Chapter 21

As the days passed by everyone became more and more anxious to see the return of three of the most important women in their lives. The trio's husbands collectively decided to alert the police, after all their wives return to work was overdue and their bosses would soon be asking questions. The story was that the three women had been caught in a storm while driving their boat to the Bahamas. They had been lost off the grid. The police considered this sceptically and promised to do a search of the seas and islands around the Bahamas for any evidence of them. Their bosses were notified that their employees were missing at sea. Zane employed another two staff members to cover Rikki's shifts.

Bella and Emma were acting as substitute mothers to the young kids, their fathers all distracted with worry. The whole village had a dampening aura, as if something important was missing; which of course was the case.

Back on the island the three women were also becoming more and more desperate to escape they would try and swim off twice a day exhausting themselves. Anna finally decided that it was futile, that they should go back to once a day. After all they were just tiring themselves out for no reason.

One week after the day they had found the crashed plane and skeleton, Rikki decided she'd had enough of moping around on the beach and would go back into the jungle.

"You coming Cleo?" Anna called

"Well..." she shrugged.

"We know where we are going this time," Rikki said

"Fine." Cleo agreed. "But only 'cos I don't want to be left alone doing nothing...and 'cos if Anna can go back into the jungle after what happened last week, I'm sure I can too," she added in a small voice.

With that, Rikki, Cleo and Anna traipsed back into the jungle. They passed the crocodiles, quicksand and plane site without incident much to Cleo and Anna's relief. After about a ten minute walk past the plane site, the dense trees seemed to be thinning out. Rikki stopped on the edge of the tree line.

"Wow." She breathed. Anna and Cleo come to stand beside her. They both looked on with awe. Anna whistled.

They were looking at a large deep blue lagoon surrounded by tall trees, fruit trees on the far side, an outcrop of rocks surrounding it. It was really a sight to see. To the right the expanse of rocks continued for another ten metres before turning into dirt, grass and trees. A large hill protruded up beside the lagoon.

Rikki walked forward so that she stopped right in front of the beautiful lagoon. With a look back at her friends, she dived from the rocks straight into the pool. Anna and Cleo rushed forward. A mermaid Rikki projected herself powerfully from the water and twisted round in the air before splashing back down. This got water on the others, forcing them (not regretfully) into the water.

"This is amazing!" Rikki said. They had been living on the hot beach, swimming in warm ocean water for just over a week, the refreshing coolness of the fresh lagoon water revitalised them. After playing round for quite a while, they pulled themselves up onto the rocks and sunbathed as mermaids letting the warm sun dry them off. All the dirt, sweat and grime collected by them as they trekked through the jungle had rinsed of their human bodies by swimming as mermaids.

"We should definitely come back." Rikki said.

"Agreed" Anna said.

The three of them got up and started walking over the rocks to the unexplored region.

"Is it just me, or does the layouts of these rocks look uncannily like at Mako Island?" Rikki asked as she led the way across. Anna and Cleo heard a scream a moment later and spun around to see Cleo disappearing down a hole.

"Cleo!" Anna shouted. They rushed over to where she had fallen.

"Typical Cleo, typical," Rikki laughed, shaking her head as she saw what Cleo had fallen into. "I bet I can guess where that leads. Cleo, why is it always you?"

Anna slid down. "Hey what are you doing?" Rikki asked.

"Examining the slope," Anna called. "It's not as steep as Mako's we'll be able to climb up."

Rikki slid down to meet them, as she sat at the bottom of the slide. "Yup, this is serious déjà vu."

Cleo nodded. They followed a very familiar path to a moon pool nearly identical to the one on Mako.

"Wow." Cleo said. Anna nodded in agreement.

Rikki gasped, realising something; "Guys!" she exclaimed turning to them, "A full moon is bound to be due soon, who knows what could happen if we got struck."

"I'm sure we'll be fine." Anna said, "But in saying that, I've never been moonstruck – surely it can't be that bad?"

"Oh, it can be." Cleo said mysteriously.

"Well, let's go back to camp then," Anna suggested after an awkward silence.

OoOoO

The next day the island was fully explored and so the mermaids focused on how to make their camp more comfortable. The toilet was simple – a hole in the ground far away from the actual campsite.

Rikki and Anna returned to the plane crash site and brought more metal back. With this, Rikki fashioned a spade, melting it so it was malleable, shaping it and the waiting for it to cool again. She attached the head to a strong stick. Rikki made a couple of knives as well; hers was becoming blunt from its frequent use. Anna drew up some plans for an aqueduct, so that running water would come straight to them from the fresh water stream. Cleo and Anna couldn't be bothered summoning it anymore, also it gave them all something to do. They took turns using Rikki's spade to dig it out, according to the plans. This was hard work so they frequently treated themselves to swims close to the shore. It worked perfectly. Rikki and Anna melted the metal sheets to make a couple of pots – they could make stewed fruit then – for a change of taste.

They put salt water in a pot and then evaporated, to make salt – this would add some flavour to the fish that they were getting bored of.

They had been on the island for one and a half weeks.

Meanwhile, back on Mako Island...

Everyone was in a depressed state of panic.

"They're big girls, they can handle themselves," Emma had said. They were all praying that they would come back safely. Emma, Bella and Ben had caught a plane to the Bahamas and searched the waters themselves, it turned up with nothing. The police searched, unsurprisingly turned up with nothing either. The kids continued life as normal - school and all, but life just wasn't the same. Three members of their group were gone; they were mothers, wives and friends.

A/N: Sorry this one took a while to upload – I've been in Raglan – visiting friends who had come over from Melbourne.

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