The Terrible Pearl

By Cassandra Hyde

Grip Yodel is a man short in stature but tall in spirit and compassion for others. As a private detective, he has dedicated his life to solving riddles for others. He’s just been hired by a strange new client, the most beautiful creature he’s ever seen—a mermaid named Isurus. The problem is, the mermaid’s external beauty hides her ugly intent. Isurus—the most powerful witch of her species—is furious that someone has dared to interfere with her plans. At the instigation of King Carcharodon of the Merfolk, she has created a spell designed to massacre dolphins, which is bound within the form of a perfect gem, the Terrible Pearl. Someone has stolen it from her. Even though Isurus doesn’t tell Grip the truth about the pearl’s true power and purpose, he has a bad feeling about this client.

Despite his misgivings, Grip takes the case. With his good friends Pebbles the horse and Alastair the leopard, he sets off to recover the pearl.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Feb 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483424927

Book preview

Yodel.

Chapter 1

The mermaid floated into the office in a trembling bubble of sea-water. The sun shining through the window fell on her rainbow scales, filling the room with dancing reflected lights. She raised her head and curled her tail until she was facing me with her tail-fins in front of her like a flickering shield. Her long hands, as white as bleached bones, moved back and forth from her slender wrists, holding her position. Her long black hair moved gently like the swell of a calm sea. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and she looked at me like I was a rotting carcase washed up on the beach. You are Grip Yodel, the investigator, yes? she said, with a voice that hissed like the surf. Something has been stolen from me. You will find it.

What is this thing? I asked, entranced.

A pearl. A perfect spherical pearl, the size of a sea-urchin, more valuable than you can imagine, she replied with contempt. It has been taken out of the sea, where it belongs. Its theft is an insult to me and to my people.

Do you know who took it? I asked. She narrowed her eyes, and I was glad I had the desk between us. I had a strange feeling that if she carried on glaring at me, the desk would start to char, and so would I.

No, she said, or their living flesh would be food for slime eels. My name is Isurus, and I am the greatest witch of my people under the sea. The thief used powerful magic to hide himself from me, and magic cannot find him. You must do it. Merwitch or not, I don’t take orders.

I’m very busy right now. It’s just a pearl, right? Finding it can’t be so urgent.

You dare! she screamed, and suddenly the bubble of sea-water was over my desk and her face was a foot from mine. I kept absolutely still. I knew if I twitched I’d be a smear on the floorboards. Or a slime-eel’s lunch. Her lips were drawn back in a snarl, and I could see she had row after row of serrated teeth like a shark. I forced myself to look her in the eye and not think about what those teeth could do to my throat. Slowly her mouth closed, and she swam a swift figure-of-eight in her bubble while she recovered her self-control. She was proud, powerful and beautiful, in a terrifyingly carnivorous way, and she was used to people doing whatever she said immediately, but for some reason she had to have my help. This was about more than jewellery. The bubble floated back away from the desk.

I can command the wealth of the Merfolk, she said. I will pay you well. I will make you richer than any other air-breather.

That’s nice, I said, but I don’t do this for the money. I do it to help people who’ve got troubles, and to fill in time while I’m waiting for my next job in The Other Place. Why should I help you? Losing a big shiny thing isn’t the kind of trouble I feel inclined to sort out. I wanted to see how badly she needed me. And why me? I’m well-known locally, but how had a Merwitch heard my name? Her bone-white hands flexed like claws, I got a full view of the saw-blade of her teeth again, but when she’d turned another figure-of-eight, she came up smiling, with her mouth closed and her shining black eyes as hard as oyster shell.

The pearl is a gift for our king, Carcharodon, she said, a gift for his hatching-day celebration, ten days from now. I need it back by then.

And you’ve got no idea who might have taken it?

Five of my serfs have died under torture. They knew nothing. It is not in the sea, it must be on land. She writhed again in her bubble, frustrated by the confined space. Find it for me, and you will have my gratitude. Her eyes were glittering slits as she smiled with every one of a hundred teeth. I will … owe you a favour.

That smile told me I didn’t want any favours from this Merwitch, but I was hooked. Alright, I said, I’ll look into it. How do I reach you?

Just go down to the shore and call my name, Grip Yodel, and I will know. She turned in her enclosing water and floated out of the door. I sat perfectly still for a moment, then reached down into the bottom drawer of the desk for the office bottle of ginger beer. I needed that spicy sweetness to bring me back to the world I know. I poured a glass and looked round at my office and sitting room, which looked dull and empty without her shimmering menace. I saw the floor, bare except for the rug by the fireplace, which I keep for the Binks, the window with its overhanging thatch, Fred’s wardrobe in the corner, and then, in the doorway, the long anxious face of Pebbles. Come in, Pebbles, I said, in a voice that surprised me with its tiredness, she’s gone.

Pebbles walked into the room, swishing his tail and with his ears flat against his head. Pebbles is my friend, and a horse. A handsome, dapple-grey horse with a great memory for whatever he sees, and a kind and gentle nature. He helps me when I’m finding things for people, and takes his pay in carrots or apples, depending on the season. He’s the reason the office is part of the sitting room downstairs – horses aren’t good with stairs – and why there’s no carpet – horses aren’t good for carpets. He doesn’t have many accidents, and he’s always embarrassed about them, but that’s part of working with a horse. Still, it’s good for the roses in my garden. That was a mermaid, Grip! he said, rolling his eyes in shock. I’ve never known one come out of the sea before, not without paying The Price and trading their voice for legs. What if that bubble had burst? I couldn’t have helped you get her up to the bathroom, and you’d never have filled the bath in time, and you’d have needed to put salt in it too, and I bet you haven’t got enough, and did you see her teeth? She was really scary and what did she want?

I walked round from behind the desk and patted his neck. I took an apple from the box by Fred’s wardrobe and offered it to him. Relax Pebbles, the bubble wasn’t going to burst, she made it with magic. She wants us to find a pearl for her, or so she says. There’s something she’s not telling us.

Chapter 2

Isurus stretched out her arms and thrashed her tail in pleasure as she returned to the sea. How could those Air-Breathers stand it, she wondered, being forced to move on one surface, unable to sink downwards into the deeps, moving through bands of gathering darkness as the pressure increased until your skin was as tight as a drum, or to propel yourself upwards towards the light, to breach the surface in a cloud of spray and feel the sun before diving back into the cool and soothing ocean? They led half-lives, crawling on dry filth. She despised them, almost as much as she despised dolphins, Air-Breathers who dared to infest the water, treating it as their home even though they could drown as easily as a land animal.

She thought about Grip Yodel, his foolish red suit and blue hat, his friendship with a horse – she had seen the stupid hairy animal peering through the window – and how he had dared to treat her as if her wishes were of no importance. She increased her speed in her fury, fish scattered before her as she descended to the lightless zones, Humboldt Squid flashing red and white in terror and jetting away at the sight of her. She knew that Grip and his friends existed between this, the real world, and what they called ‘The Other Place’, a place they were summoned to by the heartfelt yearnings of human children, to be their ‘imaginary friends’ for a short time, then cast aside. Isurus knew that some of the common Merfolk also became ‘imaginary friends’, and thought them weak and foolish. Her own kind, the Royal Merfolk, would never lower themselves to play with a lonely human child, or comfort them in their sadness. One of her serfs had been called to The Other Place, and Isurus had questioned her about why she did not resist, when her duty was to serve Isurus alone. The wretched slave had sobbed and said she couldn’t help it; the child’s need was so great. For you, Isurus had said, only my needs matter. She had accused the serf of neglecting her duty, and had her executed as an example to the others.

She swam towards the scatter of lights on the seabed that marked the Summer Palace. When humans stop looking for things that are lost in the seas of The Other Place, they appear in the sea of the Merfolk, and so the Summer Palace