Chapter 9
The mermaids had been for a swim to rid themselves of the mud. Soon it was dinnertime. Rikki and Anna had baked it and then called everyone in. This time they used a different method, they tried out their mind speak.
'Hey guys, dinner is ready, tell your husbands and kids please.' It seemed to have worked: five minutes later the families were all in the dining hall and the room immersed in noise. This hall had two different large tables made out of crystallised water, with seats made out of the same stuff. Cleo had been particularly proud of her highchairs that she had modelled. The youngest mer-kids were sitting in these next to their parents. The kids that could feed themselves were sitting at a table separate from the adults. The meal began underway and the husbands were waiting for their wives to explain their strange actions from the day. Anna hid the book bundled in her jacket and placed it under her chair.
"So, Lewis," Cleo began, "What do you remember happening with the wish potion that day all those years ago?" He looked at her quizzically.
"What exactly do you remember happening?"
"Well, that real strange girl came in and..." Suddenly Bella cracked up laughing. Everyone was looking at her strangely. Rikki kicked her under the table.
"What's so funny?" Lewis asked.
Bella just shrugged still laughing silently, eventually she calmed herself enough to say, "Sorry, continue,"
"Okay," he said giving her a funny look, "...this strange girl..." he was interrupted again by another fit of giggles from Bella and Anna. He raised an eyebrow but continued over them. "Anyway, she warned us to take the potion outside the cafe...but then, I really have no idea how she did it, but somehow she managed to take this mermaid mythology book out from under our noses and disappeared..."
Anna and Bella looked at each other before bursting out laughing again. Rikki kicked them both under the table and tried to glare but their ongoing giggles at the hilariously strange situation got her frown to turn upside down. Meanwhile, Lewis was still talking.
"...we never completed the potion," This got all the girls' attention.
"Why?" Cleo said loudly.
"You were there shouldn't you remember...?" Lewis asked confused
"Well, let's just say we don't...for the guys' sake," Rikki put in, "What exactly happened?"
"We couldn't exactly continue with the potion if we didn't have the book, I mean, it's magic! Heaps of stuff could've gone wrong...but in fact it did," He paused collecting his thoughts.
"We moved it outside regardless, the fungi and algae needed to settle, but Rikki decided that she'd heat up the potion,"
Rikki blushed "...as she thought it all was a waste of time." That sounded all too familiar to the girls.
"Then it got out of control, but thankfully we managed to get rid of it as it was outside, and all was well. I decided never to experiment with magical potions again...so I never did"
Obviously, their trip back in time changed the course of that event, but did not alter anything else.
The girls were talking amongst themselves in whispers.
"Okay, what's with all the secrecy?" Zane asked them all.
"You really wanna know?" Rikki asked.
"Yes!" The guys all said exasperated. Rikki nodded to Anna. She reached under her chair and pulled out the purple book.
"Does this book ring any bells Lewis?" she asked cheekily.
"Wha...how? Yeah! How...? I thought that girl had taken it!"
"Oh she did," Bella said laughing. Lewis was looking seriously confused with all the guys just looking on to see what would happen next. "Can you picture that girl again now in your mind?"
"It was a long time ago...but yeah, I'll never forget that really really strange day...why Bella? You weren't even around then..."
"Exactly..."
"But why are you interested then...I am so confused!"
"But, do you recognise her; does she look like anyone you know?"
He mulled things over in his mind and then looked back at Bella before going back into thought, and then looking back at her with a shocked expression on his face.
"No...Its...it can't be..."
"Can't it?" she replied cheekily
"What!" the guys practically shouted feeling totally out of the loop. The girls decided to let them suffer.
"She looked...but it can't be...she looked uncannily like you Bella...but no, surely not!"
All the mermaids cracked up laughing causing the kids to turn their heads to see what was going on.
"Aw my stomach!" Bella said clutching it, tears of mirth escaping her eyes.
"What the heck is so funny?" Lewis said completely confounded.
"Okay." She said breathing again, "How, are you so sure, that it wasn't me?"
"Wha-! Are you saying that...?"
Bella nodded solemnly trying very hard to keep a straight face, it was very difficult with your best friends giggling and chuckling around her.
"Yes Lewis, I am saying that that girl from the Juicenet Cafe was me - The then sixteen year old Bella Hartley."
Cleo rubbed her husband's back; he was so desperately trying to understand.
"But we didn't meet you until the next year...but that would explain why she said, 'See you next year' but, how would she know that?" he muttered under his breath. Cleo decided to put him out of his misery.
"Lewis, the reason that it was Bella is that that event only just happened," Now everyone was puzzled.
"What Cleo here is trying to say, is that we have been back in time." Emma said.
"Seriously? You had me there," Zane said laughing. Rikki punched him gently in the arm.
"We are serious," Rikki said. He sobered up again looking completely confused.
"Huh? Please explain."
"Maybe it would be better if we just showed you," Anna said. She opened the mythology book to the page on Time Travel. She then passed it along to everyone.
"This is how." Rikki said, "We accidently travelled back in time to 2007."
"That is trippy." Will said.
"Yeah."
Lewis read the page aloud to the group.
"So let me get this straight; you five found a mysterious cave which turned out to be one of these mermaid portal things" he gestured to the page, continuing "...and managed to travel back to the year of 2007. You had no idea how to get back so you had to get this book?"
"Pretty much, yeah. A water wall in the cave showed us how – by showing us the book. We had to take it. It took us about three days to finally realise what to do – we could not show ourselves to our past selves otherwise we would have affected the time stream." Emma said, "That is why Bella and Anna did all our communicating." The girls all nodded.
"Seeing as you altered the results of the wish potion...what actually happened originally – before you took the book?" Lewis asked. The girls looked at each other, and Rikki spoke up.
"Well, we made it in the Juicenet's cooler room and then I put some on my face, we wished, it didn't work and then Cleo took some home and then somehow it got out of control..." The girls glared at her. "Fine, fine, I used my power on it by myself and made it get out of control. The next morning we came in and it was...well, really bad. Eventually we wished it out of there just in the nick of time with the potion Cleo saved."
"Oh..."
All the guys were still trying to get their heads around the fact that their wives had gone back in time by accidently walking into a mermaid time portal. They all believed them however; it was mermaid magic, who knew what else it could do.
"I never had a chance to study the book properly," Lewis said, "I know there is a heap of extremely useful stuff in it,"
"Yeah! There is -we learnt how to mind speak to each other – the book says it only works between mermaids and mermen though." Anna said
"Awesome!" Ben exclaimed, "Does it work on me?"
"Does this answer your question?" Anna mind spoke to him. His eyes widened.
"Cool! How?" Anna went on to coach Ben to how to mind speak.
"Ash...when did you first meet me? I just wanna see if we altered anything else," Emma asked
"Elliot's riding lesson, early 2007,"
"At least that's still the same," Emma muttered.
The rest of the evening was spent looking over that book and chatting.
A/N: Thanks for reading, sorry if this chapter was a bit long winded – it was really difficult to write and I had to write it... Please Review :P