The Last Mermaid.

{III} The Suprise Visit.

Chapter Three

When Vanessa got out the shower she wrapped herself in a towel and left the bathroom. She could hear voices coming from downstairs. She didn’t recognize any of them and from the way they were talking it sounded like the police. Her stomach turned, she knew they would ask her a million questions, none of which she knew the answer to.

She hurried into her room and sat down on her bed, wondering what to do. She looked down at her arms where the blue and gold scales were. She got up from the bed and grabbed a random shirt to begin drying off her arms, hoping to make them disappear. She remembered last night when she got home, she was dry and they were gone, but when she dried off her arms, they were still there!

She groaned and dried off her body and got dressed in a tank top and some shorts. She even put some baby powder on her body to make sure she was dry. She began to get frustrated when they still didn’t go away, so she grabbed her dusty hairdryer from inside her closet. She hardly ever used it because it had belonged to her mom and it hurt her to see it.

She looked into the mirror has she blow-dried her hair. As it dried, she noticed something strange about her hair. It was less wavy than usual, and much brighter. Her normally pale ashy blonde hair looked like it had life to it, the way it looks in the summer when the sun brightens it up, only ten times better. It looked like she got fresh highlights through her hair.

She was so focused on her glowing hair she didn’t notice when the scales on her arms disappeared. Her hair wasn’t completely dry, more like damp, but it got rid of the scales. She turned off the hairdryer and brushed through her hair.

She noticed something else about herself—her skin had changed, it didn’t look extremely pale anymore. She actually looked tan, you could even describe her as bronzed. Her skin glowed and shone beautifully. She had no more pimples on her face and her blue eyes sparkled.

“Vanessa?” her father called from downstairs, making her jerk a little since she was so absorbed in her own reflection.

“Coming.” she yelled back before grabbing her sandals and slipping them on her feet before leaving her room.

When she got downstairs, she met her father and two people—one man and one woman—in the kitchen. She stood there like a deer about to get hit by a car as they all stared at her. Her dad looked at her in surprise as the two cops just watched her. It was so painfully quiet.

The police lady smiled at her, “Hello Vanessa, I’m Detective Hurley.” she said, walking over to her and holding out her hand. “But you can call me Anita.”

Vanessa put her hand in hers and shook. “Hello.”

“You gave us quite a scare yesterday.” she said. “Wanna tell us what happened?”

Vanessa looked at her father for a moment and he gave her an encouraging smile. She looked back at Anita, “I don’t know—I mean, I can’t remember. One minute I was standing on the shore and next, I woke up under the boardwalk.”

“The one here in Coasta Sirenas?” she asked.

Vanessa nodded, “Yes.”

“Okay, are you sure you can’t remember how you ended up back there? We searched for a real long time around there before we moved on to the next coast.” she said.

“I’m sure.”

“Okay, so you woke up and then…?”

“I walked home.”

“All by yourself?”

“Yes.”

“That must have been really scary for you”