Between the Land and the Sea - By Derrolyn Anderson Page 0,50

staring at me in awe.

When we got to Megan’s car I was breathing deeply, trying to control my raging anger.

“Marina,” Ethan said intensely, turning me to face him. “Don’t you know not to mess with someone bigger than you? That girl is tough, she could really hurt you.”

“I don’t care,” I said defiantly, shaking his hand off my arm. He exhaled hard, turning to Megan and Cruz.

“Can you get her home alive please?” He turned to go.

Megan and Cruz scolded me about being reckless the whole drive home, and by the time we pulled into the driveway the storm had passed, and I was feeling calm again.

“I’m sorry,” I said remorsefully, “She’s just so awful.”

“Sticks and stones,” Cruz had said, explaining that fighting back only made it worse.

I couldn’t understand how to explain to them the rage I felt when I saw them being harassed.

It was as if I was being taken over by a different me– a more ferocious side of my character was starting to emerge and it was more than a little alarming. The only problem was that I liked the way it felt to give myself over to it.

Once they got over their shock, Megan and Cruz had a laugh about the look on Shayla’s face when Ethan broke up the fight. Then they got back to fretting about what she would do next and decided they needed to stay by my side at school as much as possible.

“We have to stop you from starting a fight,” Cruz said, looking at me like I was a bomb about to detonate.

“You sure do have a bad temper!” Megan exclaimed.

“No I don’t!” I protested.

Cruz laughed so suddenly he snorted. Megan and I started laughing along with him and soon I felt better than I had all day.

“You don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head, “I never did anything like that before I got here... it must be all the fog or something.”

Cruz laughed his snorting laugh again, “Aptos fog is to blame?” he shrieked, “What about San Francisco?” I shrugged. He had a point.

Megan studied me, calculating, “Maybe it’s a mermaid thing.” I cast a cynical look her way and turned towards Cruz, “Please don’t tell your mom what happened,” I asked him, “She worries enough as it is.”

Megan dropped us off, and we could see that Abby’s Volvo was back in the driveway. After dinner that night Abby and I did the dishes together. She asked me how school was going and I put a positive spin on it, telling her how much I liked my art teacher. She told me about her day getting the car fixed, and asked me more about my swimming lesson with Ethan.

“It was nice having Ethan over last night. We used to see so much more of him right after–” She caught herself, stopping in mid-sentence.

“After what?” I asked.

Abby turned to me, and I could see that she wasn’t sure what to say.

“You can tell me,” I pushed her, a tactic Evie used frequently.

She pressed her lips together, “When Ethan was just a small boy his mother ran off with another man. His father took it very hard. Poor little guy, I could tell he was so sad, just... lost. I mean, his own mother abandoned him.” She shook her head sadly at the thought, “He used to ride his bike over and spend a lot of time here before the boys kinda just went their separate ways.”

“What ever happened to the mom?” I asked.

“Nobody knows,” she said, “She just fell off the radar screen.”

“That’s sad,” I said quietly.

She sighed, “Very… but Ethan turned out nice, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.” She elbowed me and I couldn’t help but laugh, “Uh, yeah.”

“By the way,” she added, “he refused to let me pay him for Saturday. He said it was his pleasure.”

I blushed, and hugged her goodnight.

Lying in bed that night I thought about what had happened at school. By all accounts I should be afraid but I simply wasn’t. The thought of fighting Shayla actually appealed to me. If she did beat me up I could probably get out of going to school easily. I started weighing my options, imagining how horrified my dad would be if he saw the big bruiser coming at me.

I could egg her on as my ticket out of Aptos High, and he’d have to consider letting me go to an online school. Or, it could backfire and get me sent me off to boarding school