A Mischief of Mermaids Read online

  Dedication

  For all the mischief makers

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter

  ONE

  “I have one very important question to ask you.” Professor Oliver Asquith’s searching gaze swept over the Malone family. He lowered his voice. “Are you afraid?”

  Poppy sighed. Her eyes slid sideways to meet Will’s. She raised one eyebrow. He wrinkled his nose.

  Maybe it was because they were twins (both counting down the days until their tenth birthday), but they each knew exactly what the other was thinking:

  It was too good to last.

  It had been nice of Oliver Asquith to invite them to spend the day on the houseboat that a television network had rented for him. They had had fun swimming in the lake, sunning themselves on the deck, and eating the delicious food served by the private catering staff that came with the boat. But the best part, Poppy thought, was that no one had talked about anything weird or spooky all day.

  This was highly unusual, because Oliver Asquith, like her parents, was a paranormal investigator. When they got together, all they could talk about was vampires, werewolves, fairies, and dozens of other creatures that most sensible people didn’t believe in.

  But today, for a few brief, blessed hours, the conversation had actually been normal, thanks to Mrs. Malone.

  As they were getting ready to go on board earlier that day, she had said to Mr. Malone, “Now, let’s not spoil what could be a lovely day by arguing.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he had said. “Oliver and I never argue. You can’t call an honest, open exchange of ideas an argument. And we have always followed the rules of civil debate. Always.”

  Poppy and Will had rolled their eyes at each other. Over the years, they had heard quite a few of those “honest, open exchanges of ideas.” They usually ended with raised voices, slammed doors, and fists thumping on tables, which was sometimes interesting and always entertaining, but hardly civil.

  The problem was that Oliver Asquith made a much better living than their parents and was much, much more famous.

  Mr. and Mrs. Malone had spent years scraping by with grants and short-term teaching jobs. When the grants ended and the teaching contracts were over, they would often have to move across the country in search of more money. Oliver Asquith, on the other hand, had managed to turn his search for vampires, zombies, and werewolves into both fortune and fame. He wrote best-selling books, starred in TV specials, and had even created a paranormal kit with his picture on it that was sold in drugstores nationwide.

  Mr. Malone tried to take all this in stride, but it was a struggle.

  Now he said with some heat, “The only time I argue with Oliver Asquith is when he’s wrong. I’ll admit that’s most of the time—”

  “This is exactly what I’m talking about,” said Mrs. Malone severely. “He is our host, Emerson. We must all try to be polite.”

  “Well, I can’t help it if he insists on saying ridiculous things,” said Mr. Malone. “Did you hear him last night? Claiming that he saw water nymphs frolicking in a spring on his last visit to Greece? He either had a bad case of sunstroke or he’s started hallucinating again—”

  Mrs. Malone sighed. “Just change the subject, dear, to something you can agree on. That’s all I ask.”

  Mr. Malone had grumpily agreed. He had been sorely tested when they arrived at the boat, however.

  “Welcome to the Siren de Mer!” Oliver Asquith had said. “Come, let me give you a tour.”

  The Malones had dutifully followed him. Oliver Asquith had told them about the houseboat when he invited them, of course, so they were ready to be impressed. But even so, their eyes were wide by the time they were walking around the deck to admire the barbecue grill and hot tub. When Oliver pointed out the waterslide that stretched from the crow’s nest to the water—or the kayaks and Jet Skis nestled in cradles on deck—Poppy thought she could hear Mr. Malone’s teeth grinding.

  They trailed after him as he led them below deck. “Four bedrooms, a gourmet kitchen, and a fifty-inch flat-screen TV! With surround sound, of course—” Oliver Asquith stopped walking and turned to face them, his eyes bright. “Oh, and did I mention the satellite cable?”

  “I think it’s come up once or twice,” muttered Mr. Malone. “If memory serves.”

  “And of course there’s the Jacuzzi,” Oliver added.

  “But no bathtub,” said Poppy’s older sister, Franny. “You’d think a boat this big would have at least one bathtub.”

  “Who cares?” said Will. “There’s a waterslide!”

  “It’s true, there’s no bathtub,” admitted Oliver, with a smile that managed to seem weary but brave. “Traveling around the world to host top-rated TV specials is a grueling life. One must be willing to rough it a bit.”

  Mr. Malone made a small sound in the back of his throat. From where Poppy stood, it sounded like a stifled groan.

  Still, Mr. Malone recovered enough to follow Mrs. Malone’s directive. After the tour, Poppy and Will swam in the lake and Franny sunned herself on the deck and their younger brother, Rolly, stood moodily in the bow, dropping pieces of gravel he had been collecting from neighbors’ driveways into the water. For several hours, they all enjoyed themselves while Mr. and Mrs. Malone and Oliver Asquith talked in a most civil fashion.

  They had discussed the best sunblock to use while traveling in the Amazon rain forest in search of Mapinguari. They had debated whether it was better to take cheese sandwiches or corned beef on a Sasquatch stakeout. They had traded tips on the best insect repellent to use in the South China Sea.

  It had all been remarkably boring, and Poppy couldn’t have been happier. Boredom, she thought, was highly underrated. Boredom gave you lots of time to think and wonder and dream up inventions. And boredom was relaxing.

  Then Oliver Asquith had ruined it all by deciding to show off.

  “I must practice the opening for my new TV special,” he said. “Would you mind . . . would it be too much trouble . . . could I ask an enormous favor—?”

  “Say no more,” said Mrs. Malone brightly. “We’d love to be your audience!”

  “Thank you, that’s most generous of you. And of course I’d like to hear any feedback about how I can spruce things up a bit,” said Oliver Asquith, smiling modestly. “That’s the downside of having filmed more than a dozen immensely popular shows, I’m afraid. There are millions of people around the world who are expecting me to top myself.”

  “Count me as one of the ones who wants to see that,” muttered Mr. Malone. “Ow.”

  Mrs. Malone whipped off her sunglasses, the better to glare at him. “We are all most interested in hearing you, Oliver,” she said. “Aren’t we, Emerson?”

  “Of course,” he said, rubbing his ankle where she had kicked him. “In fact, we’re on the edge of our seats.”

  Poppy could tell Mr. Malone was being sarcastic. If Oliver Asquith noticed Mr. Malone’s tone, however, he ignored it.

  Instead, he leaned casually against the railing. A breeze ruffled his wavy hair and his
blue eyes sparkled as he addressed an unseen camera.

  He cleared his throat and said again, “I have a very important question to ask you. Are you afraid? Because if you aren’t afraid”—he paused dramatically as Mr. Malone rolled his eyes—“you should be.”

  Oliver Asquith knew how to read an audience’s reactions. In this case, it ranged from unimpressed (Poppy) to amused (Will) to adoring (thirteen-year-old Franny) to disgruntled (Mr. Malone) to encouraging (Mrs. Malone) to baleful (five-year-old Rolly).

  Oliver Asquith rightly decided to focus on Franny and Mrs. Malone.

  “You should be very afraid. Because”—he lowered his voice ominously—“Here There Be Monsters!”

  There was a short pause. In the silence, Poppy could hear the distant roar of a Jet Ski. When that faded away, the only sound left was water lapping against the side of the boat.

  Then Mr. Malone could no longer restrain himself. “Lake monsters?” he said. “Really, Oliver? That’s what you’ve sold to a national TV network? No one cares about lake monsters these days—oof!”

  Mr. Malone was interrupted—knocked out of his deck chair, as a matter of fact—by his younger son, Rolly, who had run over to the railing and leaned perilously over the side.

  “Where are they?” he demanded, his beady black eyes scanning the lake. “Where are the monsters?”

  “Well,” said Oliver Asquith in a gloating voice, “it looks as if at least one potential viewer is still enthralled by the subject.”

  Mr. Malone gingerly got to his feet and righted his deck chair. “Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. “And if you’re hoping for an audience of five-year-olds, I’ll admit you’ve got a chance. But otherwise—”

  “Rolly, dear, be careful!” said Mrs. Malone, grabbing him by the back of his shirt and pulling him away from the railing. “You might fall in the water.”

  Rolly wrested himself out of her grasp. “I don’t care! I want to see the monster!”

  “Yes, and so will everyone else who tunes in,” said Mr. Malone. “How about it, Oliver? Have you managed to shoot any footage of this lake monster yet? Any usable footage, I should say?”

  Oliver Asquith smiled blandly. “My investigation is still in its infancy, but the early signs are quite promising,” he said. “And, of course, there is still so much to discover—”

  “No, in other words.” Mr. Malone sat down again, smiling with satisfaction.

  “I would not say ‘no,’” Oliver Asquith said. “I would say ‘not yet.’”

  Rolly turned around and fixed his eyes accusingly on Oliver Asquith. “You said there was a monster,” said Rolly. His lower lip began to stick out in a dangerous way that everyone in his family was familiar with. “You said there was one in this lake—”

  “There’s no such thing as lake monsters, Rolly,” Poppy said. “Professor Asquith was just having a little fun.”

  “I wouldn’t dismiss the idea too quickly, dear,” warned Mrs. Malone, even as she tightened her grip on Rolly’s arm. “After all, there have been documented sightings of lake monsters all around the world, going back for centuries! There’s Memprhe in Canada—”

  “Brosnie in Russia,” added Oliver Asquith.

  “The Hucho taimen in China,” continued Mrs. Malone. “Over the centuries, people have reported seeing all kinds of strange beasts in lakes and ponds and oceans. They’ve seen creatures that looked like dinosaurs or giant snakes or even horses!”

  “They were probably just giant catfish,” said Poppy. “Or submerged logs. Or unusual wave patterns.”

  “Still the skeptic, I see, Poppy,” said Oliver Asquith in an amused voice that made Poppy want to push him over the railing.

  “Still the scientist,” she corrected him.

  He smiled a flashing smile at her, completely unruffled. “Fortunately,” he said in a voice as rich as cream, “others are not as rational as you. That’s why I was able to sign a very lucrative contract for my new TV special. That’s why the network was willing to rent a houseboat that offers every comfort so that I could really concentrate on my work. That’s why I have not one, not two, but three assistants at my beck and call.”

  By this time, Mr. Malone was pale with envy, but he mustered enough spirit to say, “By the way, where are your assistants, Oliver? When I didn’t see any young graduate students hanging about, I assumed that you had suffered another one of those sad accidents that seem to happen to you so often.”

  “What do you mean by that?” For the first time, Oliver sounded testy.

  “Well, you don’t have much luck with your assistants, do you?” said Mr. Malone, his eyes gleaming with triumph. “I mean, there was the young man who was decapitated by a vampire in Moldavia, and then the girl with the orange-and-purple hair, what was her name—”

  “Naomi,” supplied Mrs. Malone. “Such a dear little thing.”

  “Mm, yes,” said Mr. Malone. “A dear little thing who ended up in the hospital after being bitten by an enormous dog—”

  “Werewolf,” Oliver said automatically. “And she’s actually quite proud of that scar.”

  “And then there was that boy who hunted ghosts for you—”

  “Sam,” Will said. “I liked him. He told really cool stories. Like that one about the guy that had his head cut off in some old castle and kept haunting it and throwing his head down the halls like a bowling ball—”

  “Yes, he was quite enthusiastic. I remember how excited he was about spending the night in that former insane asylum with his infrared camera.” Mr. Malone shook his head sadly. “Has anyone ever found any trace of him? Or of his infrared camera?”

  “Not yet,” Oliver said with a tight smile. “The network set up a scholarship in his name, of course. And since no body was ever found, I still hold out hope. . . .”

  Poppy chose this moment to stand up and wander away.

  She flopped on her stomach near the edge of the deck and closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of sun on her back. The sound of Oliver Asquith’s voice, as well as that of Mr. and Mrs. Malones’, became a distant murmur. As long as she didn’t have to listen to his nonsense, she was able to relax and think her own, far more interesting thoughts.

  Every once in a while, though, a word or phrase would seem to get caught by the breeze and float over to her—she distinctly heard “prehistoric creature,” “thirty feet long,” and “unexplained disappearance”—and she would feel herself getting annoyed again.

  It was ridiculous to think that monsters could live in a lake like this without being discovered. Maybe a hundred years ago, but not now, not in the twenty-first century.

  If any of the sightings were real, surely a marine biologist would have done a search by now, using sonar or something. And if scientists weren’t interested in tracking down a monster, a TV reporter would be. There was just no way that a mysterious creature could remain a mystery for very long in this day and age. . . .

  These thoughts were so pleasant, and the sound of the waves splashing gently against the hull was so soothing, and the sun was so warm, that Poppy felt herself drifting off to sleep.

  Lake monsters, she thought drowsily. What a silly idea . . .

  And then, just as she was about to fall asleep, she heard a giggle.

  Poppy sighed. Franny had recently developed an annoying habit of giggling when she was around a boy she liked. The most recent incident, which had been very embarrassing, had occurred at an ice-cream shop downtown where a teen boy was making sundaes by dramatically flipping scoops of ice cream in the air and then catching them in a dish held behind his back. Franny had been so taken with this performance that Will had finally poured a cup of ice water down the back of her shirt to stop her from going into full-fledged hysterics.

  Poppy opened one eye a tiny slit and turned her head toward the other side of the houseboat, where Oliver Asquith was holding court. If Franny had started giggling at Oliver Asquith, Poppy thought, she might have to push her overboard.

  But Frann
y was sitting in a deck chair near the bow, lost in contemplation of her newly painted toenails (bright pink on the toes of her left foot and bright green on the right).

  Poppy shrugged and closed her eyes.

  Then she heard the giggle again, followed by the sound of a splash.

  She didn’t open her eyes, but a small frown appeared on her forehead.

  Then drops of water landed on her face.

  Poppy sat up, glaring around the deck. If Will thought it was funny to wake her up by throwing water on her—

  But Will was leaning against the railing on the other side of the houseboat, drinking a soda.

  That’s when Poppy realized what had bothered her about that giggle.

  It sounded like it came from under the boat. It sounded, in fact, like it came from the bottom of the lake.

  Chapter

  TWO

  Poppy leaned over the side of the boat and stared into the water. All she saw were some bits of lake weed waving to and fro, a fish flashing by, and an empty soda can bobbing on the surface.

  She wrinkled her nose.

  Well, sounds travel in strange ways over water, she thought. Everyone knew that. She had probably heard someone laughing on a nearby boat.

  And yet . . .

  Poppy frowned. There had been something odd about that giggle. It wasn’t the giggle of someone who was laughing at a joke. It had sounded almost . . . musical, like chimes ringing underwater—

  At that moment, Oliver Asquith’s cell phone rang, interrupting her thoughts. Poppy knew it was his because the ring tone was the theme song from The X-Files and because it had been ringing constantly ever since they had come on board.

  Every time the phone rang, he would make an apologetic face at the Malones and say, “I’m sorry, but I really have to take this. I’ll just be a moment.” Then he would sit in a deck chair positioned so that he could watch Mr. Malone’s face as he loudly talked to film and TV producers, book publishers, and even celebrities (a very famous movie star was interested in playing Oliver in a movie about his paranormal adventures).

  Poppy squeezed her eyes shut so she couldn’t see Oliver Asquith’s smug face. She wished she could put her fingers in her ears so she didn’t have to listen to him, either, but she knew that would be rude.