Laura Kirkpatrick - And Then I Turned Into a Mermaid

First published in Great Britain 2019

by Egmont UK Limited

The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

Text copyright © 2019 Laura Steven

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

First e-book edition 2019

ISBN 978 1 4052 9503 1

Ebook ISBN 978 1 4052 9517 8

www.egmont.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Stay safe online. Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont is not responsible for content hosted by third parties. Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet.

Egmont takes its responsibility to the planet and its inhabitants very seriously. We aim to use papers from well-managed forests run by responsible suppliers.

To Millie – my favourite mermaid in the world

Cover

Title page

Copyright First published in Great Britain 2019 by Egmont UK Limited The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN Text copyright © 2019 Laura Steven The moral rights of the author have been asserted First e-book edition 2019 ISBN 978 1 4052 9503 1 Ebook ISBN 978 1 4052 9517 8 www.egmont.co.uk A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Stay safe online. Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont is not responsible for content hosted by third parties. Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet. Egmont takes its responsibility to the planet and its inhabitants very seriously. We aim to use papers from well-managed forests run by responsible suppliers.

Dedication To Millie – my favourite mermaid in the world

CHAPTER ONE: Barcastic Barracuda

CHAPTER TWO: A Fishy Birthday

CHAPTER THREE: Cake for Dinner

CHAPTER FOUR: The Transformation

CHAPTER FIVE: So Many Questions

CHAPTER SIX: The First Hurdle(s)

CHAPTER SEVEN: The Embarrassing Friend

CHAPTER EIGHT: The Blow-Up

CHAPTER NINE: What’s Your Trout?

CHAPTER TEN: The Trapdoor

CHAPTER ELEVEN: Clamdunk

CHAPTER TWELVE: Back to Reality

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Jack-in-the-Box

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Carrot to Eagle

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Purple Tail

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Pease Pudding

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Baboon Buttholes

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: The Biggest Spectacle at the Zoo

CHAPTER NINETEEN: Do Penguins Bark?

CHAPTER TWENTY: Look, a Penguin

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Strangest Merpower

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Good Ship Haddock

Acknowledgements

Molly Seabrook loved the sea and hated the sea in equal measure.

She loved it for all the obvious reasons: the gushing and fizzing of waves on the shore, the dolphins leaping during summer, the kaleidoscope of red and orange and pink during sunset.

She hated it because the sea was home to fish. And fish could be caught and battered and served to paying customers in the Seabrook family’s fish ’n’ chip shop where Molly and her sisters were forced to help out. And sometimes, to attract those paying customers, she had to dress up as a giant haddock . With fins and everything.

She also hated the sea because her bonkers mum was partial to skinny-dipping, which the kids at school absolutely loved to make fun of. Every single lunchtime, without fail, Miranda Seabrook dived into the sea. Naked. And every single lunchtime, without fail, Molly was so ashamed that she wanted to roll around in flour and toss herself in the deep-fat fryer just to avoid the pointing and staring.

So again, obvious reasons.

Today, even though it was the end of October half-term, the haddock suit was still hotter than the sun. Trapped in a tomb of polyester scales, Molly was essentially one enormous sweat gland. Salt crystals dripped from her eyebrows and into her stinging eyes. It was nearly the end of her shift, so she looked around for somewhere to ditch her remaining flyers.

She soon found her target. Molly thrust a wodge of leaflets into a snooty old lady’s canvas shopping bag as she went past. Ordinarily she would feel bad for reverse pickpocketing, but that same snooty old lady had called the police last week and reported Molly’s mum’s skinny-dipping. Really, Molly wanted to put an end to her mother’s naked antics more than anyone, but having to watch a seaweed-covered Miranda Seabrook being lectured by an angry police officer? While dressed as an oversized fish? Surely it was more humiliation than any normal human being could handle.

The sun-dappled pier was rammed with tourists sucking on seamarbles – Little Marmouth’s famous boiled sweets. Seamarbles were sweet and tangy and blue, with miniature candy fish inside. Molly hated them on principle.