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into different holes and struggled to pull the shorts up. I tried to fasten the button but the shorts were too tight. So I let it go and reached for the shirt.
    I tried inserting my head. Choking, I realized I had an arm hole. I rearranged the top and managed to pull it down, but it was much too big and hung off my shoulders like seaweed clinging to the edge of a rock. The shirt came down to my knees, so I tied it around my waist.
    I knew I must have been completely dressed when Earthlady grinned with relief.
    â€œYou kids are always breaking the rules!” she chided, like a grandma.
    An Earthee! Speaking to me, as if I were one of her own kind. Fascinated, I forgot my fear. In any case, she seemed as harmless as a starfish. I stared at her crinkly beige skin and her purple straw hat, her fiery attitude hunching her over more than her aging years.
    â€œYou’re too pale to lay out without clothes,” shescolded, but in a softer voice. “And you should wear a hat like mine. The sun’ll ruin that color job!”
    I nodded respectfully, and shoved white open-toed shoes on my two new feet. My two new feet! I was a real Earthee!
    Earthlady continued to observe me. I tried to stand up, but I immediately fell over.
    â€œI just bought these legs,” I joked, choking the words out.
    â€œYou must have gotten up too quickly,” she said, extending her hand.
    â€œBlood rushed to my head.”
    She guided me straight up and held me steady as we began to walk—I for the first time in my life!
    â€œYou forgot your backpack,” Earthlady said.
    â€œBut that’s not—” I began, but she had already left me to kindly retrieve the bag.
    I teetered on one leg, then the other. I clung to the lifeguard stand. I didn’t have water for support, and the air was so thin. Okay, Lills, I said to myself. Either walk to Seaside High or swim all the way to the freezing Atlantic!
    â€œYou’re dehydrated!” the woman said, pulling a bottle of water from her huge canvas purse.
    I pressed my lips around the opening and sucked the contents down in one gulp.
    â€œOh, my. You are thirsty!”
    She helped steady me. I coughed on the smoke from her cigarette. It was hard enough breathing pure air without having to breathe smoke.
    â€œWhich way to Seaside High?” I asked, choking, as she helped me put on the backpack.
    She pointed past the beach to the hill, where a large school overlooked the Pacific Ocean.
    â€œWell, in that case, you’re late, kid,” she said sternly. “You’d better get moving!”
    â€œI’m walking as fast as I can,” I said, starting to balance on my own.
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    I stepped on shells, cigarette butts, and empty soda cans. But I quickly recovered and marched up to the top of the beach, where I walked on deep, green grass. It bent easily and felt cushiony, even tickling my toes. A paved hilly road lined with palm trees led to Seaside High School. I was exhausted when I arrived at the entrance. An actual Earthee school! It was much bigger than Pacific Reefs High.
    I was breathing and walking pretty well by now. I once read it takes a whole year for an Earth child to stand, much less walk, and I’d done it in less than an hour! Maybe mermaids are a higher life form after all.
    Earthdudes and dudettes were leaning against palm trees, walking briskly up stairs, and sitting on the lawn. Tall ones, short ones, skinny and fat, red-haired and yellow-haired. Girls, boys, and some kids whose gender I couldn’t tell.
    Would they know I was a mermaid? Would they pounce on me? Harpoon me? I sucked in a deep breath of air and slowly walked up the front stairs, with the help of the railing, but a girl making out with her boyfriend blocked the way. I carefully stepped around them and opened a huge wooden door. I entered a corridor filled with tall cabinets, smooth to my touch, not rusted like the metal at home. One minute it smelled like water