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Toby lives a lonely life in his pyjamas at the seaside hotel where he was abandoned as a baby – until the day he’s sent down to the beach to look for Cook’s lost laundry. Instead, he finds a pale, thin girl, lying at the water’s edge with a long green tail swaying gently in the shallows.

Eliza Flot is a stranded mermaid and she needs his help. Toby takes to her like a fish to water, and when he meets her noisy parents he practically becomes part of the family! But Toby’s new friendship arouses suspicion back at the hotel. If only Toby and the Flots can come up with a plan to rescue each other...  

Reviews:

'A quirky, charming book, funny and imaginative.' OBSERVER

'All the joyous playfulness of a little classic.' TIMES

Red House Top 10 reads for 7-11 year olds, 2004.

Highland Children's Book Award Winner, 2006.

http://www.heatherdyer.co.uk

‘I know you,’ said the mermaid. ‘I’ve been watching you. We watch everyone – but you’re the one we watch the most.‘ There was a pause while Toby and the mermaid eyed each other curiously.

She was nothing like the mermaids he had seen in picture books. She was so pale that her skin was almost blue, and she looked painfully thin lying there on the sand with the nubs of her shoulder blades sticking out.

‘I’m Eliza Flot,’ said the mermaid, and put out a hand.

‘Toby,’ said Toby, taking the thin wet hand and shaking it. Eliza smiled, and revealed that one of her front teeth was chipped.

‘Got any food?’ she asked. Toby hadn’t, unfortunately. ‘Never mind,’ said Eliza, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. ‘I’ll find something. Chips, maybe.‘

‘Chips?’

‘People throw them to the gulls,’ she said. ‘They sink.’

‘They do?’ ‘And,’ went on Eliza. ‘I take the bait off hooks.’

‘You eat worms?’ ‘I don’t like them much,’ she confessed. ‘You can feel them trying to get back up.’

Toby swallowed. ‘It’s Cake Day,’ he said. ‘If there’s anything left I’ll bring you some cake.’

Eliza brightened. ‘Oh, yes!’ she said. But suddenly she broke off, held up her hand for silence, and dunked her head. A moment later she surfaced, blinking the water from her eyes.

‘The ship’s coming,’ she said. ‘I can hear it.’