My Weird Secret Life

Chapter 13: Work

While we swam I noticed how young the blue-haired-woman was and asked Atlantic a question," Do you have any siblings?" Atlantic pivoted her head and looked at me," I have six siblings, Mickey, Pacific, Misty, Rocky, Anne, and Coast. When I was born my dad left us. My mom said it was because she and Dad were always fighting but I have good memory and it was because he was tired of working all the time and he wanted to sell me and some of my siblings. When my mom said no he got mad and that's why he left." I asked how many siblings she had but that's ok. Hearing people's life stories is alright too. " So Ms. Misty is your older sister?" I asked nodding my head toward the blue haired woman. Atlantic smiled," Yes, it's good to have one sibling around all of the time." Atlantic paused then spoke again," When I turned eight I had to come work here at the palace for the money and we had to move. I've been working here for five years and I haven't seen my mom since. But I send her letters and she says she does ok." I smiled, at least her mom was doing fine. " Who's the oldest out of your siblings?" I asked. Atlantic looked at me first suspicious then after understanding. " Misty, she started working here when she was four. She's nineteen and her birthdays in just a few weeks. When she visited before I worked here she brought us treats which would only happen on a very rare occasion maybe every two years or so. And my brother visited every three months but then . . ." Atlantic trails off and acted like we weren't even talking about her family. " So what about your family, where are you from?" I got the message and didn't press the subject. " I'm from um . . . the south er, east." Atlantic stared blankly," I mean the southeast, yup, I'm from the southeast." The rest of the time down the hall we swam in silence. Then I thought, where are we going?
Ms. Misty announced," Everyone please get your shellons and kelp sweepers and start cleaning up the kitchen. Thank you!" I went on the lookout for the twins, when I found them I swam up and mimicked their exact movements. I put on my shellon (which is an apron I found out later when I asked) and got my kelp sweeper (which is also a broom which I found out later when I asked). Ms. Misty separated everyone into groups of five. We cleaned every single nook and cranny.
After we cleaned up the kitchen which was huge, as big as a whole entire two story house with ten different rooms as big as a bedroom. You can imagine how hard it was to clean all of that even with forty nine other girls helping. It felt like it took us days when really, it was only a few hours. Anyway after that Ms. Misty split us all up into larger groups, five different groups with ten different girls. Ms. Misty sent all of the groups to different sections of the palace. Some of us did more cleaning, some of us went to serve the royals. I was one of those people serving the royals along with Rylie, Kylie, a girl named Isle, Oceana and a few other girls.
As we were swimming towards the royal dining area Rylie told me about Oceana. Though to be honest, I wasn't listening at all. My arms were tired and my tail felt so heavy. I wanted to plop down and pass out, then wake up and see everything was a dream. This underwater world, people trying to hurt me and my parents, everything since I went in that cave.
"Oceana is really kind and when the boys see her you can definitely tell they fight about her a lot and which one of them should have her. But I think you might take her spot." I gazed out the window as we swam to the dining hall. "That's really nice, Rylie," I said in a daze. Rylie completely dismissed my rude and weird behavior. "You're right," I glanced at Rylie. What was she talking about? Why was I here? Why wasn't I in a bed? "You're even prettier." I frowned at Rylie,"What did you say about turtles?" I was really tired. Rylie ignored that last part and went on,"But you should know what happened last month with her and Kai." This had my attention. "What happened?" Rylie pointed,"We're here." And I looked toward the biggest, grandest dining hall I had ever seen.