The Tantalizing Tale of Grace Minnaugh Page 16

  “Oh,” Tanya sighed. “That sucks. Sorry, Alf.” She laid a hand on her cousin’s shoulder.

  “Nah, it’s okay,” Alfie beamed. “It was worth the try.” He was totally stoked. He really had enjoyed his near-death experience, Grace realized in disbelief.

  Tanya looked up at Alfie suspiciously. “Why are you all wet? And where are your glasses?” She looked over at Grace. “And what’s with you? You look completely exhausted.”

  “Alfie had a little accident,” Grace said casually.

  “Yeah.” Alfie nodded. “I fell out of the boat. Luckily, Grace was right there to pull me back in.”

  Right there? Not exactly, thought Grace. “Alfie may be scrawny, but when he’s wet he weighs an absolute ton,” she said.

  “Well, I hate to say it,” Tanya said, “but I’m sort of glad I wasn’t out there —it sounds like kind of a drag.”

  That’s an understatement, thought Grace.

  “Actually, it was very interesting,” said Alfie, smiling at Grace. “Your perspective really shifts when you’re out in the middle of the ocean. Things look really different out there.”

  Chapter Twenty Eight: A Fairy Tale

  The three friends each returned to their own homes. When Grace walked into her living room she found Minerva sitting on the couch sipping a hot cup of tea, her wet hair pulled back in a ponytail and her legs propped up on the coffee table. She had an ice pack over her ankles and bandages poked out from under the hem of her flannel pajama pants.

  Grace sat down beside her mother. “Still hurts even in leg form?” she asked.

  “A bit, but I’ll live. I would’ve healed faster if I’d stayed down below,” Minerva said, pushing Grace’s wet hair back from her face. “But I needed to get back up here to see you.”

  Grace snuggled under her mother’s arm. She was confused as could be, but surviving the whole Sally Mae ordeal and Minerva’s rescue made her feel closer to her mother than she had in a really long time.

  “Before I get started, Grace, where’s Alfie?”

  “He’s fine. Probably home by now,” Grace answered. “No problem. Everything is back to normal.” She left out the little matter of Alfie’s accidental but necessary discovery of her mermaid-hood.

  Minerva sighed in relief. “I hope you’ve learned that taking humans out into the open sea is a very, very dangerous move,” she said. “Don’t ever try a stunt like that again.”

  “I won’t, Mom. I promise. So come on already. Tell me what is going on with me. With you too, for that matter.”

  Minerva’s fingers grazed Grace’s tender gill bumps, which throbbed slightly from all that extra underwater time. “I’m still having a hard time believing this has really happened to you,” she murmured. “My own daughter. It’s incredible.”

  “Mom, what exactly has happened to me?” Grace asked.

  “What happened to you is because of what happened to me,” Minerva began. “I was born a mermaid—not far from the Sally Mae, in fact. I’d lived happily in the Pacific Ocean my entire life until one day when I was about twenty-four human years old, I came upon a small boat that had overturned. A man was struggling to right the boat and get back in. I had always been interested in humans, but I’d never seen a real live human person my whole mermaid life. I swam over to help him, but he was thrashing about like a fish on a line. I grabbed him to calm him down and keep him afloat. When he turned and saw my tail and my gills, he was terrified. After he recovered from his shock, I managed to hoist him onto my back and swim with him back to shore.”

  Like I did with Alfie, thought Grace. “I’ll bet the dude never forgot you,” she said.

  “He’d better not forget me!” Minerva laughed. “That dude was your father.”

  “No way!” Grace was astounded. Thoughts clicked through her mind like sums on a calculator. “I guess the story you told me about meeting in college isn’t true, then?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve never been to college,” Minerva admitted. “But it sure sounds like a lot of fun.”

  For years, Grace had carried around an image of her parents’ early courtship: a tall girl in a long peasant skirt walking next to a bearded, curly-haired guy, each carrying heavy textbooks and talking about important subjects with hard-to-pronounce names. Now she had to imagine Walter and Minerva bobbing around in the middle of the ocean, one scaly and the other sopping wet.

  “Dad in a dinghy...” mused Grace. “But he’s so uptight about the ocean. He hyperventilates if he gets his face wet.”

  “I know. But before nearly drowning that day he was perfectly comfortable at sea. At least in a boat,” Minerva chuckled. “Neptune knows how he’ll do with scuba diving.”

  Especially now that he has no scuba equipment, thanks to me, Grace thought.

  “Grace? What’s up? Are you all right?”

  “Um, I’m fine,” Grace said, deciding she was entirely too tired to tackle that thorny subject at the moment. “I’m just kinda stunned, you know?”

  “I know. This is a lot to digest. Should I go on?”

  “Yeah, definitely.”

  “Your father got over his shock once he was safely back near the beach. He was very grateful to me, and I was quite charmed by him. We met secretly every day for the rest of the summer. I hate to sound like a fairy tale, but I think I can safely say it was love at first sight.”

  “And what about now?” asked Grace.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You guys aren’t exactly acting very ‘love at first sight-ish’ these days,” Grace muttered.

  Minerva took a sip of her tea and sighed. “Well, it’s true. Your father and I haven’t exactly been seeing eye to eye on certain issues lately. Mostly we’ve been quibbling over how to handle you and your new mermaid life. But don’t worry. We’ve made many sacrifices over the years in order to stay together. I crossed over for your father, and it doesn’t get deeper than that.”

  “Crossed over?” Grace sniffled.

  Minerva smiled. “When a merperson falls in love with a human, she can make the decision to live on land. It’s called crossing over. A Crossover can still shift shapes, but only as long as the love they share with the human continues, mutually. And there are limitations. Crossovers are treated like second-class citizens underwater. Some purist merpeople won’t even talk to me. My own merfamily wouldn’t give me the time of tide, until recently.”

  “Merfamily?” Grace asked.

  “A whole motley crew,” Minerva replied with a smile. “You and I are part of a pretty important merfamily, Gracie. The Pescinas.”

  “Pescinas? I thought your maiden name was Percy.”

  Minerva smiled. “Percy sounded more human, and when I first crossed over I wanted to be as human as possible.”

  “You told me you were an orphan,” Grace cried. “What happened to Aunt Hattie, who died right before you went to college? Oh yeah, I forgot. No college.”

  “Sorry. No Aunt Hattie either.” Minerva shrugged.

  Another myth Grace would have to dismiss.

  “So, no, I’m definitely not an orphan,” said Minerva. “Just a rebellious mermaid.”

  Grace’s head was reeling. “So where is this important merfamily?”

  “In an underwater colony called Osariana. There’s your mer-grandpapaeria Nereus, your grandmother Circe, your meruncle Coralio, and your mercousin Ariana.”

  “When can I meet them?”

  “Soon, Gracie. Very soon. I’m still, well, making amends with them. We didn’t part on very good terms. And I owe you an apology, too.”

  “How so?”

  “Many times when I said I was going to L.A. to meet with Daniel about my show, or taking beach jogs I was really swimming out to Osariana to see my merfamily. Or spying on you! You and your brother clearly suffered from my absence. And absence of truth is still a k
ind of lie.”

  Tell me about it, thought Grace. I’m an expert at that kind of lie. But for the time being she stayed focused on her mother’s story. “What happened exactly between you and your other family?”

  “As I said, some merpeople aren’t too keen on mixed marriages. And your mer-grandparents are among them. I guess you could say the Pescinas are pillars of the Osariana community. Or rather, were pillars. My crossing over was a blow to their purist reputation. They were furious with me when I decided to cross over, and I was even more furious with them for being so closed-minded. Being near the ocean was just too painful after I decided to become a Crossover. That’s why your father and I moved to Floral Park, Ohio. The farthest spot from the Pacific or the Atlantic.”

  “Well, you didn’t seem all that happy in Floral Park, Mom,” said Grace. “Not toward the end, anyhow.”

  “It worked for a while. I thought I could shut mer-life out of my mind forever, but I was wrong. About a year and a half ago, I started to crave the ocean. My skin started to itch. I had trouble breathing. I had no energy. I couldn’t even paint. And don’t take this the wrong way, Gracie, but now I realize it was your development that was making me sick.”

  “What did I have to do with it? Nothing was different about me a year and a half ago,” Grace protested.

  “Actually, you were different, but no one could have realized it except me, and I was so shut down that I didn’t recognize the signs.”

  “Signs?”

  “Nothing terribly obvious. But think about it. That was when you started asking for a pet fish, and after years of eating only peanut butter sandwiches and pasta, you wanted shrimp salad sandwiches and clam chowder. The only TV show that interested you in the slightest was Sponge Bob. And, yes, while it’s a very funny and smart cartoon, it also takes place underwater.”

  “Huh. I guess that’s all true,” Grace admitted.

  “Normally, merpeople are highly intuitive, Gracie. But back in Floral Park I was completely lacking in intuitive awareness. Underwater, I can sense changes in other creatures before there are any outward shifts or signs. You can, too.”

  “What do you mean?” Grace asked.

  “How else could you have heard my cries at the Sally Mae?”

  “But you were screaming your head off.”

  “No, I wasn’t.” Minerva shook her head and smiled. “I was feeling intense pain, but I wasn’t screaming. You just sensed my distress. Welcome to the world of mer-intuition, Gracie.”

  “Whoa,” Grace gasped. “This is deep.”

  Minerva nodded. “Yep, real deep. But in Ohio, I didn’t realize what was happening to both of us until you went to Mrs. Shelby’s and met Nellie, your fish friend. That’s when my internal alarm finally sounded. Your dad and I agreed it was time for you to discover your destiny; it was time to get you near an ocean to see what would happen, well, naturally. We were lucky that La Toya University offered your father a position in their Psychology Department.” Minerva smiled.

  “So, if you’re a Crossover and Dad’s human, what does that make me?” Grace asked.

  Minerva smiled. “A Mixer.”

  “Mixer?” Grace cried. “Isn’t that something people drink with alcohol? Excuse me, but I refuse to be a liquid.”

  Minerva shook her head. “Not that kind of mixer, Grace. It’s extremely rare for a child of a human and a Crossover to develop mer-capabilities. Usually those kids just turn into excellent swimmers. But you’re different, Gracie. You are one in a million. A Mixer has no limitations. When you’re on land you’re all girl, and when you’re underwater you’re all mermaid. You have the best of both worlds.”

  “What about Stuey?” asked Grace. “Is he a Mixer also?”

  “Too soon to tell. He does seem to be getting more curious about the ocean, though he’s still not willing to put his head underwater. And complete Mixer transformation usually doesn’t occur until age eleven or twelve. But we may see some signs before that.”

  Grace got up off the couch and started pacing. She could relax about her parents’ marriage, but she was starting to feel overwhelmed about the Mixer stuff. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me any of this before. It might have been nice to have some warning.”

  “You’re probably right, Grace. I am sorry. I screwed up. Your father wanted to tell you from the beginning, but I wouldn’t let him. As I said, you and your fish tail have caused some friction between us lately.”

  “I’ll say,” Grace sighed.

  “But I wanted you to discover your true nature all on your own. It’s the mermaid in me. We tend to be a bit too independent sometimes. Your father’s human approach might’ve been better.”

  And then, as if he knew he was being talked about, Walter finally appeared. “Gracie!”

  Grace turned. Her father stood in the doorway with Stuey flopped over his right shoulder, fast asleep. Walter looked sleep-deprived and testy. His sports coat barely covered his torn-to-shreds Ohio State T-shirt. He was still wearing his pajama pants covered with smiley faces, and his sneakers were unlaced.

  “Let me get rid of this load,” grunted Walter. He took Stuey to his room and returned in a few minutes. “Now where the devil have you been?” Before Grace had a chance to answer, he added, “Let me guess. The Sally Mae.”

  For a moment Grace was shocked to hear her dad mention the shipwreck. But duh, of course he knows, she thought. It seemed her parents knew just about everything. “Um, yeah,” Grace said softly. “That’s where I was.”

  “You found her?” he asked Minerva.

  Minerva nodded. “It seems that Grace and her friends planned a little shipwreck discovery.”

  Walter’s eyes got wide. “Friends? What the.…”

  Minerva shushed him. “Don’t worry, Walt. No shipwreck discovery and no mermaid discovery. Our secret is safe for the time being.”

  Walter scratched his head and sighed. “Well, at some point I would appreciate being filled in on the details of today’s little foray. But meanwhile, thank god you’re all right, Gracie. We were worried sick.” Walter pulled Grace into a tight, comforting hug. “My very own little mermaid. Who would’ve thought?”

  Grace felt suddenly overcome with exhaustion, almost collapsing in her father’s arms. “I think I need to lie down,” she murmured.

  “I think we could all use a bit of sleep,” said Minerva, rising from the couch. “Come on, Minnaughs. Time for some shut-eye.”

  In her bedroom, though, Grace found she couldn’t go right to sleep. She was so jumbled up inside that she thought she might explode. Pacing her room, Grace twisted her salt-stiffened curls with icy fingers. She was still wearing her damp bikini, and her skin was goose-bumped and itchy. Deciding a a hot bath might be just what she needed, Grace soaked for twenty minutes to warm herself up and rinse off the salt. As she lay in the tub, she thought of all the questions she still wanted to ask her mermaid mom and her dinghy-dipping dad.

  Wrapped up in a warm towel, Grace sat on her beanbag chair with the S LLY E box on her lap, absent-mindedly snacking on her secret stash of candy, now held in Mrs. Shelby’s lopsided bowl. Eventually she would find a way to return the box to the wreck, but for now she wanted to hold on to it. The box felt like a nice reminder of the insane—but ultimately awesome—last few weeks of her life.

  There was one last thing Grace wanted to do before she went to bed. She went to her desk and got out her lavender note pad.

  Dear Mrs. S.,

  First off, the bowl is AWESOME!!!! It is my favorite thing ever. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

  Secondly, I hope you’re sitting down again while you’re reading this letter because boy oh boy do I have some really important things to tell you. I guess you could say “the sea-beans have been spilled.” And talk about shenanigans...

  Chapter Twenty Seven: At Last

  Three s
tale Nestle’s Crunches and four rock-hard Butterfingers later, Grace finally fell fast asleep for the rest of the day and into the night. But at four in the morning, she was roused by someone shaking her shoulder and whispering, “Come on, sleepyhead. It’s time to get going.”

  “What the…?”

  Minerva whipped the blanket off Grace. “You and me, Gracie. Let’s hustle.” Minerva wore her terrycloth robe, with another in her arms for Grace. “I’ve been saving this robe for you, Gracie. Take off your pajamas, change into your bikini, and put this on. Your Velcro technique is brilliant, by the way. I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed the idea for my swimsuit.”

  Grace felt really stupid. If she had ever actually looked at her mother’s swimsuit while it was lying about on her parents’ bed, or hanging from a hook on the back of her parents’ bathroom, she might have noticed the Velcroed strip, figured out her mother was also a mermaid, and saved herself a mess of stress. “Just don’t start borrowing my clothes or anything,” Grace grumbled as she stumbled out of bed. “It’s one thing to borrow ideas, but mother-daughter dressing is totally not my thing.”

  Obviously this wasn’t going to be a lame beach jog. This was going to be a swim, a real swim. Grace put on her bikini and tied the sash of her new robe around her waist.

  “Where are we going?” Grace asked as they slipped out the veranda door and down to the beach.

  “Just follow me,” Minerva told her with a grin as she raced toward the surf and plunged into the water.

  Minerva was already in mermaid form by the time Grace arrived beside her. “That was quick,” said Grace.

  “There are some advantages to age,” Minerva said with a smile, her mermaid voice like velvet. “Not many, but some.” She fluttered away in a flash, her fishtail fully healed and operational again.