A/N: Amazed at how quickly I can update? Eh, I write quickly because I get bored... plus I can't be bothered to do my homework... Amen... I don't know...
Chapter Nine
Mel's POV
I wake up in the morning rather happily. Both my parents, along with Rikki, Emma and Ash, now know about our mermaid secret. We don't have to pretend anymore! Then my happy mood comes crashing down as I remember that it's that time of the month – not a period reference – the full moon. Then I become happy again, because I remember that I can ask my parents about the full moon!
I get dressed and go to the bathroom in a hurry, then rush downstairs.
"Hey Mum, hey Dad!" I say to my parents who are sitting on the sofa in the living room, watching the television.
"Good morning," Mum says. "Sleep well?"
"Never better!" I exclaim. Apart from when I was really young and had to go to sleep seriously early each afternoon, I really mean it.
"Glad you're so happy," Mum says, smiling.
"So… It's the full moon tonight…" I say.
"And you want our help to get prepared for it, am I right?" Dad asks.
"Yep," I say. "Pretty much."
Mum rolls her eyes, laughing. "Why don't you invite Lolly and Becca, and their parents around. We can sort out the rest of these… issues."
After last week when we confronted our parents about their secret, I haven't really seen much of the others, except from at school, and to discuss the mermaid thing with Lewis and Ash too. I decide that inviting them around would be a great idea, and call them both in a three way call.
"Mel, I was sleeping!" Lolly whines. "What do you want?"
Becca laughs at Lolly. "Hey Mel, Lolly," she says.
"Hey Becca. And seriously Lolly – wake up. This is important. I need you guys to come over here in like half an hour, and bring your parents and Dan.
"Oh, not Dan!" Lolly exclaims, sounding less tired now.
Becca and I laugh again. "Whatever," I say. "Just, be here as soon as possible. With Dan. And Rikki, of course."
"Fine. See you soon!"
With that, Lolly leaves the call.
"Okay Mel, I'll be round as quick as I can. See you then."
Then Becca cuts off the call, and I go back to my parents.
"Do you guys know the answer to question seven on the chemistry homework?" Lolly asks. "I hate chemistry…"
I shrug. "I'm still doing maths."
"I haven't even started either of those!" Becca exclaims.
"Pfft. For the smart one…" Lolly says.
Becca glares at her. "I'm just distracted."
"I know, I feel the same way," I say.
Our parents decided that Becca, Lolly and I can have a sleepover every full moon (awesome, huh?), and we're now sitting in my room, doing homework for school tomorrow. But we're all finding it hard to concentrate with our concerns about what might happen tonight.
"I give up on this," Becca says, placing her pen and school books back on the floor beside the beanbag she's sitting on.
"Me too," I say, dumping my own books on my bed, and Lolly puts her things down too.
"I'm hungry," Lolly says. "I'm just going downstairs to get some food. I won't be a minute. I might be two minutes. Possibly three. But definitely not one."
I roll my eyes, and Lolly smiles as she walks out of my bedroom then closes the door behind her.
Becca and I sit in silence for a few minutes, until I look down to the table that my locket is placed on, along with Becca's and Lolly's.
"What the heck?!" I shout.
"What?" Becca asks, and looks down at the table too. "Oh my God!"
The lockets aren't on the table anymore – they're floating a few inches above it.
"Well," I say. "That's certainly… something…"
"Hey, doesn't that kind of remind you of how they were moving around last week…?" Becca asks.
"Yeah, it does. What do you think is going on?"
"Maybe… maybe it's because they're all together now or something… so they… can fly? I guess maybe they couldn't before because they weren't all together – only two of them were."
"Good theory. Should we ask our parents about it or something?"
Just before Becca can answer, Lolly comes back in and sees our lockets which have suddenly flown over to the middle of the room.
"Uh… why are our necklaces flying…?" she asks with a hint of disbelief.
"Ask Becca," I say.
Becca explains her theory to Lolly who nods, still watching the floating necklaces cautiously.
"So what should we do about this, then?" she asks.
"Tell our parents?" I suggest.
"Okay," Lolly agrees.
But before we can leave, the lockets suddenly fly over to the curtains and pull them over. I look away from them just in time.
"Okay, how did that happen?" I ask.
"I have no idea," Becca says.
Lolly is strangely quiet for once. "Lolly?" I ask. No answer. I turn to her. Uh oh…
"Becca… Looks like we have a moonstruck mermaid."
Becca turns to Lolly too. "No, don't look at the-"
Too late. She's already moonstruck. Damn. Not having a clue about what to do, I go for my best bet. I look at the full moon as well.
I jolt awake, thanks to Lolly shoving me.
"Lolly!" I exclaim. "Ow!"
"Sorry," she says, clearly not meaning it.
I look around my bedroom. Oh my God. This room is totally trashed. Okay, maybe getting moonstruck along with the others wasn't my best idea… But I panicked, okay? Then I turn to the alarm clock beside me, which reads: 7:22am.
"Uh, guys, I know we got moonstruck last night… but we should really get ready for school," I say, pointing at the clock.
"Oh, right," Lolly says. "Becca!" she shouts at the girl who's falling back to sleep on my floor.
"Whatever," she says. "Can't we ditch school today. My ears… ow… Thanks Lolly. Not."
"Yeah, she shoved me awake," I say to Becca. "But we can't ditch school. Come on. We'll talk to our parents about this later.
"Have you guys seen Emily today?" I ask as Becca, Lolly and I get to our volleyball lesson where there's no sign of Emily.
"Nope," Lolly and Becca reply in unison.
"I'm kind of worried about her. I mean, if she's a mermaid… she could have been moonstruck and… something could have happened to her…"
"Mel, you need to stop worrying about everyone," Lolly says firmly. "I mean, if she's a mermaid then the moon would guide her back home. She's probably just ditching school if she got moonstruck, and if not, she's probably just sick."
"Alright," I give in reluctantly.
By the end of the lesson, I've calmed down quite a bit, and we can finally go home!
As soon as we get there, I demand my parents to tell us what happened last night. We don't really find out much though – just that we got moonstruck and my parents tried to stop us running away, but failed.
"On the bright side, I might have another dream," Lolly says.
"Well if you could go to sleep now, that would be awesome, because I'm dying to know what happened," Becca says.
"Only if I get knocked out. Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not tired."
"Well, getting you knocked out isn't exactly a bad idea…"
"Tell me you're joking," Lolly laughs.
Emily's POV
Where am I? I just woke up and I'm in some sort of cave. Wait, this reminds me of… the cave where I became a mermaid… Maybe it's that cave? What am I doing here? I look up, out of the hole in the cave above me. It's light outside. What the hell happened last night? I need to get out of here… I stand up to dive through the water and swim away, but I end up falling again…
Mel's POV
"I'm actually getting really worried about Emily," I say to Becca as Lolly goes inside Rikki's Café to buy us all drinks. "I mean, I know Lolly said she's probably just sick and all, but she wasn't in school again today… and I just have a bad feeling…"
"I know what you mean," Becca agrees, nodding. "I think something's happened to her too."
"Maybe we should go look for her…" I suggest.
"Oh come on, we don't even know where she hangs out, or lives or, well, anything about her really. We're hardly likely to find her."
"I know."
I sigh, and Becca and I sit in silence for a few minutes. Suddenly, Lolly comes back outside without our smoothies, with a really panicked expression.
"Guys, we need to go to Mako," she says.
"Uh… why?" I ask.
"I had another dream last night."
"Why didn't you tell us before?"
"It's complicated. I'll explain later. We need to go."
Becca and I nod, standing up, and we all run to the beach so we can swim away in private.
When we surface in the moon pool, Becca asks Lolly, "What is this all about then?"
Lolly doesn't speak, she just points up to the sand. I look up and gasp.
"Emily!" I cry. She's lying face down on the ground, wearing the same crumpled clothes she was the last time we saw her… which was the day of the full moon.
"Has she been here since the full moon?" I ask worriedly. "Is she dead? Or just unconscious? In a coma? Do you think she's a mermaid? And what was your dream?!"
"Mel, calm down!" Lolly snaps. "Let's just check if she's okay."
Without me realising, Lolly has pulled herself out of the water and dried herself off with her power. She motions for me and Becca to get out too, and when we do she dries us off.
"Emily…?" I ask hesitantly.
Instantaneously, she jumps up. With a rather alarmed expression, she looks around at Becca, Lolly and I. She suddenly seems to calm down and she sits down again, shakily.
"What happened…?" she whispers.
I look promptly at Lolly. "Lolly, what happened in your dream?"
"Her dream?" Emily asks bewilderedly.
"It's… a long story," Lolly says, sitting down.
Lolly's POV
I raise my head above the water, at the exact same time as Becca and Mel. We all look ahead of us at the waterfall that's beginning to form. I heat up the cave, while Becca freezes the waterfall and Mel creates three water tentacles. Suddenly, the tentacles lunge forwards, towards the waterfall. They crack the layer of ice in a microsecond, and water daggers start to shoot out from the water. The three of us duck underwater before any harm can come to us, and swim away.
"How did that tell you about Emily…?" Becca asks.
"It didn't," I say, shaking my head from side to side. "That was the vision. I was in the café, about to order the drinks, when I suddenly had this weird vision…"
As the three of us swim away, we pass by another mermaid. One with honey blonde hair, and deep blue eyes. As we leave the cave, she enters it, and the daggers hit her. She falls back against the floor of the cave, eyes closed.