"Dylan, go help your sister bring some things up into her room."
I glanced at my dad in disbelief. "But I just finished getting all my furniture up into my room by myself. She shouldn't get it any easier than me!"
"Yes, well, she's a lot younger than you."
"Only by three years," I grumbled. My dad just gave me a pointed look. Knowing I couldn't do anything about it, I walked over to Claire's staircase and walked up it, making sure everyone in the house could hear the thud of each and every footstep I took.
"Jesus Christ, Dylan," said Claire when I opened her door. Her blonde hair was up in a ponytail. "No need to get so loud."
"Shut up." I looked around her room. "So, what is it you need help with?"
"Well, I don't trust you with any of my posters…"
"With good reason," I nodded.
"...So I'm going to need you to haul up my vanity."
I looked downstairs towards the white vanity I had thought belonged to my mother. "That's yours?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Dylan. That thing's in my room everyday for the past thirteen years. You've had to have seen it before now."
"No… I'm pretty sure I've never seen that in my life."
Claire rolled her eyes. "Just goes to show how perceptive you are."
"Hey!"
She waved me away. "Just, go. If you have troubles bringing it up, ask Dad."
"He's packing away his own things right now."
"Then I guess you'll have to do it all on your own," she said with a smile. I considered punching her, then decided I'd have my revenge in some other way. Preferably on those awful headshots of boy band members she kept on her walls.
"Whatever." I trudged back downstairs and grasped the edge of the vanity. It wasn't as heavy as if looked earlier. Getting a better grip, I hoisted it up and started walking up the stairs. It fell a few times, but in the end I made it back to Claire's bedroom.
"There," I said, dropping the thing in the middle of her room. I made my way to leave, but Claire stopped me.
"Whoa, where do you think you're going?"
"Away from you," I answered honestly.
She pointed towards the vanity. "You can't just leave it there."
"And why not?"
"Because that's not where it goes."
"Well, you can figure out where it goes by yourself. I have other things to be doing." Claire threw her arms up in the air.
"Like what? You have no friends here, you can't drive anymore and Mom and Dad wouldn't let you go into town anyways, we're not allowed to go swimming alone, and if you're not helping me you'll just get pulled into helping Mom or Dad. And, if none of the above, I suppose you could go for a walk. But, to be honest, I think you've gone on plenty of those the past few days."
All of that was technically true. No friends, no license (turns out the driver's test here in Australia is a whole lot more complicated, and you can't even get your license until you're 18 years old), and no permission to do any of the things I'd like to be doing… considering the only thing I want to do is go look for the strange girl I had seen three days ago. My mind still couldn't wrap around what exactly had happened, and a part of me believes it was all an oxygen deprivation induced hallucination. A part which seems to be growing larger by the hour.
So, instead of going to look for that island or the girl, I've been busying myself by listening to music during long walks on the beach. It sounds romantic, but really its a focusing method of mine. I've been trying to think of any way I could make it out there to Mako Island, but so far, no luck.
I had learned about Mako at dinner, the night I first saw the girl.
"Could you pass me the ketchup?" Claire asked. Dad passed it to her and she mumbled thanks while squirting some onto her bacon cheeseburger.
I had barely touched my dinner. The mushroom swiss my parents had ordered for me was still intact on my paper plate, due to the fact I was too busy thinking about the girl and the island.
We were eating dinner on a makeshift dinner table: the island that had already been installed in the kitchen by the people who first built the house. Our real table wasn't going to show up until the next day, so it had to make do for now.
"Mom," I said carefully after finally taking one bite of my burger (you would have thought a near-death experience would leave you at least a little bit more hungry). "I noticed… while on my walk… that there was an island not too far away from here. Do you know anything about that place?" I decided it was a good idea to start there.
"An island?" My mom stood up and walked over to the window, squinting while she tried to look for some sign of it. "I don't see any island."
I realized my mistake, and backtracked. "Oh, well, I was walking over by those rocks over there when I saw it. I was pretty sure it was an island… it might be nothing…" That was a lie, but I couldn't let my parents know how sure I was that it was there. Then I would have to explain I knew this because I was out swimming, something they had explicitly forbade me to do.
"I think I know what you're talking about," my dad said as he wiped his mouth. I noticed he was frowning slightly. "And it's a lot farther away than it looks. You wouldn't be able to swim there; you'd need a boat of some kind. One that has enough gas to get you there and back."
"Well, what is it?" I asked eagerly… hopefully not too eager, though.
"It's called Mako Island. It's not your typical tourist attraction, though. It's mainly a shark breeding ground, and while I've heard it's quite beautiful, it's not a good place for people to go. Much too dangerous. I'd forget about it if I were you." There was something of a warning in his tone. I figured he probably knew I was thinking of going there, but now I wasn't sure if it was a possibility. Where was I going to find a boat like that?
Claire, who had looked excited at the prospect of there being a somewhat-nearby island, slumped in her seat. "Darn it," she sighed. "That kind of sounded cool at first."
"Oh, I remember the place now!" my mom said, snapping her fingers. She returned to the island. "Your father and I are going to be doing some tests on that place at our new jobs this week. Exciting, isn't it?" My mother didn't notice the look my father was giving her, one that said "Stop talking, this isn't something they need to hear." I've become very familiar with that look over the years.
I decided dropping the issue would make it easier for me to eventually look into it at a different time.
"So… we start school next week, right?" I asked.
Since then, I hadn't gotten any more information out of my parents, and there wasn't too much to read about it on the internet either. What my dad had said was correct. It was mainly a shark breeding ground, and although it wasn't off limits to the public, hardly anyone went there. Meaning so far, I'll I've hit is dead ends.
I looked back up at Claire', who was waiting for my response. She was smiling smugly as if she had gotten the upper hand. "Whatever Claire," I sighed. "Just do it yourself." I turned around and left her room, shutting the door behind me.
"Dylan!" she whined. I ignored her and went down the stairs two steps at a time, jumping the last three.
"I'm going for a walk!" I yelled out into the house. No one replied, but I took that as permission and left to go down the path towards the rocks.
I hadn't went there since I almost drowned. Since I couldn't go swimming, it didn't seem like there was any reason to. But now that I thought about it again, the strange girl might be there, if she isn't at Mako Island. It's worth a shot, I said in my head.
Wearing sneakers this time, the rocks were a lot easier to maneuver. I climbed over them, then slid down the last rock, almost tumbling into the soft sand below. I caught myself just in time though.
When I did, my hand landed on something sharp, something not a rock.
"Ouch!" I winced. I stood up and looked at the cut. It was small, and had hardly any blood. "What the hell?"
I looked down at the sand and squinted. Something in the sand was reflecting the sun, making it look really bright. Probably something metal, I concluded. Bending over, I grabbed the object.
It was a necklace. It had a small silver chain that linked it together, and at the end, a silver locket. Some flecks of sand was on the pendant, so I rubbed that off with my fingers. My thumb ran across the sharp clasp that kept the locket shut, which had a speck of my blood on it. When I tried taking that off, the locket flipped open.
Inside was a picture. It was three girls in some sort of pool thing. The photo had obviously been exposed to water since everything was really blurry, so I couldn't make out faces, but I could tell that the whole bottom half of the girl's bodies were… tails.
I ran my fingers over the picture, almost as if to make sure it was real. Are they all mermaids? I wondered to myself.
Shaking my head, I pocketed the necklace in my shorts. I could think about that later. Right now, I needed to find what I was really looking for; the girl.
For a long time, I sat on some rocks near the shore, watching the tide come in and out. It was relaxing, but disappointing when no strange creatures showed up. Well, unless you count the crab that I almost stepped on while pacing the beach.
When a few hours had passed with no sign of any mermaids, I glumly walked back to the house. Once inside, I saw that Claire was making a smoothie.
"Where's Mom and Dad?" I asked her, sitting down at the island.
The blender vibrated, concealing Claire's words.
"What?"
After switching it off, she turned to me. "They had to go talk to their new boss. Some bigshot scientist over at the Marine Park." She grabbed one of the glasses we hadn't yet packed into the cupboards and poured her mixture into it. Then she stuck in a multi-colored straw and took a sip.
"Mmm," she said with a shrug. "I liked the ones at the JuiceNet Cafe better."
"JuiceNet Cafe? What's that?"
"It's that place we went the first day we got back here. They have the best smoothies ever."
"I guess I'll have to take your word for it," I said. Claire gestured towards the blender, which still had some smoothie mix in it.
"Do you want some?"
"Did you poison it?" I countered.
Her answer was a roll of the eyes.
"Sure."
She poured me my own cup and slid it across the counter. I grabbed a straw and started sipping the blueberry concoction. My sister and I both like the fruit, while our parents both hated it. It worked out funnily like that.
A few contented minutes passed by with both of us sipping our drinks before I broke the silence.
"Hey, Claire…" I started hesitantly. I figured, during this momentary ceasefire, that it would be a good time to get someone else's opinion. "Do you believe in things that, well, other people don't?"
"Like… what? God?" She raised an eyebrow.
"No… more like something that most people think is a myth. Like… oh, I'm just throwing random things out here… faeries? Unicorns? … Mermaids?"
"So, like mythical creatures, then."
I snapped my fingers and took another sip of my smoothie. "Yes! Mythical creatures. Do you believe in any of them?"
"Um, well, I think I need to answer that question with another question… the question being, how old do you think I am?!"
I sighed. "Claire. Just answer the first question."
"Fine," she said. Her eyes looked upwards, as if thinking about something. "Well… I've always thought that humans don't know everything about the world. So, suppose it's a possibility those things exist." She looked back at me again. "A very slim possibility."
"What would you ever do if you, I don't know, met one? Perhaps?" I was trying really hard to sound nonchalant. I don't think it was working.
"If I met one, well, first I'd probably faint." I chuckled. That was such a Claire thing to do. "Then I'd try to be friends, I guess. I mean, how cool would that be?"
"Would you tell anybody?"
"No," she answered honestly. "They'd most likely be captured or something if I did. Haven't you seen any superhero movies? The government eventually gets involved, because that's what always happens when someone tells someone else." Claire gave me an odd look. "Why all these questions?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. Just making small talk."
"I'm your sister, you dork." She walked by me and flung some of her smoothie with her straw onto my face. "We don't do small talk."
"Fine then. Would you rather talk about your unhealthy obsession with One Direction?" I wiped the smoothie off my face.
"Ah." She patted my head. "There's the annoying brother I know and love." Disposing of her cup in the sink, she then walked out of the room and headed towards her own.
"Love you too!" I shouted sarcastically. Despite myself, I was smiling a little.
When I stood up to get rid of my own dishes, I felt the necklace move in my back pocket. I reached in and took it out, looking over its features and the picture inside again.
My eyes flitted back and forth between the window overlooking the sea and the mysterious locket I was almost positive belonged to the girl who had saved me. "Don't worry," I mumbled. "Your secret's safe with me."
(A/N: I know this one is shorter, but the next one- or the one after that- will be where Dylan starts school. After that, that's when the story will really get going. :-) Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and don't forget to review, favorite, and follow.)
