A/N: Why is it that even when you have summer vacation that you still don't get around to writing your stories? I wonder. Anyway thanks for reading and reviewing. Here is chapter 9. Enjoy!
Previously... Amber, Sarah and Emily thought Rachel was acting weird. They thought she was seeing Ryan and that she told her mother the secret. This caused the girls to not trust her. The girls are attacked by a tentacle during the full moon, however Rachel was able to save them. Strangely she wasn't moonstruck and it turns out that she has all the powers from the other three. The girls talked to Rachel and it turned out that it was all misunderstandings. Now on to the chapter.
Chapter 9: Cold Front
Although it was early in the morning Emily could already feel the heat that the day would bring. While she ate her breakfast she listened to the radio. "Today will be the hottest of the season, so everyone should always have a cool drink at ready," the meteorologist said. Looking at the clock, she got up and left for school.
As soon as she stepped outside she could feel the heat crushing her. Although she was used to hot days in Australia, this day seemed to be the hottest she could remember. By the time Emily had walked up her driveway to meet up with Amber and Sarah, she was already sweat soaked. After greeting them they walked off. "Man, it's hot today," Amber complained.
"It's unusually hot for this season. I think it's even hotter than in the summer," Sarah replied.
"And we have to spend the day in school. Well, at least they have air-conditioning," Amber muttered.
"We have more important things to worry about. Remember what today is?" Emily asked.
"Besides a hot day?" Amber joked, getting her a glare from Emily.
"Good morning," someone said and the girls turned to see Rachel, hurrying towards them, "Is everyone ready?"
"How can you be so energetic on such a hot day?" Amber questioned.
"Heat doesn't bother me much. I cope with it pretty well," Rachel explained, smiling, "So is everyone ready?"
"As ready as one can be for a new moon," Emily replied.
"Maybe we should have skipped school," Amber suggested.
"No way. We have a test in science today. We can't miss that," Emily objected.
"Maybe you can't, but I sure could," Amber muttered.
"Let me guess you studied for 5 minutes and then closed the book," Emily criticized.
"Wrong. I studied for 10 minutes while watching a movie," Amber told her and Emily only shook her head in dismay, "Not everyone studies for hours, Emily."
"I did. I can't afford a bad grade in science. Though after studying so much, I still think I didn't study enough," Sarah muttered, worried.
"Don't worry. I'm sure you'll do fine. I don't think it'll be that hard," Rachel comforted her.
"Says you, the science ace," Sarah retorted.
"Come on. It has to do with the ocean and the environment. That's right up our alley," Rachel objected and Sarah gave a meek smile.
"Say when does the moon rise again?" Amber asked, trying to get away from the subject of school.
"Around 10 A.M. We're lucky though. It's up for 10 hours, so it's pretty short," Emily replied.
"Speaking of ocean and moon, I've been wondering about something. Since the new moon is during the daytime, will it effect us? I mean if a full moon is during the daytime, it has no effect on us. Maybe the new moon works on the same principle, so we would be overreacting, not to mention safe," Sarah told them.
"I wouldn't be too sure about that. We get moonstruck when we see the full moon, so it's impossible for us to be moonstruck during the day when the sunlight is overpowering the moonlight. However if I understood you correctly it's different with the new moon. There we are, in a sense moonstruck, if we use our powers during the time that the new moon is up. So I think that since we don't need to see the moon, we could still be moonstruck during the day time," Rachel analyzed. After the near disaster with the full moon a few weeks ago, Sarah, Emily and Amber had told Rachel about the strange events during the new moon.
"Lets not try and find out," Amber said, whose head was starting to smoke from all the thinking.
"We were lucky that the full moon ended the way it did," Sarah added.
"Though I still don't understand why Rachel wasn't effected by the moon," Emily muttered, thoughtfully.
"Maybe because she is stronger than us," Amber suggested, which got her looks from the others, "She does have all three of our powers."
"I don't think that's it. Remember what our mothers told us. Even Charlotte got moonstruck and she had the same abilities as Rachel," Emma reminded her.
"Speaking of mothers, here Rachel. For you," Sarah said and handed Rachel an envelope with her name written on it in golden, elegant letters.
"What is this?" Rachel asked, curiously and opened it, "An invitation to Cleo and Lewis' wedding. Thanks."
"Of course. You're a part of us now. You can bring someone one along as well," Sarah replied.
Rachel read the invitation, smiling, but then her smile faded and she confessed, "I'm sorry, I can't come. On that day my grandpa is celebrating his 95th birthday. I hope you can understand."
"Of course, I can. Congratulate your grandpa from us. It's just too bad, though. I guess it can't be changed," Sarah muttered, a bit disappointed.
"Tell your mother thank you for the invite and that I'm sorry that I can't come. Also congratulate her from me on the big day," Rachel told her and Sarah nodded.
Just then they arrived at school. Science was the third period and the time seemed to pass by quickly. While Sarah dreaded the coming of the third period, Amber, Emily and Rachel were more relaxed, though for different reasons. Emily and Rachel were both sure in their skills, whereas Amber didn't really care. The break before third period seemed to be there in a flash and now Emily, Amber and Sarah stood in the hallway that Mr. Martin's science room was on.
"I don't think I'll be able to think in this heat," Sarah muttered, nervously as she stared at a page in her science book.
"Don't worry, you'll do fine," Emily assured her, resting a hand on her shoulder.
"Where is Rachel? Shouldn't she be here too?" Amber asked, looking around.
"You know she always reviews her notes alone before a test. It's her way of last minute studying," Emily reminded her and Amber nodded.
"It's just our luck that the moon should be rising any minute now. We have to concentrate on the test and at the same time worry about the moon," Amber said.
"It's the price we pay for our abilities," Emily whispered and then turned to walk off, "I need a drink. It's too hot."
With that she headed to a water fountain that was not far from where she had been. Luckily although it was really hot, there was only one person in front of her. After he was done, Emily stepped in front of it. She pushed down the button and lowered her head to the fountain, awaiting cool water, but nothing came out. Confused she tried it again, again without success. "What the… It worked fine a minute ago," Emily muttered, slightly annoyed. She tried it one last time, this time with more force.
Suddenly water came out of the fountain, shooting high into the air. Lightning quick Emily jumped back, avoiding the first of the water spray. She was about to relax, when she looked up and saw the water coming down. Instinctively Emily raised her hand, activated her powers and froze the water.
As the icicles dropped to the ground, shattering, Emily froze, only now realizing what she had done. Carefully, she looked around, meeting eyes with Amber and Sarah, who had both seen everything. Miraculously nobody else seemed to notice, either busy studying or already being in the classroom. Emily let out a shaking sigh of relief, but then she remembered. The new moon! Had it already risen?
Quickly, Emily hurried to her friends. "Are you alright?" Sarah asked, worried.
"I'm fine. Do you have any idea, if the moon rose yet?" Emily replied, but her friends shrugged. Hurrying to a window, they looked outside. The sun still shone like crazy and the heat didn't seem to have let up.
"Is something wrong?" Rachel asked, coming up to them. Quickly they clued her in. "Well, everything seems fine," Rachel said.
"You could try using your powers and see if they're still there," Amber suggested.
"Bad idea. The moon is definitely up by now," Rachel objected, pointing to her watch, "We can only hope that you barely missed the rising."
"Excuse me, if I'm interrupting your private conversation, but could you please grace us with your presences," someone said, causing the girls to turn around. It was Mr. Martin, who was standing in the doorway to his classroom. In their worries they had completely overheard the bell ringing for class. Apologizing the girls quickly filed into the classroom and took their seats.
"Now everyone has a paper? Good. The time you have is written on the board. I will remind you before we start that if I catch you cheating, I will flunk you," Mr. Martin told them and then looked at his watch, "Begin." There was a rustle of papers as everyone turned their papers around and began.
A good fifteen minutes had passed. Although Emily had already written quite a bit, she couldn't really concentrate. Her mind kept wondering back to the incident a few minutes before. Had she really gotten lucky? Not to mention it was impossible to think in this heat.
"Mr. Martin, could you close the blinds. The sunlight is blinding me," someone said and the teacher complied, walking to the window.
His hand was halfway to the blinds, when it froze. "What the…," he stammered. Outside he saw clouds rapidly engulfing the sky, blocking out the sun.
The students used their teacher's distraction to discuss their answers. "What do you have here?" Amber asked, pointing to a question on Emily's paper.
"Don't you dare," Emily hissed and gently slapped Amber's hand.
"It's snowing," interrupted Mr. Martin's confused voice the class. The four mermaids wheeled around, horrified. True to his word, it was snowing. Along with everyone else they hurried to the window, the test forgotten. "How is that possible? It's way too hot to be snowing," Mr. Martin stammered, astonished as he watched large snowflakes fall to the ground.
"I guess that answers that question," Amber muttered, jokingly.
"Not a good time. This is really bad," Rachel retorted as the girls quietly stepped away from the crowd.
"Well at least the explanation that a mermaid under the control of the new moon is doing this won't immediately pop into people's minds," Amber said.
"Amber," the three hissed.
"We really have a problem. It's obvious that this isn't normal," Emily whispered.
"And us worrying about it will do what exactly? We can't do anything about it now. We can only hope that things don't get worse," Amber retorted, firmly. Sadly the others had to nod their head in agreement. Amber was right.
They sat their in silence as the others continue to watch the snow fall. "Is it just me or is it getting colder in here?" Sarah asked, rubbing her arms.
"No, it's not you. The temperature dropped several degrees in the last few minutes," Emily pointed out, her teeth chattering a bit, "And if my guess is correct, it will get even colder."
"Then we'll freeze to death. Nobody brought anything warm. Everyone was prepare for the hottest day of the year. We're all wearing shorts and tank tops," Amber said.
"I hope someone is smart enough to turn off the air conditioning," Rachel added, also trying to warm herself.
After about half a hour the temperature had dropped to the point where snow could really fall and the snow itself already went to the people's ankles and still falling rapidly. By then everyone was already huddled together, trying to keep warm. "How ironic to be freezing on the hottest day of the year," Sarah muttered as she watched Mr. Martin writing some long, complex scientific theory on the blackboard, trying to explain the sudden change in weather, "Aren't you cold, Amber?"
Amber was sitting a bit off from the rest, seemingly pretty unaffected. "Not really. I'm pretty hot blooded," Amber replied. She didn't like being enclosed by other people.
"Somehow that doesn't surprise me," Emily said.
Amber was about to give a sharp remark, when the loudspeakers gave a crack and the principal's voice announced, "Attention, everyone. Do to the sudden weather changes, school is cancelled for the rest of the day." A cheer went through the entire school. "However it is unlikely that anyone will be able to brave this storm and make it home safely, so for now everyone is instructed to come to the gym and wait out the storm," the principal told them.
Everyone followed the orders and walked to the gym. "I wonder if they have turned on the heater yet? Does this school even have a heater?" Sarah asked.
"I don't know, but if they do, its smart to send us all in one place. It could take days for the heater to heat the entire school. By putting us all in one room the time it takes to heat should be drastically reduced. Not to mention a lot of people make a lot of body heat," Rachel answered and Sarah nodded as they found a place in the gym to sit down.
They sat there in silence, knowing they wouldn't be out of there for a long time. Suddenly Emily's phone rang in her pocket. Taking it out, she saw that it was Emma. "Mom," she answered the phone.
"Emily, are you doing this?" Emma demanded. Emily stared at the phone.
"Of course not. Why would I?" Emily replied, feeling guilty for lying.
"Emily… Ans….," were the only fragments of what her mother said that got through before the line went dead.
"No reception," Emily said as she saw her friends' gazes. Only now did it really strike her. This was her fault, even if it didn't feel like it. She drew up her legs and rested her head on her knees.
Amber stood, looking down at her friend. She was about to say something, when someone said, "Hey Amber."
"No, please. Not him," she silently begged as she turned around and saw that her silent prayer wasn't heard. It was Heath. "What do you want?" Amber demanded, already annoyed.
"Pretty weird weather, huh?" Heath asked.
"Just tell me what you want," Amber repeated.
"I was wondering if you needed my jacket. I always keep one in my locker in case and since we have such nice chemistry…," he told her, showing her the jacket in his hand.
"What chemistry? The only time we were alone was on that business meeting of our dads and that was arranged by you. Get lost. Give you jacket to one of your cheerleaders," Amber snapped, not in the mood for any of this. With that Heath left.
"Annoying," Amber muttered as she turned back to her friends.
"Wow, even in this cold, you're still as hot tempered as ever," Jordan said, coming up to them along with Ryan. Their respective girlfriends gave them a kiss.
"Say, Emily is this your doing?" Ryan asked.
"Does it look like I'm using my magic?" Emily retorted, looking up.
"Okay, I was just asking," Ryan said, defensively.
"Say, schools already cancelled, so why don't you melt all the snow and we can get out of here," Jordan suggested to Amber. The girls stared at him, remembering that they had decided to keep it to themselves.
"That's impossible. Sure I could melt the snow, but if it keeps snowing, it'll just be snowed over again. I can't make the clouds go away," Amber lied. She didn't know if she would lose her powers too if she used them, but she wasn't about to find out.
"Couldn't Sarah blow them away with wind and if it's too hard for one, Rachel could help?" Ryan asked.
"We can't do it," Rachel replied curtly, coming to Amber's rescue and the guys finally seemed to give up. They sat down and waited.
Meanwhile Emily had been too deep in her own thought to hear the discussion. It was her fault, wasn't it? If she hadn't used her magic, this wouldn't have happened. Had she been more careful this could have been avoided. Then they wouldn't be stuck in the gym. These thoughts revolved in her head, not letting her go.
Emily didn't notice the worried looks that her friends exchanged. Rachel stepped over to Amber and whispered something in her ear to which Amber nodded. Rachel motioned for Sarah to get Emily. Carefully Sarah pulled Emily up and forced her to follow them, Emily not giving a protest.
"Where are you going?" Jordan asked.
"Bathroom," Amber replied, quickly and hurried off.
Leaving the warming gym, they stepped into the cold hallway. Emily was surrounded by her friends.
"What?" she whispered. The girls could now clearly see that Emily's blue eyes were dazed.
Suddenly Amber raised her hand and slapped Emily. "Amber!" Sarah exclaimed, while Emily cried, holding her reddening cheek, "What was that for?"
"Snap out of it," Amber said.
"Emily, none of this is your fault, so don't go blaming yourself," Rachel told her.
"But it is my fault. If I hadn't used my powers, this wouldn't have happened," Emily objected, weakly.
"Do I have to slap you again?" Amber asked, annoyed.
"Think about it, Emily. Which is worse? Transforming into a mermaid in front of everyone and being carted off to some science lab or having to be stuck in the gym for a couple of hours?" Rachel questioned.
"You did the only sensible thing, Emily. None of us blame you for this," Sarah added and hugged her.
Emily looked around at her friends. "Thank you," she said, giving them a small smile, "It's just when my mother and Ryan accused me of this, it kind of made me feel like it was my fault."
With that Rachel joined the hug, muttering, "Don't ever think that."
Then they opened their hug to look at Amber, who stood there alone, and motioned her to join them. She looked at them for a moment and then joined them with a small smile.
"Did you really have to slap me?" Emily asked, eying Amber.
"Hey, it wasn't my idea," Amber protested.
"Sorry, it was mine. We could see you weren't doing well and we needed to snap you out of it, so you would listen to us. I asked Amber if she could slap you, since I couldn't do it," Rachel explained.
"I see. Thanks you guys," Emily said. She smiled at them, but then she remembered something. "Wait. Maybe this is what my dream was trying to warn me about," Emily suggested.
"That would explain the blizzard in your dream. I guess we'll never find out," Rachel agreed. With that they walked back inside.
The rest of the afternoon passed slowly. The snowfall kept going strong until around the time that the moon had reached its highest point in the sky and then slowly the snowfall decreased. Meanwhile in the gym blankets and food had been passed out. Some played games, others talked. Now it was shortly before eight.
"Ready?" Rachel asked and the others nodded. They were standing at a window, looking outside. The strong snowfall had subsided and it was only a few flakes now.
"3,2,1, over," the girls counted down and watched as by over the snow stopped falling completely. They let out a sigh of relief.
"Now what? Even if the new moon is over, the snow is still up to our knees. It will take hours before we're out of here," Rachel asked.
"Now, it's our turn," Amber and Sarah smiled. Both of them raised their hands to the sky. A wind picked up, blowing the clouds away. The sun came out and immediately started to warm everything up. Then Amber used her magic to help speed up the melting process. Slowly the snow melted down until a lot of it was still puddles. The girls smiled at each other.
Just then Mr. Martin came up to them. "Ah, girls, since your class was cut short I never got to the chance to tell you of our class trip," he began.
"Class trip?" the girls repeated.
"Yes. We're going on a class trip to Cairns. There we'll have a look at the Great Barrier Reef, among others," Mr. Martin told them, "I'll tell you more later. That reminds me I believe your parents are there to pick you up." With that he left.
"Cairns. How cool," Sarah said, "I always wanted to go there. We could swim in the Great Barrier Reef."
"I'm not sure if it's a good idea for us to go there," Emily objected.
"Lets take one step at a time. We can still decide that later," Rachel replied and the others nodded. Just then they stepped outside. Amber and the sun had done a good job. There was still a small ice and snow layer underneath them, but other than that, everything was melted. Carefully, not to step into a puddle or slip, they walked to the street. "My mom is there. See you tomorrow," Rachel excused herself and left.
"And there is our ride," Amber said, pointing to Emma's car. They got in and drove off. There was an eerie silence in the car that was almost suffocating.
"Did you do it?" Emma finally broke the silence.
"Mom, do you honestly think I would do something like this?" Emily replied, looking at her mother hurt.
Emma sighed and said, "No, but it's just strange. The hottest day of the year suddenly turns into a blizzard. Though I can imagine that there was some help cleaning the mess up." She looked at Amber and Sarah through the rearview mirror. They gave a small smile.
"Where were you the whole time?" Amber asked.
"We were stuck at a store. We were shopping for the wedding," Emma told them.
"Really? What did you get? What does mom's dress look like?" Sarah questioned.
"Secret," Emma smiled, "Though I have to say that we had enough time to look around." The girls started laughing.
A/N: That ends a cold day. The invitations have been send. The wedding is around the corner. Will everything go smoothly? Could someone from the past mean trouble? Please review.
