Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings Read Online Free PDF

the current around me. But instead of being afraid of getting stung, their waving tentacles soothed me into a dreamy haze.
    Was this my version of those goofy panty linercommercials? I remembered thinking. No, this was different. It was peaceful and warm with no fields of daisies in sight.
    My thoughts floated, suspended around me but close enough to touch. The silk danced in the water in curls, brushing up against my skin. I let the strips of fabric wrap around and around my arms and legs until I was enveloped in a cocoon of warmth.
    I tried to remember a time when I’d felt so peaceful with the clear blue sky above and the motion of the waves all around but the bits of each thought were just beyond my reach. I closed my eyes and gave in to the soothing hum of the moment.
    Then, something tugged the cloth from below.
    The silk unwound from around me, sending me into a dizzying spin. I managed to free my arms and flailed in the water, but something kept pulling at the cloth, forcing me underwater. Water pushed its way down into my lungs. My legs stayed bound tightly and in my dreamlike state, I remembered thinking, if only I could free them, I might stand a chance of saving myself before being dragged to the bottom of the ocean…
    A knocking sound broke the spell.
    “Jade?” Dad’s voice worked through my dream. “You okay, honey?”
    I awoke, coughing and thrashing in the water around me, still confused by the images swirling in my mind.
    The cloth, the sky, the ocean.
    The bathroom, cold water—I was in the tub.
    Rubbing my eyes, blinking away the sting, trying to get out, shocked by what I saw breaking through the surface of the water.
    Then, I was yelling for Dad, he was crashing through the door.
    And I had a tail. A shimmering, scale-covered, slimy, wet tail.
    Freak-of-nature suddenly took on a whole new meaning.

Chapter Five
    T HE ONLY THING MORE unbelievable than the fact that my lower body now looked like a yellow-finned tuna was the idea that Dad might actually know something about it. I hammered him with questions as he drained the water from the tub.
    “What the heck do you mean, you were always afraid something like this might happen to me? What do you know about this?”
    Dad made a few attempts at words as he draped a towel around me and lifted me from the bathtub. Not an easy task since I was now slipperier than a wriggly trout.
    This couldn’t be real, could it? No. It was a joke. It had to be.
    “Oh, I get it!” I laughed out loud. “This is for that ten bucks I wheedled out of you when you were on the phone with work, isn’t it? Ha-ha, good one, Dad. How’d you get this thing on without waking me up?” I pushed at the tail, trying to see where it connected but the transition from skin to scales was seamless.
    “This isn’t a joke,” Dad said in a low voice as he sat me down on my bed.
    I squeezed my eyes shut to try to keep the room from spinning. Of course it wasn’t a joke. Dad had been locked on the other side of the bathroom door when it happened. Still, I couldn’t get myself to believe any of it.
    “Are you telling me this thing is actually attached to my body?!” I gasped. The reality of what was happening made my stomach lurch. Dad must have noticed because he shoved the wastepaper basket in front of me just in time for me to toss my cookies.
    “Oh, Jade. Are you okay?” Dad fussed over me. He tucked my hair behind my ear and handed me tissues to wipe my mouth.
    I collapsed against the pillows again and tried to catch my breath. “No. I am not okay. This is NOT okay!”
    “Let’s just get you comfortable…” Like what a nurse would say to some poor patient in a hospital ward. This was wrong. Seriously wrong.
    “I don’t need to get comfortable! I need to get this thing off!” I shook the tail through the air, but it stayed stuck. I was crying by then—crazy, wailing, wounded harp seal kind of cries.
    “Shh, shh…I’m so sorry, Jade. I’m just not sure how to