When Life Gives You Fins by Elaina H (classic books to read txt) 📖

any of my students to show up! But if you want we can carry on with your lesson?” Great! I shouldn’t have gone with my old philosophy.

            “Well, maybe we can do a shortened lesson. I have somewhere I need to be.”

            “And where would that be?” he raises he eyebrows to mock me.

            “My bed, I can’t lie. I miss it dearly!”

            He chuckles at me, “Dear Ms. Kendal. Please don’t let your bed wait much longer. Just make sure you remember. There is class tomorrow!”

            “Yes, I would never forget!”

            “I thought so,” He goes back to his work, Sirens I assume.

            I leave the room and sigh. Yes! I got out of class. Not to shabby. I head back up to Zak’s room. I open the door, I didn’t lock it after I left, and put my warm, fuzzy, blue robe back on.

            It’s funny how underwater, when you’re a mermaid, things feel similar to what they feel like on earth. Like my robe, it isn’t soggy and wet. It’s plush feeling, almost.

            I crawl back onto Zak’s bed and fall asleep immediately, again.

 

            I awakened by a sharp knock on the door. I roll over and moan as I stretch. Zak shoots up in bed and puts his pointer finger to his lips, telling me to be quiet.

            I give him a thumbs up, he shakes his head and smiles.

            Zak opens the door and talks low to whoever is out there. He comes back in, but with him he has breakfast.

            “Yummy,” I say as I see all the food piled on the tray.

            “Want some?”

            “Don’t mind if I do,” I pluck a shrimp off the plate.

            “You are only slightly obsessed with shrimp, right?”

            “Crazy in love!” I roll onto my back and swallow my shrimp.

            He holds another one above my mouth, I open my mouth and he drops it in. “Thank you very much!”

            After we finish the large plate of food I get off the bed and flop on the floor.

            Zak leans over the edge of the bed, “What are you doing?”

            “Thinking.”

            “About?”

            “Stuff.”

            “The broadest statement of the 21st century!”             “No! That would be whatever!”

            “I call them tied!”

            “So it shall be!” I point up at the ceiling.

            We sit there and relax in a moment of silence.

            “So,” Zak asks, “what do you have to do today?”

            “Work, at three and until then nothing,” I sigh.

            He nods, “My father’s thinking about giving you something else to do in that huge block of time you have.”

            “Why? What does he have planned?”             “Well, actually, someone gave him this idea. Two ideas were proposed: Destin’s- a self defense class that would be taught by Destin, and Jennifer’s,” he says her name in a lower tone, “- would be for you to work as a maid and actually learn how to do our traditions.”             I roll my eyes, “And of course I would be Jennifer’s maid?”             “I imagine,” he gives me a sorry smile.

            I get up from the floor and plant my butt on a chair in the corner. “Well, surly, the King won’t choose Jennifer’s plan. Right?”

            “He says Destin’s plan will go to waste, that you could just bring guards. But I’m sure we both know Destin isn’t going to teach you ‘self-defense’ in the literal term. He’s going to throw chairs at your head instead.”             “Now that, I can deal with, not being Blondie’s little servant!” I’m not panicking; I’m just getting worried about what she’ll do to me.

            “Who knows what will happen? Destin, Adrianne, and I have been telling him not to consider Jennifer’s idea. But, he says we’re all too attached. We need to not worry about you because you’re just going to be here for less than five weeks, now,” he looks really upset when he brings up me leaving.

            “Don’t worry about me leaving! I can come back, right, visit?” I hold is hand.

            “No.”

            “Why not? Why do I need to learn all of this if I’m not coming back?”

            “After five weeks, you go back home,” he points straight up, so I know he means land, “and you must decide what you want. You can stay up there as long as you want, but the minute you swim back down to Brunswick, you become a full mer.

            Now if you haven’t noticed the glitch here, I’ll tell you. How is there supposed to be another generation of half-mer if you don’t stay?”

            “How?” my voice catches on the one word.

            “Do you remember if when your mother told you our story, she spoke of a second child?”

            I nod, “Why did no one ever tell me this before?”             “Not supposed to. If you come back after you leave then we tell you, so it doesn’t affect your decision.

            Anyways, that second child, proclaimed dead after missing for so long. He came here. And he begged for forgiveness. Forgiveness was given, but we made a deal. If the other ‘official’ half-mermaid wanted to live here. Wanted to be here forever? Then the ‘unofficial’ half-mer would have to go to land and replace them. Staying up there forever and continuing the generation line.”

            “Oh, my.” I can’t believe this, out of everything that was affecting my decisions, I’m thinking about who my eighth cousin is, “Who’s the ‘unofficial’ half-mer?”

            “You’re wondering who you’re distantly related to? Well, good new is, I have no clue. Only the King knows the lineage. Therefore, he’s the only one who knows. Now for safety purposes, the lineage is kept in a vault somewhere.”

            “That is so,” I pause thinking for a very descriptive word, “wacky”

            “Wacky? Is that the same as weird and strange?”

            I nod, “And I can’t ask either, because the King would know you told me or that the ‘unofficial’ half-mermaid told me?”

            “Precisely,” he nods his head.

            “Great! So now I get to feel guilty of I want live my life down here. I would feel guilty not only for leaving my mom, but for making some other mermaid live where they don’t want to!”

            “I imagine that land calls them just like the sea calls them. Because when you lived on land, didn’t the sea call you? So now that you’re down here, land beckons you?”

            “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Exactly how close would we be related?”

            “Well, no ‘official’ half-mermaid has stayed, ever. They all either have fallen in love – like your Dad – or they have never liked the concept of the ocean.”

            “Wow! So we really are eighth cousins. Not intertwined, where their great-great-great grandma is my great^3 grandma. That’s a relief!”

            “Yeah you just have the same great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother and grandfather.”

            “My mother always told me I never had any cousins because every parent and grandparent had only had one child.”

            “That would make sense, but, now, you do have a cousin.”

            “So their parents would be my seventh cousins?”

            “They’d be, yes, but I believe they are dead. I don’t know how, I just always assumed.”

            “Well, I hope my cousin knows that I know how they feel, I lost my father. I’ll never forget him, ever.”

            A silent tear for my dad runs down my cheek. “I’m sorry,” Zak holds my hand.

            “Can we go do something besides sit here?”             “Yes, but,” he tackles me to the bed, “I was having a great time before we got into the heavy stuff.”

            “Stuff! The broadest statement of the 21st century!”

            Zak kisses me. I kiss back, but when he stops I squirm out from underneath him and bolt. I swim vigorously down the hallway, waiting for him to catch up. I’m just swimming to swim.          

            I’m not trying to get away either, I just want to swim. The faster I swim the less the things said in the room matter.

            I fly out the castle doors and head toward the city limits. The water is cleaner out there, I remember.

            When I reach the limits I come to a stop. Halting I look around and breath in the fresh water.

            Zak comes up behind me out of breath, “I,” pant, “have got,” pant, “to get out,” pant, pant, “of the castle,” pant, “more!”

            My chest heaves, but not because I’m tired, “Yeah, it seems that way!”

            I continue swimming along the fence. Slower this time so Zak can keep up. I head straight back toward the cliffs and caves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crabs, Squids, and Sharks! Oh My!

 

            When we reach the caves I automatically pick out one I want to go to, “Come on!” I yell Zak follows me.

            I enter the cave; the cavern is low, low enough where we have to swim parallel to the ground.

            I look at the shiny pebbles and stones as I swim past. Zak picks some up and further inspects them.

            “Find anything neat?” I shout behind me.

            “Not yet, but I found a few crabs.”

            “Crabs! What do you mean, I’m not getting snipped in the butt! We are out!” I point back the way we came.

            Zak puts his hands on my shoulder, “They won’t ‘snip’ you in the butt, CJ. Besides they’re only baby crabs,” he picks up a little baby crab and shows me, “See, not even developed enough to pinch you!”

            “Awwww, they’re so cute!”             “Weird, how you go from, ‘Ahhhhh’ to “Awwww’?”

            “It’s a girl thing,” I shrug my shoulders.

            “Or,” he acts surprised, “a crazy thing!”             “Ha ha, you are so clever!”

            “I know, I can tell you are dying on the inside!”

            “Such a reader, here tell my future!”             “I have to stop you because that was bad, like, really bad!” he’s laughing at my bad comeback.

            “Pretty pathetic, I know, but dying on the inside? Come on! Give me a break!”             “We’ll agree then, that, we shouldn’t say another comeback because we both suck at it?”

            “Precisely!”

            Without another thought of the crabs and the crazy we head down the tunnel, “This I a little spooky,” I whisper in the growing darkness.

            “Want me to go in front? Sometimes squids live up in these cliffs, it’s a nice little hidey hole.”             “Hidey hole?”

            “Hiding place, secret getaway…” I stop him.

            “I know what ‘hidey hole’ is. It’s just that I’d never expect you to say ‘hidey hole’!” I give him a look.

            “People surprise you,” he returns my look.

            “True that, as Josh would say!”             “True that!”

            In the creepy silence we continue, nothing but our breath fills the chambers of the cave. Deepest corners are also deepest black, very little light seeps through. Almost no light seeps through.

            We should have brought some of that glowing coral Haden told me about, “Do you have any of that glowing coral?”

            “Not in my back pocket, no. But you can pretty much find it anywhere,” I pauses looking around.

            “Well, not obviously here! Look around, no light, not a speck.”

            “Yes they only glow when you touch them to your tail fin.”             “Why?!”             “I’m not really sure, but I believe there is an acid that mixes with the coral that makes it glow.”

            I instantly swim to the cavern walls and begin banging my tail against them. The cave ignites, glowing coral all around glows.

            “Wow,” I gaze at the now lit caver.

            “Pretty neat, I always loved to do that, I actually didn’t even think of glowing coral. I just thought that,” he pauses, “I wished it was day time.”

            And I realize something, “Haden!”

           

 

 

 

When You Find Out A Secret That You Can’t Tell

 

            “Oh my God!” I swim out of the cave, getting dangerously close to some of the sharper rocks.

            Zak zips along behind me shouting at me to slow down.

            All I’m thinking is, Oh my goodness gracious! Oh my gosh! Oh my Neptune! You name it!