Swimming? No thanks

Chapter 13

Sarah's POV

"Sarah!" Someone chucked a pillow at my head. "Wake! Up!" Every word they said, they threw another pillow.

"What?" I turned to look at them, ticked that they had woken me up.

"We need to go for a swim. I haven't swum with you in a while," my dad answered.

I panicked. "I'm not really up for swimming right now. I want to sleep some more." It was a bad excuse, but I'd think of something later after I fully woke up.

"Right now is the best time. It's early enough that we don't need to put on sunscreen. We're going in fifteen minutes. Get dressed." He walked out and shut my door behind him.

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. How was I going to get out of this? I can't tell him that I'm a mermaid. I need Diana's help. I got out of bed and went to Diana's room. She was sleeping soundly. "Diana, I need your help. Dad is making me go swimming with him."

She shot up and looked at me while putting on her glasses. "You can't go."

"I know that. I need your help to stop this from happening."

"How can I help?!" She yelled before realizing what she did.

"I thought that you might have a plan to get out of this type of thing."

"If I did, I would have told you. Do you have any ideas?"

I shook my head. "I can't do this. He'll know. I can't expose us like that."

"I know, but once Dad gets his mind set on something, he doesn't stop until he gets what he wants."

"We have to hurry. He gave me fifteen minutes to get ready and I've already used five of them talking to you."

She nodded. "Why don't you tell him that we made plans to meet up with Max and Alyssa?"

"You know Dad, he'll make me cancel any plans I have if he wants to hang out. Anything else?"

"Is there any mermaid ability to replace all the memories of us playing in the water with memories of us being scared of water?"

"I don't think so. I wish there was, though. It would make things so much easier. That gave me an idea though. I can just disappear as soon as we go in the water."

"Don't you think that don't that would just make things worse?"

"I guess you're right. I could fake being sick."

"How? He would check your temperature and it would come out normal."

"Alyssa. Her power. She can make the temperature go way up."

"Or I could make your temperature go way down."

"Good idea. I'll go lay in my bed and pretend to feel crappy. You come with me, using invisibility to hide, and freeze the thermometer. This could work. I think I might get off the hook this time." I smiled.

"Let's get going. We only have about five minutes until you're supposed to be ready."

"Is there anything else that we can do to help this along?"

"I have an idea, but it's kind of gross."

"What is it? I will try anything."

"Using your jelly power to make it look like you sneezed up a snot rocket."

"Ewwww! That's so gross, but it's a good idea." We snuck into my bedroom and I climbed into my bed.

"I'll go get some water for the snot." Diana walked out and came back in with a cup of water. "Turn this to jelly."