§ § § - January 6, 2007

"That's the second day he's called in sick," Christian muttered, staring at Jonathan Ichino's empty desk. "First he takes a day off, then he starts claiming illness. Something's strange here." He focused on Julianne, who was squinting critically at something on her computer screen. "Julianne, would you come here a moment?"

The young computer technician got up and came to sit beside the work arm of his desk. "Sure, Boss Prince, what can I do for you?"

"You can tell me what you know about your brother being out for three days in a row," Christian suggested. "I didn't think too much about it when he asked for Thursday off, but he's been out ever since then, and I'm beginning to wonder."

Julianne bit her lip, glanced over at the other occupants of the office and then lowered her voice, to Christian's surprise. "Um, I hate to sound like I'm imposing on you or anything, but…um…would it be possible to keep this just between us?"

"Of course," Christian agreed. "Is there something really wrong with him?"

"I guess you could say that," Julianne said slowly. "But not physically. See, he asked for Thursday off because he had something really important to do." She paused, shot another glance into the room, then lowered her voice so far that Christian had to lean over to hear her. "He told me and Jeremy and Jeremy's wife about this, see…he planned to propose to his girlfriend." Christian gawked at her, and she prompted, "You know, Ingrid, your nanny."

"I know," Christian said, still astounded. "He was going to propose?"

Julianne nodded. "He was all upbeat and excited, couldn't wait to see her and pop the question. But then a few hours later, he came back looking like he'd been flattened by a blue whale or something. He wouldn't talk to anybody at first, and when Jeremy tried, Jonathan snapped at him to leave him alone and then skulked off to his apartment. We haven't heard from him since then."

Christian slowly settled back into his chair and half-smiled, wryly. "It sounds to me as if Ingrid refused his proposal."

"That's what we figured too," Julianne said earnestly. "You don't suppose she would have talked to you or Miss Leslie about it?"

"She certainly hasn't confided in us," Christian said, chuckling and shaking his head. "She's too much in awe of us because of our royal status. But she's looked less cheerful lately and she doesn't chatter at the triplets the way she normally does when she's doing housework and they're tagging after her. I'm sure she had a good reason for turning him down, but I don't think it's really my business." He sat up then and cleared his throat, eyeing Julianne, whose expression was a little anxious. "On the other hand, Jonathan's shirking work in order to sulk is my business, and I intend to do something about it. Perhaps you'd come with me. It might help if you're there."

"Sure, I'll be glad to, Boss Prince," Julianne agreed. "It's starting to get a little ridiculous anyway. The whole family's in on it now, but he won't budge, so maybe it'll take somebody who isn't related to him to snap him out of it."

"And who better than his boss?" Christian said dryly, which earned him a laugh from her. He stood up and raised his voice. "Excuse me, everyone. I'm going to be out for a little while along with Julianne. Business as usual, of course. If Leslie calls, tell her to try my mobile. We'll be back when we can."

Christian had the car, so he followed Julianne's directions through town and down the Ring Road a couple of miles or so till he reached the entrance to a large apartment complex that provided homes for many of Roarke's employees and others who worked on this end of the island. "Building C, apartment 21," Julianne said, pointing it out.

Christian parked and followed her up a flight of stairs, where she thumped on a door marked 21. "All right, Jonathan, come on, I know you're in there," Julianne called.

"Get lost," they heard a muffled, but decidedly rude, response from within.

"Does that go for me too?" Christian asked, his voice still dry, and five seconds later the door flew open, revealing a very disheveled Jonathan Ichino. He stared at Christian in startled embarrassment, but at first Christian didn't notice, so fascinated was he by Jonathan's appearance. He was clad in ancient-looking boxers and his hair lay flat and dull on his head, riddled with tufts that poked out like inquisitive gophers from burrows. He had several days' growth of beard, and his eyes were bloodshot; he exuded a faint but unmistakable aroma of beer.

"Boss Prince," Jonathan croaked, and then accidentally burped. He slapped a hand over his mouth and mumbled behind it, "Excuse me."

"You forgot to notify me that you wanted more than one day's vacation," Christian said humorously, deciding to go easy on the kid. He was clearly hurting.

"Sorry," Jonathan said and sighed. "Well, I guess you might as well come on in. Uh, sorry about the mess." Christian and Julianne followed him in, having to sidestep empty potato-chip bags and overturned beer bottles all over the floor.

"Sweet paradise," Julianne blurted, wrinkling her nose. "I'm sure glad you and I don't share an apartment anymore. If the landlord saw this, you'd be evicted in three seconds flat. What's the matter with you, anyway?"

"I've got personal problems," Jonathan said with a cautious glance at Christian, before adding pointedly to his sister, "which are none of your business."

Christian folded his arms over his chest and regarded him. "Believe me, Jonathan, you aren't the first person who's ever had a marriage proposal turned down."

Jonathan stared at him for a moment, then reddened and rounded on Julianne. "You blabbed, didn't you?"

"I asked her to," Christian said pointedly, dropping the humor. "If you hadn't been out for three days straight, perhaps I wouldn't have; but you've never done that before, and frankly, I was getting suspicious. I'm afraid it's not a very good excuse to skip work—sitting around feeling sorry for yourself and trying to drown your sorrows in beer."

Jonathan glanced around the shambles his living room had become and hunched his shoulders. "Yeah, well, I guess not…but I didn't feel like facing the world."

"It happens to many people," Christian told him. "As a matter of fact, it happened to me too. When I first proposed to Leslie, she turned me down. It took me a while to get her to come around, but I managed it. Did you try it with Ingrid?"

Jonathan looked at Julianne, who was watching with great interest, and then seemed to give up, flopping back into a worn easy chair that Christian suspected was probably a hand-me-down from his parents. "Well, as long as you're here, I guess you might as well know. The family'll probably be bugging me for details sooner or later, so you can tell 'em if you want, Julianne. The truth is, Ingrid and I've been having some problems for weeks now. She talks a lot about Lilla Jordsö, how much she misses her family there and stuff. I figured it was just nostalgia, y'know? But then she showed me something." He glanced at Julianne, then focused on Christian. "Remember the day she and I took the triplets to the beach for you last month, so you and Miss Leslie could decorate your Christmas tree?" Christian nodded, and Jonathan continued: "She showed me a letter she'd gotten from some guy she used to date in school there. I guess they had a big breakup after graduation, I dunno…she didn't really explain very much. But this guy wanted to try again with her, and she'd been thinking it over and thinking it over, and I guess she realized she still had feelings for him. At any rate, I could see she's been starting to think about her future, after you and Miss Leslie don't need her around all the time to stay with the kids."

"If you thought she was gonna break up with you, then what'd you go and propose for?" Julianne asked.

"I thought it might be enough to keep her here with me," Jonathan confessed gloomily and began to pick at a loose thread on the chair arm. "Our trouble wasn't all from this guy who was writing to her, we'd had some other issues too. Cultural differences, the language barrier a lot of the time…you know. But I always thought we were working past it and we were making a great thing together." He sighed heavily. "I guess I was wrong. She said she doesn't want to marry me. She isn't planning to stay with you forever, she said. And even what I thought we had together wasn't enough to make her change her plans and keep her here with me."

"Sometimes things just aren't meant to be," Christian said gently. "There are times when the most drastic measures in the world don't make any difference at all. Now I can understand your grieving for a lost relationship—are you saying the two of you decided to split up altogether?" Jonathan nodded. "Then give yourself time to get over her, but don't go to such extremes that you're hiding from the world, avoiding your job and attempting to obliterate the problem with beer." He knelt and picked up an empty bottle, glancing at the label and waggling it at Jonathan. "The trouble with trying to drown your sorrows is that sorrows have both lungs and gills."

Jonathan and Julianne both stared at him in surprise, then burst out laughing at the exact same moment. "That's a great way to put it!" Julianne exclaimed.

Christian grinned. "I suppose it is…in jordiska it's an exhausted aphorism. Nevertheless, it's as true as it ever was. The best thing you can do is force yourself to move on. Trying to martyr yourself in the hope that Ingrid will change her mind is unhealthy for both her and you, and it certainly won't impress her. Sitting around here gorging on beer and potato chips merely gives you time to dwell on it. On the other hand, if you come back to work, you have a far better chance of distracting yourself now and then."

"I guess I get the message," Jonathan said with a reluctant grin, pushing himself to his feet. "Well, if you don't mind, I'd like to get cleaned up a little bit."

"This place can wait till you get off work," Julianne said, "much as I hate to say that. But we'll wait for you, if you can hurry up."

"I won't take half as much time as you females do," Jonathan twitted her. "We don't fuss with our hair and spend half an hour painting our faces."

"Huh," Julianne snorted. "And if we don't paint our faces, the second we step outside, men wonder why we didn't put on any makeup and think we're dogs without it."

Christian raised both hands, laughing. "This isn't the place for a sibling argument. Come on, Julianne, we'll wait in the car till he's ready."

‡ ‡ ‡

"I should think you'd know by now that sitting on the beach, right under that strong sun, is very unhealthy for you," Veronica Lincoln was lecturing as Leslie let the rover coast through the town center. "It's long since been shown that too much sun causes skin cancer, and Sylvia, you know perfectly well I'm working to cure that nasty disease." She shot Leslie a look in the rearview mirror, as much as if to say that Leslie should have been listening more closely when Roarke asked what the Lincolns did for a living.

"That's why we brought high-SPF sunscreen, Mother," Sylvia said, her voice cracking with strained patience. "Besides, sunlight is the best source of Vitamin D."

Veronica shut her mouth with a snap and tightened her lips; Arthur nodded, looking pleased, but in the detached way of a tutor rather than with a parent's pride. "Very good, Sylvia," he said, "you're remembering your science."

Sylvia caught Leslie's gaze. "Basic nutritional overview, second grade," she said. Leslie nodded, but found herself wondering if the Lincolns ruined every vacation for their daughter by endlessly testing her on her school lessons.

Shortly they reached the beach Haruko had specified and parked there; Leslie led the Lincolns across the sand and toward the water. No one else was there except for Haruko herself, making a pretense of collecting shells as previously planned. Sylvia dropped a huge tote bag on the sand and tugged a towel out of the bulging contents, shaking it out and spreading it flat. "There, that looks great," she said.

"Get out the sunscreen," Arthur advised, peering critically at Leslie. "I think you should use some too, Mrs. Enstad. You have very fair skin, you know."

"I make assiduous use of sunscreen at every opportunity," Leslie assured him, smiling demurely when he blinked at her. I know a few ten-dollar words myself, Mr. Lincoln! "If you don't need me for anything else, I need to get going."

"Yes, of course, thank you," Veronica said with a dismissive wave, and Sylvia paused from digging in the tote again long enough to wink at Leslie. Leslie winked back; some distance away, Haruko noticed their exchange and gave Leslie a thumbs-up. She relaxed, nodded and strolled back to the rover at leisure. She really wasn't that busy, and she wanted to see the Lincolns' reactions when Akima finally showed up.

She ended up having to loiter behind the trees, leaning on the car's right front fender, while she observed Arthur and Veronica slathering theirs and Sylvia's skin with so much sunscreen lotion that they looked as if they'd been rolling in snow. Haruko went on combing the sand, studiously oblivious, though Leslie noticed that she was gradually making her way closer and closer to the waterline. As it happened, Sylvia had deliberately spread out her towel too near the water, and the tide was coming in. Arthur and Veronica were too busy applying sunscreen to pay attention; Sylvia was watching Haruko; and only Leslie noticed when a particularly large rogue wave rolled in and suddenly washed the towel out towards the shallows. Sylvia turned at the sound, saw it go and shouted, "My towel!"

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Veronica snapped impatiently. "Now you'll have to—" She got no further than that, for just then a golden-blonde head, sparkling in the sun, broke the waves and an arm shot high in the air, waving the sodden towel.

"Hello! Is this yours?" called a musical voice, reminiscent of Princess Nyah's. Leslie grinned broadly. Great work, Haruko!

"Yes, thanks!" Sylvia yelled, about to wade into the water.

"Don't you dare," Arthur exploded, grabbing her arm. "You have to remember there's always a danger of undertows."

"Oh, but there is no undertow here," Akima assured them, gliding closer in to shore with the towel. She deliberately flipped her tail above the waves and let it linger long enough for all three Lincolns to get a good look at it.

"Mother, it's a mermaid!" Sylvia shouted ecstatically. "Look, a real live mermaid!"

"Hi, Akima!" Haruko called out casually and waved.

"Hello, Haruko, my friend!" Akima called back. "As I said, Mr. Human, there is no undertow here. Your little girl is perfectly safe to walk in and take her towel. I myself can go no farther without changing my tail into legs."

"Oh, for…what utter nonsense," Veronica sputtered at last, apparently at least partly recovered from her initial flabbergasting. "Young lady, it's rude to try to fool people into thinking you're something you aren't. Now stop acting juvenile this moment and take off that silly costume, and get out of the water before those waves wash you in."

Akima gaped at her with the outrage Haruko had predicted earlier. "Costume! I am wearing no costume! How dare you make such an assumption! Have you no idea how truly insulting that is?"

"There are no such things as mermaids," Arthur announced firmly, "and you know it. So stop it this instant."

"You are so certain this is merely playacting?" Akima taunted. "Why don't you come into the water and feel for yourselves?"

"I should say not," roared Veronica, now in a fine temper. "Really, the people Mr. Roarke hires to work here and play his little roles…they seem to be some of the rudest on earth. Throw that towel in toward us, young lady, and Sylvia, you start packing the bag. We're going back to the cottage right now."

"Mother, that's not fair!" Sylvia wailed angrily. "And she isn't being rude, you are! We just got here, and this is the first time I've ever seen a mermaid, and all you can do is stand there and say stupid things about taking off her costume!" She turned her back on her parents and began to wade into the water, heedless of their shouts. "Please, Miss Mermaid, is it all right if I find out that you're real?"

"Of course it is, although I see you are a true believer and you really need no proof," Akima said kindly. "But I suppose you see it as an…experiment."

"Experience," Haruko corrected with a laugh.

"Oh, yes. All right then. But do come in," Akima invited, and Sylvia eagerly plowed through the rolling waves. Akima let herself drift into a floating position, then flipped onto her back as if to bask in the sun, exposing every inch of her body—including the topless human half. Leslie hadn't anticipated that, and thought for an instant of calling out, but kept her mouth shut in the end. She wasn't even supposed to be there, after all… She glanced at Haruko, who stood as if frozen in the act of calling out to her friend; clearly Haruko was pretty shocked herself. The senior Lincolns were gaping, so visibly stunned that they didn't yet have the ability to raise a ruckus about the situation.

Sylvia, amazingly, was too intent on other things to take any notice. She reached out and ran a fingertip along Akima's tail, all the way up to where the turquoise iridescence gave smooth, unbroken way to human skin. Then she turned to her parents and yelled indignantly, "It's real, you know. I just touched it myself. There's no costume!"

That brought her father to life. "Costume or not," shouted Arthur in a florid-faced rage, "get out of that water right this minute, Sylvia Lynette! And cover your eyes when you do it! That's absolutely disgraceful! You can be sure Mr. Roarke's going to hear about this!"

"It's perfectly natural," Akima said coldly to him. "We have nothing to be ashamed of…even if you feel you do." She whacked the water with her tail in a petulant fit. "I am sorry, little human girl, but it's clear your parents are hopeless cases."

"Will I see you again?" Sylvia asked hopefully.

"Perhaps, if you happen to come here when my friend Haruko is here and we are talking," Akima said with a shrug, bobbing in the water so that she was immersed up to her shoulders. "Until then, I wish you great luck with those people."

"I'll probably need it," Sylvia muttered. "Thank you for being willing to try." She stood in the water watching Akima swim away, and waved when the mermaid performed a graceful, arching jump out of and back into the water, like a dolphin.

"Get out of there, now!" howled Veronica. Reluctantly Sylvia began to wade back to the beach, towel dragging in the water behind her. When she got there, Veronica seized her wrist and whipped around to tow her away from the waterline; there she spied Leslie still standing beside the car. "You! I want you to take us to Mr. Roarke right now. Public nudity is a pure disgrace, and neither one of you gave us any sort of warning that you allow such a thing on this island. Really, and here I thought you had more class than that."

Leslie eyed her coolly as she towed a struggling Sylvia along with her to the car. "We have no control over what mermaids do here, Mrs. Lincoln."

"Oh, you too!" the woman sputtered, so angry she was beginning to stammer. "Of all the—I really don't—I'm sure you know we're very dis—upset. Very angry! How can you dare to stand there and pretend that…that…child was actually a mermaid, never mind the fact that she flashed her br…her ch…her…attributes for any and everyone to see!"

"Mother, you're being absolutely mortifying!" Sylvia yelled, giving a mighty yank to free herself from Veronica's grip. She faced her suddenly startled mother. "That mermaid said you could go in and touch and see for yourself that she was the real thing, but you're the one who wouldn't do it and just stood there practically calling her a prostitute! I wish I'd come here by myself and you two had just stayed behind in your stuffy old labs pretending there's nothing fun anywhere in the world!" With that, Sylvia stomped away up the road in the direction of town; when Veronica called after her and started to pursue, the girl broke into a swift run and was out of sight in seconds.

"But…" Veronica began, then fizzled into silence, gaping after the vanished girl.

"Would you still like me to take you to Mr. Roarke?" Leslie inquired crisply.

Veronica rounded on her. "You'd better believe it," she barked. "Hurry, Arthur, we need to lodge a formal complaint with Mr. Roarke."

"Right, right," huffed Arthur, chugging up to the roadside with the overloaded tote bag. "To the main house right now, Mrs. Enstad. We have a very big bone to pick with Mr. Roarke, and we don't intend to procrastinate."

"Whatever you say, Mr. Lincoln," Leslie replied, voice very polite. Inside she was simmering. Idiots! We tried to tell you about this place, and your daughter tried to make you see…but you are so blind! I hope Father pulls you down a couple hundred pegs or so! She thumped into the front seat, put the car in gear and made a wide, rather fast turn right there in the road, eliciting yowls of surprise from the Lincolns, but ignoring them.

She caught up with Sylvia on the edge of the town square and stopped the car long enough to coax the girl to get into the vacant front seat beside her. Sylvia slid her parents a nasty look and finally consented. "Maybe it's a good thing," she said, radiating disgust. "I can tell Mr. Roarke what really happened, instead of his getting only the biased version."