The Bad Boy And The Mermaid novel Chapter 51

Please note* The first half of this chapter is a prequel of the events that took place in the book.

* * *

Blue

I often swam to the shore late at nights when I knew no humans were going to be there. I liked to sit by the rocks and stare at the stars in the sky. Sometimes, I liked to roll in the sand and collect sea-shells to make necklaces and today was no different.

When the lights in the beach houses went out, I swam to the shore towards my favorite spot on the rocks. I made sure no human was there just like my brother Apollo told me to and sat down on the nearest rock. Apollo was my most favorite out of all my other siblings because he understood me on a different level. While I sneaked on the beach some nights, Apollo would cover for me and tell everyone that I was meeting my friend Oceana. If it weren’t for him, my family would never allow me this alone time on the beach under the stars.

The sea was calm tonight, and the moon hanging just above the water. It was perfect. I stared at the moon mesmerized by its beauty.

I brought my long blue hair to my left shoulder and squeezed the access water from it.

“Who the hell are you?”

I froze in place.

The number one rule for mer-people was to never be seen by humans.

I slowly turned out and found myself staring at a tiny creature.

What kind of creature was he?

And why was he so tiny? No! That had to be a child of a human. And he didn’t speak Greek. It sounded like English; he must not be from around here.

I looked down and made sure the scales were covering me and my tail was immersed underwater.

Maybe my night vision wasn’t very clear and I was seeing things. Maybe I was imagining the boy.

“Hey, I’m talking to you.” He said again, pointing some kind of weapon at me. A red-colored weapon that was tiny like him, and he also had a box full of those weapons. Maybe I could die if he threw one of those at me, Apollo said humans were cruel and could kill merfolk if they discovered them with spears and other weapons like that.

“Don’t kill me!” I said jumping back into the water.

The human boy hopped off from the high rocks, stepping on the lower ones, he walked towards me holding the weapon in his hand. It didn’t look…sharp from where I was below…

His pudgy little hand was raised towards me as he leaned into the water. “It’s a Crayola. See?”

I looked up at the boy who was adorable with golden-brown hair and large silver eyes that kind of glinted like pearls in the moonlight.

“W-what’s a Crayola?” I asked.

He blinked, “It’s a crayon, dummy.” He answered waving a flat white board at me. He pointed at it. “I was drawing.”

His palm was still open; the weapons or as he called them crayons were in different colors. Red, Yellow, Green…

Humans sure had interesting stuff on the land.

The boy was putting it back into the box when his little handles fumbled and the box emptied into the water.

He stared at the last one that plopped in. At first, I heard soft sniffling until he began crying, wailing loudly. Fat tears rolled down his rosy cheeks and I was pretty sure he was producing a heavy amount of snot. The child wanted his crayon weapons back.

The water wasn’t so deep so I went underwater and collected all the crayon weapons and handed them back to him.

He stopped crying and stared at me in awe with those big doe eyes, “Thank you.”

“Who’s there?”

I gasped.

I heard someone call out; lights flashing close by so I dipped back underwater. I could get caught.

“What are you doing here, kid?” The man asked, “Who were you talking to just now?”

If the boy told them I was around, the guards would come after me.

And they would probably kill me.

Or the tiny human could sell me for human money.

“No one, I talk to myself sometimes.” He declared.

“Where are your parents?”

“They are sleeping inside.” He was pointing at one of the villas at the distance.

“I’ll take you back, it’s not safe here and your mom might get worried.

“Elaine is not my mom!”

The guard laughed, “Whatever buddy.”

* * *

I came back a few days later because I didn’t want to risk being seen again, but another part of me wanted to meet the boy and thank him for not telling the life-guard about me. He seemed adorable and it was my only chance to talk to a human. The thought of making a new friend who didn’t belong to my world was exciting, but when I came to the surface, I was a heart-broken that he wasn’t there that night so I sat on my favorite spot and began star-gazing.

“Hey, you!”

My heart thundered so I jumped back inside the water.

The boy was sitting on a higher rock and stepped down again. “Are you a mermaid?”

“No.” I lied.

“I saw your tail. Dad says lying is bad.”

“Can you keep my secret?”

“And what do I get in return?” He asked.

“What do you want?” I laughed, looking up at him.

He frowned, “Is this the part where I tell you my wish and you grant it and then I have to pay the price by giving you my soul?”

I laughed harder, “I’m not evil.”

“You could probably eat me.” The boy was sassy.

“I don’t think you would taste nice, to be honest, and I don’t eat kids.”

“That means you eat adults?”

I couldn’t stop laughing, “No, I don’t. I’ll give you a gift soon, I promise. Now tell me, what’s your name?”

“Hunter.” He told me.

“Do you hunt fishes?” I asked him.

He looked at me like I was crazy. “Of course, I don’t. And Dad told me not to talk to strangers.”

“I’m not a stranger, Hunter. I’m your friend.” I smiled, “My name is Blue.”

“That’s a strange name. How old are you?”

“I’m one eighty-five. What about you?”

Hunter was shocked to hear that, and it took him a while to recover. “You’d be my great-great-great-great grandma. I’m…I’m…well, five and a half.”

“In human years, I must be around eighteen,” I explained. I don’t know why I was offended because he said I could be his grandmother. “I’m not that old.”

“I have to go Blue, it’s late and my dad might get worried. Can we meet again tomorrow, same time?”

I felt a little sad that he was leaving; it was fun talking to him. “Sure. I’ll come back.”

He gave me a two-tooted grin, “Great! See ya later, Ariel.”

Who’s Ariel? I had a feeling the boy was mocking me.

* * *

Hunter and I were becoming best friends soon. He brought me a cake and some delicious food from the land called biscuits. We star-gazed at night, we colored his book together with the crayon weapons and I would help him pick up shells. He was a very picky boy, and liked to take only the shinier and the unique ones.

“Look, Blue. I drew something. Can you guess?”

There a round blob of orange and some scribbles of blue on top of it. The blob also had a smile.

“A sea urchin?” I asked.

His face fell. “It’s you.”

I didn’t think I looked like that…but, okay, I guess.

“Do you live here in Greece?” I asked him on the fourth day of our meeting.

“Nah,” He answered, making a sandcastle. “I came here for vacation with my family.”

“What’s a vacation?”

“Say, Blue, my dad has lots of money. I can ask him to build a huge fish tank the size of a room in our house and you can stay there with us, and you can sleep in my room too. We’ll be able to play every day; I have lots of toys at my house and a swimming pool. I want you to come with me.” He said without stopping to take a breath.

I looked into his expressive silver eyes to see if he was joking again but I could feel he was sincere. “I really appreciate the offer, Hunter, but the ocean is my home. I can’t leave my family.”

“Oh.” He said, a beat later and his bottom lip began trembling and his eyes filled with tears. “But you said you’re my best friend…”