I'm a Mermaid, Not a Merman

6

No. No no no no no no no no no no.

He wasn't ready for this. He was going to mess up in some way and ruin everything. Or somehow, they'd accidentally reveal "Cindy" to the world, and make Danny so embarrassed that he'd want to hide in a cave for the rest of his life.

Calm down. It'll be alright. You just need to relax.

He stilled his breathing, and loosened his grip on the steering wheel. He was parked right in front of Lucy's house.

Slowly, with great effort, he got out of the car, and opened the door to the backseat to grab his backpack where he had his duffel bag.

"Hi!"

Danny nearly hit his head against the ceiling of the car.

"Oh! Sorry!"

"It's... it's alright," he said.

I'm shaking, he thought. Stop shaking!

He nervously turned around to see a girl with black hair wearing a dark blue one-piece swimsuit.

"You must be Cindy!"

"Yeah," Danny said.

"I'm Lucy, nice to meet you for real this time!"

Lucy gave him a brief hug before he could protest, and began leading him across the lawn to the gate to her backyard.

It... It's working. She actually thinks I'm a girl...

"We're just right through here," she said.

She opened the door, and Danny walked through it. Lucy had a large backyard, and next to a deck, there was a swimming pool with a group of people their age swimming in it.

And to Danny surprise, there were two guys there. And they were wearing tails.

"Hey guys," Lucy said, "say hi to our new mermaid Cindy!"

The others swam up to the edge or turned to face them. Danny hadn't been mistaken. There were two guys wearing tails. One of them was wearing a Fin Fun Arctic blue tail, while the other was wearing a Celtic Green.

Danny felt a suddenly lump in his stomach. He'd made a gigantic mistake. He should've just been honest. He should've just told them who he really was. But then he'd had to have come as the boy with breasts.

"Cindy?" Lucy asked, "you okay?"

"Uh, yeah, just thinking about something."

They walked up closer to the edge of the pool, and the boy with the blue tail swam up and clung to the edge.

"Sudden get to know you question!" the boy said, "if you could be any sea creature, what would you want to be?"

Danny was a bit startled by the sudden social attack, but forced himself to stay calm.

"Um... a mermaid, obviously."

"Darn right," the boy said, "Cindy knows what's up."

"I dunno," the other boy in the pool said, "sea turtles are pretty cool."

"Well then Will, you have fun being a sea turtle, and then after a few minutes, you'll be missing your opposable thumbs."

Several of them laughed a bit, and Danny managed a bit of a smile.

"I'm Liam," the boy introduced. "Mr. sea turtle over there is Will."

He pointed one by one at the girls in the pool. "That's Brianna, that's Izzy, and that's Kendra."

The three waved at Danny.

"And the girl over there who thought jumping off the diving board in her tail would be a good idea is Heather."

"You're just jealous that I looked cool when I dived in, while you just looked like a fish flopping around," she teased.

"Nice to meet all of you," Danny said.

"You seem a bit nervous," Lucy observed. "We're all merfolk here. I know that swimming with a tail can be kind of intimidating around other people at first, but we ain't here to judge anyone."

"Except me," Liam said, "on their diving technique."

Danny let himself smile a bit more. It was alright. Things were going to be okay.

"If you go inside and take a left," Lucy said to Danny, "the bathroom is in there."

"Okay," Danny said. He went across the deck, and followed her directions the bathroom.

Closing the door, he wheezed out a long exhale.

I've done it. It's actually working.

A grin like the grinch's came to his face in the mirror. And boy oh boy, he'd just gotten away with stealing Christmas.