So, here is the second chapter of Aratoro. I know updates to it have not been as frequent as those to Seas Of Change, but rest assured, I plan to continue this story.
A brief warning before the chapter starts; this is my first try at writing any of the main H2O girls or guys, so I apologize in advance if they come across as OOC.
With that out of the way, let us begin.
Chapter 2 – A Bird's Crime
The first thing Cleo, Rikki, and Emma did once Charlotte was well out of sight was to swim toward land themselves, get dry, and call their boyfriends for a conversation about what to do to deal with their new very big problem. As Ash, Lewis, and Zane all turned out to be free, the six of them agreed to meet at Emma's home, the only one that was both vacated for the afternoon and big enough for all of them to be at comfortably.
Once there, they filled the boys in on their new problem as quickly as they could, a task that could have taken five minutes if they were calm, but which they managed to stretch into ten due to their sheer nervousness. By the end of it, Lewis looked like he had to use all of his self-control not to gape, Zane had his eyebrows set into a straight line, and Ash's brow was furrowed in suspicion.
Lewis was the first to recover his voice.
"So let me see if I get this straight. Last night, Charlotte went to the moon pool, recovered her tail as if it was nothing, and now looks like she's set on getting her revenge?"
"Exactly that," Emma confirmed.
"But how is this even possible?" Lewis insisted. "That full moon was meant to have permanently removed the powers of any mermaid who fell into the moon pool!"
"You're asking us?" Cleo remarked. "You're the one who warned us about it to begin with!"
Lewis blinked in confusion a few times. "Well, I told you exactly what Max told me, and he told me that the full moon Charlotte went through is meant to take away a mermaid's powers forever." He shrugged. "I guess Max mustn't have had enough case studies to actually be sure of such a fact. Or maybe Gracie lied to him about that. I'd have to ask him to know for sure."
"We'd better find out how we're going to deal with Charlotte first," Rikki pointed out. "And preferably soon. Fifty years looking over our shoulders for Charlotte is too long."
A collective chill went through the room, as if the air conditioning's temperature had dropped several dozen degrees. None of them relished the idea of spending fifty years dealing with a dangerous and potentially unstable mermaid.
"Maybe you don't have to," Zane pointed out. "Miss Chatham wasn't a mermaid either by the time we met her, was she? Perhaps there's more than one way to take a mermaid's tail away."
"If there is, let's hope she told Max about it," Rikki said grimly.
Fleeting looks of sadness, more pronounced on Cleo and Emma, went through the group as they recalled Louise Chatham. Only two weeks after the lunar eclipse that had enabled them to trick Doctor Denman into thinking they had lost their powers, Emma's mother had gotten a call from the retirement home Miss Chatham was living at, stating that she had died in her sleep. Losing her had been difficult, first and foremost because they all liked her, but also on a smaller – if still important – level, because it meant they would be unable to ask her for any more help regarding mermaid issues.
After a few seconds, Cleo's eyes lit up and she turned to Ash, the only one who hadn't yet spoken since the reveal.
"Your grandmother never told you anything about how she lost her tail, did she?" Cleo inquired.
Ash chuckled at the question.
"I didn't even know she had been a mermaid until I made the connection between the stories she used to tell me and what Emma told me regarding her transformation," he pointed out. "So no, she never told me about how she lost her tail."
Downcast looks made their way onto the others' faces.
"It seemed like a good idea," Cleo tried to justify. "Given that you told us she wasn't a mermaid either by the time you met her, she had to have lost her tail as well."
"I know what you mean," Ash reassured. "But all the stories Grandma Julia told me were about the way to gain mermaid powers, not about how to lose them. And as far as I know, she didn't keep a diary or a journal either, so we don't have a place where we can look for the answer."
"We'll really have to ask Max then," Emma stated. "And come up with a good plan in the meantime, because Charlotte won't let her tail go willingly."
Nods from the other girls and Zane met her statement. Lewis, however, still looked a tad uncertain, and Ash's forehead was creased as if he was thinking about something.
"If I may ask, wouldn't it be better to actually let her keep her tail?" Ash suggested.
A sea of puzzled looks met his statement.
"You've been hanging around too much horse poop, college boy," Zane stated. "And the smell did something to your brain from the looks of it."
Ash threw an annoyed look at Zane and then addressed the girls. "What I meant is, when she didn't have her tail, you were always going on about how she might snitch on you at any moment. Now that she has her tail back she definitely can't snitch, if only for her own sake."
For the briefest of moments, all the girls seemed ready to argue, but no actual words came from them. Then, Emma nodded in agreement, while a downcast Cleo lowered her eyes, and Rikki scowled.
"Good point," Zane acknowledged on behalf of the girls, the sentence coming out like a tooth being pulled without anaesthesia.
"She may not be able to snitch, but she can certainly do a lot of worse things," Rikki replied. "And we ought to do something about her before she does them."
"We could just sit down together and talk," Lewis remarked. The remark earned him puzzled looks that made the ones Ash had gotten look like flickers of surprise in comparison, but he went on undeterred, "Charlotte may have her faults, but she's not completely off her rocker. If we apologized to her, maybe we could calm her down enough to sway her away from any revenge ideas."
An outraged look burst on Rikki's face.
"I'm not apologizing to that witch after what she did to Emma or Cleo!" she shouted with such force that Lewis leaned away and raised his hands. "She's the one that needs to apologize!"
After a few seconds of silence, during which Lewis looked Rikki over as if to make sure she was done, he replied, "We're no saints either, and we've made our own mistakes, me in particular. When I splashed her with that glass of water after the camping trip to Mako Island, that could have been a disaster for everyone, as you pointed out during the hour-long scolding you gave me afterwards."
A shiver came over Lewis when he finished his sentence, but although the girls gave him annoyed looks at what he brought up, none of them gave him another scolding for his deed.
"Two wrongs don't make a right," Cleo pointed out.
"Maybe not, but we still should own up to our own wrongs and try to atone for them," Lewis insisted.
A long silence came over the wrong, as if Lewis' statement required too much physical effort for them to take in for anyone to say anything to it. At last, Cleo broke the silence.
"Fair enough. But I'm not talking to her."
"Well I'm not either!" Rikki immediately added.
The other members of the group exchanged glances.
"Who's doing it then?" Emma asked.
Instead of five of the members of the group training their gaze on someone, the exchange of glances continued, only now involving them all. For several times, one of them was looked at by more than one other person of the group, but none of the universal silent agreements that seemed to take place all so often in fiction took place.
After a few minutes with everyone glancing around, Zane broke the silence.
"Let's think about that tomorrow. I don't think we'll be going anywhere with this today."
Lewis rolled his eyes in what seemed like both amusement and amazement.
"I never thought I'd say this, but I kind of agree with Zane. The news is too fresh yet, and last time we all did a lot of stuff without thinking when it came to Charlotte. If we think before acting this time, we should be able to avoid the same mistakes."
Ash nodded in agreement.
Neither Emma, Cleo, nor Rikki seemed particularly thrilled about the compromise, but none of them brought forth any suggestion. After some time, each of them expressed their agreement with Zane's and Lewis' ideas.
In the end, they decided that they would all try to think about a way to solve the problem on their own, and the following day, at lunch, they would meet to come to a common solution.
Although Charlotte was undeniably happy about not only having gotten her tail back, but having also given Cleo and her moronic friends a taste of what they would be up against, she knew that her becoming a mermaid for the second time ended all her problems. Her homework hung over her like a pile of phone books ready to be dropped, with maths making up the heaviest volume, and Charlotte knew she had no choice other than to finish it before the next lesson if she did not want both her math teacher and her mother to be on her case.
So, the moment she returned home, she threw herself into all the homework she was given, and did it to the best of her ability. To her relief, most of it was easy to deal with, and although maths was a pain because of both her dislike for the subject and of the amount she got in comparison to everyone else, she still managed to finish it, and as far as she could tell she got most of it right. The final word wouldn't be hers, but with the main part out of the way, she wouldn't care about that for the time being either. She had more important things to think about.
Namely, how to make Cleo and her little clique pay for what they had done to her.
So, as soon as her homework was done, she sat on a deckchair by the pool, twirling a pencil in her right hand and with a notebook open in her lap, trying to come up with something suitable for those three to endure.
Taking their tails away was the first idea she wrote down, but she crossed it out the following second. Not only would she have to wait fifty years to do that, but if those three lost their tails, they would be the ones not having any problem snitching on her about her tail.
Luring their boyfriends to her, like she had heard Cleo could do because of the full moon, also came to her mind, but it didn't take more than a few seconds for her to discard that one either. She'd have to wait until the right full moon arrived, and not only she wouldn't remember anything she did during that time, but she had no trusted friend who knew her mermaid secret to watch over her and cover for her in case she did something stupid. Also, any kind of permanent lure would have Lewis, Ash, and Zane following her around like lost puppies until the end of their days, and it could get her in trouble.
Besides, it wouldn't be real. They wouldn't come to her because they liked her. No boy did, except for Lewis, and even he had liked Cleo more. Most of them found her too fat to be beautiful, and most of the remaining ones were too intimidated by her height. Charlotte could do nothing about her height, and all her attempts to do anything about her weight had fallen through; besides being large boned, she liked eating a bit more than society tended to perceive as 'correct' for girls.
Either way, that plan wasn't good either, and for too many reasons. She'd have to think about something else.
Maybe she could pour some ambergris on Nate then. After she got her tail, one of the things Lewis had warned her about was what ambergris could do, and Charlotte had made the connection about the girls being so attracted to Nate on that day. If she poured ambergris on him, they'd all be drawn to that imbecile like moths to a flame, and it would be the biggest shame of their lives. They'd never live down being attracted to that idiot for a second time, no matter what substances were involved.
No. Charlotte thought. I may end up catching a whiff myself, and there's no way I'm coming within ten feet of that moron!
Besides, it was too dangerous. The girls had no awareness of what they were doing while under the ambergris' power, and the risk of them getting wet was too big. She couldn't dig her own grave with her revenge plan.
Blast it! Charlotte thought, clenching her hand so tightly that her already pale knuckles whitened further around the pencil. Why is it that I can't have a single idea that doesn't sound so risky?
Maybe it was a sign from the universe. Maybe it was telling her that no matter what she did, there was no plan for revenge that wouldn't be too dangerous for her, so she'd better give it up.
No. She refused to believe it. She wouldn't let those three get away with everything they did to her. She might have gotten her tail back, but she never should have lost it in the first place. And she was sick of being pushed around and made for a joke. Those three would be the last people doing anything of the sort to her.
Besides, she had been at it for less than half an hour. She couldn't just give up on it just because an idea didn't present itself to her from the get-go. And she had time. She could keep thinking until she came up with the perfect idea.
And when she had come up with the perfect idea, those three wouldn't know what had hit them.
"Charlotte?"
She shook in startle as the sound broke through her focus, and looked up at the one who had addressed her.
"Mum!" she greeted. "You're home!"
She closed the notebook – which now had the first four pages full of crossed out ideas – and set it beside her to stand up. But as she did, a sliver of wariness started to spread through her as she looked properly at her mother.
At a first glance, she seemed just the same, but a careful look revealed she wasn't alright. Charlotte couldn't exactly specify why, but somehow, the stiff manner in which she stood seemed too rigid, too unnatural, as if she was constantly making an effort not to fall apart. The way her throat pulsed, as if something was trying to find its way out and at the same time very reluctant to leave, added to the impression. And her hands, which were clenched into fists to the point Charlotte almost expected to see blood trickling through her fingers, completed the set.
"What happened?" Charlotte asked. "Is everything alright?"
Her mother took a deep breath, and then went and positioned another deckchair so that it was right beside the one Charlotte had been sitting on.
"Sit down, Charlotte," her mother said as she sat down herself on the deckchair she had just moved. "We need to talk."
After a moment's pause, Charlotte replied, "Sure."
But as she sat down, Charlotte couldn't help but give her mother a puzzled look. What could they have to talk about? Had her mother somehow gotten warnings from the school already for her behaviour today?
No, that didn't seem likely. She was, modesty aside, a decently-behaved student who paid moderate attention in class. Teachers wouldn't call her mother just because she had been unusually distracted for a day.
And besides, from the way her mother had talked, it seemed like she was going to say someone had died. She wouldn't be speaking in that tone because of school issues.
"So, what is it we need to talk about?"
Her mother's look became even more serious, and again, Charlotte thought it seemed almost like that someone might have when telling someone that a loved one had died. It must have been similar to the one she had on the day her grandmother Gracie had died, although Charlotte couldn't remember much about that day. Her heart suddenly leapt inside her chest. There was a person in their family for whom the possibility of meeting death on the daily job was higher than average. Could she have…
"Mum, is Aunt Nicole alright?" Charlotte asked, not bothering to mask the notes of fear in her voice.
To her relief, her mother cracked a reassuring smile.
"Yes, your aunt is alright, and so are your uncle and your cousins. This has nothing to do with anyone's death. It's serious, but not that serious."
Charlotte sighed deeply, tension leaving her like air did an emptied balloon. If this wasn't about anyone's death, it couldn't be that bad.
"What is it then?"
Her mother wrung her palms repeatedly and looked in several directions away from Charlotte before replying.
"There's no easy way to put this. I wish I could somehow sugar coat the issue, but there's no way around it."
"Around what?" Charlotte pressed.
This time, her mother looked at her, but the way her hands were clasped together – tightly enough to make her knuckles white – conveyed her nervousness.
"I'm truly sorry it has to be this way, but unfortunately, it's out of my hands," she went on, looking down as she finished her sentence, as if it had taken considerable effort to look into Charlotte's eyes long enough to say those words.
"What is out of your hands?" Charlotte insisted.
Once more, her mother did not raise her head to look at her when she spoke.
"Maybe it won't be as bad as I'm afraid, but things are about to become very difficult at the very least."
"Mum!" Charlotte snapped. "Just what is it you're trying to tell me?"
Looking like she had aged five years in two minutes, her mother slowly raised her head. The gloomy look in her eyes immediately made Charlotte sorry for having snapped at her, but it also increased her fear.
Her mother took a deep breath, as if gathering all of her strength for the words she clearly wanted to say but couldn't find. Then, looking Charlotte in the eyes with such an intensity that her gaze seemed to want to puncture a solid brick wall, she spoke.
"We're flat broke."
Everything around Charlotte seemed to shut down. It was as if she was hanging in the middle of an emptiness, aware of what was going on around her but unable to truly experience it. All sounds around her vanished, the feeling of the chair underneath her disappeared… all she was aware of was her mother, sitting before her, looking more devastated than Charlotte remembered seeing her, her posture sagged as if she would crumble apart in seconds.
Charlotte blinked twice in an attempt to return to reality. Her senses other than sight seemed to return, but the enormity of the fact still lay in the vicinity, like a stone that had just been thrown at her head and landed close to her after making its hit.
"Broke?" Charlotte replied.
Her mother nodded.
"Broke, penniless, tapped out… we're all those and many more."
And the emptiness in her mother's voice conveyed more than anything else that it was the pure truth. Yet, it made no sense.
"How can that be?" Charlotte almost shouted. "Whenever I asked, you've always told me that your restaurant business was doing well! You even said you were thinking of expanding it!"
She stopped there, aware that her voice was taking an accusing tone. Whatever had happened to cause the restaurant to end up in such a state certainly wasn't her mother's fault, especially if it had happened so fast.
Still, she couldn't help the question that came next.
"Have you been lying to me?"
In spite of her attempts to keep her tone neutral, the nature of the question itself made it sound too accusing. Still, her mother did not seem affronted or sad at it.
"No, I haven't been lying to you. I have only trusted the wrong man for months."
At Charlotte's puzzled look, she explained, "The reason we're flat broke is because my secretary went and pilfered all the money in the restaurant's bank account."
Once more, Charlotte returned to the emptiness. Only this time, it seemed ten times emptier. She wasn't aware of anything but the utter shock that had metaphorically smacked her harder than any physical hit could. Her mother's words went through her head time and time again like a broken DVD player, unable to be turned off or muted. Her whole being quaked like those cartoon characters did when hitting a metallic surface, only she found no humour to it. She found nothing to her mother's words, other than an overwhelming sense of how it just wasn't possible!
"He did what?" Charlotte finally managed to ask.
"He cleaned the restaurant's bank account down to the last penny," her mother replied, still in the same defeated voice.
How can this be? Charlotte's mind seemed to shout over and over again. From what she knew, her mother's secretary – a thirty-something year old named Gratton Bird – seemed like a perfectly normal guy, always there on time, arriving early and leaving late quite frequently, who always kept everything as organized as a jigsaw puzzle that had just been set up, and never uttered a complaint.
Too good to be true, it seems. Charlotte thought.
In fact, now that she dwelled on it, there had been a few moments where she had found Bird a bit shifty, thinking that his respect toward her mother and the fact he would work for a woman were a bit suspicious. Back then, she had brushed it off as mere lack of habit – after all, male secretaries were a thing from her grandmother's time at most – but it seemed there had been a bit more to it.
Why didn't you do more about it then? An inner voice, which sounded unpleasantly like a mix of all the girls who had ever teased Charlotte, asked. Too self-absorbed to worry about your mother and the kind of staff she might keep?
Charlotte clenched her fist in anger. Anger at what that voice shouted at her. Anger at herself for knowing there were grains of truth in it. Anger at Gratton Bird for playing them all like a fiddle and making off with all of their business' money.
"That bastard," Charlotte growled. "When I catch him I will…"
"You will do nothing," her mother interrupted, a hint of steeliness back in her voice.
Too angry to be happy about that, Charlotte insisted. "Oh yes, I will. Once I get my hands on that bastard, I..."
She trailed off there, unable to find anything bad enough to do to that guy. If she had him before her now, she would at best beat his face to a bloody pulp, and at worst toss him into the pool and use her heating powers on him until he was begging for mercy.
"Don't be silly, Charlotte," her mother chided. "He's probably thousands of miles away by now, and in the off chance he isn't, I don't want you anywhere near him. That man already proved he was smart, I don't want to take the chance he's also dangerous."
The notes of concern in her mother's voice brought Charlotte back to the ground, as her clenched fist loosened. Her mother already had enough on her plate without Charlotte needing to add anything else to the list. If she told her mother she would be alright, she would have to tell her why she was so sure of that, and revealing the mermaid secret was first on the things she had to avoid at all costs right now. Besides, being a mermaid didn't make her invulnerable. If a car crashed into her, she would get broken bones. If a bullet hit her, she would bleed. If she was pushed off a cliff, she would die.
And besides, her mother was right. If the guy had been smart enough to steal all that money, he probably would also be smart enough to make off with it without anyone catching him. He most likely already was in a non-extradition country, safe from anything the Australian government could do to him, and safe to either spend his stolen money until he needed to embezzle someone else or to invest it in some illegal activity that would ensure he wouldn't need to work ever again.
Once more, Charlotte clenched her fist, rage boiling inside her. Her mother's concern aside, if she ever got her hands on that guy, she would…
The widening of her mother's eyes again, joined by a cloud of steam and the bubbling of boiling water, snapped her chain of thoughts.
At once, Charlotte loosened her fist and looked left, right on time to see the last bubbles she had caused on the pool popping on its surface, while columns of steam rose from the water. Her eyes widened in fear. How was she going to explain this one?
"What's going on?" her mother asked, utterly baffled.
As quickly as she could, Charlotte composed an innocent look and shrugged as indifferently as possible.
"Some heating problem, I'd imagine."
Her mother frowned upon hearing the explanation, but before Charlotte could come up with an alternate theory, she replied. "Well, whoever comes here next can deal with it."
Whoever came here next? Were they leaving?
Charlotte felt like smacking herself for those thoughts. Of course they were leaving. With their current financial conditions, there was no way they would be able to stay in such a house.
"Good thing the house is rented!" Charlotte tried to quip.
Her mother cracked a smile, but it seemed automatic, as if she was going along with the joke only because she didn't want to actually cry.
"Where will we go next?" Charlotte asked in her best serious and at the same time calm tone; if humour wouldn't work, she figured the best thing she could do was try to take this situation like an adult.
It didn't work; although her mother tried to keep a straight posture, Charlotte could see in her eyes that she was doing everything not to fall apart.
"I don't know," her mother finally replied. "I've already sent as many applications as I could to every place that I thought might fit me remotely, and I'll keep sending them over the next days, but we'll have to wait and see who – if anyone – will reply back. I also talked to your aunt to see if she can find Bird and force him to return the money he stole, but I don't have a lot of faith she can do it. If he managed to steal so much money without us being any bit suspicious of him, he probably found a way to make off with all of it without being found."
Charlotte again clenched her fist, but this time, just as the first tiny bubbles started to pop on the water's surface, she remembered that she couldn't lose control. Her mother didn't need to deal with the mermaid secret now, and besides, the police would probably want to interrogate them both, whether here at the home or at some police station. In both cases, particularly the latter, she couldn't afford to have her powers affecting nearby water and tipping anyone off to oddities.
Thankfully, her mother didn't notice the water; she seemed too lost in her own thoughts.
"I'm sorry, Charlotte."
Charlotte reached over and held her mother's hand. "Don't be. It's not your fault."
Her mother raised her head for a thin smile, before dropping it again in sadness.
In an effort to distract her, Charlotte stood up.
"I'll get started on dinner," she offered as she started walking toward the house.
Her mother stood up as if energy had been injected into her by the words. "Let me help you."
Charlotte put on a mock-outraged look. "Hey, I know I never was a professional chef, but I'd still like to think my meals are edible."
This time, her mother chuckled genuinely. "I know. But I'd still like to help you. If nothing else, we can spend some time together. We haven't done it in so long."
True, Charlotte thought as she walked toward the pantry to check what they had for dinner, guilt stabbing at her. She knew she had been neglecting her mother, what with all her focus on Lewis, on her tail, and on her ideas of revenge.
And with that last thought, it was as if a camera's flash lit up her brain, while a fresh wave of rage tore through her. Curse Gratton Bird! Besides stealing her mother's money, he'd also stolen Charlotte's shot at revenge! No matter what happened now, she couldn't carry out any plans meant to punish those three girls. Her mother would be out of work for a period that could range from weeks to months, and they couldn't rely on their savings to get them through that time. Somehow, Charlotte would have to pitch in, starting as soon as possible. That left no room to come up with ways to make those conceited bitches pay.
Charlotte took a deep breath to calm down. Bird may have stolen her mother's money, but Charlotte herself could still carry out her revenge. She might have to put it aside for the time being, but but the moment she and her mother were in a stable situation again, she would return her focus to punishing the other three mermaids.
And in the meantime, she would come up with the nastiest, most fool proof plan she possibly could. That way, when she finally set it in action, there would be nothing those three could do to escape.
And so, here is a new chapter of Aratoro. I hope you have enjoyed it.
To those who may already have the criticism in mind, I am aware I may have portrayed the girls as unduly aggressive. However, remember than in the previous chapter they not only discovered Charlotte had her tail back, but that she appears to be set on using it to do something nasty. That's bound to color their perceptions.
And to any Nate fans, I apologize for Charlotte's thoughts on him. I was simply doing my best to reflect what I feel she would think about Nate (which, with all due respect, does not seem very difficult, given all the girls in H2O appear to have the same opinion on Nate).
And once again, I reiterate that while Charlotte may still be having villainous tendencies, the story is still just beginning. For those who want to see her change, please stick around for a bit longer. For those who prefer her as a villain, I apologize, but I again say this isn't one of those stories.
Until next chapter.