Chapter Eleven
Saving The Day
Chapter Song: Animal by Neon Trees
"I still can't believe what we did to Kendall." Taylor sighed while sipping on her smoothie.
"Your joking right? You guys didn't do anything half as bad as me. I burned and kicked him. But, now that I think of it, is actually hilarious. Besides, it's been a good four days since it happened, give it up." I chuckled.
"No its not! You left a burn mark! And I had to freeze it so it was fine after a while."
"Oh whatever, it wont happen again." I rolled my eyes.
"Oh my god, it will!" Kylie gasped.
"What?" Taylor noticed.
"Every month of every single year we have to deal with these full moons and avoiding them! What are we going to do? Lock ourselves away in our rooms with the windows closed?"
"That's a possibility." Taylor shrugged.
"Yeah, if were rats." I commented.
"Seriously, let's think."
"Covering up the windows?" Taylor suggested.
"With what?" Kylie wondered.
"Cardboard, garbage bags, really anything so we're safe."
"We're still going to have to be locked away in our rooms. If our parents see the windows covered, they are going to think we're mental." I commented.
"Lets make a promise right now that every full moon we will have a sleep over so we're never alone." Kylie put her hands together.
"What if we're sick?" Taylor asked.
"Then we've got to be dying." I smirked.
"Not funny."
"Oh take a joke." I laughed. Taylor rolled her eyes.
"Okay well than, this has been enough mermaid full moon talk for one day. I'm going for a swim. Anyone want to join?" I stood up. Both girls shook their heads.
"Then I'll see you guys tomorrow." I took the last sip of my vanilla milkshake and slid my phone into my back pocket.
"Bye." Both girls said while I walked out of the Coral Island Café. Thankfully, there was a dock right next to the café for small boats that wanted to park there. It was quite a small dock, nothing major like the marina. There were posts to tie the boats to and that was about it. Luck was on my side today since no boats were taking up the space. I quickly looked both ways and behind me before diving into the water and going for a long and relaxing swim.
I swam beside a dolphin, who couldn't figure out what exactly I was. It must have been confusing to him since I had the tail of a fish and the head and torso of a human. I rolled over in the smooth water and watched the dolphin copy me. Silently, I laughed and petted him. He let me grab onto his fin and he gild me through the water. Suddenly we stopped when there was a lot of activity going on above us. I could see a boat speed over the area I was in with the dolphin, and then soon a shadow of a board and a human pass over us. I squinted my eyes and carefully swam up to the surface. The dolphin stayed under the water, waiting for me to come back so we could play some more. Whoever passed over us wasn't facing me, but I could see who it was clearly. Stefan Montgomery.
"Cameron, go faster." He yelled loudly as he wake boarded.
"Okay!" Cameron Miller, Stefan's just as jerky best friend, called back. I rolled my eyes and swam back under. When I went back to go play with the dolphin, his eyes were filled with fear. He quickly swam away before I could even touch him. Was he scared because of the motion above us? Was he scared of me? He couldn't be. But soon enough I found out what he was scared about. A shark that looked about ten to fifteen feet long was swimming in large circles a few yards away. There was nothing I could hide behind, so I cautiously swam in place and kept my eye on the shark. I didn't want to be his dinner. Out of nowhere, a big splash came from under water. I could see his board floating on the surface so he had clearly fallen. He was close to the shark and I knew this wasn't going to end well. I watched Stefan struggle to swim back up and I reluctantly followed him while keeping my head half under water and half above water.
"Cameron?" He yelled and spit out seawater from his mouth.
"Cameron!" He screamed, glaring at the boat driving off with the music blaring. Cameron was unable to hear Stefan. His wakeboard floated next to him, so Stefan grabbed onto it for dear life. Then, she sharks fin popped up and it began circling the helpless rich boy. As much as I hated Stefan, I had to do something. I couldn't let him get eaten. Then he gasped.
"Ca-Ca-Cameron! Somebody! Help me!" My heart ached for him. If only he knew I was here and could swim him back to shore. But that would blow my whole secret. And Stefan was the last person I wanted to know about my tail. I had to think of what to do. What was there to do? Then it came to me—sharks hate heat! I got myself down to the bottom near the sand and I balled my fist. Bubbles appeared around Stefan and I could feel the water rise in temperature. The shark didn't leave at first but once I tried to heat up his blood, he darted away. I couldn't see it to clearly since I was underwater, but Stefan's face had mixed feelings of being scared and utter confusion at why the water had just heated up. After five minutes, Cameron and his boat came back and Stefan was led to safety. They left the boat stalled for a minute and I listened to their conversation.
"Cam! It was huge! At least fifteen feet!"
"Dude, I don't see a fifteen foot shark." He looked down into the ocean. I hid myself against the side of the ski boat.
"I swear! It was huge and it was circling me! Then right when it was probably about to eat me the water started to heat up and it was bubbling! How sick is that? The shark swam away."
"Right very funny. The second I turned the radio off I could hear your little girl screams!" He laughed.
"Shut up, I'm serious." He groaned.
"Right, fifteen foot shark. It was probably a dolphin."
"It wasn't! It was a shark! A huge shark!"
"Really then? Where is it? I don't see a shark anywhere."
"I told you! The water started bubbling and it heated up! Sharks don't like warm water so it swam away!" Stefan explained. Cameron bent down and touched the water.
"Water feels normal to me. You're out of your mind, Stefan. Wait till I tell everybody about this."
"You don't believe me?"
"What I do believe is that my dad's going to kill me if you get one drop of water on anything of his brand new boat. He doesn't even know I took it out!"
"Where do you want me to sit then?"
"I don't know or care, the sides?"
"Fine." Stefan mumbled and began to walk to the side where I was hiding. I flipped myself over and swam back to shore knowing that Stefan was okay.
"You should be proud of me." I spoke over the phone to Kylie.
"Why?" She asked.
"I just saved Stefan Montgomery from a shark attack." I mentally smiled to myself.
"What? He knows? Of all people! Hayley!"
"Calm down he doesn't know anything. I was out for my swim and then I saw a shark so heated up the water and he swam away. You should have seen Stefan telling Cameron Miller about what happened it was amazing. Cameron didn't believe anything Stefan said."
"How do you know what they said?"
"I hid on the side of the boat. It was huge, they couldn't see me."
"I swear your could have exposed us." Kylie said seriously.
"But I didn't! And I saved the biggest jerk ever from being a shark's lunch; you should give me a little award. I'm a hero." I joked around.
Kylie didn't laugh. "Still, you cant ever do that again. We could get exposed. You don't want that now, do you? Stay away from Stefan."
"You think I don't want to stay away from Stefan? Ew. I hate him; I only did it so he didn't get hurt! That doesn't change anything about how I feel for that idiot."
"Fine. I forgot to ask, where are you?"
"Walking home, why?"
"Just wondering. I got to go finish up studying; I'll talk to you tomorrow. Okay?"
"Okay. Bye." I hung up and walked into the house.
It was already eight o'clock and I was finishing up my homework that I had left till the last minute. Even thought I kept getting distracted through out the night by phone calls, checking emails, or day dreaming about my tail, I still managed to get most of the work done. Procrastination at it's best. Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Come in" I said to whomever knocked on my door.
"Hi sweetie. How's homework going?" My mom walked in.
"It's homework, it's terrible." I groaned.
"Would you mind doing a huge favor for me if you're done with your homework? If not I'll just ask your father to do it when he gets home."
"No it's okay, I'm finished." I lied and scribbled random numbers onto my paper, making it look like I did my work.
"Ah perfect then, would you mind taking a little walk for me?"
"A walk? Sure, but mind on telling me why?"
"I'm not feeling up to par so could you go and pick up some takeout from the Coral Island Café? You told me it's really good so I decided to order dinner from there since I didn't feel good enough to cook."
"Yeah, it's no problem." I got up from my bed and walked downstairs while my mom went into her room and went back to bed. Since my dad was at work and had the car, I walked all the way back to the café. Swimming halfway there would have been faster, but I was too lazy to dry myself off, and besides, it was probably to risky. It was already dark outside and ahead I could see the lights from the café lighting up the pathway. With my hands in my jean pockets, I casually walked into the café to find it extremely busy. Most of the booths were filled and there were a few tables in the middle moved together so a big crowd could sit together. That big crowd was people from my school. A few of the girls looked at me, giggled, then turned back their attention to what their friends were saying. I rolled my eyes at them as they laughed like hyenas. They all looked like Barbie dolls, giggling and whispering to each other. I could never stand the cliques at school. I'm never afraid to speak up about it either. Besides, who cares what anyone thinks? That's what I hated most about Washington, the people. They just irritated me so much, but I never paid attention to what they said about me. I was better than that, to let someone else judge me. I waited in line at the cash register to get my order so in the meantime; I overheard the conversation between my classmates. Besides, who couldn't since they were talking so loud?
"Oh, so then after Stefan told me to go faster, sometime after that he fell of and I didn't hear since I was jamming out, so I sort of left him there in the middle of the ocean." Cameron, who was sitting on top of one of the tables laughed. He had his feet on a chair. Stefan caught my eye; he was the only one in the crowd that sat silent and with his arms crossed. He had an angered look on his face and he didn't speak to anyone.
One fake-dyed blonde girl laughed hysterically. "What happened next?" She wondered.
"Well I came back and he was screaming like a little girl. 'Help me! Help me! Shark! There's a shark! Oh he's fifteen feet long and he was attacking me! The water was bubbling and it heated up! Help me, Cameron, help me!' But guess what guys; there wasn't a shark there! The water was as calm as come be, and for the record I felt the water, it was cold and I didn't see any bubbles." Cameron attempted to mock Stefan and succeeded in making fun of him. I shook my head in disappointment and annoyance. Everybody at that table obnoxiously broke out into a laugh.
"Oh my god I'm crying! That's amazing!" Another girl ridiculously giggled.
"Your such a freak, Stefan!" One of the guys clapped.
"Miss? Miss?" The cashier made me turn my head backs around and pay attention to anything but Stefan and his group.
"Huh? Yes?"
"How can I help you?" he asked.
"Oh sorry I was just—never mind. Right, I have an order to pick up."
"Last name?"
"Baker."
"Let me go get your order, it just finished up." He walked into the back through the doors that said 'Staff Only'. I turned back to Stefan who sat there looking even angrier than ever. He finally stood up and left through the back door. His so called friends laughed at him.
"What's got him?" Cameron looked out the door, not even bothering to go check on his friend.
"That'll be twenty nine fifty." The cashier rang up my order up. I took my money out of my pocket and paid him the thirty dollars I had.
"It's fine, keep it." I told the cashier when he tried to give me my fifty cents back.
"Here's your or—"
"Can you keep it here for five minutes tops? I'll be right back I have to go do something outside."
"Yeah, it'll be right here when you come back." He said.
"Thanks." I walked out the back door and saw Stefan standing on the small dock that I had jumped off of earlier. I slowly walked over to him and stood next to him, I looked up at the moon, which was barley a sliver. You could see our reflection in the moving water.
"Your brave." I spoke up, holding my hands together.
"Brave? For what?" he sounded surprise.
"For sitting there while your friends totally bashed you. It takes guts."
"They just don't believe me, I look stupid."
"If it means anything, I do believe you."
"Thanks, you're the only one that does."
"I've been around Bristol Island and the places near there, I've seen some sharks there, I'm not doubting you on this one."
"And the bubbling and heating of the water?"
"Strange things happen out there, you never know." I shrugged. He gave me a hopeful smile. Before Stefan could speak again, I turned around and headed to go pick up my takeout once again and finally go home.
A/N: Lets pray for the people in Japan, Hawaii, California, Alaska, and all the small islands affected by the tsunami and earthquake. Thank you for all the reviews! Another chapter updated tomorrow! By the way, will anyone give me some song suggestions? I need some more :/ Its hard thinking of some even though I have 800 songs in my iTunes! Speaking of iTunes, how cool is the new iPad 2? I want to get it so bad! Well anyways, good bye for today!
