catfish, noun: a person who sets up a false personal profile on a social networking site for fraudulent or deceptive purposes
—Merriam-Webster.com

So apparently things could get more awkward between Mark and Jason.

 
 
*Chapter 37*

Powered Up

Way back in another life---before I was kidnapped by pirates and jumped overboard in the dead of night and almost drowned but got turned into a mermaid by a genie from a bottle---my friend Pepper used to say how I was lucky to not have any siblings. Every visit, texting or phone call had at least one epic tale about the latest fight with her sister or how the little brat would borrow Pepper's things without asking, and then lose them or just leave them laying somewhere half wrecked...

But I could never quite believe that having a sister like Ginger wasn't good at least as often as it was bad. After being an only child for all my life, being twins with a mermaid princess was.... WoNDeRfuL!!!!

Maybe if Anemone and I had grown up together it wouldn't seem so special, but I was too new to this life to take any part of it for granted. It was hard to feel like there was anything worth fighting about when just brushing my long soft golden hair put me on a total high, if I wasn't already on one from having woke up in my clam shell bed that morning to discover: “Yep, still a princess!”

Anemone had been an only child until now too, and she was loving us being sisters as much as I was. We went everywhere and did everything together, and all the ocean's dolphins and whales and sea turtles, the fish, the stars, the shrimps and lobsters (but not so much the crabs...) and even the unbelievably stupid sponges were our friends.

The BIG adventure – I’m ready now.

Even when you go out filled with confidence - there are nasties offering endless pain. For first-timers, the risk may be more than they can bear.

I wish to mention. I know there are matters that would arise in real life that I'm not dealing with. It's by design, I'm calling it artistic licence. It is fiction after all, and I want to keep it 'sweet and sentimental'.

Ages... undetermined, I don't know myself, early teens maybe. Calum/Cassie 12 to 14, Sarah 14 to 16. Perhaps. I've left that up to the reader to call, if you choose.

**********

Tuesday came around.

catfish, noun: a person who sets up a false personal profile on a social networking site for fraudulent or deceptive purposes
—Merriam-Webster.com

Jason's prank doesn't go as planned, and he finds himself dragged deeper into things than expected.

Calum, meet Cassie:

It was a rainy Saturday afternoon, and Calum was daydreaming on the bus. Gazing absentmindedly out the window at the passing scenery, taking in it all and none of it.

He stirred to life as the bus drove into the outskirts of the town he was vacationing in with his Aunt, Anne 'auntie Anne' and his cousin Sarah. 'My stop soon' he reminded himself, cautious of the stop he was to get off at.

On arrival he alighted from the bus with a bounce, he was looking forward to seeing his Aunt again, and Sarah.

71 year old John Dodge, retired military, now sits in a nursing home, his body riddled with cancer, waiting on the grim reaper to come for him when he is given another option.

 © 2016

Chapter thirteen

I saw Claire’s features freeze and I couldn’t define the expression on her face, it was a mix of fear, confusion, and shock.

“Claire, are you still there?” Julie asked, she sounded worried.

“Good. You're awake,” said a girl's voice.

“Huh? Whah?” I burbled groggily at the pretty fish-girl I saw hovering in front of me. She looked about sixteen and was about the cutest girl I'd ever seen. Definitely the cutest mermaid.

I was in a beach chair in the seashell castle's courtyard. My legs felt weird and fat and there was something sitting on my chest. She said, “Please don't panic, but in order to save your life we had to-”

Of course when she said don't panic like that it's exactly what I did do, but only for a second. I looked down and saw what was on my chest. It was my chest. Beneath these two rather impressive breasts my waist narrowed and then flared out into girlish hips that were covered in beautiful jade green scales, which continued down the long sleek shiny tail I now had for legs. I wagged it back + forth experimentally. And this stuff floating around my face wasn't some kind of seaweed but my hair, super long and shimmering like gold.

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God,” was all I could say. “Oh my God! My God! My God!”

This summer vacation was turning out to be the strangest week of my life. Or maybe of anyone's...

Marley for the Win Part 8

Paul’s thoughts were suddenly thrust to his past. We never did it, I mean not that I didn’t try, there was that one time we kissed but it ended awkwardly. Everything makes so much more sense now, he thought. “So that’s why we never could get things going,” he said.

“Not that you didn’t try, how many times did I have to slap your hand away from my…” Lisa said.

“That’s not fair you led me on,” Paul laughed.

“When did being friendly and spending time together becoming leading someone on?” Lisa asked.

 
 
*Chapter 36*

Roskilde