Teenage Mermaid

Could it be that easy? Thank goodness Madame Pearl was well organized. She had labeled all her ingredients. I grabbed and cut, dashed and pinched, combined and shook the contents. But what about the magic? I found an unmarked box of gold dust - surely that must be the sprinkle of magic. I added it to the horrible yet heavenly sweet mixture and sealed it with a cork. My Earthee potion was ready to go. Hey, I was pretty good at this. Maybe I could open my own shop.

"You forgot the magic!" a voice shouted.

Startled, I dropped the bottle, but before I could

"Madame Pearl!" I said, breathless.

"Didn't you read the sign?" she asked sternly, floating before me, my bottle clutched in her hands.

"I was desperate! I need another bottle."

"The first potion didn't work?" she asked skeptically. "I don't do refunds."

"It worked perfectly! But I need to make one more trip."

"I thought you spent all your savings?"

"Well . . ."

"So were you going to leave me your lunch money?"

"I was going to write an IOU. Please, Madame Pearl!" I pleaded. "I'd explain, but you wouldn't understand - "

"Wouldn't I?" She glared at me hard. "You're in love!"

"I thought you weren't a psychic."

"You don't need to be a psychic to spot love. You have all the signs. Irrational behavior. Defiance. And that special sparkle in your eyes."

"It shows?"

"It's oozing out of your heart. Besides, no one would go back to Earth, with its polluting cars, salty codfish, or those painful high heels - unless they were in love."

She paused. Then she pushed back a stack of boxes marked EDIBLE HERBS, dug her thick hands into the sandy floor and pulled out a photograph protected by clear plastic. It captured a handsome man in a sailor suit, holding a white flower.

"I spotted him on a ship while I was swimming one day a long time ago," she confessed in a dreamy voice. "We stared at each other for miles - he on the boat, I in the water. He invited me aboard, but of course I couldn't go. But I followed his ship to dock and I met him early the next morning as an Earthee. He was like a Greek god, and in those days I had a slim figure and golden curls. That was so long ago," she said, tugging at her bulging black skirt. "We were passionately in love. We wed within hours. But I stole away in the night. And I never went back."

"Why not?"

"I wasn't brave - I mean - foolish enough."

"But don't you regret it now?"

"I wasn't much older than you," she said, trying to convince me I was being immature.

"Please, Madame Pearl, let me have the second chance you've always wished for! Don't let me make the same mistake!"

"I could lose my shop!"

The word touched her heart and she gazed thoughtfully back at the picture. "Sometimes, when I hear a boat go by, I hear his voice call my name."

"Madame Pearl," I said, looking at her shell clock.

"But you won't take any steps with this potion you made," she suddenly declared in her normal, practical voice. "You need magic!"

"But I already put it in."

"You added golden dust. I can see it shimmering. It won't hurt you. It might make you tired. But it won't give you legs."

"Then what do I do?" I asked desperately.

"Hold the bottle to your heart," she said, handing it to me.

I held it fast.

"Now close your eyes and think of him."

"Is that what you did last time? Think of your old love?" I felt a sudden connection with the old woman.

I closed my eyes, and a huge smile came over my face.

"That's enough," she said.

I uncorked the bottle and gulped the potion down before her eyes. This time I didn't even flinch. "How much do I owe you, Madame Pearl?"

"You're not going to come back just to pay me," she said, gazing again at her sailor, so I quietly drifted away.

"We're not married!" Calvin muttered, after I approached him at his locker. "How should I know where she is? Who are you, anyway?"

I replayed yesterday's events in my mind. Her excitement over the stuffed swan, eating cotton candy as if for the first time. Graciously handing the beggar her coffee. Clinging to me desperately in the hall of mirrors, and then the way she suddenly pulled me into her and kissed me like a girl who's not afraid of anything. I realized I didn't even know her last name,

Chainsaw, Robin, and I went to the nosebleed section of the football bleachers for lunch. Robin sat a few rows down reading Rolling Stone, Chainsaw was watching The Fugitive on his million-dollar laptop, while I stood in the last row, facing away from the field, looking for Lilly among the throngs of students milling outside. The bleachers were the highest point at school, save for the flagpole. And I thought we'd look pretty silly if Lilly did wander in and spy me clinging to a pole underneath the stars and stripes.

"You did see her yesterday, didn't you?" I asked, frustrated. "I couldn't have dreamed about her twice?"

"Yeah, dude, I saw her!" Chainsaw said. "But I'm not sure that I didn't dream about her last night. That body? Delicious!"

"Don't talk that way about her!" I said, tossing a plastic cup at him.

"Or me either!" Robin said sarcastically. "I hate it when the two of you fawn all over me!"

"Take a Valium, dude! You'll see her again," Chainsaw said, adjusting his headphones.

"Maybe she got mugged. Or kidnapped."

"It would have been on the news," Chainsaw said. "Her parents would have called the school."

"A lot of help you are," I shouted back. But then I thought of my angel, helpless, like a caged bird. "Could it be true?"

"You both need to get out more," Robin complained.

"This is making me crazy!" I shouted.

"Chill out! Maybe she's sick," Chainsaw finally said. "Did you ever think of that? She is human after all."

"She did have cramps at the pier," I remembered, sitting down next to him.

"Sure - it's her girlie time! She took the day off to chew on Midol, eat Ben and Jerry's and bawl her eyes out talking on the phone to her best friend."

"You think so?" I asked eagerly.

"I know so! You've seen how psycho my mom gets - one minute she flies off the handle because the toilet seat's up, the next minute she cries at a Hallmark commercial. Believe me, you're better off not seeing her!"

I returned to my lookout post and leaned on the aluminum railing. Maybe Chainsaw was right. But I couldn't wait until tomorrow to find out.

Mrs. Linwood, our airhead school secretary, was

"Candy - she didn't show up today. Is she sick?"

"Excuse me?" Mrs. Linwood asked, startled.

"Candy. The transfer student."

"Oh, I met her yesterday. Lovely girl," she said, plopping into her chair.

"Is she sick?" I asked.

"No one called in for her today."

"Do you know where she is?"

"If I did, that information would be confidential."

"She's my lab partner in Mr. Johnson's class. We have an assignment due today," I lied.

"But she just transferred yesterday. How could she have an assignment due today?"

"Ask Mr. Johnson. I don't think it's fair. That's why I need your help!"

"But - "

"It's thirty percent of our final grade. I could fail the whole quarter! He's a madman, really."

"Well . . ."

"Please, it's up to you to save the day," I begged.

"All right, all right. Let me take a look at the records." She shuffled through the heap of files on her desk and picked up a Post-it. "One call was made to her house at noon. No one answered. They didn't have

She went back to her bloated file cabinet.

"Can you call again, please? Now? She's also supposed to go to the fireworks with me tonight," I confessed.

"With you?" she asked, skeptically.

"Please?" I begged.

"Oh, all right." Mrs. Linwood pulled my angel's record from her cabinet and punched in the phone number.

It rang forever. Mrs. Linwood shook her head and began to put the phone down. "Hello? Hello?" she suddenly said. "Yes, Seaside High School calling. Candy was supposed to be in school today, but no one has . . . yes . . . Candy Hartman . . . She transferred here yesterday . . . but she was standing right in front of me! Yes . . . Yes . . . Yes . . . Oh, I see . . . Thank you."

She hung up the phone, confused and silent.

"Well?"

"That was the plumber."

"The plumber!"

"Seems the Hartmans' Realtor sent him. The family refused to move into the new home until they had brand-new pipes. They're still living in their house . . . in Utah."

"But I just saw her yesterday!"

"Then who was the girl I talked to at school?"

"Who was the girl I talked to at school? Oh, my! You must not tell anyone about this. Oh, dear, oh, dear! This could mean my job!"

Who was this angel girl? Where was this angel girl? And would I ever find out?

I fingered the necklace in my pocket, more confused than ever.

"You've been zoned, man," Chainsaw said at the Seaside Pier Arcade, after I filled him in. "Totally Twilight Zoned! Like now I think maybe we all dreamed it."

"It's a nightmare to me," I said. "I see her underwater, then I don't. I see her at school, then I don't. I see her at the pier, and then I don't. Lilly . . . that's all I know."

"You think you know," Robin interjected. "Her name could really be George."

"In which case you could find her on the corner of Fifth and Main." Chainsaw laughed.

"I just want to wake up a couple years from now. Then maybe all this'll somehow make sense."

"You can't sleep. The fireworks are tonight," Chainsaw said cheerfully.

"Sure you are, dude! It's summer's first blow-out. You have to go."

"I'll be there," Robin reminded me. "I'm the one woman in your life that doesn't disappear."

"I appreciate that." I sighed, giving her a hug.

"I'll pick you up at eight," Chainsaw commanded.