Just for Fins Read online

  “I didn’t mean that—”

  “What do you know of the mer world anymore?”

  “You’ve been living on land too long.”

  “You’ve grown out of touch.”

  “Now that is unfair,” Daddy argues.

  The other voices are growing so loud that I can’t distinguish them.

  “I must look out for my own,” a voice louder than the others says. “I must take action to protect my kingdom and my people.”

  Then the room erupts. It’s as if everyone starts talking at once, comparing stories of environmental tragedy within their kingdoms. Arguing and bickering.

  I look to Tellin, helpless, but he has moved to his father’s side, trying to calm the old king down as he argues with the rulers on either side of him. I float slowly back from the table.

  I thought I’d been calling a meeting to request help for Acropora, a kingdom dying as ocean warming kills off their coral reefs. A simple plea for aid that I thought would be readily answered.

  Instead, I find the entire Western Atlantic in environmental turmoil. Thalassinia, it seems, has been lucky so far. We are protected, carefully situated between the overfished waters to the north, the warming waters to the south, and the oil-filled waters to the west.

  I’ve always known Thalassinia was one of the more prosperous kingdoms. I just hadn’t realized we were so lucky, too.

  Across the long length of the table, Tellin lifts his gaze and looks at me. He doesn’t have to say a word. The bond takes care of that, of sharing his feelings with me, even at a distance. I can tell he’s disappointed, and it’s all my fault. I insisted we call this council of kings and queens, I insisted it was the best way to help his people. I was so sure. So confident.

  So wrong.

  The voices in the room get louder and the arguments swell. Each king or queen is adamant that his or her kingdom suffers the worst fate. Their shouts echo off the chamber walls until all I hear is the roar of sound vibrating through the water.

  “Enough!” Dumontia’s shout resonates above all the rest.

  The room falls silent once more as the arguments gradually fade and the occupants turn their attention to the arctic queen.

  “This,” she says with a sneer, waving her hand over the table, “has been a waste of time and resources.” Her eyes focus in on me. “Do not call for my attendance again.”

  Then, without another word, she turns and swims out the door. The wake of her fin flicks and those of her bodyguards wash through the room.

  King Zostero floats up. “This has accomplished nothing,” he declares before following Dumontia’s path.

  “No, wait,” I call out, trying to salvage the purpose of this meeting. “We can still do something.”

  One by one, the other rulers rise from the table and storm from the room, until only Daddy, Tellin, and King Gadus are left. King Gadus tosses an angry look at his son.

  “I hope you’re—” A violent coughing fit cuts off his sentence. When Tellin tries to help him, Gadus knocks his hand away. The old king draws himself up straight. “I hope you’re happy.”

  Then he follows the rest of the kings and queens.

  “I—” I shake my head, overwhelmed by what just happened, by everything that I just learned is happening in my world. “I had no idea.”

  Then, without waiting for either Tellin or Daddy to say anything—really, what’s to say?—I turn and swim away.

  Chapter 5

  I don’t realize where I’m swimming until I get there. I blindly move along hallway after hallway, around corner after corner, my mind racing with the reality of what just happened. Detail after detail replays in my thoughts, with flashes of oil spills and overfishing and melting ice caps. The scope of the problem is overwhelming. Eventually I find myself floating through the door to the map room.

  I look around at the familiar room, and I’m transported to a calmer place.

  This used to be one of my favorite rooms to explore in the whole palace. As I swim in, the walls on either side of the room are lined with countless drawers of maps. Ancient maps, modern maps. Maps of mer kingdoms from around the world. Human maps that have been treated with a special kind of wax to be able to survive underwater. There is even an entire stack of drawers dedicated to treasure maps. My ancestors had a knack for talking pirates out of their secrets, and as a mergirl I dreamed of seeking out those buried boxes of gold and gems.

  The most impressive element in the room, however, is the wall opposite the door. It is covered in a giant mosaic map of the world’s oceans. The Atlantic is in the center of the map, with the ten kingdoms of the Western Atlantic marked by borders in the colors of each kingdom. Glacialis, far to the north, is drawn in white. Marbella Nova is a yellow-rimmed kidney bean in the south. Acropora is marked in red. Thalassinia, in the very center, is outlined in bright royal blue.

  Beyond the Western Atlantic are countless other kingdoms: in the Eastern and Southern Atlantic another fifteen kingdoms; too many to memorize in the different parts of the Pacific; and a few in the Indian Ocean. And that doesn’t even include those lake and river kingdoms that are landlocked on the seven continents. Well, not Antarctica—solid ice is no place for a mermaid—but the other six, anyway.

  So many different kingdoms, so many different problems. And I never thought much beyond the concerns of my own shores. I can’t believe I’ve been this . . . self-centered.

  I’m ashamed that I have let myself be so disconnected from my people and my kin. Just because Thalassinia has been spared environmental catastrophe so far doesn’t mean we always will be. And it doesn’t mean I can bury my head in the sand and ignore what’s happening in other parts of my world.

  I sense Tellin entering the room before he speaks.

  “It was worth a try.”

  I don’t turn around.

  “You were right,” I say, floating up to the center of the map. “I was a fool to believe it would be that easy.”

  I trace my fingertips over the southern border of Thalassinia, where it meets the bright-red border of Acropora.

  He swims up next to me. “Nothing this important is ever easy.” He covers my hand with his, and together we trace our shared border. “But that doesn’t mean we give up.”

  “I just—” I pull my hand away and float down to the floor. “I never realized how bad things were getting.”

  “How could you have known?”

  “I could have been here; I could have taken up my duties sooner.” I can feel the tears stinging at my eyes, but I can’t stop them. “I could have been helping, instead of playing at being human.”

  Tellin sinks down next to me and wraps an arm around my shoulders. “But you are human,” he says, giving me a squeeze. “Half, anyway. You weren’t playing, you were finding yourself.”

  “But what if I—”

  “You could not have known,” a booming voice interrupts. Daddy lingers in the doorway, as if he does not wish to intrude on our moment.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, swimming out of Tellin’s hug. I don’t want Daddy—or anyone—getting the wrong impression that my heart lies anywhere but with Quince.

  “I mean,” Daddy says, “that I kept the concerns of the mer world from you. I did not wish them to influence your decision.”

  I just stare at him, confused.

  “You have your mother’s compassion,” he says with a smile that’s just a little sad at the edges, “and her sense of justice. I wanted you to make the choices that were best for you, not only for your people.”

  “I—” This shouldn’t come as a shock. Even when I was considering signing my title away to be with Quince on land, Daddy supported me without hesitation. Of course he wouldn’t want the plight of my people—of my mer kin—to influence that choice. That doesn’t mean I think he was right to do it, but I understand and appreciate it all the same.

  “Thank you.” I swim forward and wrap him in a big hug. “I wish you hadn’t done that, but I get wh
y you did.”

  My stomach flip-flops at the thought of how close I came to giving up my ability to help the mer world in an official capacity.

  What if I hadn’t decided at the last minute—the last possible moment—to bond with Tellin and save my title? What if I’d decided to stay on land and then found out later how bad things are in the ocean? I would have been devastated.

  I shake my head. That doesn’t matter now. I made the right decision, that’s what’s important, and I’m going to make a difference.

  “What are we going to do?” I ask both Daddy and Tellin.

  “What can we do?” Tellin replies. There is a sadness in his eyes, a resignation that stabs me in the gut.

  I look at Daddy, but he just shakes his head. He doesn’t know either.

  “Well, I don’t know,” I say. “Yet. But I’m going to figure something out.” I give Tellin a confident look. “To help the mer world and Acropora. To get them to realize we have to work together or we will all suffer.”

  “In the meantime,” Daddy says, “we can send some emergency supplies and aid to Acropora. I will instruct the guard to send a contingent carrying food and medical supplies with you, Tellin, when you return home.”

  Tellin straightens his spine and smiles. “I appreciate the offer, King Whelk.”

  Daddy nods and says, “I will go see to the preparations.”

  Then he gives me a look—I’m not sure if it’s pride or concern, maybe both—before swimming out of the room. He won’t say so, because he doesn’t like to influence my decisions, but I can tell he’s glad I made the choices I did. Not that he would have ever made me feel bad for walking away. Still, he’s proud of me, I can tell. I just need to figure out how to live up to that pride.

  When Daddy’s gone, I turn back to the map. “The problem is so much bigger than I thought.” So big it seems almost insurmountable. And this is just within our local waters. “I wonder if the other regions around the globe are suffering the way ours is.”

  “I have not heard anything,” Tellin replies.

  “That doesn’t mean there aren’t problems.” I glance over the map, skimming over all the mer kingdoms in the far corners of the world. “They might be trying to solve them on their own, just like your father was. Just like the other kingdoms are right now.”

  “Here they are!”

  I turn at the sound of my best friend’s voice. “Peri!”

  She swims into the map room with Tellin’s girlfriend at her side and a school of Acroporan guards floating close behind.

  “The king wishes to depart, Prince,” the head guard says.

  Lucina swims up to Tellin’s side. “He seemed in a foul mood,” she says, taking his hands in hers. “Did the council meeting go poorly?”

  “You could say that,” he replies.

  He lowers his head until their foreheads touch, and I can’t help but sigh at the gesture.

  Peri leans close to my ear and whispers, “So, wanna tell me why your hair is blue?”

  I wince. “No,” I reply. “Actually, I don’t.”

  She gives me a look that says I’ll have to fess up eventually.

  I ignore that look.

  “See your father safely home,” I urge Tellin. “Get the supplies Daddy is sending to your people. Hopefully that will help.”

  “It will,” Tellin replies. “But not enough.”

  I give him a solemn look. “I know that. We’re going to figure out what to do. We just need to regroup, to look at the problem again with what we learned today.”

  “I will gather my father’s advisers,” Tellin says. “I will tell them what happened and we will discuss our options.”

  “And I’ll do the same,” I promise. “I’ll send you a gull if I figure something out.”

  Tellin nods. “As will I.”

  I watch him swim away with his girlfriend and his royal guard, and I am more determined than ever to find a solution to our problems. All of our problems.

  Because if there’s anything that the disastrous council meeting taught me—and the great mosaic in the map room reminded me—it’s that all the world’s oceans are really one. And a problem that faces one mer kingdom affects us all.

  “So the meeting didn’t go as planned, huh?” Peri asks.

  I sigh out all my frustrations. “A complete conch shell from start to finish.”

  “Come on,” she says, twining an arm around mine and guiding me from the room. “I hear Laver has some fresh kelpcakes. You can tell me all about it over some sugar and frosting.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  I trust Peri more than just about anyone, and she’s one of the smartest mergirls I know. Maybe she can help me find a solution. Even if she can’t, she’ll listen as I talk it through.

  Laver can be very protective of his treats, so Peri and I run the play we’ve been practicing since we were guppies. She distracts Laver by asking him some very involved question about cooking while I sneak into the room and grab a pair of contraband goodies.

  We meet up in the hallway, giggling like little mergirls as we swim away with the tasty prize.

  Only this time, as we rush down the hall with key lime kelpcakes in hand, we don’t make a clean getaway.

  “Princess Waterlily,” a mocking voice calls out as we swim toward the ramp to my bedroom. “Fleeing the scene of the disaster?”

  Giggles bubble across the hall as I turn to face three of the last merpeople I wanted to see . . . ever. The terrible trio. They have matching looks of delight on their overly made-up faces.

  “Don’t they ever leave the palace?” I mutter under my breath. “Astria, Piper, Venus,” I say, “what an unexpected surprise.”

  “Great white,” Astria gasps with a disgusted sneer. “What happened to your hair?”

  My cheeks burn, but Peri comes to my rescue.

  “It’s the latest thing.” She smooths her fingers through the blue strands. “Mother says every mergirl will be doing it by next month.”

  Being the daughter of the most popular dressmaker in the kingdom has perks when it comes to fashion. The terrible trio exchange a glance before Astria dives back in on her original attack.

  So much for my reprieve.

  “We heard about the council meeting,” Astria says, her voice dripping with mock sympathy. “Did the foreign kings and queens really storm out in protest?”

  “So dramatic,” Venus says.

  Piper echoes, “Dramatic.”

  I shake my head. “No, that’s not what happened.”

  It’s not too far off from the truth, but they didn’t exactly leave in protest. More like in disgust.

  “That’s not what we heard,” Astria argues. “Did Queen Dumontia really put you in your place?”

  “No, she—”

  “What do you know about it?” Peri blurts.

  Astria’s piercing gaze shifts from me to Peri. I watch my best friend, spine stiff in either terror or courage, face down one of her fiercest enemies. I’m proud of her, even though her clenched fists are shaking against her hips.

  “Did you suddenly grow a backbone, parasite?” Astria sneers.

  “Or maybe,” Venus counters, “you’re just borrowing Princess Waterlily’s.”

  “Borrowing.” Piper nods enthusiastically.

  Peri drifts back an inch. I nudge myself closer to her side, letting her know she has my support.

  “I will not sit silent while you disparage the name of the crown princess of Thalassinia,” she says, her voice tight with emotion. “She deserves your respect.”

  I reach out and grab Peri’s hand. She is a loyal friend, and I know how much strength it’s taking for her to stand up to her childhood nemesis.

  “Respect is earned,” Astria throws back. “And not by calling a council of kings and queens in which all the kings and queens flee in anger.”

  “Anger,” Piper parrots.

  “Shut up, Piper,” Astria snaps.

  Piper’s eyes widen as she blin
ks in shock. This can’t be the first time Astria has turned on her own.

  “You don’t know anything about it,” Peri insists.

  Astria floats closer, until she’s just inches away from us. “I know that if our princess had spent more time with the royal tutor and less time falling in love on land, she might have done a better job with her first official duty.”

  I’m not sure who is more stunned: me, Peri, or Piper, who is still reeling from Astria’s shutdown. For several long seconds we’re all silent.

  I don’t know what the others are thinking—except Piper, who probably isn’t thinking much of anything—but I’m processing a mix of shame and anger and absolute frustration. Partly because I think Astria is right, partly because everything that happened in the last few hours has built up to the point where I just have to let it out.

  “Enough!” I shout.

  Everyone floats away from me. At first I think it’s because of my outburst, but then I realize the water around me is swirling. I don’t notice at first, the motion is so subtle, but then I feel the whirlpool forming.

  I take a moment to absorb the sensation. I knew that ascending to my new title would come with new powers, beyond the ordinary mer powers of transfiguration and controlling water temperature. I just didn’t know what controlling the movement of water would feel like. It feels . . . exciting.

  It also feels dangerous.

  This is how ships disappear on smooth seas—mer powers gone out of control. I clench my jaw and force some calm into my mind. Peri’s hand squeezes mine, and I look at her. Her gray-green eyes are wide—not with shock, but with awe. She knows exactly what’s happening.

  The connection with her brings me back into control. I drag in a deep breath and let it out before I continue, making sure I keep my emotions in check while giving the terrible trio a big piece of my mind.

  “Don’t you have something more worthwhile to do,” I ask Astria, “than grub around the palace looking for gossip?”

  She opens her mouth to answer, but I don’t let her. This is my moment, and I’m going to say what I’ve wanted to say for years.

  “You think I’m out of touch with the world down here?” I curl my tailfin. “You have no clue. The oceans are changing, mer kingdoms are suffering, and our kin are dying.”