Mermaid in a Bottle

Chapter 2 ~ Nostalgic Times

My heart rate seemed to pick up every time I thought back to my mother's eyes. They definitely looked similar to the humans I escorted a countless number of times. I'd never noticed that my mom's eyes were so similar to human ones. All this time and I had never thought of it. Why was I just starting to see this now? 

I shook my head of the thought as hard as I could, but it still wouldn't go away. This wasn't putting my poor heart at ease. I needed to put my thoughts to something else. Otto seemed at ease today while I was having a frantic mental break down! Weren't best friends supposed to notice when something was wrong? Or maybe it simply had to do with the fact that Otto was a boy and boys just couldn't do anything right, no matter how hard they tried.

I pouted in frustration. My head was beginning to hurt.

Otto looked over and smiled. I gave him a tight smile of my own, sending out a message that I just wanted to punch him for not noticing that I was freaking out. The damn idiot just smiled at me harder. Where was a gun when you needed one?

"Hey MerLissa."

"What," I grumbled. I simply was not in the mood to be happy. Couldn't he see that?

"I've got a surprise for you!"

If I wouldn't have known Otto, my mood would have escalated and I would have perked up some. Sadly, I did know Otto, and his surprises weren't all that exciting. Most of the time, they were the dumbest things in the world, like a stupid flower or a paper with a smiley face on it, telling me to cheer up. Well, hell, I didn't want to cheer up!

Not sensing my distress, he continued.

"Remember when we always used to play funny games when we were kids?" Otto asked.

I let my breath come out slowly. Please tell me he wasn't planning on handing me a toy doll and affiliating that to a surprise. If he did, I had a surprise for him as well. It was called a big fat knuckle sandwich!

Nevertheless, I nodded. If that wasn't the surprise then I could be serious. Those were the fun times. The great times. In those days I could just sit back and relax, letting my chubby baby fingers do the magic as I worked on building the best sand castle or raced everyone across the playground. I always was one of the faster swimmers.

"Great!" He smiled. "Would you ever be interested in playing those games again?" His attitude had picked up. He began to smile radiantly at me. His fingers shook in excitement. What was the big deal?

I pretended I didn't see him smiling his head off and shrugged. "If I could get a day off, which I can't, then I'd be interested."

Otto nodded in agreement, the smile never leaving his face. I could see the wheels churning in that little head of his and I wanted to know what those wheels were coming up with. He obviously had a little plan forming.

"OK," was all he replied.

OK? OK?! Who did this boy think he was?! Now he had to tell me! I had to know! Did he think he was about to get away with a half thought answer like that one?! If that was all he was going to give me, his face was going to be planted in the next pile of dung the seahorses had left out.

 "What are you so happy about?" I snapped. "If you had heard me correctly, I said I can't get a day off of work because it's too 'important.' " I didn't have to make little quotation marks with my fingers for Otto to know that I was being sarcastic, yet I did it anyways. It seemed like the right thing to do, to emphasize how upset I was with him not telling me.

He still wasn't quite listening. "Mhmm. Mhmm," he said as he smiled his ass off.

I waved my hand in front of his face. "Hello? Care to elaborate?"