Out there, where you are – sitting round a table, pulling your crackers - all this must seem strange. Murky, perhaps? Indistinct? Too ….wavy? But here, for us, it’s so normal. Not “murky” but ‘mer-ky’, I suppose. At least, I used to think so – before I met the boy.
He was just one of your many random boys out there. Only for
me, he was ‘the boy’. Now it’s good that
water surrounds me, comforts me and makes it all indistinct and wavy. It submerges me back here, in my world of
Mer, where things are not always so mer-ry at Christmas, when memory rises like
a blade of pain to pierce the surface and turn the water red. Good job,
underwater no-one can see the tears.
“All I want for Christmas
is you!”
Well, why not? What’s wrong with a bit of seasonal romance?
Why shouldn’t I try out what the mistletoe might have to offer? I was fourteen
at last, and sick of swirling around with my sisters – sick of being told, ‘No,
you can’t sing pop songs instead of arias!
No you can’t cut your hair short! No, you can’t have a Wonderbra!’ I mean, at fourteen it’s
different. That’s when you’re on the cusp. I could feel the power flow into me
like the sea into a harbour. Fourteen is not an age for ‘can’t!’
And of course, Mark was so fit. I spotted him first running
on along the Ayrshire coast that raw December morning, whilst I was surfing the
waves during my morning swim. I didn’t mean to splash him really. It was
totally by accident, honest.
“Hey, didn’t see you there,” he said.
Then he looked at me long and deep, as if to make up for not
seeing me before.
“Baby, don’t worry
‘bout a thing…,” I sang.
(I’ve always liked Reggie, ever since the family wintered
that time in the Caribbean and I picked up so much of it listening to the beach
parties.) Mark just smiled.
“Cos every little thing, is gonna be
alright,’ I sang to myself.
Of course, for the first few meetings I couldn’t tell
him. About ‘Mer’ I mean, the world I’m
from. Or the tail. Well, especially the tail. That would be guaranteed to freak
him out on the first date. But then, I didn’t have to tell him. Like I said, at
fourteen you’re on the cusp and that’s when you get the power. You get to
decide who – and what – you are.
The sisters didn’t
like me seeing Mark. Jealous or
what? They threatened to tell Mum and
Dad.
“Meranda’s going
crazy. Running around town after
everything with legs, and even wearing legs herself!”
Well, that flipping
tail (and how it does flip) gets in the way, especially when you’re out for a
snog. So I told them to go ahead and tell if they liked. Why should I care?
“Let’s leave it for
now. Give her time to come to her senses. Realise that a boyfriend is not just
for Christmas,” Marina said.
Just because she’s the eldest, she always likes to think
she’s oh so sensible and knows it all. But I thought I was the one who knew it
all. When you’re fourteen, you’re on the
cusp and you get to choose. Pure power.
About the author:
Helen Shay has won several writing competitions and
had some work published.
She has an MA in
Creative Writing and teaches creative writing with York University CLL. She
also writes poetry and has been a guest spoken word performer at Glastonbury
Poets Tent – with mud-stains to prove it.
She loves fantasy, admiring Philip Pullman in particular, and is
currently writing a young adult fantasy novel.
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