Read Emily Windsnap and the Siren's Secret for Free Online Page B

risk of being equally humiliated there — not for a while, anyway.
    None of us had mentioned my grandparents again. I was dying to, though. Now that Mom had brought them up, I was aware that she never talked about them and that I never asked. Except for the moment last year out at the Great Mermer Reef, when she remembered everything. She told me then what had happened with them — how they’d practically disowned her because of her relationship with a merman. But that was it; that was all I knew. I didn’t actually know anything about them: what they were like, how things had been with them before it had all gone wrong. I realized I wanted to know all about them. But not now. This wasn’t the time to ask.
    “Can I go to Aaron’s?” I asked instead, taking my plate over to the sink. I wanted to find out what his mom had said and what they were planning to do now. Hopefully she’d say the same as Mom and Dad, and Aaron and I could hang out together for an extra few weeks. Getting thrown out of mermaid school might not feel so bad, then.
    I had a twinge of guilt as I realized that whenever I had some free time nowadays, Aaron was the first person I thought of spending it with, not Shona. Was it disloyal of me? Did it make me a bad best friend?
    I couldn’t answer either question, and I certainly wasn’t going to ask anyone else. I pushed the guilty feelings away and went out.

    I walked up the pier and was heading toward the cottages where Aaron and his mom were staying when a familiar figure rounded the corner. Mandy. This was it, then: truth time.
    She was looking down at the ground while she walked and hadn’t spotted me yet. I held my breath, waiting till she did. Or would she walk straight past me without even noticing?
    Just before we passed each other, she suddenly looked up. For approximately a millisecond, her eyes brightened. She looked as if she were about to smile. I started to smile back. She remembered!
    And then, in an instant, her expression changed back to the sneer I was more used to seeing. “Well, look what the tide’s dragged in,” she said, leaning back on her hips. And with those few words, the slight hope I’d had that she would remember our friendship sank like a stone in a murky sea.
    “Hi, Mandy,” I said glumly, and kept on walking. I wasn’t in the mood to hang around and listen to her taunts. I thought she’d call after me, but she didn’t. I quickly looked back before turning toward the cottages. She was still there, staring after me. Then she shook her head and set off back toward the pier. It could have been worse, I suppose. Still, it would be nice if something could go right soon.
    I got to the cottage, and Aaron grinned as soon as he saw me. “Guess what?” he said. “Mom says I don’t need to start at Brightport High till the fall!”
    “Me too!”
    Something had gone right!
    “Come on,” Aaron joined me outside. “Mom’s watching TV. Let’s go for a walk.”
    I laughed. “I wouldn’t have thought your mom was the TV type.”
    “We’ve never had a television before, so it’s her new toy. She’s hooked on the game shows. Says she’s learning all sorts of things from them. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire just started. She won’t even notice I’ve gone!” He stuck his head around the door anyway. “Just heading out with Emily, Mom.”
    “No, it’s B, you idiot!” she shouted at the television.
    Aaron smiled as he shut the door behind us. “Told you!”
    The sun was setting as we walked along the beach. Aaron chatted happily away about all sorts of things. My mind was too full of the events of the day to concentrate all that much on what he was saying.
    “Doesn’t it bother you?” I broke in at one point.
    He turned to me. “What?”
    “You know. Today. What happened.”
    Aaron shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “In a way, yes, of course it does. In another way, I don’t mind all that much. For one thing, everything about my life is a