Deeper Read Free

They see right through you.  You look like part of the sea to them.”
    “ What do you mean?”
    I looked down at my body, a pale sheen of blueish white skin, plump and smooth.  Of course they could see me, as well as I could see the turtles that wove like flying stones through our channels.
    “The water hides us.  I thought everybody knew that!  Grandmother says humans can only see mer if we’re out on the Dry.  But you know what?  If a human ever does see you, they’ll grab you and skin you and chop you into bite sized pieces and chew you up like a silver tail. Mmmm!”
    Azura stuck her snub-nosed face into mine, and ground her molars like someone mashing up a piece of old gristly shark meat. 
    I spat at her, and snapped my own teeth, sharp as hers.
    “She just says that to scare you , cause she knows you’re a scuttle-face.  Anyway, how come you sleep out on the sand then with the rest of us?  Aren’t you afraid a human’ll come along and skin you?”
    “ Don’t be stupid! It’s alright because there aren’t any humans there to see us, jelly-brain!”
    It’s true.  Humans are never seen in the channels.  They run too shallow and fast for their floaters, and there are so many islands and sand banks they’d become lost.  And why should they come there?  At least, that’s what Casih told me, when I asked her why we never saw humans around the pods.  Father said that if they did ever come there, he would slice their bodies from leg to throat and pull out their guts to eat for supper, and make their dry skins into bags for fish.
    A shoal of yellowtails passed like a wriggling cloud.  Quick as a moray, Azura’s pale arm shot out and grabbed one from the centre.  The shoal shivered, re-formed, swam on unconcerned.  THEY didn’t care if their family got eaten.  She shoved it between her white pointed teeth, and blew out faint pink bubbles.
    “If the humans catch you, that’s what’ll happen to you, little sister. So you’d better cut the back flips, huh.”
    I turned my back on her and tried to squirm away. Dawii, older than Azura, closed in on me and pinched my arm tight in long fingers.  She and Azura exchanged glances.
    “ Don’t be stupid.  Father says curiosity isn’t good for females.  Father says –“
    “Don’t give a fish’s arse what Father says!”
    I pull ed one arm away from Dawii and puffed out my cheeks with water, my fingers wiggling off my cheeks like seal whiskers.  Then I spat it out, right into Azura face, with a loud farting noise.
    “Father’s full of shit anyway…”
    That was going too far. Casih held her hand over my mouth and hissed at me to be quiet, looking ahead to where the males dived and leapt.  Father frightened us all, with his huge dark bulk and pale octopus eyes.  The thought of his great clawed fingers and yellowed teeth made my belly turn over.  And still, I pushed to see how far I could go.
    Azura tugged at my hair, fierce with spite.  Casih and Suria swam in close by my shoulder, looking fed up and weary, and motherly Dayang closed in on the other side.  I spat sea water at them in frustration as they herded me into the middle of the group, a spoiled, badly behaved pup.
    We swam back to the lagoon, with four big blue fins trailing out behind, while the males shot on ahead, bragging to each other and breaching. It was a long swim – but they’d be food for a month, cut up and dried on the rocks beside the lagoon.
    Back on the Dry, as we laid them out flat for gutting, Azura said,
    “ I don’t know why you’re so keen to look at humans - they’re as ugly as spike mouth anyway.”
    She screwed up her beautiful, stupid face, cheeks inlaid with oyster dust to catch the light. 
    “ Bet they’re not as ugly as you!” I said, lying. “That’d be impossible!” 
    Azura tossed her head, proud of the way the thick silvery snakes of her hair flowed down over her shoulders to her waist, like water pouring off the rocks when a big wave