The Water Nymph

The Girl With The Tail

COPYRIGHT 2013

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

THE GIRL WITH THE TAIL

She wasn't there.  

The figure was a girl. I knew that much. She had large pinky brown coloured eyes.  

But that was all I saw.  

I guess I scared her off.  

I crept around the tree, down to the lake's edge.  

The sensible thing to have done would have been to go back. To run now. I just felt like I was in to deep now.  

I peered in to the water, more wary this time 

"Hello?" I whispered to the water, feeling stupid and keeping my voice down, wary that this could be a horrible trick of Libby's, "I'm sorry for running... You startled me, that's all." 

I saw some ripples splash the edge of the bank, and looked up to see a head, further away this time.  

She was the girl. I knew almost certainly that this was no trick of my sister's. She could not have achieved the feat of attempting to replicate the girl.  

She had salmon pink scales running up the sides of her face, and her lips were red. Her eyes were large and shy, and her hair was brown, the colour of the mud on the ground.  

"Your beautiful." I gasped. The girl batted her eyes timidly, giggled them dove into the water again, raising her lower half up so I could see her stunning salmon pink tail rise and fall, the water springing from it like melted light.  

"No, don't go!" I couldn't help but feel strangely disappointed at her absence.  

I turned to leave after a few minutes, when she appeared again closer.  

I studied her, unable to look away.  

She was covered in scales. There were small ones all over her body, and bigger ones over the main parts- the abdomen, the back of her hands, her chest and her lower back. And of course her tail.  

"Your strange." I told her, looking closely at her scales, "But, in a good way, of course." I smiled.  

"Well obviously! If I'm strange what does that make you, 2Peg?" 

"Your a... Your a fish, though!" 

"Your a... A monkey!" 

"How have you seen a monkey, when you live, well, here?" I gestured to the lake.  

"We have to migrate every year. Through the river. At night" The girl shrugged her shoulders at my puzzlement.  

"Migrate? Like some kind of animal?" 

"I am not an animal!" 

"No need to get stressy over it! In a sense, we're all animals." I was worried I'd offended the girl. There was a long pause, when I realised I didn't know a vital thing about this girl.  

"What are you called?" She turned her pretty eyes back to me, which had been looking out across the water. 

"Daffy." 

"Well Daffy, I'm very pleased to meet you." Daffy smiled at me, very warmly. I blushed, and looked away.  

"How did you know my name? How come I've never seen you at our lake?" 

"This lake is as much my lake as it is yours!" Daffy smiled, "I've seen you here before." 

"How did you learn this language?"  

"Is this how you normally greet people? Bombarding them with questions?" I shrugged. 

"Well, I just picked it up from what everyone has been saying around the lake." She glanced over my shoulder, and leaning close, she whispered, "Someone's coming. I'll see you next Sunday!" 

"Wait! How do you know-" but Daffy had swum off leaving a delicate trail of ripples behind her.  

"Mark! We have to go!" My sister snapped at me, coming through the trees. As we walked through the woods on the way back, she asked me smiling; "why were you crouched on the edge like that? Who were you talking to?" 

"Er... I- I saw a fish." 

"And you were talking to it." She said flatly.  

"Er... Yes." I smiled at the irony if my lie.