Disclaimer: I do not own The Little Mermaid
That evening, Aquamarina and Alicia had to go to singing practice. Melodious voices apparently ran in the family. With her cohorts away for the time being, Melody wandered into the palace dining room and came across her mortal enemies finishing dinner: Marino, Caspian, and Boreal.
Marino (who was she kidding? It just as easily could have been Boreal or Caspian) nodded at her. "Did you eat?"
That did it. Melody went off on them.
"Did I eat?" she seethed. "Did I eat? Is that all you can say?!"
"Uh." Another triplet placed his used silverware on the empty plate and pushed it forward. "What were you expecting?"
"I don't know!" Melody snapped at them. "Maybe an explanation of what you said to Alex? And why?"
"Alex?" the third triplet echoed, staring blankly at his brothers.
"The blond kid," one of the other boys supplied.
"He won't talk to me now!" Melody railed. "He won't even look at me! What did you do to him?"
"We didn't do anything to him," Boreal (or whoever. Did it matter at this point?) replied. "We merely let him know, in no uncertain terms, that he was to leave you alone. We don't need some merkid sniffing after our little cousin. We didn't beat him up or anything." The other two triplets nodded in agreement.
"How could you?" Melody wailed. "I really like him!"
The triplets seemed almost as surprised by those words as Melody herself was. Outside of Alicia and Aqua, no one else knew about her crush on Alex. For a moment, they all stared at each other.
"Look, Melody." The triplet closest to the doorway where Melody stood approached her slowly, as though she were a wild animal. "We were that age once. We know how boys are. You may think Alex is a sweet kid-"
"He is sweet," Melody insisted.
"And maybe he is," her cousin conceded. "But you've been through a lot over the past couple of weeks, and we don't want you getting tangled up with some merboy that you don't know, when you don't really know what you're doing right now. Everything is so new to you. We don't want anything to be messed up."
"Alex knows where we stand," one of the boys added. "He knows that if he tries to hurt you, we'll be ready for him."
"He's not going to hurt me!" Melody shouted. "He doesn't want anything to do with me now, and it's all your fault!" With that, she stormed out of the dining room in a flurry of bubbles. Actually, it was a pretty satisfying way to leave the room.
Melody was still storming through the palace when she almost ran over Alicia and Aquamarina on their way back to her bedroom from singing practice.
"Melody!" Aqua cried. "What is it? What's wrong?"
Melody crisply relayed everything the identical terrors (as she was now thinking of them) had told her just then, biting off each word as she spoke.
"I can't believe they would do that to you!" Aqua yelled indignantly. "They don't even know you."
"They're like that with everybody." Alicia shook her head slowly. "It's like I said on your first day here, the grown-ups all worship them and all they do is overstep! They don't even know Alex."
"That's what I said." Melody collapsed on a shell-shaped couch in the palace parlor. Her cousins followed.
After a moment of silence, Alicia jumped up. "Enough sitting around. Let's go for a sand cone and figure things out."
The girls filed out the door, Melody dejectedly bringing up the rear. Suddenly, she froze.
"What is it?" Aquamarina asked.
Melody dodged around them, making a beeline for the decorative conch shells that lined Grandfather's walkway. There was something sticking out of the one closest to the door.
"It's another note!" Melody squealed, waving a piece of papyrus. "And there's a box!"
Her cousins squealed too.
"Read it read it read it!" Alicia shrieked.
"Open the box!" Aquamarina shrieked.
Melody opened the box and slowly pulled out a pink beaded bracelet. She held it out to her cousins. "Look! It's beautiful!"
"I'm so jealous!" Alicia cried. "Put it on!"
Melody slid the bracelet on her wrist and the three girls admired it.
"I almost forgot about the note!" Melody suddenly exclaimed. She unrolled the note that had come with her bracelet. "Melody, I saw this bracelet and thought of you. I hope you like it! Your secret admirer."
At that moment, the cousins decided to forgo their sand cones and return to the palace to analyze what they knew so far.
"I still think it is Alex," Aqua declared as they floated up the steps to the bedrooms. "He is too afraid to talk to you, so he is leaving you the notes. I bet he was the one who pulled your hair the other day too."
"I hope it's Alex," Melody said. She smiled at the pink bracelet anchoring her wrist.
"It could be any boy under Grandfather's ocean," Alicia declared. "Melody has tons of admirers."
The three girls giggled.
Up in the bedroom that Melody had been using every time she visited the palace, Aqua snatched the two notes to study them.
"Just one admirer," she decided with finality a moment later.
"How can you be sure?" Alicia asked.
"The handwriting is the same," Aquamarina replied.
"Now what?" Melody asked. She grabbed the notes from her cousin and stuffed them in her bag. She liked to think they were from Alex too, and it was almost like he was here if she had the notes; of course, they may be from someone else too…
"Now we narrow down a list of the possible boys it could be," Aqua declared.
"There has to be an easier way," Alicia countered. "Every boy in Atlantica likes Melody!"
Melody blushed and told them, "We have to write Alex's name down on the list of possibilities. Like Aqua said, maybe he is sending the secret admirer stuff because he is afraid of Caspian, Boreal, and Marino."
Aqua agreed and started making a list.
"What about James?" Alicia suggested. "He definitely likes you."
"And Charles!" Aqua put in, scribbling frantically.
Soon, the three mergirls had quite a long list of potential admirers.
"Tomorrow, we will work on getting handwriting samples of all these boys," Aqua declared as she edged down the stairs. She and Alicia were about to head out with their respective mothers.
"Sounds good!" Melody giggled. "I can't wait to be a detective!"
Melody watched her cousins leave through the bedroom window before flopping on the bed. Ariel and Eric were having dinner at Flounder's, so she didn't think they'd be home anytime soon. Suddenly, a knock sounded at the door.
"Melody?"
Melody sat up in shock. One of the triplets was in her doorway. It was almost surreal to not be seeing triple for once.
"Can I come in?" he asked.
"I guess," Melody muttered in her frostiest voice.
Her cousin came in and took a seat in an armchair across from the bed. They stared at each other in silence for at least a full minute.
"I'm Caspian," he finally told her awkwardly. "I know you can't tell us apart."
"There's no point in telling you apart now," Melody barked at him. "You all three equally ruined my life, so why should I care who is who?"
"Melody." Caspian sighed and put his head in his hands. After waiting a beat and then two, he lifted his eyes to meet hers. "I'm sorry."
"What?" Melody asked incredulously.
"I'm sorry," her cousin repeated in a louder voice. "I know you like Alex…"
"Well, he doesn't like me anymore, thanks to you guys," Melody reminded him irritably.
"I think he still does like you," Caspian answered with a small smile. "I have seen him hanging around the front gate a few times…"
"You have?" Melody exclaimed. She jumped off the bed, brushing past Caspian, and peered out the window. No one was outside near the gate. She sat back down.
"Yeah." Caspian gave her a small smile, looking contrite. Where was the strong, confident teenager she was used to? "I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry. I guess it's kind of in my nature-as well as Boreal's and Marino's-to want to help everyone. Be the strong ones of the family, the protectors. But I guess we really didn't help you. We really messed things up with Alex for you."
"Ya think?" Melody grumbled.
"He seems like a nice kid," Caspian offered. "It would probably be nice to have him as your friend or…whatever." He smiled knowingly at her.
"What are you trying to say, Caspian?" Melody finally asked, looking in his eyes. She was surprised to see orbs similar to her own reflecting back at her. She looked more like the triplets than she had ever realized.
"I want to help you get Alex back," Caspian told her firmly.
Melody's jaw dropped as she stared at him. Get Alex back? It was almost too good to be true. But…
Could she really trust Caspian?
A/N: Sorry for the delay! I'm a first year teacher and work has been crazy. Read and review!