Girls Day Out: A Syrena Legacy Story by Anna Banks

Girls Day Out
     
    My first attempt at making sushi for Galen sucks. The rice won’t stick to the seaweed in some places, which looks like bald patches. The body of it looks chunky here, skinny there, because I didn’t cut the cucumber thinly enough and the avocado is too mushy to stay in place.
    So my California roll resembles a balding snake that swallowed a toy train. And now I have to slice it up into recognizable little wheels and hope Galen believes it’s the same thing that Rachel used to fix him.
    I raise the knife, ready to massacre my masterpiece, when I hear the sliding glass door in the living room open behind me. It could be anyone except Galen; he’s in Saturday detention for fighting in school. In his defense, he tried not to brawl. He really did. He bumped into the guy on accident, and the guy took all kinds of offense. I was so proud of how patient Galen was about the whole thing. He didn’t even throw the first punch. But the guy was bent on fighting. And while Galen didn’t start it, he did finish it. With finesse, I might add. Which is why he has not one Saturday detention, but two . So until four thirty this afternoon, I have to entertain myself.
    Rayna pulls up a barstool beside me at the counter, wrapped in one of our many beach towels and dripping salt water on the counter where she reaches for my leftover crab meat. She eyes my creation warily. “It smells right,” she says. “But it looks funny.”
    “But you’d still eat it?”
    She sniffs. “Is that the fake crab meat?”
    “You tell me.”
    She pops a piece into her mouth and chews slowly. “It’s fake.”
    “Nope. It’s real.”
    “Then something’s wrong with it. It’s not fresh.”
    By fresh, she means that I didn’t catch it, murder it, and mutilate it myself in the last half hour. I set the knife down, too unsettled to cut into the roll just yet. “It is fresh. I got it from the grocery store.”
    “Galen likes fresh. Real fresh.”
    “Galen is going to eat this, I promise you.” There’s a trick I learned while babysitting Chloe’s younger brother. When he didn’t want to take his medicine, I spooned it into his mouth, then blew in his face, which causes a person to reflexively swallow.
    I’m quite certain this tactic works on Triton princes as well.
    She raises a doubtful eyebrow.
    “What are you doing here anyway? Where’s Toraf?”
    She shrugs. “We’re fighting. And I need to use your computer thing.”
    I nod toward the couch where my laptop is snuggled into the throw blanket. I’d been doing some online shopping. My favorite new thing is to dress Galen. And he doesn’t even put up much of a fight about it. “What do you need it for?”
    Rayna seats herself and opens the laptop while I wrap the roll in foil. I’ll slash it up later. I don’t want to do it in front of know-it-all Rayna, and I’ve lost my confidence right now anyway. Maybe when I open it again, it will miraculously be the sterling example of what a California roll should be. I put it in the fridge and walk over to the couch, plopping down beside her.
    “What are you doing?”
    She’s all concentration. “I’m looking at the sail dates for the cruise lines.”
    Of course. Because fish princesses love to go on cruises. “Okey-dokey, then.”
    Rayna turns to me. “You never know what those stupid humans are going to throw overboard.”
    “Mostly trash, I’m guessing.”
    “Sometimes. But sometimes, it’s treasure. Stuff you wouldn’t believe.”
    To Rayna, a plastic comb could be treasure. “Try me.”
    She’s getting excited, I can tell. These are the only times Rayna looks truly innocent, when she’s talking about her human treasures. “A lot of times they toss in those gold dollar things. Rachel told me they do that for good luck. Idiots. I have like a million of those or something.” She pecks at the keyboard with one finger, leaning in to scan the screen. “One time someone tossed a ring overboard, a real diamond