Ever looked sheepish, and Kino looked confused.
Nix was the one who produced quarters out of his pants pocket. Of course nixies were hoarders, so it was no surprise that he also pulled out a bunch of rocks and bottle caps.
Mina inserted two quarters into the payphone and dialed Nan’s cell. It went right to voicemail. Feeling rushed, she tried to spout off all of the directions she could. She’d been rehearsing them in her mind on the way over.
“Nan, it’s me. He’s coming after you, but it will be okay. I’ve got friends, and they’re here to help. They can protect Charlie. We just have to find you. I need you to meet me at the place we ran away to when we were fourteen. I’ll be there twice a day waiting for you at your lucky time and—”
Beep.
Her voice message was cut off.
“What kind of message was that?” Kino asked. “That didn’t sound very clear.”
“It’s perfectly clear when your best friend is a movie buff. She once convinced me to run away and find an old fortune teller machine, so it could magically transform us into adults.”
“What magic is this?” Kina sounded skeptical.
“It’s the magic of Twentieth Century Fox and Big, a movie from the 1980s.”
The only thing she could do was wait, and it was going to be the hardest wait she’d ever had to endure. Kino begged to stay and wander the pier, but Mina didn’t want to be anywhere near a local landmark in case Teague was watching her through her mirror.
Nix was just as bad as Kino, watching all of the people along the pier in fascination.
But then Kino saw the aquarium. “Did you see what they’ve done? They’re holding that octopus captive. We must rescue him and free all of the sea creatures. How do your kind live like this, enslaving the sea’s most beautiful and smartest of creatures?” He ranted and seemed sort of unstable the whole walk back to the ship.
Mina let Ever try and explain to the siren how an aquarium works.
“Money? This is all about profit? It’s even worse than I thought,” Kino grumbled.
“Oh, brother.” Ever shook her head and strictly forbid him from going to the aquarium or even mentioning to anyone else what he’d seen. “We are here to lay low until we can find Charlie. We are not here to cause a scene. Do you got that?” She jabbed her finger into Kino’s chest.
He didn’t look happy, but he shrugged. When they got back to the boat, he immediately disappeared below decks and ignored them.
“Well, it didn’t take long for you to make enemies,” Nix commented. “I thought I’d be the one to get on the bad side of the sirens.”
“He couldn’t see the big picture,” Ever said. “He has to remember this isn’t his world, and the rules are different here. If he wants to stay, he needs to shape up or ship out.”
“Oh, I see what you did there!” Nix started to laugh, and Ever just glared at him until he fell into silence. But that didn’t last either. His shoulders continued to shake, and a loud snort slipped through.
Mina walked to the captain’s chambers and knocked politely on the door.
“Come in,” her grandfather called.
She carefully pushed open the wood door and entered.
Ternan bent over a map he had picked up from a visitor center, marking it with little green colored pebbles.
Winona carefully settled something she was holding into a trunk and picked up a little cloth-covered bundle. “Any luck?”
“No, I left a message. Hopefully she’ll get it and meet me here.” She walked over and sat on a small stool near Winona.
“Does your friend know this area?”
“Yes, she’d come out here during the summer for drama camps. Once in the middle of her parents’ divorce, Nan decided to run away and come here. She bought a bus ticket, and I came with her—only to convince her to come back—but I was grounded for a month.”
“You should have been grounded longer. Your mother was soft.”
Mina nodded her head in affirmation. “Probably, but I gave her a heads up what I was doing, that I wasn’t letting Nan go by herself. And if we weren’t back in twelve hours, she was going to come and get me.”
“Smart. I take it you both made it back.”
“Yeah, we missed the first bus back, so we had to take a later one, which is why I was grounded for the month.”
“How did you convince your friend to come back?”
“Nothing I said would change her mind, until I told her Charlie wouldn’t be the same without her in his life. He always was her weak spot.”
Winona smiled sadly and fidgeted with the item she had pulled from the trunk.
“When your mother chose your father over her heritage, she gave up everything that reminded her of us. I’ve kept it all, if you’re interested in learning a bit more about your mother.”
Mina peeked at the opened trunk and the indiscernible items inside. “I would like that.”