AN: Hello, I hope you like this chapter. I think it's a good one but I was a little nervous about posting it. I just wasn't sure if anyone else would like it. Well I guess I'll find out. So please read and then review.
The day before the end of the week was a full moon. Although Peter and Susan weren't sure of what it meant, they figured it would be best to avoid it. After all Peter still remembered the black eye he'd gotten last time.
"Remember, don't look at the moon tonight." Peter said as he closed the drapes on all the windows, hoping that no moonlight could get in. "It's best not to test these things until we know what's going on."
Susan who was sitting on the couch watching him nodded. "But what about the windows up stairs?"
"Already covered and locked." Peter assured her.
"Does this mean I'm a were-wolf or something?" Susan wondered aloud.
"I hope not." Peter smiled.
"Me too." Susan sighed and got up.
"Wait, where are you going?" Peter asked nervously.
"The bathroom." Susan rolled her eyes. "It's okay I think I can handle it."
"Why do I have the feeling I've forgotten something?" Peter said to himself. He was fairly certain he'd covered up all the windows but he kept thinking he'd forgotten one and he couldn't for the life of him remember which it was. "Let me think, I got all the ones up stairs, all the ones in the living room, the bathroom, Lucy's room, Edmund's room, the kitchen..." Oh no, he remembered that he'd forgotten the window right above the sink. And Susan was going to have to go passed that window...He had to get here before she did.
He didn't get there before she did. She had already seen the slivery light coming through the window and had decided to go on the front porch when he raced in. "Su, are you alright?" He asked as he followed her.
"I'm fine." She said in a distant voice gazing up at the moon. "I don't like it here though."
"What?" Peter didn't like were this was going.
"I should be in the water." She said.
"No, you really shouldn't." Peter said firmly. "Come on let's go back inside into the living room and get you out of this moonlight."
"I bet I could swim to Mako in a little more then a day if I didn't stop and went really fast." Susan said ignoring him.
"That's great, now why don't we go inside and...er...talk about about Mako some more." Maybe if he humored her he could get her back indoors.
"Why talk about it when I could just go?" Susan said, a smile forming on her face.
"All by yourself?" Peter pointed out.
"I'm a mermaid, I'd be just fine, I'm always happy in the water. I'm not scared." She giggled.
Peter had an idea. "But you'd rather go with someone with you wouldn't you?"
"Who?"
"I'll come, but you have to com inside and help me um...find something first." Peter said, nudging her inside.
"I saw the moon." Susan said.
"I know." Peter moaned.
"It's so beautiful." She sighed. "I like my tail better than my legs."
"That's great." Peter shook his head trying to figure out a plan. Maybe if he locked her in a room somewhere until she snapped out of it...He could always lock her in her room. but Then she could unlock the window and get out. But the bathroom window was too small to climb out so if he locked her in there...problem solved.
"I want to go for a swim." Susan protested as Peter opened the bathroom door and tried to get her in there.
"You will, just...um...go in there first." Peter tried. It worked, in her dazed state of mind she was easily tricked. Now what? The door only locked from the inside. So he'd have to stand guard until the moon went down. This was going to be a long long night.
"We're home." Mr. Pevensie's voice called from the front door.
"Oh no." Peter groaned.
"Grandma's really losing her mind." Edmund commented as he walked in.
"My mother is not losing her mind." Mr. Pevensie said.
"She called me George." Edmund pointed out.
"Slip of the tongue."
"Six times?" Edmund said.
"I'm tired." Lucy sighed as she came in behind them.
"Me too." Edmund yawned.
"Peter? Susan?" Mrs. Pevensie called. "Where are you?"
Peter gulped. What was he going to do now? Susan was all moonstruck and they were home a day early. Just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, He heard running water and the sound of the tub filling up. Why couldn't she just leave the water alone?
"Peter?" Mrs. Pevensie called again. "Susan?"
Well on the bright side, the water might distract Susan from trying to run off to some god-forsaken island in the middle of the night. He went down stairs hoping that Susan wouldn't open the door the second he walked away.
"Hello Mum." Peter said nervously.
"Hi dear, where's Susan?" She asked.
"She ate some bad calms and is going to be in the bathroom all night." Peter came up with quickly.
"Oh poor thing." Mrs. Pevensie said. "I'll go check on her."
"No!" Peter said quickly. "You can't...she's um...moody and doesn't want to be bothered."
"But if she's unwell..." His mum started.
"She's fine." Peter jumped in.
"You just said she wasn't doing well." Mrs. Pevensie seemed confused. "Are you alright? You're acting very strange."
"No, I'm fine...I..." Peter stammered hoping he'd come up with something.
Meanwhile, Edmund was headed to his room and went passed the bathroom on the way. He tripped over a shoe lace that had become untied. "Ow!" He whimpered as he fell flat on his face.
"Ed?" Susan's voice came from inside the bathroom as she heard his voice.
"Su?" Edmund hadn't known she was in there. The light was off.
"Edmund," She said in her distant, moonstruck, giggly voice. "Come in here. There's something I want to show you."
Edmund opened the door and turned on the light. "Su?"
Susan was sitting in the tub, her tail fully formed and hanging over it. She let out a giggle. "Isn't it funny?"
"Funny isn't the word I had in mind." Edmund gasped looking at Susan's tail. "You're a fish!"
"I like my tail." She giggled. "Don't you?"
"It's...nice?" Edmund said still in shock.
"I can swim really fast with it." She said proudly flapping it up and down.
"When did this happen?" Edmund asked.
Susan sighed and giggled again. "Mako Island. I should go there. It's nice."
"Susan, you're acting really weird." Edmund told her. "and it's not just the tail either, what's wrong with you?"
"I'm fine." She giggled again.
Moments later, Peter came racing up the stairs to find Edmund staring at Susan who was still giggling uncontrollably. "Oh no."
"Did you know about this?" Edmund asked him.
"Sorta." Peter quickly closed the door behind them and locked it so that if anyone else walked by they couldn't get in. "Susan, what are you doing?"
"Sitting in the water." She said simply. "I like my tail."
"Great." Now what was he going to do?
"Peter, what's wrong with her?" Edmund asked.
"She's a little messed up...for some reason she goes a little..um, wacky when she sees the full moon."
"Hee hee." Susan giggled again.
"If she giggles one more time..." Edmund started. He couldn't take this extra giddy version of his sister for one more second.
"It's not her fault Ed." Peter tried to explain. "She can't control it. She probably wont even remember any of this when the moon goes down."
"How do you know?" Edmund asked.
Peter sighed. "Remember that black eye I had? She gave it to me during the last full moon."
"The moon." Susan laughed merrily. "I looked at the moon...hee hee."
"You told me you got that black eye because you banged into the side of your dresser." Edmund gasped.
"Well that might not have been the whole story." Peter said feeling a little guilty. "But look you can't tell anyone about this okay? Not even Lucy."
"Why not?" Susan said. "I like my tail, everyone else will too."
"She's really starting to creep me out." Edmund said.
"Look at this." Susan started waving her hand at the water in the tub around her and a making it take funny shapes. "Look, it's a bird." She giggled.
"Neat!" Edmund said. "Can you do one in the shape of Aslan?"
"Ed!" Peter barked.
"Oh, sorry."
"I like water." Susan giggled.
"She seems fairly harmless this time." Peter told Edmund, "Why don't you just keep an eye on Mum, Father, and Lucy and make sure they don't come in here. I'm going to see if we can get her legs back."
"I don't want my legs." Susan snapped. "I want to keep my tail."
"That can't end well." Edmund sighed as he walked out of the bathroom. He still couldn't believe his sister was a mermaid. It would've been much worse if he hadn't been so used to those sort of creatures in Narnia. It would have really freaked him out.
"Okay Su," Peter said. "Time to get out of the tub." He offered her his hand but she shook her head and refused to take it.
"I like my tail." She said for the millionth time.
"Of course you do...you just don't need it right now." Peter pulled her out of the water and tried to dry her off. It wasn't working. No matter how dry she got, the tail stayed, much to Susan's delight and Peter's horror.
"See, my tail is lovely." Susan said proudly. "I doesn't even want to leave me."
"This is not good." Peter said.
"It's great." Susan sighed. She started giggling again.
"I hate my life." Peter groaned.
"We should try to get to Mako." Susan said. "It's too bad you don't have a tail like mine, we could race there..."
"We're not going anywhere." Peter said firmly. "Mum and father are home and they can't see you like this."
"Why not?" Susan asked. "I-"
"If you say, 'I like my tail' again, I am going to duck tape your mouth shut." Peter growled. He could only put up with so much.
"You're not the boss of me." Susan said waving her hand at the water so it shot out and gave Peter a wetting.
"Su, we've got to do something." Peter said as he spit out the mouthful of water that she'd just whacked him with.
Susan started giggling again. "You don't mind my tail, why should anyone else? You still like me. I'm proud of my tail."
"Su, not everyone is going to be like me." Peter told her. "No one else can see you're tail. End of story."
"Edmund didn't mind." Susan giggled. As the said Edmund walked back into the bathroom.
"Well?" Peter asked him.
"Everyone went to bed."
"Thank the Lion!" Peter exclaimed. "Now we just have to watch her until morning and everything should be fine."
"Who's in there?" Lucy's voice suddenly called from the door. "I have to go."
"Lu, come in, I have something to show you." Susan said before Peter and Edmund could stop her.
Thankfully it was locked. "It's locked." Lucy protested. "I really have to go."
"Go in the bushes." Edmund told her.
"Ed!" Peter snapped.
"Peter? Edmund?" Lucy asked. "What are you doing in there?"
"Nothing." Peter and Edmund said at the same time.
"Let her in." Susan said.
"Shut up." Peter said.
"What?" Lucy's voice came back.
"Not you." Peter groaned. How much worse could this get? He turned to Edmund. "I have an idea." He pointed to the long skirt hanging on one of the racks. It was their mother's and she'd left it there to dry a few days ago. "We put that over Susan's tail, you take one arm, I take the other and we get her to her room."
"Wont it be weird that she wont have feet touching the ground?" Edmund asked.
"You got a better idea?"
"No." Edmund sighed. "I hope this works."
It seemed to be going fine but Susan wouldn't work with them. She flipped her tail back and forth under the skirt as they helped her out the room. Lucy saw it at once.
"She's a mermaid!" Lucy gasped Suddenly the urge to go to the bathroom was gone. "How?"
"Long story, Lu." Peter told her as they helped her into her bedroom.
Lucy followed. "What's wrong with her?"
"Another long story." Peter sighed. "At least she's probably a bit worn out."
Susan let out a yawn as they placed her on her bed.
"Maybe she'll just sleep until it's over." Edmund said hopefully.
"Let's hope so." Peter said.
"Well, I'm beat." Edmund yawned. "Can I go to bed now or do you still need help?"
"I think I can take it from here." Peter told them, "You and Lucy can go to sleep."
"How can we sleep knowing this?" Lucy asked.
"I don't see what else we could do." Edmund yawned again. "I'm about to pass out from being so tired."
Lucy gave in. "Okay."
Peter made sure the windows were locked as tight as they could be. There, he could barely open them now, there was no way a tired Mermaid was going to get out through them.
"I'm going now, See you in the morning." Peter told her.
"Goodbye." Susan said in a sad voice.
"Don't be sad, You'll see me in the morning." Peter laughed in spite of himself.
Susan smiled at him strangely for a moment. She sat up, with some difficulty due to her over-sized fish tail that was of course still fully formed. Then she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.
Peter was stunned. "um, I...well goodnight." He quickly raced out of the room. That did not just happen, he thought to himself. But he knew it had.
The next morning, Susan woke up in her bedroom, her tail long gone and her legs returned. She couldn't remember anything about last night. She remembered going into the kitchen on the way to the bathroom but after that it was all a blank. What she wanted to know was why in the world she was wearing Mum's ugliest skirt. She got up and went down stairs for breakfast.
"Susan!" Lucy and Edmund cried at the same time. "You're alright!"
"Um...yeah, I..." Susan rubbed her forehead. Okay what exactly had happened last night? She looked at Peter who mouthed. "They know."
Things must have gotten out of hand. She wondered if Mum and father knew too.
Peter understood her worry and shook his head.
Okay so only her siblings knew. Well that wasn't as bad as it could've been.
"Are you feeling better?" Her mother asked.
"Much better thank you." Susan told her taking a seat.
"I'm off to work." Their father told them. "See you later."
Their mother gave them each a kiss on the forehead. "I've got to run darlings. I'm meeting a friend to prepare for next week's book club. I'm glad you're feeling better, Su."
"Okay, what happened to me last night?" Susan asked her siblings once she was alone.
"You wouldn't stop giggling." Edmund told her.
"You went on and on about Mako Island, your tail wouldn't go away and you proudly showed it to Edmund and Lucy."
"Why didn't you stop me?" Susan asked Peter.
"I tried but you were very persistent." Peter told her taking a sip of orange juice.
Susan buried her face in her hands and moaned. "I can't believe this."
"I guess you can't ever look at the moon again." Lucy said.
"Just when it full." Peter explained.
Edmund and Lucy got up and cleared the table.
"So you don't remember anything about last night?" Peter asked.
Susan shook her head. "No."
"Nothing at all?" He double checked.
"Nothing." Susan told him. She had the feeling he was keeping something from her. "Okay, what did I do?"
"Nothing." Peter said as he got up. Thank goodness she didn't remember. That would've been very awkward to put it lightly. "Nothing that we didn't already tell you."
Susan couldn't help but think that sounded like a lie.
AN: Please review! I can't wait to find out what you thought!