Mad Dog Moonlight Read Online Free Page A

his attention was caught by – a mermaid.
    Mad Dog had never seen a mermaid before, but he had no doubt what he was looking at. He was his mother’s son after all, and had heard her stories. He knew that there were elves living in the mountains,tree spirits in the forests and mermaids in Cardigan Bay where their secret kingdom lay beneath deep waters.
    But Mad Dog had never thought to see a mermaid in the flesh. And one thing was certain about that mermaid – she was definitely in the flesh! Her shoulders were bare, her breasts were pink, her fishy mermaid’s tail was as shiny as a piece of living seaweed, her hair was wet and golden and she had the brightest eyes Mad Dog had ever seen.
    He stopped and stared in amazement, and the mermaid stared back at him, fearlessly meeting his gaze. Out on the horizon, a ship winked. Off around the headland, a lighthouse blinked its steady pulse. Somewhere among the sand dunes, Mad Dog’s mother called again. But none of them were as real as the mermaid in front of him, her look steady and amused as if to say, ‘
Well, little boy, what do you think?
’
    Mad Dog would have answered, if he could only think what to say. Instead he found himself dashing up the shingle, yelling, ‘You’ve got to see this! Come on! Quickly!!
Come and see!! THERE’S A MERMAID ON THE BEACH!!
’
    By the time Mad Dog returned, however, the mermaid had gone. ‘Where is she, then?’ his dad had said, running up and down the shoreline as if he thought the whole thing was a joke.
    But Mad Dog’s mother didn’t think it was a joke. She stood before the ocean with eyes as black as pearls, savouring how rare and wonderful the world could be. Mad Dog watched her, fascinated by her expression. And, later on the barge den, awakening from dreaming, he could still see that expression, andit was so real in his mind that he knew it was a memory and not just a dream.
    After that Mad Dog couldn’t stop thinking about mermaids. They could be out there, he kept telling himself, even now, waiting to surprise him, bringing back an old life when his parents hadn’t been angry with him and hadn’t been dead, and weren’t just a distant dream, but were still real.
    In the end, unable to stop thinking about what he’d lost and just might be able to find again, Mad Dog took himself off on a mermaid hunt. He did it one night when everyone else was asleep, reckoning that mermaids could be out there somewhere on the seashore, even as he lay there in his bed.
    It was a thrilling prospect imagining them bathing in calm waters in the shallows of the beach or combing out their hair in the shadows under the pier. Mad Dog got up, dressed quietly so as not to wake Elvis, and set off, telling himself that they could be
anywhere
.
    The front door was unlocked, as were all the doors along the Gap, and easy to open. Mad Dog crossed the road outside No. 3 and went to look over the harbour wall. When he didn’t see anything, he went along to the end of the Gap and looked at the River Rheidol as it cut a path through the harbour. It winked at him in the darkness, as black as ebony, with the coloured harbour lights reflected in it.
    There were no mermaids to be seen, so Mad Dog turned his back on the harbour and set off for the seafront. Aunty and Uncle would be furious if they found out what he was up to. But, promising to be back before they awoke, he climbed down the first setof steps he came to and started walking along the beach.
    All the way, Mad Dog’s eyes were fixed on the shoreline. But, by the time he reached the pier, he hadn’t seen a single mermaid. Not that he allowed that to put him off. Hoping for more luck under the pier, Mad Dog crept into its shadows, telling himself that the mermaids around Aberystwyth were probably less bold than the ones you found on lonely beaches where there weren’t so many people to look at them.
    He picked his way