Stephanie kneeled into the sand, grit digging into her little knees. Her feet were soaking wet - she put on a layer of sand on like socks, and the feeling of sand between her wiggling toes made her laugh. She could see her uncle standing straight in front of her, staring at the sea. It was sunset, and Stephanie liked how the blue looked against the oranges and pinks. It made her want to crawl under her bed and find her watercolor set that Mum gave her. The set had lived there for months, after she discovered one afternoon that she couldn't paint at all, but she was considering giving it another go. She sat back and watched it for a while, before she remembered what she planned to do today, at the beach with her Uncle. It hadn't been nice enough before, and she didn't know when it would be nice enough again.

Stephanie pushed her hair out of her face with a gritty hand, shaking off the grains of sand that tried to get into her eyes. With her other arm, she stretched towards a seashell, wiped it on her skirt and placed in dry sand so it was standing upright.

"What are you doing, Steph?" Gordon walked up before her, hands in his pockets. He leaned forward and smiled her.

"Finding seashells," Stephanie answered, digging through the sand.

"Why's that?"

She stopped digging, and suddenly felt silly. She spoke up in a much quieter voice. "…I was thinking about the mermaids."
"Mermaids, huh?" He dropped to the sand, kneeling, spreading his much wider hands through the sand as well.

She turned to him and nodded seriously, and he grinned.

"Well, they'll appreciate that very much, Steph. Mermaids love presents."

Interested, Stephanie listened as she paddled her hands through the sand, layers of dry and wet, big shells mixed with ones the size of her thumbnail. She liked all of them, so she had figured any mermaids would like them, too.

"They can be a little greedy, though. They keep all of their presents - seashells and combs and gems - all of themselves. They don't share."

"Why should they?"

Gordon laughed. "Didn't your mother teach you about sharing?"

"Nobody wants to share with me anyway." Stephanie said, feeling grumpy that he was making fun of her, and she breathed out her nose. It was a noise Mummy made when she was mad, something that made people stop bothering.

"Hmmm." Gordon looked at his hands, clapping them to get the sand off. "Well, mermaids don't care either way. They keep it all in these little caves underground, things they find and things that aren't theirs at all. They sort them by size and color and how they sparkle in the sunlight."

Stephanie looked at him, turning her head to one side. Her hair was starting to slip out of its ponytail. "Have you seen them before, Uncle Gordon?"

"Me? Never. But my friends have. They're treasure hunters, like me, and one of them thought that mermaids had the best treasure of all. But he didn't get away with anything he found. Mermaids, they've got good senses of smell. So when a human came into their grotto…"

"They could smell him?" Stephanie said, eyes widening. "Did he get away?"

"Of course," Gordon said, waving his hand. "He's known for his near escapes. Couldn't eat sushi ever again, though. And he took a break from treasure hunting."

"Really?"

"A very short break." He grinned. "He'll probably do it again one of these days, just so he can say he tried. Maybe he'll get lucky this time."

"Why didn't you ever try?" She sat across from him now, seashells forgotten.

Gordon put his hand on his chin, like this was a very good question. "Well," he said, pulling the word out like taffy, until it sounded like eeeelllllllll. "That's the other thing about mermaids, Stephanie. The scary thing."

The dark haired girl's eyes widened. Suddenly she was very aware that it was getting dark, and this part of the beach was completely empty except for her and Gordon. She swallowed and nodded, waiting for him to continue.

"You see, mermaids have a weakness for pretty things. And pretty people. Someone as handsome as me could never stand a chance- they'd try to make me part of their collection forever!"

Stephanie giggled, though her heart was going faster, and her stomach felt a little funny. She knew what Gordon was saying, knew that he wasn't trying to hide it from her, either, and it made her feel sad and a little bit grown up.

"You'll promise me to watch out for them, right? You're too pretty. They'll try to snatch you up." He clamped his hands together on her arm, and she shrieked and giggled again.

"I'll be careful, I'll be careful!" cried Stephanie, still giggling. "But I still like mermaids. Even if they are mean."

"Oh, of course. I like mermaids. I like mermaids an awful lot. They're very pretty. I thought you deserved the know the whole truth, though."

"Are you going to tell Carol?"

"Why would I?" Gordon frowned.

"She likes mermaids, too. She was a mermaid for Halloween last year. Though she didn't look very good." She stopped. "Don't tell her I said that."

"Your secret's safe with me," Gordon promised, "and I have no intentions of telling Carol. She won't understand like you do."

Stephanie smiled, feeling special. She looked over at the shells. "What should I do with these?"
"Weren't you going to give them to the mermaids?"

"Well," Stephanie said, feeling silly. "You said they had all these nice things, like gems and combs and pretty people. I didn't think they'd want my seashells anymore…"

"Nonsense. Besides, I already gathered a dozen of them. I am not letting my efforts go to waste." He gathered his own, started shuffling his way to the shore.

"Gordon!" She called. "What are you doing?"

"Putting them over here, so the mermaids can see."
"But the tide will wash them away!"

Gordon scratched the top of his head, seashells cupped in his other hand. "Hmmm. You're right as always, Steph. What do you suggest?"

"Um." She glanced around the beach, squinting in the fading light. "What if we put them on a big rock? They'll be too high up to wash away, but they'll be all shiny in the moonlight. And… the mermaids will be able and swim up and grab them, right?"

"Perfect! Stephanie, you're a genius." He moved back by her side and ruffled her hair, and she beamed. They found a nice tall rock, and Stephanie climbed up so she could see the top. Gordon was arranging his shells into a big G, and she tried to arrange her own into an S, but it looked more like an eight.

Gordon wiped his hands off on his shorts and they both smiled at each other, appreciating their efforts.

"It's getting dark," he said, "And that's when the mermaids come out. We don't want them to see us working on their present, do we?"

"Nope," Stephanie said. She took his hand in hers, and they climbed back up to the pier and walked home. Gordon left her at the steps of her house and ran back to his car, waving, and she grinned back, bouncing on her toes. She stood outside until his car drove away, already missing him. Days with Gordon were always fun, even when they didn't do much at all.

She rang her doorbell and bounced her sandals on the welcome mat as she waited.

"Stephanie!" Her dad flung the door open. He picked her up and hugged her before she could even say hi.

"Oh, thank God, you're home. I was so worried."

"Dad-"

"You're the only one who can open the ice cream, you see, and I was getting very hungry."

"I am?"

"Yes. Well, your mother can too, but she'll just frown at me and say that I shouldn't be eating any."

Stephanie laughed. "Okay, I'll help."

"Excellent!" He nudged the door closed with his foot, and carried her inside the kitchen, still holding on tight with both arms. He deposited her on top of the kitchen table and started digging inside the freezer.

"So what did you do with Uncle Gordon today?" He asked, dancing a little as he searched.

"Well, we went to the book store and he looked for copy of his books, and signed them, and I asked why he did that, and that he said he liked surprising people, but then the man who worked there got mad at him for scribbling inside the books without buying them, so Gordon had to flip open his book and show the picture… and then the guy couldn't breathe and asked Gordon to sign the paperback he had at his desk." She grinned. "It was funny. Then we got hot dogs and went to the beach, and I was looking for seashells."

"Ooh. Good hobby." Her dad carried the tub of ice cream over to her, and she took it from him. It was heavy, so she sat it between her legs and began prying the top off.

"I told him I was gathering them for the mermaids, and Gordon told me all about them. The mermaids, I mean. He talked about how they gathered pretty things and kidnapped people and it was so cool. He told me about his friend, too, a treasure hunter, and he went under the sea and tried to take things from the mermaids, but they caught him. He escaped and he wants to go back. They're real, Dad. Isn't that amazing?"

Her dad had gone quiet, and the look on his face made it seem like he didn't think so.

"Stephanie," he said slowly. "Did this sound like Gordon's normal stories? The ones about magic?"

"Well, yeah…"

"The ones I told you were just stories?"

"But dad, this one was real. I know it had to be. He wasn't lying."

Her father kneeled slightly, so they were eye level. "Sweetheart, Gordon's a writer. He makes things up."

"But-"

"And if it wasn't him who made it up," he said quickly, "than it was one of his friends. Mermaids aren't real, Stephanie."

"But dad…"

"They're not real. Mermaids have never been real. It's been around for hundreds of years, hasn't it? But no one's found one. No one's taken a photo. None of his stories are real. Gordon's just trying to have fun. He doesn't mean anything."

Stephanie dropped her head. She looked at the carton of ice cream, and suddenly she wasn't hungry anymore.

Her dad tilted her head up so she was looking at him again. "Do you understand, Stephanie?"

"Yes, dad."

Her father suddenly looked tired. He pressed his lips together. "Good. Let's have some of that ice cream now, shall we?"

Stephanie swallowed, gripping the edges of the ice cream carton. "Okay."

That night, Stephanie took the computer in the living room and looked up everything she could about mermaids. She skipped the legends and tried to look for the facts, but there was nothing. Her dad was right, and Gordon was wrong. There were no mermaids. They had searched the oceans and there was nothing, no mermaids to be found.

She left the watercolor set under the bed and stared at her ceiling, unable to sleep. She had been so sure. Everything Gordon said sounded real, at the time. It wasn't silly like the movies or the books she read, and she didn't think he would have lied to her like that. It made her feel like a little kid, stupid for believing him and even stupider for thinking he told her because he thought she was grown up. She wasn't grown up, not at all. She wasn't able to see through a stupid lie. An obvious lie. Stephanie turned and put her face into her pillow, trying not to cry.

She didn't understand why she believed it in the first place. There was no evidence, after all. And there never would be.

The morning after, both her and Gordon's seashells were gone.