Mermaids Chapter 1

How could things have gone so wrong so quickly? So suddenly?

This was to be the best year of my life: I had just turned fourteen, was top in my grade and the guy of my dreams–not to mention the dream of every teenage girl–had talked to me. Then at the height of my happiness everything went up in flames. Literally.

My dad, the greatest dad ever, had been planning to throw me a surprise birthday bash in our apartment and had employed the assistance of my friends. While a bunch of them kept me occupied at the mall, he and my best friend, Holly, who had told me she had had to baby-sit, were busy putting up decorations and getting all the stuff together.

When my friends had taken me back at a pre-arranged time it was to watch the building’s new transformation as a raging inferno. Though the fire department did everything they possibly could, the place crumbled into a black heap before our eyes. Then once the fire had burned itself out my thoughts wandered to my dad.


No one at that moment could have imagined the panic that spread through me like wildfire and though everyone; my friends, neighbours and strangers, tried to calm me I knew he was gone. I waited all night. I waited as the firemen and some other guys shifted through the rubble. I waited as my friends’ parents arrived for them. I waited as the landlord conducted a search for everyone. I waited until Holly’s parents arrived looking for her and informed me of the party. It was then the landlord came over to break the news…

It took a couple of days to confirm but my dad was dead and so was my best friend. Another person had died, old Mrs. Fendricks. It was believed the fire had started in her apartment which was right next to ours. It was a terrible affair. Holly’s parents left town because they could not handle the grief and constant publicity; Holly was their only child and a child they thought the could not have. My friends seemed to have abandoned me and I realized one night that I was alone.

However, what I knew and what Social Services thought were two different things. They contacted my closest relation, ran a brief check to make sure they were qualified as an eligible guardian and shipped me off the day after my father’s service. I was going to live with my other.

“Rachel?”

I jumped, a bit startled a that sudden voice that broke my reverie. I looked up questioningly at the middle-aged woman sitting opposite me. She wore a very stiff-looking, moss green skirt suit and some brown flats that looked like they’d been starched after surviving both World Wars. The woman’s graying hair was pulled into such a tight bun that her hairline was receding, her back was so straight a ruler would be jealous and her hands were folded so tightly in her lap they looked more secure than a safe than the National Treasury. Worst of all her face had the puckered look of a strict and snobby teacher. Unfortunately she just happened to be my social worker.

“Rachel,” she said in her prissy, British voice, “Why don’t you just pop into the water closet for a little freshening up? We’ll be arriving in Whitdale soon.”

I nodded before getting up and stepped out of our compartment into the corridor and then my way to the bathroom. It was empty and clean, thank goodness, and as I stepped in I was greeted by a faint smell of lavender. I like lavender; it just happens to be one of my favourite scents, colours and flowers. I inhaled deeply, calming myself before looking into the small mirror at my reflection. It was not a pretty sight. I’m not saying I’m ugly or anything, though I’m not gorgeous but I was a mess. If my dad could have seen me her would have been horrified but with a pang I remembered he wasn’t there anymore… However, I could still tidy myself a bit.

My first problem was my clothes. I looked like a starved widow or something in my huge brown sweater and long, black skirt. Nothing could be done about my clothes though. I’d lost everything in the fire except for the clothes I’d been wearing that day and so the few clothes I had now were dowdy, too-big donations. My other problem, an even more futile one, was me. In the time since the fire I had become pale and skinny and my face was pinched because of my continuous stress, grief and guilt. My dark ‘tresses’ as my father had liked to call my hair had been chopped off brutally by some stupid hairdresser Social Services had sent me off to and was done in a tight braid. Lastly, and worst of all my sky-blue eyes seemed huge and dull as they stared out of my face.

I frowned and my lips paled and thinned even more. I wanted to cry but I didn’t. Instead I did something about my appearance. I splashed some water on my face to seem more awake and alert and then found some lip gloss in my obnoxiously deep pockets and applied some. I even thought about loosening my hair but at that moment a voice over the PA system announced we were nearing Whitdale station so I decided to make my way back.

“Oh Rachel! I was just about to come l look for you. I thought maybe you’d gotten lost.” The woman said looking relieved at the prospect of not having to get up.

I rolled my eyes and sighed. How could I possibly get lost on a train? “Sorry Ms. Smyth.”

“You know I envy you.”

My eyebrows shot up. Envy me? What did she want to lose her father and her best friend in a fire when they were just trying to throw me a party and then be shipped of to her own equivalent to the devil? I didn’t say anything of that though, all I could manage was a sputter and a barely understandable, “What?”

Ms. Smyth either chose to ignore me or was in her own little world. “Whitdale is such a beautiful place…a perpetual paradise in our holocaust of a world. Almost no crime... places for proper recreation like that lovely library…and you have the added bonus of being placed in such a wonderful family... I did the background check myself and I was so surprised to find that your stepfather’s the–“

At that moment the whistled sounded loudly and shrilly cutting off the rest of the sentence just to let us know that we had arrived in Whitdale. Ms. Smyth hurriedly took my small bag and then motioned at me to follow.

I did though in a daze. Stepfather? I had a stepfather? Was he completely stupid or had he not noticed how terrible my mum was? I could not believe it; she had never mentioned a husband but then we had lost contact with her about nine years before when we moved.

I got snapped to attention when I stepped off the train into the station. The place was very bright and clean given the fact the walls were white and the floor was tiled. There were a few people milling around and they all had this goody-goody look to them especially in their slacks and knee length skirts as they greeted or bade farewell to people.

The wayward thought of how my mum could not possibly fit in with her belly bearing halters and tight mini skirts drifted through my mind until I heard someone call my name. I looked up and received the shock and scare of my life.

A woman and a man were staring at us from a way off. The man was tall with blond hair and in an immaculate grey suite that match his eyes. The woman was very pretty in a blue sundress, a floppy cream hat and blue sandals. Her auburn hair fluttered out behind her dramatically and her green eyes radiated a joy mirrored by her smile.

It was my mother.