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But then she looked at Enrique—his kind eyes, the prominent dimples in his cheeks. He wasn’t like the other kids. Neither of them was. It was refreshing. She felt like he might understand. It seemed worth it to take a chance. Besides, carrying this secret around was making her even more anxious. What made problems unbearable, she decided, was dealing with them alone. That made everything a million times worse. She took a deep breath, feeling her gills flare.
Her stomach churned with fear, but she forced the words out anyway. “Okay then,” she said, fiddling with her scarf. “I did see something, but it wasn’t a ghost.”
“Not a ghost?” he asked. “Well, that’s good.”
“No, it was a witch,” she said. “And not just any witch. It was a sea witch.”
She waited for him to laugh, call her crazy, or taunt her with names.
But he didn’t. His eyes met hers. “Wow, a real sea witch? Did she grant you a wish?”
Shelly’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. “Wait, how do you know about that?”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t heard the old fairy tales,” he said.
“Fairy tales?” she asked.
“Listen, my family goes back a long way in Triton Bay. My grandfather used to tell us all sorts of colorful stories before bedtime when we were kids. He was a fisherman,” Enrique said.
“And some had to do with a sea witch?” Shelly guessed.
He nodded. “Yeah, but I didn’t realize she was real.”
“Oh, she’s real, all right,” Shelly said with a shudder. “And she did grant me a wish. It sounds stupid, but I wanted to become the fastest swimmer.” Reflexively, she glanced at the ocean in the distance. It churned with blue-black waves. Was Ursula listening in?
“That day you fell in the ocean . . . is that when it happened?” he asked.
She nodded, took a deep breath to still her nerves, then pulled off her scarf, revealing her gills in all their glory. She expected him to recoil in disgust like Kendall had when she’d seen her hand.
Instead, he studied her neck in fascination. His eyes roved over the slits, and he watched as they flared open when she breathed. He didn’t say anything for a long moment. She began to regret showing him.
Finally, he spoke up. “I knew you were looking a little green around the gills, but . . .” Shelly rolled her eyes. His voice trailed off, but then his eyes lit up. “Are those what I think they are?”
“Yup,” Shelly said.
“Do they . . . work?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah,” she said, feeling self-conscious. “I can breathe underwater. I found out at swim practice. I still raise my head like everyone else. But I don’t really have to anymore.”
“This is amazing! You have an actual superpower. That’s so rad!”
“Yeah, I guess I didn’t think of it that way. And that’s not all.” Shelly pulled off her gloves, then slipped off her shoes and socks. She splayed out her fingers and toes, showing him the delicate webbing that stretched between her digits.
His eyes widened. “Wow, you weren’t kidding.” Then he grinned and did something unexpected: he ran to the catwalk and dove into the ocean, letting out a joyous yelp as he plunged below the surface.
Remembering how the wave swept her out to sea the last time she’d been out there, Shelly ran to the catwalk and peered into the frothy waves. There was no sign of Enrique. Her heart hammered. What if he never came up? But then he suddenly broke through the surface.
“I love nature!” He plunged back under the water and popped up again. “Come on, fish girl!” he called out, splashing water toward her. “Let’s see what you can do!”
Shelly hesitated. The last time she fell off the catwalk, she’d almost drowned. But that had been due to a big wave. An unnatural one, she realized now. And back then, she didn’t have special superpowers, as Enrique called them. She dove into the water, feeling the brisk crack of the surface breaking around her, then the reassuring touch of seawater on her skin and in her gills. Nothing felt better—or more natural—to her. She swam down deep, then aimed for the surface. She broke through it, almost like a dolphin, leaping out of the water, then diving back down. A wild pod of dolphins swam by and joined her in her underwater revelry, swimming around her and nudging her on. Enrique watched in awe.
She stayed under for a long time, then surprised him by surfacing behind him. “Boo!”
He startled, then grinned. “Watching you swim like that—well, it’s incredible.”
“So you’re not freaked out?” she said. “You don’t think that I’m totally disgusting?”
“Okay, to be honest,” he said, bobbing in the water beside her, “I am a little freaked out. It’s not like you meet a half-fish, half-human every day, right? But disgusted? Not at all!”
