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"Dion! Dioooon!"
Mirtala’s voice rang out across the campsite; clear like a bell, pleading like a kitten’s mew, and shrill in the way only the cries of a five-and-a-half-year-old girl could be. Dion winced.
Nona had always said, ever since the day Mirtala had been born, that she had ‘a good pair of lungs’. Dion thought that was a nice way of saying that she was loud. She’d been a loud baby, and now she was a loud little girl, who didn’t seem to have realised that she didn’t need to yell all the time. Especially when the person she was trying to talk to was only a few feet away through an open window.
He sighed, fixing his own grim expression resolutely in the mirror.
“What is it?”
Mirtala’s bells jingled, and in his peripheral vision he could see her stretch up to put her little hands on the edge of the dressing-room windowsill.
"I have a question," she announced.
"Can it wait?"
"No! It's important!"
"I'm kinda busy here, Tala–"
"But it's the importantest!"
This was not a battle he was going to win. Dion put down the pot of pomade, and turned to where Mirtala's huge blue eyes were peering up at him through the open window.
"Fine," he said. "What do you want?"
Mirtala, with some ceremony, tucked her hands behind her back and tipped her head.
"Are crabs fishes?"
Before Dion could open his mouth to answer, a second voice butted in, nasally and a little high-pitched but not quite as shrill:
“Obviously they’re not.”
Mirtala scowled at the interruption, and Dion barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes himself. Of course that little know-it-all would have something to say on the issue.
"Raz says they're not but I think they are," Mirtala said, straining up on her tiptoes with an imploring expression. "So? Are they? Are they?"
"I told you," Raz said matter-of-factly, coming to lean against the caravan next to her. The two of them had clearly been playing dress-up; he had a little braid in his fringe and glitter on the hem of his jacket, even as he folded his arms across his chest in a way that was obviously trying to look cool. "Crabs are crustaceans."
Mirtala wrinkled her nose. "You don't even know what a crusty-acean is."
"Sure I do!"
"Do not!"
"Do too!"
"Do not! You just read it in your comic book!" Mirtala turned away from him with a scoff. "Dion," she said in a sing-song voice. "Crabs are fishes, right?"
Dion had never given the matter a moment’s thought in his entire life. His little siblings might have been free to spend their days thinking about that kind of stuff, but he wasn’t a kid any more. He was thirteen, and he had responsibilities, and that meant more important things to worry about than crabs. And besides, crabs lived in the ocean, and he didn’t want much to do with anything that came out of the ocean.
But these two were clearly counting on him, as the oldest, wisest sibling, to settle this debate. Were crabs fish? He’d kind of assumed they were some kind of weird underwater bug, but that wasn’t an answer that was going to make anyone happy. He looked between Mirtala's wide, pleading eyes, and Raz's smug smirk, and immediately knew who he was going to side with.
"Sure they are," he said, with the off-hand nonchalance of a seasoned crab expert. "They live in the sea, so obviously they're fish."
Raz gave him a deadpan look.
"Lots of things that aren't fish live in the sea, Dion."
"Alright, smart guy, name one."
"Whales," Raz said, with a self-satisfied jerk of his chin. Dion scoffed.
"Uh, whales are fish, genius."
"Whales are mammals!"
Dion rolled his eyes. "Have you ever seen a whale? That's a fish, idiot."
"You are so stupid!" Raz crowed. "I have the stupidest older brother in the world!"
Dion leaned out of the window and smacked him on the head.
"Two against one," Mirtala said sweetly, as Raz rubbed his temple with a scowl. "Crabs is fishes, I win."
Raz stuck his tongue out, and then pre-emptively ducked away from the window before Dion could hit him again.
“Whatever,” he said, sidling away with an exaggerated shrug. “I know I’m right, but sure, you two can go on believing whatever you want.”
“You keep telling yourself that!” Dion called over his shoulder as he skulked off.
Mirtala drummed her little hands on the windowsill, beaming from ear to ear.
“Dion, you’re the best,” she said. “You know, you’re my favourite older brother.”
“Hey, I heard that!”
Dion chuckled. “Well, hey, what are family for?”
There wasn’t much free time in the family circus. The closest they got were the long hours on the road, hauling the caravan from town to town, city to city. It was the only time he and his siblings weren’t needed to help out. Mom and Dad took turns driving and navigating, and Nona would sit and sew with her worn, papery hands, and the rest of them had nothing to do but wait.
Raz liked to read his comics, nose buried resolutely in the pages no matter how much Mirtala tried to get him to play a game with her, or how noisily and tunelessly Queepie bashed on his little toy xylophone. Frazie watched over them, stepping in if things got too rough but otherwise silent as she wound her hands through her long hair. And these days, Dion often found himself just watching out the window, as mile after mile of the world went by.
He’d found it stirring a feeling in his chest that he couldn’t quite put a name to. There was something about seeing it all blur past, just out of reach. They often drove through the night, and when the sky turned blue and silver and all the lights started to flicker on in homes in towns either side of the road, every one of them a person with their own family and their own life, it made something swell behind his ribs like taking a deep breath in and not letting it out again.
How could everything feel so big and so small, all at the same time?
But when they got to their destination, his world became a whirlwind of choreographed chaos again. There were tents to pitch, crates of luggage to unload, wheels to maintain before the next trip. Even on days they weren’t showing, there was still the training – stretches and warm-ups before breakfast, conditioning and weight training, and then practice, practice, practice, until Dion was sure he’d be doing that show’s tricks in his sleep. And when he wasn’t training, he was helping his parents make dinner, and waxing the tents so they wouldn’t leak, and letting Nona measure him for alterations to his costume because he’d hit another growth spurt, and a thousand other things besides.
He’d go to bed each day feeling so exhausted that the too-big too-small feelings in his chest never had time to get off the ground. When he dreamed, he’d see the colours of the big top billowing above him, blue and white, drifting slowly out of his reach.
“Cancelled?” Donatella barked down the payphone, gripping the receiver like it was a snake she’d just caught sneaking in to Queepie’s cot. “What do you mean, we’ve been cancelled?”
A hesitant answer warbled through the line, and as she snapped over it with a rapid-fire salvo of retorts, Dion pursed his lips. Mom was a scary person to have to argue with. He almost felt a little sorry for the person on the other end. Not very sorry – because they’d just cancelled tonight’s show, the show they’d come all this way for, and if the show was off how were they even supposed to cover gas, let alone anything else – but a little sorry. Just a little.
“Explanation? No, I’m not interested in an – you listen to me, signore–!”
Even his siblings had come to watch the fallout. Frazie leant her hip against a crate, catching Dion’s eye with a knowing look. Mirtala had something clenched between her fists – a piece of paper or something, Dion couldn’t really see – and she was looking between him and Mom with the expression of someone with a scheme brewing. Behind her, Raz was wearing the guarded and slightly smug look of a co-conspirator.
Mom had started holding the receiver at arm’s length so that she could yell into it, gesticulating wildly with her other hand. Dion could only hear a few strangled words from the other end, but from their tone they were clearly getting desperate:
“– regrettable, obviously, but we” – “unprecedented circumstances” – “fully reimbursed, of course–”
Mom’s demeanour changed in an instant.
“Is that right?” she said, all hostility gone from her tone. “Mm-hmm. No, of course, we understand. Well, these things happen. And the terms of our original contract will be – …okay. That’s excellent news. Mm. Right. And we appreciate you for reaching out to let us know. Alright then. You too.”
She hung the receiver up with a click; took a moment to compose herself; and then turned back to the assembled peanut gallery with her hands on her hips.
“So here’s the good news…”
And so they ended up, entirely unexpectedly, with a whole day off.
And so, as soon as Mom had left to go finalise logistics with Dad, Mirtala had immediately thrust the crumpled piece of paper she’d been carrying in Dion’s face.
“Dion, Dion, Dion, Dion!” She tugged insistently on the hem of his jacket with her free hand, eyes wide. “Look! Look! There’s an aquarium here.”
Dion blinked – first down at her, then at the poster she was holding up. It had clearly been torn away from a pinboard with eager five-year-old hands, but an array of colourful sea creatures was visible between the ragged edges and the rumpled folds.
“Is this about the crab thing?” he said, a little warily.
“Yes!” Mirtala clapped her hands, beaming. “And all the other fishies! I want to meet them, so promise you’ll take me, please please please!”
Dion folded his arms, glancing to the side.
“I – I dunno, Tala. I don’t think an aquarium is a good idea. You remember what Nona’s always saying, right?”
“But pleeease! We won’t go in the water, it’s all inside the tanks! And I’ve never even seen a real live crab, and they have eels too and penglings and I want to go so much, please.”
Something about the idea still stirred a sick feeling of discomfort in Dion’s gut. All that water… but when he looked back at Mirtala’s face, she was giving him her hugest, biggest, saddest puppy-dog eyes – the one that Mom might have been able to resist, but he sure couldn’t.
He sighed.
“Well… let’s see what Mom says. If she agrees, then okay, I’ll go with you.”
Mom, predictably, wasn’t thrilled about the idea either.
“I don’t want you in a place like that,” she said sharply, folding a silken leotard over her arm. “How about you stay here, where mama can keep an eye on you, and play with your tea set instead?”
“But Dion promised he would take me!” Mirtala clutched Dion’s arm, nodding almost vigorously enough to make her hair spill out of her tightly-braided plaits. “He’ll keep me safe! He promised.”
“Hmm.” Mom’s mouth pressed into a straight line. “Did you now, Dionísio.”
Dion tried not to falter under her stare. He still wasn’t sure if this was a good idea or not. But he had made a promise – kind of – and as Mirtala leant her head into his side, he nodded.
“She told me she just wants to see the fish,” he said. “It won’t take long. I can keep an eye on her and make sure nothing happens.”
Mom knelt down, reaching out to stroke the side of Mirtala’s face.
“Baby, why would you even want to go to a place like that?” she said. “Even with your brother there, won’t it be scary?”
Dion couldn’t see Mirtala’s expression, but he felt her nod, and when she spoke her voice was solemn.
“I know,” she said. “But I want to! There’s all kinds of things there I haven’t seen before! So please, please let me go, mamma! It'll keep me out of trouble, and I get to meet all the fishies, and!" She paused, letting go of Dion’s arm – then turned out her toes, set her hands on her hips, and jut up her chin like the perfect little prima donna. "It's my birthday."
Mom raised an eyebrow.
"Dolce mia,” she said sweetly, “your birthday was six months ago."
"So my birthday present is six months overdue! With interest!"
Mom folded her arms. She glanced over at Dad, who was wearing a hint of a smile on his face.
“She drives as hard a bargain as her mother,” he said.
That got Mom to crack. She tutted, reaching out to ruffle Mirtala’s hair in between her two spiral-wound buns.
“Alright, then. But make sure you stay close to your brother, okay? He’s going to keep you safe.”
Mirtala beamed. “Okay, mamma! Thank you!”
Dion gave a grunt of surprise as Raz squirmed under his other arm, waving.
“I couldn’t help but overhear something about an aquarium! Can I come?” He grinned. “I should probably be kept out of trouble, too, given my track record.”
Mom gave a hmm, in a tone of voice that indicated she wasn’t hugely impressed with his opening. Raz’s grin didn’t falter.
“The poster said entry’s free for kids aged seven and under,” he added. “And I can lie!”
“I suppose that’s fine, then.” She held up a finger. “But the same goes for you as for Mirtala–”
“Stick close to Dion. I got it!” Raz hugged Dion’s side, all innocent sweetness. “You don’t gotta worry about a thing, mom!”
Mom held his gaze for just long enough to convey the subtext of you better watch it, mister, before Mirtala grabbed Dion’s hand again and gave it a tug.
“C’mon, c’mon, let’s go!” She swung her other arm in the air with a laugh, and Dion let himself be half-led, half-dragged out of the campsite.
Raz disentangled himself from Dion as soon as they were out of sight, shoving his hands in his pockets with practised nonchalance. Dion gave him a look.
“So, hey, how come you care about the aquarium all of a sudden?”
Raz tapped his temple. “Let’s just say I wanna find someone who’s in the know about sharks.”
The aquarium was a few blocks away, perched on the edge of an empty lot. It was a duller-looking building than Dion had been expecting, at least on the outside – grey and blocky, with a strange slant to the roof. Inside, the foyer was dominated by a gift shop to one side (which he promised Mirtala, after some pleading, that they’d look at on the way out), ticket booths to the other side, and against the back wall a circular tank with sprite-like glowing wisps drifting inside.
Mirtala finally let go of Dion’s hand to run for the tank as he got in the queue for tickets, pressing her face up against it with a gasp.
“Jellyfishes! Oh, wow, they’re so pretty!”
“The sign says jellyfish don’t have brains.” Raz looked over his shoulder with a stupid grin. “Hey, Dion, I bet you never knew you had so much in common with them.”
“Ha, ha, smartass.”
Tickets – adult tickets, for people aged thirteen and over – were six dollars each. Dion carefully teased apart the handful of bills that Mom had given him, as the teller watched his siblings gawk at the jellyfish tank with a smile.
“And are your parents here today, too?”
“It’s just me,” Dion said. “Mom and dad are at work right now.”
It was a white lie, but easier than trying to explain their family to every gadji he met. She took his money, passing across three coloured wristbands (one blue, two orange) with his change.
“Here you go, sweetie,” she said, and Dion tried not to grimace at the simpering, saccharine note that entered her voice.
The way to the exhibits was up a flight of stairs, flanking a wide enclosure with a bored-looking turtle sunning itself on a rock. Mirtala leaned over the glass edge, cooing at the swirling patterns on its shell.
“‘The world’s oldest tortoise lived to be one-hundred and eighty nine’,” she read from a brightly-coloured placard. “Wowie! That’s almost as old as Nona.”
At the top of the stairs, they turned the corner to a well-lit room signposted ‘LIVING REEFS’. Built into the walls were displays with a dazzling array of colours, pink and blue and green and yellow as schools of fish flickered in and out of tangles of coral. And in the center of the room was a large, shallow tank, with glass walls that barely came up to Mirtala’s shoulders.
A group of kids pushed past them, laughing, reaching their arms in to touch a ray as it flapped past. Dion thought about how it was possible to drown in only two inches of water – how more than a quarter of drowning deaths occurred in water less than three feet deep.
“Dion? My hand hurts. You’re squeezing too tight.”
Dion flinched – then relaxed his grip, looking down at Mirtala.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just – I think maybe this was a bad idea.”
“Oh,” Mirtala said, in a small voice.
The disappointment in her tone was gutting. But as Dion looked back up at the tank, the water, the depths of the aquarium further beyond, he couldn’t shake the feeling in his gut that they shouldn’t be here. Even Raz seemed to have lost his momentum. He was staring at the touch tank, brow furrowed in a look that was uncharacteristically solemn.
Better to call it a day, before anyone got hurt. Maybe the ticket seller would even refund their money, if he came up with some lie about how his siblings had a phobia of starfish. He turned on his heel, pulling Mirtala back towards the entrance.
“Come on, we should head back.”
Mirtala didn’t move. She let Dion’s hand slip from her grasp, rooted to the floor.
“...no,” she said.
Dion stopped.
“What?”
“No!” she said again, more firmly this time. “I… I want to see the rest of the fishes!”
“I really don’t think that’s a good idea, Mirtala–”
“But this is important!”
Something about her voice made Dion freeze in his tracks. He looked back to see her wide blue eyes brimming with emotion, hands curled into fists at her sides.
“It’s important,” she repeated. “I don’t want to leave.”
After a moment, Raz came to stand next to her, stance proud as he straightened his back.
“Yeah. Yeah, Mirtala’s right, we came all this way – we can’t just turn around and leave.” He put his hand on Mirtala’s shoulder. “I’ll take you round if Dion’s too chicken. C’mon.”
“I’m not chicken,” Dion retorted. “I just–”
“Yeah?” Raz’s elbows slowly lifted into the air. “You just what, Dion?”
“I just think – Mirtala, stop laughing, it’s not funny–”
Mirtala didn’t even try to hide her snickers, and now Raz, spurred on by his audience, was grinning too. Dion cut him off before he could start making clucking noises.
“Look – fine, alright, fine. Let’s go.” He held out his hand. “But remember what Mom told you, okay? Stay close. It’s my job to keep you safe.”
With a sparkling smile, Mirtala obediently reached up to wind her little fingers through his.
They skirted the room, giving the touch tank a wide berth. Even with her newfound resolve, Mirtala didn’t quite seem brave enough to go and reach in, but little by little her anxiety from earlier slowly melted away. She stopped at the doorway to the next room, crouching down to the level of the tank, and Dion saw her face light up as a ray slid by with its dopey smile in full view.
Raz, in comparison, still seemed kind of on edge. He leaned into her as she stood back up, his gaze fixed on the surface of the water.
“So you… you really can’t see…?”
Mirtala giggled. “See what, Raz? The fishies?”
Raz pursed his lips. Then he glanced back over his shoulder, making eye contact with Dion for a brief second before looking away again.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “C’mon, let’s go. It says the penguins are this way.”
“Oh, yaaaay! Penwings!”
The penguin enclosure was partially outside, a part of the wall and ceiling cut away to let in the grey sky. Dion supposed this might have been in an effort to disperse the smell. It hadn’t worked. Even behind a pane of glass, the reek of fish was enough to make his eyes water. He was used to livestock smell, but this was so much worse. The penguins weren’t even that cute.
“D’you think penguins ever get jealous of other birds?” Raz asked, as Mirtala waved at them through the glass. “You know, the whole ‘can’t fly’ thing. It must get to be a real downer.”
“And they’re stinky,” Mirtala added with a giggle. “Look, that one’s pooping.”
“They smell bad, can’t fly, and poop wherever they want. Just like Queepie.”
That made Mirtala erupt into cackles. She turned from the glass, skipping off towards the next exhibit.
“I’m gonna find a fish to be me, next! I wanna be the prettiest fish!”
They wound their way from room to room, Dion reaching down to take Mirtala’s hand every time she strayed too far away. Every new exhibit had her eyes lighting up, huge and round, reflecting the sea-blue gleam of the tanks around her. She pressed her nose up against every piece of glass she could reach, gawking at seahorses clinging to strands of seaweed, fat-lipped pufferfish bobbing dumbly in the currents, octopuses slithering over rocks in a way that made Dion’s skin crawl a little.
“Raz, Raz! That one’s you! Look, it’s got your hair!”
“That goldfish totally looks like you, Tala, it’s got your big eyes!”
“What?! Nooo, that one’s gross! Oh, oh, Dion! Come here!”
Dion stepped up to the tall tank, following Mirtala’s eager pointing finger towards a large sea bass.
“That one’s you,” she giggled. “Because it’s sooooo grumpy.”
Dion frowned. “That might be the ugliest fish I’ve ever seen. Thanks.”
“But it’s got your same expression! Look, look, you’re making it right now!”
He glanced down at her, and Mirtala erupted in a peal of laughter. She spun on her heel, scampering away. Dion turned back to the tank, taking in his own pouting reflection in the glass.
“Don’t listen to her,” he murmured to himself. “You’re way better looking than that fish.”
As ugly, and freaky, and weirdly-shaped as some of the things on display here were – some of them were pretty amazing, too. He’d never even guessed there were so many different kinds of fish. Before now, the closest he’d ever come was the seafood counter at the deli. Seeing them like this, up close and alive, was a world away. And when it was through a thick pane of glass, with no more low walls that adventurous five-year-olds could accidentally fall into, the experience was… almost kind of fun.
He followed a sign round the corner into the ‘WORLD OF INVERTEBRATES’. The tight corridor was dimly-lit, lined with smaller tanks and colourful posters.
Did you know?, enthused the bold bubble writing on the walls. Over 90% of the animals that live in our seas are invertebrates, and one-fifth are crustaceans – animals like shrimp, lobsters, and crabs!
He paused in front of a tank with a handful of crabs, and spent a moment watching them cleaning their hot-poker-orange pincers. Crustaceans. Huh. Who knew the little know-it-all had been right about something, after all.
Little know-it-all in question was a few tanks down, staring intently into one of the displays. Its sole inhabitant was a peacock mantis shrimp, according to the plaque, and Dion leaned over his shoulder to take a look inside.
“What’s so interesting about this shrimp? It’s not even doing anything.”
"It says here that shrimp have far superior colour vision to people," Raz said, not taking his eyes away from the tank. "I'm trying to make a psychic link with the shrimp so that I can see what it sees."
Dion balked.
“Hey, keep it down!” he hissed. “You know what Mom and Dad said. None of that freakshow stuff in public, remember?”
Raz didn’t turn his head, but in his reflection Dion could see the way his eyes narrowed in a scowl.
"And then next time you're a jerk I can torment you by making you hallucinate colours only visible to shrimp," he added.
There was a sharp edge of hurt in his voice. Dion bit back the scolding on his tongue – it’s dangerous, be careful, I’m supposed to keep you safe remember? – and shook his head.
“Just… ugh, whatever. Have fun with that, shrimp boy.” Dion turned around, reaching down his hand. “Come on, Mirtala, let’s–”
But she was gone. He froze, looking up and down the corridor. No pealing laughter, no jingle of bells – Mirtala was nowhere in sight.
“Where’s Tala?”
“She ran on ahead,” Raz said nonchalantly. “Got bored with the crabs.”
“And you just let her–?!”
“It’s fine.” There was a strange self-assurance to Raz’s voice, as he glanced up at Dion out of the side of his face. “I’d know if something happened to her.”
His little brother’s cryptic fortune-teller nonsense did nothing to calm Dion’s nerves. He clenched his fists, spinning to stride off down the corridor.
“Dion, seriously, she’s–”
“I need to go find her!”
He wasn’t panicking. He wasn’t panicking, he told himself, even as his brain fired into overdrive, conjuring up every single worst-case scenario. Maybe she’d fallen into one of the tanks. She could have climbed up, trying to get a better look, reaching in when the fish looked close enough to touch. Or maybe there’d just been an accident, a horrible accident, and hundreds of pounds of pressure had met a crack in the glass, and –
And suddenly there was water, all around him.
Dion slowly let his eyes trail up, over the walls of the glass tunnel. It was blue, shockingly, unbelievably blue, and scattered light from the water’s surface up above shivered and danced over him. A shape slid past, and he realised it was the white underbelly of a shark, cutting languidly through the water. He craned his neck to watch it pass overhead, as silent as a ghost. Then it was out of sight, his breath fogging up the glass as it disappeared into the blue depths.
He walked slowly, hesitantly, down the tunnel, as the fish swam back and forth above his head. He wasn’t sure if it was fear halting his steps, or some other feeling, tugging gently at his ankles and making him feel like he was wading up to the waist. It was strangely quiet down here. He couldn’t even hear the rushing of the water above him – it was muffled, muted, a low whoosh that rose and fell in time with his own breathing.
And then, at the end of the tunnel, silhouetted against another tank filled with endless, endless blue –
“Mirtala!”
Mirtala blinked at him over her shoulder – then spun around with a laugh.
“Dion, Dion! Look at…”
She trailed off as he approached, eyes going wide. Maybe it was something in his expression or his body language. Dion knew he should have softened his face, should have taken a step back instead of looming over her like this, but right now it was taking all of his energy not to yell.
“Why did you run off like that?” he snapped. “I promised Mom I’d look after you, remember? What if something had happened to you?! What if…?”
Mirtala sniffled. She shrank back, twisting the hem of her skirt between her hands.
“I’m sorry,” she said, softly. “I… I got excited, and…”
Dion sighed, and reached up to rub the back of his neck.
“I know the aquarium’s exciting. But we gotta stick together, so that–”
“I had to go on my own! I had to, Dion!” She swallowed, and then took a deep breath, looking up to meet his gaze with trembling eyes. “I wanted to be brave! So I could be not scared of the fishes any more!”
There were tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. Dion reached out, gently taking hold of her shoulder.
“If you were scared, you shoulda said something.”
“I know,” Mirtala sniffed. “But I didn’t want to be. I wanted…”
“It’s okay. I think I get it.”
“’m sorry I made you mad, Dion.”
“No – no, it’s… I was just scared, too.”
She sniffled again, and gave him a wobbly smile. Dion knelt, brushing his knuckle under the damp corners of her eyes.
“But it’s not scary when I see it like this,” she added after a moment, glancing back towards the tank. “It’s magical. Look. It looks like they’re flying.”
He followed Mirtala’s gaze. The water was alive, eels rippling like living ribbons, huge great shapes of sharks and rays soaring between flickering schools of smaller fish. There must have been hundreds of them in there, swimming around and around in the dancing, dappled light.
Mirtala was beaming when he looked back towards her.
"Dion, Dion! Pick me up!"
Dion wrapped his hands around her torso, scooping her up. Compared to his other siblings, she was light as a feather. He hoisted her above his head in one smooth motion, just like in the routines they’d practised, supporting her across his palms. Mirtala laughed, kicking her arms and legs up and down in the air.
"Look! Dion, look! I'm swimming!"
“Yeah,” Dion said. “You’re a natural.”
A familiar voice floated into hearing as they walked back along the side of the tank, Mirtala holding tight to his sleeve and swinging her other arm back and forth:
“...telling me that’s not a great white?”
Raz had cornered one of the aquarium staff, and was interrogating them with an intensity Dion had previously only seen reserved for his dorky comics. The staff member, at least, seemed to be holding their own.
“They look a lot like great whites, but these guys in the tank are actually reef sharks! They’re a lot smaller, and like to hang out in warm waters.”
“Oh,” Raz said, in obvious disappointment. “That’s cool, I guess. You probably keep the great whites in the other tank then, right?”
The staffer laughed. “Oh, man, I wish! We’d love to have some, they’re amazing creatures. But we don’t keep any here – in fact, no aquarium in the world has ever been able to keep one alive for more than a few weeks.”
Mirtala, who had been hanging on to their every word with wide, enthralled eyes, let out a gasp.
“Aww! That’s so sad. How come?”
“It is super sad. The truth is, they just don’t get on well with being in captivity.” The staffer gestured into the depths of the tank. “Smaller sharks are fine, but great whites are nomads. In the wild they’re always travelling, always moving to new places. They have to keep swimming to pump enough water over their gills so they can breathe. If they stop, they die. Even the biggest tanks in the world are way too small for them.”
“Wow,” Mirtala said, softly. Even Raz was silent for a moment. Then he said:
“So let’s say, hypothetically, you had to fight a shark. What are the weak points?”
“Sorry?”
“Like – how vulnerable are they to psychic blasting? More or less so than a squirrel, would you say?"
Dion turned back to the tank, letting the incessant questioning fade into the background of his thoughts.
Even the biggest tanks are too small. And this one was huge. It dominated the entire hall, floor to ceiling, hundreds of thousands of gallons of saltwater. He tried to imagine himself inside it, spinning around and around with the other fish, pressed up against the glass walls.
It looked spacious from the outside. But in the end, he supposed it was a cage just like any other.
They exited, as promised, through the gift shop. Mirtala spent so long between the shelves that Dion had expected her to come out with a whole armful of toys – but in the end, the only thing she picked out was a mermaid-themed stationary kit. He honestly thought it looked kind of tacky and cheap, but nevertheless, she wanted it desperately; and nevertheless, it was still more than her allowance would cover.
"Please please please, I'll never ever ask for anything ever again!"
Raz wrinkled his nose. “Are you serious? A dollar fifty, for that crap?”
“Don’t say swears! And it’s not crap, it’s treasure!” She made a grabbing motion towards him. “C’mon, give me your allowance and I’ll pay you back.”
“No way!” Raz folded his arms, sticking his nose in the air. “I’m saving for the new issue of True Psychic Tales next month! They’re doing a promotion where you can send off for this pair of authentic Psychonaut goggles to protect your–”
“Nobody cares!” Mirtala announced. Her eyes swivelled to Dion, and she held the stationary tight to her chest, putting on a trembling bottom lip. “Diooooon…”
Dion’s allowance was one whole dollar a week. It was money he earned for helping out with chores, and watching over his siblings, and being responsible. And like a responsible person, he saved that money. It wasn’t for spending on frivolous overpriced stuff just because there were pictures of mermaids on it.
…but, maybe just this once, he could make an exception. He never could resist Mirtala’s puppy-dog eyes, anyway.
That night after dinner, as Dion was washing his face with the last of their hot water, Mirtala came up to tug on his sleeve. She’d just had her bath, and her hair was all bundled up on top of her head in a towel, making her wobble in place as she looked up at him with an utterly sincere expression.
“Here,” she said, pressing a little folded note into his hand with great ceremony. “It’s for you. But you have to open it in secret!”
‘In secret’ was something hard to come by, when he and all his siblings slept in the same tent, crammed in side-by-side like sardines. But he’d waited until the sounds of breathing had become slow and rhythmic before finally unfolding it, reading the scrawled handwriting by the dim glow of the fairy-lights outside shining through the tent wall.
At the top of the note was a printed picture of a smiling mermaid, and underneath the note said:
Than you thank you THANK YOU!!! for my stasharany. it is soooo beautiful and it makes my heart smile! you are the best older brother in the world (p. s. don't tell Raz)
If i was a mermade I'd have a tea party at the bottom of the oshan with all of the fishes and all of the octopuses and sharks and crabs and moreray eels. and the fishes are all my freinds and the water isn't scarey any more
It took Dion a long time to get to sleep that night. Something about the day’s events had stuck with him, lapping against the inside of his skull. He clutched the little pink note in his fist as he laid in his cot, gaze restlessly circling the ceiling of the tent above him, and wondered if this was how great white sharks felt.