5.

Zac's first lesson was weaving seaweed bags for collecting items. Mimmi also showed him the different uses of all the various types of flora and fauna they came across under water. He already had a pretty good idea of what was edible and what wasn't, but this was like Underwater Survival Training 101.

Mimmi was a good teacher. Zac figured he'd learned a lot more than he should have, given his heart wasn't in it and he was mostly distracted, thinking about what he was going to tell his parents.

As the sun crept towards midday, it occurred to him that this was the longest he'd ever spent with a tail. The realisation bowled him over. He didn't hear a word Mimmi said as she tried to explain all of the things she'd pointed out on the reef just below them. He only paid attention again when she gripped his wrist and yanked him back underwater in order to show him physically.

The only reason he actually learned anything was because she seemed keen on making him do everything himself, rather than just listen to her lecture. Because he was terrible at understanding Dolphin or any dialect of Whale, she used a lot of exaggerated, but well-practiced hand gestures to indicate what he was meant to do and how he was meant to do it.

He did most of the things she showed him in a daze.

Here he was, out in the ocean, with zero responsibility, zero accountability… It was freeing and terrifying at the same time. At least until he remembered that he still didn't have an excuse for his soon-to-be-prolonged absence.

The sun reached its apex and began its descent. Zac had become rather good at telling which hour of the day it was, based on the sun's position in the sky. He let Mimmi drag him around until around what he guessed might be two o'clock, and then he begged off any more lessons.

He would head back for the coast, find Cam or Evie, and figure out a game plan. They should be getting out of school soon. Evie would be able to tell him what he'd missed, and Cam might have some ideas for what to say to his parents.

Mimmi accompanied him back. Zac thought nothing of it until she pulled herself from the water near the docks and brushed herself off. He stared at her legs, resentment bubbling up inside, no matter how ridiculous it was. Mimmi wasn't remotely to blame for his predicament. She'd done nothing but help him.

She leaned over the edge of the dock. "Where do you want to meet?"

Zac floated silently for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts. He made sure his voice was pleasant when he spoke, nothing in his tone betraying his anger or jealousy. "Have them meet me at Rita's. We can talk, without worrying anyone will see us."

Mimmi frowned, putting her hands on her hips. "You want to let a land boy into Rita's grotto?"

Zac sighed, closing his eyes in consternation. "Well, where do you suggest then?"

Mimmi tilted her head thoughtfully. "Why not meet on Mako? You can come up to the beach and Cam can come down. Evie can swim there."

Zac thought about how ridiculous it would be to meet while lying in the surf, unable to really move, just lying there, totally useless, craning his neck to watch his friends stand over him. He shook his head.

"Okay, Cam can take his boat out and we'll just meet somewhere off the coast."

So Zac would be in the water, as would Evie and Mimmi...and Cam would be in the boat with their school things? How would Zac see anything? He groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face. If only they could just meet at the docks, without worrying that anyone walking past could see them.

An idea occurred to him and he smiled. Mimmi tilted her head curiously. "What?"

"Tell Cam to bring Evie and meet at the secret fishing spot."

"The what?"

Zac shook his head. "He'll know what I mean."

Shrugging, Mimmi turned on her heel and walked away, leaving Zac in the water. Alone. Unable to do anything but wait.

He ducked back under, not eager to be spotted by a passerby. He twisted in the current slowly, fins undulating gently as he turned towards his and Cam's old secret fishing spot. It was where they'd fished, before they'd earned their boat licenses; a sort of small cove hidden by rocks, up the north end of the beach. It was a bit of a climb, and far from the Café.

After they'd gotten their boating licenses, they'd been able to rent boats out to prime fishing spots and rarely returned to the little cove. Zac hoped no one else had decided it would make a great private fishing spot since.

He followed the line of the coast northwards, swimming slowly to kill time. Fish darted past and occasionally a boat made waves overhead or a buoy cast a shadow over him. It was quiet and peaceful, the world just a wide expanse of blue and golden-white sand.

It was also lonely.

On land, unless he was alone in his room, he was always surrounded by people. Even when he was just walking along, there were birds and other animals, and always the chance of running into someone, or just passing someone on the path. There was always some sign of civilisation.

But out here? In the ocean? It was all wilderness. It was wide and vast and open. Without Mimmi swimming next to him, it felt like he was completely alone - that he could swim for hours and never see another soul.

Zac shook his pessimistic thoughts from his head as he figured he'd swum far enough. Cautiously, he surfaced, poking his head above the waves for a quick glimpse towards the shore.

He was off, by a little. He'd left behind the swim-friendly beaches, so there was no worry of running into a land-person (not that anyone would dare swim out so far, anyway), but he'd over-shot the cove. The rocky outcropping was behind him and until he swam closer, he wouldn't be able to tell if anyone were there.

He ducked back under and headed inland. When ocean floor started to creep up, he popped his head out again. The tiny, tiny cove - barely more than a few metres' strip of sand and some craggy rocks - mostly rocks - was unoccupied, so Zac found a big rock with enough of a flat surface to rest on and dragged himself half out of the water.

He felt like Ariel in The Little Mermaid, when she pulled herself up on the rock. Which was probably not the best comparison in the world. Because he was most certainly not a mermaid, nor was he going to comb his hair, sing, or otherwise engage in girly mermaid activities.

His tail was still half submerged, blue, iridescent scales glittering in the sun. He glanced down at his fins in consternation. If he pulled it completely out of the water, it wouldn't make any difference - it wouldn't change. He slumped back against the rock, tilting his head back and closing his eyes.

That was how Cam and Evie found him twenty minutes later.

"Heeey, Ariel, lookin' good!"

Zac jerked out of his light doze, eyes snapping open against the bright glare of the sun. He twisted his head and shaded his eyes, finally able to see Cam, balancing with his feet between two rocks, smirking down at him. Evie crested the ledge just behind him, huffing a little as she pulled herself up and over, turning around to descend the other side of the outcropping.

"Shut up," Zac called, splashing his tail. Unfortunately, Cam was well out of reach of any spray.

Cam hoped down onto the small sliver of sand and crossed over to Zac's rock. He climbed up the other side and perched himself out of reach of the water. His backpack slid off his shoulder and he dumped it into a convenient crevice.

"How on earth did you ever manage to get fishing rods down here?" Evie complained as she finally made it to the sand. Deftly avoiding the spray of the surf, she climbed up beside Cam, giving Zac a smile, but staying out of range of the sea spray. She tucked her hair behind her ears and pulled her bag around to her lap. "I got your work. Principal Santos pardoned your absence and all the teachers got correspondence to give your work to me," she explained.

Cam was still grinning. He glanced between Zac and Evie. "Oh come on, no mermaid jokes? Really? He's sitting on a rock. All he needs is a comb and pretty singing voice and-"

Zac may not have been able to reach Cam with his tail, but he could use his powers. He twisted his hand and directed a stream of water straight at Cam's face. His friend cut off with a yelp, spluttering as he wiped sea water from his eyes. "Okay, okay!"

Evie rolled her eyes. "Anyway, as I was saying, I've got your work. I don't know if you want to go over it now." She glanced sceptically around at the rocks - there wasn't really anywhere they could spread the work out - no flat surfaces. Zac hadn't quite thought this plan out as well as he'd hoped.

"What about what you're gonna tell your parents, mate?"

Zac grimaced. Evie froze in pulling out a folder of papers. Cam crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "So that's a big, fat 'i have no idea' then."

Zac thumped his fins against the rock. "I don't!"

Evie shuffled to the side, trying to get more comfortable on the rock. She caught his eye. "Zac, you have to tell them."

His eyes widened. "What? No way, Evie, they'd freak!"

She huffed. "No, I mean, you have to tell them you're not coming home."

Cam nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, man, you can only say you're staying at mine for so long before it falls apart."

The sea breeze caught the ocean spray and sent it up over Zac's tail. He shifted in place and stared down at his scales, like they held all the answers in the universe. Cam was right, damn him. Zac knew he was right, but thinking about how little time he had before it all blew up in his face was not something he wanted to deal with.

Evie reached out, but she was just a little too far back to touch Zac. Her hand dropped back before a spray of water could make it wet. She sighed. "I think Rita had it right the first time, Zac. You've only really got two options."

Cam glanced between them. "What're those?"

Zac grimaced, but it was Evie who laid them out, matter-of-factly. "Either he does nothing - just vanishes. They think he's run away, kidnapped, dead, drowned… Honestly, it's the worst option, I mean, they'll send out the police in force."

Cam tapped a finger against his arm, eyebrows scrunched. "Not to mention they'll wonder why your friends are picking up your homework and telling lies about where you are."

"So, basically, not an option," Evie concluded with a pointed look at Zac. He nodded slowly. She continued, "The second option is, he calls them and tells them straight up he's leaving. Not to look for him, that he's fine, etc."

Cam's mouth opened and shut. He let out a few breathy chuckles. "'Hi, Mum, Dad, I'm just running away for a month, don't worry, it's not you, it's me?' Like that?" He gestured widely back towards the beaches and the direction of the café.

"Exactly!" Zac snapped. "I can't do that!" His fingers clenched around a small outcropping of rock, knuckles whitening, and the sharp edges of the rock cut into his palms. He let go and glanced down at the bright red lines on his skin.

Evie made a noise in the back of her throat that had Zac looking up again. Her eyes flickered away from his hand to his face. Her lips twisted in a frown. "Zac," she said firmly, "neither of those options are good, but one is better than the other. We're working with what we have - what else can you do?"

Zac's shoulders slumped. "Nothing," he muttered, staring down at his tail again. His stupid, stupid tail. If he didn't have a tail, then…

He cut that thought off before it could take root, grimacing at his over-wrought brain. He couldn't think like that. He was what he was - he'd accepted that, even appreciated it. He wouldn't be Zac Blakely if he weren't a merman. He wouldn't be him if he didn't have a tail.

He just wished he didn't have to deal with all the drama that came with it.

"So I guess we just need a good story - you know, a reason why you're leaving for a month."

Zac laughed, shaking his head ruefully. "No story in the world is a good reason to leave for a month!" He twisted a look over his shoulder, at the sparkling wide expanse of the ocean. It was ironic that he wouldn't actually be leaving at all - he'd be right here, under the sea.

For the next half an hour, they tried to come up with plausible excuses, but each time Zac found a way to poke a hole in them. Pretend he's doing a study-abroad to the US last minute and simply had to leave? Where's the paperwork? Why would he just up and go without even seeing his parents? They'd question it to kingdom come.

Tell them he'd been researching his real mother and found a lead and raced off to check it out? Why wouldn't he speak to them about it? Unless he was unhappy and discontent - they'd be heartbroken. He couldn't do that to them. Not unless it was a last resort.

Tell them he'd just run away? Pretend he's going through some issues with the adoption and needed some space? Without having packed even a single article of clothing?

Cam and Evie both pointed out that they could sneak into his room and pack him a bag to make it look like he'd simply run off. Making it believable wouldn't be an issue. The issue was whether Zac could deal with the fallout.

The more they discussed it, the more it seemed like he wasn't going to be able to come up with a good excuse why he had to leave that wouldn't upset his parents. There would be heartbreak - the only question was how much and how he was going to deal with it after the next full moon.

"If Veridia doesn't try to stop us," Evie pointed out quietly when he bemoaned this fact.

Zac's jaw clenched. Veridia better not try to stop them. He'd do whatever it took to get his legs back. He'd beg her if that's what it took.

He wondered if he could possibly appeal to her sense of compassion or reason. He tried to consider the situation from her perspective. She was afraid of his access to the Chamber. He was afraid of being trapped in the ocean forever.

Cam made a thoughtful noise under his breath and cleared his throat. "Well, maybe if we point out how many ties you have to land and how suspicious it is for you to simply...disappear?" He gestured to Zac. "He's got records on land - people will always be looking for him. What if they start, I dunno, searching the coast for his body or something? She's gotta worry about being found out, right? Wouldn't that be worse than letting Zac have his legs back?"

Zac felt a spark of hope in his chest. He tried to imagine Veridia's reaction to Cam's argument. Maybe if he promised he'd never try to access the Chamber again? Would she believe him? How could he prove himself to her?

If it meant getting his legs back, he thought he'd be happy never to step foot in the Chamber again. Even if it meant never knowing what it could do. Whatever it was had Veridia so scared she was willing to risk Zac's mysterious disappearance from his land life. She was willing to risk having a merman permanently in the waters of Mako.

He wished he knew what the Chamber did. If they only knew they wouldn't have to be scared of it anymore.

"I don't know," Evie sighed, unknowingly voicing Zac's own thoughts aloud, "the mermaids seem really scared of that Chamber. If she would rather have Zac always in the water rather than away from them on land…" She trailed off, thought unfinished, but clear enough. Zac and Cam glanced at each other.

Cam broke eye contact first, scoffing, "It's dumb. They should trust Zac to do the right thing, and let him find out what the Chamber does. If it's something bad, he can just shut it down...problem solved!"

"They don't want to risk it," Evie pointed out. "I kind of get that, but at the same time…" She paused, eyes darting to Zac's tail.

Zac picked at the rock with his nails, scowling. "Can we...work on school stuff now?" He was done talking about this. They were going in circles now, just highlighting his misery.

Evie stood, brushing off her shorts and crouching to grab her bag and the papers. "Not here. There's no where to spread out. I'll meet you at Rita's." She hesitated, glancing at Cam.

Cam peered between the two of them, then rolled his eyes and stood. He dusted off his own shorts. "Yeah, okay, I get it. I wouldn't want to do school work any more than I have to anyway, so the joke's on you anyway," he added, directing his last comment towards Evie. Smirking at Zac, he gave a jaunty wave and turned to climb back over the rocky outcropping.

A sudden panic seized him. "Wait!" Zac called.

Cam paused. He tried to turn with one foot wedged between two rocks and the other balanced on a point, but it was too precarious. He managed to catch Zac's eye over his shoulder. "What?"

Zac licked his lips. "Don't...Give me one more day?" At Cam's raised eyebrows, he explained, "To tell my parents. Say I'm at yours...just one more day."

Cam sighed. "I'll try, okay?"

Hesitantly, Zac nodded. "Yeah, alright." It was the best he could hope for. His parents might or might not believe Cam. He prayed they did. He couldn't deal with telling them his lie tonight. He wasn't ready.

"Thanks," he added, to Cam's retreating back. Cam just waved his hand over his shoulder and disappeared over the edge of the rock - towards land, where Zac could no longer follow.

Evie turned to face him, papers all stowed away and bag over one shoulder. The look she sent Zac as she left was full of worry. Zac schooled his face, trying to pretend he hadn't noticed.

"I'll see you in a bit," she told him, as she climbed back towards the shore.

Zac watched her go, feeling even more useless. Finally, it was just him, sitting on a rock, just like the mermaid tales of old. He felt ridiculous now that there was no one to speak to. Not to mention his butt was getting sore - or was it still his butt? Was it just considered all his tail?

He slid off the rock, back into the water. The rock was slippery enough that it didn't catch much on his scales, but it still scraped them the wrong way and that felt awfully uncomfortable. He'd never forced his scales to drag the wrong way before - it pulled at the edges, making them sting and ache.

He kicked away from the rock with a single, powerful flip of his fins and twisted in the water to glance down at the side of his tail where the scales had scraped the most. They weren't bleeding or anything, which was good, but they still stung a little, like his knees would if he'd fallen and scraped them on the ground a bit. Not hard enough to break skin, but still enough to sting. It felt just like that.

It used to be that when he had touched his scales, or someone or something else had touched his scales, he would be surprised to feel something. Scales just didn't seem like they would feel. But they did. They weren't as sensitive as his skin, but they still felt.

He brushed a hand over the patch of stinging scales on his tail. He was being maudlin again. Now was not the time to feel sorry for himself. He had schoolwork to catch up on, and excuses to invent.

[11.28.2015] - I'm alive! And still writing. Slowly. I just got a new job, and the commute is hell. If you add the commute to my work day, I'm working like, 12 hours days, it's ridiculous. But I'm still here, occasionally trying to write. Chapters will just be slow.

Anyway, here we are: Zac is running out of excuses, reality is starting to set in, and bad references to Disney are made. Cheers!