Emma started to pick up Jenn again, but realized something important. Emma grabbed her beach towl and draped it over Jenn's mermaid tail.
"Better if we don't need to explain this to anyone yet" said Emma.
"What about your skin?" asked Jenn.
"It's the most amazing wetsuit, isn't it?" she said with a wink.
Now on their third attempt this time there were no more problems until Emma reached her car. She had to put Jenn on the ground to open the door then help Jenn into the back seat.
Emma drove off from the beach. "At least my parents are out of town this weekend so we've got some time to figure out what to do."
"And thank goodness for your pool so I'll have somewhere to swim around until we can fix this" said Jenn with a sigh. With her dorsal fin Jenn could only lay comfortably on her stomach.
After what seemed like forever, Emma pulled into her driveway. She unlocked and opened the front and back doors and made sure no neighbors were outside. With the coast clear, Emma carried Jenn from the car to the house, using her foot to close the car door and front door behind her. On the back porch, Emma deposited Jenn on a long chair by the pool then closed the sliding door and sat down on the chair next to Jenn.
The two friends sat in silence for several minutes. Jenn lay on her stomach, arms folded under her chin, gazing at the pool and pondering her future. Emma reclined on her back, resting from having carried Jenn around. Emma realized she was shaking a little from the ordeal: finding her friend changed into a mermaid, the shock of her own change, and the fear of getting caught - the last a danger averted, at least for now.
Emma was scared, but was reluctant to show it for the sake of Jenn. Finally, after several deep breaths, Emma asked Jenn to recount what happened to her today prior to crawling out of he ocean as a mermaid. Jenn recounted the strange phone call from Kyle, with Emma questioning her on the wording. Jenn also explained the encounter with the dolphin which apparently triggered the transformation.
When Jenn finished her story, she added the obvious question: "What are we going to do about this?"