Great, mega, huge thanks for the reviews and compliments to my new and old readers ;)
I love the opinions about the third and first POV so here's what we'll gonna do: I'll write in 3rd since I need to learn it and improve it.
Merry very late Christmas and a very happy late New Year. Hope you spent it good and have lots of happiness this year :D
Oh, and make sure to check out my profile for pictures again. I replaced pictures of Dyson and Misty because the old ones didn't look good to me, and these new ones I found for them look more 'them-like'. Also, there is a picture of a new character that will appear from this chapter on - Silvana, and the picture of Ooha'oma.
Morning sun's bright rays lightened the big room covered in darkness. Once the dark shadows dissolved, they revealed a teenage boy sitting in front of a computer desk. His eyes looked tired an exhausted, like he'd done some hard work and haven't slept in days. His gentle hand held a small pencil in them; as he moved his hand, the pencil made light and soft lines on the surface of a white paper.
The boy yawned; showing the tiredness he endured. He wished he could sleep. He wished for sleep so bad. But wishing got him nowhere. All he kept thinking about was what he saw that night a few days ago. That golden tail; odd, but elegant and pretty was the thing that haven't left his thoughts for days.
He thought of asking people around the town about it, but when it came to describing it, there were no words he could speak to express himself. So he decided to draw it. He's been working on a drawing all those sleepless nights; every night he added a new line or a scale, deleted parts, redrew them of shade them. He had no special artistic talent, but the least he could do was to try to make it at least similar to what he saw.
And after all that hard work he finally did it. The drawing was finished; the tail, along with a fin, looked as beautiful as it looked that night at the ocean. The boy smiled; he was happy that he's finally managed to make it look perfect it. Magnificent. Amazing.
"Chris, you better get up soon. You have school in an hour!" he heard his mom speaking.
"I'll be down in a minute", he replied.
He quickly got dressed and put his school stuff in the bag. As he was ready to leave the room, he noticed a paper with a drawing of a tail lying on the desk's surface. Smirking, he picked it up, carefully pressed it so it doesn't blur or rip off and stuffed it into his leather jacket's pocket.
Maybe the guys will know more about it. With that one last thought, he left his room and let the silence take over again.
-H-2-O-
"These are the results of yesterday's test", the chemistry teacher, Mr. Clouds, spoke in his usual, cold tone. "I'm not happy with then. All Fs, with only one D and one C."
The class began looking at their random classmates, trying to find 'traitors' that dared to get a D and a C, while everyone else got an F. May simply rolled her eyes at the situation - she knew her destiny even before she wrote that damned test. And neither C nor D were involved. This is just boring...
Melissa looked around the classroom as well; she wanted to find the 'smart' kids too, but she also secretly hoped she was the one with a C. If not a C, D would do just fine. She wasn't too picky when it came to chemistry.
"May I get your attention to read the results?" Mr. Clouds' voice stopped the looks from wandering around the classroom. Once he had all the attention, he began reading the results: "Meredith Hawkins - F, Leo Jackson - F, Noah Evans - F, Melissa Tanner - F, Sandra Pine - F, Jason Hodgins - F, Christy Meyer - F, Daniel Clavis - F, Cole Dawson - F, May Seward - F, René Morales - F, Flint O'Donnell - F, Stephen Browning - F, Jackie Nielsen - F, Candice Wyatt - F, Charlie Lawson - F, Molly Sanders - F and those were all negative grades."
Defeated, Melissa groaned and buried her head into her hands. May just yawned; uninterested in the whole situation, while Destiny shared looks with the teacher.
"The only two positive grades belong to Ms. Bain and Mr. Jenkins. They are the only ones that actually learned something and heard at least a bit of what I've talked about all along. Destiny got a C and Chris got a D."
The whole class clapped in unison, celebrating the twosome's positive grades. The only one that wasn't clapping was May; instead she was too busy with her thoughts to do anything but close her eyes and imagine that she's at the moon pool. When is this day gonna end? I can't take it anymore.
Soon the teacher gave the tests to their respective owners. All of a sudden the sounds of groaning and anger filled the classroom. Frustration and rage grew as the students read their mistakes and the teacher's corrections of those.
"But this isn't fair!"
"I could've gotten at least half a point here."
"Why could he get half a point there, and I couldn't?"
"He's a liar!"
"Cheater!"
"This sucks!"
"I hate this!"
"I wish Mr. Claude never was my teacher!"
"I wish he was never anyone's teacher!"
"Me too!"
"Me three!"
"Yeah!"
"We should hold a petition and ask the whole school to sign it, so he can get fired."
"Sounds cool."
"I'm in."
"Me too."
"We need rights!"
"We already have them, but are not allowed to use them by some teachers!"
The voices filled the usually loud classroom and made it louder than ever; everyone was talking about how they hated and disliked Mr. Clouds and how they wished him to get fired. He was never fair at tests; always gave Fs and barely Cs and Ds.
But as the voices grew louder, he couldn't take it anymore. For his old ears that was too much noise and he couldn't handle it anymore.
"SILENCE!" and with that single word, the voices silenced; the students' eyes were faced with angry-looking ones of a chemistry teahcer.
He walked around the classroom like a police officer; observing the tests of others and the way their looks expressed themselves. Every now and then he'd stop and laugh at someone's wrong answer, and mock them for it.
As he slowly reached the end of this little journey around the classroom, he approached May's desk and took her test into his hands.
"You, girl, had the best statement ever", he said in a mocking tone; devilish smile spreading across his face. "I just don't get it where have you heard that."
"What?" May asked; looking up at him.
All of a sudden he began to laugh uncontrollably; it took him half a minute to calm down for a bit. Finally managing to open his mouth and barely suppressing his laugh, he turned to May and then looked back at the test.
"May... Photosynthesis is the ability to create and control light?" he burst into laughter; the whole class laughed along.
May gave him a confused look.
He suppressed the laugh again. "Dear... Photosynthesis is a process plants use to turn carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars using sunlight. That's all you had to write down."
There was the laugh again, coming from both the teacher and the students.
"What kind of an ability to create light? And control light? You're a smart little girl, but you should stay away from the TV. At least until you're sure you've studied enough, so that there's no confusion between definitions and words."
And with that, he gave her back her test and returned to his seat.
Melissa instantly slapped May's hands; May simply looked at her and rolled her eyes.
"How annoying he is", she whispered.
Melissa nodded. "I know." She chuckled, barely resisting to bursting into laughter. "Photosynthesis is the ability to create and control light? Isn't that photokinesis?"
May sighed. "Photokinesis, photosynthesis..." She looked at Melissa. "But I was close. Pretty close, actually. They both have something to do with the light. That's something, right?"
Melissa smiled as she put her hand around May's neck. "You can be such a dummy sometimes."
"But she's our dummy", Destiny's voice was heard from the behind.
The two girls looked back and smiled at their friend.
"Anyway, class", the teacher interrupted their little conversation, "The petition you talked about is not going to happen."
The whole class groaned.
The teacher rose his index finger in the air. "Let me finish. It is not going to happen because I'm retiring. This is my last day of work. Tomorrow you will have a new teacher."
The class began to loudly clap their hands and yell: "Yaay!"
"I just wanted to say that I will miss you. You were a great class. These Fs you got today can be corrected when the new professor arrives. She'll explain everything to you. You just be nice to her." The teacher's voice was barely heard due to the claps and yells.
-H-2-O-
"I can't believe he's actually leaving."
"Yeah. It's like... He wanted to surprise us."
"I can't wait to meet the new teacher."
Just as the bell rang to mark the end of last period, Dyson, May, Melissa and Destiny headed each to their respective home. On their way they discussed the events that happened at school - the event of the day was obviously the happy announcement that the chemistry teacher was leaving and that someone new will replace him.
"Don't jump to conclusions, May. The new teacher might be even worse than Mr. Clouds", Destiny warned.
May pouted her lips and shook her head. "But he said 'she'. That means that a girl is coming. So she's a girl. We're girls too. We can understand each other", she said in a childish voice.
"Reeds was a girl too and you and I almost failed chemistry in seventh grade", Melissa reminded her.
May cleared her throat. "Don't remind me."
Destiny chuckled. "I just hope this newbie turns out well. I -"
She was cut off by a familiar voice.
"Excuse me, guys. Can I have a moment? I have to ask you something."
The small group looked behind, only to be greeted with a warm smile and curious eyes of an Asian boy.
"Chris!" Melissa said with a big smile across her face; it was obvious she liked his presence. A great wave of happiness overwhelmed her the second she saw him standing behind her.
He rose his hand up and waved a hello. "Hi, Melissa."
"So, what's the question? Shoot", May said, annoyed by the thought of having to wait to hear what he wanted to ask. She was never a patient person; waiting for something drove her insane - literally.
"Right." He put a hand into his jacket pocket and took out a piece of paper. "Do you recognize this 'thing'?"
The moment the guys saw the drawing that was on the paper, their faces changed colors to pale white; May's eyes were wide opened, Melissa's mouth were shaped in an 'O', Destiny gulped, while Dyson repetitively blinked to verify that what was in front of his eyes was true.
The drawing of a tail and a fin made these four individuals question their loyalty to themselves - were they capable of keeping such a great secret for themselves? The perfect image of a mermaid tail was in Chris' hands; it was drawn well and in detail, and so was the fin. He knew about it. He saw it. They weren't good enough at keeping secrets.
"W-what about it?" May asked; her voice a bit shaky, but she did her best to keep cool.
"I saw it a few days ago when I went to search for that necklace and I saw this tail", Chris replied. "I was attacked by sharks and then everything became cold and... And they left and later I saw this. I have no idea what it is, so I hoped you could tell me."
"What a coincidence - neither do we! So why don't you just go play computer games instead?" May spoke quickly.
Chris shook his head. "No, I gotta figure out what this is." He turned to Dyson. "You like science, don't you? Can you help me finding this thing out? I heard you have a lab at home. We could go swimming and maybe we find something useful."
"Sorry, but it's not really possible. I'm only allowed to use my lab for school", Dyson lied. He took the drawing into his hands and squinted his eyes to study it. "This is just some fish passing by. A golden one. Those are seen a lot around here."
"But it was huge."
"Exactly!"
"So why don't you just give it up and... I dunno, go watch cheerleaders practice", Destiny said as she took Chris' hand and pushed him forward. "Boys like to watch cheerleaders."
"But-" he tried to speak up, but was interrupted by her.
"Now!"
With a sad look on his face, Chris watched as three girls and a boy faked smiles and left in their home directions as quick as they were able to. He glanced back at his drawing and then back up toward them. His eyes narrowed as the single thought came to his mind - that four people knew about the creature he was talking about. They knew exactly what happened to him. They knew what it was and what it could do. They knew it - but they hid it. But it wouldn't be hidden for long. He swore to himself that it wouldn't. He would find out what that secret was all about and no one was going to stop him.
I'll find out about this thing and when I do, I'll no longer be left out. They'll have to share their secret with me whether they want it or not. They're not getting away with it.
-H-2-O-
"He saw you!"
"I know!"
On their way home, the girls couldn't help, but talk about Chris' drawing and his 'discovery'. May was out of her mind; she was obviously freaked out that her secret might end up exposed. She never liked it when other people knew lots of things about her, especially newbies at school. She appreciated her privacy and if Chris was about to interrupt it, he wasn't going to end up well.
Melissa couldn't stop blaming herself for what he saw. She was the one who saved him, after all. He saw her tail, was saved with her power and almost saw her face when she swam by. How could've she been so careless? She should've left as soon as she noticed him. But no! She just had to wait to give Dyson that stupid necklace, instead of swimming away. And now she had to deal with consequences.
Destiny, on the other hand, tried to make herself think positive. She was always like that - the positive girl. There were times when she thought negative of her mermaidness, but once she got used to it, positive thoughts took over.
He didn't see the human part of Melissa, he only saw a tail.
Good.
He was in danger, but her powers saved him. He didn't see anyone rising their hand to cool his surroundings. Hell, he didn't even see anyone in the water.
Good.
It was late at night, no one was out there except the five of them. Chris could be easily convinced that he was just sleepy and tired.
Good.
Destiny smiled. Everything was perfect!
Dyson observed the girls' faces and gulped as he saw them change their expressions so easily; May was a bit scared, then angry, then scared again and so on, and so on. Melissa was confused and frightened over and over again. Destiny was curious at first, but then he noticed her beginning to smile like a psycho.
He wanted to help them; do something for them, but he just didn't know what. If he talked to Chris and tried to convince him he saw nothing, Chris would be even more curious about the whole thing. Dyson was never a good liar and Chris could sense it in his eyes, as well as his voice.
If he, however, tried to fake something up, Chris would want to see it himself and get evidence himself. Dyson could not allow it to happen.
"You guys okay?" Dyson asked; confused and a bit scared at their constant changes.
They were silent for a moment, before Destiny spoke calmly:
"Yup, I'm fine. It's just... Why don't we tell him he was tired, so he was a bit delusional?"
Dyson shook his head. "He won't buy it."
"I have an idea", May said; her voice sounded as happy as when a small child gets candy.
"We can fake evidence", Melissa suggested.
Dyson shook his head again. "He'll want to find evidence himself and in the ocean it'd be a bit hard to fake it."
"But I have an idea", May protested, now getting pretty annoyed for being ignored.
"Telling the truth won't do", Destiny thought out loud.
"Yeah, we don't want that", Melissa agreed.
"So what can we do?" Dyson asked.
Both girls shrugged.
"I SAID I HAVE AN IDEA!" May yelled out loud; her cry made people on the street turn to her and her friends.
Dyson instantly looked at her; he was a bit scared of her when she yelled. Melissa jumped, frightened by the sudden noise. Destiny just rolled her eyes and glanced at her friend.
"And what would that be?"
"This'll be good", Melissa muttered to herself with a dose of sarcasm.
May smiled evilly, ignoring Melissa's witty comment and happy that she finally got a chance to speak. "Well, you see... We can always kidnap him and torture him and make him keep him mouth shut. If not that, then we also have blackmail, kidnapping someone he loves, a murder, or..."
She kept talking and talking, and talking, but no one listened to her after she mentioned the word 'kidnap'. She was known for her bright ideas and the guys were already used to it, but what she said back then was something they'd never expect her to say at a moment like that. At first they thought she was kidding, but judging by the seriousness of her voice, what she was saying was not a joke at all.
Sighing in defeat, Melissa, Destiny and Dyson continued their way, followed by an angry May.
"It's not fair! You guys never listen to me."
-H-2-O-
Afternoon sun lightened the city; a bright, shining circle rose up and sent the clouds away, taking its place as a sky ruler. May, Melissa and Destiny were seated in their respective seats in a chemistry classroom - they impatiently waited for the new teacher to arrive, so they can get over the last period and go home. The threesome discussed about Chris seeing Melissa's tail again. They talked about it the whole day yesterday and last night at the moon pool, but they still couldn't get it out of their heads. What bothered them the most was that he might find out about them being mermaids and maybe even call the scientists or even worse, the government, to do tests on them.
If he did that, they'd be locked up for the rest of their lives and they'd never see their friends and families again. May was already plotting a perfect revenge in her head, even though nothing even happened. Melissa was worried more than even, while Destiny tried to breathe normally and think positive.
"Hey, how about we stop talking about it", Destiny suggested; her two girlfriends sitting in front of her both turned back to face her. "We can talk about the money we got. We have you done with it?"
"My parents left it in the bank", May said. "I asked them to do it. I'll spend it slowly on things I'll need in the future."
"Same with me. You should've seen the look on Misty's face when she found out I'm the owner of the money. It was priceless." Melissa burst into laughter.
Destiny smiled and nodded. "Mine is in the bank too. It'll probably be used for shopping or something in near future."
The three girls laughed. Their laughter slowly faded away as they noticed Chris staring at them with a curious expression; he looked as if he'd been observing them for a while and they did not like that.
Melissa and May turned back on the front and leaned in to each other.
"Your crush is watching us", May whispered to Melissa, who cleared her throat.
"No, he's not."
"Yes, he is."
"Well, if you knew Dyson was keeping something a secret from you, you'd be watching him as well."
"This is different. Dyson already knows about us. And I'm sure as hell he's not a mermaid."
"Whatever. We'll just keep our distance and he won't get close to our secret."
"He already is close to our secret."
"Ugh... Just... Whatever, we'll simply avoid him."
As the two girls slightly quieted down, they noticed the classroom door slowly opening. The whole class immediately silenced; everyone was nervous about meeting the new chemistry and biology teacher.
As the door opened, a female figure elegantly walked into the classroom, gently closing the door afterwards. She had two black bags in her hands; both of those she left on her desk.
"Hello, class", she greeted; her voice sounded soft and as elegant as her walk.
She seemed like quite a lady. She was tall and thin. Her skin was fair tanned and seemed soft and gentle. Her face was small, oval-shaped, and her cheeks were as pink as fresh cherries. She had big, hazel eyes and heart-shaped red lips. Her hair was long and black as the feathers of a crow. She wasn't very pretty, nor she was ugly, but she did have a bit makeup on her face.
She was clad in black pants and white shirt. On her feet were high-heeled Mary Jane's. It was quite formal clothing, based on other female teachers' clothing, which are mostly miniskirts and short tops.
The woman seemed like in her forties, but she hid her age pretty successfully.
"Hello!" the whole class returned the greeting.
The woman smiled. "I'm Silvana Moretti", she spoke in an Italian accent," And I am your new chemistry teacher. As you probably already figured it out, I'm from Italy. But do not worry, I can speak English perfectly fine. I went to college in America. But, if I say something you dunnot understand, feel free to ask me to explain. Okay?"
"Okay", everyone replied.
Silvana smiled. "Okay, so... Let's get to know each other first."
She took her seat and took the directory. She called out everyone's name and talked about the called student to know something about him or her. She asked questions like do they like her subjects, which are their favorite subjects, what are they interested in and such.
The whole school hour almost had passed on introductions. Silvana glanced at her cell phone to check out what time it is. Finally she stood up again and faced the whole class.
"Now, class, I want you to tell me your suggestions. What you'd like to be doing during class. How you think would be better if I explained things and such." She smiled. "So who wants first?"
May was the first person to raise her hand.
Silvana's smile widened. "Yes, May."
"Maybe you could bring over some movies. Something like Discovery Channel or National Geographic. Those are interesting and maybe we could learn something more by watching them."
The whole class groaned in agreement.
Silvana nodded. "That's good. I have some of those DVD's at home. I'll make sure to bring them over. If anyone here has any of them, feel free to bring them over as well. Something else?"
A blonde boy raised his hand. "Maybe we could sometimes go on field trips. It's also interesting. There is lots of nature around here and it might be good to sometimes go out and study outside."
Silvana smiled. "Excellent! I like this suggestion as well! I'll make sure to check with the principal first about the field trip thing, but I'm sure she won't be against it. Anything else?"
Melissa raised her hand. "Can we sometimes do projects ourselves? You know, do homework as a group?"
"I like the idea", Silvana said. "Sure. Group work will also be included then."
She went over to her desk again and sat down. She took the paper and began writing down the class' ideas. As she wrote everything down, she looked at the class again.
"Anything else?"
No one spoke.
"Okay, then. I guess this is it. You may go home now. See you next week", Silvana spoke.
The class quickly packed their bags and said goodbye to the teacher as they left the classroom.
Melissa, Destiny and May found their way home, as they shot one last glance at the school building.
"I like the new teacher", Destiny said.
"Yeah, she's awesome", Melissa agreed.
May smiled. "I told you so."
You see what happens when you complain about a bad teacher? You get the nicer one. What part does she have in the story? And what's Chris' next move?
Oh, and Heroes and Charmed fans probably noticed I used some of the names for classmates from those shows.
Next time: find out what happens when you cheat.