Mermaid’s Blood: Part Two
By Susan Dickinson
WHEN BILLY came home the following week I told him I’d promised to find some red sea glass for the old woman who lived at the tip of the Hull Peninsula in Massachusetts, and how I now owed her a drop of mermaid’s blood. But Billy hesitated.
“You don’t owe anything to that old bat,” he said. “And red sea glass doesn’t even exist! I’ve never seen a single one!”
“That’s because it can only be found during low tide at midnight,” I said with false conviction.
“Hogwash!” Billy muttered.
“It’s true. I swear it! She’s got a whole jar of reds. I saw them. And I promised I’d get one for her. She said she’d pay us in blues, so I’m going to at least try, even if I have to do it myself.”
At that, Billy relented. He was not about to miss an adventure. So we consulted the local tide charts and were thrilled to find a low tide would occur at approximately midnight in two weeks.
When the appointed night arrived, it was stiflingly hot, so my parents suspected nothing when I asked permission to sleep outside with Billy in his backyard tent. As midnight approached, Billy and I slipped silently from the tent and made for the beach in utter darkness, keeping our flashlights off to avoid detection. The only sound to be heard was the waves gently rattling the beach pebbles at the base of the bluff far beneath us. We zigzagged down the steep hillside until we reached the cement sea wall. We lowered ourselves onto the boulders below it, then hopped from boulder to boulder before finally dropping down to the pebbly flats of Rocky Beach.
I’d never been to the beach so late before. It seemed unnaturally peaceful, for the tide was slack and the air so still. We turned on our flashlights and walked down the beach slowly, waving the lights back and forth, searching for the elusive sea gem. We had walked the full length of the beach, our footsteps crunching on pebbles and shells, when, sure enough, I suddenly spotted a bright red glint at my feet. I bent to pick it up and held it to the light.
“I’ve got one!” I exclaimed loudly.
___
Adapted from Mermaid’s Blood: Part Two, by Susan Dickinson, ©️️ by Cricket Media, Inc. Reproduced with permission.
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Questions
How would this story be different if it were told from the perspective of the old woman?
The narrator would describe events objectively and without bias, so readers would know that red sea glass does not exist
The story would include the thoughts of all characters, so readers would know how Billy feels when searching for sea glass at midnight.
The narrator would focus on Billy’s perspective, so readers would not know the thoughts or feelings of the old woman.
The story would include the thoughts and motivations of the old woman, so readers would immediately know whether she is trustworthy.