felt tiny.

  ‘Where did the nice little mermaid go?’ the old lady mermaid asked, slowly bending over to peer into her shopping trolley, as if Paris might be hiding in there.

  ‘I’m right here!’ Paris said with a laugh. But it came out as ‘EEEeeeEEE A-AAK! K! EEEee.’

  ‘I was sure there was a mermaid here,’ the old man mermaid said slowly. ‘But perhaps she was always a dolphin.’

  ‘EEeeeeeeEeEeEeEe! A-kk, eee!’ Paris tried again, but they weren’t listening.

  She held the necklace up, inspecting it like she did her gadgets. Maybe she thought, her heart beating fast, the number of shakes determines which creature I transform into …

  The shark had shaken her once, so she tried giving it one shake. With a snap, she was a mermaid again.

  ‘She’s back!’ the old lady mermaid cried.

  ‘Twice for dolphin,’ Paris said, shaking it twice. And with a flubbery bang she was a dolphin again! ‘An excellent gadget,’ she concluded.

  Quentin floated past and came to an abrupt halt next to Paris the dolphin.

  ‘NO STRAY DOLPHINS!’ came Jelly’s exasperated voice. ‘REMOVE THE DOLPHIN.’

  ‘That’s our dolphin!’ the old lady mermaid cried. ‘I remember it … I think.’

  The door to the bus swung open and another mermaid flopped on. Paris felt a bit sick when she saw who it was.

  ‘Crocodile Kingdom,’ Susan Silkensocks snapped at Jelly, before swimming on to the bus.

  Paris covered the necklace with one of her flippers – it was just the kind of curious cool thing her mum would steal from a dolphi
n.

  Susan Silkensocks swam with her obviously fake tail and took a seat across the aisle from Paris the now-dolphin. Paris could see a clear film over her mother’s face, though it was barely noticeable. Paris slumped over, her dolphin nose drooping. Her mother must’ve created some high-tech breathing mask, probably with the help of some clever scientist lady and a lot of money.

  Paris clutched the necklace tightly. As long as she was a dolphin, her mother would never know it was her.

  MARITZA MIST’S

  WATER WITCH CATALOGUE

  WARDROBE WHIZZ

  A fun little number for you fashionistas out

  there. With the Wardrobe Whizz, you can

  change your outfit with the click of a finger.

  INSTRUCTIONS: Rest the shell on the tip

  of your tail and click your finger.

  Comes with three hundred couture outfits,

  ten fancy-dress costumes and a selection

  of hats.

  15

  Twinkors

  ‘And here –’ Gronnyupple said grandly, pausing for effect – ‘it is.’

  ‘Twinkors,’ Beattie said, blinking at the place.

  ‘This is where I have secret snap meetings,’ Gronnyupple said.

  ‘It’s a launderette,’ Zelda said flatly. ‘Called Twinkors.’

  Beattie, Mimi and Zelda stared at it.

  ‘Well, at least we got to ride on the Chomp,’ Zelda said, turning to leave.

  ‘Wait!’ Gronnyupple pleaded, swimming up to the Twinkors sign. ‘Erm, look at how … beautiful it … is.’

  The sign had been half eaten by small fish and the two large triangular windows had been claimed by a family of suckerfish, so you couldn’t even see if anything was going on inside.

  The ‘S’ on the sign made a groaning sound and fell off, hitting the seabed with a clang.

  ‘Are you both thinking what I’m thinking?’ Beattie whispered.

  ‘Yes, it’s beautiful!’ Mimi said.

  Beattie and Zelda stared at her.

  ‘Well,’ Beattie finally said, ‘we’re already here, so we might as well give Gronnyupple five minutes.’

  ‘Five minutes,’ Zelda said. ‘That’s it. Then we find our own way home. I don’t believe anything she says. And I don’t believe she’s going to help us.’

  Inside, Beattie floated awkwardly near the door. Twinkors was deserted – and it looked like it had been for years. Fabulous unwanted mermaid clothes floated about the room, along with a crocodile. She was a hardy-looking reptile with extra-long eyelashes. A bottle of Kelpskey hung from the corner of her mouth. When she opened her jaw, Beattie could see that her teeth had been painted with colourful patterns.

  Beattie, Mimi and Zelda pasted themselves against the wall as she floated past.

  ‘Oh, Lady Rusty won’t hurt you!’ Gronnyupple said with a hearty laugh.

  ‘The crocodile is called Lady Rusty?’ Zelda asked, trying to stifle a snort. ‘Is she your pet?’

  Gronnyupple was now the one to snort. ‘No! She owns this place.’

  ‘Really?’ Beattie said in disbelief.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Gronnyupple said. ‘She’s the original snap. But now she just kind of floats around like an uncontrollable decoration.’

  Lady Rusty swam straight into the wall.

  There was a high-pitched scream.

  ‘Steve!’ Beattie cried, feeling about in her hair for him before seeing Gronnyupple was holding him firmly in her hand.

  ‘Calm down, seahorse thing!’ she said. ‘I thought you were a Seahorse Surprise.’

  Steve stopped screaming. ‘What is a Seahorse Surprise?!’

  ‘It’s a sweet, shaped like a seahorse – you eat the first succulent jelly layer and there’s another surprise sweet inside.’

  ‘YOU WERE TRYING TO PULL MY HEAD OFF!’ Steve shouted.

  Gronnyupple widened her eyes in frustration. ‘Yes, because I thought you were a Seahorse Surprise. You were in my sweet packet.’

  ‘I thought you were in the false teeth, Steve,’ Beattie said, placing him gently back inside them.

  ‘No, that monster grabbed me and stuffed me in her packet of sweets. I’ve been shouting for help for the last hour!’

  ‘He’s –’ Zelda began to explain to Gronnyupple.

  ‘A miracle,’ Steve said grandly.

  ‘He’s my talking seahorse,’ Beattie said. ‘He likes to sleep in false teeth. Must be really weird for you to see a talking seahorse.’

  Gronnyupple shoved a handful of Seahorse Surprises in her mouth and swallowed them in one gulp. ‘Not really. I’ve been to Flicko City in Pinkly Lagoon, so I’ve seen thousands of talking seahorses. I went on holiday there once – we stopped on our way to Vampire Rocks. Is that where you got it? Flicko City?’

  Beattie looked down at Steve nestled in the false teeth.

  ‘Thousands?’ Steve mouthed sadly.

  ‘Looks like someone isn’t a miracle after all,’ Zelda teased.

  Steve stuck his nose in the air. ‘Still more of a miracle than you, normal half-fish person!’

  ‘Where are the other water witches?’ Mimi chirped.

  ‘It’s just me,’ Gronnyupple said.

  ‘You’re the only one?’ Zelda said.

  ‘The only one,’ Gronnyupple said, turning to smile at Beattie. ‘Until you.’

  ‘And this is … er, your secret meeting place?’ Beattie asked, swimming around. ‘Where you meet with … you.’

  Gronnyupple nodded. ‘An old couple used to work here, but then they went travelling on land, wearing T-shirts that say things like “I GOT LEGS AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT”. The launderette crumbled and got old and so I thought it would be perfect for secret water witch things. No one swims in here any more. It’s like a vintage clothes shop, really – there’s lots of great stuff floating around. Take anything you want.’

  Beattie grabbed a studded belt that was floating past her and tried it on.

  ‘Silly question,’ Zelda said, ‘but how do you plan to help us get home?’

  ‘Through a friend,’ Gronnyupple said. She swam over to a big box of BUBBLE JIM’S washing powder and pulled out a seaweed map.

  Beattie’s eyes widened when she saw it. It was a map of the world, with all the human bits too. There were various sparkly dots showing place names Beattie recognised from her mum’s stories. All these mermaid territories no one believed existed.

  ‘Where’s your Hidden Lagoon?’ Gronnyupple asked.

  Beattie pointed to the spot in the Pacific. There was nothing on the map – no name, no sparkly dot.

  ‘Ah, unknown territory,’ Gronnyupple said. ‘Interesting.’ She scrawled ‘The Hidden Lagoon’ on the map.

  She looked up and stared at Beattie. ‘Have you ever been to any other mermaid kingdom, aside from your Hidden Lagoon?’

  ‘No,’ Beattie said. ‘We didn’t know any definitely existed until we came here! Most mermaids in our lagoon think the Crocodile Kingdom is a myth.’

  ‘The Hidden Lagoon must be an area that doesn’t get the catalogue any more,’ Gronnyupple said, letting the map float off and hit Lady Rusty in the face. ‘That means, anyone who is a water witch would never know – there would be no magic to use.’

  ‘She keeps going on about a catalogue,’ Zelda whispered to Mimi, but Mimi was too busy helping Lady Rusty peel the map off her face.

  ‘Magic used to be much more common, but then ages ago a terrible human got hold of some magic near a place called Amberberg and nearly destroyed us. After that, mermaids were spooked and cracked down on magic for fear of it falling into the wrong hands – or worse, human hands. As the years passed, and water witches hid their powers, mermaids stopped believing in magic.’

  ‘But even if it’s true, how did I become a water witch?’ Beattie asked.

  ‘That’s the thing,’ Gronnyupple whispered. ‘No one knows why some mermaids are water witches.’ She shoved a Seahorse Surprise in her mouth as it floated past. �
��It’s like a rare disease. Only it’s excellent.’

  ‘So you think we’re all water witches?’ Zelda said.

  ‘No,’ Gronnyupple said. ‘Just Beattie.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’ Zelda scoffed.

  Gronnyupple tapped her nose. ‘Smelt it.’

  ‘I don’t believe all this water witch stuff anyway!’ Zelda said, clenching her fists. ‘And I bet you don’t have a catalogue that you order magic from. It sounds made-up!’

  Gronnyupple plucked an ice-blue coloured catalogue from behind where Lady Rusty was floating.

  MARITZA MIST’S

  WATER WITCH CATALOGUE

  In her other hand Gronnyupple held up the packages she’d been carrying since they’d met in Eggport. ‘And look here, I just received my latest delivery.’

  ‘I … don’t believe it,’ Zelda said, flicking through the catalogue. ‘This can’t be real.’

  There was a bang and a gigantic fat fish flopped out of the washing machine by Beattie’s tail.

  ‘Ah!’ Gronnyupple said. ‘Krilky wants me. Come on!’

  ‘Krilky?’ they all said at once.

  ‘My friend!’ Gronnyupple said cheerily. ‘But we can’t tell anyone we’re friends.’

  ‘Why not?’ Beattie asked slowly.

  ‘You’ll see,’ Gronnyupple said, then stuck her head into the washing machine. ‘Coming!’

  ‘If this ends with us getting eaten and turned into Seahorse Surprise,’ Zelda said through gritted teeth, ‘I’m blaming you, Beatts.’

  ‘Greased up the sides with a bit of magic, didn’t I,’ Gronnyupple said, slapping the washing machine proudly. ‘Works extra fast now.’

  Mimi stared intently at the fish flopping about on the edge of the washing machine. ‘I’m very sorry to hear you’re having a bad day, sir.’

  ‘You first,’ Gronnyupple said, shoving Mimi into the washing machine.

  She disappeared.

  ‘Wait. Think about how weird this is,’ Zelda said, pulling on Beattie’s tail, but Beattie was sucked inside and disappeared.

  ‘HELLO?’ Zelda said, sticking her head in the washing machine. She swam backwards and crossed her arms angrily. ‘You were meant to be helping us get home, for cod’s sake! I’m staying here.’