Celebrating 30 years of Rock Trust, Scotland’s charity committed to tackling youth homelessness, All the Way Home is an anthology of poetry interrogating ideas of home and homelessness. Bringing together a variety of young people and established writers, the collection navigates poetry, fiction and essays across a variety of perspectives. You can read, exclusively with BooksfromScotland, James Robertson’s story Mermaid below.

Extract taken from All the Way Home
Published by Taproot Press

Mermaid
By James Robertson

I wis jist aboot awa when sumbdy I didnae ken flopped doun aside me in the daurk, and I woke up again. Flopped disnae quite dae it – she didnae seem faur aff the grund when she stertit but she hit it wi a mighty thwack. I guessed it wis a lassie fae the wey she groaned.

‘Ye awright? Did ye hurt yirsel?’ I wis concerned, but no that much. It wis mair like I wis lettin her ken I wis there.

‘Naw, I’m fine, ta. Is it safe here?’

‘Safe enough,’ I tellt her. ‘Safety in nummers, eh?’

That’s because there wis awready fower ae us ablow the brig. It wis dry and naebdy else hung oot there at night. Maist folk wid see it as manky and dangerous, and that made it aboot as safe a place tae kip as onywhaur. No that that made it safe.

The lassie didnae answer. She jist thrashed aboot a bit as if her legs were tied thegither or somethin, and I thought, whit’s that smell? Really strang, ken. Seaweed and saut and fush. Shells and saun and driftwood. It wis like a big wave had jist washed in kerryin aw that wi it, but of coorse it hadnae.

She didnae settle. I fund ma phone and shone the torch tae see whit wis gaun on.

‘Hey!’ she said.

‘Fuckin hell,’ I said.

I pit the torch aff. I didnae want the ithers wakin up and seein it. I must no hae seen it masel. I must hae been dreamin.

The lassie had a big lang fuckin fush tail, covered in scales. That’s whit I’d seen, or whit I’d dreamt. Ma new neebor in adversity wis a mermaid.

We were aboot five mile fae the sea. How the fuck had she got there? Flopped for five mile? I didnae hink so.

I wis gaunae say somethin but ye learn no tae stick yir neb in whaur it’s no wantit. Ye learn tae take folk as ye find them. Jist because you hink sumbdy’s a mermaid disnae make them a fuckin mermaid.

So I shut the fuck up and went tae sleep.

In the mornin she wis awa. So either she wis niver there or she wis but she wisnae a mermaid. Or she wis and she wis. Fuck this, I thought. I checked ma phone. Some folk hink if ye’re on the street ye shouldnae hae a phone, ye’re ower puir and ower stupit and forby that ye’re stervin or ye should be so how can ye afford a phone? Fuck them anaw. The signal wisnae guid because ae the brig. There wis stuff aboot a tsunami ae Covid comin at us, and tornadoes rippin through Kentucky and the Russians reddin up tae invade Ukraine but I couldnae see onythin aboot a mermaid floppin roon the toun. The battery wis low but that wisnae how there wis nuthin aboot mermaids comin up.

And then the sun shot a couple ae rays in ablow the brig, and right nixt tae me on the concrete wis a lang swirl o fush scales like a question-mark. And the sunlight hit them and they stertit skinklin, dancin, multi-coloured like a rainbow, or like sequins on a fancy frock some posh dame had slipped aff and drapped on the flair. And I couldnae help it, I smiled.

Ye dinnae dae smiles yirsel, they happen tae ye, like yawns and sneezes and greetin. The smile wis a guid stert tae the day, whitiver else wis gaunae happen in the rest ae it. I got masel up and on the move. Jen and Kyle and the guy that’s niver tellt us his name were still sleepin. I stashed ma beddin and set aff tae find some breakfast and mibbe somewhaur they’d let me charge ma phone.

All the Way Home is published by Taproot Press, priced £12.99.