Page 32 - The Mermaid Call

I watched Alice dig into her jeans pocket and chuck in a – two pound! – coin. She closed her eyes to wish; like a sleeping angel. I closed mine too (two pounds = two wishes, surely): please make Mum visit soon (even if I didn’t believe in magic).
When I snapped mine open, Alice was staring at me, impatiently. “Illuminated Caves?”
I led her out along the dug-out path that used to be a track for the small quarry train, circling higher beside the edge of the leafy green wood and its occasional glimpses of tall grey rock behind barbed wire boundaries. “At Christmas they put fairy lights all over the trees,” I said, because Alice still wasn’t looking mightily enthralled. Less so, when she glimpsed the fat white bulbs strung across the Illuminated Cave entrance. I supposed maybe they did look a little pathetic.
“Poor person’s Madame Tussauds or what?” Alice exclaimed as she stepped into the gloom of the cave to meet Lake Splendour’s life-size mermaids.
I made a nervous laugh. The waxworks used to be my favourite part.
“The mirror’s there because of the Mermaid Girls’ talk about transformation,” I got in first before she could criticise the large, chipped, gilt-framed mirror propped up near one wall of the cave.
We drew closer to the glass. I found myself wondering what it must be like, to have Alice’s reflection, how much easier everything would be – when Emmeline joined us.
Alice gasped.
“Sorry, yeah,” I said hurriedly, “the mirror’s got a hologram of the Lake Mermaid.” I bobbed my head around to catch it again. “It only appears from a certain angle. You have to ‘summon her.’” I made finger marks in the air. “It used to freak me out when I was little.” In fact – shiver – it still did a bit now.
“Arcade penny drops?” I suggested hopefully.
Alice’s mouth was pinched. “How did they reach the Mermaid World?”
“Oh, over there,” I pointed, stopping myself from adding, allegedly, like a police detective.
Because, if it wasn’t clear before: Alice was taking this mermaid business really seriously. I