Chapter 8: Something Fishy
Hey everyone! I decided to update another chapter of Superhero Blues. Enjoy and remember to read, review, and recycle!
Kendra Robinson, Wilbur's twin sister, was staring at the blank wall. Sitting on her comfortable bed in her large room, she had always wondered if she had more superhuman abilities than she had ever known. Ever since Kendra and her brother were born, she had developed lots of superpowers overtime. First, she had a hypersonic scream, a somewhat uncommon ability. Then the more common ones with superhuman strength, laser beam, flying, super speed, and on and on. Of course, she didn't have every super power. Kendra didn't have psychic abilities like her Aunt Leah (Cornelius's long lost sister) or her cousin Neon's amazing memory (a memory that seemed to be far from a normal photographic memory). Something superhuman always came out of Kendra, and she wanted to know what it is this time.
Wilbur entered Kendra's room. "Hey, Kennie." He called his sister's little nickname. Wilbur stood in front of Kendra, asking, "Why are you staring at your hands?"
"Wil, you know me. You know my superpowers." Kendra sighed as she started out. She hopes that her little conversation won't turn out to be so pointless. "I developed a lot of abilities and I try to practice them all."
Wilbur nodded in agreement. Most of her practices turned out to be some failures. Something like when Wilbur and Kendra's parents turned into babies and caused a chemical flood in Cornelius's lab. Or when their parents were away and destroyed and antique cookie jar. "Your point is?"
Kendra grinned. "Will you be my guinea pig for a second?"
"What? I'm human, you know that."
"I just want to try out something to you. Just to see what I can do with my powers." Kendra explained. "I promise I won't turn you into a sandwich and have someone think you are their lunch."
"Hello, sis! You probably realized I had already gone through enough of this superhero stuff! Sometimes when you practice you new abilities, you just end up messing up something else." Turning around and facing the door, Wilbur walked out.
"Wait!" Kendra ordered.
"What?"
"Pwease?" Kendra tried doing a puppy dog look to Wilbur. "Zoey doesn't want to do it because she is too busy. Dad is on another business trip and Mom is away performing with her frogs! And then the rest of the family has other stuff to do too!"
"Amazing how we have a big family but we get easily bored." Wilbur thought, thinking of an answer for Kendra. "What's in it for me?"
Kendra never thought he would say that. Maybe Wilbur had no other choice. "I'll give my allowance to you for a year!"
"Nah, I have enough money anyway." Wilbur turned the doorknob open.
"You can be so difficult, you know that?" Kendra explained. "How about flying you to school instead of having a bubble take you there?"
"I never have good flying experience with you. You go over the hovercar limit." Wilbur winced, remembering the fear of Kendra letting go and falling.
"I know! How about…being your personal bodyguard? Um, keeping you away from Gaalina." Kendra offered, knowing how Wilbur desperately wanted to get the most annoying girl, unusually named Gaalina, out of his life. Being the daughter of Mike and Vanessa Yagoobian, she would look like as if she were not related to her parents. Since Wilbur first met her, he assumed that she was the most annoying girl. Besides annoying, she acted very immature. Wilbur never had feelings for her, thinking Gaalina was just a beyond lower-IQ idiot. Kendra didn't think it was right to call her that, but knowing Gaalina Yagoobian, it was true, but feeling very sorry.
"Gaalina Yagoobian? Definitely!" Wilbur grabbed Kendra's hand. "Deal!"
"Okay. I just can't imagine her being related to Dad's old roommate, ya know?" Kendra thought, pushing herself up from her bed. "I really wonder why she just can't get over you. I mean, Gaalina can't help but to do whatever you do."
"Love can be an annoying thing." Wilbur told Kendra.
Kendra cracked her knuckles and rubbed the palms of her hands. "Remember one time, you brought Lewis here?"
"When Bowler Hat Guy existed, right?"
"No, when you were bored and invited the younger version of Dad over here."
"Oh, right." He remembered being told by his mother not to use the time machine for free will.
"Remember when I was practicing my ability to switch the presence of objects around? You know, where I can make anything turn into a different shape or color?" Kendra reminded Wilbur. "I was trying to make a red block turn green and a ring turn into gold. Then you and Lewis walked in the way and then I accidentally switched around your hairstyles."
"I remember." Wilbur lightly shook his head. "Note to self: never get hair that sticks up straight."
"Well that's what I'm going to do." Kendra held her palm to Wilbur's direction. "Let's see…"
Wilbur saw a purple flashing light beaming through Kendra's hands and touched somewhere on Wilbur's body. It felt warm, as if Wilbur was sitting on a air conditioner vent. White flashed in front of him, as if a giant camera took a picture of him. Next, Wilbur blinked and looked around Kendra's room, seeing faint flashes of green and pink. He knew he was zapped like a product with a barcode, but he felt no different than feeling a bit dizzy.
"Whoa…" Kendra stared at her brother astonishment. "I must have been watching to many Disney movies…"
"What?" Wilbur turned his head side to side. Wilbur found himself sitting down on the floor, but the carpet felt wet under his hands. He wanted to get up, but he could not feel his two legs. They felt fused together, as if a rope tied them.
"Wow, this is like The Little Mermaid in the Wilbur Robinson version!" Kendra laughed, pointing at Wilbur's lower part of his body.
Wilbur saw his legs. The were not legs, but half of a fish's tail. It looked shiny, and when Wilbur touched it, it was slimy and wet, which explained the wetness of the carpet. What Wilbur thought was a crazy dream became a realization of horror. "I-I-I…have fins."
Kendra snorted as she rolled on her bed, laughing, but gasping for air. She could not believe that she turned her own brother into a merman. It even looked funny seeing how a boy in a Captain Time Travel shirt with a cowlick has slimy orange fins for feet.
"Kennie, you know that this is not funny! I'm freaking out here! Now turn my legs back to normal before my fins dry out!" Wilbur crawled to Kendra's bed with his skinny hands. Wilbur looked like a handicapped person out of a wheelchair with out any crutches. Kendra stopped laughing and helped Wilbur on the bed. She didn't let his fins get on the bed.
"Sorry, it just seems funny when you are like that." Kendra wiped away her tears of joy. "Okay, so maybe it wasn't all to funny, but I'll turn you back."
"You better."
Kendra zapped a purple beam at Wilbur again. Wilbur could feel his back feeling the warmth, but his orange fins felt numb. "Did it work?" Kendra asked. Her question was answered when she looked at Wilbur again. "Yeah, I didn't think so."
"How did that happen? You should have changed me back by now." Wilbur moved his tail up and down, sighing in frustration that he might need to live in a fish bowl for a while.
"Remember when you had Lewis's hair?" Kendra mentioned. "Well, I couldn't change it back to easily. It took a million tries just for me to focus and change you and Lewis back."
"Being a superhero isn't that easy, is it?"
"No, especially since I have 'Under the Sea' stuck in my head now." Kendra rubbed her forehead. "Leave it to my friend Zoey for babysitting her two little cousins and watching The Little mermaid a thousand times."
"You know what, maybe being a merman for a while won't be that bad." Wilbur concluded. "I can probably talk to fish and all that."
"No, I can still change you back. Let me try." Kendra held out her hand to Wilbur and zapped the same bright light at him. Wilbur was still a merman, except with shimmery scales spotted all around his slimy tail. "Sorry. Maybe the mermaids in the Superhero school I used go to would dig those scales."
"What? Now I'm Rainbow Fish?" Wilbur exclaimed. "Come on!"
"Fine." Kendra zapped him again, but the first couple tries made no difference. It was like doing a locker combination a million times and not being able to open it. "It's not working. I'll have to leave you somewhere before your fins dry out."
"Where? The aquarium?" Wilbur suggested.
"Of course not. They would freak out. No one knows mermaids are real, you know." Kendra suggested, "How about the ocean? Mermaids love the salt there."
Wilbur flipped his tail up and down. "Fine. Mom and Dad won't like this. How are we going to tell them?"
"They are away, right?" Kendra asked. "Dad is on his usual work and Mom has a performance."
"Then that leaves us with the rest of the Robinsons." Wilbur thought. "How are we going to tell them?"
"I don't know, but I guess we'll have to wing it." Kendra grasped Wilbur by the waist that divided his human parts and his fish parts. "Ew, Wil. You feel so icky!"
"I think mermaids dig that too."
Kendra, with Wilbur in her arms, charged to the wall of her room. Wilbur almost thought they broke through it. Instead, Kendra and Wilbur went through it like water going through a Brita filter. Wilbur felt like he was still in the air, and that he never passed through the wall.
Kendra was soaring in the air as Wilbur looked down. She was going faster than the speed limit on the road. But no one could see that because Kendra would have already turned invisible to everyone but her and Wilbur. Kendra remembered where her family vacationed. It was at her mom's friend's beach house near the beach. Her cousin Neon would have clearly remembered exactly where it was, but they didn't have time to get someone else worried. Besides, Kendra sort of knew where it was.
For flying at the speed of a roller coaster, it took about a few minutes to get to where the populated beach was. "We are here, Wil. Listen, I'm going to leave you in the ocean and I'll fly back to the shore to figure out what I should do. Hopefully our family won't realize we are gone."
Kendra left Wilbur far into the salty sea where no ship or boat would see him. "Don't get side tracked, okay?" Wilbur reminded Kendra.
"Sure."
She sailed the wind as the strong waves of the blue ocean crashed against rocks and people. Discreetly landing behind a group of trees, Kendra walked on the burning hot sand and sat on the sandy boardwalk. Come on, Kendra, don't get sidetracked when you dropped your brother far from the beach. Kendra stared at the colorful umbrellas and towels. A soft gust of wind blew sand onto people's faces. Now how did I do it before? When I switched Wilbur's spiky blonde hair back to a black cowlick, what did I do?
Kendra leaned against the skinny wooden log that was part of the boardwalk. The hot sand felt warm against her strong feet although normal people would stay away from walking bare foot on sand exposed to sun. Ugh, I shouldn't be sidetracking when Wil could be don't something stupid already. Maybe I have to really focus so I could—
She saw in the distance an ice cream cart frozen under the shade of the rainbow umbrella. Oooh! Ice cream! And it's only one dollar! Kendra ran through the hot sand and gathered around the long line, waiting to buy her favorite flavor. "Wait, what was I going to think about?"
Miles from the shore, Wilbur was treading the water alone. Even now that he has a tail fin and the ability to breathe underwater, waiting for Kendra seems to be waste of time. His family could be worried by now. Hopefully Kendra didn't do anything stupid.
A lot more time passed by. Wilbur only hid when a nearby ship came by. He mostly stayed on the surface, seeing of Kendra had come back.
Swoosh! Wilbur swiveled around the waves, hearing a sharp spattering noise behind him. it could have been a shark, but Wilbur saw no fin circling around him. On the corner of his eye, Wilbur saw a flash of orange pass by him. It looked like a fin, but not so real looking.
"Hi, Willy!" Wilbur turned his head to where is back was. He recognized that annoying familiar voice ever since he met her a few months ago. She looked quiet and shy at first, but when she saw Wilbur, she fell in love. An unnecessary sort of love. Every thing was so intimidating about her. It was the way that she looked made people think that she should be on a Jenny Craig diet. And it was her name Wilbur would never forget. Her name was Gaalina.
"What are you doing here?" Wilbur's response sounded more of a exclamation than a question. "And don't call me by that name. Just call me Wilbur or Wil."
"Well, to me you are a Willy!" Gaalina held out her pudgy arms toward Wilbur. Wilbur swam down until he was on the sandy wet ocean floor. Then he popped back onto the surface. Gaalina was nowhere to be seen.
"I was pretty sure that was her." Wilbur looked both ways before he reassured himself that Gaalina was never there.
"You came back for me, didn't you!" Gaalina embraced Wilbur in her wet arms very tightly. Wilbur thought that this could be how he would die. "Oh, and you even dressed in a mermaid costume like I did! It looks so real!" Gaalina showed part of her fabric mermaid fins. They were a bright orange.
"Listen, Gaalina, did you follow me?" Wilbur winced as he escaped the girl's grasp.
"No. I thought I would be a good day outside to try on the mermaid costume I wore since I was seven at my cousin's beach house. Then I saw your sister Deirdre playing along with you. I thought I could play along too!"
"First of all, my sister's name is Kendra. Second of all, how could you think of wearing an undersized Halloween costume in the middle of the ocean?" Wilbur sighed. Gaalina could be that stupid and immature.
"I don't care if that's you sister's name or not. And it's good to do something different once on a while." Gaalina smoothed down her yellow hair. It was so short that it reached down to her ears. When it was dry, it was very poofy. "Now why don't we pretend that I am a mermaid princess and you are a merman prince. Come on, prince charming!"
"Nooooo!" Wilbur screamed as Gaalina pulled out a snorkel from her tightly fitted costume and put it to her mouth. She grabbed Wilbur's wrist and pulled him down with her.
Over on the seashore, Kendra lapped up her second ice cream cone after the first one she bought landed in the sand. With her super hearing, it picked up a gurgly scream miles away. "Hmm, wonder what that was." Kendra thought to herself. "It must be the paparazzi screaming to get pictures of Justin Timberlake again."
Heh, poor Wilbur. I know. That was sort of a first appearance on one of the new characters I created before. Gaalina was a toltally random name me and my sis came up with. Later on, we dicided to make her an annoyacne to Wilbur! I just noticed how I love to torture characters. Oh yeah, before I go, this story was based on a picture my sister drew that had pretty much the same situation.