Prologue

"Cleo!"

A male voice rang out through the docks, loud and clear. Cleo Sertori's eyes were quick to zone in on the source: Zane Bennett. He was an attractive guy, but it was only skin deep. In actuality, he was just another spoilt rich kid with no consideration for anyone but himself.

"Hey Cleo!" he called out again. The girl in question whipped her head around, wondering whether he was talking to her or to some other girl who went by the same name, but there was no one else around.

"Yes, that Cleo," Zane said in an amused tone, and Cleo turned back around to see him with a grin on his face.

"I'm in some trouble here," he continued, glancing down at his boat. "Can you help?"

"Uh, I don't think so," Cleo replied shaking her head sceptically, and began to back away.

"Come on," Zane pleaded, but by this time Cleo's pace had hastened into a sprint. She didn't care to socialise with the likes of him, and besides, she wasn't good with boats.

Rikki Chadwick stood on the jetty across from Zane, watching him silently. She was somewhat relieved Cleo hadn't fallen for what he'd been saying; she didn't know her very well but she seemed like a nice girl and she didn't deserve to be the victim of one of Zane's pathetic stunts.

Rikki continued watching as Nate appeared and started chatting with Zane. She couldn't quite decipher what they were saying from this distance, but she knew enough to figure that they were most likely discussing who Zane should play his prank on instead of Cleo. He certainly wouldn't be attempting to play it on Nate. Rikki had only moved to this area about a month ago, but she had already gathered that Nate was Zane's best friend and partner in crime, so to speak, and that he had been, and would continue to be, for a very long time.

Suddenly, Rikki saw a flash of pink out of the corner of her eye and Zane started to smile and wave at someone. It was his girlfriend, Miriam Kent - dressed entirely in pink, as per usual. Rikki sighed. She was sure that Zane had already decided to make Miriam his new victim. One would think even he wouldn't be so cruel as to do something like that to his own girlfriend, but that kind of thing never seemed to have stopped him before.

And as it turned out, Rikki was right. She watched as the scene played out before her eyes. Again, she was too far away to hear what they were saying, but it was pretty obvious what was about to happen when Miriam stepped onto the boat and sat down. She appeared to be too busy gazing into Zane's sparkling eyes to realise that Nate was bending down to untie the Zodiac, although she eventually did notice once the boat actually started to move.

"What's going on?!" Miriam yelled (that, Rikki could hear), standing up.

Zane and Nate high-fived, laughing.

"Why me, Zane? I'm your girlfriend!" Miriam exclaimed.

"Because you're here, Miriam!" Zane grinned.

Miriam gave a look of disgust, which quickly changed to defeat when she realised she wasn't going to get out of this situation any time soon. She sat down. Rikki supposed it was time for her part now. She considered leaving Miriam to figure things out on her own - she was just as bad as Zane, after all, and she completely deserved it. But Rikki was technically responsible and she certainly wasn't like Zane, so she felt compelled to help out.

As the boat drifted near to her, she took a running jump and leapt onto it.

Miriam screamed.

"What are you doing?" she asked, scowling, once she had composed herself.

Rikki held up the spark plug she had stolen from Zane.

"What is that?" Miriam asked.

Rikki rolled her eyes. She wanted to say, "Of course you wouldn't know," but decided against it, instead opting to ignore her and reconnect the spark plug to the engine. A moment of silence passed between them before the engine started running.

"Hold on," Rikki said, sitting down in the driver's seat. Miriam reluctantly moved to the side to make space for her. Rikki steered the boat around and drove it back in the direction it had come from, speeding up when they went past Zane, causing droplets of water to fly up into the air and drench him.

He held up his arms to shield himself, and when he moved them away, Rikki smiled to herself at his expression. She even thought she saw a smile tug at Miriam's lips.

If she'd been on the boat with someone else, Rikki might have taken them for a ride, but she figured Miriam wanted to be stuck on a boat with her even less than she wanted to be stuck on a boat with Miriam, so she parked the boat and stepped out onto the jetty. Miriam followed suit, and walked away without so much as a thank you.

Rikki raised an eyebrow, but didn't let it dampen her mood as she walked past a soaking wet Zane.

Zane grabbed her by the arm and hissed, "You'll pay for this."

Rikki shrugged, a smug smile on her face, and walked away.

Sooooo, I'm not actually sure if this is any good, but I've been planning to write it for a really long time, so here goes. If you didn't gather, what basically happened is that Cleo guessed that Zane was trying to trick her and left, so she never got on Zane's boat and she, Emma, and Rikki never became mermaids. And throughout the story is my take on how things might have turned out if they never became mermaids (and if it wasn't a kid's show too lmao). Let me know what you think; constructive criticism welcome. Hope you guys enjoyed it! :)

(Also sorry if it was a bit on the short side, it's just 'cause it's the prologue, the other chapters will most likely be longer.)