“And you, missy. Calm the siren allure. I don’t want any of my

teammates following you off the pier.”

“Sirens aren’t mermaids,” Thalia laughs. “They’re bird women.”

“Whatever. I’m just saying.”

“Come now, Tristan. Maybe you and Kurt should, how is it you said?

Chill. ” The bells chime long and hard. Pigeons fly. Kids run up the

steps holding on to their pants and hats.

“Are we waiting for someone?” Kurt asks again.

I shake my head. She should be gone by now. “Follow me.”

I turn around once and see the stark happiness on Thalia’s face.

Her big yellow-green eyes take in every part of the school. The

linoleum floors, the crackling fluorescent lights, the archaic

mahogany trim along the doors, and the random stained-glass windows

that clash with the new water fountains and rows of lockers. The

stickers on the lockers. The murals on the walls.

We stop in front of Room 311. Mr. Adlemare looks down on us

through his glasses. He wears a light blue, short-sleeved button-down

shirt with red suspenders that hold up brown trousers, and I wonder,

out of everything that you could wear in public, why a purple

polka-dot bow tie?

“Mr. Hart. Thank you for joining us. These must be your cousins

from…?”

“Italy.”

“Florida.”

“Ireland.”

“Ah, I see.”

Kurt clears his throat. “We travel constantly.”

“No one place is home! Lovely. Welcome, welcome.”

“Thank you, sir,” my cousins say in unison.

Some people snicker. The smells of everyone overwhelm me. Their

interest smells of burning sugar.

We take the row in the back, where the Goth-punk-stoner kids sit.

Homeroom gets less and less crowded toward the end of the year. I

stare at the scratches on my desk and admire the announcements Mr.

Adlemare has written on the board. Notice the way everyone gives us a

long once-over. Anything not to look at Layla, sitting there and

saving me a seat like always. I can feel her eyes on me, but I won’t

look.

Thalia takes out a notebook and pen, and I watch her draw Mr.

Adlemare’s face. She’s quite good actually. I draw a mustache on her

portrait of Mr. Adlemare, and she bursts into her bell-chime giggles.

Kurt shakes his head, disapproving.

Someone sighs angrily, and I know it’s Layla. But this is the only

way I know she’ll be safe. I can’t drag her into this freakish

sideshow. This past week has been the longest we’ve ever really been

apart. It’s just, what am I going to say? Hey, guess what? I’m a

merman now. I just have to keep ignoring her, the best friend I’ve had

my whole life. The only girl who gets it, gets me. Yeah, I’m a good

guy. But right now, looking at her as she gives up trying to catch my

attention, I wonder if I have enough strength to stay away from her,

even though not doing that could kill her.

When I look at the clock again, it’s already time to leave. She’s

the first one out the door, two seconds before the bell even rings.

Yo, Hart!” Angelo’s voice carries even from down the hall. “Ball

drill!” He does this every time he thinks you’re not looking. I’m the

only one who ever catches the ball. It’s in the air before he finishes

his sentence. I can catch it; I know I can. I extend my hand up and to

the left, but so does Kurt. The basketball is in his hands even before

I hit the wall of lockers.

“I don’t remember your name being Hart .” I push myself up right

away.

The guys walk over to us. I stretch out my shoulder. Kurt throws

the ball back at him. Thalia watches them carefully. They really need

to stop acting like the Mermaid Brigade.

“So these are your cousins. Where are you from again?”

Kurt looks to me and I answer, “Canada.”

“Aren’t Canadians more-?” Bertie looks like he’s trying to do x ^

2 + (a + b)x + ab = (x + a)( x + b).

“More what?” Kurt asks.

“Pale?” And he still hasn’t solved it.

“We travel a lot,” Thalia says, winking in their direction. I

think she likes being a teenage girl more than Kurt likes being a

teenage boy.

The effect is instant, though. The boys relax their posture and

are all smiles. Angelo lets his basketball drop, and it bounces across

the floor, causing three freshmen to trip over it.

Bertie can’t seem to decide which foot he wants to shift his

weight on. “Man, where have you been? You didn’t show at the Wreck and

you didn’t show yesterday. The team is worried about you. They think

you’re seeing a shrink or something. And that guy? You know? The

reporter? Nikky’s dad? He’s writing that you’re going to be shipped

into one of those psych facilities. Like in the movies?

“Oh. Check this.” He turns around to show us the new design etched

into his almost bald head. It’s a series of zigzags that makes it look

like his head is getting hit by lightning. “Pretty cool, huh?”

The bell rings, and I start to wonder if I’ll ever get my

“cousins” to class on time.

“We got Espaсol ,” Angelo tells me but looks at Thalia. “ Adiуs,

amiga . They speak Spanish in Canadia, right?”

“Yeah, see ya,” Jerry and Bertie singsong.

Once they’re down the hall, we’re the only ones left except for

the kids who aren’t going to go to class at all.

“Is there a way you can fix that? Make yourselves look different

so that you don’t attract so much attention?”

“We do look different. We are glamoured,” Kurt says indignantly.

“It’s a light spell to tone down our natural colors. We are no longer

achingly beautiful. Now we’re just exceptionally beautiful.”

English lit is just down the hall. I open the door for Thalia.

This time Layla sits in the front row facing the window so that unless

you’re craning your neck, you can’t really see her face. That smell of

burnt sugar mixed with something else is back. Ms. Pippen sits at the

edge of her teacher’s desk, facing the door and waiting for the

latecomers. Today she’s wearing a skirt that ends tightly around her

knees in a purple-and-green paisley pattern and a white button-down

shirt that’s one button shy of being inappropriate. She has the kind

of waist that looks like it disappears under the cinched belt. I bet

if I put my hands around it, my fingers would touch.

Her face is delicate and pointy, with shiny brown hair that is

always perfectly waved to the side. If she said she was twenty-five or

thirty-five, I wouldn’t be surprised. She seems more like she should

be teaching first grade in 1955 rather than a high-school English

class in Brooklyn circa now.

“Old habits, Mr. Hart,” she says. Ms. Pippen walks over to her

desk. I can smell the springy wood cleaner she sprays on it between

classes. There are two piles on her desk: homework coming in , and

homework going out . She uses a small Mason jar as a pencil holder and

a red marble apple as a paperweight.

“Now, Mr. Hart, who are these lovely young people joining us

today?”

“These are my cousins, Kurt and Thalia, visiting from Canada.”

Kurt says, in his awkward splendor, “But we also travel a lot,

which is why we aren’t so pale.”

Everyone laughs a little. Look at us: it’s like we’ve been lying

our whole lives.

As everyone giggles and fawns over Thalia and Kurt and how their

favorite place to visit is Italy, I let myself look over at Layla, who

stares out the window. The gray overcast sky is so bright that it

floods everything on that side of the room, and she’s cast in this

kind of angel light, her golden-brown hair loose around her shoulders.