“We could paint the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot flags on her tail,” Taylor suggests, as they stand before a cabinet filled with decorating supplies. There are paints in every shade imaginable. A rainbow of glitter-filled jars. Shells. Rhinestones, Decals. Raffia. Flowers. Feathers. Mosaic tiles. Bits of fabric. The possibilities are endless. “Or, maybe we could paint her wearing Finley’s cheerleading uniform with some blue and gold fabric.”

“We could,” Willa says carefully, not wanting to start an argument. Especially since the little girls from Michigan have moved on to bickering over whose Queen Elsa is going to look the prettiest. When it comes to fighting, she and Taylor could easily give them a run for their money. “But what do you think about mosaic? We could make her tail different shades of pink and—”

“Yes,” Taylor interrupts. “Let’s do that.”

Willa blinks. “Really?”

“Really.”

Together, they plot out a pattern for their mermaid’s tail and gather shades from deep fuchsia to light pink. They choose a variety of browns for the hair and the palest tans and pinks for the mermaid’s skin. Two hours later, Taylor glues the final mosaic tile in place as Willa fastens a compass charm to the mermaid’s hand.

“She’s so beautiful,” Taylor says, her eyes shining with tears. “What are we going to do when the trip is over? We should have made two.”

For two hours Willa’s mind had been blissfully blank, but now she wants to lay claim to Mermaid Finley, to snatch her up the way Taylor snatched Finley’s list of clues before the trip even began. But they’d collaborated instead of arguing. They’d had fun. Willa doesn’t want to be the one to ruin it, even though she wants to ruin it. “You can have her.”

Taylor gnaws her lower lip. “Are you sure?”

Willa nods, but as she pedals back to the boat with the mermaid sparkling in the front basket of her bike, she thinks about the way the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction from where they started. Now they’re being deferential to each other. Extra nice. But it feels every bit as false as the way they’d once tolerated each other for Finley’s sake. Like their friendship will never be real.

“Do you think we should take the Dismal Swamp or the Virginia Cut into North Carolina?” Taylor asks.

“I don’t care,” Willa says dully.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Willa says, but it’s not true at all. Her skin feels tight, like she’s wearing it incorrectly. Like her life no longer fits properly and she doesn’t know how to fix it. But instead of telling Taylor any of this, she deflects. “What does Captain Norm say?”

Now that Taylor has a direct line to the author, she’s taken to texting Norm instead of referring to the book.