Alone With You (Remma)

Tattletail

The next week went by slowly for Rikki. Emma and her had yet to talk about what happened on the night of the full moon and Rikki had no idea where to even begin. She knew Emma just got nervous when everything got so intense–and they were on Cleo's couch, for crying out loud–but there was a nagging voice in the back of her head telling her, She never wanted to kiss you, She never even wanted to be near you.

In her heart, she knew the voice had to be wrong, it just had to be.

When Lewis asked her to help him study Mako Island, she decided it would be a great thing to get her mind off of Emma. They set off for their first trip to Mako on Saturday, exactly one week after the full moon. Although she didn't want to, Lewis made her ride in his boat to the island in order to explain the plan for the day so they could get right to work when they first got there.

"So first you'll jump off the boat and collect samples of different minerals and things from the water about 20 meters offshore. We'll put them in these," he gestured to the two small containers in his hand. "And then we'll get samples from all of the sides of the island. That'll be it for today."

"Wait, why do we need all of these random bottles of sand when the moon pool is where we actually turned into mermaids? Shouldn't we collect from there?" Rikki asked.

"Well, we will, but we also need things from all around the island to make sure the moon pool is the only magical place. Maybe eating the island's wild berries turns little boys into wolves, who knows." Lewis shrugged his shoulders and Rikki chuckled.

"I really hope they do," Rikki joked.

Lewis just smiled, admiring the open water until Mako Island rendered into view. For Rikki, the island had an ominous feel ever since the first time she went there. That was when she was turned into a supernatural being she had only heard about in fictional stories. She felt the air change as the entire island became visible and goosebumps ran down her arms. Lewis stopped the boat about 20 meters from shore and handed Rikki the bottles.

"Anything specific you want?" she asked, standing up.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Just any kind of sand or rocks," he said. "I don't have very high hopes for seeing anything abnormal this far from the island but it's good to still test it."

Rikki nodded her head at Lewis, turned to face the water, and jumped off the boat. Within seconds, she had grown a tail and was swimming deeper into the coral reef. A distance away, she saw a Mako shark eating a school of fish but she knew he wouldn't bother her. She got to the bottom and scooped some minerals and sand into the bottles without much effort before swimming back up and handing them to Lewis.

"I'm gonna swim to shore and dry off," she told him.

"Alright, see y–" he started, but she had already dove back underwater and headed for shore.

He watched her use her powers to dry herself off and then stand up completely human before his boat even reached the island.

They spent the next two hours collecting samples of interesting things throughout the island before returning to the boat and heading home. Rikki was allowed to swim this time so she got back significantly faster than Lewis.

They met Emma and Cleo at the cafe for smoothies and Emma was talking about Byron when Rikki arrived.

"He's doing so much better, I can't wait to see the look on Zane's face when he finds out he lost the race," said Emma as Rikki sat down.

Cleo said, "That's great! We need to get back at Zane for crashing your sleepover, after all." Cleo sat up straighter and turned her whole body toward Emma. "So you and Byron are getting pretty close?"