"He called me fat! He called us fat!"

"I said, humans. Not ex-mermaids and their offspring."

I stuff my hands in my pockets and watch the numbers go down. My palms are sweating, and I don't think I've finished shedding my scales around some very sensitive areas. How the h.e.l.l are the three of them so composed? I've turned into a merman, and now we're going to the mall. I feel like I'm about to erupt, as if the fish half of myself is trying to break through. Wasn't this tattoo supposed to help with that?

"I think your tattoo didn't work," I say.

Kurt observes me a moment. The doors open and we walk past the neighbors, who stare at Kurt and Thalia so long that the door starts to shut with them in the middle. The tall lovely boy whose clothes are too small for him and the young girl who makes you want to sigh when you glance at her.

"I believe it takes a bit to settle in. Magic is gradual, not instantaneous, contrary to whatever you've been exposed to."

"What's the point of that?"

"The point is that at least you're no longer in a bathtub too small to fit your fins."

"You mean you don't feel antsy at all?"

He thinks on it as we cross the street to the car. He looks like he's going to say something smart-a.s.s-ish. Thalia suddenly stops. Her high-pitched voice comes out shapeless, just a mumble of hysterical sounds.

She stands in the middle of the street, reaching down to grab a Chihuahua the size of a football from the road, its puke-pink leash dangling as it wiggles in Thalia's grasp. She doesn't know not to stop in the middle of the street. Two cars honk and drive around her but don't slow down. I run and grab her around the waist. An SUV holds his horn down and hits the brakes, stopping right where she was standing two heartbeats ago. The driver rolls down his window to curse at us before running the red light.

"Oh my," Thalia says.

People on the street stop and stare. Others stand on their stoops and crane their necks to get a better look at us. I set Thalia on the ground. The puppy barks, and she holds him up so that he licks my face.

"Thank Lord Sea for saving us," she tells him. The ugly little thing barks at me with sharp teeth. She holds him like a baby doll while a girl runs across the street, struggling to hold on to five other leashes.

"Thank you! So much!" Her face is almost green with sickness. There's something that looks like gum stuck in her braces. "That's a five-thousand-dollar dog. Mrs. Hirschwitz would've killed me."

Thalia hands over the dog with a pout on her pretty lips. The dog walker waves at us as she gets pulled in six different directions by her borrowed hounds.

"What a horrific line of duty," Kurt says, opening the pa.s.senger door for Thalia and then letting himself into the back.

Mom reaches over and holds Thalia's chin gently. "I know this is a new world. It is different. It is dangerous. I can't have anything hurt you, okay? Please, stay close to us."

"Also, don't stand in front of moving metal," I say, slightly shaking from the rush of adrenaline.

Thalia nods. "I just missed my Atticus."

"Your catfish?"

"Her sea horse."

She lets my mom buckle her seat belt and slumps down, not unlike a girl her age who's been told she can't have a puppy. I picture her room as a giant cave with seaweed and tiny stolen trinkets.

Mom turns on the radio. The Beach Boys sing something about sunshine and girls in rainbow colors and surfing. We drive through the grayest day of the summer, pa.s.sing girls in rain boots and short dresses and men with umbrellas tucked under their arms. I let all the images outside the car window drift through my mind so that I don't think of one concrete image. One I've dreamt every time I shut my eyes. The silver mermaid. Her beautiful, ghostly face. The sharp teeth. The nails long and dirty at the tips like they'd been dipped in blood.

And then the Beach Boys get completely drowned out by static.

Kurt turns to me and says, "I am indebted to you."

"I thought I'm already your duty," I say, in air quotes.

"I am here because the king wished it. But you have saved my sister. Now I also wish to be here."

He turns back to the window. I wonder if all merdudes are this stiff even when they're trying to be friendly. "To answer your question from before, I am antsy," he says. "I've just had more years to practice hiding it. Besides, at the end of it I always go back to the sea."

"So if you don't like being in human form, why even come on land?"

"Because I go where my family goes. Besides, it gets boring after a few years with the same people at court."

"When you guys get bored, you go island-hopping. When I get bored I watch a movie."

"We don't have those."

Thalia sits up in her seat. "The moving pictures! Oh, Lady Sea, may we please go see one? Though the last time we saw one on the Florida coast the automobile smelled like dead cow."

"The last movie you went to see was a drive-in, and you still look about fourteen?"

"We age slowly," Kurt says, "like the sea itself. I'm 103."

"G.o.d d.a.m.n," I go. "How old are you, Mom?"

"Didn't your father tell you you're not supposed to ask a lady her age?"

We get on the expressway. I can't smell the sea anymore, but the smell of metal and burning rubber and oil makes me queasy.

"Is this normal?" I ask Kurt.

"It would depend on what is normal to you. What are you referring to?"

"The smells. I smell things a lot more than before I changed. When the storm was coming, I could smell it. Only I didn't know that I could. When people get too close to me, I can smell what they're feeling."

"It helps when you're swimming along to detect if there are any nasty things in the water with you. Or if you're looking for food."

In the rearview mirror I catch my mom looking at us and smirking. She flicks on the windshield wipers, and they squeak because it's only just begun to drizzle.

"What else should I expect?"

Kurt rolls down his window and lets the drizzle hit his face. "You already know how much the shift hurts. It does get easier, not because it hurts less but because you get used to the pain. Your sense of smell and hearing should be accelerated. Your libido will increase-"

"Whoa. Hey, not in front of my mom."

She goes, "How do you think you got here?"

Uncomfortable hot flash. "Please never say that again."

I lean in to Kurt and whisper. "Bro, where does it go?"

His brows are knit together, and he tilts his head to the side like he's never seen my species before. "Oh, you mean your phallus."

I elbow him.

He shakes his head at me, like he would hit me back if his duty weren't to keep me unharmed, or whatever it is he's supposed to do. He leans into my ear and whispers quickly, "Not to worry. There's a pocket."

We sit straight up again. Mom's taking the right into the mall parking lot. A pocket? Great, just when I thought I had it figured out the regular way.

We walk through the revolving doors.

Thalia keeps going, either because she doesn't know she's supposed to get out by herself, or because she's having too much fun spinning.

"You have the attention span of a goldfish," I tell her, wrapping my arm around her neck and giving her a noogie. For a moment, I imagine this is what having a bigger family feels like. A slightly pretentious older brother, a jumpy little sister, and a mom everyone stares at when we're walking around the mall.

"Actually, I've seen very well behaved goldfish," Kurt says.

"Of course you have," I grumble.

"I think I'll take Thalia to Glittering World, and you boys can go do your own thing," my mom says. They go to the escalator, and I stand a little longer and watch Thalia try to get on it. She reminds me of girls on the street playing double Dutch, waiting for just the right moment.

"You wouldn't think she's nearly half a century old," Kurt sighs. "I told her to stay, but I knew she wouldn't."

"What about your parents?"

"Our parents were killed during a battle with a rebel group of Hungarian dragons. There aren't many left, but they're ferocious, and they believe the whole of this plane and the others belong to them."

"Is there like a mermaid heaven or something?"

He doesn't laugh, which I'm thankful for. "We are of the sea," he says, "and to the sea we return. An ancient merman like the king, would become a great coral reef, no matter what the climate. Someone like me, like my parents, would turn to surf."

"Just like that."

"Precisely."

A burst of giggles erupts behind Kurt. A cl.u.s.ter of girls is pointing at us. I put my hand up when the flash of a camera hits my eye. What is their deal? Kurt glances behind me, and shock registers on his normally calm features.

When I turn around, every fish in the aquarium window of Exotic Pet Planet is gathered around my frame with their mouths pressed against the gla.s.s. I walk to the right and they follow.

Between that and the way Kurt's T-shirt keeps riding up his abs, we're drawing too much attention. Kurt clears his throat and picks up the pace beside me.

"I believe we should get me a change of wardrobe as soon as possible."

I pat him on the back and jump onto the escalator. "Don't worry. You'll blend in, in no time."

"For someone who is just now human and has free range to buy anything he wants, you sure are a bare-necessities kinda guy." I know if my mom gave me her credit card, I'd go nuts.

Kurt looks more comfortable in a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved white T-shirt that actually fit. "I learn to live without much. You leave fewer things behind that way."

We stand at the top floor of the mall against the railing and look down at the crowd. At people with worries like two-for-the-price-of-one sweaters, not strange cravings like wanting to jump into the fountain and splash around. But strangely, I'm having a good time, and the ink doesn't burn anymore.

Then the stench hits me hard. It smells like rotting fish. Kurt smells it too, because we both turn around. There's a woman on one knee. Her dress is big and gray around her slender frame. Dull and thinning brown hair frizzes around her head. Everything about her says homeless. Except for her face. Her skin is smooth like pale porcelain, and she has sapphire eyes that stare hungrily at me. "I pledge myself to you," she says. "I do."

I'm too stunned. Beside me, I see Kurt reach for something at his side, then realize nothing is there. He grabs the woman by her arm, hard.

"Whoa, what are you doing?"

"Stand back, Lord Sea." Kurt shakes her. "Who sent you?"

The woman's eyes are cold and laughing. She sniffs at the air. "Don't trust them. Look what they did to me." She's about to pull down the neck of her dress when I stop her.

"Kurt, let her go." And he does, without questioning me.

She gives me one last bow, kisses the back of my hand, and pushes through the sea of shoppers.

"What am I, the mermaid flag? How come the fish aren't gathering around your head and following you where you walk? How come they don't pledge their allegiance to you?"

He rolls the sleeves of the white T-shirt up to his elbows. For the first time since he popped into my shower, his brow creases. Everything about him says that all he's missing is a sword and something to hit. "We need to find Lady-your mother. Now."

This is the first time we have ever found a parking spot so close to the boardwalk. I get out of the car first and run up the wooden incline, past Nathan's Hot Dogs. It's not much of a beach day: the sky is so gray and there's still police tape on the railings so that people will stay away from the water.

Ruby's is open, and we grab seats on the bench outside. The bartender cleans the countertop while watching the TV above him. There's a report of more bodies washing up along the strip, the bodies all mangled up.

I fill Mom in on what happened at the mall.

"So talk," I say to Kurt. "Who was that woman?"

"There's a faction of our people who rebelled against the king scores of years ago. They resented members of the court, who have the ability to shift into legs at will. Everyone else has to wait for the island to coast by a new sh.o.r.e. But it's the way it's always been."

"And you're one of the court people?" I ask.

"Of course," he says, with a hint of irritation. "If I may continue-the last rebellion wasn't the first one, but this time the king granted them what they wanted. He stripped them of their tails and let them swim to sh.o.r.e. Not many could have survived, but the few who did hate the throne. I believe that's why they see you as someone to relate to. You are one of us, but you are also mostly human."

"Okay, what am I supposed to do for them? I'm only just a guy. A hot merman kind of guy, yeah, but still."

Thalia laughs, and I'm glad that at least I can do that to lighten the mood.

Kurt and my mom share a knowing look. The kind they've been giving each other since he showed up. It makes my stomach turn that they know something I don't.

"What aren't you guys saying?"

Kurt looks at his lap, and my mom saves him from whatever he wants to say.

"I can answer that," she says. She tucks loose red strands behind her ear and looks out at the horizon. I wish she'd look me in the eye at least. "When a mermaid conceives, she carries the child like a human woman. Because I was stripped of my tail, there was a chance you wouldn't be part merman at all. For your sake, I hoped you'd be human. But when I gave birth, I did it in water. My father visited that summer, and he brought our midwife. You were born with your fins, and he bound them so that you would not change ever again. He promised you would never change."

"So then why am I changing now? Why is this happening to me now?" I have to stop myself from yelling. I've never spoken like this to my mother. I feel ashamed and stupid and confused, and I just wish they would spit it out.