I had a few hours left before my potion lost its effect, but for safe measure my plan was this: spend a little time with Earthdude—I mean Spencer—make him feel he’s not indebted to me anymore, and at the same time catch a few more Earthly sights, smells, and tastes. After half an hour, I’ll say, “It’s been great, thanks, gotta go.” He’ll hand over great-grandpa’s necklace, and when he looks away for a second, I’ll dive safely back into the water.
I was overwhelmed by the pier’s magical brilliance. Previously I had only glimpsed it from the rocks below or viewed it from the ocean, miles away. And now it was within my reach. A huge white wheel with red and silver dangling chairs stood in the distance, nautical shops lined the boardwalk, and tiny huts sold T-shirts, sunglasses, and shell necklaces.
I wheezed from climbing the stairs and leaned on the boardwalk railing that overlooked the ocean, trying to recover my breath.
“What kind of coffee do you like?” Spencer asked kindly, leading me into a shop with a freakish mermaid on the sign.
Latte, Frappuccino, cappuccino. The funny words I read meant nothing to me. I didn’t even know what coffee was! “I’ll have whatever you have,” I said.
“Two double lattes,” he ordered.
I’d never thought I’d even visit Earth for a minute, much less a day, and here I was standing in a shop ordering drinks!
I ran my fingers over everything—drinking cups, bottles, hardened treats inside beautiful papers. I gazed at objects shaped like sponges and sea cucumbers beneath a glass counter.
“Want something?” he offered, close behind me.
“Do you?” I asked, looking for guidance.
“Sure. But you pick this time. Anything in the store,” he said proudly.
I was overwhelmed with choices and scanned the counter. There were mudlike squares displayed on a dish, a jar filled with red and white striped tubes. Overwhelmed, I pointed to a solid white cup with a black label.
“I’d love some tips!” I exclaimed.
“You’re hilarious!” he said, as he and the perky counter girl laughed at my choice.
“Two scones, please,” he ordered, pointing to a puffy sand-colored orb inside the case.
He led me outside where we sat on a wide wooden bench facing the ocean. I ingested my Earthly world at the same time I ingested my hardened spongy scone. Children ran along the beach, a young couple splashed each other in the water, two elderly Earthees walked arm in arm, an athletic man ran along the shoreline with his panting black dog.
“So tell me everything,” Spencer began between bites. “Were you swimming or surfing the other day? Where did you live? Why did you transfer? Where do you live now?”
“Uh…I live west.”
“By the planetarium?”
“Closer to the beach…”
“Oh…by Yates Bluff.”
“What about you?” I asked, as a seagull called out overhead.
“I live with my dad in Pacific Cliffs.”
“What about your mother?”
“My mom left us when I was a kid.”
“Do you ever see her?”
“No. In fact, I never even got to say good-bye to her.”
“You never got to say good-bye?”
“She ran off with a used car salesman. My dad wanted her to trade in our Chevy and she traded him instead. Now we only buy new cars!” he said, laughing.
“But that’s so sad. Where I’m from nobody ever leaves anyone—”
“I pretty much raised myself with the help of my friend Chainsaw, my surfboard, and a Blockbuster card.”
“A Blockbuster card?” I asked.
“What’s your story, Candy?”
“Uh…me? I like to swim, my parents get majorly on my nerves, I hate high school. And I have a best friend, Waverly. But my life is so boring! It’s not worth asking about. Can’t we just sit?” I asked. “It’s been a long day.”
“Oh, sure,” he said, leaning back and staring off toward the ocean.
“Besides, I’d rather know about you. Do you hang here often?”
“Not during school. But don’t worry. Seaside’s a tourist trap, so no one really can tell who’s who if you skip out of class. A major mistake, if you ask me, to have a school so close to a beach.”
I stared up at his chiseled face, the light in his eyes. I’d been so distracted with these spectacular Earthly sights, that I failed to notice the spectacular sight right in front of me.
Spencer caught my gaze and, embarrassed, I turned away. “Well, Spencer…it’s been…”
“Don’t you like your coffee?” he asked, breaking the white plastic rim of his own cup into tiny pieces.
“Uh, sure,” I said. I took a gulp and almost choked.
“Are you okay?”
“It tastes like mud!”
His eyes sparkled when he laughed, as if I had said the cutest thing he’d ever heard.
“I’ll get you some water,” he offered with a smile. “You sit tight.”
“That’s okay. I have to—” I began. But he bolted off.
I leaned back on the bench and pulled my legs up and hugged them with all my might. Spencer was really special. I felt drawn to him the same way I felt drawn to the ocean. I wondered what it would be like to sit in class with him every day, have him teach me to surf, lie in the grass and look up at the puffy clouds. But he’d be returning with my water and I’d have to get my necklace and leave.
I felt a tap on my shoulder.
“Yeah, Spencer?” I said, turning around.
“Can you spare some change?” a scruffy man asked.
I felt frightened. Where was Spencer? Would the man hurt me since I didn’t have any coins? Did he have a knife? I felt like I was in the Underworld again without shark mace.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have any money with me,” I confessed. “But you’re welcome to this,” I said, handing him my coffee.
“Hey, Candy,” Spencer called, anxiously running back.
“Thank you, miss,” the man said, his withered face lighting up like the sun. He took the coffee as Spencer approached. “Most people don’t even make eye contact!” said the man as he turned to leave.
The man turned his attention to Spencer.
“She has a pretty smile and a gracious heart. Don’t let her get away,” he said, and sauntered off.
“Speaking of leaving,” I began, rising. “It’s been totally—”
“But I don’t know anything about you,” he said, handing me the plastic bottle. “Here, everyone likes water.”
“I can’t live without it!” I said, laughing at my inside joke. He smiled fondly. I twisted off the cap, like I’d seen an Earthlady do earlier, and I sucked it down in one gulp.
Spencer gave me the same look that Earthlady had. “Man, you must be thirsty!”
I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. He leaned his arm against the railing, blocking my escape. I glanced down at his Abbey Road T-shirt.
“I have that compact disc at home,” I said.
His eyes widened. “No way. You like the Beatles? So many girls at school are only wiggy about current bands. But the Beatles were real musicians!”
“The Beatles, the ocean, saving you. You might say we’re connected,” I said.
His face flushed and he immediately took a sip of his latte. A freakish mermaid on the side of the cup stared me in the face.
“Mermaids don’t have two tails!” I said, looking at the drawing. “And crowns are so five cycles ago!” I rolled my eyes.
“You’re funny,” he said, with a laugh. “You know what? My best friend thinks you’re a mermaid!”
I gasped. Was my identity obvious? Had he known all along? But Spencer’s grin reassured me that he was only joking.
“Do you believe in mermaids?” I asked playfully, but secretly hoping for a positive response.
“Like I believe in trolls and gnomes!” he exclaimed.
We both laughed. He had the cutest smile, the corners of his mouth turned up sweetly. I wondered what it would be like to kiss his lips out of the water, to touch his face, his wild blue hair. But he averted his eyes toward the sea.
“Well…I better—” I said.
“It’s funny,” he began, “but when I saw you underwater I thought—”
“That I was a troll?”
“It must have been the lack of oxygen,” he said, with reservation. “But I thought I saw a ta—”
“Really, I should be—”
“Why were you swimming so early, anyway?” he asked.
“I love swimming,” I defended. “I prefer it to walking.”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “Me, too!”
He stared at me, his eyes mixed with passion and nervousness.
“Why did you transfer to Seaside?” he asked, looking at a ship on the horizon.
“It was either that or the Atlantic,” I replied truthfully enough, placing my foot on the railing so that it was almost touching his.
Spencer was so different. And not just because he was an Earthee. He was different from every soul I had ever encountered. I felt a connection without our sharing words, a connection just sharing space.
“So, is Calvin your boyfriend?” he asked in a halting voice.
“Are you kidding? He’s so like the dudes back home. He was just trying to help me find you.”
“Well…then I should thank him,” he said sweetly. He looked to the ocean.
I felt a strange pulse deep inside my veins. I could tell by the sun that it was after one o’clock. The moon was on the rise. “I wish I could stay longer,” I said, trying to push past him.
But he didn’t budge and instead grabbed my hand and led me into Seaside Arcade—a room filled with metal machines, flashing lights, and loud, wild sounds. “This is my favorite place in the world, besides the beach.”
I covered my ears.
He stuck four coins into a model of a motorboat and told me to sit inside and steer the wheel. He then got into the next boat.
“Ready?”
“Of course!” I said, having no idea what I was in for. I looked at the screen, but my boat wasn’t going anywhere. Then I noticed Spencer was pressing a pedal on the floor, so I copied his moves. My boat began to move. It was wild pretending to be on top of the water, instead of deep below the surface. But I soon crashed into another boat whose driver flew overboard.
“Oh, no!” I screamed. “What do I do now?”
“Drive on!” he said, shifting his stick.
“But the man’s drowning!”
“You can’t save everyone,” Spencer teased, swerving to avoid a lighthouse.
GAME OVER lit up on my screen. My boat no longer moved. While Spencer continued to drive his own boat, I decided to explore the rest of the arcade.
I had heard of guns. I’d even seen some rusted cannons at our Pacific Museum. But these two were pointing at a screen of ghosts.
“Wanna play?” Spencer asked, catching up to me.
I nodded, curious.
Ghosts floated in front of us, like delirious mermen. We had to shoot them. My stomach turned over as red blood squirted out from their gun wounds and their heads popped off. By mistake I shot a girl with yellow hair. “You play,” I said, and handed Spencer the gun.
“I’m sorry,” he said, following me through the maze of games. “I wanted to show you a good time, but we’re just doing things I want to do.”
I stood mesmerized in front of brightly colored fuzzy animals in a glass case. I tapped the glass, but the animals didn’t move. It took me a moment to realize they weren’t real.
“Which one do you like?”
I pointed to a wide-eyed pink swan.
Spencer maneuvered two white controls on the machine, and a metal crablike claw grabbed the pink fluffy swan and dropped it. Spencer picked the toy out of the chute and proudly handed it to me.
“I love it!” I exclaimed, squeezing it to my chest. “It’s the softest thing I’ve ever touched besides—” I began, as our eyes met.
I wanted to say “your lips.” He stared at me with soulful eyes. But I felt a sharp pain shooting through my veins.
“Besides?” he asked, grabbing my arm.
“I gotta go!” I exclaimed, turning away from him and walking out of the arcade.
“But it’s only one-thirty,” he said, following me along the pier. “What about a ride?” he asked, pointing to a huge wheel with swinging chairs that touched the sky. “You can stay another three minutes.”
“Well…”
I was enjoying Earth. I would have stayed forever if I could. I wanted to touch, see, smell, and hear everything. What was so important at home that it couldn’t wait for a three-minute ride? “Okay!”
Spencer ran to get tickets and came back with a huge blue weblike substance on a stick as well.
“Candy for Candy.” He laughed, handing me the stick.
We sat close on the ride. I could feel my legs against his blue pants.
I stuck my finger in the soft weblike treat. Sweet grains slithered on my tongue. “This is amazing—what is it?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never eaten cotton candy!” he said, taking a bite of the blue cloud.
Suddenly we lifted off the ground. I grabbed Spencer’s arm for dear life as we swung into the air. I had never seen a view of the world like this before!
“I feel like a bird!” I said, wide-eyed, when we reached the top.
“You’ve never been on a Ferris wheel?”
“I’ve never been higher than the rocks at the pier,” I confessed in my excitement. “Look, there’s Seaside High School! Look at the students! They’re so tiny!” I exclaimed, pointing. “They look like sea horses!”
“Everyone else says ants. You’re totally clever.”
“Yeah…ants,” I corrected myself.
“You really have a unique view of the world. You say things no one else would ever say. You do things no one else would ever do.”
“Like saving you?” I said, looking at him.
His face turned red. Now he was the one who looked down, pointing. “Hey, look at the steroid-buffed lifeguards! They don’t look so big from up here.”
“That was incredible!” I said to Spencer as the attendant let us out.
“Thank you…for my life…for coming here. I hope we can do it again sometime,” he said. “Too bad you have to go.”
“Yeah. Too bad.” I glanced along the boardwalk. “What’s a fun house?”
“You’ve never been to a fun house, either? Man, you’ve had a deprived childhood!”
We looked at each other.
“Five more minutes?” I asked.
“Not a second longer, I promise!” Spencer said enthusiastically.
He quickly led me into the creaky house. The floors were bumpy, curvy, and shook from side to side.
I grabbed onto the rails with all my might, my stuffed swan dangled from my shaking fingers. Spencer crossed to the other side and laughed at me. I remained motionless, unsure how to proceed. He extended his hand, and led me safely across the shaky boards. I gave him my swan for safekeeping, and he stuck it securely in his back pocket.
In the next room we stood in front of life-size mirrors. But I didn’t look like myself. And neither did he. Something was terribly wrong! We were stretched, tall and skinny. My length had doubled and my waist decreased to the size of a twig. I felt no pain, but the sight frightened me and I screamed.
Spencer laughed again. He was really enjoying himself at my expense. He must have thought I was a complete idiot. I began giggling to cover my embarrassment. In the next mirror my head and body were short and fat. No longer frightened by these weird reflections, I forced another scream, just to make him think my first scream had been faked as well.
The walls of the next room were painted with flowers. I had read a book about Earth flowers and was trying to identify them when the room went black. Ghosts appeared, flying over our heads. A hairless man, covered with blood, extended his arm toward me, only the hand was missing!
“Spencer!” I reached out for him, but he wasn’t there. I hurried away from the ghosts and found myself in another hall of reflections. This time I looked normal, but I was everywhere. A thousand frightened Lillys staring helplessly back at me.
But where was he?
“Hello!” I called again. I couldn’t see where I’d come from, or the way to the exit. I felt trapped. I began to panic. “Spencer?”
There was no answer.
“Spencer! I’m over here!”
All I saw was myself, growing redder and redder with fright.
“Where are you?” I shouted.
“Candy?” I finally heard him call.
Suddenly I saw a thousand Spencers. I reached for his outstretched hand, but instead I touched glass.
“I’m over here!” I screamed, totally frightened. I felt a sharp pang in my veins. The moon was rising, and I feared I’d be left for the rest of my life to stare at not two legs, but two thousand.
“Find me!” My hands shook uncontrollably. Water mysteriously dripped from my palms, streaking the reflections as I continued to search for Spencer’s hand.
I finally felt something grab me and I screamed.
“It’s okay, Candy. You should have told me you were claustrophobic,” Spencer said, stroking my arm.
I hugged him with all my might, not letting him go. He stroked my hair. My heart pounded. I’m sure he could feel it pulse out of my chest and beat against his own. I almost didn’t want to calm down—it felt so good, being so close to him.
“Now you’ve saved me, too!” I exclaimed, as we exited the fun house, my pink swan now swinging from my fingers. “We’re even.”
“It’s hardly the same thing,” he said. “Anyway, you’ve been through a lot today. A new town, a new school.”
“I had the best day—ever!”
“Seriously? Me, too. Well, the second best, if you’re counting yesterday morning,” he added sweetly.
I felt another sharp pang. “I gotta go!” I said urgently, clutching my stomach.
“Are you okay?” he asked, concerned.
“It’s just a cramp.”
“Let me walk you home,” he offered, taking my arm and leading me toward the beach.
“You can’t—”
“It’s no trouble.”
“It’s a lot of trouble! More than you know.”
“I can call a cab.”
“I have to go alone.”
“I wanted to take you to a fancy dinner—to a restaurant with a view,” he blurted out. “I wanted to present you with roses, a white one for the color of your skin, a yellow one for the color of your hair and a pink one for the way you glow when you smile.”
Something moved me deep inside, but I wasn’t sure if it was the pulse of the moonrise or the pulse of Spencer.
“I know I sound like a geek,” he said, nervously running his fingers through his hair. “But I hope tomorrow…What am I saying? Tomorrow you’ll be with Calvin.”
“Calvin who?”
He smiled, but his eyes were sad. “Thanks again for saving my life—” he said. “I just want to ask you—Listen…Seaside’s Annual Festival of Fireworks is tomorrow right here on the beach. I guarantee you’ll like it more than the hall of mirrors.”
“I can’t,” I said hurriedly. The cramps in my side were killing me.
“I shouldn’t have asked,” he said, looking at his shoes.
“I don’t have time to explain. I have to go!”
“It was cool hanging out with you, Candy. Under the water and out,” he teased.
“My friends call me Lilly,” I blurted out.
“Lilly.”
I smiled. My name flowed like a waterfall from his lips. He awkwardly leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.
I was being pulled in two different directions. My stomach was rumbling from the imminent moonrise. But there was the ache of belonging to Spencer and not wanting to leave. He was totally scorching. Different from Beach, Tide, Calvin, and any Earth-or merdude I’d ever met. I could feel his soul in mine, as if my heart was in my open hands, reaching out to him. I took in his presence, his beauty, his wacky midnight blue hair, his intoxicating scent. I wanted to be with him forever, to ride the tremendous wheel again, to see the fireworks, to dance beneath the moonlight.
I grabbed his shirt and pulled him into me. His lips melted against mine.
I knew I’d never see Spencer again. I missed him already, as he stood pressed against the other end of my lips, unaware that we could never meet again.
I had come for one heart, but was leaving two behind.