And Then I Turned Into a Mermaid. Laura Kirkpatrick

paddling in a rock pool, had a tail of dreamy lavender. Melissa’s was buttercup-yellow, and Myla’s was deep emerald-green with silver shimmers.

      Really, this was a very advanced practical joke. Molly had to applaud Margot. She had definitely evolved from the days of cling film over the loo.

      She was about to congratulate her sister on her world-class pranking abilities when something stopped her in her tracks. Her hand had found the place where the tail joined her waist, high up near her belly button, but there was no seam. It was like the scales were welded to her skin. Like they really were a part of her.

      The thought sent her stomach into a spiral, and dizzy spots prickled around her vision.

      ‘Um, guys? What’s going on?’ she asked.

      Myla was the first to speak. ‘It’s white. That’s . . . different.’

      ‘That’s boring,’ Melissa added.

      Margot snorted. ‘When it’s Minnie’s turn, I’m starting an official sweepstake, and I’m putting all my worldly possessions on mauve.’

      Molly felt four pairs of eyes boring into her, like when the kittiwakes watch you intently in case you drop a chip. She still felt dazed and woozy, the way she did when she was drifting off to sleep.

      Forcing some strength into her voice, she muttered, ‘If you’re done with your nonsense commentary, I have some questions.’

      ‘Right! Yes, of course,’ said Mum, wiggling her pale purple tail in the rock pool. ‘What would you like to know?’

      Molly stared at her. ‘Well, I thought that might be obvious.’

      ‘Well, we thought the mermaid thing might be obvious,’ Margot snarked back.

      Molly shot her a dagger-filled glare.

      Shuffling up on to a rock, her mum said gently, ‘You’re half-mermaid, sweetie.’

      ‘Half ?’

      ‘Your dad was a regular human.’

      Molly never thought she’d envy her long-lost father for something as basic as his biology. ‘Lucky him.’

      Mum ignored the snark. ‘Anyway, now that you’re thirteen, your mermaid side has awoken. You’re old enough to explore the other part of your life. Your tail. Your mermaidhood. But don’t go in the deep sea. It’s no longer safe. Especially for half-humans.’

      ‘Oh, right, of course,’ Molly muttered. ‘No sea. I’ll just flop around on the promenade, then. How about ponds? Are ponds dangerous? Or bogs?’

      ‘Ponds are fine,’ Mum answered, as though it had been a serious question. ‘I wouldn’t recommend bogs.’

      Molly’s mind raced. Surely, surely she was dreaming. And yet when she bit down hard on her tongue, she didn’t wake up. Her chest pounded, and her breathing grew quicker and quicker as she tried to fight back the tide of panic.

      ‘But mermaids aren’t real,’ she said, her words growing in uncertainty the more she examined her bright white tail. ‘They . . . We . . . Mermaids aren’t real.’

      ‘That’s what we want them to think,’ Mum replied, winking.

      Who’s ‘them’? Molly wondered as she stared at her shimmering scales. The tail was as easy to move and control as her legs, and twice as powerful.

      Looking around at her sisters, Molly noticed they weren’t wearing those tacky seashell bras, like mermaids do in cartoons. Instead they were wearing elegant long-sleeved tops – perfectly fitted and cropped just above their tails, in the same shimmery colours as their scales – that they definitely had not left the house in. Even her mum, who’d had a double mastectomy not long after Minnie was born, wore a top so well-fitting it was like her very own skin had turned a glittering lavender-purple. Molly looked down to find her own pyjama top had somehow been replaced with a beautiful shimmering white top.

      Molly dimly wondered how all their pyjamas and shoes had disappeared, but it seemed quite minor compared to suddenly sprouting a fishtail, so she shook the thought away.

      ‘I’m . . . I’m a mermaid?’ she said, as though saying it out loud would make it feel more real.

      ‘But you only get the tail when you’re near water,’ Margot explained, adjusting her sleep turban. Her poppy-coloured tail was vivid and, Molly had to admit, beautiful.

      ‘How near?’ Molly asked.

      ‘When you can feel the ocean in your heart, then you’re near enough,’ murmured Mum, eyes glazed and glassy.

      ‘Right, fantastic,’ Molly snapped. ‘In my heart. Got it. But just as a rough estimate, how many metres?’

      ‘The mermaid instinct cannot be measured in metres,’ her mum answered, laying her hand over her heart. ‘There’s no tape measure for the soul.’

      Wondering gravely why her mother had suddenly transformed into a raving lunatic, Molly tried again. ‘Right, but if there were a tape measure for the soul, what might it say? Like, am I going to flop around the school hallways whenever it rains outside? Am I going to knock people out with my flailing tail whenever we pass the swimming pool?’

      Mum nodded. ‘If your soul desires it.’

      Molly had the strong urge to slap her mother with a wet cod, but reckoned there was every chance mermaids liked that sort of thing.

      ‘Mum’s mastered it to the extent where she doesn’t transform until she’s actually in the water. It’s very impressive.’

      ‘Hence the skinny-dipping,’ Margot added with an eye-roll.

      ‘How is this happening?’ Molly whispered fearfully, a thousand questions simmering in her brain.

      ‘How does anything happen?’ Mum answered. ‘It just . . . is.’

      ‘So if Minnie came home one day with an elephant trunk you’d say, oh, never mind, it just is?’

      Margot snorted. ‘Be realistic, Molly.’

      ‘Realistic! You call this thing realistic?’

      Myla tutted, shaking her head. ‘You’re really being very closed-minded.’

      ‘Well, excuse me for not just immediately being like, oh, I have a tail, cool, what’s for dinner?’

      ‘We already had dinner,’ Margot pointed out. ‘It was awful.’

      ‘Oh my God, why are you deliberately dodging my questions?’

      Mum snapped out of her sea-witch whisper and sighed. ‘Molly, if you’d just calm down –’

      Anger bubbled in Molly’s throat. ‘How do you honestly expect me to calm down?’

      Melissa inhaled deeply, then exhaled exaggeratedly. ‘Just . . . breathe.’ She looked up at Mum for approval.

      ‘Through what, my face or my gills?’ Molly snapped. ‘Assuming I have gills? For the whole breathing underwater thing?’ Running her hands over her once smooth neck, sure enough there were a set of gills. ‘Brilliant. Just what I’ve always wanted. Holes in my skin! The hot new look! Coming to a freak show near you!’

      Even Margot looked worked up now, wringing her hands together and gritting her teeth. ‘Molly, seriously, can you please just relax?’

      ‘I’ll relax you!’ Molly shouted. ‘Permanently! You know, because you’d be dead.’

      ‘Molly!’ her mum yelled, raising her voice for the first time in forever, at the same time as Margot said, ‘That’s a bit much.’

      Molly wasn’t about to stick around to be