Mermaids, Trigonometry, and Everything In Between

The 5th Thing

 "Room 345..." I said to myself, finally finding the right floor. There it was. Jammed between doors 344 and 346 was a little nook that I'd be living in for the rest of the school year.

I gingerly stuck the the dull metal object in my hand into the keyhole and opened the door. Light flooded the room from a window to the east. The small rectangular room had two desks next to two beds. The bed closest to me was bare. The other one was...well, there was a girl lounging on top of it, her nose stuck in a fashion magazine. What really drew my eye were the long, translucent wings that were attached to the girl's back.

The creak of the door opening fully caused her to turn in my direction. Her bob-styled brownish-black hair perfectly encircled her face, and a thick-framed pair of glasses had sunk low on her nose.

"Omg, you're my new roommate, right?" A huge grin spread across her face.

"Uh, that would be correct." I nodded.

She jumped up from her bed, her wings fluttering excitedly, "Name's Genevieve, but my friends mostly call me Gen. At least, I think they do. I've been homeschooled a while, so I don't get to talk to my old school pals as much these days. What's your name?"

"Elly. Elly Tidalis. It's nice to meet you, Gen."

"Nice to meet you too, Elly. As you might be able to tell, I'm a fairy. Not hard to guess, with these wild things on me," she pointed to the glossy wings behind her, "They have a mind of their own, sometimes. You, however, that's gonna be harder to guess." She made a grand thinking gesture as she scratched her chin.

"Oh, well I'm a--" I started to say, but she cut me off.

"Don't tell me. I just got these glasses new from Fairytopia, the fairy goods store in Chicago, and they let me see auras."

"Er..." I started to say something, but was still trying to get a full grasp on what she was saying.

She brought a finger up to side of the spectacles and, locating a miniscule dial on the right corner, she clicked it down a notch.

"Alright, what do we have here? Lots of blue, mostly light blues, and aquamarines. You have swirls of sea-foam green in there, too."

Gen clicked the dial back into its original place before speaking again, "That, coupled with the fact that you're really really pretty..." she thought for a moment.

"Me? Pretty?" I asked under my breath, raising my eyebrow.

"Got it!" Gen squealed, "You're a mermaid, aren't you?"

I smiled coyly, "You're right. That was actually kind of cool, what you just did."

Gen grinned, "It's a fairy thing. We can use all sort of cool gadgets. Wow, but seriously, I get to room with a mermaid? Now I know this year is gonna rock."

"What does me being a mermaid have to do with it?"

"Don't you know that mermaids are, like, the most popular people at Brecker Heights?"

I shook my head cluelessly. Popular? I wasn't exactly the popular type.

"Well, you're a freshman like me, so I guess you wouldn't. My older brother goes here, so I practically know all the little quirks and social happenings around here as well. Anyway, it's kind of like tradition around here, that mermaids are usually the ones who try out for cheerleading, date the jocks, and go to all the biggest parties. As a species, they're always so pretty and fashionable, so I guess it comes naturally."

"Well I've never been like that before." Even as I said the words, my mind started to flash with pictures of me on the cheerleading team, me sitting with all the fashionable girls at the lunch table, and me getting invited to all the best parties on campus. It may not have been totally realistic, but, hey, it didn't sound so bad.

"Beauty is in your blood! And high school is all about trying new things, isn't it? That's why you and I should go to the big back-to-school party tonight. My brother told me that one of the senior vampires whose parents own a country club is opening it up tonight for all the students to hang. This is exactly what we need to start paving our way into high society. Are you in?"

Gen seemed to have it all figured out. She was bubbly, chatty, and above all, ambitious. I wasn't quite sure this high school was going to play out for me yet. I still had a hard time imagining that this school was anything but weird. "Cool" was definitely not the word I'd use to describe it, but then again, I was willing to give this freshman popularity thing a go. Nothing ever went wrong with making a few extra friends, right?

"Sure. That sounds fun." I gave her a good-to-go smile.

Gen's wings fluttered, "Awesome! This year is so gonna rock."