Seventeen Forever

Endless Forever

"So when did you find this juice bar?" James asked, leaning back on his bar stool.

"I was here alone a few days ago. Doctor Champion introduced me to Carbaby, and we went on a road trip."

"Wait, can you drive?" James asked.

"No, I'm fourteen. Doctor Champion drove."

"Is that safe?" He asked.

"I don't know, probably," I said back. Suddenly, someone sat next to us: a creature that looked like a fusion of a barbie doll and a fish, unfortunately enough, with the fish's head.

"Haven't seen you around these parts before," I said.

"I'm Mermaid Johnson," she smiled as she pulled a drink from one of the vines. "Just came from getting a mani-pedi." She showed us her feet and one human arm.

"You're gorgeous, Mermaid Johnson!" James exclaimed.

"Oh, I know," she replied to him.

"Wait, does that mean there's a spa on Endless?" I asked excitedly.

"Actually, Doctor Champion does my nails," she answered.

"Hey, Mermaid Johnson." Rance, a humanoid shark, who runs the juice bar came over.

"Hey, babies!" a voice suddenly yelled from the distance.

"Was that Emily?" James said. We looked but couldn't see her anywhere.

"Up here, idiots!" We looked up and Emily was gliding down, her hair functioning as a paraglider.

"She can fly?" I inquired.

"Glide, anyway," James said back.

"How can you fly!?" I yelled. She suddenly began dropping, and created a landing pillow from her hair.

"Endless power. I told you the other day," she said, walking over to Rance. "Bubble tea," she requested. He slid the drink over to her.

"They have bubble tea here!? Was no one really going to tell me?" As I complained, Rance handed me a bubble tea as well.

"Oh, also, I can't fly. Only glide," Emily said.

"Why not? Just make helicopter blades," James suggested.

"I tried. If I try to use my hair at that speed, it starts shooting off. All I managed to do is cover the beach, Shane, and Tristan in cotton candy," she said.

"Weird. Do you guys ever wonder how Endless works?" James said.

"It's pure chaos, what is there to know?" I said.

"I mean, like... what if Endless is just all our imagination?!" James said, yelling in excitement.

"It was here before any of us. If Seventeen was here when she was eleven, you two were probably infants when she first came here," Emily says.

"We could go looking for stuff about the island!" James says.

"No, no... we're not. Shane made us go searching for logic in Endless once and we got eaten and trapped in a dark room for hours." Emily seemed genuinely traumatized.

"Aww, come on!" James said.

"No. I'm going to play foursquare. You two can get eaten." Emily's hair turned into a spring and she bounced away. Suddenly, James smiled at me.

"Fine. Where are we going?" I said, defeated.

"To the Buttwitch, of course!" He said.

"That sounds super, super dumb," I say. "She tried to destroy the island, a bunch of times."