CHAPTER 15

“Ladies!” Sirena clinked her knife against her glass to get our attention. Dinner had been another Delphine special—crab cakes, salad, and corn on the cob—and rumor had it that it would be followed by something called Mermaid Chip Cookies, which sounded intriguing. “Let’s take a quick break and then gather at Mermaid Crossing for dessert, and the big reveal of your mermaid names!”

I stiffened. I’d completely forgotten to pick one!

“I’m eager to hear your backstories, too,” Sirena continued. “See you in ten minutes!”

I hadn’t made a backstory up either! I raced back to Whelk, glancing up at the sign over the door as I entered our cabin.

Hmm, I thought. Whelkina?

No. That was worse than Shellina. I’d have to come up with something better.

Mackenzie and Cha Cha and Jasmine were right on my heels. The three of them huddled on Mackenzie’s bunk, discussing something in low murmurs as I crossed to mine. I started hunting for the handout that Sirena had given us on our first day. I finally found it wadded up under my bed. Uncrumpling it, I scanned the list. No, no, and no. Each of the suggested names sounded worse than the one preceding it.

“It’s time to go, Truly!” said my cousin a few minutes later, heading for the door as the gong sounded back at Mermaid HQ.

“I’ll be there in a sec. Save me a seat.” I scanned the handout again, starting to panic. None of the names were something I wanted to be stuck with all week. Harbor? Please. Echo? Jewel? Stormy? They sounded like something Belinda Winchester would name her kittens. There had to be something decent I could call myself! I looked frantically around the room for inspiration.

My gaze fell on the stack of presents I’d bought for my family at the pirate museum. The title on the spine of the book I’d picked out for Lauren caught my eye: The Pirate Queen. I grabbed it and flipped through the pages. The story looked interesting. It was about an Irish woman named Grania O’Malley, whose exploits on the high seas back in the 1500s rocked the Elizabethan world.

“Grania.” I repeated the name aloud slowly. I could live with Grania.

Slamming the book shut, I ran out the door, spinning my backstory as I sprinted toward Mermaid Crossing. I flung myself onto one of the sofas beside Mackenzie just as Hayden—make that Shellina—began to speak.

Hayden droned on for at least five minutes about her stupid fishy alter ego. We learned that Shellina’s favorite color was the deep green of emeralds, and that her favorite hobby was collecting shells (of course), and that she had a pet hermit crab named Crabby. My smile grew broader with each passing minute. I couldn’t wait to tell Hatcher about this!

Hayden probably would have gone on for a lot longer, but Sirena finally cut her short. “Thank you, Shellina, for the delightful word-picture you’ve painted for us,” she said smoothly. “Now, how about you, Mrs. Drake?”

Hayden’s mother kept it short and sweet. “My name is Coralina. I, too, live in Tritonia, where I serve the princess Shellina.” This sounded pretty true to life. Princess Hayden clearly had her mother wrapped around her little finger.

It was Zadie’s turn next.

“I’m Isla, which is Spanish for ‘island,’ ” Zadie announced. She gestured to Lenore. “And this is Merissa, which means ‘of the sea.’ ”

“Beautiful names,” said Sirena, nodding in approval. “Two of my favorites.”

Zadie had come up with a pretty good backstory about a pair of mermaids who were captured and forced to perform in an underwater circus—an “aqua-circus,” as she called it.

One by one, everyone shared their chosen names and backstories. The four high school girls from St. Louis had picked Chantal, Morwenna, Genevieve, and Bijoux. Morwenna, who was a really good artist, had drawn a detailed map of the undersea realm where they lived, and we all oohed and aahed over that. The four ladies in Sand Dollar introduced themselves as Rilla, Avalon, Oceana, and Bahari, which we learned was Swahili for “ocean.” Some of their stories were pretty good, too—especially Bahari’s. She’d invented this whole African legend about an underwater world populated by slaves rescued from ships heading to the New World. They’d been freed by King Triton, who turned them into mermaids and mermen.

Then it was our cabin’s turn.

“I’m Nixie,” said Cha Cha. “That’s German for ‘little water sprite.’ ”

Sirena beamed. “Very appropriate for you, Cha Cha. Good choice.”

“This is my twin sister Pixie,” Cha Cha continued, pointing at Jasmine. “We live in a cave whose walls are lined with sparkling gems.”

I wondered if that idea was inspired by the Starlite Dance Studio, whose walls may not have held sparkling gems, but certainly held twinkle lights.

“Nixie and I were orphaned in a storm when we were just mer-babies,” Jasmine said, picking up the thread of the story. “Fortunately, we were adopted by a dolphin, who taught us how to dive and play and who caught fish for us to eat. And then one day, we happened to meet—”

“Me, Neptunette!” said Mackenzie, with a flash of jazz hands. “I’m their best friend.”

So that’s what the three of them had been working on back in our cabin! I tried not to feel left out as they giggled their way through their joint backstory.

Sirena arched an eyebrow at my cousin when they finished. “Really? You’re going with Neptunette?”

Mackenzie nodded. “As a tribute to Zadie and Lenore, who are awesome.”

Zadie jumped up off the sofa, ran over to where we were sitting, and kissed my cousin on both cheeks. “And we think you are awesome too, Miss Neptunette.” She made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the entire room. “In fact, we think you are all awesome, don’t we, Lenore—I mean Merissa?”

As usual, Lenore just nodded and smiled.

Finally, it was my turn. Last but no way am I gonna be least, I thought, my Lovejoy competitive spirit kicking in. “I’m Grania,” I began in a low and mysterious voice.

“Interesting,” said Sirena. “We’ve never had a Grania before, have we, Delphine?”

Delphine shook her head.

I plunged ahead, channeling Aunt True at our bookshop’s story time, and Augustus Wilde at one of his dramatic readings, and Gramps, who’d told the best bedtime stories in the world when we Lovejoy kids were little.

“They called me the pirate queen, back when I had land legs,” I continued. “I ruled the Emerald Isle, roving the high seas and plundering all ships that crossed my path. But I ran afoul of the law. They chased me from Dublin to Dover, until I did the only thing I could. I sailed to—” I paused. Sailed to where? My gaze fell on the MERMAID CROSSING sign, and I continued, “Mermaid Bay, a place of dark magic, where I called on all the gods of the watery deep to aid me in my time of peril.” This was all completely made up, of course. The real Grania O’Malley had done no such thing. But my audience obviously didn’t know that. They were hanging on my every word. Even Hayden. “A great wave sprang up, as if from nowhere, and swept me off my ship before I could be caught and punished for my dark deeds. I tumbled down, down, down, deep beneath the surface of the sea, where King Triton awaited me.” I thought about the mosaic at the bottom of the pool. “He touched me with his trident, and suddenly I could breathe underwater! Dolphins came and transported me to a castle, and a bed made of soft seaweed, and when I awoke, I had this fish tail you see before you.” I finished with a sweeping gesture like Zadie’s, pointing at my legs.

The room burst into enthusiastic applause.

“Now that’s a backstory!” said Delphine, which earned me a dose of stink eye from Hayden.

The Mermaid Chip Cookies were just as good as they sounded, studded with pastel M&M’s and sprinkled with sea salt. When it was time to head back to our cabins for bed, I grabbed a couple of extras when nobody was looking and stuffed them into my pocket.

“Should we try to get ahold of the guys?” I asked when we got back to Whelk.

Mackenzie frowned. “It’s kind of late.”

“Yeah, but we promised.” I punched in Calhoun’s number on the videoconferencing app. Scooter’s face was the one that appeared on my cell phone screen, though.

“Where have you guys been?” he demanded, scowling. “We’ve been waiting for hours! Didn’t you get our texts?”

“We’ve been kind of busy.”

“Doing what?”

I pulled a cookie from my pocket. “Eating delicious Mermaid Chip Cookies, for one thing!” I took a long, slow, exaggerated bite, just to torture him.

“Being mermaids is hard work,” Jasmine explained. “It’s not like we’re just sitting around on our, uh, tails. We have a lot of stuff we have to do. We’re going to be starring in a show later this week.”

Scooter’s scowl softened into a sly smile. “Wish we could see that!”

Calhoun’s face appeared beside Scooter’s. “Hey!”

I smiled at him. “Hey back!”

“We may have some leads,” he told us.

I paused midbite. “Seriously? That’s great!”

“Lucas knew what he was doing with those hashtags. It seems like just about everybody who was at the race that day took pictures and posted them on social media. There’s this one guy in particular—show them, Lucas.”

Lucas’s pale hand shot into view, holding his phone up for us.

“Um, who exactly are we looking for?” asked Cha Cha.

“See the old guy in the Grateful Dead T-shirt and aviator sunglasses?”

“By the bandstand?” Mackenzie squinted at the screen.

“Yeah. He’s the guy I saw hanging out near the diner, too,” said Lucas. “He shows up in a bunch of the pictures before the race, and then he disappears.”

I chewed on that bit of information. “Does that automatically make him a suspect, though? Maybe he was just passing through.”

“Just passing through near the bandstand? He’s right there when Belinda and Augustus are fooling around with the trophy, and he’s right there when they put it back in the paper bag under the podium. Then he vanishes. Definitely suspicious.”

Lucas had a point.

“So what now?” Jasmine wanted to know.

“Now we see if anyone knows him,” Calhoun told her. “We’re going to start asking around.”

“Excellent work, guys,” I said. “I wish we were there to help you.”

“No you don’t,” said Scooter, scowling again. “You’d rather be right where you are, eating Mermaid Chip Cookies without us.”

I smiled and took another bite. And then I hung up.