Dad and Junior are frantically pulling the rope to bring her in, seemingly taken aback by her screams. I’m not sure they realize what they’ve caught—maybe they mistook her for a human and thought they were saving her. Which could work to her advantage, if she were to calm down and think about it. But she’s too panicked to change into human form. Even now, she uses what little water the net soaked up to try to Blend. Her body looks like a puzzle of net and skin and fin and long sopping black hair. It’s unsettling to watch.
Especially because it’s much too late to hide what she is. Even now, the older fisherman begins to realize their fantastic luck, though the disbelief is still fresh on his face. “A mermaid…” It sounds more like a question than a statement. “Look, Don, it’s a real live mermaid!”
The one called Don is so dumbfounded that he forgets to hold on to the rope. His new shiny mermaid splashes back into the water entangled in fear and net.
I decide that’s the best chance I’m going to get. I duck under and call for Goliath. “Take me to the boat!”
When the girl sees me—another human, in her eyes—she screams again and forgets how close she was to freeing herself from the suffocating grid that is the net. Goliath stops us a few feet under her and I hold up my hands.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I’ll help you. I’m … I’m Syrena, too.” Oh, Galen is going to kill me.
My confession is enough to halt her exertions. Her eyes just might pop out of her pretty little face. She readjusts quickly though, tearing her glare from me to concentrate on the task at hand. “No, you’re not!” she says, tugging at the rope too erratically to make progress. “You’re just tricking me. Tricky humans.” But she pauses again, studies the water between us. I’m about to ask if she can sense me like I can sense her.
All at once, the net is jerked back up. Her screams are enveloped by the air above.
I know what I have to do. And Galen won’t like it.
But I push that consideration from my mind. Galen isn’t here, but if he was, he would help her. I know he would. I don’t waste another thought on it. I push through to the surface. “Hey! Let my little sister go!”
This almost stupefies Don into releasing the rope a second time, but good ole Dad catches it and pulls. “Get it together, Don! Do you know how rich we are right now? Pull her in! I’ll get the other one.”
Nice. The Syrena thinks I’m human and the humans think I’m Syrena. “Let her go or I’m calling the coast guard,” I say with more confidence than I feel. After all, this young girl and I look nothing alike. She has the beautiful Syrena coloring, while I probably look like a cadaver floating in the water. But it’s worth a shot, right? “And our parents prosecute.”
This is enough to season their enthusiasm with a pinch of doubt. It all unfolds in their expressions: Do mermaids talk? Do they know how to call the coast guard? Do they prosecute offenders? Did that really just happen?
Don shakes his head as if he’s come out of a trance. “Don’t listen to her, Paw. That’s what mermaids do, remember? They sing fishermen to their death! Haven’t you heard the stories? And don’t look her in the eye, neither, Paw. They hypnotize you with their eyes.”
Well, crap.
But at least she heard the exchange, and she suddenly seems to realize I’m not with them after all. “Help me!” she screams, reaching her hands to me through the net as they pull her in. Don pokes her with his finger, the same way one might touch paint to see if it’s dry. Paw laughs when she slaps his overgrown son.
But Paw doesn’t think it’s quite so funny when she bites the meaty part of his own hand, that juicy part where thumb and index connect in a tender knot. “She bit me! The little witch bit me. What’s going to happen to me, Don? Will I turn into a mermaid?”
Don sneers. “I swear you old folks are gullible. Everyone knows you don’t turn into a mermaid—”
And it’s all I can stomach. I dive below, drowning out the sounds of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumbass with a hard underwater doggie paddle to get to my pet whale. “Please, Goliath. You have to flip the boat over. Hurry!”
My heart drops as Goliath swims away from me. Did he not understand what I said? Is he afraid? Could I blame him if he was? Still, with his rapidly vanishing fin goes my only chance for helping this young Syrena—and possibly my only chance for making it back to Galen’s house anytime soon.
Just when I feel a sob creeping into my throat, threatening to escape the hopeless depths of me, I see Goliath. And he’s heading straight toward me. I shriek and move out of the way. Surely he doesn’t mean to head butt me, right? He swooshes past me and up up up. His passing momentum spins me around in a little Emma whirlpool. A loud thud resounds through the water. He’s ramming the boat. It topples, but doesn’t tip all the way over. I hear the muffled screams of Daddy and Don above. We’re definitely on the right track.
“Again, Goliath!”
Again he disappears, this time for a few seconds longer. By now I’ve wised up enough to give him a wide berth. He zips past me, and I think for sure this time he’ll tip it.
He doesn’t disappoint. The belly of the boat disappears, flipped on its back like a submissive dog. Fishing poles and cans and boots taper to the bottom of the ocean, followed by one, two, three big splashes. It doesn’t take a PhD to know which belong to the humans. Turns out, Paw and Don don’t blend in very well in their camouflage overalls.