Chapter Two: Stole Aways

"Is he gone?"

"Not yet."

"…how about now?"

"Adella! Would you clam it! I said not yet!"

"Fine! Fine!" Arms crossed, Adella glared at her older sister, "My God, don't be such a witch Aquata."

"Don't be such a brat."

"Witch!"

"Brat!"

"Both of you—" Attina warned.

"Girls!"

All seven daughters of Admiral Triton jumped. In a flutter of heartbeats and guilty faces, Attina, Aquata, Andrina, Arista, Adella, Alana, and Ariel swung about to find their father filling the doorway. Petty Officer Sebastian was perched huffily on his shoulder.

"Busted." mumbled Andrina, flopping onto her bed, "…nice going, Stupid."

Adella bristled like a cat, but dared not respond as Admiral Triton stepped into the girls' seaside bedroom. Teal eyes smoldering, Adella exchanged lethal looks with Andrina before pressing a pillow to her knees.

The smoldering and smirking did not last long. As the admiral and the petty officer passed each bed, each daughter shrunk from Triton's steel blue glare.

Daddy though he was, Triton was the most feared naval officer for good reason. The admiral was a domineering figure. It was said that he tamed the ocean with a frosty glare and was merciless as a shark. A relic of impressive, magical lineage, Triton's blood was salty as Fantasia's seven seas and turbulent as his seven daughters.

His seven daughters.

Inwardly, Triton sighed.

It was bed time. Each daughter was in her pajamas. But the air was foggy with perfume and a cosmetic mess littered the vanity. The tension from muffled thoughts and breaths being held was overwhelming.

Guilty. Guilty as the little innocent smiles on their little angelic faces.

Methodically, Triton flexed the fingers clasped behind his back. Though they were behind him, the admiral knew his girls were squirming.

"Remind me..." slowly turning, Triton straightened his broad shoulders, "….Adella. What day is this day?"

"Oh….I ummmm…." Helplessly, Adella looked to her sisters. To her, it seemed an unfair and irrelevant question. "Day? What day is it?"

Sebastian snorted.

"Oh my God." Balancing a stuffed animal over her head, Andrina muttered, "Sunday you Moron. Right after Saturday."

Triton's eyes flickered. "Then you could tell me, Andrina, tomorrow's date?"

"Monn—day."

Sebastian hmphed.

"And what," continued Triton, "rotating slowly to his left, "is Monday, Arista?"

"A school day, Daddy?"

Sebastian nodded, popping his cranberry-red shell.

"Precisely. A school day. Correct me if I am mistaken, Alana, but would that not make tonight, tonight being Sunday night, a school night?"

"….yes?"

"Lucky guess." Sebastian whispered in Triton's ear.

Ignoring the crustacean, Triton strode powerfully across the room but his interrogation remained calm.

"Remind me, Aquata, what time is curfew?"

"For a school night, Daddy?"

"Yes."

Awkwardly, Aquata slid turquoise stilettos under her dresser as Triton approached. "Nine. Nine o'clock Daddy."

Sebastian clicked his tongue.

"Attina…"

Triton's eldest straightened in her covers, clutching a bathrobe to her chest. "Father?"

"Tell me the time."

Fighting a blush, Attina answered without consulting her nightstand. "Nine-thirty."

"Tirty-seven," corrected Sebastian.

"Nine thirty-seven," repeated Admiral Triton, the badges flashing on his sleek uniform as he turned to his youngest daughter, perched on her window sill like a bird about to take flight.

"Ariel…where should you and your sisters be, if it is thirty-seven minutes past curfew on a school night before a school day?"

Ariel paused, as if she were listening to the breeze tangled in her bright red hair. Then, raising her haunting, deep seablue gaze, Ariel smiled and answered. "We should be in bed, Daddy."

"Puh." Sebastian spouted, breaking Triton from his reverie. "Dat is correct, young lady! In bed and out of fanstastical danger you 'ave roused dis past—"

"—That will suffice, Petty Officer Sebastian."

"Yeah, at ease…"sniggered Andrina, scrunching her nose innocently as Sebastian rounded on Triton's shoulder in search for the perpetrator, "…chill out."

"I expect…" Triton raised his voice slightly over Sebastian's jumbled slurs, "…that each and every one of one you are in bed, safe and…untainted when I return from my meeting tonight."

"Where is the meeting, Daddy?" Ariel asked, piping over her sisters' compliant chorus.

Triton's thin lips smiled under his white beard.

Ariel. Although the youngest, she was assuredly one of the smartest, second only to Attina. Charming to a fault, Ariel was the spitting image of her mother and just as beguiling.

Triton's chest stirred. Occasionally Ariel would catch him offguard: a subtle sideways glance, hair-toss, or intonation reminded Triton of his dear wife, more than a decade passed now.

But that also meant, Triton noted wryly, that the subtext hidden behind Ariel's wide, innocent eyes was a transparent read. Triton had learned from courting Ariel's dear mother that this look was pure trouble.

"Da meetin," Sebastian chimed authoritatively, "Is none of your business young lady! Da Admiral—"

"—can speak for himself, Sebastian."

"Of…of course Admiral." Sebastian saluted weakly, lower lip pouting as Triton addressed each daughter in turn.

"Petty Officer Sebastian is correct, albeit outspoken. My affairs are my affairs: your affairs, ladies, are to heed the rules of this house. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Father."

"And," Triton continued, pausing at the doorway, "It may be of relevance to all of you that I have provided the police with the specifics of your curfew. Captain Amelia and PI Basil have assured me that any further misdemeanors will be met with appropriate action in my absence."

Sebastian nodded triumphantly at the staggering silence. Each daughter looked like she had been soaked in ice water. His glee was short lived as Triton spoke in deathly calm.

"Do I make myself clear?"

The girl's gulped and nodded.

Triton's eyes sharpened. "Ladies…do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Father."

"Very well, then. I will return within midnight. Good night, my girls."

"Good night, Father."

"Sleep tight." Sebastian smirked, wiggling his claw out the door.

Triton's footsteps died slowly. As they faded, the seven girls slowly came back to life.

"Any further misdemeanors," Adella ranted, jumping up and down on her mattress, "will be met with the appropriate action! My God, are we criminals? Seriously, he had to tell the police?!"

"Good ol' Basil…" Andrina grinned, tossing a stuffed animal at Adella, "…and Captain-I-Can-Kick-Box-Your-Ass-To-Kingdom-Come Amelia. They love us there."

"She's not even a cop," Alana whined, "she's a naval officer!"

"Yeah, but Amelia and Dad are BFF's," said Arista, smooching her lips, "and she'll do anything for Daddy."

"Stop that, Arista! Don't be disgusting!" Attina rose, kicking aside the coverlet she had been using to hide scaly leggings and tangerine heels, "Thanks to all of you, Captain Amelia will now be watching the docks and bays like it's her job!"

"It is her job," Ariel smiled.

"I mean for us! She'll be on the lookout for us!" Angrily, Attina snatched the stuffed animal en-route for her head, "And Basil can already smell us a mile away! So: no bar tonight."

"Attina!"

"You heard Father. It's not worth it."

"Not even for your boyfriend, Attina?"

"Stop it, you know that's not—"

"Oh my God, she's going to stand him up!"

"Witch with a 'B.'"

"Adella I swear to God if you don't shut—Ariel? Ariel!"

One leg hanging outside the window and red hair twisting in the ocean air, Ariel looked up. "Yeah?" she smiled.

Rushing forward, Attina held out her hands. "Ariel! What do you think you're doing?"

Ariel's deep blue eyes glittered with excitement. "Going out. You coming?"

It took only three more minutes of whining and mocking before Attina finally shimmied down the mansion wall and sprinted across the wet sand (so the waves would hide their footprints) to the mansion next door, where their cousins Maris and Marina, Coral and Cordelia, and Limpet and Lana were waiting outside their window.

As the twin pairs of blondes, chestnuts, and gingers strut across the beach, the oceanic cousins embraced like movie stars.

"Girlies!"

"Cuzinnnnnns!"

"Bitches!"

"Babes!"

"Ready for a blow out?"

"Let's bust open this town!"

Ariel smiled.

The Little Mermaids were reunited for another night!

Ariel loved her sisters and her cousins, but she cherished the danger they threw at her. Wealthy naval brats, this glamorous group of thirteen had earned their Little Mermaid title from much more than lineage.

True, the blood inside each of them was tainted blue, granting each girl the magical ability to turn into a real mermaid when she touched the water. But the mermaid guise didn't stop on land. Star swimmers in school and sirens downtown, the Little Mermaids were queens of Fantasia. And they knew it.

Thrill charged through Ariel as she linked arms with Lana, also the youngest and also a redhead.

"Come on!" she laughed, skipping Lana along. Her sisters rolled their eyes. Ariel still acted like it was Christmas. "Come on! To the Snuggly Duckling!"

"Aw, how cute."

"Innocent."

"Wet's go to the Snuggwy Duckwing!"

Ariel paused. Lana was giggling.

"But…" Confused, Ariel looked to Attina, "But we always go to the Snuggly Duckling. To sing. Did I miss something?"

Smuggly, Lana glanced at her sisters. Adella laughed, obviously in on the joke.

"Not anymore, Deary." Adjusting the bedazzled water-lily in her black hair, Cordelia pranced in front of the group.

"Tonight," she announced, "We're going…to The Docks!"

Ariel raised her eyebrows as Attina gasped.

"The what?"

"The Docks!"

"The...bad part?"

"We can't go there!"

"There are scum!"

"And pirates!"

"Exactly!" Swinging back her shimmering orange hair, Lana ran her hands down her torso, "Manly, masculine, dirty-minded pirates. Pirates coming home from a long, long, long lonely voyage."

"Oooooo!" Arista and Aquata smiled. Limpet and Maris hopped up and down.

"Unless," Lana smirked at Ariel, "Unless someone wants to go play musical chairs with a bunch of fat men instead?"

Ariel felt like she'd been slapped. She and Lana had been best friends since infancy. What was going on with her all of a sudden?

Ariel opened her mouth, ready to retaliate but Andrina beat her to it.

"Well someone's wonder-bra is a little too tight."

"And I am going to the Duckling," Attina added, hiking up her hip, "I already told Sitka I'd meet him there and I am not changing my plans to watch you all waste your money on cheap wine and drool over sweaty ruffians and scoundrels."

"Well…"Andrina blinked, impressed by Attina's definitiveness, "…cheap wine and sweaty men works for me."

"Me too!"

"Hotties!"

"Ariel?" Lana turned, still smirking, "are you coming?"

Ariel bit her lip. She loved to sing. She loved to feel whole and…what word had her father used earlier? Oh yes…untainted. Whole and untainted. Just like being a child and singing with her mother to the rhythm of the tide. When her mother was alive.

But that smirk on Lana's smug little face…

"Please, of course I'm coming!"

Trying not to look back at Attina, Ariel ran to catch the group. Calling over the deafening clicking of heels, Ariel said, "So where are we going anyway?"

"A bar, Bee-otch." Cordelia answered without turning her head. "Really badass."

"What's it called?"

Lana turned, a glint of evil in her beautiful eyes. "The Benbow."