Now mermaids are not as they are in stories...

By Jen Finelli

The moment she grabbed my butt I knew it was over. I knew it was over, because she had ten-inch-long claws, and ten feet under the murky water I couldn't scream. I kicked; silt filtered around my ears, in my nose, scratching my skin. Another set of claws caught my shoulder, and the sting in my spine told me she had sharp teeth, too. Mama had warned me not to go looking for mermaids. "They're not like in the storybooks," she'd said, her eyes distant. But with that smile tickling the corner of her mouth, of course I'd go looking! If she REALLY didn't want me to find her map of "second star to ...