Emerge Read Online Free Page A

keep my upper half above water.
    I make my way through the ballroom, the dining hall, and the other public grottos before turning a corner into the private quarters. I swim past my own downstairs bedroom and toward my cousin Amethyst’s room.
    “Come in!” she calls in response to my knock on the archway wall. I part the curtain of hanging seaweed and head inside.
    Amethyst, who goes mostly by Amy, lies on her sea sponge bed listening to music on the waterproof MP3 player my father bought her. The bed is elevated, so the water comes to only about half a foot above it. This way, the long, light purple tail that matches her name can stay wet while her torso remains exposed to the cool evening air wafting through the grottos from outside. When I enter, she takes out her earbuds and places the device on the rock formation that serves as her nightstand.
    “Lia, you look so pretty! Did Em do your hair?”
    “Yep. And the twins helped with the outfit.”
    “It’s bold. I really like it.” Her smile is huge and her enthusiasm infectious. Before I know it, I’m mirroring her grin. “I couldn’t wait for you to come down. Something so insanely huge happened today! Staskia got her legs!”
    Oh no. It’s started. Staskia is the first of Amy’s close friends to get legs, and now that she has, I won’t hear about anything else until Amy gets hers. As if in a hurry to prove my prediction right, she immediately launches into the story.
    “It happened in the middle of history class. Stas was embarrassed but you could tell she was like super excited, too. The first time, her legs only held for a second, so thank goodness Mrs. Cordula had time to cover her up with an extra skirt before they came back.”
    This story isn’t ending any time soon, so I grab her hairbrush and a few pins and settle on the bed. I’m not as skilled a stylist as Em, but I’m decent. My fingers work quickly, but they don’t compare to the speed of Amy’s voice as she tells me every detail. “She’s got all ten toes and pretty nicely shaped calves. Her legs aren’t too long, but her tail never was either, so I bet I’ll be taller. At least she has nice ankle bones. Do you think I will? Lia, I’m so afraid I’ll have cankles.”
    “You won’t have cankles. No one in our family has cankles except Aunt Dolores, and she eats like a porpoise.”
    “When do you think I’ll get mine? Staskia is only three months older than I am, so I’ll probably get them soon, right?”
    I know the answer she wants, but it’s impossible to predict. I didn’t get mine until I was fourteen, but that’s on the late side. Lapis and Lazuli were early bloomers at eleven. Em got hers at thirteen, the age Amy is now. “When did your mom get hers?”
    “She was fifteen, but you know it takes longer Below. I just can’t wait to be able to go to the movies and go shopping and go out to dinner … ” She trails off, but I understand how frustrating it can be. Until Amy gets her legs, she’s pretty much restricted to the underground canal system the Foundation has put in place. She can swim through the tunnels to her school, like all the children in the Community who have yet to get their legs, and to the underwater entrances of friends’ houses, but she can’t get upstairs to the rest of our house unless my dad carries her. Right now, the whole human world is a mystery to her.
    A conus shell lies on her desk. “Did you get a shell call from your parents?” I ask. Amy’s parents still live Below, but they sent her to live with us when she was a baby to keep her safe.
    “Yep. I’ll record an answer after the gala, so I’ll have plenty to tell them.” She hesitates, then asks, “Staskia’s legs are so cool. What if when I get mine, they’re short or pasty or misshapen?”
    I put down the brush and move so we’re facing each other. “Hey, legs always suit the Mer, so whenever you get yours, I know they’ll be beautiful.”
    She blushes. “You really think