Chlorine

Chapter One

You don't know how happy I am if you are reading this. This is a very important thing for me.

Please enjoy Chapter One. I will add the others when I get more than 20 reads. Thank you.

From Jessica x

Chlorine

Chapter One 

My name is Toni Auckland. I am not like others that walk past me on the street. I am the unique one. I am the freak.

I was only seven when I discovered I was ‘special’ when we bought our first swimming pool. My youngest brother, Thomas, had forced me in – I never wanted to play in a paddling pool, I thought I was to mature for that – but, after I put my foot in the freezing cold water, I seemed to be dragged in.

“Tommi, let go,” I moaned, as my other leg was soon to follow.

“What? It’s not me but if you’re gonna be that pathetic...” he laughed as he pulled my head underwater.

A quick struggle and a gasp and I was sitting with the water level just at my neck. I turned around with my chin touching the edge of the pool to practise swimming. I’ve never been to the seaside before, nor the swimming baths or even a simple paddling pool so I had to try and kick my legs to see if I could actually swim but I couldn’t ‘kick my legs’. It felt as if they were glued together. It didn’t think it would be Tommi again so I turned round to see if my leg was caught on something, but there was nothing. Nothing I would have expected it to be. I felt my legs, or as I would call it my new tail now. It was real. A tail, where my legs once were; a blue scaly tail with a half moon shape fin at the tip of it, like a fish. And to add to it, my fingers were conjoined together with floppy skin through the gaps of my fingers. I shot them out the water and tightened my fist as hard as I could and, as the water dried up, my hands returned to their normal state. I lifted the bottom of my legs out the water and soon I could see my feet. I thought this would grab someone’s attention but nobody looked at me weirdly. Except my mother, maybe, as she looked at me confused when she walked over to give Thomas one of them water guns he’s so desperately wanted.

“What up, sis, don’t know how to swim?”

Tommi has been to the seaside and the swimming baths before so he swims better than I do. Mother never seems to realise the attitude my brother gives me. I wanted to tell him that I could swim but I’m a terrible liar and I can’t really tell him the reason I’m lifting my feet up in the air.

“No, I can’t...I can’t swim,” I said, thinking of the sarcastic comment he’ll probably come out with.

“Look it’s easy, all you’ve got to do is kick your legs,” chuckled Thomas, holding on to the edge of the pool and kicking his legs so the water splashed on my face. My twin sister, Miami, came running out from the house and faced me, looking confused.

I did try my hardest to kick my legs apart but it was no use. It was impossible to split.

She chuckled at the sight of my determination and said “Don’t you know how to kick your legs. Just make it feel like you’re walking. Don’t swim like a mermaid, move your legs”.

Mermaid.

Mermaid, now thinking about it I’m pretty sure I am a mermaid. Tail just like a fish, conjoined fingers...It just leads to one answer. Mermaid.

That’s how I am different. I never told my parents that day. I’ve just held the fact that I don’t want them to know or ever find out.

I researched everything about mermaids that day, and if there were points to look out for, what I have to avoid now I’m one of them.

*

Throughout my childhood I had discovered many other things that I can and can’t do. I had to cope from the laughter of being told off time and time again to kick your legs in the swimming pool at lessons that my parents paid for Miami and me, and the lessons that the school gave us, humiliating. But, there are upsides. I am athletic. More athletic than others. No-handed cartwheel, 2 to 1 badminton play off, you name it but I don’t like the thought of being ‘better’ then others. I sometimes imagine what it would be like being Miami. She’s normal, human, I mean, well I think she is but then again I haven’t told anybody about this, so I doubt she would of. I keep thinking that I should tell them, my parents, but god knows what they’ll do. First, they won’t believe me. They can’t see my tail, my conjoined hands. Only I can and I’m not imagining things. I think it’s just one of them mermaid things.

School didn’t change; just the same for anybody. In and out of school every month, tests every two. Secondary School was...different. New people, new friends or no friends at all. The people in my form thought I was strange. I always had a wild imagination. If you were in my shoes, you would believe that anything is real! So there I was, sitting lonesome in the library, enjoying the fine facts of mythical creatures. Miami wasn’t any help. She barely knew her birthday, but she thought she knew it all. She was the one who got the cool phones and new in-season clothes, but I didn’t want that. I just wanted to live my life as a mermaid and paint what I imagine in my explorations.

But, I found that I had a limit to my power. We went to the seaside, me and my family. This was the first time I’ve ever been in the sea. I thought this would be the time I would swim deep depths down where the coral live- see all the fish that live in the sand where the green seaweed slide across. But, no. I didn’t know whether it was just an off-day or that I could only transform within a swimming pool. There was nothing there, no tail, no joined fingers, just human legs. It was like I was normal. No Mermaid. I still had a great time with Miami, though. I just had to pretend. I then thought that I had to keep this a secret. I am unique and I have to enjoy that independently.