“We need to tend to the oyster gardens now,” Daphne told me, her hands on her hips. “You’d better hurry and get ready to join your school.”

I thought of the schools of fish I’d seen swimming around the city. Which was I supposed to join, and what was I supposed to do with them? “Uh, what school?”

Daphne gave me an exasperated look. “High school.”

“Oh, right. I don’t want to be late for that.” Mermaids had high school? Who knew?

Marina glided over and put her hand on my forehead, feeling for a temperature. “Are you sure you didn’t get too much sun? Maybe we should take you to see Doctor Gills.”

“No, really I’m not sick.” Freaking out, yes. Panicked, definitely. But not sick. The last thing I wanted was someone asking me a lot of questions I couldn’t answer without lying. It was bad enough having fins. I didn’t want an oddly long nose too. “I’ll be fine. I’m just . . . not feeling like myself.”

Marina dropped her hand away from my forehead. “All right. Go to school, behave, and we won’t tell Dad about your latest surface excursion.”

Daphne sent me an encouraging smile. “Tonight there’s a party at that new shipwreck. We can cruise around for cute merman. I bet we’ll find someone you like.”

Yeah, no matter how cute the guy, I wasn’t going to be able to get past the whole scaly tailfin issue. I know, call me a hypocrite.

I glanced around the room again. I needed to get out of here. I knew what happened in The Little Mermaid story. The prince’s ship had an accident, and the Little Mermaid saved him drowning. Would that event happen soon? Later tonight? Tomorrow maybe?

A closed door stood behind me, most likely leading to other rooms in the castle tower. The window offered my best bet for escape—although with so many merpeople swimming around the city, it wouldn’t be easy to swim back to Jason’s ship unnoticed.

If Chrissy didn’t show up soon, at least I knew how to get out of being a mermaid. In the story, the Little Mermaid traded her voice to the sea witch in exchange for being human. Not being able to talk would sort of suck. Ditto for living in a century without electricity or indoor plumbing, but at least the story ended well—with me being human, getting back my voice, and the prince falling in love with me.

At that moment I remembered an important fact. When Disney made The Little Mermaid into a movie, they changed the ending of the story. In the original version, the prince married someone else, the Little Mermaid died brokenhearted, and angels carried her soul away. I’d only read that story once—been horrified—and then pretended the Disney version was the real story.

My heart was beating so hard I thought it might start rattling my clamshell bikini. Which version had Chrissy put me in? She wouldn’t have put me in the sad version, would she? I’d wished for Jason to love me.

But then, loving someone and marrying them were two different things. I vaguely recalled that the prince loved the Little Mermaid in a platonic, totally unsatisfying, let’s-just-be-friends sort of way.

How could I figure out which version I was in? I drifted closer to Daphne, brushing away a couple passing clownfish that had taken an interest in my hair. “Um, do I have any friends who are singing crabs?”

Daphne raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know. Do you?”

No good. I would have to come out and ask a direct question. “What’s my name?”

Marina put her hand back on my forehead. “The sunstroke must be worse than I thought.”

“It’s Ariel, right?” My voice went higher, as though hope and the right inflection could make it true.

Daphne frowned. “Last time I checked, it was Sadie.”

Sadie. My name. Had Chrissy changed the story so now the Little Mermaid had my name? Or could Sadie have possibly been the mermaid’s name in the original story? Now that I thought about it, the author only ever called the main character the Little Mermaid . . . which meant her name could have been anything—even Sadie.

Crap.

I was so not selling my voice to the sea witch if it meant I would die a tragic death, unloved by Jason. Hello, I was already unloved by Jason in my real, normal life. I didn’t need to live it in fairy tale form too.

Daphne and Marina were still regarding me, worry etched on their expressions. “Maybe we’d better have Dr. Gills stop by.”

“No need,” I said quickly. “I totally remember my name is Sadie . . . and I should be getting ready for school.” I glanced around the room again. I had no idea what mermaids did to get ready for school. Did they wear uniforms? Carry backpacks? My eyes stopped at a mirror hanging on the wall, and for the first time I caught sight of myself as a mermaid.

Strings of pearls twined through my hair along with flower-like pink anemones. Weirder still, several clownfish were poking through the anemones. They followed the movements of my head like little orange fish groupies.

I moved my tailfin forward and back, searching for any sign of my legs underneath it. I couldn’t get used to the shiny teal scales. My scales had a ridge where my fish half connected to my hips—as though the tailfin was a size bigger than the rest of my body. That didn’t seem right.

I twisted so I could see my back. “Does this tailfin make me look fat?”

“You’re right,” Daphne told Marina. “She’s delirious.”

“Maybe I should rest instead of going to school.” I attempted to look wan and tired, slowly floating toward my bed. I also let out a sputter of a cough. Coughing is not lying, so my nose didn’t grow.

Marina eyed me suspiciously. “Is that why you’re spouting off nonsense? You want to skip school?”

Daphne folded her arms, tapping her nails against the crook in her elbow. “If you need to rest, you should. And to make sure you stay in your room all day, we’ll ask one of castle guards to keep an eye on your window.” She raised a challenging eyebrow. “Still want to skip school?”

I nodded even though I felt like a mermaid juvenile delinquent. What else could I do? I needed to contact Chrissy. It was better to do that alone in my room than to try and fake my way through whatever subjects they taught in aquatic high school.

Daphne sent me one last disapproving look, then she and Marina turned, scales glinting in the water, and swam out of my window. I put my elbows on the windowsill and watched as they made their way to the castle’s courtyard. Rows of coral and kelp trees lined the square, interspersed by stone archways. A dozen large mermen with turtle shell armor were patrolling the castle grounds, hefting hooked spears on their shoulders.

Daphne and Marina swam to the nearest guard and pointed in my direction. He turned his gaze at the window, surveying me. I half expected him to leave his post, swim to my window, and stand watch there. Instead he moved a few feet so he had a better view of my window. He leaned against one of the archways in a bored manner, every once in a while glancing in my direction.

I retreated back into the bedroom, out of his sight, and sat on a stone chair. One thought repeated through my mind: I needed to get hold of Chrissy and tell her she’d made a mistake. My mother was going to come back to the empty hotel room and assume something horrible had happened to me. Besides, I couldn’t just leave my whole world and live out a mermaid fantasy. I had homework due on Monday. I had to rehearse for the end-of-the-year choir concert. And I had a phobia of sharks.

I called Chrissy softly, letting her name drift upward on the water currents. I called her sternly, pleadingly, desperately. I hung out of my window and searched for her among the swaying kelp trees and coral gardens.

Nothing. I knew she had a job interview, but really, how long could that take?

In between calling, I explored my room, hoping to find something that would help me. I found a harp and a flute. Not much help. Inside a shell-encrusted dresser, a dozen stiff bikini tops waited to be worn. Another drawer held jewelry and hair combs. I slipped on a pearl bracelet to see how it looked. Pretty. I may be a mermaid, but at least I was a rich mermaid with style.