Thank you all very much for the reviews! I waited for a long time to write this chapter. So here we go.
Before reading this chapter, I'd like to say that the idea for this chapter belongs to lovely AlyssaHolloway. I asked her for help and she gave me lots of great ideas so the credit for most of things that happen in this episode go to her.
"So you still won't tell us what happened between you and Chris yesterday?"
After working for almost all night to make their school project all the more perfect and sleeping over at May's, the girls slowly walked towards school; big bags under their eyes clearly showing. May and Destiny were tired, yawning all the way to school. Melissa, on the other hand, seemed to have some powerful batteries in her brain - even at that early morning hour, after almost sleepless night, she still managed to cheerfully run around her friends and laugh at funny people that passed by them. Even Dyson, who met up the half the way to school, couldn't believe how much energy Melissa possessed that morning.
Walking backwards in front of her two friends, she pulled a big grin on her face. "I'm not telling", she said in a childish tone.
May rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on. Like it's some kind of a big deal."
"If it wasn't, you wouldn't have asked me", Melissa counterattacked.
"Melissa", Destiny said with a kind, friendly voice, "He's close to our secret. We don't want him to find out about us. All we want is to know how things are, so we can deal with them in a right way."
"Destiny's right, Melissa. We need to know about things in order to do things right in case something happens", Dyson agreed.
"But there are no things." Melissa breathed out. "He just… Kissed me."
"HE WHAT?" May let out a loud shriek and stopped walking. All the people out at the street glared at them; some opened their window to see what's going on.
"Kissed me", Melissa repeated and stopped walking as well; Dyson and Destiny doing the same. Melissa smiled. "And asked me out."
May's eyes went wide. She opened her mouth to yell something again, but Dyson put a hand over it. "Calm down, sweetie. No need to be upset."
She slapped his hand and pushed him away. "NO NEED TO BE UPSET? SHE'S RISKING OUR SACRED SECRET SO SHE CAN GO OUT WITH A GUY SHE KNOWS ALMOST NOTHING ABOUT!" People were still staring. Destiny sent her a glared to signal her to quiet down. "You're right. Why should I be upset? If he finds out, I might end up dissected. Nothing serious."
"Oh, come on, May." Melissa rolled her eyes at her friend. "Dyson knows about us and he hasn't told anyone. I hope."
"Of course I didn't", he defended himself.
"You're completely missing the point", Destiny pointed out. "Chris wants to know about the big fish he saw that night and nothing is gonna stop him to accomplish that. He might even be using you to get to our secret."
"You're lying. He's not like that!" Melissa yelled and faced her friends. "I don't need you to tell me who I can and can't be seeing. Not even my parents tell me that. You're no friends of mine." And with that she ran to school all alone, leaving the confused threesome behind.
"Someone's got to stop her from going on that date", May said.
"Yeah. We already are in too much trouble", Destiny agreed and turned to Dyson. "You think you can talk to her?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Hmph. I don't know. What would I tell her? You know her better than me, so you should talk to her."
"I don't think she'll want to talk to us for a while", May sighed, defeated. "Not after this."
H-2-O
Entering the schoolyard, Melissa wiped away the tears that ran down her cheeks and eyed her surroundings to find the only person that would understand her at the moment – Chris. She never thought the girls would do that to her; that they would betray her like that, stab her on the back with a knife. She always trusted them and shared their happiness and sorrow; now that they have their secret even more. And what do they do when she herself finally finds luck? They call her a traitor and believe that she will expose them. They think that she – a nice, kind and friendly girl, who is also a mermaid – would expose her own secret. How stupid can they be? After all these years of friendship they should know she would never do that. The only thing she asked for was to be happy with someone for once in her life. Did she ask too much? I don't think so. I have every right to be happy. And I will be! No one can stop me from being happy. Not even them.
Seeing Chris leaned against one of the trees, she rose her hand up and waved at him to notice her. He smiled and signaled with his hands for her to approach him. Putting a smile on her face, she ran to him and like a small child that just got their candy by their parents, she wrapped her hands around him and pulled him into a kiss. She kept giggling and squeezed his hand as if she tried to let all the girls at school know he belongs to her now.
"What's with that?" he asked, surprised at a sudden burst of joy.
"Nothing", she smiled. "Just me being happy to go out with you tonight."
"So you haven't forgotten?"
She frowned. "No way! How could I?"
He smiled back at her and they kissed once again.
Kissing him, Melissa remembered how May and Dyson kiss all the time. Wait, May… and Destiny. She had a fight with them and ran off. They don't want me to be happy, she said to herself. They deserve to be without me. I want no friends like that. But deep inside she knew it wasn't true. She missed them already; she needed them to just be with her. They made her feel safe whenever she was scared and she… She told them off.
H-2-O
The whole school day passed pretty slowly. First two periods the girls had Geography, which meant listening to the whole class yelling and jumping around the classroom like a bunch of jungle animals because the teacher had no authority. Then came History and two periods of English; neither more fun than Geography. The sixth – and last – period was the well-waited Chemistry.
As usual, Silvana entered the classroom, greeted the students and wrote down those who were missing. There was only one weird thing about her that day – she brought in six big water bottles with her and put all of them on top of one of the free desks in the front row. She explained that she needed those for an experiment she would be doing with the class she had the next period.
She got up and stood in front of the whole class; her big and bright smile decorating her face, and her eyes shining on the afternoon sun that lightened up the classroom through three big windows.
"Okay, students. Did you do what you were asked to?" the teacher asked.
The class let out yells of "Yes'".
Silvana's grin widened. "Okay, then. You can turn over what you have, and if you have a project, please share with the class."
Everyone brought papers and carefully put them on her desk; well, almost everyone. May, Melissa and Destiny were sitting at their appropriate places and eyeing each other. May and Destiny wondered if Melissa would work with them after what happened earlier that day. Melissa, on the other hand, wondered if she should apologize.
"Okay, guys. I know we had an argument, but please, let's just do this", Destiny said.
Melissa eyed her.
"Fine", May said and began raising her hand, but Melissa stopped her.
"Wait. I just wanna say that… I want to apologize for running off like that. I mean, I know Chris is a danger to us, but I know and I promise I'll be careful. I just want to say that I'd like to be friends with you and that as friends, you should let me be happy."
Destiny nodded. "I agree."
May took Destiny's hand. "I agree as well." She took Melissa's hand next. "I'm sorry I yelled."
"It's okay. I know how it feels to be afraid of endangering something important." Melissa squeezed her hand.
"I'm sorry too", Destiny spoke.
The three friends took their hands.
"Should we do it?" asked May.
Destiny nodded. "Let's do it."
Three girls got up and walked to their teacher.
"Mrs. Moretti, we have a project we'd like to share", Melissa said.
Silvana shot them a bright smile. "You do? That's beautiful. I'd like to see."
The threesome smiled.
"We just need a glass for water. A big one", Destiny said. "Would you mind getting us one?"
Silvana shook her head. "No, not at all." She quickly went to the school kitchen to get a big glass and returned in less than a minute. "Here."
Melissa took the glass and out it on her and May's desk, while May took a small bottle of water out of her schoolbag. She filled the glass with water and return the bottle back to her bag.
"Here we have a glass of water mixed with some chemicals", May explained. The chemicals thing was obviously a lie, but what did the teacher, who knew nothing about mermaids or magic, know about their ways of doing the project?
"Class, I'm asking you to listen and watch this. It's very important. These girls really worked hard on their project", Silvana calmed down the class. Everyone closed their mouth and glanced at the three girls; especially Chris, who seemed to be in trance, barely waiting for the girls to show what they did.
"Thank you", whispered Melissa to Silvana, who just nodded and smiled.
"So to put it short, we managed to mix some chemicals and make this water defy gravity, freeze, and then turn into steam."
Silvana glanced at them; obviously surprised. "That… That is not… Are you girls sure?"
The three friends smiled. "100%", May said and looked at Silvana. "Please, take a step back."
The teacher did as she was told; May, Melissa and Destiny doing the same.
Secretly, without anyone noticing, May put her hand down and slowly twisted it from one side to another. Just as expected, the water slightly rose up, until it finally left the glass empty and took the shape of a ball once in mid-air.
The whole class gasped in awe.
Silvana approached the flying ball of water and observed it as it floated.
"No worries, teach. You can touch it, it's not poisonous", May assured.
Silvana slowly brought her hand to the water ball and touched it with her finger; as soon as her finger touched its watery surface, she pulled her hand back down. "Amazing…" she whispered to herself.
Like May, Melissa put her hand down and straightened her palm; the small ball of water turned into a ball of ice.
"Wow!" the class yelled.
Silvana gulped. "Wha-how?"
"But there's more", Destiny said. Clenching her fist, the ball of ice instantly heated up and for a moment returned to its water state, before turning into hot steam.
She, May and Melissa took each other's hands, happy that their project had succeeded. Silvana's eyes were wide opened. How was it possible? She's never, ever, seen anything like it. How did those three teenage girls manage to do something like this? They must've worked hard on it, but the question was still – how?
"I… I don't know what to say", Silvana took a deep breath. "This was… This was brilliant. How did you girls do it?"
The threesome gulped.
"We kinda don't know", May spoke.
"What?" Silvana turned to them.
"We don't know", Melissa explained. "We just borrowed some chemicals from our friend and mixed them together and… Got this. And then, when we wanted to see what we used, May's mom already threw away the bottles the chemicals were in."
"B-but… This is an amazing discovery." She turned to May. "Do you have any more of that water left in that bottle of yours? I'd like to take it home. My husband is a marine biologist, he could do some tests and maybe find out what you put into it."
"Ugh, sure." May took the bottle which contained a small amount of water out of her schoolbag and handed it to the teacher. "Be my guest."
"Thank you", Silvana said; amazement still present in her voice.
"So, teach, did you like it?" Melissa smiled.
Silvana nodded. "I loved it! You get an A and a D."
Destiny, Melissa and May shot her a surprised glare. "A and a D? Why a D?" Destiny asked.
"Well you have no idea how you got the result. When you do a project, you have to write down exactly how you do it", Silvana explained. "But I won't give you an F because you tried hard, and that A is here because I loved it."
"Okay, then", Melissa shrugged. "If you say so."
"Yeah", Silvana simply replied and returned to her desk, while May, Melissa and Destiny took their respective seats. She carefully put the water bottle into her bag and wrote down the girls' grades – she'll grade other students after she reads their essays.
May narrowed her eyes and observed the teacher. A D? Why a D? We did everything okay! How dare she give us a D? No one here did anything like this. We deserve a higher grade! And what? We get a D for not explaining some stupid magic trick. What were we supposed to do? Write down: ''and then we used our powers, which resulted in this''?. Yeah, right. Like it's gonna happen. She sighed. Even though she thought bad about the teacher at the moment, she could still understand why they got such a low grade.
May looked around the classroom; half the class had their eyes on the teacher, while the other half chatted about their experiment. We're already almost exposed. We shouldn't have done this, but if we didn't, we'd fail Chemistry. Well, at least Melissa and I would. We just had to do something awesome and to accomplish that, some risks had to be done. Noticing the six big water bottles resting in the empty front row – right next to Silvana's desk – she smirked. No! Don't you dare to do that! You're already in some deep shit. You can't do that! But the voice of her wild, teenage hormones won over her voice of reason and she found herself twisting her hand again under her desk, activating her power.
Silvana stopped writing down and once again stood in front of the class. She was about to say something, but at that exact same moment the water in all six bottles jumped up, pushing their plugs up in the air with its force, and landed on Silvana. The poor teacher gasped in horror, eyeing her wet body and her soaked clothes that glued to her skin. She took a few breaths, while the class - including the one responsible for it – May - Melissa and Destiny - burst into uncontrollable laughter.
The only one that was lest emotionless was Chris; he eyed the three girls and observed their laughing faces. Everyone was astonished by their project and now everyone was laughing at the incident with the teacher and the bottles. But was it really an incident or did they have something to do with it? Did they somehow make the water in those bottles explode like that? Chris' eyes suspiciously narrowed at the three girls. May… Destiny… Melissa… What the hell are you hiding?
This is what happens when you cheat (answer to the question from two chapters ago when I said you'll find that out.)
Here we have the girls being stupid again. Chris suspects and is really close. What will happen next? And trust me, they are doing because they are reckless teenagers (teens in real life would do something like this, trust me), but you know that karma is a bitch, right? I can just say that the future brings many things (both good and bad) things for the girls. :)
Please review. Thank you. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.