THE FIRST DAY

Flounder tried to stop me, but Ariel needed help badly, and he knew it. When the Sea Witch's cave came into view, I could see him grow horribly afraid, and I told him to stay behind. I was pretty scared myself to tell the truth. Stories were always floating around on the edges of conversations, always in whispers, about the Sea Witch and the strange and unnatural things she did.

I swam into the cave entrance and there were hundreds of awful little twisted things lining the walls; they stretched toward me and gaped their mouths and made terrible groaning cries, but I swatted them away and swam faster. It got so dark I couldn't see, and then it got light again, and I saw the main cave opening up ahead. Ursula was waiting for me.

"So you came!" was the first thing she said to me, and that took me by surprise right off the bat. "Dear little Urchin," she went on – and I hadn't even introduced myself – and she said, "Take a seat," and pushed me down onto a rock. She grinned wickedly and climbed down the cave wall with her long black tentacles, and sat right in front of me. I didn't say anything; I was so scared I had forgotten to talk.

"I've been expecting you, Urchin! My, you've grown into a handsome young merman, haven't you?" she said with a smile, and then scowled at me. "Didn't anyone teach you any manners, boy? It's rude to gape and stare like that."

I shut my mouth. Then I gasped out, "You were expecting me?"

"Well," she said, smiling, "After Ariel came, it was rather suspenseful, wondering whether or not you'd show up. But you did, and you're here. Very predictable. The question is, how can I help you?"

I remembered why I was there and looked Ursula straight in the eye. "I want you to bring Ariel home!" I shouted.

"But Ariel doesn't want to come home," she said musingly, as if she thought I was entertaining. "She wants to be with her Prince, and I've let her! I've made her happy."

"What about her father, and her sisters? She'll miss them! She'll realize she made a mistake, and then she'll want to come home-"

"Too late for that now, boy," she said, her voice suddenly dark and malicious. "Ariel's signed a contract, and that contract is binding. She can never go home again." She slid away on her tentacles over to one of the walls of the cave, where her shelves of potions were, and started organizing them. "I know it must be hard on you," she said, now sounding mock-sympathetic, "when she meant so very much to you. To know she deserted you like that, without even saying good-bye!"

Ariel hadn't said good-bye to me. She hadn't said anything. I hadn't thought of that before, but I realized Ursula was right.

The Sea Witch continued deftly organizing her potions, sometimes using her tentacles, and didn't even look at me as she kept talking. "Not one word to her dear Urchin! Well, some friend she is. Perhaps you should be glad never to see her again. Be glad she's with her darling Prince and her humans, and good riddance to them."

"But if she doesn't get the kiss," I said, "If she doesn't get the Prince to fall in love with her in three days, she won't even get to stay human. She'll belong to you."

"That is correct," the Witch said. "Oh, but don't feel bad for her. She accepted the terms herself, you know. You yourself would never have been stupid enough to accept such impossible terms."

I would never have got into this mess to begin with. I didn't always understand the things Ariel did, or why she did them. But then Ariel believed in something, and I didn't believe in anything.

"Isn't there anyway to void her contract?" I asked.

"No. The most you can do is hope she's a good flirt, and gets that Prince to kiss her."

I don't know where it came from, but the next moment I was shouting at the Sea Witch, "Give me a contract too!" She paused in her organizing and turned her head to look at me, a skeptical smile on her lips. "Give me a contract," I went on. "Give me legs like Ariel so I can go on land. I have to help her get the Prince to fall in love with her. She can't even talk. She needs my help."

"You would sell yourself to the Sea Witch to help a friend who didn't even say good-bye?" Ursula asked, as if she pitied me for being stupid.

"I can't let her fail, and then belong to you forever," I said. "I'll help her get her Prince. And I'm sure she would have said good-bye if she had remembered it," I added as an afterthought.

"Alright, if you insist," Ursula said, and materialized a scroll of paper and a quill pen out of nowhere, and lay them down on the rock between us. "To tell the truth, this little twist just might make my job easier!" she beamed. "I thought I might have to go up there myself and get in the way of Ariel and the Prince's budding romance, but then here you show up on my doorstep and offer to do it for me! It's perfect." She started writing furiously on the scroll with the quill pen.

"What do you mean?" I asked nervously.

"Oh, nothing – just that I wonder if you will aid or hinder Ariel in her goal."

"Of course I will help her!" I retorted. "She's my best friend!"

"Alright, no need to get so flustered!" she said, still scribbling violently with the pen. "Here's the deal," she explained. "I'll give you three days with legs, the same as Ariel. You have until sunset on the third day. Now listen closely, this is important: when the sun sets on the third day, you have to be touching the ocean to turn back into a merman. If you aren't touching the water at the moment the sun sets, you will have missed your chance, and will be stuck human forever." She paused and grinned up at me. "And I'm sure that's just what you want," she said sarcastically.

"Why is it different for Ariel?" I asked. "Why does she have to get a kiss? That seems a whole lot harder."

"Because your desires and Ariel's desires are not the same, and the rules unfold accordingly for each of you." She continued scribbling on the scroll, not bothering to look at me. "Now, as for price, I can't imagine what you have to give. Ariel's price was her voice – she has a lovely singing voice. But I don't think you have any talents of that sort, nothing worth me spending the effort to take it. An orphan, with no money, no loved ones to ransom up, and not even wearing anything." She squinted her eyes at me. "I don't work for free, you know."

"That's why I brought this," I said, and threw up the sack I had carried with me over my shoulder. It landed on the rock table, spilling open and scattering gold coins and jewels. The people of the sea like shiny objects, and hold this kind of stuff just as valuable as land people do, though I can't see any use for it.

Ursula grinned. "That's more like it. Not very imaginative, but nice and old-fashioned. Where'd you get this?"

"Consider it a loan from my boss," I said.

"Not worried he'll miss it?"

"I'll be gone where he can't reach me. And anyways that's the least of my problems right now."

Ursula admired some of the jewels, letting them sparkle in the light, then scooped them back into the sack and dragged it across the table. She stowed it away in some dark corner of her lair, then took her seat again and shoved the contract and quill across the table to me.

"Payment accepted," she said. "Now you just have to read over your contract, and sign it."

"I can't read," I said.

"Oh," she said, snorting back a giggle. "Well, you'll just have to trust me then."

I looked at the contract, but it was just a big mess of curly lines to me. I ditched school pretty early and never learned to read or write. I had never needed it until now. "Ariel's contract could end with her belonging to you," I said cautiously. "Can mine end that way too?"

Ursula threw back her head and laughed. "My dear boy," she said. "What on earth would I do with you? Ariel is a princess; she's important. I can ransom her for a lot of money or blackmail her father. Of course I want her! But you? The upside of being worth absolutely nothing is you are no interest to a witch like myself."

"So that's it?" I pressed on, making sure. "I get to the ocean on sunset of the third day, and I get my tail back, and I'm free. Absolutely free, right?"

"Yes," she said impatiently. "Unless you don't make it to the ocean, and then you're stuck human forever. Either way, you're not my problem. Now, I do have other customers to be getting to, so sign and be on your way like a good little merboy." She held out the quill and I took it. "Just make an X," she said, pointing to the bottom of the scroll. "Here."

I bit my lip and scratched a giant X on the paper, and as soon as I did I started to feel really weird. I looked up and saw Ursula with the most terrifying smile, her arms outstretched like claws, her black tentacles twirling in spirals around her. She was saying strange things that didn't make any sense to me, and the room became very dark and all the sudden very bright, so bright I had to shut my eyes. Then I cried out because my entire body started to hurt, but especially my tailfin. It felt like every bone in the bottom half of my body was breaking and rearranging itself. But it only lasted a second, and then I had a much bigger problem, because now I couldn't breathe. I was choking on the water and couldn't do anything about it. In the back of my mind I heard Ursula laughing, but then it faded away and I was pummeling away on a gush of water she must have sent. I thought I was going to die.

Then I burst through the surface and into the air, choking and spitting up water. I was lying on my back on the sand, being pushed up by the tide. I just lay there a while, gasping for breath. Everything was still aching. I've never felt worse in my life. I heard seagulls crying overhead, and the sun felt nice and warm, but after a while it started to burn my skin so I sat up on the sand.

I had legs. I used to have a green tail covered with shiny little scales, but now everything was pale skin and covered with little hairs instead. I had never seen a real human before, only paintings and statues of them. But in all the paintings and all the statues they were always wearing a whole lot of clothes, so I could never tell what they really looked like underneath it all. I wasn't wearing any clothes. I had parts I didn't even know humans had.

Everything was different out of the water. I had swum up to the surface before, but never stuck around for very long. The sky was so huge and empty, I felt like I could fall into it and be lost forever. It was terrifying to look at. But then I couldn't fall into it because I was so heavy. Everything feels so much heavier on land; it takes more energy just to move.

The colors were different too. Under the water, everything was shades of blue, even the light. Up here the light was warm and yellow. I was sitting on the beach, and in the distance I saw a city and a tall white castle. I figured it must be the castle where the human Prince lived, where Ariel was. I knew I had to help her, but now that I was here I had no idea how.

It took me a few minutes to figure out how to stand up and start walking; my legs kept shaking and giving way under me. I kept falling until my bottom was sore. I hadn't ever fallen down before; you don't fall down underwater. Falling hurts.

Finally I was walking slowly and carefully up the beach toward the city and the palace. I didn't understand how humans ever got anywhere this way; it was so much harder than swimming, and easier to get hurt. The sand was hot and started burning my feet, and the sun was so bright up here that I could barely keep my eyes open. My legs had barely any muscle on them, and I got tired real fast, and collapsed down on the sand. A few minutes later I looked up and saw a human man walking down the beach toward me. I wasn't sure if he had noticed me yet, so I sat very still and hoped he wouldn't. I had never seen a real human before. He was tall and strong with brown hair and a beard, and dressed in a lot of heavy-looking clothes. I remembered I wasn't wearing any clothes. I wondered if the other humans would think me odd for it.

He was carrying a sort of long stick that Ariel had shown me before; she said it was a fishing pole, and humans used it to catch fish and eat them. The man hoisted up the pole as if to swing it out across the water, but then he noticed me and stopped.

"Hey boy," he called out, looking at me real funny. "What in tarnation are you doing?"

I had always wondered if humans spoke the same as merpeople did, if they spoke at all. Now a real human was actually speaking to me. I didn't know what to say, so I just sat where I was and stared stupidly.

"What happened to your clothes?" he asked, and walked up to me, which is exactly what I didn't want him to do. "My God, did you just wash up on the beach? Were you shipwrecked?"

"Yes," I ventured. "I was shipwrecked."

The man gave me some of the clothes off his back and I had to figure out how to slip them on. Then he helped me to my feet and lead me toward the city, though he had to support me most of the way because I kept stumbling. He said I must have gone through a lot, and be very tired and hungry, and I agreed with whatever he said. He was a kind man, sort of like how I imagine a father to be. He took me to his house, which was on the outskirts of the city, and a human woman and a strange furry animal came out of the door to greet us.

The man introduced the woman as his wife, so I learned that humans get married the same as merpeople do. The furry animal was their pet that they kept, called a dog, so they keep pets like we do too – though we keep different kinds of pets. Their house wasn't even too different than merpeople's houses; they collect all sorts of useless objects just like merpeople do, and keep them forever as if they might come in handy one day.

The man told his wife that he had found me on the beach, washed up from a shipwreck, and she gooed and gawed over me and took me inside. First she took me to a huge bowl-like thing she called a tub, and she filled it up with water and told me to "take a bath." I had no idea what she meant. I guess she saw the confusion in my face, because she said to me, "Never used a tub before? Oh, it's alright, dear. Just undress and get in, and take that bar of soap there and rub it all over you. Once you're nice and clean you just hop out, and dry off with this towel here, and I'll get some of my husband's clothes for you." I started taking my clothes off like she said, and she shot out of the room and shut the door behind me, so I figured humans must not like to see each other without clothes. I sat in the tub and played with the bar of the soap, but it seemed awfully stupid to me, just sitting in a bowl of water like that. But I guess humans like to play around in the water after all, so they're not so different from us as we thought.

While I was in the tub, I heard the man and his wife talking to each other out in the other room. They didn't know I could hear them. "What a strange boy," the woman said. "Do you think he was really shipwrecked?"

"He was sitting alone on the beach, Sarah, stark naked. Where else could he have come from?"

"But how was he the only one to survive? And what happened to his clothes anyways? It all seems strange to me. Joseph, he didn't even know how to take a bath, as if he'd never seen a tub before. Anyone who hasn't seen a tub before certainly can't afford to buy passage on a ship."

"Well where do you think he came from then, Sarah? Do you think he's a little merboy, washed up from the ocean?" I got scared when he said that, but his wife chuckled and said not to tease, so they weren't really on to me.

"Wherever he came from," Sarah went on, "and whether he is lying or not, he will have our warmest welcome here. Joseph, he may very well have no family left, and he may need a home. Joe dear, you know how I so wish for a child."

I stopped listening after that. The man's clothes she had lay out for me were pretty big on me, and really heavy and uncomfortable, and I didn't see how humans could go around all day in this stuff. When I came out wearing them, the woman sat me down on a chair at a table, which was a relief because my legs were aching. Then she busied herself in the kitchen awhile and brought out a bowl full of food for me, and also a little cup full of water. I ate the food because I was starving, and it didn't taste half bad, but I couldn't understand what the cup of water was for – I thought maybe to dump on top of your head to cool down. But the man and woman sat down at the table too, and ate their bowls of food, and then they took their cups of water and held it up to their lips, and just started gulping down the water. It was like eating without chewing, but why you would eat water is beyond me. But then I remembered that Ariel had shown me cups and goblets before, and explained that on land people don't just eat food: they "drink" things too. They have to drink water or else they'll dry out. I took my cup of water and tried to just swallow it like they did, but I choked a little before I got the hang of it. Merpeople don't "drink" things or take baths. You don't need to do either when you live in the water.

"So what's your name, young man?" the man asked after we had finished eating.

"Urchin," I said.

"Well I am Joseph Higgins, and this is my wife Sarah. I'm a sea-faring man, captain of my own ship."

"Urchin, what an usual name," his wife Sarah said. "You must not be from around here."

"No, I'm not," I said carefully. "I've never been to your city before."

"Where were you heading, before your ship went down?" the man asked.

"Well, we were heading here," I said.

"And where are you from?"

"It doesn't matter," I said firmly, and decided it was time to exercise my lying skills. "I was heading here to start a new life. I had no family left where I came from. But the ship went down, and everyone perished except for me." I lowered my head and did my best to look sad. I was pretty good at lying after years of begging for food and working in shady business.

"You poor thing," the woman cried. "Shipwrecked on a foreign shore, alone in the world, without a soul to turn to."

"Well, he can turn to us," the man said. "Urchin, you're welcome to stay here as long as you like. If you're here to start a new life, then we can provide it for you. I can teach you the sea-faring trade, you could be my apprentice, and this could be your new home - if you wish."

"Thank you, sir," I said, and half of me considered taking his offer. I imagined what it would be like to live here with these people, in a real home. Though they were humans, they were exactly like how I always imagined parents to be like. They were kind and loving, and they had no children of their own. I had nothing back in the sea, nothing I would miss. But here, I might actually have a family, and people who cared if I lived or died.

But the other half of me remembered why I was here. "Thank you," I went on, "I would love to stay with you, but I'm actually looking for someone, and it's very important to me that I find her."

"Oh? Who is that?" the man Joseph asked.

"There is one other besides me who survived the shipwreck," I lied, thinking quickly as I spoke. "She is our princess, and she was coming here on a diplomatic mission. But she is mute and can't speak, so I'm afraid for her being washed up on a foreign shore all alone. No one will even know she is a princess. I was her personal interpreter and charged with keeping her safe. I have to find her."

"How do you know she survived the wreck?" the woman asked gently.

"I saw her floating on some wreckage," I said, my brain working fast. "I tried to swim to her, but couldn't make it. But I could see she was alive, and I saw her wash up at the palace. But I washed up a long way farther down the beach, and was too weak to go and find her."

"My land!" the man exclaimed. "Don't worry, lad. I'm sure the people at the palace have found her and taken care of her. Though if it's as you say, it's very important that you go to her. If she is mute, she can't explain to them what's happened to her, and she'll have a very hard time of things. They won't even know who she is."

"Then I must go to the palace at once," I said firmly. They agreed, and prepared to see me off. They gave me some boots which I had to slip onto my feet; they rubbed in all the wrong places and made walking twice as painful. They also gave me some shiny coins that they use as money. Merpeople tend to use shiny things as money too; in fact they hold it just as valuable as land people do. I was starting to think people were all the same wherever you go.

The palace was so large that it was visible anywhere in the city, so I could get there easily by myself. Joseph and Sarah Higgins were very kind and wished me good luck, and said if I needed anything at all to come back to their house. They asked me if I could remember where it was, and I said yes. Sarah even kissed me on the forehead, which made me go red all over. I felt I had already learned a whole lot about humans just from them, and if all humans were like them then they weren't a bad lot. I thought I might even miss them. They waved me good-bye from their front door and I set off down the street toward the palace, to find Ariel.

...

I walked up to the front gates of the castle where some guards were stationed, relaxing and chatting lazily and not paying much attention to their job. I had paid enough calls on the undersea palace to know how this sort of thing worked.

"State your name and business," one said, straightening up and looking official.

"Urchin, and I'm here to find someone,"

"Who?"

"A young girl who washed up from a shipwreck. I was told she is here in the palace."

The guards exchanged glances and the other asked, "Is she expecting you?"

"No," I said, "but if you tell her my name, she'll know me, and I'm sure she'll be glad to see me."

The guards assumed a friendly manner after that and said, "Come in," and led me through the arched gateway into the palace. "Prince Eric did find just such a girl on the beach today," the more talkative guard said as we walked through the palace halls. "They assumed she washed up from a shipwreck, though the poor thing can't say a word to tell us what happened, or where she's from. Nobody even knows her name. But she's a pretty little thing, and the Prince has taken quite a fancy to her."

"They're having supper in the dining room at the moment," the other guard added. "We'll announce you to them, but perhaps you should change first into more-" he paused, glancing down at my borrowed sailor's clothes that were too big for me. "More suitable attire," he finished. Then they led me to the men's servant quarters, where they gave me some clothes that fit me better, but were just as uncomfortable. There was a shirt, jacket, trousers, and nicer, cleaner boots. I looked at myself in the mirror, and though I still wasn't used to wearing clothes, I didn't look all that bad. I looked like a normal human boy, a nicely-dressed one. They gave me a comb, but my messy blond hair just wouldn't lay flat.

But now something else was bothering me, and I wasn't sure what to do about it. In the sea, you found a nice private place to do your private business, and it just disappeared into the water. But I didn't think things would work the same on land. Ariel had never explained to me how humans did it; I don't think she knew that sort of thing, though we both had wondered and talked jokingly about how humans do certain things. But now I really had to go.

"Hey," I whispered to the younger guard, a few years older than me. "I have to go," I said awkwardly, "if you know what I mean." I assumed humans must at least have some sort of private place to go. The guard got my meaning, which was a relief, and led me to a little metal pot in the corner of the room, hidden behind a screen.

"There it is," he said, and left me to do my business. I thought, surely that pot can't be for what I think it is, but I took a glance inside the pot, and it was.

Things were definitely different up on land. Or rather, things were really the same; it's just that people went about them differently. When I re-emerged into the room, the guards told me to follow them to the dining room, and they would announce me to the Prince. I followed them down the hallway, up the stairs, and into a much taller, grander hallway lined with the sort of things Ariel and I had found in underwater shipwrecks. There were portraits of humans in the strangest clothing, and statues too. There were some of the slender shiny objects we had seen before, but they were holding up strange white sticks that I hadn't ever seen. And at the very upper tips of the strange white sticks were bright little balls of light, dancing and shimmering like glow-fish, but never escaping the tip of the white stick. I stared at them. They looked like miniature suns; it was as if someone had taken the stars out of the sky and held them captive here on the earth. I remembered that Ariel had shown me something like this in a painting she had found; she had called it fire, and explained to me that it could be born, grow, and die like a living thing. It could eat up and destroy other things if you let it free. Once it got strong, water was the only thing on earth that could kill it. But humans were clever enough or stupid enough to keep it captive and under control, and made it do their bidding. I hadn't taken her very seriously; I didn't see how such a thing could exist. She couldn't even explain to me what it really was – what it was made out of, or where it came from. But now I saw what she had told me was true, and it was the strangest thing I had seen yet.

The guards were walking ahead of me, and I strayed over to the side of the hallway, toward the white sticks with the little balls of fire. Humans must have used magic to keep it captive on these little white sticks. I reached a finger out to touch the flame, and it hurt. It was hotter than anything I'd ever felt. I jerked my finger back on reflex, but a moment later it hurt twice as much. Now I thought humans foolish to mess with such a dangerous thing.

I caught up with the guards, who hadn't noticed what I did, and then we passed some rooms with bustling noises coming from within – the kitchens. Some servants walked out of a door carrying some silver platters of food, and I was so busy still staring at the candles (I learned their name later on) that I bumped right into them. One of the platters clattered to the floor after spilling some brown gunk on my jacket, but I didn't hardly noticed because I noticed a bright red shape scuttling away during the commotion. It was Sebastian, the crab who served as the King's advisor. He had followed Ariel onto land, just like me. He had escaped the silver platter that I had knocked to the floor. He had been about to be served up for dinner! The servants were busy cleaning up and muttering apologies, so they didn't notice Sebastian and I lock eyes and stare at each other in bewilderment. I scooped him up off the floor and put him in my jacket pocket, before anyone could notice. I remembered to apologize back to the servants for bumping into them, and then the guards told me to slip into the washroom across the hall and clean the spilled food off my clothes before we went on to see the Prince.

I dashed into the washroom, which was luckily empty, and scooped Sebastian out of my pocket and placed him on the sink. He gaped at me and I didn't meet his eye; I had never really met his approval, and I got the feeling he wasn't happy to see me here.

"Urchin!" he shouted at last. "Young man, what are you doing here?"

"The same thing you are," I retorted. "I followed Ariel. I came to help her."

"You, help?" he demanded, in his thick accent. "Why, you get into almost as much trouble as she does! The two of you combined could cause a catastrophe! I'm up to my neck as it is trying to help Ariel, without keeping an eye on you as well!"

I didn't respond well to adult authority; I wasn't used to it. "I'm her friend!" I shouted angrily. "I have as much right to be here for her as anyone else does! Even more of a right! I won't let any harm come to her."

"How did you get here?" he asked, less patronizing now. "Did you make a deal with the Sea Witch too?"

"Yes," I said. "But I got an easier deal, since I'm not much value to her. I just paid with money."

"And do you have to get a kiss too?" he cried in frustration.

"What? No!" I said, turning red. "All I have to do is be back in the water on sunset of the third day, and then I'll turn back. Ursula doesn't want me; I'm no use to her. So you see? It's no big deal. I'm just going to help Ariel get her stupid Prince to fall in love with her, and then I'm out of here in three days."

"Oh this is a disaster!" he cried in despair. "It was bad enough having one of you decide to be human! But whatever crazy idea one of you schemes up, the other always follows!"

"I'm not going to stay human," I retorted. "I don't want to be stuck up on land forever; I'm not as crazy as Ariel." I was scrubbing the food stains off my clothes. "Everything will work out fine. Besides, it looks like you've got into more trouble than I have. You were about to served up for dinner. Speaking of which, I need to go join them at dinner. Stay in my pocket, and don't make any noise."

Before he could protest I picked him up and slid him into my coat pocket, then walked back into the hallway where the two guards were waiting to escort me. They led me farther down the hall and stopped in front of a massive wooden door and said it was the dining room. The Prince and the girl were dining inside, and they would step in and announce me. I could enter only if the Prince said I could. The older guard opened the door and took a step in, and I could make out beyond him a long dining table with three figures sitting. One was skinny, old, and gray; one was young and strong and raven-haired, and I knew he was the Prince. He looked like the statue I had seen, but twice as handsome in the flesh. A moment ago I had felt pretty good in my nice new clothes, but now I felt stupid compared to him. The third figure was facing away, but I recognized the long tangled mess of vibrant red hair. It was Ariel; I had found her.

"Your Highness Prince Eric," the guard announced loudly. "A visitor by the name of-" He paused and swiveled his head back to me. "What did you say your name was?" he whispered.

"Urchin."

"A visitor by the name of Urchin," he continued regally. "A self-professed friend of the young lady."

Ariel snapped to attention, then shot up to her feet, toppling her chair backward. She turned to face the door and our eyes met. I gave a mischievous grin, the kind I used to do back in our days of adventuring and getting into trouble, as if to say this was just like old times. But she just stared at me with her mouth hanging open. Then she broke into a wide grin, picked up the skirt of her huge pink gown, and ran across the room. She ran straight to me and threw her arms around my neck. I hugged her back, her hair flying in my face, and I was relieved to know I had done something right in following her after all.

"A very good friend, I can see," the Prince said with a laugh. "Please, come in, Urchin. Sit down." He gestured to the empty seat next to him, and Ariel and I made our way back to the table, still smiling. She was happy to see me. I sat on Prince Eric's right-hand side, across from Ariel.

"Urchin – I haven't ever heard of that name before," the Prince said curiously.

"I'm not from around here," I replied.

The Prince introduced the skinny gray man as his butler, Grimsby.

"How do you do," he said flatly, looking at me skeptically. "You are a friend of the young lady's?" he asked. "Our shipwrecked mystery girl?"

"Yes," I answered. "We are childhood friends."

"Then you can tell us about her," Prince Eric said excitedly. "Where the two of you are from, and so on. I'm afraid we don't even know her name!"

Ariel glanced at me nervously, but I knew what I was doing. "Then it is my sincere pleasure," I said grandly, "to introduce to you the Princess Ariel!"

"Ariel?" Eric repeated.

"Princess?" Grimsby demanded.

"Yes," I went on. "She is the daughter of his royal majesty our king. Unfortunately I can't tell you of what country, because the princess is in danger and has been forced into hiding. You understand I can't tell you where we are from, because we have enemies everywhere, and it is my duty to protect her. That's why we were voyaging on a ship: to get out of our turmoiled country, and get the princess to safety. But the ship went down in the storm, and tragically we are the only two who survived," I finished dramatically, and Ariel was looking at me as if she was impressed.

"Heavens!" Grimsby exclaimed.

Prince Eric was staring at us in awe, but quickly gathered himself and said, "I'm so sorry for your troubles, but you are both welcome to stay here in the palace as long as you like. Please make yourselves at home." He was sincere in everything he said, and I couldn't help but like him. He was maybe a year or two older than me, but he was tall and strong and compared to him I looked a skinny little kid. But the real difference I thought was that I can't imagine him ever lying to anyone, while I've been telling lies all my life.

Eric and Grimsby started discussing something, and Ariel caught my eye and pointed at a shiny little metal stick with three prongs lying on the table, like a miniature trident. She picked it up and started combing her hair with it, a bright smile on her face. I thought it was lucky that at least one of us knew so much about the human world, because I would have never been able to figure out what to do with that thing. But then I noticed the Prince staring at her in confusion, and Ariel noticed too. She stopped abruptly and bashfully put the little stick back in its place. Then, to be funny, and make Ariel not feel so embarrassed, I took the little metal stick in front of me and said, "No no, it's like this!" and stuck the thing right in my blond messy hair, so that it stood right up. I beamed, and Ariel started laughing, though without making a sound, and the Prince chuckled too.

"You two must have known each other a long time," he said brightly.

"I suppose we must have," I said. Then I remembered to take the metal stick thing out of my hair and lay it back on the table. And I remembered why exactly I was here. I had to make sure Ariel got the Prince to fall in love with her, so she got kissed before her three days were up. So I steered the conversation to focus on Ariel and the Prince, not me. "But how did you two meet?" I asked.

"I found her on the beach," Eric said shyly. "I figured she must be shipwrecked, but I had no idea where she had come from, or who she was." He looked at Ariel as he spoke. "I might have never known, if you hadn't come along, Urchin."

"Well it's a good thing I did come, so I can tell you just who she is," I said. "She's the kindest, most generous, noblest, bravest person I've ever met," I went on. I thought I was just trying to flatter her in front of the Prince, but really I meant every word I said. "But I'm sure you would have discovered that yourself whether I showed up or not."

Ariel was blushing, and the Prince was looking at her. "Well I'd like very much to get to know you better, Princess Ariel," he said.

I figured I had done well so far, but I needed to get out of here and give them some time alone. But before I could figure out an escape, dinner was served. I still had no idea what the metal stick things were for, and was about to start tearing at the food with my bare hands, but I saw the Prince and Grimsby picking at it daintily with their metal sticks. I copied them carefully, and saw Ariel was doing the same. We exchanged grins.

"I don't mean to pry," Grimsby said as we ate, "but has the Princess always been, um," he struggled awkwardly, "mute?"

I wasn't sure how to answer that, and for a moment failed at words and looked at Ariel. She gave a little nod, so I answered, "Yes, she has." Eric and Grimsby nodded solemnly. "But it doesn't mean she's lacking anything," I added firmly.

"It must be hard," Eric said to Ariel, "not being able to communicate freely as other people do. I imagine it must get frustrating, maybe even lonely." He was trying to be sympathetic, but I could see he was just making Ariel feel bad. She hung her head and stared down at her lap.

"But nobody is really able to communicate freely with other people," I spoke up. "We lie. We keep secrets. Maybe because we're too shy or ashamed or embarrassed. Mostly we're afraid of what other people will think of us if we tell them the truth." The others were looking at me in surprise. "So you see," I finished lamely. "We're all mute in a way."

"You have very strong and unusual opinions for such a young man," Grimsby said, raising an eyebrow. "How old are you, Urchin?"

The truth was that I didn't know how old I was. I had never had any family to celebrate my birthdays, or even tell me when my birthday was. When I met Ariel, she and I agreed we were about the same age. Ariel was sixteen now. But I decided right then and there to up my age a year or two. "I'll be eighteen soon," I lied, and I sounded proud as I did it. Maybe it wasn't a lie; I had no way of ever knowing.

"I'm eighteen," Eric said brightly, as if to say that gave us something in common.

"Yes, which means it's high time you thought about choosing a bride," Grimsby put in.

"Oh Grimsby, don't pressure me about it," he pleaded. "I'll choose when I'm ready, and I'll know she's the right one."

"Don't stress over it," I agreed. "You never know; she could be right in front of you, and you never even realized." I glanced up smugly at Ariel as I said it, and she gave me a skeptical smile as if to say, "Don't overdo it." But I could tell she was pleased, and grateful I was there.

Dinner went on uneventfully and Eric was increasingly kind to Ariel. He even decided to take her on a tour of the kingdom the very next day. Things were going just swimmingly; he might even kiss her tomorrow. So I expected Ariel to be happy. But later that night, when I visited her in her room, she wasn't happy at all. The Prince had shown both of us to our own individual private suites, which were nicer than anything I had ever lived in before. I had taken Sebastian out of my pocket as soon as we were alone and he had scuttled off somewhere and told me to stay put, but I wandered out of my room to check on Ariel. I knocked on her door and told her it was me, but she didn't answer. I went in anyways. She was sitting on her bed and crying, and when she saw me, she tried to hide her face.

"Ariel, what's wrong?" I asked. "Everything will be fine, really! The Prince really likes you! I can tell. And he's taking you on a tour of the kingdom tomorrow!" I thought that would cheer her up, but it didn't. She just shook her head. I noticed there were little streams of water trickling down her cheeks, which I didn't understand. Why was her face wet? Then I saw the water was coming from her eyes. People cry under the sea just as often as they do on land, but our eyes don't water up. Or if they do, we can't tell, because there's water everywhere.

I walked over to her and wiped the strange water off her face. "Do you miss your family?" I asked. She nodded. She jumped off the bed and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from the desk, and started scribbling. She scribbled for a good few minutes, and then held out the piece of paper to me. I took it in my hands, but I couldn't make any sense of it. "I can't read," I said with a shrug. She looked awfully disappointed. I wished now more than ever I knew how to read.

She plopped back down on the bed, looking frustrated and upset. I guessed she was growing tired of not being able to talk. To tell the truth, I missed her talking. I wanted to hear her voice again, to hear her tell me things about humans and their world, to explain to me what everything was and why it was special. But I couldn't tell her that. I didn't think she would ever be able to talk again. I sat down on the bed next to her and said firmly, "There's nothing wrong with you. Just because you can't talk doesn't mean you're broken, or you need to be fixed. They've got it all wrong. You talk just as much as other people, just in a different way." She stared at me with her watery blue eyes. "You talk with your eyes, and your smile," I went on. "They mean more than any words could, because half the words you ever hear are lies. You never lie. You smile when you're happy and cry when you're sad. Other people might say, 'I don't think that's the best idea' or 'Maybe tomorrow,' but you shake your head and say 'No,' because that's what you mean. Other people might say 'How funny' or 'I like that' but you smile and throw your head back and laugh, because that's what you mean. Other people might say 'Nice to see you again' or 'I missed you,' but you run right up to them and throw your arms around them and are genuinely happy to see them, because that is what all those words really mean. So you see, the way you talk is more real than any words could say."

She had stopped crying and was staring at me with a strange smile, but I had just realized all the things I had said and felt embarrassed. I guess that, being the only one of us who could speak, I had felt real easy about talking, and now I had gone and said too much. But Ariel hugged me and gave me a little pluck of a kiss on the cheek, and then I was glad I had said it. I had made it all up on the spot, but I guess I was right.

I wished her good night and left the room, shutting the door gently behind me. I was happy for Ariel. Though she couldn't speak anymore, she had got what she always wanted: to be part of a new and wonderful world, a world she could explore and have adventures in, where she would be free. She would be happier here than she was under the sea. I was sure the Prince would fall for her; I had seen the way he looked at her at dinner. He would confess his love and kiss her in no time at all. I hoped Ariel would invite me to her wedding. But no, I would be long gone and back in the ocean by the time the wedding happened. Unless things happened really quickly, and then I might get to see it before the third day was up. Just maybe. But as I walked back to my room, thinking about everything that had happened today, a thought occurred to me. I knew that even if they got married and lived happily ever after for the rest of their lives, the Prince would never know Ariel as well as I did.

...

I wandered outside the palace, unable to sleep. I walked along the shoreline and looked up at the palace to see a figure in the window, silhouetted in the warm yellow light. It was Ariel. She was wearing a nightgown, and brushing her hair before she went to bed. I just watched her, and felt that strange feeling again. I was beginning to wonder if I had really come here to help her win the Prince's love. Or maybe I had really come here to do something else. I remembered what the Sea Witch had said, about sending me to get in the way of Eric and Ariel. I was starting to think she was right.

I was watching Ariel through the window still, but she didn't see me. "I don't know when," I said under my breath. "I don't know how. But I know something's starting right now." I watched Ariel blow out the candle, and the lights went out, so I could no longer see her. "Ariel, please," I whispered to the dark. "Stay part of the seas."

Be part of my world.