Laura Kirkpatrick - And Then I Turned Into a Mermaid

In fact, right now she hated most things. She hated the crying toddlers shoving sticky hands into her remaining stash of leaflets. She hated the seagulls cawing overhead in constant poop-threat. She hated the gaggle of popular kids from school daring each other to wade waist deep into the freezing North Sea, squealing and splashing and shrieking, stifling laughs whenever they looked her haddocky way. Most of all, she hated how she wanted to be one of them.

But the Seabrooks had never been popular. After all, popularity isn’t easy when you’re loud and brash and always smell like stale chip grease.

Molly lived in a wonky old lighthouse with her four sisters, each more embarrassing than the last, and a mum who liked to feel the sea breeze on her privates. Try as she might to fix those things, Molly knew with heart-aching certainty that she would never fit in.

Just as she was contemplating hurling her stack of flyers into the sea and abandoning the Good Ship Haddock, her youngest sister Minnie darted out of the shop and yanked her by the hand. Well, fin.

‘Molly-macaroni!’ she squeaked, tugging too hard and sending leaflets fluttering all over the promenade.

‘That nickname makes no sense. It’s like me calling you Minnie-lasagne,’ Molly grumbled, attempting to bend down to retrieve the scattered flyers.

Nobody stopped to help her. Not even Fit Steve, who worked at the ice cream parlour a few doors down. Two years above Molly, he was the most popular guy in school. And, as the name suggested, devastatingly fit. In fairness, at that moment he was busy scooping mint choc chip into a cookie cone for a foot-stomping five-year-old. Molly, who had a bit of a thing for Fit Steve, couldn’t help but be jealous of the ice cream cone. And the scoop. And the bratty child.

However, Fit Steve barely knew she existed. Considering the lunacy of her family, this was probably for the best.

‘Was you being barcastic?’ Minnie frowned. ‘Mum told you not to be barcastic.’

‘Yes. Barcastic is precisely what I’m being,’ Molly snapped. ‘That is absolutely, one hundred per cent a word.’

She was already annoyed at herself for getting annoyed. Her little sister was irritating, which is a serious design flaw in most siblings, but Molly was pretty much Minnie’s favourite person in the whole world. The curly-haired littlest Seabrook was the most bonkers of the lot, and yet Molly had always had a soft spot for her.

‘I thought you was,’ Minnie sniggered. She had Seabrook’s famous garlic sauce smeared in her hair like the world’s worst glitter gel. ‘Barcastic barracuda – ha ha ha!’

Honestly, barracuda? Molly’s sister had an unreasonably thorough knowledge of sea creatures for a five-year-old. Could she spell her own name? No, but she could tell you about the carpet shark in A LOT of detail.

Molly ruffled Minnie’s unruly black hair with her fin. ‘Whaddaya want, scampi?’

‘It’s your birfday tomorrow,’ Minnie said, squirming excitedly in her silver jelly shoes, which Molly noticed were on the wrong feet.

‘I am aware, yes. But no fuss, remember? And definitely no fish.’

‘De-fin-ertly no fish,’ Minnie confirmed. ‘De-fin-ertly.’

In most families, you probably would not have to say ‘no fish’ when talking about thirteenth birthday plans, but the Seabrooks were not most families.

Not even close.

Molly awoke on her thirteenth birthday in the bedroom she shared with her sister Melissa in Kittiwake Keep, the wonky converted lighthouse at the end of Little Marmouth pier.

Melissa was fourteen and closest to Molly in age, but Molly got on far better with Margot, who was fifteen and the most gifted practical joker in the northern hemisphere. Molly sometimes wished she could bunk with Margot, but then realised she’d probably wake up with a shaved head and a mouthful of gunpowder, because Margot really liked turning things into cannons.

But back to her birthday. Molly felt both completely different and completely unchanged. The difference was in the crispness of the fresh start: maybe this would be the year she finally grew out of her mood swings. The year she finally found popularity. The year she finally learned how to spell Egypt.

The unchangedness was in the fish.

Because of course there were fish, despite Minnie’s sincere assurances. Every birthday morning in the Seabrook household started with three dozen fish balloons and a giant whale piñata, which the blindfolded birthday girl had to thwack with a sea serpent carved out of driftwood, until finally the whale burst, and confetti and seamarbles rained down from above.

What was the confetti shaped like?

Fish.

Obviously.

Some birthday traditions were mercifully forgotten. The cardboard conch hat, for example. The spike of the shell had nearly taken Mrs Figgenhall’s eye out last year, which is not how anyone saw the assembly on Noah’s Ark ending. Mrs Figgenhall, their religious studies teacher, had lost her temper, clutched her eye socket and wailed that she now knew exactly how Jesus felt when wearing his crown of thorns. Molly thought this was a slight overreaction. In any case, it was mercifully the last time she was cast in any biblical performances.

Finally, Molly escaped the lighthouse and headed to school. Today was the first day back after the holidays, and by the time she had arrived at the Sterling Secondary School for Promising Little Marmouthians (SPLUM to its attendees), her birthday was all but forgotten.

First period was history, where Molly sat two rows behind Ada, staring at the back of her glossy head. Molly silently willed her best friend to turn around so she could do her evil nun impression. She was willing it so hard that she accidentally forgot to listen to Mr Hackney droning on about Ancient Greek mythology.

‘Ms Seabrook?’

Oh no. Mr Hackney was looking at her expectantly. ‘Er, yes, sir?’

‘Any ideas?’ He smiled warmly, and Molly felt a tad guilty for tuning out.

‘Sorry, sir, could you repeat the question?’