Science Experiment 08/16/2012

Chapter 1

Cleo's house, 7:23 p.m.

Third POV

The entire floor of Cleo's bedroom was occupied by stuff.

The reason: Sleepover!

As Rikki and Bella dumped their sleeping bags onto the ground and hopped onto Cleo's bed, Cleo said, "You know guys, this is our third year anniversary of being a mermaid, at least for Rikki and me." She turned to Bella. "It's your eighth, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Bella replies, "but you shouldn't have brought that up 'cause now I'll have to ignore you all night to plan for your surprise party."

"Haha, but honestly Bella, it's okay." Rikki laughed at her friend's silliness.

"Anyway, we should probably get to bed. Dad says that tonight we have to actually sleep. He says he's tired of us staying up all night and being grouchy in the morning." Cleo put in as she started a pillow fight by flinging a pillow at Rikki.

"We are not grouchy! Are we, Bella?" Rikki asked, picking up another pillow and hitting Cleo with it.

Cleo swung back but missed and hit Bella instead.

Bella retaliated by throwing a bunny plushie at Cleo's head. "No, but evidently if your dad thinks so-" she was broken off as Cleo tossed the bunny plushie back, and missed Bella by a little bit.

"Who's side are you on? I was the one who was defending your rights to stay up late at sleepovers." Rikki demanded as she hit Bella with a polar bear plushie.

"Neither side, I thought it was forbidden to take sides," Bella picked up a long cylinder-shaped pillow that Cleo called her "Huggy" ("It's soft and huggable! It's a perfect name!" Cleo had exclaimed when she told Rikki and Bella about her Huggy and Rikki and Bella had both yelled together, "Your HUGGY!?") and threw it, hitting both Rikki and Cleo.

"Hey, I thought my Huggy was off-limits," Cleo yelled as she picked up her Huggy and cradled it.

"You never mentioned it," Bella replied as she dodged a small pillow Rikki had thrown at her.

Pretty soon the three girls were laughing and arguing jokingly as they hit each other with pillows and plushies (And Cleo's Huggy).

They had no way of knowing that the night and the next day would bring many surprises as they slowly drifted off to sleep.

University of Miami, 9"20 a.m. (Australia time 11:56 p.m.) (A.N. I ACTUALLY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE TIME ZONE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AUSTRALIA AND U.S. SO I JUST MADE THAT UP.)

Lewis's POV

Oh man. This is bad. Really bad. Oh I wish I could be there with her. And Rikki and Bella too. But there's no way to warn them. It's near midnight in Australia and the girls are probably asleep. But no. I need to call her. I'll do it during my break.

Ever since I had left for college again (Cleo was devastated) I had regretted it. Now with more and more people getting closer and closer to finding out the girls' secret, are they really safe?

Cleo's house, 2:27 a.m.

Cleo's POV

I was awoken at 2:30 in the morning by my phone ringing. It was Lewis. I was about to hang up in annoyance when Bella said (She and Rikki must have woken up and recognized the special ringtone I set for all of Lewis's calls.) "He knows it's the middle of the night here, and he wouldn't call unless it was something important. You'd better answer it."

I nodded in agreement and pushed the green button on my blackberry. Instantly I could hear Lewis's worried voice streaming into the phone. I put it on speakerphone so that Bella and Rikki could hear too.

"This is dangerous. Do hear me, Cleo? This is dangerous! Cleo, are you listening?"

"What? Sorry, I didn't hear the first part, what's dangerous?" I asked him.

"Listen, Cleo, I just heard that one of my teachers, Dr. Linda Denman, is leaving tomorrow to the Gold Coast for a little while to work on a science research project. I saw her folder. It had pictures of you, Rikki and Emma as mermaids in it. Cleo, listen! She's on to you. Stay together, and stay safe, alright?"

I couldn't believe it. Denman was coming back. After all we did to fight her off, it was for nothing. I took a deep breath. "Alright, Lewis, we will." I spoke into the phone.

"I love you, Cleo. Stay safe. Promise me."

"I promise." I told him. He hung up.

Rikki and I stared at each other in shock. None of us said much. Bella was smart enough to realize something was wrong. "What's going on, you guys?" She asked.

"Well, you see..." I had only meant to give her a short overview of the situation and about Denman. But Rikki soon took over and spent an entire half an hour telling Bella everything.

After a while we just sat there in silence. Sometimes one of us would make small talk by asking lame questions. None of us could fall asleep. In the end at around 4 in the morning my dad, who must've heard us talking, came in and ordered us to bed.

I didn't sleep at all. And, from the lack of Rikki's usual snores and and Bella's shuffling when she moved when she was asleep, I could tell that I wasn't the only one lying awake.