Aquamarine

Hi. My name is Aquamarine, Aqua, for short and I’m going to tell you about one of the greatest adventures of my life. It’s totally amazing. You are never gonna believe it, but I’m serious, it really happened. Here’s how it goes:

“Aqua. A-Aqua. Come on Aqua, you’re gonna be late for school. Aqua. Aquamarine, wake up this instant.”
“Ugh!! God, Mom, do I HAVE to go to school today? You know, my forehead feels kinda hot.”
“Nice try, honey, but yes, you HAVE to go to school. It’s your first day of sixth grade at Redwood Middle School. I thought you would be excited.”
Ugh!! Sometimes Mom could be really annoying. She always thinks I’m excited about something she’s excited about but it always turns out that I’m not at all excited. The real reason I don’t feel so great about going to middle school is because I don’t want to not fit in and be made fun of by older kids. I know everyone’s afraid of that, but I am most of all because I’m really sensitive. You know, I cry really easily. And people make fun of my name a lot. But I think it’s a pretty cool name. My mom named me that because she’s a marine biologist and my eyes are aquamarine. It’s my favorite color actually. It’s also my birthstone because I’m born March 21st. Anyway, since I cry a lot, everyone starts calling me a ‘crybaby’ and that makes me cry even more. It doesn’t really matter much in elementary school, but in middle school, it’ll start to go on my reputation and I’ll be known as ‘the crybaby’ for the rest of my life.
My mom drove me to school that day. We finally got lockers, but they were smaller than I expected. Anyway, 1st period wasn’t that bad. It was math. Math’s my favorite subject, mostly cause I’m good at it. Our teacher, Ms. Hypothesis, was actually pretty nice. (By the way, our science teacher’s name was Mrs. Division. Ironic, isn’t it?) By the time lunch had started, I was feeling pretty good about myself. Not one person had made me cry yet, which was amazing.
After lunch, which was baloney sandwiches and apple juice, I had P.E.
I have always liked P.E., basically because I like running and exercising. Today in P.E., we had to swim 15 laps and then run 1 mile. (Our swimming teacher’s name was Ms. Waters.) Pretty harsh, I know, but it was actually kind of fun. I’ve never taken swimming lessons, so I wasn’t sure that I would do well at all during the swimming portion. But I did surprisingly well; my body just kind of glided through the water. It felt awesome. And at the end, I had full energy to run, and I ran faster than everyone else. At the end of class, Ms. Waters called me to talk to her.
“Hello, Aquamarine. I notice you have a very special talent in swimming, and I know why. I know this may freak you out, but if you’re name is Aquamarine Rachel Gold, and if you were born on March 21st, 1995, you are a mermaid.”
Okay, whatever this woman was playing at, it wasn’t funny. I can’t be a mermaid. She must be joking
“Uh-huh. Yeah, right. Not to be rude or anything, but have you seen a doctor lately? ‘Cause everyone who has his or her mind set right knows that mermaid’s don’t exist. And you could have found out all that stuff from my mom.”
“I can prove it to you,” said Ms. Waters.
“And how do you plan on doing that?” I said, getting more irritated by the second.
“Get into the water and say ‘I am a mermaid’.”
Even though I thought this lady was mental and needed a reality check, I did what she said.
“I am a mermaid.”
Suddenly, all the lights went out. The doors shut with a bang, and I felt a searing pain in my legs. I felt them coming together. I looked down, and there, taking the place of my legs, was a big, fat aquamarine tail.
“AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m a MERMAID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“What did I tell ya?”said Ms. Waters.
“How can you just stand there? I have a tail!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Look, I’m a mermaid too. My name is Magenta Waters. I am supposed to teach you everything about being a mermaid and how to use your powers, yes you have powers, because, believe it or not kid, there is a whole entire world of merpeople in the very pool you’re in. And in a couple days, an evil octopus man named Octo is going to come and try to destroy the mer-race. He comes every hundred years, and every hundred years, a girl named Aquamarine is born and is destined to defeat the evil Octo and stop him from trying to destroy the mer-race. The Aquamarine’s always wound him badly, but never defeat him completely. And sorry Aqua, but it’s up to you to use your powers to defeat him.
I didn’t believe this. Me, a mermaid? It didn’t make sense at all! How could I be a mermaid? What am I even talking about? Mermaids don’t exist! They-they’re just stupid myths! Yet there I was, with a tail and flippers instead of feet. I didn’t know what to believe. I was so stunned and so much was running through my mind, that I didn’t talk for about five minutes.
Finally, Ms. You’re-a-mermaid-and-ya-better-believe-it spoke up.
“The principal Mr. Aquental and you’re mother are also mermaids and understand the situation so they have excused you from school and every other responsibility until you have defeated Octo.”
“Whoa-whoa! Wait a second! Did you just my MOM is a mermaid too?”
“Yeah, you got that about right. Anyway, to go back to a human, you just say ‘I am a human’. Got it?”
“I-I got it,” I stammered.
I said it, and there was a blinding flash of light and I felt my legs tear apart. Once the light show was over, I got out of the pool and Ms. Waters handed me a towel.
“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.”
I kept repeating it in my head over and over and over and over in my head until I got sick of saying it. I’M A MERMAID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can’t get over it. I mean, OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Once I got home that day, I went straight to my mom and said,“ OH MY GOD MOM! Why the HECK didn’t you tell me that I was a MERMAID and that MERpeople are living in my school POOL and that I was supposed to save the entire mer-race from some insane psycho loony-head half octopus man named Octo who wants to destroy it??????? Oh yeah, and did I mention that I have POWERS?”
“Yeah, honey, about that, Magenta called and said you knew about that. I was going to tell you once you got home, but before I could, you started yelling.”
“Why didn’t you tell me the first ELEVEN YEARS when you had the chance???”
“I just didn’t know how to tell you, Aqua.”
“YOU DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO TELL ME???????!!!!”
“I’m sorry, Aqua.”
Ugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can’t believe that my own mother kept about like the biggest secret EVER from me for eleven years! And I know it sounds crazy, but I’m gonna have to learn to accept the fact that I’m a freakin’ mermaid, and find out a way to stop that demented Octo guy from getting rid of the mer-race for some stupid reason.
The next day at P.E, I stayed after class for my I-need-to-find-out-how-to-use-my- powers-and-defeat-the-Octo-guy lessons. It turns out that I actually have the power to shoot powerful water streams from my hands and also change into anything I want to. I can only use the water stream one when I’m in the water, but I can use the other one anywhere, and that is AWESOME. I have way more of an advantage to beating Octo with that power. I mean, I can change into a fish when he’s trying to attack me, and he wouldn’t know where I went. Magenta said that I was lucky to have this power and that it was really rare to get it because it was such an advantage. This was going to be a piece of cake.

Or so I thought. It turns out that turning yourself into anything you want isn’t really that easy. You have to clear your mind and only focus on what you want to turn into. And I’m guessing that clearing my mind and focusing on something while some insane octopus/man thing is trying to shoot suction cups at you is gonna be kinda hard. But shooting water streams out of my hands turned out to be pretty easy.
All I really had to do was point somewhere and imagine water coming out of my hands.

I mastered that power pretty easily. Magenta said that I could shoot waterfalls out of my hands if I wanted to. But I couldn’t really get the “turning into anything” power. Whenever I tried to turn into a fish, I kept turning into a shark. Whenever I tried to turn into a shark, I turned into a fish. I decided that whenever I wanted to turn into a fish, I would try to turn into a shark. But that didn’t work either. I wanted to turn into a fish, so I tried turning into a shark, but then I turned into an octopus. It seemed like I would never figure out how to work my powers.
“Keep trying, keep trying,” said Magenta, getting more impatient by the second.
“You’ll get it.”
“Face it Magenta,” I said, getting more impatient with myself than ever, “I’m obviously never going to get it.”
“No, no, I think you will. Now, focus your thoughts on nothing but a fish, and try to move yourself into the shape; will yourself on,” soothed Magenta.
I did as she said and thought of only the fish and nothing else. I thought of one of those beautiful fish with the flowing tails and fins and imagined myself turning into it. I focused so strongly on this thought, that for a second I forgot who I was. Then, suddenly, I felt myself getting smaller and smaller and my arms getting wider and my feet coming together. I opened my eyes and saw that my feet had turned into a big flowing tail and my arms had become big flowing fins.
“I did it!”
“I knew you could,” said Magenta.
Suddenly, there was a huge sound like someone sucked something off the wall and that thing was stuck really hard. It repeated over and over.
“Oh my gosh,” said Magenta, her sparkling green eyes huge and surprised.
“What?” I said, confused by her shocked face.
Then she said the two words that I had feared she would say since I knew I was a mermaid.
“He’s here.”
I froze. Oh my god! He’s here! I’m not even sure I can control my powers that well yet! How the HECK am I supposed to save the entire mer-race and defeat him already? I looked at the entrance to the pool area and gasped.
“Hello, Aquamarine,” the deep voice boomed.
“The long awaited time has come for you to “try” to defeat me. And this time, I will defeat your retched kind.”
I never imagined that he would look like he did. I thought he would have dull skin, have gleaming red eyes and a jet-black body with tentacles that he would walk on like Ursula did in ‘The Little Mermaid’. Instead, he had very pale skin, icy blue eyes, and a purplish black body with tentacles that he more of slithered than walked on.
Finally, Magenta came out of her surprised stage and spoke to Octo.
“I don’t think so, Octopensius. This one has been trained very well and will, no doubt,
defeat you once and for all.”
“HOW DARE YOU USE MY FULL NAME!!!!!!!!” thundered Octo.
He shot a blast of water at her so hard it knocked Magenta off her feet and threw her across the room and made her go smack against the wall. She fell to the floor limply.
I ran over and said, “Hey, are you okay?”
“I-I’m f-fi—”
She broke of suddenly and her eyes closed.
Magenta! Magenta, come on Magenta, wake up!
I turned to Octo with anger and sadness burning in my eyes.
“You will pay for this!!!”
Octo laughed a laugh that made a chill run through my spine.
“And now it’s your turn,” he said smiling an eerie smile.
Without thinking, I jumped into the water and said “I am a mermaid.”
I felt my legs coming together and I dived into the pool. It was amazing. I didn’t even need to breathe and I felt myself gliding through the water. I loved it. But I did not love the fact that Magenta was hurt. Suddenly, the most astonishing thing happened. The floor of the pool opened up so that there was no floor. Instead, I saw millions of merpeople swimming around. They all stopped when they saw me. Then they looked past me and I saw the fear and hatred burning in their eyes. Octo had followed me.
“I am Aquamarine,” I said, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt, “I have come to save you all from the feared Octopensius. Things will change once I am done with him.
“Oh really,” said Octo, glaring at me with those piercing blue eyes that sent chills running down my spine.
He shot a powerful stream of water at me with one of his slimy tentacles.
I swam right around it and fired one at him with so much anger and hatred that it threw him right off all his eight tentacles and threw him against one of the mer-houses with a bam that made the earth shake. He fell to the ground and vanished in a puff of smoke.
“You have defeated Octopensius!” one of the merpeople said, completely astonished.
Choruses and choruses of “Awesome! Hooray! I can’t believe it!” broke out among the merpeople and I felt a huge surge of pride run through me. I can’t believe it! After all these years, I have actually defeated Octo!
“I knew you could do it,” said a familiar voice behind me.
I turned around and saw Magenta, my mom, and Principal Aquental smiling huge smiles.
“Magenta!” I said, happiness surging through me at seeing the people I love and finally defeating Octo.
“I am so proud of you!” said Magenta and Mom in unison.
“Thanks.”
“Our hero!” said the merpeople.
They lifted me on their shoulders and kept chanting “Aquamarine! Aquamarine!”
There is nothing better than figuring out you’re a mermaid, defeating an insane freak, becoming a hero, and being with the people you love.
And that, my friends, is the end to the greatest adventure in my life.
See ya!!!!!!!