Real Mermaids Don't Need High Heels by Helene Boudreau

boats on the lake (or worse) if we took Serena during the week to give her a “real teenage girl” experience. Had I spent a week mer-sitting her, practically drowning at underwater hockey practice, and dealing with Lainey Chamberlain’s wrath over the school election for nothing?
    I couldn’t say all that out loud, though. Not with Serena there. She couldn’t help it that her parents were ungrateful troublemakers.
    â€œI dunno,” Luke said. “There might be another explanation.”
    â€œYeah,” Cori agreed. “It could be just a coincidence.”
    â€œCoincidence, my foot,” I muttered.
    Luke slowed down when we got to a red light at the corner and steadied Serena so she could get off the skateboard.
    â€œSo, new best friend,” he asked, “how was your weekend with your mom and dad?”
    â€œWeekend was right,” Serena said, though a strange look passed over her eyes as though she felt guilty for having fun on land just then. “I told about election for Mother and Father. And maps. And Folly Dance, too.”
    I cringed and snuck a peek at Cori. Serena’s English was getting a lot better, and that wasn’t always a good thing. I still hadn’t officially asked Luke to go to the Fall Folly dance because I hadn’t had a chance to figure out what I could possibly wear. I’d looked in my closet the night before, but the fanciest thing I had was a pair of jeans I’d bejeweled with Cori during one of our sleepovers last winter.
    â€œFolly dance?” Luke asked. “Oh, that’s the thing you and Trey are going to, right?” he asked Cori.
    â€œYeah.” Cori nodded. “The Fall Folly.”
    â€œJade go with Luke!” Serena said enthusiastically.
    â€œSerena…” I muttered, then turned to Luke, trying to act casual. “It’s this thing where the girls need to ask the guys to go or something.”
    â€œWhen is it?” Luke asked.
    â€œThe nineteenth,” Cori replied brightly.
    I made a mental note to kill Cori later.
    â€œOf October or September?” he asked.
    â€œSeptember, which I guess is after the supermoon so we shouldn’t really be making plans beyond Tidal Law, considering,” I babbled. “Although October nineteenth has kind of a ring to it. Why does that date sound familiar?”
    â€œSeriously?” Luke got a weird look on his face, making me wonder what was going through his mind. What if he actually didn’t want to go to the dance with me?
    I glanced at Cori, and an awkward silence fell over our group. Luckily, the light changed and we were off again.
    Dodged another bullet.
    â€¢ • •
    Thankfully, Cori took Serena to Junior Environmentalists Club during Monday lunch so I didn’t have to listen to Cori chew me out for messing up a perfect opportunity to invite Luke to the Fall Folly dance.
    The whole conversation had turned out to be so confusing and weird that I wasn’t sure I could bring it up again with Luke anyway. Had I sort of invited him? Not really. Had he kind of accepted? I wasn’t sure.
    So basically, I had no idea if I had a date, needed a dress, or was going to the dance at all.
    I took advantage of the Serena break by researching some final details for our joint Social Studies project without the risk of her deleting it on us again. Mom and Dad had been hovering around me since school started, making sure I was finishing my homework so I wouldn’t have a repeat performance of last semester, so I really didn’t want to mess up on my very first assignment. I was at the library computers, caught up in a Google and Wikipedia time warp, when I heard the “toc, toc, toc” of Lainey Chamberlain’s inappropriate shoes winding their way through the aisles of library shelves.
    I sank low in my seat and peeked over my monitor. I hadn’t really spoken to Lainey since going to her mother’s boutique the