Reef-Sanity!

Story 1-1: "Destiny, Bailey, and Those Freaky Fridays"

The sun rose on a quiet, seemingly normal Friday on the reef. It, of course, saw Nemo heading off to school with the other fish on the reef.

As Nemo, Marlin, and Dory were heading off that direction, Nemo brought up something that he thought he saw last night.

"Hey, Dad," Nemo asked, "did you see something weird last night?"

"Well…no, why do you ask?" Marlin asked.

"I was just wondering," Nemo continued, "I woke up during the night last night and I thought I saw something glowing falling from the surface of the water. It landed nearby…I think it might have just been a dream, though."

"I wish I could remember my dreams," Dory commented, "I think the one I had last night was pretty good."

The subject drifted away from what Nemo thought he saw last night as they continued toward school assembly.

Having returned from migration, Mr. Ray had resumed his teaching position (while Hank had gone to get some much needed rest and wasn't going to show up until later) with Destiny and Bailey continuing to assist where they could. Currently, he was telling the students about what they could expect to learn today.

"Okay, kids!" Mr. Ray said cheerfully, "Today we're going to start by taking a field trip to learn about our friend the brain coral. When we get back we'll learn about another close friend of ours: Bailey!"

The kids groaned in disapproval.

"Me?" Bailey said, startled himself.

"Don't you remember me telling you yesterday that Mr. Ray wanted you to talk about yourself for school today?" Destiny asked Bailey.

"Erm…" Bailey admitted. Despite several months having passed since arriving back at the reef, the kids still didn't seem very interested in learning about belugas. The idea of Bailey teaching a disinterested class about himself was a very uncomfortable idea to him. And he had no idea what to say that would get the class interested in learning about belugas like him.

"You don't know what to say, do you?" Destiny said, mildly exasperated.

"Well, yes, and there's also...erm...I'll try to think of something before then…maybe…oh no…" Bailey said as he swam off muttering to himself.

"Don't just tell them you bumped your head really hard!" Destiny called after him, half-jokingly and half-not jokingly.

"I know already!"

Several minutes later, Nemo, Marlin, and Dory arrived at the assembly area.

"Destiny! Hi!" said Dory.

"Oh, hi guys," said Destiny, "you're just in time, I think we're about to get started. Hi, Nemo!"

"Hi, Destiny!" said Nemo. Then he looked around and noticed that Bailey was missing. "Where's Bailey?"

"Oh, he was just preparing to talk with the kids," she replied, "Mr. Ray wants him to talk about beluga whales during school today after you get back from your field trip. I should probably find him before too much longer. Hopefully he didn't go too far away."

"Alright," said Marlin as he turned to go, "have a good day at school, Nemo! Be careful!"

"Bye, Dad!" Nemo said, going off to join some of his friends.

"Ok!" said Dory, "So Bailey is going to be talking about himself today, right?"

"Yes, he is," said Destiny, "I'm going to go find him. I shouldn't be gone too long."

"Ok, Destiny!" said Dory.

As the kids began to get situated and as Destiny was looking for him, Bailey was pacing around trying to think of something to say to the kids that would win them over.

"I could show off my echolocation, right? Or I could tell them about where I'm from…? Gah! I'm going to embarrass myself in front of a bunch of disinterested kids!"

Absently, he spun around in a circle. As he did, something shiny nearby caught his eye.

Swimming over to it, he found that it was a strange golden heart-shaped amulet. It had a small gold chain attached to it and, strangely, had a speaker on the back of it.

"What is this thing?" He muttered to himself.

"Bailey!"

Bailey spun around to see Destiny swimming up to him.

"Mr. Ray is about to leave! Do you have something?" Destiny asked.

"I…no…" Bailey said.

Destiny groaned. "Bailey…"

"Hey, why can't you tell them about me?" Bailey asked, "You know more about me than I do."

"I don't know everything about how you tick," said Destiny, "Even if I did, this should be something that you need to do, not me."

Bailey sighed. "I wish I didn't have to do this…" He started fiddling around with the locket in his flipper.

"What's that, Bailey?" Destiny asked.

"Just some weird shiny thing I found while pacing around," Bailey answered, "Someone must have lost it."

"Hmm, can I see it?" Destiny asked, reaching her fin over to take it.

The instant she touched it, however, there was a blinding flash. They both were knocked unconscious.

At the school assembly area, the kids took notice of the strange flash.

"What was that?" Tad asked as the kids chattered in bewilderment.

Nemo noticed that it had come from the direction Destiny had gone off to find Bailey. Concerned, he swam off to see if they were both okay.

After swimming for a bit, he came across them both floating in the water, seemingly fast asleep.

"Hey guys," Nemo said, tapping Bailey's flipper, "are you ok?"

Feeling something tapping her fin, Destiny opened her eyes and saw Nemo in front of her.

"Oh! Nemo, it's just you. You won't believe want just happened!" she said, "Bailey showed me this weird shiny thing he found on the ground, and when I touched it…"

"Uh…Bailey?" Nemo asked, "are you feeling okay?"

"'Bailey'? Don't be silly, Nemo! I'm not-" suddenly, Destiny stopped mid-sentence. She just now realized that she was speaking in Bailey's voice. Examining herself, she saw Bailey's rubbery-looking white body instead of her own normal blue spotted one. Then she looked up and saw her own body floating in front of herself!

"Aiyeeeeee!" Destiny shrieked, "I died and came back as Bailey! Why?!"

"Huh? Bailey, what's wrong?" Nemo was confused.

Suddenly, Destiny's body jerked awake.

"I died?! Since when?" she said.

Right away, Bailey realized something was very wrong. Not only did he feel a lot bigger, but upon examining himself he saw that he now had Destiny's massive blue and white body, as well as gills instead of a blowhole. Looking up, he saw a white blur that he immediately recognized as his own body.

"B-Bailey…" Destiny-now-Bailey asked nervously, "Is that you?"

"Yes," Bailey-now-Destiny said, "Destiny, are you ME?!"

"Yes I am!"

"Augh!" they both screamed and began blubbering in stupefied horror at each other.

"Hey! Stop!" Nemo shouted.

Destiny and Bailey quickly stopped talking and looked at Nemo.

"Wouldn't you panic too if you just turned into your best acquaintance?!" Bailey said, "Oh the humanity! The horror! Why?!"

"Stop making my voice say things like that," said Destiny, "it sounds weird."

"So…you both turned into each other or something?" Nemo said, trying to put the pieces together.

"Really looks like it," said Destiny, feeling her newly-gained melon, "Being Bailey is so…weird! How do you see past this thing with such beady little eyes?"

"I'm still wondering how you see!" said Bailey, "Now that I'm you, everything seems so much blurrier! No wonder you were always running into walls back at the Marine Life Institute before I decided I would be your eyes! And furthermore, your mouth is huge! You could swallow me in one bite with a mouth this big! And my eyes aren't beady!"

"Well, they are compared to mine!" Destiny retorted, "I bet my eyes feel so much bigger and nicer!"

"Guys! Stop!" Nemo yelled, "Calm down. How did this happen to you?"

"Maybe it was Bailey's echolocation," Destiny said, "it echoed so loud it switched our brains."

"Destiny!" Bailey yelled, "I wasn't even trying to echolocate right then...now let's see...erm…Oh, I know! I think it was that shiny thing I found!"

"What shiny thing?" Nemo asked, "Bailey, I mean, Destiny mentioned it as she was waking up."

Bailey looked beside himself and saw the amulet lying back on the ground.

"Oh, there it is!" he said, "I'm not touching it again."

Nemo swam around them to the amulet.

"So, you both touched this and that's when you think you both turned into each other?" Nemo asked.

"It had to be!" said Destiny, "Nothing happened until I touched it! Don't touch it unless you want to turn into one of us, too!"

"Maybe you should both touch it again," Nemo suggested, "Maybe that'll turn you both back to normal."

Immediately, they both took it back up and braced themselves for the switch back. Nothing happened.

"Nothing's happening!" said Bailey worriedly.

"What did we do last time when we touched it together?" Destiny said.

Suddenly, a tinny voice came out of the speaker on the amulet. Being underwater, it was fairly difficult to make out, but once it started, the three of them went silent to hear what it was saying:

"You will not be allowed to switch back until 24 hours of time has passed or certain conditions have been met," the voice warbled, "thank you for using Whackos Amazing Body-Swapping Locket."

"We have to be like this for an entire day?!" Bailey cried burying his face in Destiny's fins, "Ohhhhh…!"

"Certain conditions?" Destiny asked, "What certain conditions?"

"I don't know," said Nemo.

"Well, I guess we're stuck like this until tomorrow," Destiny sighed, "What are we going to tell everyone else though?"

Then suddenly, both she and Bailey remembered what was supposed to be happening in Mr. Ray's class today.

"Oh no!" Bailey cried, "I'm supposed to tell the kids about myself! I can't tell them about myself when I am clearly not myself! What am I going to do?"

"If you're going to suggest that I take your place at the class today, the answer is no, Bailey," said Destiny.

"But how else will it work?" Bailey said, "We're out of time to come up with any other ideas."

"No, we aren't," said Destiny, "The kids still have to go on their field trip! We can think of something before then. Just calm. Down."

"Ok, I'm sorry," said Bailey.

"We'd better get you back to assembly before they leave without you, Nemo," said Destiny, "come on, Bailey, let's go."

"We can't go back there like this!" Bailey protested, "In case you've somehow forgotten, that locket or whatever it's called switched our bodies!"

"Yes, but Nemo's the only one besides us who knows about it," said Destiny, "if you have to, just act like me, ok? We've been around each other long enough to act like each other, right?"

"Well…I guess you're right…" Bailey said.

"Great, let's go," said Destiny.

"Should we take the locket with us?" Nemo asked.

"Maybe we should," said Bailey, "You know, just in case we meet whatever its 'certain conditions' are before tomorrow."

"Yeah, let's do that," said Destiny.

Bailey picked up the amulet and the three of them started toward the assembly area…or at least tried to.

"I'm not getting anywhere!" said Bailey. He was moving his now vertical tail fin up and down like he normally would.

"Swim like you see me swim, Bailey!" said Destiny, "And now I should start swimming like you do."

Once Destiny and Bailey got used to their new tail fins, then they started back for the assembly area.

A few minutes later, they made it back. The kids had all gathered around the center of the open area and Mr. Ray was singing a song, like he usually did. Hank had shown up and was conversing with Dory as Nemo, Destiny, and Bailey returned. Upon seeing them, Dory quickly swam up to them.

"Hi, guys!" she said cheerfully, swimming up to them, "They're just about to leave, Nemo, you'd better catch up! Have fun!"

"Ok, bye guys!" said Nemo. He turned to Destiny and Bailey.

"I hope you guys can get back to normal as soon as you can," he said.

"Don't worry, Nemo," said Bailey, "We'll try."

Nemo then went off to join the rest of his class. Shortly afterward, they set off on their field trip.

"Back to normal?" Hank repeated as they watched Nemo's class go off, "What did Nemo mean by that?"

"Oh, erm, nothing Hank," said Destiny nervously, "Ba-,er, Destiny and I just had a bit of a tiff over my plans for my talk this afternoon. We just haven't been…erm, feeling like ourselves this morning."

"Well…whatever you say," said Hank, slightly confused. He didn't seem to be buying that things were completely normal.

Before any of them could say anything else, Dory swam up and noticed the amulet Bailey was holding.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Oh, that's just something Bailey found," Bailey said, finding it difficult to refer to himself as a different person.

"Can I look at it?" Dory asked.

"Erm, I don't think so," said Bailey, "there's something about it I don't like."

"Let me see it," said Hank, reaching a tentacle over, "I feel like I've seen something like this before."

Not wanting to become a seven-legged octopus, Bailey immediately dropped the locket just before Hank touched it.

"Looks like something that used to be at the Marine Life Institute," he remarked as he examined it, "I went by the gift shop plenty of times and saw these heart shaped lockets in there with the other ones. How one got all the way out here is beyond me."

"Are you…are you sure it's normal?" Destiny asked.

"Destiny, are we just dreaming that we're each other?" Bailey whispered to her.

"We must have some really vivid imaginations if we are,"

"Yeah, doesn't seem off to me," said Hank.

As they had been looking at it, Dory had been watching as Nemo and the others left on their field trip. She turned around to see Hank holding the locket. Her short-term memory meant that she had forgotten what they had been talking about involving the locket, and thus she forgot Destiny and Bailey's warnings not to touch it. Curious, she swam up to the locket.

"Oh, Hank, what's that you have there?" Dory said, swimming up to touch it.

"Dory! No! Stop!" both Destiny and Bailey shouted.

But it was too late, before Dory could heed their warnings, her fin grazed the locket and there was another flash. Now Hank and Dory floated unconsciously like Destiny and Bailey had previously.

"Oh no, not them too!" Bailey cried, putting his, er, Destiny's head in his flippers, "What are we going to do?"

"I…I don't know," said Destiny.

After sitting there for a moment, Destiny spoke up.

"Hmm, I think we should take them back home and hide the locket before someone else finds it." Destiny said. "We'll leave a note for Dory's parents explaining what happened if they aren't there."

"So where should we hide the locket?" Bailey asked.

"We'll hide it at my place," said Destiny, "No one should find it there. After that, we need to get to work figuring out how your talk this afternoon is going to work, ok?"

"Ok…" said Bailey.

With that, the two of them went into action. They took Dory and Hank to Dory's place. Jenny and Charley were indeed not home, necessitating the need for Destiny and Bailey to take kelp and write "Hank is Dory and Dory is Hank" just outside.

"Okay, now that this is taken care of, let's hide the locket and try to work around being each other's bodies," said Destiny, swimming confidently toward her residence.

"Oh…this is going to be a long day…" Bailey moaned as he followed her.