Pauline Stolis, age 9, of Duluth, Minnesota, for her question:

What are mermaids?

People have talked about mermaids for ages and drawn hundreds of pictures of them. A mermaid picture has the top half of a pretty lady fixed to the tail end of a fish. And everybody takes it for granted that the pretty creature lives in the sea. But when we get down to the true facts, nobody has ever seen a real live mermaid. Nobody has ever taken a genuine photograph of a living mermaid.

So, naturally, we wonder whether there are any real mermaids at all. Perhaps they are just imaginary creatures that belong in fairy tales and not in the real world. As a matter of fact, scientists refuse to believe that mermaids really exist. But let's not feel disappointed. Even when we know that there are no real mermaids in the world, we still can enjoy fanciful stories about them.