My friends and I were jumping on Amara's trampoline with her German shepherd, Danny.
We were all laughing, and we grew so exhausted we just lay on our backs, staring up at the stars.
Callie said, "I wish this would all last forever."
Then I felt a sharp pang in my stomach. I had almost forgotten.
"G – guys," I said, my voice cracking. "There's something I have to tell you."
"What?" Courtney and Gabby asked at the same time.
"I'm moving to New Zealand."
"No way." Lauren said.
I bit my lip and said, "M-hm."
"But why, Sammie? Why?" Amara demanded.
"My dad got promoted, and-"
"It's okay, we understand," my friends said, patting me on the back and hugging me as I started to cry.
It would only be later when I realized moving would change my life in more ways than one.
Flash forward to present day. That was two months ago, and I'm here in New Zealand with my friends. They don't know my secret… yet. We're hanging around at the beach, and we're playing truth or dare, when…
"Uh oh." I mutter.
"What?" Lauren asks, confused.
"It's Zane."
"The Zane?" Amara asks.
"The Zane." I say.
"Uh oh." All of us say in unison. It's only me, Lauren, Amara, and Hannah this time.
I get up.
"Run!" I hiss, and we start to scramble along the beach toward the pier, away from Zane. I can hear him and his dorky friends laughing at us.
We walk around for a bit, hoping he hadn't followed us, when Amara whistles and says, "This is ni-ice."
I see her checking out Zane's shiny blue waterski thingy.
"Amara… Don't touch that…" I say, a warning note creeping into my voice.
"Why not? It's not like I'm hurting it." She says. She's not, but it's Zane's.
"Amara… Please…"
"You need to loosen up."
She's running her hand along the body of it, admiring the finish, when I hear, "Get your hands off!"
It's Zane. Oh crap.
"Wrecking my stuff…"
He zeroes in on me.
"You put her up to it, you evil little witch."
He shoves me, and I stumble back. I can't talk. My face flushes and I stare at the ground.
"Didn't you?" he pushes me again.
I stumble back farther this time, and I can't talk.
"I asked you a question!"
He pushes me harder, and I fall off the pier.
Rikki Chadwick took orders from no one, especially not Zane Bennett. So when she saw him picking on Sammie, that was the last straw.
While he was busy shoving her around, she stole the sparkplug out of his precious red motorboat. Zane was going down.
When I fell off the pier, I thought that was going to be it. I would touch the water and then… poof. My secret's out.
But no. A more painful alternative was offered. I landed on someone else's motorboat. And it HURT.
Everyone was silent for a second. Then I heard, "You are SO dead!"
It was Amara. She and the rest of my friends were punching Zane. I would never be able to show my face at school again, but who cares? It was really funny.
So that started my big war with Zane. He slammed me into lockers, started vicious rumors about me, publicly humiliating me, and a whole lot of other crap. I got him off my back by promising to do all his homework. But that wasn't the end of anything.
Flash forward a month or two. Zane's now obsessed with mermaid hunting, after he almost drowned on the Lorelei, and claims one saved him.
I might as well come right out and say it: I'm a mermaid.
It only happens when I touch water. But I swear, I didn't save Zane.
Then, this is it, what you've been waiting for…
I think someone found the moonpool, and I decided to stay away from it. I was exploring the wreck of the Lorelei when Zane bursts through the door in scuba gear, armed with cameras.
He sees me. He starts flashing his camera like crazy. I raise my arms up in front of my face and back up into the wall. I try to swim into the back room, but he grabs me hair. I thrash around and struggle frantically, but nothing works. Nothing. Thank God he hasn't seen my face yet. I kick and struggle a whole lot more, but every move I make, he pulls harder on my hair. I kick and yell. Then, he shoves me into a closet on the Lorelei and slams and locks the door. I hear him leave, and start to panic. I can't hold my breath forever! Why is he leaving me here? Why? What is he DOING!
Two minutes full of pounding and yelling later, I find out he's getting rope. I scream and kick my tail and punch him and thrash around, but he's got an iron grip and I get tied up and hauled onto his stupid red motorboat.
Zane takes his mask off and gapes at me for at least three full minutes. I keep my head turned away, panicking. If he finds out, my life is over.
"No way…" He breathes. "I'm NOT crazy…"
Rikki, Lewis, Emma, and Cleo are talking when all of their phones go off at once. The message says: MAKO ISLAND NOW I HAVE PROOF. It's from Zane.
They all look at each other in utter horror. This can't be good.
Zane and I are in the motorboat, and I'm screaming like a crazy girl and trying to get out of the boat desperately.
Zane finally says, "Just shut up and give up already, will you?" but I don't. I have to get out, I just have to.
He grabs my face with both hands and forces me to look at him.
"I'm-not-going-to-hurt-you." He says, slowly and clearly. Then, "Omigod! SAMMIE!"
Uh-oh.
"Yes, it's me. Now let me out of this stupid boat before I use my magical powers to kill you."
"You're a- you're a- you're a-"
"A mermaid, I know. Please, Zane, let me go. I swear, I can't-"
"No way, you little witch! I always knew there was something wrong with you!"
"Please, Zane…. Please…"
"Oh, no, Sammie. I'm not letting you out of this."
He starts the boat and we land on Mako Island. Five minutes later, Lewis, Rikki, Emma, and Cleo show up.
They're all shocked, but for the wrong reason. They didn't think that there was another mermaid. But I know their secret… they're mermaids too. But that's not important now.
I don't know how I'm EVER going to get out of this one.
"Zane, she's been doing all your homework for a month, and you want to give that up for money?" Rikki says, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Yeah, Rikki, yeah I do!" Zane says, "You all thought I was crazy. But I'm NOT!"
"Zane! There has to be a logical explanation for this…." Emma says, her voice shaky.
Cleo is speechless.
"Uh, Zane… I think she might be dangerous you have to let her go!"
"Dangerous? She's a little -, that's all! And she's gonna make me rich!"
"That's not a good idea, Zane…" Cleo starts to say.
Rikki steps forward.
"All you care about is money. You don't care about anything else, Zane. You're just a little spoiled brat!"
"Don't you see, Rikki! This isn't just about money; this is about history! This is something that will rewrite the history books!"
Rikki doesn't say a thing. She punches Zane straight in the face.
Cleo, Lewis, and Emma manage to pull him off of him and hold her back, and Zane says, "Get out."
"You can't do anything to Sammie, Zane, please!" Emma says.
"I won't turn her in yet." Zane says finally.
"What are you going to do?" Cleo says, a nervous edge creeping into her voice.
"The science nerd over there is going to help me get to the bottom of whatever the hell is going on while she stays in my swimming pool."
"But-"
"But what?"
"Your dad-"
"My "father" is leaving on a business trip to Europe for a month."
"No way."
"He doesn't care about me; he took me on a vacation for my tenth birthday and left me there."
"You can't do this."
"You'll find I can. Now help me life her into the boat unless you want your precious friend exposed."
"I hate you."
"What else is new?"
They got me into the boat and back to Zane's place without me being discovered. As it turns out, Zane has a pool in his room.
We all start to argue about what's going to happen to me, when Zane pushes Rikki in the pool.
She turns into a mermaid in front of everyone.
"Alright, does anyone else have any other secrets?" Zane asks, his voice tense.
No one says anything.
So Zane shoves Lewis, Cleo, and Emma into the pool.
Cleo and Emma become mermaids, and Lewis doesn't.
He gets out of the pool and he and Zane start to argue.
They leave us upstairs but lock us in, and Zane comes back twenty minutes later.
"Alright, this is the deal. You do what I say, or your little secret gets revealed to the whole entire world. Understood?"
"No!" We all shout at once.
Zane takes out his cell phone and starts dialing a number.
"Alright, alright. But NO ONE finds out about ANY of this." Sensible old Emma says.
"No one but us… "
The four of us look at each other, and we know that this can't be good. Not with how perverted Zane is.