Mermaids and Mysteries | H2O

Chapter VIII

*Bella's POV*
The four of us continued to go for more regular swims in the hope of catching the two girls in the act but we had the whole ocean to search. I guess I was thankful that Rikki had built some kind of friendship with Nala, but it wasn't enough.

I didn't understand why the others refused to tell Nala and Tammy about our fish parts. We're all the same, it could only make things easier. It's like girls talking about their periods or boys talking about the girls they like, I don't know, bad examples.

Being mermaids, it seemed to come with more down-sides than it had ups. Obviously, we couldn't just tell people, which usually led to trust issues. Not just about the secret either, it became hard to tell anyone anything, in fear it would all just ravel out, I guess. Sometimes, we'd even kept things from each other.

There were a lot of confusing things going on in my life and mermaid issues could be the least of my problems right now. I could be about to lose a great friend, my boyfriend, one of the few people I trust. For good.

Will said he'd try to convince Sophie to stay here but she's terribly stubborn and she never really liked anyone here, she'd just lost her job and Will was the only family she had. I wasn't too sure how he'd go but I was eager to find out. Under the shade of the dock, I waited for my tail to dry before heading to Will's boat shed.

No one came down to the beach under the dock, it was small, usually stank of boat fuel and was surrounded by heavy containers of fishing gear, which could only be lifted by cranes. I was thankful to have such a private place to cool off, although we were always careful.

But something was still puzzling me, I'd been peacefully swimming the reefs, tossing everything over in my mind, when I noticed a dark shape above me, a boat. It drove right over me and stopped, I quickly swam off before any scuba divers saw me but the boat seemed to follow me, stopping whenever I would.

I admit, I was scared as hell, being a mermaid is a big secret and if a boat was following me, it was probably for a reason, and not a good one. Lewis had told us that we'd come up as dolphins on any fish detector, was this boat for cruelly catching dolphins?

I swam in circles for a little while until I was sure that the boat was following me, could they have seen me somehow? I was too deep for anything to spot me from above the water so I took a risk and went up to the surface to check the boat out.

I slowly swam upwards, keeping my distance for caution. Popping my head above the water, I saw the boat. It was big and white and read Research Rescue Foundation on the side, next to a small picture of a whale tale in a circle. I knew it wasn't one of Lewis's boat and didn't want to stick around to find out whose it was so I sped off, as fast as I could, towards here, the docks.

Once my tail dried, I wondered over to Will's house and sure enough, he was home. He was sitting at his desk, looking over a bunch of papers, probably collage related, when I came in. He stood up and hopped over to me joyfully.

"Guess what?" he grinned.
"What?" I shouted, showing as much excitement as I could manage.
"I convinced Soph to stay," he cheered.

A wave of happiness rushed over me, Will could stay. I wouldn't know how I'd manage if I didn't have Will to swim with. I mean, sure, I always had Cleo and Rikki but it was different with Will, I liked that.

"That's fantastic Will, how'd you manage?"
"Well," he went to sit down, a long story waited for me. "She came over this morning and we had a long chat about how I wasn't going to leave everything I have here behind and didn't want her to either. I told her she should work everything out here instead of leaving loose ends everywhere and I promised her to help her with her free diving at least once a week. I said I'd help her find a new job too, do you think she'll like being the personal assistant of a famous marine biologist?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'm sure she'd love it," I smiled, although I wasn't too sure Sophie would ever want to be anyone's personal assistant.