Friday

The girls lounged on the school lawn before first period, enjoying the morning sunshine and anticipating the weekend. Then Lewis walked up and threatened to ruin everything.

"I have found the best thing ever!" he gushed. "It is going to rewrite mermaid history as you know it. Actually, no, it is mermaid history."

"What are you on about, Lewis?" Rikki asked.

"This." Lewis dropped a large, dark brown, worn book in front of them, then he sat next to them.

"A fairy tale book," Emma said, unimpressed.

"A mermaid mythology book," Lewis corrected her. "Published in 1908. Limited print. I found it on the net. It's priceless, and it is totally legit."

"It's a kids' book," Rikki said.

"No, it's a mermaid manual!" Lewis insisted.

Rikki opened the book to find a drawing. "Right. With, um, pop-up illustrations and a color-in section!"

"Of course, it looks like a kids' book!" Lewis said. "But that's just a front! How else could they get the stuff about mermaids published?"

"Lewis, you got ripped off," Rikki said. She and Emma climbed to their feet and walked off.

Cleo leaned forward, grabbed the book, and thumbed through it.

"What do you think?" Lewis asked her.

"It's got that dank, dusty smell. I guess that's something."

"There's more. There's a whole section on magical powers: controlling them, enhancing them, getting new ones."

Cleo turned one more page and her eyes lit up. "Wish-giving!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a potion. Gives you the power to grant a wish. Pretty cool, huh?"

"Yeah. Cool!"

And Cleo got an idea.

 

After school, Lewis and Cleo entered Juicenet, Cleo clutching the book to her chest. They joined Rikki at the counter. Emma, working behind the counter, joined them as well, leaning in to hear.

"Maybe Lewis is right," Cleo said. "What if the book is for real? We could have the power to grant wishes! There's a recipe and everything!"

Rikki was exasperated. "Wish-giving! Come on!"

"All Cleo wants to do is give it a try," Lewis said. "Where's the harm in that?"

"Lewis, what have you said to poison her mind?" Rikki asked.

"He hasn't said anything," Cleo insisted. "I just think this could be really useful."

Emma and Rikki looked doubtful.

"Come on, guys!" Cleo pleaded. "For me!"

Emma and Rikki thought for a second, then spoke at the same time.

"Okay," Emma said.

"Whatever," Rikki agreed.

"Excellent!" Cleo said.

"Okay," Lewis said. "Now, there are a few hard-to-get ingredients. Um, deep-sea algae; fungus; three different types of reef scum." He looked up. "You guys will need to help."

"Let's leave that to Cleo, shall we?" Rikki said, patting her arm.

Wilfred walked past. As he did, he said, "Emma, emergency staff meeting."

Puzzled, Emma followed Wilfred through the double doors into the back of the restaurant. They were alone.

"Bad news," Wilfred said.

"What?"

"Business is dropping. There's that new place opening up on the other side of the marina. I may have to close down."

Emma was astonished. "But you can't just give in! You've got to do something!"

"I thought I did! I spent all this money renovating this place, and business is still down."

"You need to advertise, show people how great it is here." She thought for a moment. "Make a TV commercial!"

"I can't afford that!"

"Sure you can! Just something simple and straight to the point." Emma smiled. "To save money, you could even direct it."

"Yeah, I could," he said quietly, evidently quite taken with that idea. Then he grinned. "And you can star in it!"

Emma was mildly stunned. "What?"

But Wilfred's enthusiasm was now fully kindled. "Be here tomorrow morning if you want to keep your job!" he said with a mischievous smile.

 

Late that night, after Juicenet had closed, the four friends stood around a bowl in the walk-in cooler. Reading the recipe out loud, Lewis carefully added ingredients to the bowl. He finished with, "Two spoonfuls of golden algae...one...two...one tuft of seaweed...aaaand half a cup of reef fungus."

"What now?" Cleo asked.

Lewis continued reading. "Now, we need to add some magic. You guys need to zap it with your powers."

"All of us at the same time?" Emma asked.

Lewis checked. "Uhhhh...yes."

"Like this is gonna work!" Rikki complained.

"Just try it," Lewis said.

Cleo, Emma, and Rikki stretched out their hands, and infused the concoction with mermaid magic.

Saturday

Eighteen hours later, the four friends sat at a table on the Juicenet patio, looking glum. Emma, who had just finished her shift moments earlier, held her head in her hands.

"One day," she said. "One. Freaking. Day. That's how long it took for disaster to pounce. All I did was come back to work, and within 24 hours, I've already lied to my boss and covered up the fact that his restaurant was almost swallowed by our magical wish slime."

"Well, you guys did wonder how you'd top last weekend," Lewis said.

"And if you recall, I advised that we not try!" Emma said hotly. Her fingertips were still splayed around her temples, her elbows on the table.

Rikki said, "Yeah, but we dodged trouble at the last second like we always do, so everything's cool!"

Emma raised her head just enough to glare a single eye at Rikki, who had the decency to look abashed, knowing that, after all, she was the one who had made the slime grow like a monster in the first place. Emma lowered her head into her hands again.

"Can we please call it something other than wish slime?" Cleo asked quietly.

"It's a potion," Lewis said.

"It's slime," Rikki said. "It's disgusting, green, bubbling slime, and it stinks. Don't dress it up and put lipstick on it."

Cleo said, "It's just...I saved a jarful of it, and it'll be harder to use it again if we call it slime."

"Good!" Rikki said. "Let's not use it at all! Nothing good has come of it. And don't fairy tales always warn about how wishes are actually bad? Like, they backfire or something?"

"Rikki's right," Emma said. She raised her head and sighed. "Even though we've figured out how to use it, let's never use that stuff again."

"I think I agree," Cleo said, recalling her father's wise words about wishing for her mother to come back. "But I'm still keeping what we've got. Just in case."

"At least you filmed your commercial," Lewis said to Emma, trying to cheer her up.

She shrugged. "Yeah, we did. And it should generate the buzz Wilfred needs to stay open." She let out a deep sigh. "But...I just want the emergencies to stop! Just once, I'd like to work a normal shift, at my normal job, with no wish slimes, or frozen people, or any other mermaid madness!"

"Mermaid Madness," Rikki said. "If we ever start a band, that's our name." She looked around the table. "Anyone up for a swim before tonight?"

Cleo shook her head. "I went out for a while about noon, and now I'm tired. I need a nap before tonight."

"I need to do laundry," Emma said.

A thoughtful frown took over Cleo's face. Hesitantly, she asked, "Does anyone else feel weird about tonight?"

"In what way?" Emma asked.

"I don't know," Cleo said, looking puzzled. "I don't have the words, and maybe it's nothing. Just...something about our parents getting this dinner together...it just feels weird. Forced, maybe? But, not really. It's...oh, I don't know how to say it."

Emma shrugged. "It's been a while since our families did anything together, and with Rikki being our new bestie, it's only natural our parents would want to meet her dad."

"That's just it," Cleo said. "It is perfectly natural. But somehow...it still feels off. Like there's something about tonight I can feel, but I can't see." She shrugged. "Or maybe I'm just jumping at shadows. Seeing moon pool coincidences and other stuff everywhere."

Rikki gave a tiny shake of her head. "I'm not really feeling anything weird."

"Yeah, I think it's just you," Emma said to Cleo.

Cleo nodded, accepting that they were probably right.

 

At 5:45, Thelma purred into the Gilbert driveway. Rikki, wearing a small backpack, sat behind her father, her arms around his chest. Terry wore his best black jeans and a navy blue button-up shirt. Rikki wore one of her favorites, a black T-shirt under her dark, flower-print button-up shirt, which she kept unbuttoned. She had debated whether tonight was a pigtail night or a knock-'em-dead night. Because she wasn't trying to impress anyone, she had ultimately gone with pigtails, though it had been a close call.

Father and daughter dismounted. Rikki pulled two bottles of wine out of the backpack, where they had been safely surrounded by tissue paper. She handed one to her father, and draped the backpack over Thelma's handlebars. In this neighborhood, the backpack was unlikely to be stolen.

Emma greeted them at the door in a purple shirt and nice jeans.

"Come on in!" Emma said. "Hi, Terry!" During the cookout at Rikki's house, Rikki's father had asked her friends to call him Terry.

"Hiya, Emma!" Terry said.

"Purple," Rikki said as she stepped inside. "Are you Cleo tonight?"

"Cleo doesn't own the color," Emma said. "Besides, she'll approve."

Emma introduced Terry to the rest of the Gilbert family, with enthusiastic handshakes all around. Rikki had coached her father ahead of time so he wouldn't forget their names.

Terry presented them the bottles of wine. One was red, the other sparkling white.

"Oh, you didn't have to do thaaaaaat!" Lisa said, gushing.

"But I wanted to!" Terry said with a grin.

"Arch Falls Winery," Neil said, reading the labels. "I haven't heard of them."

"I hadn't either until today," Terry said. "But I wanted something local, and they're just a couple hours up the coast. They're highly rated, but if they turn out to be not that good..." He shrugged and smiled. "Oh, well. We'll find out."

They all laughed.

A few minutes later, the Sertoris arrived, and more handshakes went around. Cleo wore a purple skirt and several necklaces beaded with wooden trinkets, which would have looked tacky on almost anyone else, but always looked elegant on her for some reason. Kim wore a simple, nice green skirt. Terry and Don had a bonding moment when they discovered they'd worn practically identical outfits.

While Terry met the Sertoris, Emma pulled Rikki to one side. "Thank you for the wine, but we didn't want your dad to bust his wallet for this," she whispered.

"It's all right," Rikki whispered back. "Dad's new job pays pretty well because it's difficult, so he's making decent money now, and he gets paid weekly. The wine didn't hurt us much. Promise."

Emma nodded, satisfied.

Dinner was nice, because it's hard to go wrong with chicken parmesan, salad with vinaigrette, and garlic bread fresh from the oven. Neil poured the wines, and everyone agreed that both were really good. A great time was had by all. Don, Lisa, and Neil told Terry a little about themselves, and were fascinated, in turn, to hear about the Chadwicks' cross-continent journey, and their subsequent arrival on the Gold Coast.

Just three weeks into his new job, Terry already had a small collection of funny stories. His biggest hit was the drunk woman who had arrived by taxi to retrieve her car just hours after it had been towed, but because she was drunk, Terry refused to give her her keys. Then the woman forgot where she was and ordered a burger and a shake, then berated Terry for half an hour, demanding her money back because her food was taking too long! The police finally arrived and mercifully took her away. The others were howling by the time Terry finished.

Making a new acquaintance gave Don a fresh opportunity to tell his favorite story of all time. Johnno had been standing on deck, holding an open crate of fish, and had just finished complaining that the day's catch had been disappointingly light. At that exact moment, a needlefish leaped out of the water and sailed right into the crate, perfectly. The timing and the placement could not possibly have been better. Johnno was so startled, he fell backwards while still holding the crate, spilling fish all over his face, the deck, and overboard. The live needlefish slid back into the water, miraculously surviving the ordeal. The others had heard the story more times than they could count, but Terry and Rikki laughed loudly, suitably amazed.

Throughout the meal, Don, Lisa, and Neil carefully watched Cleo, Emma, and Rikki without seeming to. Whenever any of those girls got water on her hands – from picking up a cold drink, or from touching the chicken parmesan's tomato sauce – she wiped her hands clean and dry within a few seconds. But she always did it very casually, almost subconsciously, with no urgency or concern. By itself, this indicated nothing, as many people do the same every day. Yet, somehow, it seemed to indicate something. Perhaps it was the consistency with which they did it. Lift a cold drink, wipe the hands dry; a few seconds later, do it again. It was somehow mildly fanatic, without seeming to be. Don and Neil caught each other's eye once, but it was clear that neither man had an answer, or was even certain they were seeing anything relevant.

While Lisa served dessert (pie with ice cream), she casually asked, "So girls, where did you get your matching necklaces? They're so pretty."

The girls traded looks of awkwardness and panic for about a tenth of a second, almost too fast for anyone to catch, except perhaps subconsciously. But Cleo smoothly rose to the occasion, and went with mostly truth.

"That's actually how we met Ms. Chatham," she said. She asked Terry, "You know who Ms. Chatham is, right?"

Terry looked at Rikki. "Is she the elderly woman you met at the marina, whose boat sank?"

"Yeah, that's her," Rikki said.

Cleo continued her story. "You remember that night we all got stranded on Mako Island because of Zane and his stupid boat, and the police picked us up? That was the day Emma and I met Rikki. Well, that night, Emma found the locket I'm wearing at the bottom of a pool on Mako Island."

"At night?" Lisa asked.

"It was a full moon, and the silver reflected the light," Cleo said. "Emma was only partially interested in the locket, but she knew I liked it, so she gave it to me. Then Ms. Chatham came to the marine park one day to watch the dolphin show, and she saw me wearing it, and she recognized it! She had an identical one, except for the stone.

"Ms. Chatham and two of her close friends were given these lockets fifty years ago, when they were our age. They're identical except for the blue, white, and red stones. The lockets symbolized their friendship. But some sad things happened – Ms. Chatham doesn't really talk much about what – and one of her friends threw her locket away on Mako Island, which is how Emma found it there."

Everyone in the room listened, fascinated. Lisa had even paused handing out plates. She stood, enrapt, forgetting the plate in her hand.

Cleo continued. "Then, by a bizarre coincidence, just a couple months later, Rikki spotted the third locket in a jewelry store window. It came from the estate of a woman who had passed away, which must have been Ms. Chatham's other friend. Rikki was dating Zane at the time, so Zane bought the locket for her, and Rikki gave it to Ms. Chatham.

"When Ms. Chatham saw that we had brought the other two lockets from her childhood back into her life, she was so moved, she gave the locket Rikki rescued back to Rikki, and she gave her own locket to Emma, because she said they belonged together. She insisted. She wanted very much for us to have them, to give them a second chance at representing a friendship. I think the three of us remind her of herself and her friends, before she lost them, so we give her some kind of happiness in that way. So that's how we got the lockets, and why we always wear them."

The entire room was silent. Everyone, even Elliot and Kim, were deeply moved.

"Do they open?" Lisa asked.

Cleo took hers off and held it out to Lisa. "Yes, but the hinge on mine is just starting to go. I hope to get it fixed this week."

Lisa set down the plate she was holding and took the locket. She gazed at it, then opened it. "Nothing inside," she said.

"No, no photo," Cleo said.

She, Emma, and Rikki were perfectly casual, but inside, their hearts were pounding. If anyone in the room asked about photos in either of the other two lockets, they would see mermaids. The girls felt like they were millimeters from disaster.

Lisa smiled, closed the locket, and handed it back. "That's lovely of Ms. Chatham to do that."

As Cleo smiled and took the locket, Lisa looked at Emma and said, "You never told me any of this."

Emma looked abashed. "I didn't want to make a big deal of it."

"This is the first I've heard of any of this, too," Don said.

"Me three," Terry said, looking at Rikki. Not with accusation, though, just wonder.

Emma said, "Well...it was kind of an awkward, personal story, that really felt like Ms. Chatham's, rather than ours."

"Yeah, we just didn't want to call attention to the lockets," Rikki said, and looked at her father. "It's hard to explain, but most of the time, we just don't talk about them."

"We just feel it's enough that we wear them," Cleo said.

"Do you continue to see Ms. Chatham?" Neil asked.

"At least once a week," Cleo said. "She's actually asked us to call her Louise instead of Ms. Chatham."

"We saw her just two nights ago," Rikki said. "She's doing well. We get on like a house on fire."

"That's good," Lisa said. "I'm glad you continue to visit her. I got the impression she didn't really have anyone else in her life."

The girls shook their heads. "No, I don't think she does," Cleo agreed.

Pleasant conversation continued throughout dessert, and afterward. The evening ended just as wonderfully as it began, with the parents exchanging phone numbers and hugs all around.

Terry drove home alone because Rikki and Emma wanted to visit the beach for a while. Cleo left with her family because she had an early shift at the marine park in the morning.

Sunday

The next afternoon, Lewis, Emma, Cleo, and Rikki strolled along an unfamiliar beachfront until they came to a small house whose white paint had weathered over the years. They walked to its front door, and Cleo knocked.

A slender, somewhat short elderly man with a thin white beard answered. "Yes? Hello?"

"Hi," Cleo said. "Are you Max Hamilton?"

"Does he owe you money?" the man asked.

The teenagers smiled. "Not as far as I know," Cleo said.

The man gave a friendly smile in response. "Then I'm Max Hamilton."

"Hi. I'm Cleo, this is Rikki, Emma, and Lewis. Do you perhaps recognize the lockets we're wearing?"

Max's eyes shifted down a fraction, and his face went a little pale.

Oddly, Lewis got a mental flashback of the moment Ben Kenobi first heard Luke say "Obi-Wan" in the original Star Wars. It was the thin white beard on an elderly man, and the same look of astonishment and unexpected memory in his eyes.

Max stared, his eyes moving among all three lockets. "That's...that's..."

He finally looked back up to Cleo's eyes and simply said, "That's extraordinary."

"Is that a yes?" Rikki asked. Emma nudged her, and Rikki nudged back.

"Oh, yes. Yes, I recognize the lockets."

Cleo said, "To be perfectly blunt, Mr. Hamilton, we're friends of Louise Chatham, and we're mermaids."

Max blinked a few times, then his eyes shifted to Lewis. "Even you?"

"Oh, no, no," all four of them said hastily and emphatically, quickly shaking their heads.

"Yeah, I'm...their friend."

"You know, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it," Max said. "Being a merman. To hell with societal norms. Embrace it wholeheartedly!"

"Yeah, agreed. I gladly would. But...really, truly, I'm just their friend."

"Her boyfriend," Rikki said, nodding to Cleo. Emma nudged her again; Rikki nudged her back again.

"I see," said Max, who'd missed absolutely none of the nudging, nor any other nuance standing in front of him.

Lewis got the distinct impression that Max missed very little.

"May we come in?" Cleo asked.

Max nodded. "Yes, absolutely. Yes, come on in."

The teenagers followed him into a house which was nicely cluttered: very lived in, but not slovenly in any way. "Uh, let's sit at the dining table," Max said. He stepped into a room just off the entrance and moved a stack of science journals off the table onto the floor. "The living room is a little busy at the moment."

The house was small enough that they could easily see the living room, and it was, indeed, busy. On the sofa were two piles of regular books and a pile of graphic novels. The recliner was occupied with an almost-finished Lego Starship Enterprise, NCC-1701-D.

As they sat, Max spoke good-naturedly. "So, first things first: how is Louise?"

"Her husband passed away a number of years ago, and her boat sank," Rikki said. "She's in a rest home, now."

Emma prepared to nudge Rikki again, because she knew Rikki was dying to say, "And she could really use visits from friends." But Rikki held back, so, so did Emma. Rikki knew Emma was poised to nudge her, so they locked eyes, in a friendly way, just for a moment.

There were a lot of unspoken things going on between Rikki and Emma.

"Yes, I knew of her husband," Max said. "But I haven't seen Louise since a few weeks after his funeral."

Emma tensed, and Rikki fought down an urge to drop a judgmental hint or three about how Louise wasn't that far away and Max didn't seem all that busy.

Max casually pointed at Emma's locket and said, "I can somewhat guess how you came by that." He motioned to Rikki's locket and said, "I can, sadly, somewhat guess how you came by that."

He turned to Cleo, and couldn't mask the trembling. He lifted his hand, in a weak effort to point. "But..."

He sat, frozen, for several seconds, his eyes fixed on the locket with the blue stone, his mouth working with emotion.

His face dissolved into tears. His lip trembled, and he held his hand to his mouth. He couldn't take his eyes off the locket.

"Oh," Cleo said softly. Everyone in the room was deeply affected.

Cleo reached behind her neck and took off the locket, and held it out to him. Max gently took it in his shaking hand.

"Yes," Cleo said gently. "This was Gracie's."

"It was," Max whispered. He held the locket, gazing at it, tears streaming down his face. "Until she threw it away." Gently, he opened it, looked for a moment, closed it, looked for another moment.

He finally raised his eyes to Cleo. "How did you come by this?"

Cleo nodded toward Emma. "Emma found it, at the moon pool. We had just become mermaids a few days earlier, and we didn't know what happened to us, or why."

Emma said, "I swam to the moon pool looking for answers. I found that locket, instead."

Slowly, the girls told Max the rough highlights of the way they became mermaids, their struggles to understand their situation, the way they'd befriended Louise, and how they had come to own all three lockets. Max quickly dried his tears, and held Cleo's locket as they spoke.

"So the moon pool has done it again," Max said. "Gifted three girls with mermaid power." He looked at Lewis. "And, as before, they have a friend to help them."

"I do my best," Lewis said.

Max gave the girls a light, playful smile, and nodded toward Lewis. "It can be frustrating sometimes to be the friend, the boyfriend, always supporting from the side. I hope you treat him well."

"Lewis is a good guy and a good friend," Emma said with a smile.

"Annoying as hell sometimes," Rikki said.

"Back at ya," Lewis said to her. Rikki playfully stuck her tongue out at him.

"We appreciate Lewis and all he does for us," Cleo said, smiling. "We plan to keep him."

"Good to hear, good to hear," Max said. "As pleasant as all this is, what brought you to my door?"

"We asked Louise where the lockets came from, and she told us about you," Cleo said.

"Huh," Max said.

"She says you made them," Emma said.

"Yes," Max said. "Yes, I did." He gazed again at Cleo's locket, which he still held. "I wanted to create something to symbolize the girls' friendship, and which hinted at their mermaid selves. So I created these lockets, and I gave each girl a stone whose color symbolized her magical power. It was only later that I realized each stone also represented her personality.

"Gracie was blue, and I can't explain that. She just was. I don't mean blue as in sad, though that later became true. I mean blue as in...just...a beautiful, ocean blue.

"White was the obvious choice for the girl who could turn water to ice. Ice is water forced into a structure, and Louise was very structured."

"Louise?" Emma asked, amazed. "Structured?"

Max chuckled. "Oh, not so much recently. Her husband finally got her to loosen up. But you'd be surprised. When Louise was much younger, she was insistent that each thing had its place."

"Huh," Cleo said.

"As for red...well," Max said. He glanced at Rikki, who was grinning. "Let's just say, the moon pool always knows which girl is fire."

Max again looked at the locket in his hand. "I saw the photo is gone. That's what I would expect after half a century under water." He gave Cleo a puzzled look. "You haven't put a photo of yourselves in your locket?"

Cleo shook her head, but it was Emma who answered. "Rikki and I keep the original photo." She opened her locket to show Max the photo inside. "We feel it would be wrong to take them out."

"We honor where the lockets came from," Rikki said.

"I would have kept the photo, too, if it were still in there," Cleo said.

"Huh," Max said. "Well, I can understand that." He opened and closed Cleo's locket. "Got a bad hinge, here."

"That's actually what led us to find you," Cleo said. "Can you repair it, and how much would it be?"

"How much? How much?!" He chuckled and shook his head. "All the money in the world! Or none. And since I doubt you have all the money in the world, I guess I'll take none."

Cleo protested. "No, I-"

Max held up his hand. "I made the lockets for free, and you're Louise's friends, which means you're my friends, now, I hope. I love these lockets and everything they stand for. No...no I can fix this, no problem. It could use a good polish, too. The chain, as well. In fact, let me see all your lockets."

Rikki and Emma handed theirs over, and Max took a minute examining them. "Yes...yes, I can actually do some simple maintenance on all three of these little ladies. Lockets, chains, clasps. Give them their half-century tuneup. If you don't mind leaving them with me for one day."

"Not at all," Emma said.

Emma glanced at Rikki and caught her eye. An unspoken agreement flashed between them. Verbally, it would have been Rikki saying, Yes, you say it, because you're much more diplomatic than I am.

Emma said, "If you like, we can also give you Louise's new address and room number, and her current phone number."

Max looked up. "Would Louise want me to have this information?"

The girls looked surprised. "I don't see why not," Emma said.

"Well...after her husband's funeral, she said she'd get in touch with me, then she never did." Max gave a half-hearted shrug. "I got a strong impression she actually didn't want to see me anymore."

"I didn't get that impression when she told us about you," Emma said.

"Yeah," Cleo said. "She seemed perfectly okay about you to us."

"She even theorized that you never visit her because it would be too painful for you," Rikki said. "So, I don't think you two are on the same page."

"Huh," Max said. "It's certainly possible. That we're not on the same page, I mean; it wouldn't be the first time. Because her theory is not correct, as I would love to see her again. If you're certain she wouldn't mind, then yes, I'd love to have her information."

"Sure," Cleo said. "And we'll just come by after school tomorrow?"

"Please come by. I'll have your lockets all spiffed up and ready to go."

"Quick question," Rikki said. "You're not in the habit of sending people iPods anonymously, are you?"

Max blinked at her. "Well, if your goal was to win the non sequitur award, you just did it easily."

Rikki was puzzled. "What's non...sequi...tuuuur?"

"Something you learn in school when you pay attention," Emma said under her breath, but distinctly just loud enough for Rikki to hear. Rikki narrowed her eyes and gave Emma a death glare. Emma, unfazed, merely raised an eyebrow at her.

Max said, "I have no idea why you're asking, but the answer is decidedly: no."

"Max didn't even know where Louise was until we told him," Cleo said to Rikki.

"I know," Rikki said. "But how many people even know who she is?"

"I presume that eventually I'll learn what the heck you're talking about," Max said.

"I apologize for Rikki," Emma said. "She's off her meds."

Rikki looked away and shook her head with a sarcastic oh you just didn't smile.

Emma continued. "She's asking because someone anonymously sent Louise an iPod and a greeting card." The girls quickly told Max about the strange incident.

"Wow," Max said. "That doesn't sound suspicious at all."

"Do you have any idea who would have done such a thing?" Cleo asked.

Max thought for a moment, then shook his head. "I haven't a clue."

 

While the girls and Lewis were talking with Max around his dining table, three of their parents were having their own little meeting. Don, Lisa, and Neil were sitting on sofas in the Gilberts' living room.

Lisa said, "My worry is that he'll think we only got to know him so we could ask about his daughter. He'll think our overtures of friendship were fake!"

"We did only get to know him so we could ask about his daughter," Neil said.

Lisa made a face of slight disgust. "I'd like to think that in a perfectly normal world, we would have befriended the Chadwicks, anyway!"

"Neither of us ever discussed anything of the sort," Neil said.

"Yes, but eventually, it would have happened," Lisa insisted.

Neil just nodded philosophically, wisely choosing to agree with this. It was possible, after all, though he could see that his wife was eager to rewrite history to make herself feel better.

"I get what you're saying, Lisa, and I agree," Don said. "But I think it comes down to a matter of phrasing. We're not being nosy about his daughter. We're merely concerned about our own daughters, and we're just seeking answers. So we're reaching out for help, not prying."

Neil extended his hand toward Don in a see, that's a wonderful idea gesture, and said, "Exactly."

"Yes, but what if he interprets it as nosiness anyway?" Lisa asked.

"Then we contact him again, explain, apologize if necessary, and smooth any ruffled feathers," Neil said.

Lisa considered this, and finally nodded.

Neil pulled out his phone and typed for a minute as the others watched.

Then Neil handed his phone to Lisa, who read what he'd typed. After a moment, she pulled a moue of surprised approval and nodded.

She handed the phone to Don, who also read what Neil had typed.

Hi Terry! How's it going? Neil, here. Listen, I was hoping to get some help on something. In the past few months, both Cleo and Emma have developed a bizarre, but subtle, attitude about touching water. As in, they avoid doing so. The few times we question them about it, they're evasive. We run relaxed and trusting households, so we're reluctant to hound them about it, especially since it doesn't seem harmful by itself, yet we're still concerned, as it's so strange. We were wondering if either you or Rikki had any knowledge of this, or could enlighten us in any way??? We know it's a long shot, but we're at our wits' end. Hope you're doing well! Thanks. - Neil.

Don took a deep breath and let it out. "Yeah, I think that'll do the trick nicely. It's not nosy in any way. It doesn't even remotely suggest that Rikki might have the same problem-"

"But if she does, and if Terry's just as puzzled, it's the perfect opening for him to share that he's in the same boat we are," Lisa said.

"It's possible he'll tell Rikki that we're asking about this," Neil said. "In which case, Rikki would tell Emma and Cleo. But I'm not too worried about that."

"Me, neither," Don said. "If Emma and Cleo learn in a roundabout way that we're concerned, that might actually push them to open up."

"I agree," Lisa said. "I say send it."

Neil sent the text. "Done."

With that accomplished, they relaxed a little.

Don said, "I gotta tell you, I can't help but constantly wonder what this almighty secret is. I've seen enough to know it's not sinister or frightening in the least. I've seen enough of Rikki to know she's a good, decent human being, and I get the same feeling about Terry. Yet, this secret is still something so huge-"

Neil's phone rang. He glanced at it, raised his eyebrows at Don and Lisa, answered the call, and said, "Hey Terry!"

He listened for a moment, then said, "Yeah, I understand. Hey, I'm actually with Don and my wife right now. I...no, no, this is a great time! The reason I mention I'm with them is, I wanna know if it's okay if I put you on speaker." Pause. "All right."

Neil pressed a button and set his phone on the table as Don and Lisa leaned forward.

"All right, Terry, can you hear us?" Neil asked.

"Just fine," Terry said. "And I gotta tell you, I am so glad you texted! Over the past few months, Rikki has been weird about water, and I can't make heads or tails of it. And I have no idea who to talk to about it."

"Oh, wow," Lisa said. "It sounds like you're in the same boat we are!"

"So what have you guys experienced?" Terry asked.

They spent a few minutes relating to Terry the many instances in which they'd seen their daughters avoid water. Terry listened patiently.

"I've seen much the same thing," Terry said. "I mean, it's exactly like you describe. Even tiny things, like a cold can of soda. It's like she'll get radiation poisoning or something! But at the exact same time, she's super casual about it, like it's no big deal."

"Yes!" Don said. "Thank you for putting into words one of the things about this situation which has really bugged me! It seems like a really big deal, but they're so casual about it that it also seems like nothing! It makes it so hard to get a handle on it."

Terry said, "And because it's so casual and ultimately harmless, you feel like a heel if you sit your daughter down, lower the hammer, and demand to know what's going on."

"Exactly!" Lisa exclaimed, while Neil and Don nodded. "It leaves you feeling bewildered and helpless, but you also feel it's not worth fighting a battle over!"

"Yep," Terry said.

Don quickly mouthed, Do we tell him what Harrison said?

Neil hesitated, but Lisa emphatically nodded and mouthed back, He deserves to know!

"You guys there?" Terry asked.

"Yeah, we're here," Lisa said. "Terry, there's something else we need to tell you. And this is where it gets weird."

"Like it isn't already?" Terry asked.

"Weird-er," Neil said.

Terry was a good a listener, and didn't interrupt often. Piece by piece, Lisa, Don, and Neil told Terry about their conversation with Harrison Bennett, Zane's father. It took almost a quarter of an hour to tell him the full story of how Harrison claimed the three girls had a giant, bizarre secret which bound them together; that Harrison knew what it was; and that Harrison refused to tell it to their parents.

Terry was confused at first as to why they hadn't pressed Harrison harder to tell them this great secret, and it took several minutes for them to explain. They said that, first, Harrison was a friend of over twenty years and they trusted him. And second, Harrison was correct when he said that if he told the parents the girls' secret, it would actually be hurtful because it meant that they had pried the girls' secret into the open behind their backs. Harrison had assured them repeatedly that if they approached the girls gently, with love and support, the girls would be eager to open up, and everything would be fine.

It took a few minutes for Terry to see the wisdom of this, which was understandable. Don, Lisa, and Neil had taken a few minutes to get used to the idea, too, the night Harrison had dropped his bombshell on them.

"So what does all this ultimately mean?" Terry asked.

Neil said, "Well, if we follow Harrison's advice, the next step, I guess, would be to do exactly as he suggested: sit the girls down, together, and ask them point blank what's going on."

"I'm curious why you haven't done that already," Terry said.

"We would have," Lisa said. "But Harrison was insistent – I mean, really insistent – that this meeting needs to be with all three girls and their parents, together."

"Yeah," Don said. "He was really emphatic about that. Said it was crucial."

"Huh," Terry said, immediately understanding why the other parents had invited him to dinner to get to know him, first.

In that moment, Terry could have been resentful, feeling as though the lovely dinner the previous night had merely been an agenda to enlist his help, rather than a hand of friendship for its own sake. And a lesser person would easily have felt that way.

But Terry was not childish. He had some shades of wisdom. He understood, and therefore appreciated, the other parents' difficult position and their subsequent actions. A lovely dinner to get to know him first was actually the most perfect thing they could have done, under the circumstances. Their amiability toward him the previous night still felt genuine. They still seemed like good people, and he trusted his instinct on this. They were good, frightened parents clutching for answers about their children; as another such parent himself, he appreciated that deeply.

So, in an instant, Terry let all that pass and smoothly continued. "Well, though I've never met Mr. Bennett, I can't say I disagree with him. So is this something we're all willing to do soon? Is there anything more to say or do before then?"

The others thought for a moment.

Neil said, "I can't think of anything more to say or do, and it doesn't look like Don or Lisa can, either." They both shook their heads. "So...yeah. I guess we set up another dinner, or a party of some kind, and then..."

"Have a nice discussion in which we confront them and ask what's going on," Don said.

"Yeah," Terry said. "At the moment, I can't think of anything else. And I agree with the gentle approach. But one thing I insist on: no matter how gentle we are, the moment that conversation starts, we're committed. The conversation doesn't end until we get an answer. I don't want to start any talk we're not resolved to finish."

"Agreed," Lisa said.

"Absolutely," Don said.

"All right, how about Saturday night at our place again?" Neil said.

"Not Friday?" Lisa asked.

"I can't Friday," Neil said. "I won't be in until about eight. My calendar that day is brutal."

"Oh, so you'll miss the solar eclipse?" Terry asked.

"Oh, I heard about that," Lisa said. "Is that this Friday?"

"Yep," Don said. "Total eclipse, and we're in the path of totality!"

Lisa gave him a baffled look. "What does that mean?"

Neil said, "It means that, from where we are on the Earth, the moon will cover the sun completely. If we were a few hours north or a few hours south, we'd only see a partial eclipse. But the moon's full shadow will pass right over us! It hasn't happened here in about forty years, and they say it won't happen here again for another hundred."

Lisa made an I'm impressed face.

Terry said, "Yeah, all the officials and scientists are trying to make sure everyone knows not to look without the special sunglasses. It's gonna be a big deal. Don, you and your crew will need to have those glasses."

"Thanks for thinking of me, but I won't be on the water that day," Don said. "I'll be up at the school with Cleo and Kim. The school's organized a huge shindig for the students and their families so we can all watch it together. And we've already got our special glasses!"

"I'll be at work, unfortunately," Neil said. "But I'm sure we'll take a moment to watch it happen somehow."

"Yeah, I'll be at work, too," Terry said. "But I expect we'll all take a break and wander outside to see totality."

"So anyway, does another Saturday night dinner work for you, Terry?" Neil asked. "It might be an eventful one."

"I'm up for it," Terry said. "I got a funny feeling it's something we really need to do. If Rikki's going through some kind of weird phase, or something bizarre, I wanna know about it."

"I think we can all agree on that," Lisa said.

"All right," Neil said. "Seven o'clock on Saturday?"

"Sounds good," Terry said.

Don said, "And Terry, if you need us for anything, or have any further thoughts or questions, don't hesitate to pick up that phone. Whatever this is, we're in it together."

"Will do," Terry said. "And the same goes for you. Thanks, guys. See you Saturday."

Monday

The next afternoon, shortly after school let out, Emma, Cleo, Rikki, and Lewis once again sat at Max's dining table as Max went to his workshop to retrieve the lockets. While they waited for him to return, Cleo said, "It felt weird the past day not having the locket around my neck."

"I know, me too," Emma said.

"Yeah, it is weird," Rikki said. "I feel a little naked without it."

"Speaking of weird, what do you think's going on with next weekend?" Emma asked cautiously.

"What about next weekend?" Lewis asked.

Cleo made a motion indicating herself, Rikki, and Emma. "Our families are having a second big dinner get-together. Just a week after the first one."

"But at someone else's house this time?" Lewis asked. "Like a rotating thing?"

"No, still at Emma's house," Rikki said. "But her house is the biggest and the nicest. It'd be kind of cramped at Cleo's house, and impossible at mine, so that's not the weird part."

"It's weird they're doing this at all," Emma said. "I mean, the dinner was great. We all had a good time. But..."

"But you just don't have big dinner get-togethers so soon like that, back to back," Cleo said.

Rikki said, "Not unless you have an-" She stopped, suddenly uncertain about what she'd been about to say.

"Have what?" Emma asked.

Rikki looked at them with trepidation, and quietly said, "An agenda."

The friends considered this. But they didn't get a chance to consider for long, as at that moment, Max returned bearing a tray, which held three shiny lockets resting on tissue paper.

"Oooh!" Cleo said. The girls and Lewis looked on admiringly as Max set the tray on the table.

He reverently handed Cleo her locket and said, "Give it a test drive."

The locket, its stone, its chain, and the chain's clasp were shinier and cleaner. Cleo opened the locket, and gasped in surprise. Not only did it open smoothly and solidly, but...

"You replaced the photo!" she gushed, her face lighting up with joy.

Max smiled and carefully handed Emma and Rikki their lockets, which had been similarly polished and touched up. Each opened her locket and found a fresh print of the photo. The original prints had warped, faded, and developed spots over the years.

"These are so nice!" Rikki said, grinning.

"How hard was it to replace the photo?" Emma asked.

"Not hard at all. I still have my darkroom, though I rarely use it anymore, and I still have the negative, because I'm the one who took that photo."

"Thank you so much!" Cleo said, deeply touched.

"It was my pleasure," Max said.

"The clasp is so smooth, now," Rikki said as she put her locket on.

"The only downside to these lockets is that we can't show anyone the photo inside," Emma said. "It shows the girls in their mermaid form."

Max gave a slight shrug. "Just tell people they were dressed in costumes for a high school play."

The girls were slightly speechless for a moment, then gave each other tiny nods, as if to say, Well, yes, that would work. Duh.

"Max, we regularly visit Louise," Cleo said. "We'd love to come visit you every now and then, too, if you're okay with that."

Max was genuinely touched by this. "You are all welcome at my door any time."