Read Pretty in Pearls: A Forgive My Fins Novella (HarperTeen Impulse) for Free Online Page B

ridiculous. I don’t expect my best friend to be so amused.
    “It’s all your fault,” I say. “If I’m a crazy stalker, I’m using you as my defense in court.”
    She laughs even harder. “I am the court!”
    “I’ll ask for the king to preside,” I retort. “He’s always liked me.”
    After a few more laughs, Lily finally calms back to normal. She studies me, her green eyes serious and intent. It’s like she’s trying to read my brain.
    If I weren’t trapped in a chair I’d back away a few inches.
    “What?”
    “You like him.” She takes my hands in hers and twirls me out of the chair. “You really like him.”
    I let her spin me a few times. It feels like the dances we used to do as guppies. Those were days of pure joy, before pressures or responsibilities or boys . Life was so much easier.
    “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Because he said he can’t like me back.”
    “That’s what he thinks.”
    “Oh no,” I say. “Don’t you get that determined look on your face.”
    “Leave things to me,” she says. “I’ll make sure he sees exactly what he’s missing.”
    The hairs on the back of my neck stand on tiptoe. “Don’t you dare.”
    “It’ll be perfect.” Her eyes go all dreamy, like she’s already planning the wedding.
    “Lily Sanderson,” I warn, and when she doesn’t respond, I get serious. “Princess Waterlily.”
    “What?” she asks with a long-suffering eye roll.
    “Promise me.” I get in her face, making sure she’s looking me straight in the eye. “Promise me you won’t do anything. At all. Nothing involving me and Riatus.”
    After last night’s humiliation, the last thing I want is to see him. Ever.
    “Involving you and Riatus?” she muses. “Okay. I promise. Nothing.”
    “Lily . . .”
    “You worry too much,” she says. “Now, let’s go see what Laver has cooked up in the kitchens tonight. I hear there’s pineapple inside-out cake.”
    One of the royal chef’s specialties.
    She takes me by the hand and swims for the door. I have a bad feeling about that promise. A really bad feeling.
    The light is still on in Mom’s studio when I get home. It’s late and she’s usually in bed by now. But with the Sea Harvest Dance less than two weeks away, she’s swamped with orders and working crazy hours to make sure all the dresses are perfect.
    Part of me misses being her apprentice. But I know she’s really happy that I’m working with Lily. And I still help out whenever I have free time.
    If only I had more time now.
    When I swim through her door, she has a mouthful of pins and she’s busy draping a swath of opulent lavender satin on a dress form. As I float there watching, she pins and repins it four times, finally settling on a fitted bodice with a fan of pleats across the chest. It’s a work of origami art.
    “It’s beautiful, Mom.”
    She twirls and smiles at me through the pins. “Hank hoo.”
    Luckily I can translate pin speak. “You’re welcome.”
    I grab the magnetic bowl of pins from her worktable and hold it out for her. She removes the pins from her mouth and sets them inside.
    “Is this the one for Venus?” I ask, guessing that the lavender will look breathtaking against her dark skin and black hair.
    She nods. “I had to talk her into it. But she’ll see.”
    They always do.
    “How many do you have left?” I ask.
    A dozen dress forms are scattered around the room, covered in various stages of dressmaking. A few only have seam line markings traced onto the cloth surface. Several display gowns that are all but finished, just needing one last piece of decoration or a final hem. The bulk of them are somewhere in between, with fabric or trim pinned on, fittings and finishings still to come.
    “Besides the ones on the forms,” she says, turning to look at the piles of cloth on her worktable, “a dozen more.”
    “A dozen?” I gasp. “Mom, how will you finish them all?”
    She shrugs. “I always find a way.”
    “I wish you