I was in my room getting dressed for my first day of school. High school as a matter of fact. It was my last year as a freshman. In Aussie schools, the grades 7, 8, and 9 are all freshman years. Weird huh? Ugh. I used to ask myself: What is the meaning of all this…work? This by the way, is the nastiest 4-letter word of the English language. I had already set out my clothes: A blue/white striped shirt, jean shorts, and black sneakers. Anyways, as I was about to head downstairs to have breakfast, my phone rang. Sighing, I looked at the caller ID, and it was Helen.

"Hello?" I asked, picking up the phone.

"Guess you're feeling a tad nervous huh?" she asked. "Besides the fact that we're still the stinking fresh meat in high school?"

"Just another first day of school. Well high school in our case." I replied.

"I wasn't talking about that, I was talking about the mermaid thing." Helen deadpanned. "What if you get splashed and turned into a swordfish?"

"Good point." I squeaked. That's when Rose got on the same line as us.

"How is Ariel here going to get splashed?" she asked with a giggle.

"School's a danger zone, there's a kajillion ways." I pointed out.

"Name one for moi." She announced cockily.

"Water fountains for example, I mean drinking and the actual fountains. Sweat?" Kimi pointed out, apparently gotten on the same phone line.

"Don't stress girl." Helen soothed. "You've always been a bit of a tosser."

"I'm not stressed. Just worried." I replied. "Oh and Helen? Not helping, but thanks."

"Anytime, fish-femme." She chuckled. I smiled in response at her antics.

After biking to the Ocean café, which was the hangout for teens in the city, I arrived across a very weird sight: My brother eating prawns for breakfast. I know that he ate fish on that camping trip, but this was a little strange. It was like he was dying for the taste of seafood. But believe me, this was only the beginning of my very strange first day back at high school. I walked past 3 girls, who were looking at my brother like they were studying him and I sat down with Evie, Zac girlfriend. I used to tease him about his crush for a couple of years. Evie was a brunette nice girl but she was nosy like nobody's business. Literally. She would do anything to find out about someone's secret.

"Hey." I said to Evie.

"Hey Blair." She smiled at me.

"What's up little sis?" My brother said, with a mouthful of prawns. When I saw him eat one, I nearly gagged.

"You ok?" asked Cam who was seated next to him.

"Yeah, I just hate seafood." I replied, my voice straining with disgust.

"You know, I've never actually met anyone who hates fish so much." Evie spoke.

"You already have, sister." I piped up.

That's when a black haired girl came over to me and noticed my aqua blue gemstone ring."That's a lovely ring you have on there." she said. "I'm Nixie." She smiled as I did. But for some reason her face looked like she was trying to do what a normal human being would do in a conversation. She took one look at my ring and said, "That's quite a lovely ring you got."

"Thanks. I'm Blair." I replied.

"Wherever did you get it?" She asked me with suspicion.

"It was my mothers." I answered. "I think."

She looked at me with fear within her eyes. "Your mother's?" She asked, her voice trembling.

"I lost my parents when I was a kid." I paused, giving them a moment for them. "This ring is all I have left of my birth mom."

"Your birth mom?" She whispered.

"I'm adopted." I explained. "I moved here when I was 5."

"Oh. Speaking of which, I noticed your accent." She noted with a smile. "It doesn't sound like it's from Australia."

"It's not. I moved here from the United States." I remarked.

"So you're Western?" Nixie asked.

"I guess." I answered a little confused. Just as she was about to ask me more questions, Kimi pulled me away from her and says that she's probably some news reporter, because she reminded us about one person who can get under our skin by being curious: Evie. But for now, school was to start in 20 minutes and we needed to get there on foot now.

Later at school…

We arrived there just at the nick of time. Suncoast High School, my cage, consisting of a fiery pit of homework and tests. This was it. Time to grow up. We entered to the Hall of Doom, also known as the locker area. We had already known where they were, and as usual, fate put us next to each other. But for some reason, fate put our lockers, next to Zac, Cam, Evie, and her friend, Carly. We unpacked our stuff, and we had History first period.Great. Terrific. I just started high school, and I had the world's most reminding subject as my first class.

Later that day…

We were at lunch after Health class. Torture it was, health. It just gives me headaches thinking about the structure of the human body, when I was never a real human to begin with. Then with a good lunch break, I was talking to my friends about some rumors that they heard about Suncoast.

"I heard rumors of the sophomore bio. lab having mutants to dissect." Kimi spoke up. "Part frog, part tuna, all cannibals."

"Well I heard that the basketball court used to be flooded when it rained due to poor roofing." Rose added in.

"There's this big rumor that Taxiride went here and dropped out." Helen said. "Well Thalie, heard anything?"

"Nothing really, though Ms. Santos seems to take a liking to me." I said simply.

"Rita Santos, the ever-mysterious school principal takes a liking to a student?" Helen snapped. "HA! I'd like to see that happen!"

"I'll tell you how it happened. I almost bumped into Principal Santos before 4th period. Instead of being mad, she just smiled and said "Carry on. Oh and Blair? I'm sorry that your mother couldn't keep you. But just know that she loved you very much. Someday you'll meet her." I couldn't understand what she was talking about." Ever since Year 8 she had been super nice to me and kind of sweet even though she's very distant and scary.

That when things took a turn down Weirdsville.

"Uh Blair. You might wanna take a look at your ring." Rose pointed out. I looked down to my ring, only to find it glowing. Then, I noticed Zac looking a little pained. Could I have been doing this? Was my magic ring doing this? I didn't have time to figure it out, because a water fountain behind me exploded and lunged toward me. I tried to run away from it, but I could swear for one second, it seemed to follow me. I closed my eyes for a second, and I felt a ton of water dumped on me. It took a second to realize that I was wet, and I needed to get dry. And fast. I ran for cover, and found a storage room. Using my powers I tried to levitate the water off me, but unfortunately, bad luck seemed to catch up to me. I couldn't stand anymore, because I didn't have legs anymore. I only had my golden tail back. This is not my day.I scowled in embarrassment. I looked around and then I saw a paper towel roll. I tried to grab for it, but I could not reach it, for obvious reasons. I then realized that I had super powers, such as heating things. Duh! I put my hand over my tail, and concentrated on heating. Sure enough my tail started to heat up. After a few seconds of trying to see through the fog, I saw myself in my clothes.

"Blair? Blair where are you?" I hear Evie's voice.

Great. Just what I needed. An investigation. I stood up, and got out of the room.

"Blair!" I heard Zac.

"I'm fine Zac." I said before running off to find my friends. Sure enough, I found them.

"That was way too close." Kimi said, gasping in relief. "We are not using that ring in school ever again."

"It wasn't me!" I cried out.

"Blair, who else in this school has a magic ring?" Helen asked.

"Maybe you just lost control." Kimi said.

"I'm telling you. It wasn't me!"

Line break….

We arrived back at my house to my room.

"Wow!" Rose says. "What a day. How many people get to have a first day of school like that? That was epic!"

"Epic?" I asked in worry. "It was out of control!"

"She's right Rosie." Helen snapped. "Blair here is so lucky she didn't get caught!"

"What did happen with that fountain? What were you doing with that ring of yours?" Kimi asked, turning towards me.

"Nothing." I said.

"Your ring was glowing at random." Helen pointed out.

"It usually doesn't do that." I said. "Oh, and I smoothed things over with Zac. Drama over."

"This has been one strange day." Helen muttered under her breath. "Now I've got homework."

Out of nowhere Rose yelled, "PILLOW FIGHT!" She tackled Helen with a pillow who got up and threw a pillow. Before we could even register what we were doing, we all got into a pillow fight.