And then we were off. Out on the open sea again. Heading home to Brightport.

I didn't know what to expect as we approached Brightport. Half of me imagined it would have changed completely. The other half expected everything to be exactly as we'd left it. It had been more than six months since we'd left, and so much had happened in between. It was hard to believe we were really going to be back there at all.

But we were. I could see the town come into view in the distance as the dolphins pulled us toward the bay: the harbor where Mom and I used to live on our boat, The King of the Sea; the line of shops and guesthouses along the promenade; the pier with the amus.e.m.e.nt arcade that Mandy Rushton's parents owned at the end of it.

Mandy Rushton. I hadn't thought about her for a while, and I couldn't hold back a queasy feeling in my stomach when I thought of her now. She'd bullied and taunted me for years. But when she ended up at Allpoints Island earlier this year, we became friends again, like we had been when we first knew each other. The only problem was, Neptune had put a memory drug on her and her parents when they left the island, because of all the things they'd seen. Now I didn't know if she'd remember that we were friends again or if that memory had been wiped away, along with the mermaids and the sea monster.

I'd find out soon enough.

Aaron joined me on the deck. "What's that?" he asked, pointing a little farther around the bay at an enormous tangle of hoops in the sky. I'd never seen it before, but Archie had told us about it.

"It's the kraken," I said.

Aaron's eyes widened.

"Not the actual kraken itself, obviously." I laughed. "It's a roller-coaster ride, part of the new theme park Mandy's parents built."

"Cool!" Aaron said with a self-conscious glance at me. He'd picked up words like cool and swishy from Shona and me - except he hadn't quite mastered the art of sounding natural when he used them. Having lived in a castle cut off from the entire world for his whole life, there were still things that he had never done before, like get excited about stupid things with other kids, or go on roller-coaster rides. So he didn't quite have the language for them yet.

Just then, Dad poked his head out from the water. He and Mr. Beeston were pulling us into the bay. We all agreed it would be less conspicuous than a whole load of magical dolphins dragging a big, weird-looking yacht behind them. We didn't want to attract too much attention before we'd even arrived.

"Nearly there now," he called up to me. "Go tell your mom to get ready to land. We'll be mooring on one of the far jetties off the pier - near where you used to live on King."

With one last glance at the approaching coastline, I hurried indoors. b.u.t.terflies were chasing each other around and around in my stomach now. What would be in store for us here? Would things work out or would it be a ma.s.sive disaster?

There was no turning back now. One way or another, we were about to find out.

"Well, Jake wants her to go to Shiprock School of course, but I think she should go back to Brightport High." Mom was pouring cups of tea for herself and Aaron's mom as the two of them discussed the ins and outs of our new life.

Aaron and I were playing chess at the table. He'd taught it to me recently. He'd spent years learning but never had anyone to play against. He was winning. He always did - except occasionally, when he pretended not to notice a really good move so he could let me win.

He and his mom were staying in one of the cottages on the beachfront. They were converted fishermen's huts, so they were all quite tiny and smelled like haddock, but they cost a fortune to rent in high season. Mr. Beeston had had a word with one of his old fisherman contacts and managed to get it cheap for a few weeks, just till the season began.

"I don't know what to do about Aaron," his mom replied. "I mean, mer-school would make sense in a way, but then it might be nice for him to get a chance to mix with normal boys his age, too."

She glanced over at us. "I mean, human boys," she added quickly.

Aaron put down the bishop he'd been holding. I was quite glad, actually, as I think he'd been about to take my queen with it. "Has anyone thought to ask us what we want?" he said, echoing the question that had been in my mind the whole time they'd been talking.

"It's us who'll have to go there," I added, "so shouldn't we have some say?"

"Of course you'll have some say," Mom replied a bit sharply. "But we're the ones who will have to make the final decision."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because we're your parents," Mom snapped. Maybe I was embarra.s.sing her by arguing with her in front of Aaron and his mom, but I didn't care. It was my life they were talking about, mine and Aaron's, and it wasn't fair that they got to make all the decisions.

"Are you the ones who got bullied at school last year?" I asked, irritation heating my cheeks. "Are you the ones who only recently discovered a whole new self and for the first time in your lives had the chance to go to school with others like you? Are you the ones who will have to live our lives?"

All three of them were staring at me now, mouths open, eyes round and wide. I felt like I'd reached the important part of the speech, but I didn't know what came next. Luckily, Aaron stepped in.

"Look, you're right," he said to the others. "This is an important decision. So why don't we take it gradually?" He looked at all three of us. "How about a compromise? What if we go to Shiprock School for what's left of the school year, while we all find our fins in Brightport, and then discuss it again over summer vacation?"

Mom and Aaron's mom looked at each other. "I suppose there are only a few weeks left," Mom said.

"And it would give us time to think about what to do in the long run," Aaron's mom added.

Mom looked at me. "We'll have to see what your dad says first."

I laughed. There was no way Dad would say I should go to Brightport High. That was settled, then. I was going to mermaid school again! And, even better, in a few days Shona would be there too. As I felt my whole body relax, I realized how much I'd been worrying about the idea of going back to Brightport High. I wasn't ready to exchange the life we'd had at Allpoints Island for one where I got taunted and bullied - not yet.

Aaron moved his knight. "Checkmate," he said. "You lose. Sorry."

But he was wrong. I hadn't lost anything. I was back in Brightport and was about to go to mer-school with my two best friends. "No, I don't," I said, grinning at him. "I win!"

Arriving at Shiprock School, we felt like celebrities. It seemed as if half the school crowded around us. Most of them went straight to Shona - hugging her and squealing with delight when she said she was back to stay. When she explained who Aaron was and reminded them about me from when I visited before, they fell on us too, firing questions and welcoming us to the school. A million light-years from the kind of reception I'd been dreading at Brightport High! This was definitely where we belonged.

The school bell rang and we followed everyone to the lines that led inside.

A couple of boys dragged Aaron off to his line.

"See you at lunchtime," I called. Since he was a couple of years older than Shona and me, he was in a different cla.s.s. I pointed to the other side of the playground. "Meet you over there at Shining Rock."

Aaron nodded and swam off. It felt weird watching him swim away. We'd hardly spent a moment apart since we'd been back in Brightport.

"Come on, you'll see him in about two hours." Shona pulled at my arm. "Think you can survive till then?"

"Of course I can!" I replied, forcing a laugh out. "I'm not - I mean it's just -"

"Anyway, it'll be nice for us to have some time on our own together," she said. "It feels like we haven't done that for ages."

"Yeah," I said. Aaron swam up to the edge of a tunnel and looked around. He gave a quick wave, and I waved back before he disappeared inside.

Shona sighed dramatically.

"I'm just concerned for him," I said. "He's never been to school before, that's all."

"Mm, yes. Whatever," Shona said. Then she swam off. "I'm going to cla.s.s."

"Hey! Wait for me!" I spun my tail and swam over to catch up with her and join the line heading to our cla.s.s. We chased each other in between the rocks, darting through hordes of white fish that were sprinkled all around us, so tiny they looked like falling snowflakes. We laughed and teased each other all the way, just like old times.

Except, as it turned out, it wasn't going to be anything like old times. And quite soon, we weren't going to have anything to laugh about, either.

Shona, Aaron, and I ate our lunch at Shining Rock and talked about our first morning. Aaron's eyes shone with excitement. He'd had Shipwreck Studies first, and he was buzzing about all the new things he'd learned.

We'd had Beauty and Deportment - Shona's favorite subject. We'd been decorating hairbrushes, and Shona and I had done matching crescent moons and stars on ours. Shona loves anything to do with acting like a siren. She wants to be one when she grows up. Her favorite thing in the world is singing, which is what being a siren is all about.

"Where does this rock lead to?" Aaron asked, looking up. It was tall, like an obelisk, and it was called Shining Rock because of the light that shone on it, making it the brightest part of the playground.

"It goes right up to the top," Shona replied. "It's the only part of the school that breaks the surface of the water."

"Swishy!" Aaron said, and Shona and I both laughed. He ignored us. "Can we see?" He started swimming upward.

Shona glanced down at the seabed below us, where an old ship's anchor had been turned into a sundial. This was the only part of the school where you could see the time.

"We've got about half an hour," she said. "But it's out of bounds up there. We should really be -"

I looked around. "No one's watching," I said, flicking my tail into action and following Aaron upward. His enthusiasm had caught hold of me, too. "Can't we check it out? Just quickly."

Shona shook her head and smiled. "You're a bad influence!" she said. "Come on, then."

I smiled back at her. Shona can't resist an adventure any more than I can.

We swam up for about five minutes, feeling our way along the rock and shielding our eyes from the light that was getting brighter and brighter. An orange fish with a splotch of bright blue eye shadow above each eye stared blankly ahead as we swam past it. A long green-and-black fish swam with us, edging upward in short staccato bursts. Finally, we reached the surface. The rock burst through the top of the ocean, piercing it like a rocket breaking through clouds.

Above the surface, the rock was jagged and hilly. It felt as though we'd reached the surface of the moon. Aaron pulled himself out of the water and sat on the edge of the rock. As he did, his tail flapped and flickered, then disappeared. He rubbed his legs and stood up, reaching down to pull me onto the rock.

As I sat on the side, waiting for my legs to come back, Shona swam up to meet us. She perched on the edge of the rock. "Hey, don't go wandering off, OK? You know I can't join you up there!"

"We won't," I said, getting up and climbing farther up the rock.

"We're just going to have a quick look around the other side," Aaron added. "Back in two minutes."

Which is honestly what we were planning to do, and exactly how long we were planning to take doing it - before Aaron slipped and trapped his leg.

"YOUCH!"

I heard him yell from the other side of a jagged peak and clambered over to him. Aaron was lying on his side clutching his leg.

"Are you OK?"

"It's stuck. I can't move."

I edged down the rock. His leg was jammed into a tiny crevice between two overhanging slabs of rock. "My foot slipped," he said.

I tried to push the rock away from his leg, but it wouldn't move. I pulled on his leg.

"Arrgh! Don't do that!"

"What are we going to do?" I asked.

"Emily! Aaron!" Shona called from the other side of the rock. "We need to head back. We're not even supposed to come up here during school."

"You go," Aaron said. "No point in all of us getting in trouble."

I shook my head. "I'm not going to leave you."

"Emily?" Shona called again.

I ran back to the top of the rock. "Aaron's stuck," I said. I was about to tell her to go back to school when we heard voices coming from below us.

Before we had time to do anything, a head appeared next to Shona. Or, to be more precise, the princ.i.p.al's head. Mrs. Sharktail. I hadn't met her yet, but I'd heard enough to know that you didn't want to get on her bad side. We were supposed to have had a meeting with her that morning, but she'd had important visitors and couldn't see us.

It looked like she was with those important visitors now. Two mermen and a mermaid, all wearing smart suits and sharp frowns.

"Now, this is where we had the minor landslide," she was saying. "About five days ago. You can see -" She suddenly stopped.

"Shona Silkfin! What on earth are you doing out here?" Mrs. Sharktail snapped.

"It's my fault," I cut in quickly. I wasn't having Shona get into trouble on her first day back here, especially when she'd been trying to get us to go back down. "I wanted to come up. Shona didn't want to."

The princ.i.p.al squinted up at me. "You're the new girl, I take it?" she asked. She opened her mouth to say something else, but suddenly clapped a hand across it and gasped in horror. With the other hand she was pointing - at my legs. "What are those?" she cried with about as much disgust as if I'd had giant spiders crawling out of every pore.

I had the feeling I might have just discovered the bad side we'd been told to avoid.

"Um. They're my -" I tried to think of another word for legs, one that might have been more acceptable to her.

I didn't have to try for very long. Before I finished my sentence, Aaron came running over the top of the rock. "I got free!" he called, beaming. Then he saw Mrs. Sharktail and the smile disappeared from his face as rapidly as if it had been washed away by a freak wave.

She took one look at him and gasped again. "Both of you - my office now!" was all she said before disappearing back below the surface, her visitors scurrying off with her.

Aaron clambered back into the water. "What did we do?" he asked.

"Apart from come up here, you mean?" I said.

Shona shook her head. "I think there may be more to it," she said.

"What?" I asked.

"It's this place. The rules. The stupid rules."

I jumped into the water. I hardly noticed the tingling feeling as my tail shimmered and shook and came to life. I was too worried about the tone of concern in Shona's voice. "Shona, what is it?" I asked. "Tell me!"

"No humans allowed at the school," she said simply.

"But we're not complete humans," Aaron said. "We're merpeople when we're in water."

"I know. And that might have been OK a while ago. But things have changed around here. My aunt was telling me last night. I don't know why I didn't think of it."

"Think of what?" I asked.

"They're tightening the rules everywhere, becoming more anti-human."

"But we're not -" Aaron began.

"I know," Shona said again. "But I bet I know what they've done. Mrs. Sharktail's always wanted to do it, but the school council has never agreed to it. They said it was unnecessary. But the latest events will have been just what she needed to get her way."

"Get her way with what?" Aaron asked.