And Then I Turned Into a Mermaid. Laura Kirkpatrick
the stacks of dirty dishes piled high next to the sink. Their dishwasher had been broken ever since Molly could remember, and their mum never had the cash to fix it.
Tonight, as part of a Seabrook birthday tradition Molly didn’t actually mind, the five sisters were making cake for dinner while their mum single-handedly ran the fish ’n’ chip shop. Since it was Molly’s birthday, she got to choose the flavour, and she opted for the same kind she always did: white chocolate and raspberry.
Molly often thought she’d quite happily drown in melted white chocolate, and was known for always carrying Milky Bar buttons with her everywhere she went. The best time for them was in the summer, when they went all gooey and stuck together in one giant blob. Molly enjoyed putting the blob in the fridge to solidify, then gnawing on the entire thing like a beaver with a piece of tree bark.
Since she was the resident expert on the matter, Molly was in charge of melting the white chocolate over the stove, slowly so she didn’t burn it, while Myla weighed the dry ingredients. Margot and Melissa were blending everything together, and somehow Minnie had been entrusted with whisking the eggs. The radio blared out an upbeat pop song on the windowsill, and the kitchen was warm from the Aga’s heat.
Myla, the seventeen-year-old super-genius, cleared her throat importantly. ‘Did you know that it actually wasn’t Marie Antoinette who said, “Let them eat cake”?’
Myla mistook the silence for awe, not disinterest. ‘Honestly, it wasn’t! Most people believe she said it on the eve of the French Revolution in 1789, but actually it was Maria Theresa of Spain, the wife of Louis XIV. She said it a hundred years before Antoinette. Crazy, right?’
Molly stifled a laugh as she stirred the glossy chocolate. ‘Mmm. Crazy.’
‘What do nets have to do with anything?’ Margot asked innocently.
Myla stared at her sister as though she were the stupidest person in the whole of Europe. ‘Antoinette.’
Margot met Molly’s eye, and they both had to press their lips together to prevent the giggles from escaping. Margot tossed an extra pinch of salt in the batter for good luck.
‘Anyone else got any cake trivia?’ Myla asked earnestly, oblivious to her sisters’ mockery.
Melissa wrinkled her nose as she used a wooden spoon to mix the butter and the sugar together. ‘This is so unhealthy. For my birthday, I want a fruit salad.’
‘Imagine living in Melissa’s head,’ Molly muttered to Margot. ‘I bet she wants to ban fairgrounds for being too fun.’
But Margot didn’t hear her, because she’d stuffed a raspberry in each ear to block out the impromptu history lesson.
They popped the delicious white chocolate and raspberry concoction in the Aga. While they waited for the magic to happen, they started the washing-up so their mum didn’t have to come home to a messy kitchen. Of course, the kitchen was always messy, so it was a little like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, but it was the thought that counted.
Molly dunked her finger in the cake-batter bowl. ‘Hey, remember the time we went to see that unicorn show at the theatre for Melissa’s birthday?’
‘And Minnie stormed the stage?’ Margot wrestled the bowl from Molly and shoved her entire face in it to lick the last scraps. Melissa rolled her eyes.
Molly chuckled. ‘And started kissing the pink unicorn to death.’
‘Hey!’ Minnie said, indignant. ‘It did not die. Not like Granny Bettie. She’s dead.’
Molly couldn’t help it then. Minnie’s morbid exclamations made her snort with laughter every time. She was always pointing at stationary objects and insisting they were dead: rocks, street lamps, Margot during a particularly heavy sleep.
Myla smiled wistfully. ‘Or what about when Dad was still around, and we went bowling? And he . . . he . . .’
As Myla trailed off, Melissa shot a worried look at Molly and Margot. Myla was the only one old enough to have any real memories of their father – he left right after Molly was born. Minnie had a different father altogether, who wasn’t in the picture either. Which meant Myla often felt alone in missing their dad, and struggled to talk about him with her sisters.
This made Molly feel a bit guilty. What you’ve never had, you don’t miss, and yet it would’ve been nice for Myla to have someone to share the heartache with. There had always been a kind of distance between Myla and the rest of them, and Molly suspected this was partly why, though there was the whole super-genius thing too. Once, on the plane journey to their one and only foreign holiday in Majorca, Molly had asked if it got dark above the clouds. Myla had never looked at her the same since.
‘Oh no!’ Minnie wailed.
‘What is it, scampi?’
‘I forgots to put the egg in. Sorry.’ Sure enough, the semi-beaten eggs sat in a bowl over by the broken dishwasher.
‘Hey, it’s OK, Minnie-moo!’ Margot grabbed the bowl and gave it a good stir. ‘We can put them in now. The cake hasn’t been in the oven that long.’
‘OK.’ Minnie stared at the ground, tears pooling in her shiny blue eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Stop apologising, silly.’ Molly grabbed her by the armpits and hoisted her up on to her hip. It was getting harder to do that now that Minnie was so much bigger, and Molly suspected she’d need a titanium hip replacement by Christmas. ‘It was a tiny mistake.’ She ruffled Minnie’s hair, which now not only contained garlic sauce but also cake batter, raspberry juice and several toothpicks from the chip shop.
‘See?’ Margot said, scraping the eggs on top of the partially baked cake. It had already formed a solid top, which meant she couldn’t mix the eggs in properly with the batter. ‘It’ll be perfect.’
This was not convincing in the slightest.
An hour later, the girls were sitting around the wonky kitchen table forcing down what can only be described as cake topped with burnt omelette. The only one who seemed to be enjoying it was Minnie, who immediately demanded seconds, then thirds. The others found new and inventive hiding places whenever Minnie wasn’t looking. Molly really hoped she would remember to retrieve the slab of omelette from the pocket of her school blazer, because the last thing she needed was to be sent out of double chemistry for smelling like eggy fart.
Thankfully, there was soon a knock on the door, and Margot, Melissa and Molly all dashed out of the kitchen to escape the grossest dinner they had ever had. Molly got to the door first, and swung it opened breathlessly.
Eddie of the Ears stood before her, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.
Eddie, whose ears would’ve looked more at home on a baby elephant, was in Molly’s class at school. He was one of the regulars at the chip shop, and always ordered the same thing: chips and bits. Molly didn’t blame him. Those bitty, salty scraps of batter scooped from the top of the deep fat fryer were second only to white chocolate in her eyes.
Clutched in his hand was a large seashell with something painted on the curves.
Margot grinned in disbelief. ‘Eddie of the . . . Eddie.’
‘It’s OK,’ Eddie said, smiling widely. ‘You can say Ears. Although Eddie of the Eddie has a certain ring to it.’
Molly shifted uncomfortably, willing her sisters not to say anything too embarrassing. ‘What are you doing here?’
Eddie shrugged. ‘I just wanted to say happy birthday. Because, you know, it’s your birthday. And I want you to be happy. Wait, no, that’s intense. Er . . . happy birthday, anyway.’
He held out the seashell, which had ‘Happy Birthday Mollie’ painted on it in pink and green. It looked a little like a toddler had written it, but it still made Molly feel warm and grateful.