H2O: Twin Tails
Chapter Two:
They sat under their respective trees in an awkward and intense silence. Emily blinked back her hurt and tears and tried to remain vaguely thoughtful on the outside. But the thought had occured to her, many times with her differences from her sister. Yet the thought of those petty ponderings being true-
"You already thought we weren't." Aimee said interrupting her thoughts. When Emily looked at her in surprise, Aimee's pretty doe like eyes were near cerulean and dark with anger. "I knew you had. Ever sense that first day of school, when Ashley Jane Holden and Elizabeth Marie Bremms asked why we were dressed just alike...you changed Emmy."
Emily was momentarily stunned, Liz and Lee? First day of school? "Wait you mean first day, first day? Kindergarden first day? You remember the first day of kindergarden?" It was the only time they allowed twins in the same class.
"I remember a lot of things you forgot." Aimee said before takeing a chunk of string from her pocket, one side was knotted and she safty pinned it to the rip in the knee of her pants, artfully knotting it into a bracelet. Emily watched her for a long moment.
"That's not true. Not at all. You're the one that's different." Emily's voice had finally reached her desired yell. "You're not like anyone here, or at school. You're only friends are from your so-called 'adventures'," here she paused to make quotation marks with her fingers. "You're a freak," She said decisively. "And I don't know why everyone else thinks you're so cool. You're just a nobody." She made a strangled sound of frustration. "A no good, emotionless, over analytical automaton. You do crazy half-brained stunts, you know too much about everything, you wear outragious clothes, and-"
"And you mean none of what you say because deep down, you felt like you could be me too, because you're my twin. And you are. Genetically maybe not." Aimee put the string in one of her many pockets. "But inside you're almost exactly like me. And you can't stand it."
Aimee calmly got up and walked back toward the boat. "Where are you going?" Emily called after her.
"You want to go home. I'm taking you there." Aimee retorted walking swiftly away. After a long moment, Emily followed.
"I-, What I said was-," Emily began.
"What you said was the first sincere thing you've said to me in many, many years." Aimee cleared her throat, which sounded sore. Emily winced knowing Aimee had probably talked more tonight to her today than she had in a whole year.
They were quiet as Aimee tried to start the boat. It didn't work. She tried once more and then started off in another direction. "Where are you going? Aimee?"
"I," She pointed vaguely towards her chest. "Am getting us," She motioned between them. "Out of the cold." Emily took a look at her and then the temperature hits and she shivers. Right. So, shelter.
"What's wrong with the boat?" Emily asked as they walked over tree roots and shrubbery. Aimee didn't answer, just kept walking confidently towards a unknown location. Emily heard a rather...slithering sound next to her foot and ran until she was walking side-by-side with Aimee. "Where are we going?"
Some time passed and they kept walking further and further from the boat. "Are you ignoreing me?" More time passed. "Please stop. You're being childish. Aimee? Aims? Hello?" Aimee took in a deep breath and stopped, swivelling around to glare at Emily. Emily, blinking in momentary confusion, stopped a few steps later. When Emily met Aimee's gaze she knew Aimee was thinking something mischievious.
She was then proven right when Aimee took off running, following a nearby river. "Aimee, wait up!" Emily followed and they ran until they got to a waterfall. "Well what now?" Emily asked. "Aimee? Aimee?" Aimee walked up to Emily and walked right off the cliff seperating their rock from the one the waterfall was crashing down. "Oh my god! Aimee!" Emily peered down to see where in the water Aimee had fallen, hoping she hadn't hit any rocks.
Only to see a wide openning into a cave she just bet Aimee had already known was there. "That wasn't funny!" She screamed angrily only to hear laughter. "I'm coming in!"
"Then jump already!" Aimee screamed back. Emily took her time but eventually was hanging by her hands with her feet fractions of an inch from the openning of the cave. After adjusting her grip and counting to three twice she yelled back.
"I can't! I'm stuck!"
There was a brief pause before Aimee yelled back. "You're kidding right?"
"No!" Another pause followed and Emily decided to keep yelling. "This is all your fault. Stupid talk. Stupid parents. Stupid Mako Island. I don't even like hiking! Or Caves! I hate boating even! I don't like serious conversations where we fight. Especially when your supposed to be on my side in this! I hate that your hairs straight and mine's curly. I quite like being blonde though, not to say there's anything wrong with being a brunette, on you it's quite fetching even, but honestly. I am truely and most certainly stu-"
Emily started screaming when a very wet Aimee grabbed her by the wrists and dropped her into the cave openning. "You big baby." Emily slid down and landed with a gasp. Aimee slid down after her.
"Great now we're both stuck in this cave." Emily said moodily. She took a look around. "How'd you get up there anyway? From down here, there's not a way I wouldn't see you coming from."
Aimee pointed at the round pool of water in front of them."There's an openning, I swam through and walked back."
"Wait, does that mean you weren't listening to me? Because I really was stuck you know and I would've rather had emotional support than getting dropped into a cave. Because that's what you did. You dropped me into a cave. Who drops people in caves anyway?"
Aimee sighed and handed Emily a round bit of metal. Emily stared at it before getting very angry and very shocked. "Is that the boat's sparkplug? You broke our boat? Who breaks a boat? Especially when they want to go home-"
"I didn't." Aimee interrupted. Emily stared at her without comprehension for a bit.
"You didn't break the boat? Then why are you carrying a bit of boat around with you then? Who does that?"
"I didn't techniquely break the boat I just disassembled it for a bit so you wouldn't go back there all mad at them and me. You needed time." Then she started to pull plastic bags full of weird looking candy out. "Want a bit of rock candy?"
"No, no I do not want anything to do with your multicolored, sugar impreggnated, rock resembling, foreign pieces of-Ahhhhh!" Emily screamed as she saw a spider next to her face. In her defence it was at least two inches by three in body alone. She scrambled up from her place on the cave's floor and ran through the sand to stand right before the pool before whirling to face Aimee. "And another thing-" Emily screamed again as she lost footing and fell into the pool.
When she surfaced it was to see Aimee desperateing struggleing to keep a straight face. Tears literally welled up in her eyes and her cheeks flushed from effort.
"Go on, laugh before you hurt yourself." Emily said and Aimee did. Laugh that is. She laughed so infectiously Emily joined in. They eventually calmed down, still laughing sporatically.
"I'm laughing so hard I'm sweating," Aimee said a while later. "Here," She said holding out a hand to help Emilly out of the pool. Emily grasped it firmly, and used it to pull Aimee in. When they finally surfaced, laughing and splashing and playing and, for the first time sence they heard the news, happy.
"Look, what the heck is that?" Emily asked pointing to the hole directly about them.
"It's a hole in the ceiling." Aimee said patronizingly.
"I meant what's in the sky." Emily said, a bit huffily but still happy.
"The moon," Aimee said after looking at it for a minute and observing.
"The moon isn't out during the day, Aims." Emily said teasingly before the water started to bubble up around them. "Oh my gosh!" Emily struggled and lifted herself out of the water. She was about to ask Aimee what she thought was wrong with the pool when she realized Aimee, who'd been in the middle of the pool, was no where to be seen under the layers of bubble and, oddly glow. With a cussword that sounded odd for her to say, to her own ears, but fit the situation perfectly, Emily dived into the bubbling and glowing water again to lug her twin up to shore.
Directly in the middle of the pool, Aimee was stareing up at the moon she could barely see for the sun light and the water over her head. She felt Emily's hand gripping hers tightly, trying to pull her to the surface. She made a brief wish, and closed her eyes, dragging Emily down a bit when she relaxed and stopped swimming in place.