Tails of My Life

Tails of My Life

Chapter 1

          SPLASH! The water hit me straight in the face, and my best friend Brooke laughed. I shot her a glare and she just laughed even harder. I kicked out and splashed her back. It hit her in the chest, thoroughly soaking her, that is if she hadn’t already been soaked. I cracked up laughing.

          “Hey!” She shrieked at me, trying to retaliate. I dodged her attack and smiled.

          “What? You did it to me! It’s only fair that I slash back!” I responded. Right now, we were about twenty miles from land. To be precise, we were off the coast of California. There were no ships near us, and no other people nearby. Of course, that didn’t faze us in the least.

          Another splash, I can’t believe that Brooke actually had the guts to splash me again. “This means WAR!” I yelled with a battle cry. I kicked up my ocean blue tail and splashed her back yet again.

          Oh yeah, the tail huh? Yeah about that…

          Well, let’s start from the beginning. My name is Marina Coral Naida, and I am about to turn sixteen years old. I have wavy brown hair with a single blue streak in the front. Every mermaid has a natural color streak in their hair that matches the color of their tail. I also have deep blue eyes that are the same shade as the sea.

          Brooke on the other hand was my complete opposite. She has long and perfectly straight red hair with a bright orange streak, which means that her tail was orange. She also has bright green eyes and is tiller than me. She has curves in all the right places where I have no curves at all. Brooke and I were both very tan from being outside almost all of our lives.

          Our names are special as well. Since our parents were mermaids, they knew that we would be too. Therefore, they named us with things to do with water. Brooke’s name is Brooke Marcela. Brooke obviously means running water, while Marcela means of the sea in Spanish. Marcela is her family name, I think that humans would call that her last name. My name Marina also means of the sea, just in Latin. Naida, on the other hand, means water nymph in Greek. My parents thought that it was hilarious because I’m pretty sure some countries consider us and water nymphs the same thing.

          I broke my train of thought as Brooke laughed and kicked her tail up to splash me again. I dived under the waves to avoid her splash. Sure it seemed pointless since I was getting wet anyway, but hey, it was war! As I dived I twisted around and kicked my tail up at the same time, sending a large splash towards Brooke. I come back above the water and laughed.

          We continued our splash war for another hour before we got hungry. We decided that we wanted burgers and fries, so we would have to go to land. So that’s how we ended up swimming the twenty miles to California, close to L.A. Our kind has found out that people start to wonder when random people come up out of the ocean so we tend to do it around either big cities or completely deserted places. It’s definitely more normal to see some random people coming out of the ocean in L.A. than it is in a normal town.

          When we got close enough to see the people swimming and the boats moving around in the water, Brooke motioned to me. “We should change now, before anyone sees us.” She explained. I knew she was right so I nodded and started to concentrate. I imagined my tail being formed into two legs. I felt it breaking apart, and I felt the scales changing into skin. Finally, I kicked my new human legs around. I looked over and noticed Brooke kicking her feet as well. “You ready Marina?” She asked happily.

          “Yeah, let’s go grab some grub. I’m starving!” I groaned hungrily. Swimming all day and then turning a tail into legs really tired a girl out! I reached into the small magic pouch around my neck and pulled out a swimsuit and a pair of shorts. I already had a bikini top on because even mermaids don’t like going around half-naked. The bag had been a gift from my parents on my thirteenth birthday; Brooke’s parents gave her one also. That was when they decided that Brooke and I were allowed to go to the land on our own without someone following us. The bag was a pretty blue color with bright sea-green beads on it that made wave patterns. Brooke’s bag was orange and had red waves on it. It had been extended, making us able to fit virtually anything in it and it never got full. We mermaids that a strange magic that is powered by the water. We can only use it if we are in or near water, salt or fresh water it doesn’t matter. That same magic is what made my bag. I can still use it when we are outside the water though, luckily. Another cool thing about our bags are that they can be worn as little backpacks when we are out of the water, making us fit in the human world better.