(Author's notes: Sorry for not updating this story frequently. I actually have a lot more up on AO3 because it's easily to edit there. My best way to edit a story is reading it to my husband, in which I catch a lot of mistakes. Unfortunately, he's going back to school to get his Masters, so it's harder to get some time to read to him. But luckily he's almost done with a really hard class, so I may get to edit a few more chapters this month.)

Chapter 4

When Fenton returned home, he went directly to the shower to clean up, avoiding his mother who had returned from work. He had wanted to talk to her before about the mermaid, but now that he was absolutely certain what he had seen, he felt that talking to his mother would be premature. He wanted to gather more evidence, more information before asking for her opinion. He especially wanted to read the McDuck journals first. Luckily he had dropped the papers when he ran into the ocean, and they had stayed together, although they were a little damp and sandy, but still in good enough condition to read.

He only started rearranging the papers—they had gotten all out of order through the day's events—before the scent of food had him abandoning the copy of the McDuck journal to appease the hunger in his stomach.

It was late, almost dark, and with his sleep schedule off kilter, it was no wonder he felt famished. Not to mention, it smelled as if his mother was cooking, which was unusual. Although his mama was a great cook, being a detective in the DPD, she had little time to do so. Most of the time, they had frozen dinner or takeout.

"Smells good, Mama," Fenton said, heading into the kitchen and kissing his mother on the forehead.

"It's nice to see you home and cleaned up," Maria Cabrera said, pointing her spatula in his direction. "Lately you've been looking like a zombie. I hope that Gearloose isn't working you too hard."

"Not at all, Mama," Fenton said, grabbing a fork to spear a vegetable that was browning in the pan. "He gave me today off so I won't be going back in until Monday."

"Oh, good," Maria said. "I work tomorrow, but Sunday we should have lunch together."

"Yes, Mama," Fenton said, snatching an onion from the pan once more.

"Ah," Maria said, lightly slapping his hand. "Wait until the fajitas are done. Why don't you see what we have to go with it?"

Fenton carefully ate the hot onion, his tongue relishing the spices on it, as he checked the refrigerator. Aside from the apples and the items he used to make his sandwich, the refrigerator was empty. "Time to go shopping, Mama."

"I'll write you up a list," Maria said.

Since Fenton hadn't had his apple that afternoon, he pulled out a couple of the red delicious and started chopping them up. His thoughts couldn't help but go to the mermaid, and his now two encounters with her. He may not be ready to open up to his mother about it, but he could ask her if she knew anything.

"Hey, Mama, do you remember those mermaid stories you used to tell me when I was a kid?" he asked as he cut into the first apple.

"Oh, those silly things, Patito," Maria said with a laugh. "I thought it was funny how everyone in Duckburg would make mermaids sound like the boogeyman. Eat your vegetables or the mermaids will get you. Go to bed or a mermaid will come and get you. Mermaids like to drag naughty boys and girls down to the bottom of the sea."

Fenton's eyes widened. "Is that what you used to tell me?" He couldn't remember, but with those kinds of threats, he wondered why every child wasn't afraid of the ocean.

"Of course not," Maria said, waving off his concern. "But I did tell you a lot of the stories I heard when I was in school." Maria and her family had immigrated to Duckburg when she was only a little girl, and even after all this time, she refused to lose her accent. "Which one was your favorite? Oh, there was one that had a sea monster in it. And there was a mermaid that glowed in the dark and lured sailors away on foggy nights. Those two I remember repeating over and over."

"Where did you hear the stories from?" Fenton asked.

"From children at school," Maria said. "They were crazy about them. I remember telling them the story of The Little Mermaid, you know the fairy tale. They all thought I was talking nonsense because they grew up thinking mermaids were some sort of evil witches or something. But this was before the hurricane and when all the tourists flooded the beaches looking for mermaids. And everyone was selling those cute mermaid toys and pictures, and that was the end of the evil mermaids."

"I hate to tell you this, but they're still telling evil mermaid stories," Fenton said with a smile. "Although I think the big one is about ghosts."

"Oh, kids!" Maria exclaimed, shaking her head. "At least they're cute when they're into evil mermaids. Not like the teenagers I have to deal with."

Fenton smiled. Mama always brought the subject back to her job.

"How do you know about what stories kids are telling these days?" Maria asked, turning off the stove and added a few more spices to the fajita vegetables and meat.

"Oh…Huey Duck stopped by the lab again today," Fenton said, trying not to lie.

"I thought you said you had the day off?"

"I just stopped by there for something I forgot," Fenton quickly explained. "But back to the mermaid stories. Where did they all come from? Do you know?"

"Well, if you ask me, all of them were made up by that Della Duck," Maria said, checking the fridge.

Two packages of tortillas and shredded cheese were on the table, already taken out of the refrigerator before Fenton took a look inside. She pulled out the last two tortillas and set them on separate plates, then divided the last of the cheese evenly. She then took a pot off the stove and dished out some rice to the sides of the tortillas.

As she scraped a large majority of the meat and vegetables on one tortilla and the rest on other, she said, "Della Duck was obsessed with mermaids. Always going on about how she was going to capture all the mermaids and string them up by their tails and…well…she just had a very vivid and gruesome imagination for such a young child."

The name sounded familiar to Fenton. "Who's Della?"

"She's the mother of that young man you keep mentioning. Huey," Maria said, handing Fenton the plate with the greater amount of food.

Fenton made a face. He couldn't imagine someone like that being Huey's mother. However, aside from Huey and the occasional visit from Scrooge McDuck to the lab, he knew nothing about the rest of the McDuck family.

"So, you went to school with Della?" Fenton asked, keeping on subject.

"Well, we weren't the same age, but she made herself known throughout the school," Maria said. "No, I was in the same grade as her cousin Gladstone. Pretentious snob. He was sort of a jerk, but everyone tolerated him because of his parents."

"Rich people," Fenton said, nodding.

"No. They died in a terrible boating accident," Maria said, her voice hushed. She crossed herself at the mention of the dead, her face somber before returning to the conversation. "Scrooge McDuck took him in along with his niece and other nephews. Gladstone couldn't stand Della and her twin brother, Donald. They were several years younger than we were, and he was a terrible bully. Well, at least until I set him straight. Back in seventh grade. I got tired of his crap. From what I recall from the last school reunion, he's not so bad anymore. Still a snob, but he's decent. He moved out of Duckburg as soon as he could."

"What about Fethry? Do you remember him?"

Maria tilted her head and paused as she went through her memories. "Yeah, I sort of remembered him. Kind of a weird. But sweet. He was a few years younger than me, so I didn't talk to him that much. He was always drawing or writing in his notebook."

"Did he tell mermaid stories like Della?" Fenton asked.

Maria took a bite of her fajita and chewed thoughtfully before swallowing. "You know, now that you mentioned it, he did. He was always drawing them in his notebook. He was very good, although the teachers kept getting after him because they were topless." She snorted. "Can you image those poor elementary teachers trying to stop a little kid from drawing breasts?"

"But he talked about them? Anything in particular?" Fenton asked.

"No, not that I can remember," she said, but stopped mid-bite. "But there was something strange about him. Something that happened when he was a child."

"What?" Fenton asked, realizing he hadn't eaten anything since they had sat down with their food. He took a bite.

"He disappeared," Maria said contemplating. "I remember it, just a year after I moved here. He disappeared and the whole town went looking for him."

"Where did he disappear?" Fenton asked.

"In the ocean," Maria said. "Fethry could only have been three or four, and he disappeared from the beach. The whole town was out, walking up and down the beach and looking all over town. And then all the boats were searching the ocean for his body, thinking he drowned. Your abuela was so freaked out, she didn't let me or your aunts and uncles go to the beach for over a month."

When Maria paused in her story, Fenton had to encourage her to continue. "What happened to Fethry?"

"Oh, of course he was found eventually," Maria said. "But he was gone for over a month, found wondering the beach by the lighthouse, wearing not a stitch of clothing."

"A month?" Fenton repeated, astounded. "What happened to him? Where had he been all that time?"

Maria shrugged. "Nobody knew. He didn't know. He couldn't remember anything." She ate some rice. "It wasn't long after that that he was adopted by Scrooge McDuck."

"Fethry is adopted? I didn't know that," Fenton said, his brows so scrunched up by all the surprising information that he wondered if he had a permanent wrinkle now.

"I forgot just how much about Scrooge McDuck's family isn't common knowledge anymore," Maria said. "Duckburg used to be a lot smaller when I was a kid. It's grown so much in thirty-odd years. Back then, everyone knew a little bit about all the families in the city, and everyone knew the McDuck's family business. But I guess with all this social media business and Internet access, the McDucks are no longer big news."

That was true. He already learned more about the McDuck family history and about Duckburg in one day than he had known in his entire life. It was a lot to take in. He went through the names that he now knew about in the McDuck family: Scrooge, Gladstone, Della, Fethry, Huey, there was one more…Della's twin brother. And didn't Huey say he was a triplet, which meant he had two siblings. But what about the other members of the McDuck family? And what had happened to Fethry during that month he had gone missing? And what had happened to Fethry's journals?

There were just so many mysteries that he was finding, but what did any of them have to do with mermaids? The more he learned about mermaids, the more he was learning about the McDuck family. His only conclusion was that Scrooge McDuck's family and the mermaids must be tied together. So if he wanted to know more about mermaids, he would have to research about founding family of Duckburg.

"Thanks for dinner, Mama," Fenton said, kissing his mother's brow before taking his dishes to the sink.

"You're welcome, Patito," Maria said. "Do you want to watch Tivo? We'll finally get to find out the father of Carmen's twins." She was referring to her current telenovella.

"I actually want to do some reading in my room and go to bed early," Fenton said, pointing a thumb to the hallway.

"Ah, my genius son, you don't know how to turn that brain off," Maria said. "Good-night. And don't forget about the shopping list tomorrow."

"Yes, Mama," he said, lost in thought, heading to the journals that Mrs. Quackfaster had printed out for him.