Diary of a Radical Mermaid by Deborah Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

pump, patted the floor. “This is not good,” she finally said. “Lilith didn’t tell me you look like a gimpy Allie McBeal.”
    Splat. The sound of my ego hitting the floor. Hairstyle Barbie was an evil bee-atch. An evil, astute bee-atch. Yes, I was a gimpy Allie McBeal, but I was no pushover. I leaned on a desk for balance, raised my cane like a sword, and said in a very low, Clint-Eastwoodish tone, “I don’t know who you are or what you want. I don’t want to know. I’m backing out of this room. Don’t try to stop me.”
    Her hand shot out. Lithe fingers clamped the cane’s tip. She jerked, I was startled, and my cane ended up in her possession. She smiled as she slowly twirled it. “What a lovely baton. Hmmm. Mahogany. And hmmm, look at this! I’ll have to give you credit for at least a little good taste.” She stroked the sterling silver mermaid who formed the cane’s handle. “Your great-grandfather, Paul Revere, was such an excellent silversmith.”
    I held onto the desktop and stared at her. I could walk without my cane, but not fast enough to escape. Surely my security guards would come looking for me at any second. Surely the ducks would rescue me. Humor her. Stall for time. “I’m not related to Paul Revere,” I said as if having a normal conversation. “My great-grandmother was an actress. She was raised in Boston. She took Revere as her stage name. That cane belonged to her. It’s an heirloom. Please, give it back.”
    “No. If I do, you’ll only try to escape.” She pointed my own cane at me. “I know more about this cane and your great-grandmother than you do. She wasn’t just an ‘actress,’ she was a writer, a Revolutionary activist, and Paul Revere’s mistress. They had a son together. She taught Paul everything he knew about silversmithing. She was the one who inspired him to make that little midnight ride. ‘Oh, my, the British are coming. One if by land, two if by sea.’ Yada yada yada. And she wrote the poem about it, too. But to be discreet, she let Longfellow claim the credit. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a Mer, by the way.”
    I slid one hand closer to a plastic letter opener on the desk. “Oh? One of the greatest poets of American literature was a merman? And my great-grandmother — not my great, great or great, great, great — my great-grandmother was a grown woman in the late 1700s? And she had a son with Paul Revere? And I’m descended from him? Why, you’d think there’d be a historical plaque somewhere. Or a record in Ripley’s Believe It or Not.”
    “Very funny.” The stranger sighed, clamped my cane under one arm like a British general, then studied me with obvious resignation. “All right. I know you have to rush back to your little booksigning and your duck fan club, and my personal magic can only hold a lobby full of slack-jawed Landers at bay for so long, so I’ll make this quick. Listen up. Whether you believe me or not, your great-grandmother was a mermaid of the Singer class. She died in 1905 at the age of one hundred and seventy. Her son — your grandfather Nicholas Revere — was a halfling, because his father was Paul Revere — a Lander — but Nicholas inherited so many of his mother’s traits that he qualified for the Singer category, nonetheless.
    “Nicholas married a halfling who was a Floater, producing a son — your father — who was a Singer but who didn’t have webbed feet. These classifications aren’t rigid, you see. Genetic anomalies, throwbacks, et cetera. It’s a very fluid system. Anyway, your father married a Floater — your mother — and that’s that.” She sighed. “The end result is you — a significantly watered-down Person of Water — no webbed feet, no well-developed psychic or sonar abilities, et cetera. But that doesn’t mean you’re a Lander. You absolutely love the water and can hold your breath for at least twice as long as the average Lander — a talent you’ve never dared tell any of your