A young girl's pale indigo feet were dangling in the water. Her straight navy hair was in two pigtails, and her eyes were the color of Arlong Park's personal pool. Yes, she was the one and only Saw-Tooth Arlong's little niece. This was the summer that she was to spend her vacation over at Uncle Arlong's "resort" in Coco Village. Who's that? She thought, turning around to see the red-headed girl at her uncle's throne. "Who's she?" She wanted to overhear what Arlong was discussing with a "pew-man" such as Red over there.
"Uncle Arlong? Who's that girl?" The mermaid ran over to where all the commotion was going on. "Why is she here?" She repeated once again. If there was one thing that Arlong loathed, it was those darned pew-mans. Having one near him on friendly terms was totally unusual.
"Hello, Tara. Nami here isn't like those pew-mans, she's one of us!" The strong merman's hand was on Nami's head. She was just about the same age as Tara herself, so maybe they could become friends, no matter what big uncle said.
The red haired girl looked at the navy headed mermaid, who was looking at her bandaged arm. "Um, Mr. Arlong, is Tara in your crew too?" Nami asked Arlong, seeing as she was quite curious. Within all of her time here at Arlong Park; Nami had never seen a female merman (none the less her own age). "I haven't seen any girl merman here."
The merman leader didn't answer little red's question, and he led her to her room. "This is where you'll be drawing maps, Nami! You can be a great navigator someday with your talent." He then left the human girl alone in her chamber-room.
Tara walked in through the door and saw the young mapmaker. "Hi, Nami! I'm Tara, from earlier? Are you from Coco Village?" She said, trying to be nice to the new kid. "I brought you some snacks. Do you think we could be friends?" Tara handed over the bag of sweets to the red headed Nami, but she turned them down.
"I'm not here to make friends with any of you bad Mermen. I'm just going to fulfill my promise to my village—that's all." Nami said with a scorn. However, she didn't eat the late Bellemere's meal for Nojiko and herself so she took the sweets anyways. Arlong made me a deal. One-hundred million berries to go. Then I'll free the whole village! Nami told Tara out, and shut the door. She had a lot of work to do; and the first assignment was to gain the merpeople's trust.
That was eight years ago. Nami left us when she was thirteen and could "manage on her own". She always wore sleeved shirts to conceal her promise to Uncle Arlong—the wretched tattoo of Saw-Tooth Pirates. I remember every summer at Arlong's Park; helping Uncle collect taxes, making sure that no one skipped their pay. Even though he treated me like I was part of the Business I would still be nice to those so-called "pew-mans". If he only knew about self hygiene he would know that WE are the real pew-mans. Arlong made such a bad name for us merman. He made us look like we're bad guys that hate all of mankind. Not all of us are big ole jerks like Uncle Arlong…I wish to prove that this year at my trip to Arlong Park.
