Chapter Seven

Lolly's POV

I swim through the water with effortless movements, lazily flicking my tail from side to side. Mel and Becca are with me. We're looking for the other two lockets. In fact, you never know, there might even be more. As we near a large rock, I point to the spot where I found the locket and we all swim over to it.

I look around me to see if there's any hint of another locket at all, but I can't see one. After what feels like hours of looking, but is probably only a couple of minutes, I give up and swim back to the other two. When they're both looking at me, I point to the surface then swim upwards, Becca and Mel following me.

"I have to say, this is probably kind of… hopeless," I tell the others. "I mean, sure, there was one locket down there. But if they were all down there, I probably would have found the other two at the same time."

"I guess so," Mel says.

"But that's why we should ask our parents about it." I say. "I mean, the lockets belonged to them, so they probably know where they are."

"Well, maybe…" Mel replies uncertainly. "I still think we should wait to ask them about it. I mean, we can't just go up to our mums and say that we know they used to be mermaids, even if we have tails now too. It would just be… weird."

"Whatever. I need to get home, anyway, so I'll see you guys later." With that, I dive underwater and race the tides back home.

"Hey Dan," I say to my brother as he opens the front door for me. "Where's mum?"

"Out with Emma and Cleo. Where have you been?"

"Oh, here and there…"

"Anywhere to do with Mako? Like, y'know, Mako perhaps?"

"Is that any of your business?"

"Well, yes, actually. Like I said, you owe me."

"I owe you? What are you, five? Grow up. I owe you nothing. We kept our secret, well, a secret, because… it's a secret… Uh, yeah. So anyway, are you planning on, like, letting me in, anytime soon…?"

"Oh, sorry."

Dan moves out of the doorway and I enter the house, then jump straight onto the sofa and turn the television on.

"Hey, I was going to watch something!" Dan protests.

"Not my problem," I shrug, smiling.

Dan rolls his eyes, and starts to make his way upstairs but I stop him.

"Wait!" I shout, and he stops short. "I need a KitKat!"

"Seriously? I'm not getting you a KitKat!"

"You do know that I could set you on fire, right?"

Dan raises his eyebrows, and I begin to make a fist.

"Fine, I'll get your damn KitKat!" he gives in.

"Thank you," I smile, pulling my hands back.

Approximately seventeen seconds later, Dan passes me a KitKat. That also just so happens to be when my phone vibrates, signalling that I have a text. Rather than taking the KitKat, I annoy Dan by making him wait as I check my mobile. I read the text, then re-read it, then re-re-read it.

"Take it already, or I'll throw it at you!" Dan threatens.

"No freaking way…" I murmur.

"What?"

"Read this text!"

I pass Dan my mobile and he reads the text aloud:

I found the moon pool! Meet me and Becca at my place in ten minutes tops.

It's from Mel, obviously.

"I've gotta go!" I exclaim, and grab my phone out of Dan's hands. "See ya later."

"Wait!" Dan shouts, and a KitKat suddenly lands at my feet. "Now you can go," he says smugly.

"Mel, you are a life saving genius. So can we go to the moon pool now?" I ask the second I open Mel's bedroom door. She's sitting on her bed with Becca, and they're obviously waiting for me.

"Hi to you too," Becca says, grinning.

"Please can we just go?" I beg.

Mel rolls her eyes and smiles. "Sure," she says. "I'll lead the way."

I want to run all the way to the beach but Mel insists we walk normally. It's alright for her, she's already been there. I mean, we've all been there, but the first time was ages ago and we don't remember the second time – well except for me because of the dream I had, but that hardly counts. Mel's been there today though.

When we finally get to the beach, we still have to wait a while before we can leave because there are other, more normal people all around us. This means that we have to keep walking until we find a more empty place to swim away without people thinking we've drowned or something. And when we're eventually able to swim away, we can't even swim fast because Mel is very slow to lead us to the moon pool. I think she's doing it on purpose just to annoy me. Damn – I really shouldn't have said what I did in her bedroom just before we left. She'd probably go quicker if I hadn't mentioned how anxious I was to – oh, never mind. We're nearly here. Um… I think.

Mel points to an opening that I'm sure was never there before. I swear we've been past this spot loads of times, and there was only a rock… Oh well.

As we surface, I look around in excitement. "Yes! This place is awesome! Mel, I love you! Uh… in a friendship kinda way…" I add, seeing her alarmed face.

Becca laughs at us, and Mel and I join in. When we stop giggling like freaks (which is exactly what we are…), Becca speaks up.

"Was that entrance there before? I'm sure it was just a rock wall all the other times we passed it."

"I thought the same thing." I nod in agreement.

"So did I, but I had a theory of what might have happened," Mel says.

"Go on," I tell her, curious as to what her hypothesis could be.

"Well obviously the rock wasn't there the first time we came – otherwise we wouldn't have been able to get out of this place. And that was a full moon, so at first I thought that maybe it only opened on full moons. But then I remembered that, well, there isn't a full moon tonight, so yeah… But then I thought that something could have happened on the last full moon to, I don't know, permanently open it? I mean, it was only the last full moon that made us go, uh, crazy, so maybe there was something special about it."

"I think you might be on to something there," I say. "I'm sure it has something to do with the full moon, like you said. Speaking of the full moon and… craziness… do you think the same thing will happen next full moon? Or every full moon, even?"

"I'm not quite sure, but I don't think we should risk it, just in case. I mean, we were lucky that last time it was only Luke and Dan who found out our secret – if things like that keep happening, it could be the whole world finding out soon enough."

"Okay, so what do you think about having a sleepover on full moons? If one of goes all… moonstruck or whatever you want to call it, we can help each other to control it, y'know?"

"Won't our parents get kind of suspicious though?" Mel asks.

"Yup," I say. "And that is exactly the reason why we should tell them our damn secret! It's not like they're going to spill our secret. Our mums know what it's like to have the same secret, after all, and to worry all day long about the threat of exposure. And stuff."

"Fine!" Mel snaps. "We'll tell them!"

"Hey, guys, what's that?" Becca suddenly breaks in.

Mel and I look up to where Becca's pointing, and see a small glint coming from something on the ground. I frown. "Is that… a locket?"

Becca, Mel and I exchange hopeful glances, and I pull myself out of the pool. Once I've used my power to dry myself off, I walk over to the glimmer and peer at the object.

"It's a locket," I confirm. "The only problem is, is it one of the lockets?"

"Let me see it for a minute," Becca orders, and I pick up the locket and pass it to her.

"Ow!" she exclaims throwing it straight back into the sand.

"What?" I ask.

"It burnt me!"

"What the heck…?"

"Pass it to me?" Mel asks.

I nod, and throw it to Mel. She instantly drops it to the ground too. "It's boiling…"

"It isn't to me… Wait… Maybe it's because of our powers!"

"What do you mean?" Becca asks.

"Well my power is heating, and yours is freezing. So if this locket was meant for a mermaid with my power, then maybe it feels boiling to every mermaid except me, or every mermaid with my power anyway. It would make sense, considering yours was so cold to me."

"Okay, but why didn't mine seem cold straight away?"

"I have no idea… Do you guys know what time it is?" I randomly add.

"Oh, sure, I'll just check my watch… Oh wait, I completely forgot, all of my accessories disappear when I transform into a mermaid. Not to mention the fact that none of us have watches in the first place!"

I roll my eyes. "Whatever. I was just asking because I wanted to know if we should be getting home now."

"I think we should go now," Mel agrees. "Do you guys remember the way here?"

"Yeah – we've been past here before anyway," I reply, and Becca nods.

"Okay, so do you want to meet here at ten tomorrow morning? I think we should discuss a few things before we say anything to our parents."

"Okay," Becca says as I plunge back into the water.

I come back up for a brief moment to hold my breath, then duck underwater again and head home.