Mermaid School by Lucy Courtenay

Author:Lucy Courtenay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2020-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

Marnie swam down to the stables after lunch for her detention, wondering what kind of creature Mr. Splendid was. She wished Orla had dared her to go into Monsieur Poisson’s sea cucumber patch instead. A detention in the school’s kitchen garden would probably have been OK.

“Hello?” she called nervously. “Mr. Splendid? I’m Marnie Blue and I’ve come—”

A flash of yellow caught her eye. A magnificent toadfish was swimming slowly towards her, waving his long purple-spotted tail from side to side and beating his frilly yellow fins. If this was Mr. Splendid, he was very splendid indeed.

“Marnie Blue, you say?” said the toadfish in a deep voice. “Any relation to Christabel?”

Marnie sighed. “Yes, Mr. Splendid, but I’m not like my aunt at all, I—”

“Lovely girl, Christabel,” said Mr. Splendid fondly. “Excellent with my seahorses. Particularly Urchin. Urchin never let anyone else ride him but your aunt. How is she?”

Marnie stared. “She’s fine. Thanks.”

Mr. Splendid swam majestically towards a stable door. “I listen to her show, of course,” he said, lifting the latch. “Never miss it. Come along then, Marnie Blue. These stables won’t clean themselves.”

This was the first teacher Marnie had met who actually liked Christabel. She followed the toadfish cautiously, listening to Mr. Splendid talking to the seahorse inside.

“Sandy, my dear. We have a visitor to clean you up today. Try not to bite.”

Sandy snapped her jaws once or twice as Marnie took the stable brush and started clearing up the manure on the rocky floor of the stable. It smelled worse than Garbo’s, and there was a lot more of it.

“Monsieur Poisson will fetch it later for the kitchen gardens,” said Mr. Splendid. “Marvelous fertilizer for his sea roses.”

Marnie grimly swept and scrubbed and ducked away from the seahorses’ darting teeth. She didn’t like their googly eyes or their hard, ridged bodies. Although she was enjoying Mr. Splendid’s stories of Aunt Christabel as she worked.

“Never seen such a fine rider. She used to race Urchin from the top of School Rock to the bottom, and no one could ever catch her. She took him out a few times without permission too.” The toadfish smiled at the memory. “Not one for rules, your aunt.”

“Oh, I know,” said Marnie.

The next seahorse was Andrew.

“I can’t for the life of me remember why we called him that,” said Mr. Splendid as Marnie tried to sweep up the manure from under Andrew’s long, curled green tail. “Good boy, Andrew.”

Finally they reached the angry seahorse’s stable.

“You’d better let me clean out Typhoon,” advised Mr. Splendid. “We don’t want to deliver you back to Ms. Mullet in pieces. Typhoon was the one you decided to visit this morning, wasn’t he?”

Marnie flushed and nodded.

“I don’t imagine you’ll be visiting him again without permission,” said Mr. Splendid with a slow grin. “Or with permission either. Typhoon’s tricky.”

The toadfish swam into the stable and came out again a few minutes later with a shovel of manure and the clear outline of a bite on one of his yellow fins.

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