Page 34 - The Mermaid Call

“Someone excellent at sneaking and spying,” she continued, flashing me a full-teeth smile as if she was already looking at the perfect person for the job. She really didn’t know me. Subterfuge, disguise, pretence: I pulled a face of apology. I’d be hopeless.
“Don’t you ever do things you’re not supposed to?”
Casual laugh. “Sure, yeah.” Absolutely not. Apart from, maybe, sneaking a look at my phone after bedtime or stealing another biscuit from the jar.
“I must read Aunt Stella’s diary. I need to know what The Dragon is hiding from me.” Alice started walking away, backwards. “With or without you.”
“Hello, love,” Mimi smiled as Tinkerbell announced me. “What you been up to?”
“I told you.” I peered out the shop window, watching Alice disappear from view, up the
road to the big, la-di-da houses; I’d never even got her number.
“I was meeting Alice DeLacey.” I knew Mimi hadn’t been listening this morning. I
started fiercely ordering a disorderly shelf of water sprites with sniggering faces.
“Alice DeLacey?” Mimi said. “Oh no, love, you can’t be making friends with her.”
I glanced around; Mimi’s bright expression had fallen like a veil from her face. “The
DeLaceys are strange folk, lovey, they keep their distance from the village. They would not want their grand-daughter hanging around with you.”
With me?
I froze; water sprite grinning in my hand.
“Sweetheart, it’s just, we’re not their sort of people. You’re a village girl,” she said, like we were in some fairy tale and Alice was a prince, me the pauper.
“Anyway, time for our cod dinner I reckon.” Mimi went across to our ancient brass till and thumped it, its cash drawer cranking open to reveal the day’s paltry notes and card receipts. She slid out a ten-pound note, thrusting it towards me with another weighty smile that seemed to cover up a not-smile. “My good, clever girl,” she said.
And my insides started fizzing like I’d plunged into ice cold water. Good. Clever. Not beautiful. Never exciting.