breathing on the back of his neck. He recalled Halvor’s story.
All that remained was a shred of her dress hanging on the rail and a conch shell, the mark of the merfolk.
One of them had been there, looking for the baby. It might not be an orphan, as Mertyle thought. Its mom might be out there, in the ocean, worried. But that seemed ridiculous. Those creatures were half fish, and fish didn’t have feelings. A shell wasn’t proof anyway. It could just be a coincidence.
“We don’t have any conch shells around here,” Winger said, taking it from Boom’s hands. “I wonder where this came from.”
Okay, so it wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe its parents were looking for it after all. But didn’t Halvor’s book say that mermen eat their young? What if the baby wasn’t lost, but had run away from home? What if it had tried to escape from the evil clutches of a treacherous neighbor, or a mean, big-butted principal who had tried to make it go to fish school? Life with Mertyle and Boom might be a whole lot better than life in an ocean teeming with sharks and fishing nets. As he tried to rationalize the situation, Boom realized that as much as Mertyle wanted to keep the baby, he wanted to keep it too. It was, after all, the discovery of the twenty-first century.
“What are you going to feed it?” Winger asked.
Boom put the shell into his backpack. “It likes to eat goldfish,” he hinted, hoping Winger would make a small sacrifice to the cause.
“I’m not feeding it my goldfish,” Winger said hurriedly. “No way. Even though Fergus is sick with Ick, he’s going to get better. As long as I keep giving him those drops.”
Boom looked out over the bay, wondering if he’d catch a glimpse of a green head with flowing seaweed hair. But only the seagulls disturbed the water, swooping down for their morning meal.
“Okay. Then we’ll have to go to the pet store.”
Chapter Eleven:
Ms. Kibble
B oom and Winger ran along the sleepy harbor, then turned onto Main Street. From that end of the street it was possible to see all the way to the other end, a mere five-block span. Beyond lay the churning ocean and the endless horizon with its ever-changing array of midnight blue, powderpuff white, and gunmetal gray — like one of Mr. Broom’s palettes. The little shops along Main Street were squeezed together in an odd way, as if the buildings were huddling against the wind.
“What are you going to do with it?” Winger asked.
“Do with it?”
“Are you going to build a cage for it?”
“I don’t know. Mertyle said she’d take care of it.”
“Don’t you realize what you could do with it? You could charge people money to see it. Meet the Merbaby. Tourists pay six dollars to go to the Fairweather Aquarium, and the most exciting thing to see there is the stupid hermit crab exhibit. Tourists would totally pay a lot more to see a real merbaby.” Winger started calculating. “There are one thousand two hundred and forty-two people on this island. At six dollars each, that’s seven thousand four hundred and fifty-two dollars. If you charged ten dollars, that would be . . . twelve thousand four hundred and twenty dollars!”
Twelve thousand dollars? Winger kept calculating as they walked. He added in the population of those who lived on the mainland, and then all the people in China. “Boom! You’ll be the richest kid in the entire world!”
Boom almost bit his tongue. Selling tickets had never occurred to him. This baby could be like finding a sunken pirate treasure.
Boom stopped outside the picture window of the Fairweather shoe store. A pair of fire-red Galactic Kickers sat on display. He pressed his face against the glass, staring at what were, without doubt, the most cherished kicking shoes in the world. The sign read:
Galactic Kickers.
Developed with space-age technology, these impact-absorbing wonders are equipped with double arch -support, steel-padded toes, and superior traction.
The preferred shoe
All that remained was a shred of her dress hanging on the rail and a conch shell, the mark of the merfolk.
One of them had been there, looking for the baby. It might not be an orphan, as Mertyle thought. Its mom might be out there, in the ocean, worried. But that seemed ridiculous. Those creatures were half fish, and fish didn’t have feelings. A shell wasn’t proof anyway. It could just be a coincidence.
“We don’t have any conch shells around here,” Winger said, taking it from Boom’s hands. “I wonder where this came from.”
Okay, so it wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe its parents were looking for it after all. But didn’t Halvor’s book say that mermen eat their young? What if the baby wasn’t lost, but had run away from home? What if it had tried to escape from the evil clutches of a treacherous neighbor, or a mean, big-butted principal who had tried to make it go to fish school? Life with Mertyle and Boom might be a whole lot better than life in an ocean teeming with sharks and fishing nets. As he tried to rationalize the situation, Boom realized that as much as Mertyle wanted to keep the baby, he wanted to keep it too. It was, after all, the discovery of the twenty-first century.
“What are you going to feed it?” Winger asked.
Boom put the shell into his backpack. “It likes to eat goldfish,” he hinted, hoping Winger would make a small sacrifice to the cause.
“I’m not feeding it my goldfish,” Winger said hurriedly. “No way. Even though Fergus is sick with Ick, he’s going to get better. As long as I keep giving him those drops.”
Boom looked out over the bay, wondering if he’d catch a glimpse of a green head with flowing seaweed hair. But only the seagulls disturbed the water, swooping down for their morning meal.
“Okay. Then we’ll have to go to the pet store.”
Chapter Eleven:
Ms. Kibble
B oom and Winger ran along the sleepy harbor, then turned onto Main Street. From that end of the street it was possible to see all the way to the other end, a mere five-block span. Beyond lay the churning ocean and the endless horizon with its ever-changing array of midnight blue, powderpuff white, and gunmetal gray — like one of Mr. Broom’s palettes. The little shops along Main Street were squeezed together in an odd way, as if the buildings were huddling against the wind.
“What are you going to do with it?” Winger asked.
“Do with it?”
“Are you going to build a cage for it?”
“I don’t know. Mertyle said she’d take care of it.”
“Don’t you realize what you could do with it? You could charge people money to see it. Meet the Merbaby. Tourists pay six dollars to go to the Fairweather Aquarium, and the most exciting thing to see there is the stupid hermit crab exhibit. Tourists would totally pay a lot more to see a real merbaby.” Winger started calculating. “There are one thousand two hundred and forty-two people on this island. At six dollars each, that’s seven thousand four hundred and fifty-two dollars. If you charged ten dollars, that would be . . . twelve thousand four hundred and twenty dollars!”
Twelve thousand dollars? Winger kept calculating as they walked. He added in the population of those who lived on the mainland, and then all the people in China. “Boom! You’ll be the richest kid in the entire world!”
Boom almost bit his tongue. Selling tickets had never occurred to him. This baby could be like finding a sunken pirate treasure.
Boom stopped outside the picture window of the Fairweather shoe store. A pair of fire-red Galactic Kickers sat on display. He pressed his face against the glass, staring at what were, without doubt, the most cherished kicking shoes in the world. The sign read:
Galactic Kickers.
Developed with space-age technology, these impact-absorbing wonders are equipped with double arch -support, steel-padded toes, and superior traction.
The preferred shoe
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