I’ve been living with Dad for two months now. I don’t know what I’d expected him to be like. Sometimes I imagined him to be a lawyer or a top doctor, other times I imagined him being a serial killer or a tramp. And then, there was the time I thought he was a merman. I was wrong every time.
My dad is a builder, who’s lived a couple of miles away from our house most of his life. He has, to my surprise, ginger hair and big green eyes. Mum had met him at a beach twelve years ago. Dad said he quite liked Mum, but that she was a bit too strange for him. He thought it was that he didn’t understand women, but he just didn’t get mermaids.
Mum said Dad could live in our house. He doesn’t have any family apart from us, and he was quite happy to have been offered free accommodation. It’s been great- living with him. He’s a hypersomniac like me, and we both enjoy sleeping in on the weekends. I’ve also become good at waking myself up for school, seeing as he’s never awake to do it.
School has been good since I came back from the ocean. Eventually, I had to tell my class about what happened with me being a mermaid and they were surprisingly nice. Even Jackie, my old sports teacher, got reinstated after I confessed to Mrs. Ellersly what happened. My class made a pact not to tell anyone about the swimming lesson. In fact, they’ve enjoyed pretending to their parents and their therapists that they’ve all gone a bit crazy. It’s made school more entertaining. I was kind of surprised because Alison Ashelby made us all swear to keep the fact that I’m a half-mermaid a secret. After class one day, she told me she knew what it’s like to have people think you’re weird. She’s been bullied for years about her height and teeth. I feel bad for thinking so poorly of her before.
So life’s been really good in the Upper World. I do miss the ocean sometimes. I regularly communicate with Rob and Mum through my own bathroom portal. Mum’s bump is big now. I’m sure she’ll have the baby any day soon. Rob’s looking more and more like a merman. His hair has gone a very peculiar shade of blue. He loves living under the sea. He even has a job working for King Tyamides, although he’s still a bit scared of him.
I’ve spoken Orleano once since I left the ocean. I’m not sure what Washy’s doing now, but I know I’ll see him again one day. Orleano’s still shark slaying, and he still tells me that I’m the one. “I know you’ll be back here again,” he said to me last time. And you know what? He’s probably right…
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A Fishy Business
FantasyMeet Marina Watson – she’s little, but no shrinking violet. She lives with her mum and step-dad, Rob. Life’s good, but there’s one thing she doesn’t get… Why she isn’t allowed to go in water?! For years, Marina’s mum has forbidden her daughter fro...
