Teen Mermaid
|JuiceNet Cafe|
Emma and Rikki meet everyone at the café after they went swimming that morning.
"You won't believe it. We timed ourselves and guess how long we can hold our breath for." Emma tells Lewis and Scott who come over to their table after getting themselves something to drink.
"15 minutes." Rikki brags, high fiving Emma.
"That's impressive." Lewis says intrigued.
"Cool." Scott agrees.
"We can probably stay down for longer if we really tried." Emma says.
"You're on." Rikki says.
"You think you can beat me?" Emma challenges.
"You know I can." Rikki says accepting the challenge.
"You guys must be jumping out of your skin about this stuff." Lewis says.
"Yeah, well two of us are." Emma replies.
"Cleo, guess what. These guys can hold their breath for…" Lewis says cheerfully greeting the last of the group until Scott silences him with his hand.
"Quiet down man." Scott tells him nodding his head at the other guests surrounding them.
"Sorry. 15 minutes." Lewis finishes his sentence quietly once he removed Scott's hand.
"Quick thinking." Emma thankful for Scott's interference.
"So, what's going on?" Cleo asks, now sitting at their table.
"We've been, you know swimming. It's the best thing, the reef is out of this world." Rikki says excitedly.
"That's great. So has anyone been able to finish the calculus homework? Question 7 is a nightmare." Cleo asks them, wanting to change the topic.
"We missed you this morning, why weren't you answering your phone?" Emma asks her.
"And the geography project is due Thursday, we really need to get it together." Cleo continues, ignoring Emma's question, making the group other than Scott look at her worriedly.
"Listen Cleo, whatever happened to us is incredible. You've got to come out with us." Rikki tells her.
"I'm not doing it OK? I didn't ask for any of this to happen to us so stop bugging me about it OK?" Cleo tells them.
|at school|
On her way to school Baryn told her that some Sea turtles are getting caught in nets and dragged away from their nests. After this Lewis tries to cheer her up and get her to see her powers as something positive but fails ultimately.
After school Lewis meets up with Emma, Rikki and Scott.
"You've bummed out right?" Rikki asks him nonchalantly.
"She's just taking a little time to…, Yeah I've bummed out." Lewis replies.
Cleo walks down some stairs and sees them but hesitates to go over to them.
"Forget about it, I'm sure she doesn't want to talk about it." Lewis tells them.
"You know, I could talk to her maybe it'll help." Scott offers.
"Forget about it, we can deal with this, it's a girl thing." Emma tells him, patting his shoulder and the two girls of the group go over to Cleo to try and talk about their situation but Cleo changes the topic to the sea turtles incident and Rikki reminds her that her father is a fisherman and likely the cause of it.
Meanwhile Lewis and Scott walk off to another location Lewis wants to show him.
"I really think I could have helped." Scott tells him while they leave school.
"You were serious? I thought you were trying to be nice." Lewis says surprised.
"No, I know what she's dealing with, I've been there." Scott tells him.
"Yeah, sorry. Loosing your mom must've not been easy." Lewis says.
"Yeah. Anyways, what did you want to show me again?" Scott asks as they make their way to Lewis's planned event.
That evening Cleo asks her father about the sea turtle incident and he tells her that he as well as any good fisherman doesn't catch sea turtles due to the net structure and the regulated fishing area.
The next day Rikki and Emma are out swimming again when they come across a fishing boat with a sea turtle caught in it's net. They rescue it by cutting up the net with a knife a fisherman left at the edge of the boat.
Later that day Cleo meets up with Emma and Rikki and after watching a TV report with her father saying that a rogue shark destroyed the fishing net the two of them inform her of what really happened, making Cleo disappointed. Rikki tries to argue that they didn't see her father but has to confirm that it was his boat. After the TV report every fisherman is heading out, wanting to hunt the shark, giving the girls no choice but to stay on land for now.
Soon after Cleo is standing near the pier of the juicenet café looking out to the sea, when Scott walks up to her.
"Hey, Rikki and Emma just told me about your dad. Sorry." Scott says sitting down next to her, while she's leaning against a beam.
"Great so the whole world knows my dad's a criminal. What would you do?" She asks him.
"I'm really not sure, my mom threw my dad out when I was young, I barely remember him. But I guess if you love yours try asking him directly, I mean he wasn't on the boat right? Maybe he just doesn't have control over his crew?" Scott replies.
"Sorry, I didn't know about your dad." Cleo says apologetically, sitting down next to him.
"It's cool. But hey upside of this is it takes your mind off of the whole mermaid thing." Scott tells her jokingly, nudging her from the side.
"I'm scared of it. Is that what everyone wanted to hear?" Cleo says after a big sigh.
"Everybody is scared of something. Look I don't know exactly what you're going through, but I've got a pretty good idea and I find it admirable that you're so strong.
"Just because I've got these powers doesn't mean I'm strong." Cleo disagrees moving to stand up.
"I'm not talking about the powers, I meant I find it admirable that despite having enough problems on your plate you still try to help, in this case the sea turtles." Scott tells her, stopping her from leaving.
"I guess, still doesn't help my situation." Cleo says, sitting back down.
"True enough but you've got to start getting some normalcy somewhere and I think you trying to help the sea turtles is a great start." Scott tells her.
During dinner that night Cleo finds out that her father wasn't on his own boat and that one of his fishermen has taken over for him while he helps on another boat.
|next day at the docks|
After her conversation during dinner Cleo decides to watch what's going on on her fathers boat and overhears Eddie, the fisherman taking over for her father tell his crewman that they're heading to a restricted area and are using the illegal nets.
Watching the boat take off Cleo is gathering her courage to follow it when Scott and Lewis approach her.
"Cleo what are you doing here?" Lewis asks.
"They're using the wrong nets and are headed to the wrong place." Cleo tells them, pointing at her father's boat.
"OK?" Lewis says confused.
"I'm going to stop them. Go and tell the others." Cleo tells them, jumping into the water just after, panicking once she's underwater until she notices her advantages due to being a mermaid and that swimming isn't a bad thing. After getting the hang of moving in her mermaid form she starts to follow the boat.
"Lewis, hand me your keys will ya?" Scott asks, climbing onto Lewis's small boat.
"What are you going to do?" Lewis asks handing him the keys.
"I'll follow them to make sure she's alright, while you inform the others. I don't know where they live." Scott tells him.
"Alright, but be careful." Lewis replies before taking off.
Cleo, following the boat doesn't notice them throwing out their net, once they see her on their sonar and gets caught in it, trying to get out until she realizes that it's better if she stays still and tries to conserve her breath.
The boat continues driving some more until they're sure that what they are assuming is the shark is in the net and Scott sees them stop before pulling in the net. He quickly throws down the anker of the small boat and takes off his shirt before diving underwater, having a bad feeling about this.
Once he's underwater he sees Emma and Rikki fast approaching and motions over to where the boat is, a few hundred meters away. Emma quickly grabs his hand and pulls him along with her as the three swim over to the net in seconds.
Scott motions to the top, where the motor is still pulling in the net and Emma realizes what he means and uses her powers to freeze the engine, stopping it.
While she's doing this Rikki tries to get Cleo out of the net until Scott taps her shoulder and takes her place, quickly shifting his hands into clawed ones and rips through he net with ease, catching Cleo alongside Rikki and shifts his hands back to normal. Emma makes her way back down to them and grabs hold of Scott again, to drag him along while he carries Cleo with Rikki. Once they're at Lewis's small boat they surface and Scott takes a deep breath before he climbs into the boat. Once he's in the boat he takes the offered Cleo into the boat and wants to see if she's breathing when she starts to move again.
"Cleo you gave us quite a scare." Rikki tells her, leaning on the edge of the boat with Emma.
"I panicked, I didn't know you could hold your breath for so long but then I remembered what you guys said and you know what? I lost count at 16 and a half minutes." Cleo says proudly.
"Scott what are you even doing here?" Emma asks him.
"I was following the boat to make sure Cleo is OK." Scott replies still out of breath.
"Well I am impressed you were able to hold your breath for so long." Emma tells him.
"Yeah, don't get used to it. I'm not exactly used to swimming all that much." Scott laughs.
"Anyways you guys want to come aboard or swim back?" Scott asks.
"I'm out." Rikki says swimming away abruptly.
"I'll come aboard, help me up." Emma tells him, reaching upwards. Scott grabs her under the arms while she puts them around his neck as he lifts her onto the small boat, lying her down next to Cleo.
"Well Rikki's powers sure would've been useful now." Scott says amused at seeing the two girls try to dry themselves off with some towels Lewis is keeping on the boat ever since they turned into mermaids and starts to help them, drying off Emma's tail.
A few minutes later both girls are dry and back to human.
"Well it certainly isn't the fastest way to deal with this." Scott says accepting the towels and wrings them out over the railing.
"Yeah, Rikki really is handy in this situation." Cleo agrees while Scott starts the motor on the boat to drive them back to the harbor.
"By the way couldn't you also just collect the water with your control over it?" Scott asks.
"I don't think so, for some reason any water source is only used as origin, I don't even know where the added water comes from." Cleo replies.
"Weird." Scott says, getting hit on his arm by Cleo in reply.
"By the way where is your shirt?" Emma asks him, now realizing that he's been shirtless the entire time, not that she's complaining.
Well, it now is soaked." Scott says motioning to under her seat.
"Oh, sorry." Emma says.
"No problem, it's warm enough today." Scott replies with a grin.
"So, we know barely anything about you Scott, do you have a girlfriend?" Cleo asks seeing Emma look at Scott intently, snapping her out of her thoughts.
"I did back in the states for a short time but she broke up just before my mother passed away. After that the only people I had contact with were my best friend and my boss, the towns Vet." Scott informs them.
"So, no current attachment." Cleo says, looking at Emma with a smirk.
"You worked with a Vet? Maybe you'd want to check out the Waterpark, they've got a bunch of animal caretakers and pay the helpers quite good I hear." Emma says trying to avoid Cleo's relationship trap.
"Hmm interesting, I've been thinking of getting a part time job. Thanks for the idea Emma." Scott replies.
"You know I'm betting you have a lot of school stuff you have problems with, due to the different subjects, if you need help Emma here is a straight A student and a gifted tutor." Cleo suggests.
"Impressive. Smart and beautiful. But I think on the school front I'm alright, our school back in the states actually was harder than the one here and I've got Lewis as a roommate so…" Scott says amused.
"So you're smart and beautiful huh?" Cleo whispers to Emma teasingly.
"Shut it." Emma whispers back annoyedly.
"Anyways what about you girls? Any special clubs or jobs?" Scott asks them, wanting to get to know them better, Cleo because Lewis likes her and Emma because he thinks she's very attractive and could see him growing to like her.
"Well, I'm not really in any club but I am in fact looking for a job at the waterpark myself." Cleo tells them.
"Cleo?" Emma says worriedly.
"Don't worry, I've checked I would be feeding the dolphins, there isn't any reason for me to get wet." Cleo tries to reassure her.
"If you say so, but be extra careful, we don't need our secret exposed because you had to swim with the dolphins." Emma tells her.
"Well, back to topic, I've been in the swim club my entire life, but as you can guess I've had to give that up." Emma says disappointedly.
"Come on Emma cheer up. I'm sure you'll find something else you'll enjoy just as much. You just have to keep looking." Scott tells her, hoping to lift her spirits.
"trust me, you'll get there." Scott tells her, helping her back on dry land after they dock in Lewis's usual spot.
"Anyways, I've gotta go girls. There is still a lot of stuff regarding my mothers passing I have to deal with, selling the house and such. Lewis's mom and my old boss are helping me but it'll probably take a lot of time till everything is finally settled." Scott says.
"If I can help in anyway just let me know." Emma offers.
"Thanks, but I think I'll be OK." Scott says with a big grin on his face as he takes off.
"Any way you can huh?" Cleo teases her friend as they go over to the juicenet café, getting an annoyed "stop it." In reply.