When I Became a Mermaid

Prologue

As sparkling waves drifted slowly on the shore of the beach, children played together excitedly. A few were splashing people with water, two were throwing fries at each other for some reason, and two five-year-olds were playing in the sand.

Best friends since they were one, Thomas Brooks and Bridgette Davis were tighter than bark on a tree. Almost every day, Thomas would visit Bridgette's house, where they would play catch, board games, dress up, and their favorite activity of all, swimming. It was lucky that they lived in a town adjacent to the Pacific Ocean, with the beautiful beach they frequently visited and were currently building a sandcastle on.

Bridgette had collected some shells and was busy attaching them to the castle, while Thomas kept watch for any seagulls that could knock it down. Behind them, their mothers sat, chatting about the latest episode of some show they both enjoyed. They knew that they could trust their kids on their own for a bit.

Bridgette yelled for Thomas's attention, "Look at all these shells, Thomas! Don't you think a mermaid could live here?"

"Don't mermaids need water?" Thomas noticed. "It's too hot for one here, but maybe if we built a little pool for her."

Finding this a wonderful idea, Bridgette walked down to the shore to fill a plastic bucket up with water. Thomas looked in the sand for little rocks that would represent the mermaids in the castle. He put little strands of seaweed on the top and bottom of them to represent the hair and fins. Bridgette returned, digging out a little hole in the center of the castle, then pouring a few splashes of water in. Thomas grabbed his little rock mermaids and plopped them in the pool.

"Would you two like me to get you some fries?" Bridgette's mom asked. The two nodded, not turning away from their sandcastle.

"Do mermaids like fries?" Thomas wondered.

"I don't think so, you can't cook potatoes underwater," said Bridgette.

"But what if they have them outside of the water?"

"I dunno," Bridgette pondered. "Perhaps the sea's too salty for them and the salt on the fries is all bad and stuff."

"Maybe they have sea potatoes?" Thomas thought out loud.

"Or they eat coral fries, like in SpongeBob."

Bridgette grabbed one of the little play shovels, a yellow one, and placed it in the castle. "That's SpongeBob right there."

Thomas giggled, and grabbed a tiny toy starfish from the beach towel his mom was currently sitting on. "And that's Patrick."

After a few more minutes of playing with the sandcastle, the duo quickly grew bored with it. Bridgette gleefully kicked it over when the time was right after Thomas recovered the shells and toys inside it.

"Can we go swimming now, Bridgette?"

"If that's okay with your mom and my mom."

Thomas's mom, who was indulging in a book, smiled. "Of course you can."

The children entered the water but didn't step too far from the shore, scared by the older people already splashing. They waded a little bit off to the side, still within yelling distance of their mothers. The sand tickled their toes as they went deeper into the water. 

Thomas, shy as he always was, took a second to collect his thoughts before asking Bridgette: "Can we pretend to be mermaids like in the sandcastle?"

"Of course we can. We can put our legs together and pretend they're fins!"

"My mommy says some people do that when they swim," said Thomas. "I think they call it the dolphin."

"Maybe mermaids have dolphin tails then. Are dolphins sparkly?"

"I think they're like fish tails. Never really seen a dolphin before."

Thomas followed Bridgette's instructions and put his legs together to make a tail. Bridgette followed suit. It was a lot harder than normal swimming, but they were able to figure out how to swim a few feet at a time with the dolphin kick.

"Woah," said Thomas.

"Do you feel like a mermaid?" Bridgette asked.

Thomas nodded, a little sheepishly. "A pretty one?"

"You're always so silly like this. You asked me this when we played princesses together. Of course, you do."

Thomas blushed.

"Thomas, once I heard about these ladies who put on plastic tails and swim around for kids to watch. Maybe you could be a mermaid like that when you grow up!"

"B-but, I'm a boy. Can't only girls be mermaids?"

Bridgette stared at Thomas blankly, at a loss for words. "You just, I don't know...sometimes I forget you're a boy."