The dock behind Oceanica is crowded when the boat with the newest Mer arrives. The fishermen had to go way out to find this one, and the past twenty-four hours have been filled with preparations, mostly of the tanks Jen and I cleaned last week. As the net pulls taut and lifts the Mer from the ship, I see something else is in there with it.
“Holy shit,” I breathe.
Jen stands next to me, her eyes wide, lips parted in amazement. “Is that a dolphin?”
It is. It’s a bottlenose dolphin, and that little mermaid has her arms around him like he’s her teddy bear. Damn. It basically proves the theory that there’s a symbiotic relationship between dolphins and the Mer. The fishermen have been saying for years that the dolphins help the Mer steer clear of the boats, and—though this one obviously failed—it’s presence in the net is the first real proof we have that their stories are true.
The net lowers the pair into a transport tank that’s barely big enough for both of them. Corporate and the men argue in Spanish about price, so Jen and I step forward to take a closer look. Sunlight shines off the Mer’s magenta hair, and I suck in a breath—it’s the same color as the one Dad found. I know exactly how to make this one mine.
“She’s a younger one,” I say. “Probably the same age as the last.”
“How can you tell?” Jen asks. She kneels next to me to see into the tank better.
“The coloration. See the tips of her fins?” They’re shredded, but bright magenta like her hair. “The color fades as they age. She’s still perfectly vibrant, even at the tip.”
Jen straightens. “I thought she’d be more active. You know, trying to kill all of us.”
“She’s sedated. They pump that tank full of tranquilizer for the trip, so the Mer don’t go into shock. It’ll take a day or so for the drugs to wear off. She’ll be fairly easy to deal with until then, but be careful. Even drugged, they’re dangerous.”
Corporate and the fishermen punch the air with their fingers. Delmara doesn’t want the dolphin, but the men want money for catching it.
“Do we have to separate them?” Jen says. “We could have a Mer/dolphin show. People would love watching them together.”
There’s something calculating in her gaze, but she’s right. Nobody wants to watch dolphins alone anymore, but having one perform with a Mer would draw in the crowds.
I dodge an angry finger and tap Delmara’s shoulder.
“Not now, Finnegan,” she says. “I’m trying to get these pendejos to understand that I’m not paying for a dolphin.” She directs the last part at them, as if saying it in English will make it any clearer.
The fishermen bristle when she calls them dumbasses, and I lean my head toward her short frame. She’s like a Chihuahua: tiny, but someone you definitely don’t want to piss off. “Why don’t we keep the dolphin? They could perform together.”
Delmara shakes her head, crossing her arms. “I’m not paying Mer prices for a jacked-up dolphin. I don’t have a husbandry license for cetaceans.”
“Get one. It should be easy. And you know every little girl in America would beg her parents to bring her here to watch a dolphin perform with a mermaid.”
She turns her gaze on the pair. We have to get them out of the sun before the Mer foams with the heat, so Delmara doesn’t have long to decide. We can’t separate them out here, anyway. Whether the dolphin comes back out to the Gulf or not, we have to take them inside to get them out of that net.
“Trust me, Aunt D. I can make money with them, and you promised me the next Mer. Jen can help with the dolphin—she studied cetaceans in college.” We’ve spent a lot of time scrubbing tanks this past week, and, among other things, I learned that Jen studied marine biology at the University of South Carolina. “Plus, someone needs to take over when I go back to school in August.”
Delmara turns her back on me. “I told you, next summer.”
I grab a folded piece of paper from my wallet. The edges are yellowed and falling apart from all the times I’ve taken it out. It’s a color sketch of a mermaid I found in my dad’s office after he disappeared. The mermaid no one believed he found. The one with magenta hair.
“Come on, Aunt D,” I say softly and hand it to her. “This one is mine.”
She swallows as she studies the sketch, and an expression I can’t read passes through her eyes. It’s gone in a moment, and she pats me on the shoulder. When she speaks, her voice cracks slightly. “You have until the end of summer to turn a profit.”
Hell yes! After six years of scrubbing tanks and euthanizing Mer, I’ve finally been promoted to trainer. A giant grin explodes across my face. “You won’t regret this. I’ll turn these two into the biggest stars you have.”
“Get them inside before she foams.” Delmara runs her finger over the sketch before she hands it back.
When I return to Jen, I pick her up and swing her around in a happy circle. “How would you like to train a dolphin?”
“Really?” Her eyes shine and her mouth is wide as I set her back on the dock. “Delmara said I could train it?”
“Well, she said I have three months to make a profit with them, and you’re the one who gave me the idea, so I’m making you my assistant.”
“Assistant?” She scoffs. “I came up with the idea.”
“Yep,” I grin. “And I’m best friends with Corporate’s nephew.”
She puts her hands on her hips. “I see how this works.”
I have a lot of responses to that, but most of them would get me smacked. Instead, I change the subject. “Let’s get these two inside.”
The transport tank is ten feet long and three feet wide—barely big enough to fit the dolphin—with a set of wheels in the front and the back. A button in a panel on the back gives it gas, and controls on the front panel turn the wheels. It takes two people to move, the damn thing is too unwieldy for a solo job.
Jen eyes me as I walk to the transport and motion her over. “You steer from the front. I’ll power it from behind.”
It’s slow going, but we get the pair to the tanks, and I call the veterinarian to check on them. The Mer hasn’t moved—she’s buried her head in the dolphin’s side. Usually, they scrutinize us, trying to figure out the best way to injure us and get free, but she cowers. That’ll make her easy to work with.
The dolphin, on the other hand, thrashes when the vet nears. He even snaps his jaw like a guard dog. This is more than a symbiotic relationship—he’s trying to protect her.
“Hold the dolphin down so I can get a good look,” the vet says. I’m not sure that’s a good idea, but I put my forearm just behind the dolphin’s blow hole and push with all my weight, holding him against the glass of the tank. One good heave and I’m on my ass, a large cut on my forearm streaming blood.
“Dammit,” I snap. “Just get them in the tank so we can separate them.”
The vet hands me a cloth to stop the bleeding, and I call Serge on the walkie-talkie. “Get your lazy ass down here—we need your help in the holding tanks.”
His voice travels back, dusted with static. “I just heard the news. Congratulations, man. I’ll be right down.”
I show Jen how to connect the net to the crane, and we crank it up. When the net goes taut, the Mer gasps so loud I can hear it.
We lift them out of the transport and swing them over one of the newly cleaned tanks before Sergio arrives. He enters as we lower them in. There’s a delicate balance between keeping the Mer from suffocating and keeping her from going into shock by dumping her into the colder water. Shock will foam her just as surely as suffocation if we’re not careful, but as soon as the water touches her, she claws the net, trying to get her gills into it.
“Wow,” Serge says. “Look at that hair. You should name her Neon.”
“It’s not neon,” Jen says. “It’s magenta. She looks like a dottyback or royal gramma.”
A girl who knows her reef fish as well as I do? I think I’m in nerd-love. “Dotty would be a good name, but we usually stick to periodic elements.”
“Helium?” she suggests.
“Cadmium,” Serge says.
“That’s a male name,” I say. “We’ll call the dolphin Cadmium.”
Jen claps her hands together. “What about Iodine? We can call her Io, for short.”
“I still think Neon’s a good name,” Serge says, but Jen’s my assistant, so I go with her suggestion.
“Iodine it is.”
The net fully lowers into the tank, and the Mer—Iodine—has her arms wrapped around the dolphin again. “Let’s separate these elements.”
“I call dibs on the shocker.” Serge bounds up the steps to the platform and the electroshocker hanging on the wall.
That’s fine by me; I don’t want to get anywhere near that thing ever again. Still, I can’t let Serge think he can shock my mermaid whenever he wants. “She’s not a jellyfish, man. You don’t have to poke her with a stick while she’s stranded on the beach.”
“Jellyfish deserve it,” he says. “All those stinging tentacles. God, I hate the ocean.”
I climb the stairs. “We only need to separate them. You shock her just long enough that she lets go—Jen and I will get the net between them.”
Jen hangs back, grimacing. “Do we have to separate them? If they’re going to perform together, can’t they stay in the same tank?”
“They’ll be easier to work with separately,” I say, corporate lines streaming from my mouth. I can’t afford to screw up this chance. “Once they’re performing, we can probably keep them together, but not yet. It’ll be a good incentive to get them working. A treat for cooperating.”
Her shoulders sink as she ascends the stairs, but she doesn’t argue. Together, we unhook the net from the crane so we can reposition it between them.