while a few guys tossed a football near the lifeguard tower. We reached the far end of the beach, where the sand gave way to a rocky shore that led to a point of giant granite boulders.
âSo.â We sat on a large log of silver-colored driftwood. â Is there actually a mer handbook? Because Iâm mostly clueless when it comes to this mer stuff.â
âTell me about it.â Luke leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
âWhat do you mean?â I asked. âI thought you were the expert.â
âHardly.â Luke looked out over the ocean, then glanced over his shoulder to me. âYou remember the first time you crashed into me at Dooleyâs pharmacy?â
âTechnically, you crashed into me, but yeah, I remember.â
âI felt like there was something different about you that day, but I wasnât sure if it was you or because of what had just happened to me.â Luke stood and crouched next to a puddle of ocean water left over from when the tide had gone out. He fished out a small crab. It waved its claws blindly in the air as Luke eyed it closely.
âYouâd just gotten back from your sailing vacation with your family,â I said.
âYeah, but it was a bit more than just a vacation.â Luke walked down to the edge of the water and placed the crab carefully in the water, then turned back to me.
âHow so?â I asked.
âWell, my mom and dad had always told me I was adopted.â He finger quoted adopted .
âSo you always knew you were a mer?â I plucked a couple of starfish from the puddle and joined Luke at the edge of the water.
âYeah, Grandpa was the one who found me washed up in a puddle like this when I was a baby.â Luke shaded his eyes to look out into the ocean, then turned back to me. âAt first, when I was little, I thought it was just a bedtime story, but when I was about nine, Mom, Dad, and Grandpa explained it all to me. But it wasnât until this past spring that I knew what it all really meant. Grandpa knows another Webbed One in Floridaâ¦â
âA human who is part mer, like you and my mom, you mean?â I remembered the term Webbed One from Dadâs Mermaidia: Fact or Fiction book. But Webbed Ones were far from fiction. In fact, Finalin and Medora had pulled me under the waters of Talisman Lake when theyâd seen my webbed toes. âAnd me too, I guess.â
âYeah. So we sailed there to get help for my first time and everything.â
âYou mean, the first time you ever changed back to a mer since you were a baby was just this past spring?â I tossed the starfish into the water and wiped my hands on my shorts to dry them.
Luke nodded. âYup.â
Then, something occurred to me. Luke wasnât exactly like me. I was born human. And since my human DNA was so strong, I just had to crawl out of the water to change from mer back to human. Luke was different, though.
âSo, if youâre a Webbed One, but were born a mer, you must need a tidal pool to change back.â
âYeah. The tides in and out of a puddle like this were enough when I was a baby but the older you get the more complicated it becomes. There was a large pool on Bobbyâs property in Florida. We tried a few others, but they werenât as good and took much longer.â
âJust like your grandpa told my dad. The pools arenât really magical at all, are they?â Huh. Dadâs Merlin 3000 sounded like it was on the right track. âSo, how long does it take you to change exactly?â
âIt gets easier each time. By the fourth time, I was down to about two days.â
âTwo days?â I asked.
âYeah, why?â he asked. âHow long does it take you?â
âNo more than a couple minutes, but usually I puke or pass out.â
Luke laughed and Iâm sure I blushed, remembering the time heâd found me passed out next to Talisman Lake
Bwwm Romance Dot Com, Esther Banks