Chapter 21: Technically Not Eloping

Lenny poked his head out of the door and looked left and right, making sure the coast was clear. He quietly swam out and hurried through the hallway.

As he approached the doorway of the main room where everybody else was, he came to a fast stop and put his back to the wall. He peeked around the corner to be sure he wasn't being watched by anyone, and then darted past.

My love is alive

Way down in the heart

Although we are miles apart

If you ever need a helping hand

I'll be there on the double, just as fast as I can

He came across the doorway of Lino's office and stopped quickly, putting his back to the wall again. He hoped his dad hadn't noticed any brief movement. He very carefully and slowly peeked into the room. Whatever Lino was doing, he had his back on the doorway, and that was all Lenny really needed to know. As quietly as he could, he snuck past and hurried down the hallway.

Don't you know that there

Ain't no mountain high enough

Ain't no valley low enough

Ain't no river wide enough

To keep me from gettin' to you, babe

He got out of the liner without being seen. Panting, he stopped for a moment and breathed in relief. He began swimming out for Melody's house as fast as he could.

That day, Angie went to the coral carpenter shop where her dad worked. She went in and looked around for him, but he didn't seem to be around.

"Angela!" a blue butterfly fish behind the counter smiled at her. "What brings you here, kid?"

"Hi, Fletcher." Angie smiled. "I was just looking for my dad, do you know where he is?"

Fletcher motioned with his head towards the back. "He's in the back room. Go on in; I haven't made him too busy."

"Thanks." Angie gave him a smile and swam behind the counter over to the back room. She found her dad repairing a table.

Milo caught motion out of the corner of his eye and looked up to see her there. "Angie…?"

"Hey." Angie smiled a bit.

"Hi!" Her dad looked a little surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"I don't know,... I-I was around, and I thought I'd drop by. I also wanted to ask if you've seen Oscar around."

Milo shook his head. "No, I haven't, sweetie. When did you see him last?"

"Well, he was there when we went to bed last night, but went I woke up, he was gone!"

"You let him sleep in the bed last night?"

Angie slumped and gave him a cynical look. "Ha-ha." she said sarcastically. "There are 10,000 great comedians out of work, and then there's you, Dad."

Milo laughed. "Hey, the father of the bride is always entitled to some loving banter."

"Milo!" Fletcher called from the other room. "Mr. Brown's here to pick up his table!"

"Be right there!" Milo called and carefully lifted the small table he had just repaired. "Sorry, hon, gotta get back to work here." He looked at his daughter and smiled. "I wouldn't worry too much, okay?"

Angie just smiled and nodded slightly as her dad left the room. She then frowned and looked at the floor. It was a stretch, but maybe, just maybe Oscar would be at work for once. Maybe she could find him there.

She arrived at the Whale Wash and hurried over to the clock to punch in. As she did, she looked to see if Oscar's card was already punched in. It wasn't.

This is just like him… she tried to reassure herself. He'll be here soon…

She glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching. For a while, she seriously thought about punching his card for old times' sake. She had made a promise to herself that she had to start showing some tough love and stop that, but… She'd let it slide this once.

She discreetly punched in her husband's card and went off towards the receptionist's booth.

She began working dutifully like she always did, but she couldn't help but get distracted after a long while when Oscar still wasn't showing up anywhere. Sure, he had always taken his time getting to work, but this was just ridiculous. Angie began to really worry.

Some of the others also began to notice Oscar's stranger-than-usual absence. They also began noticing that they were missing another employee – a young Great White Shark.

Angie's anxiety kept on biting at her with remembrance of the huge "closet misunderstanding" that had taken place just the day before. It was a little past noon when her friend Riley, who could read her like a book, noticed something was still bothering her.

After lunch break, Riley came and sat down on the across from to Angie without a word. After a moment, Angie glanced up and noticed her there. "…Hi, Riley." She forced a smile. "What's up?"

Riley shrugged. "Not much, but… I couldn't help but notice you've been looking a little flustered today. You all right?"

"Sure…" Angie forced her smile again. She looked around. "…H-Have you seen Oscar around anywhere?"

"Nope…" Riley shook her head. "And come to think of it, Lenny hasn't been around this morning either…" She smiled in an effort to lift her friend's spirits. "Maybe they're out playing manly hooky."

Unfortunately, Riley's joke had gone unheard.

"…Okay, what happened?" Riley finally asked, concerned.

"It's…a long story." Angie told her.

"The whale traffic's slow today. We have time."

"…Well… Okay…" Angie took a deep breath and explained everything to her friend – about how Reuben had happened by the apartment, how he was recruited to help with laundry, how he had inadvertently closed the closet door, and how it all led to a tremendous misunderstanding.

"…Wow…" Riley commented. "…That's…problematic."

Angie sighed slightly. "…He just…left." She looked up and stared into nothing, her eyes slowly filling with tears.

"Men, huh…? C'mere…" Riley said gently and took her friend's arm. They hugged each other tightly.

Meanwhile, a good ways away from the liner, Lenny was still swimming in desperation to go and resolve things with Ben. He kept on swimming until he reached the rock yard. After a moment, he stopped and realized what he was doing. He stared, but then he sighed. He swerved around in frustration. "What are you doing?" he growled to himself. "Look, you have two choices here…" He motioned his fins to his right. "Go to Ben with a death wish," he motioned his fins to the left, "or living with yourself in depression." He motioned back and forth, driving himself crazy. "Death wish, depression. I just wanna take Mr. Virtue by his—STOP TALKING TO YOURSELF, YOU IDIOT!!!" he stopped finally slapped himself on the face - hard. "Gyah!" he yelped. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, balancing the chi again. Then he finally resolved it all in his head. "…Nope," he said after a while, "not doin' this."

He turned tail and swam away.

Later, when he was more in sight of the liner again, Lenny stopped. He stared at the ground and sighed. What was he doing? It just wasn't the same with out Melody there. She had given him so much. He had never felt the way he did about Melody around anyone else. So why was he running away? At some point, he knew he had to stop going in circles and choose one way or the other.

…This is ridiculous… he thought. Oscar's right… I gotta go and straighten things out with Ben… But those teeth…a-and those muscles…

The young shark whimpered a bit to himself at the recollection of Ben's clear warning to him. This would clearly come through as a death wish.

"Lenny!"

Lenny turned at the sound of his name being called by a familiar voice. He saw Melody racing towards him.

"Melody!" She darted over to him and they hugged each other tightly. "Melody, I thought I would never see--!" Lenny suddenly stopped, then pulled away quickly. "Whoa, whoa, wait a minute; are you crazy?? If your brother catches you with me again, he's gonna kill me!"

"We'll just tell him that this was my idea!" She sighed and looked at him for a long moment, then suddenly grabbed his fin. "Okay, let's go."

Lenny was a bit surprised. "Go?"

"C'mon, there isn't anything for us here, let's just go! Please?? We can start a whole new life somewhere else!" She began to pull him off.

Lenny could tell that she was now truly desperate. "Wait, Mel!" Lenny pulled his fin out of hers.

She turned to look at him. "What?"

Lenny looked at her. "I can't run away!"

"Why not?"

With a small shrug, Lenny shook his head. "I-I can't just run off from home! I hate to admit it, but I've got to be here to help my dad look out for the business. And what about Oscar an-and Angie? I can't just leave all of them here. Your life is here too; it's just not…really all that clear to you yet."

Melody stared at him. Her heart warred with her. She had to get away from where she was, but at the same time she really wanted Lenny with her.

Seeing her hesitation, Lenny sighed and swam up to her. "You took a huge risk coming here, Mel. For both of us."

"I know, I know…" Melody said. "But it was driving me nuts! I-I couldn't just sit there at home and-and be in a funk!"

"But it was a lot to risk."

"Why are we letting my brother in the way?" Melody finally asked, ignoring his last comment. "Why do we have to be what everyone wants us to be? You taught me that, Lenny! You don't have to hide yourself from your family anymore like I do. You're not afraid to be who you are, right?"

Lenny looked at her and blinked, a little surprised. "Mel…" he started, "…I-I really do wanna be with you, you know that. But if my dad found out I was going off to elope, he'd have my head."

"Um, technically…" Melody pointed out, "…it wouldn't be eloping… U-Unless you wanted to…?"

Lenny looked at her, and they both seemed a little flabbergasted. "…Are you proposing?"

"You mentioned it first… Are you proposing?"

The two of them seemed a little dumbstruck as they stared at each other for a moment.

"Melody!!" a distant voice suddenly interrupted the moment.

"Uh-oh…" Melody gasped at the sound of her brother's voice. She grabbed Lenny's arm and pulled him off. "C'mon!! We gotta hide!"

"Where??" Lenny asked frantically.

"Anywhere!"

The two sharks dashed off into the closest place they could find – a nearby, dense kelp patch just big enough to hide them both. "Get down!" Lenny whispered, and they both dove behind the kelp. They dropped down into the sand on their stomachs with their heads down and kept quiet. They could barely see Ben in the distance through the tiny slits between kelp ferns.

Ben swam into the scene, looking around carefully. "Melody!!" he called again. "Mel, this is your brother speaking; get back here!!"

Melody shut her eyes. She was trying as hard as she could to resist the impulse to comply with her brother, and the only thing that was keeping her in hiding was the thought of having to go back to that almost confinement.

Lenny bit his lip a bit, and could see Melody's distress. He quietly reached over and grasped her fin, for his own comfort as much as hers. He knew he was supposed to be trying to work something out with Ben instead of hiding, but he also knew by the tone of his voice that Ben was in no listening or reasoning mood at all.

Ben growled and set all his senses to attention. He scanned around carefully, smelled the water around him, and listened as closely as he could. He smelled something, but he couldn't tell what it was.

Just then, Melody grabbed a nicely-sized rock lying not too far away. Lenny looked over, a little startled and wondering what she was doing. Waiting until her brother was looking away for a moment, Melody rose up and threw the rock out into the distant rock yards as far as she possibly could. She dropped back down behind the kelp patch, and the distant sound of rock hitting rock made Ben dart off to find the source of the sound.

Lenny looked and Melody with incredulous shock at what she had just pulled off. It was something he had never expected her to do. But, it at least gave them a chance to escape.

The two sharks slipped into the shadows. Lenny groaned in frustration. "Lenny, you're so stupid!" He smacked himself in the head several times. "Stupid, stupid, stupid!! You weren't supposed to do that!"

Melody looked at him. "Do what?"

Lenny sighed. "Mel, I have to work something out with your brother. If could be our only chance to stay together."

"Lenny, you don't understand." Melody warned him straight out. "He can and will seriously hurt you if he finds us. I am not about to let that happen to you. I'm telling you, we have to get out."

Lenny opened his mouth to argue the subject, but he stopped when he realized it was beginning to sound more and more like a good idea. He thought about what would happen if they did return home. He'd probably get yelled at by his dad (that is if Ben didn't kill him first), Oscar would probably drill more speech talk into him, and God knows Martha would have something smart to say about this.

It was a very long and dead-silent moment before he finally looked up at Melody again.

"…Okay, c'mon," he blurted out and grabbed her by the fin.

With that, they both raced off through the water as fast as they could, having no idea where in the heck they were going to go.

TBC…