Edited
Chapter Six
Becca's POV
"Becca!" a voice calls out. "Over here!" I spin around to face Lolly, sprinting over to me, and stop for moment to allow her to catch up. I start trudging through the sand again once she's fallen into step with me.
"What's up?" she asks.
"Same old," I reply. "What's up with you?"
"I just can't get what happened on my birthday off my mind."
"Lolly, I don't think any of us can forget about it."
"I know, I know, but that's not what I mean. The thing is-" a grin breaks out on her face at this part "-I had another dream last night," she states proudly.
"Uh, everyone dreams. It's not really a big deal…" I say, not fully understanding what she means.
"No. I mean, one of those dreams."
"Oh. What happened?"
"Guess."
"I don't know. Why would I be asking you otherwise?"
"Well, why do you think I'm grinning?"
"Um…"
"Just take a stab at it!"
"I'm not a murderer," I say sarcastically. "Look, I'm not really in the mood right now, since…" Suddenly, I trail off, as I realise what must have happened in Lolly's dream - her grin broadens at my comment, so I can only hope. "Omigod Lolly! Yes! I could hug you right now!" I really am tempted to do so, but I know better. Lolly definitely doesn't do hugs.
"So I'm gonna call Mel, and ask her to meet us here in a half hour. K? Then I can tell you guys what this prophet dreamt of last night."
"Prophet?" I roll my eyes. "Please…" Although I'm beginning to wonder…
"Can you just tell us what the dream was?" Mel asks for the umpteenth time.
Lolly shrugs. "Don't forget, Mel. Patience is the key."
"Oh, because you know all about patience…"
"Okay, sit," Lolly commands, ignoring my sarcastic remark, and stopping at the most secluded area of the beach that I have ever seen in my whole entire life. Though I s'pose it's hardly surprising, considering we've probably walked miles to get here.
"Lolly, we're not dogs," Mel says, an eyebrow raised.
"Just sit down," I whisper to her. "She'll probably leave us stranded out here if we don't, and I don't think we'll be able to find our way back! Remind me: how much walking did it take to get here?"
Mel rolls her eyes. "You do realise that we're mermaids, right?" she asks, gesturing to the sea to the side of us, but sits down anyway, and so do I.
"Right, so what happened in the dream?" I ask.
"This," Lolly replies simply, and walks over to a small pool of water, running in from the sea.
"This," I mimic quietly. "Helpful - not."
"Wait, what are you…?" Mel begins, looking at Lolly who doesn't seem to have heard my comment, and who is now balling her hand into a fist. But she trails off as steam starts to rise from the puddle.
"Whoa…" I breathe.
Lolly's POV
"So are you just going to sit there all day gaping, or do you want to know how I did that?" I ask my two astonished best friends, smiling.
"I'll go for the latter," Mel says. "Becca?"
Becca nods absently, still staring in wonder at the steam rising from the water that I just heated.
"Well it was in the dream I had…"
I stared upwards, looking at the full moon as it's light began to shine down through the hole in the cave's roof, on to the surface of the water. Beside me, Becca and Mel did the same.
"It's time," we all said in unison.
We then lowered our heads and get a view of the wall in front of us, which a waterfall had suddenly appeared on. We slowly stretched out our arms, until they were pointed straight towards the waterfall. As I made a fist, Becca flattened out her opened her hand so that her palm was facing the wall, and Mel twisted her fingers around. As we did this, the waterfall froze and a tentacle rose from the water, made of the actual liquid itself. But all of that was barely visible through the steam that was now filling the cave. Then suddenly, the steam began to clear, and we now saw the tentacle drop back into the pool with a small splash, and the ice turn back to water before vanishing completely. After noticing this, the three of us looked up, almost as if instinctively, just in time to see the full moon disappear.
"So that's what happened on the full moon?" Mel asks after I finish my recounter. "We went back to that cave and got new powers?"
"I think so," I reply, nodding. "Although we never tested them beforehand, so maybe we had them all along anyway, but never knew until now."
Becca shrugs. "Well, I for one don't really care how we got the powers and how long we've had them for. I just wanna learn how to work mine. Because that… sounds cool."
I show Becca and Mel the movements they made with their hands in my dream, and they copy the actions. After a few tries, their powers work too.
"Y'know, these powers could really come in handy…" I say thoughtfully.
"Lolly, stop being so… manipulative," Mel scolds me. "I know what you're thinking, and we can't use our powers for anything bad."
"I just meant that mine could dry me off…" I say, feigning innocence; of course that's not what I really meant. It is one way that my power could be used, but that wasn't exactly the first thought that crossed my mind.
"Oh, by the way guys," I say suddenly, "I forgot to show you this. Read it - it's about full moons and things." As I speak, I take a crumpled piece of paper out of my pocket. A piece of paper which I scribbled some notes onto from online a couple of weeks ago, before locking it in a jewellery box which, funnily enough, doesn't actually contain any jewellery. Becca grabs the note paper straight away and starts to read it, with Mel leaning over beside her in order to do the same.
"So is the what the cave is called?" Mel asks once she and Becca have finished reading the paragraph. "The moon pool?"
I nod. "Yeah. At least, I think so."
Becca, who is now finished re-re-reading the information I just gave her, asks, "Do you think that's what our mums did?"
"What do you mean?" I answer with a question of my own. "What did they do?" I glance at Mel in confusion to see if she understands Becca, but she seems just as puzzled as I am.
"Uh, here - read the last sentence again." She hands me the scrap paper, pointing to the part she means:
When all of the planets align with the moon, any mermaid who is in the moon pool when the moon comes over head will lose their powers forever.
"Oh, well I guess, maybe…" I trail off. "What do you think, Mel?"
Mel considers what to say for a moment, then shrugs. "Maybe we should just ask our parents. I mean, we said we would confront them about it when we have evidence, and we've got a picture of the three of them with tails, for crying out loud. How much more proof do we need?"
"I don't know… Why don't we ask Luke? He's all… er… astrological… He might know something about the plant… no, planet… planterary… library-whatsits," I decide in the end, after struggling over the word for a good ten seconds.
"Planetary alignments," Mel corrects me, then smiles playfully as she inquires, "Library-whatsits?"
"Close enough," Becca says, and the three of us dissolve into giggles.
"Hello girls," I hear a voice, and look up to see Miss Martin - the school's swimming teacher. Ordinarily, most girls at our school take swimming lessons, and Miss Martin is the main swimming teacher. But she doesn't teach me, Becca and Mel because there is an option to switch to volleyball if, for some reason, you cannot, or simply would not like to, participate in swimming. Or, in the case of me, Mel and Becca, you're a fish.
"Have you seen Emily today?" Miss Martin asks. I shake my head, and my two best friends, who are sitting on the opposite side of a table to me in the canteen, do the same. Emily Benjamin is the fourth girl on our volleyball team.
"Okay. Well I need to inform you that your volleyball lesson has been cancelled today, due the absence of Mrs Fuller. Let Emily know if you see her." With that, Miss Martin walks away. Mrs Fuller is the only volleyball teacher in the school, so whenever she's not in, our lesson is cancelled, and we get to laze around the pool doing nothing for an hour.
"I sit next to Emily in history next period, so I guess I'll tell her then," Mel says. Then she sees Luke and, after informing Becca and me that she's going to ask him about the full moon thing, she rushes over to her boyfriend.
"Well, I guess it's just you and me," I say to Becca. Then I turn to face the direction of Mel and Luke. "Okay, there is now way that Mel is asking about the library-whatsits right now; she's just standing there, twirling her hair."
Becca laughs. "Let's just eat our lunch. I'm hungry."
"Hey guys," I greet as Becca and I arrive at the group of seats next to the swimming pool, where Mel and Emily are already sitting.
Emily smiles and Mel stands and walks over to me and Becca.
"So, I guess we get a whole hour of gossipping around the pool," I say, grinning.
Mel rolls her eyes and Becca raises her eyebrows, while I laugh. The three of us sit down in a group, a little way off from Emily, and while Mrs Fuller instructs the girls in the pool, we have our own conversation.
"So did you ask Luke about the library-whatsits?" I ask Mel.
"Yeah. He said he'd look into it."
"I just think that it's kind of stupid that we're not asking our parents about it. I mean, we've got the proof, and it's not as if they're going to disown us for finding out their secret. They aren't even mermaids anymore, and even if they were, we are too, so if we told anyone about them we'd be endangering ourselves."
"She's right," Becca points out, nodding in agreement.
"I guess," Mel says. "But let's just leave it for the time being."
I sigh. Suddenly, a small column of water rises from the pool and I turn to Mel who seems to be the culprit.
"Uh, Mel, you might want to stop that," I say, pointing at what she's doing to the water in the pool.
"Whoops…" she says, pulling her hands back before anyone else notices.
"I think we need to work on controlling these powers…" Becca says carefully.
"Actually, I think what Mel was doing isn't actually a bad idea. I mean, there are some certain bitches swimming in there…" I trail off, and look pointedly at Penny Allen. There was a time when she was a friend of mine, but I can't stand her now. "I wouldn't mind doing something that might, I don't know, say, freak them out a little."
"Oh, come on Lolly. Like I said before, stop being so manipulative! I knew this was the kind of thing you meant!"
I grin guiltily. "Whatever," I mumble.
Becca, Mel and I spend a while talking to each other about random things, mermaid related or not, until Becca pushes me out of the way, just in time for me to dodge some water that had been pretty much flying in my direction. I hear a laugh echoing the room, and when I look towards the pool, I spot Penny and her friends, laughing at me.
"Wow, Penny - real mature," I say, and pause briefly before adding, "Not! You know, your name really suits you. Like a penny, you're two faced, and completely worthless." I stare at Penny, my expression showing nothing.
"Amateur," I mutter after a few seconds of her saying nothing, clearly caught out by my comeback. Her face turns bright red, and she tries to splash some more water at me. But apparently, anger messes with her aim, because the water hits Emily full on rather than me. Not being a very sympathetic person, I turn back to my best friends straight away instead of worrying about Emily.
"Did you see Penny's face?" Becca laughs.
"Who could miss it? It was the colour of a tomato, just about," I point out, laughing too.
"Hey, where did Emily go?" Mel asks suddenly.
"Huh?" I ask, and turn towards her seat to find it empty. I shrug. "I don't know. She was there a minute ago… Penny hit her with the water instead of me; maybe she went to dry off?" I suggest.
"Wait, she got splashed? You don't think she… you know… has a tail… do you…?"
"No way. She probably just didn't want to ruin her clothes or something," Becca replies, firmly shaking her head. But I can hear a trace of doubt in her voice, and I suppose she did run off pretty fast… Coincidence? Maybe. But I can't shake the feeling that Mel just might be right…