Fathom L. Standage (books for 8th graders .TXT) 📖

keenly. “She knows more about the ocean than anyone.”

He looked up at me again. I shut my eyes in humiliation.

“Look, Miss, I hate to be rude, but I have work—”

“Oooh, where are you from?” she asked. I opened my eyes again.

“Edinburgh,” he mumbled, fiddling with the contents in his black case.

“Oh. I just thought you sounded Scottish. My mistake.”

“You don’t know much about Scotland, do you?” Amusement coated his words.

“Sam—” I began, wanting to give her a little geography lesson, but the guy looked back at me and I clammed up again.

“I’ll just be over here, Olivia,” said Samantha with a wink. She walked away. I rubbed my temples.

“I’m sorry about that,” I said. I yearned to know his name and more about his work. “Can I ask what you’re doing?”

I shut my eyes after saying it. Holy crap, could I be any more awkward?

“Collecting samples,” he replied. Okay. Samples. I could work with that.

“Samples of what?”

He paused and looked up at me but didn’t say anything. Then he bent back down and gathered a few test tubes with small bits of crusty sand inside them.

“Blood,” he replied.

“Blood?” I whispered, part in horror and part in macabre fascination. He finished packing up his things and stood.

“Nothing to worry about,” he said. “Nice to have met you.” He gave me a swift, closed-lip smile and walked away.

Keep talking, said a voice in my head that sounded like Samantha. Ask him if anything weird happened here last night. No! What if he had nothing to do with it? Or worse, what if he did? Just say something.

Nothing came out. He stepped over the low concrete wall dividing the sand from the sidewalk along the beach and headed toward the parking lot. All my breath rushed from my lungs. My face burned.

At least it was over. And Sam owed me. I turned to go find her, only to be nearly knocked over as she threaded her arm through mine. She beamed and giggled and practically skipped as her questions fired like bottle rockets.

“So? How’d it go? What’s his name? Did he ask for your number?”

“No,” I replied, dizzy from the whole dumb experience. “I don’t have a phone, remember?”

She swore and slapped her forehead. “I can’t believe I forgot! We should have asked for his number. So what’s his name?”

“I don’t know.”

“Liv! You had your chance!”

A chance? I never wanted a chance. “I can’t do it. I’m not like that anymore, Sam,” I said numbly, thankful the ordeal was over. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter anyway; he’s not from here and neither are we. We’ll probably never see him again.”

She frowned, a tiny crease appearing between her sculpted eyebrows. “Well, it was worth a shot though, wasn’t it? Your first time getting back out there and you did great!”

I huffed. “I barely said two words to him.”

“That’s okay! We’ll try again another time.”

I sighed. There wouldn’t be another time because I wasn’t going to hit on any more random strangers. But she didn’t need to know that.

“Also,” I said, “just so you know, Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland.”

She waved her hand. “Like I’m supposed to know that.” She looked back toward the place where the guy had been kneeling in the sand. “Mmm…Hottie McScottie,” she murmured.

“If you like him so much, you should’ve gone after him.”

She laughed. “Let’s go get sunburned, mermaid girl.”

The next morning, I sat in an alcove where the sea had worn the rock away, hidden from the public beach a few hundred feet down the shore. Seaweed lay around me in matted clumps. Early morning fog shrouded the horizon, blurring the sea and the sky together. The tide ebbed low, the lonely spit of bouldery beach deserted except for the jutting rocks and a few seagulls. Sam picked up the jeans I’d worn before changing into the costume and crammed them into her camera bag. Then she set the bag on a rock and walked over to me.

“This is so gross,” Sam said, rearranging the seaweed as if it were a dead body. I laughed at her revulsion.

“It’s just kelp.”

“Whatever. It’s disgusting. And it smells like fish.”

“You’re the one who wanted it in the picture, you wimp.”

She arched an eyebrow at me, cleared her throat, and pulled something from her pocket. “Let’s put this in your hair.” It was a small, white sea star. “I found a whole bowl of them in my room back at the house.”

I tilted my head so she could fasten the sea star into my hair, near the side of my temple, with a clear rubber band and a bobby pin. I looked down at my legs, bound together in the shiny green fabric. A wide strip of matching fabric covered my boobs like a tube top—not a difficult feat since the ladies weren’t exactly on the voluptuous side.

I had to give Samantha credit. The costume was brilliant, and it fit me like a glove. The fabric caught the misty, pale light just like fish scales would have done and the seams were almost invisible. The tail at the end was long, like the elegant tail of a betta fish. If I pointed my toes, no one would be able to tell I had feet. I got an eerie feeling seeing the mermaid tail on my own body.

“Okay.” Samantha stepped back. She looked me over with a huge smile. “You. Look. Fabulous! Oh, this is going to be so good. Okay, lie down like you’ve just been washed ashore, and let me arrange your hair.” I lay back so Samantha could fluff and position my blonde waves around my head. She then moved some seaweed around my tail.

“Perfect!” She stood again, held up her camera, and took a few shots. “Wow. You look so real! This rock makes an incredible backdrop. Okay, look at me. Don’t smile.” Click, click, click. “I said don’t smile.”

I snorted and burst out laughing.

“Liv.”

“I’m sorry!” I pressed my lips together, took a deep breath, and