Storm Singing and other Tangled Tasks by Lari Don Page B

perhaps a few mermaids could have gone out to sea and into the other cave without anyone noticing.”
    Helen raised her voice. “Serena? Can we chat?”
    The mermaids swished their tails, and the table floated over. When it settled against the floor of the cave, Serena was nearest to the fabled beasts, her delicate chin resting in her hands.
    “What a SHAME! What HAPPENED to you, my dear human girl?”
    Helen asked cautiously, “What do you think happened?”
    “Your hair is so UNTIDY again! Did you take it out yourself? Did you not LIKE what we did?”
    “I was happy with the plaits,” said Helen, “but I didn’t like the hair accessory.”
    “What accessory? We used twisted kelp fibre to tie the plaits. Quite unobtrusive in your EARTHY brown hair.”
    “I mean the heavy chain which I was tied to and left to drown …”
    “Oh my GOODNESS! How AWFUL! What a SHOCK for you. Who would DO that to your LOVELY hair? And to you of course …”
    Helen stared straight into Serena’s sea-blue eyes, and kept staring, without answering, until the mermaid glanced away.
    Then Helen said, “I have no idea who did it, Serena. Do you?”
    “No! No idea AT ALL!”
    “Was anyone in the cave when you left?” asked Yann in a friendlier voice.
    “GOODNESS no,” answered Serena with a huge smile. “We left your sleeping beauty QUITE safe on her own when Strathy summoned us.”
    She turned to the other mermaids. “Orla, Inigo, Zenna, does ANYone remember ANYthing? A LOOMING presence perhaps, a MURDEROUS shadow, a MYSTERIOUS line of bubbles under the water, a GLOWING trail of slime on the wall?”
    Yann snapped, “Please take this seriously. Helen nearly died!”
    “My DEAR, we ARE being serious. If we think of ANY clues, we will OF COURSE let you know.”
    Yann muttered something about pretty faces being no substitute for useful answers, while Catesby chattered a question.
    “A motive? Surely that’s OBVIOUS, dear bird.” Serena glanced at Helen, and said, in a voice that was suddenly hard and gravelly, “Someone resents your dry-shod friend’s polluting human influence on the selkie contestant and is trying to remove her.” She shook out her hair and smiled a shiny smile. “After all, not EVERYONE loves humans as much as WE do.”
    The mermaids drifted away, navigating their floating feast past young selkies playing in the water.
    Helen wrapped her arms round her knees. “Rona, does someone resent you having a human friend? Does someone think you’re more likely to win without me here? Or is someone trying to stop you winning?”
    “That makes no sense,” said Lavender, whirring beside their ears. “Someone tried to stop Roxburgh winning earlier. Surely someone isn’t trying to stop Rona as well?”
    Helen rubbed her eyes, her salty fingers making them sting. “I’m too tired to think. If we don’t go home soon, I’ll be too tired to row.”
    The mermaids giggled at Yann’s wobbling attempts to board the boat, until it was steadied from the water by four selkie children. Then Helen rowed out of the cave, with Yann crouched even lower because the high tide made the archway smaller, and Rona guiding her friends back to the mainland.
    “So Rona,” Helen panted, “tell us about the race. How far do you have to swim?”
    “Whatever distance it is,” Yann interrupted, “you have to choose one of two strategies, Rona. Either get in the lead immediately and stay there, or hang back, let the others do the work at the front, and save your energy for a sharp sprint at the end. You have to choose. Don’t fudge it. Don’t start at the front then slip back, because whoever overtakes you already feels like the victor and you already feel defeated.”
    Rona sighed. “It’s a race, not a battle, Yann.”
    “Where do you start?” Helen asked. “Will we be able to watch?”
    “If you stand on the ridge of the island an hour after dawn, you’ll get a good view of the start. You won’tsee much else until we get