Secret Mermaids, Alyssa Rodway [primary phonics books .txt] 📗

Secret Mermaids
The Sequel to Secret Door
By: Alyssa
I tapped my pencil on my wooden desk, heart pounding. We were in the middle of a math test in Mr. Yogurt’s 5th grade class. Finally, after what seemed like hours of torture, the bell rang for lunch. I scrambled to get out of my chair and grab my stuff. “Alright class, we’ll have to finish after lunch,” Mr. Yogurt announced. I rushed off to lunch with all of the other kids. This was almost the only time I was allowed to talk to my friends. “Hey Megan, Cassie let’s sit over here,” I yelled to my friends, Megan and Cassie. We sat at one of the 5th grade lunch tables to eat lunch. “Ugh, crab salad again,” moaned Cassie. Her stepmom always packed her the most grotesque lunches of all time. Cassie thinks that her stepmom is an evil witch or something.
“…and then the sea monster…the mermaid came…” Megan was blabbing on and on about a movie she’d seen last weekend. For some reason, it all seemed too familiar. I wasn’t listening to Megan when someone shook me. “Lily, Lily, the bell rang five minutes ago”, Cassie told me. “Huh?” Had I really been daydreaming for that long?
Talking to Megan and Cassie didn’t help at all. They both just shook their heads. “Lily, Lily, Lily. Really? Do you actually think that mermaids and sea monsters plus all that other stuff really exist?” Cassie giggled. “Well, yeah. Kind of.” My voice came out softer than I had intended it to. We strolled over to the 4 square boxes and started playing.
At home after school, I went to the beach to catch some rays. As soon as I had biked the short way there, I sauntered to the water. Gliding in the water was sooo refreshing. But then, I felt a sort of tingling and my legs began to feel as if someone had glued them together! Pretty soon, after all of my flopping around, I got used to it. Somehow I found that I could swim even better after all of that tingling. My eyes gazed down at my legs. Gone! Instead, there was a glistening, scaly, beautiful tail!
This was too good to be true! There had been a part of me that always wanted to be a mermaid my whole entire life. Throughout kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade, the shimmering scales and fins were so unimaginable I couldn’t bear it. Now my dream had come true! Being able to glide underwater was the greatest thing. Soon I got to a little tiny island. There were mermaids sprawled all over it! Some were brushing hair; others were swimming with dolphins all around the bay. I decided that it might be exciting to go and join their little group. When they spotted me, I felt a surge of relief flow throughout my whole body. They weren’t swimming away. Somehow they knew I was one of their kind, not just some crazed mermaid hunter. I was closer now. One of them swam over to me. “Hi, my name is Amber,” she told me. Uh, hi, my name is Lily,” I babbled quickly. “Do any humans know that we hang out here?” “No,” she answered smoothly. I hung out with the other mermaids and learned some names, and made a bunch of new friends. Amber, Clover, Seaweed, Seashell, and Lila were now all new friends to me. At sunset, I decided that I better get home. So I gave some good byes and made my way to the grass. I got up onto shore, but my legs didn’t unstuck! Maybe I’ll just wait a few minutes. It probably takes time, I thought to myself. Time passed by slowly, but nothing happened. For some reason, I knew that I was stuck as a mermaid forever!
I’ve actually found out that it’s not so bad. I am writing this story underwater right now, in Dolphin Cove. And that’s the end of my tail. At least for now……


THE END

Publication Date: 11-01-2010

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