Page 26 - The Mermaid Call

She curled her lip – and stalked further on into the house.
I threw a hurried apology face and chased after her, frantic to explain, Erik’s dad sounds like a CBeebies presenter with everyone, adults too, except Alice got there first, hissing at me, “He was holding knitting needles!” and “I don’t trust people who are that jolly. They’re hiding something.”
All right, I know, I should have stuck up for Erik’s dad who, fact, I’d choose as my dad, but like I told you, I really don’t like to start arguments, make things unpleasant.
“This used to be Lydia and Violet’s kitchen,” I explained instead. Now it was exhibition space for all-things-mermaid. Enthusiastic-tour-guide, I began pointing out the best legends, like the Zennor mermaid who eloped with a boy from Cornwall, the mermaid’s curse at Knockdolion, Sabrina, the water nymph in River Severn, Loch Meadaidh’s selkie, the malevolent mermaid “who haunts Blake Mere pool”.
“There’s friendly mermaids too, like the one there at Bulgham Bay” and “the one in the Mermaid’s Pool in the Peak District can grant you eternal life”.
Professional throat-clear. And onto the best stories from history, like Christopher Columbus sighting mermaids on his Caribbean voyage and “The fake Fiji mermaid that P.T. Barnum bought for his circus, and” – oh – turning, I realised I’d been speaking to an empty room all this time.
I found Alice in the narrow hallway, with its panels on Hans Christian Andersen. She was staring at the part where the Little Mermaid makes a tragic pact with the Sea Witch.
“It was her own fault,” Alice said when she saw me, “Swapping a tail for dull legs!!” before she swept on again like she was surfing waves, into the next room – Lydia and Violet’s old lounge, with its cushioned bay window seat that looked out onto the grey lake. The exhibition panels here were all about the Mermaid Girls.
“Is that them?” Alice poked at a picture of Lydia and Violet soon after they returned to the village in 1914. “Why aren’t they more beautiful?” Another sharp curl formed on Alice’s parcel-bow mouth.