Meili suddenly found herself standing on the edge of the beach in the middle of the night. “How did I get here?” she pondered. But before she could turn around and walk back to her bunk…
“Meili?”
It was her head counselor, Angela, apparently sticking her head out of the water. It looked like she’d been skinny dipping.
“Miss Angela?”
“Is everything alright, Meili?”
“I...I don’t know how I got here.”
In her mind, Angela could very well guess the answer, but she wanted to be sure. She turned back to Meili and asked, “Well, what do you remember?”
The young girl tried to think... “I was trying to fall asleep after that beach volleyball tournament we just had, and then I started hearing someone sing. I wasn’t sure if it was coming from the bunk or somewhere else, but...” she sighed wistfully. “It was the most beautiful singing voice I’d ever heard; so beautiful that...I-I just to find out who was singing. The rest after that is all... fuzzy. I dunno.”
Angela, rather sheepishly responded, “Oh I see. Um...that...that might have been me. I’m sorry I woke you.”
Meili was slowly walking closer to the water when she asked, “Where’d you learn to sing like that? Can you teach me?!” Something inside Meili was making her feel more and more excited, even though she didn’t know why.
“Well...um—” Angela started before she moved further away from the shore a little bit, then suddenly dove under the water and launched herself into a back flip, revealing her golden mermaid tail to the now astonished little girl in front of her. Upon surfacing once more, Angela could now see the look of pure joy and elation on Meili’s face.
The girl half-whispered, “O-M-Gosh! You’re a *real* mermaid?”
“Yes...as are the rest of my family. My kind are attempting to repopulate as we speak.”
“This is so cool! Wait—” Meili suddenly had a thought. “Isn’t that the kind of singing voice that lures sailors to their doom?”
“Not quite; you may be thinking about sirens. Mostly we mermaids just enjoy singing to our heart’s content.”
“You’re lucky, Miss Angela.”
“How so?”
Meili sat down on the beach and explained, “I’ve always loved singing; sometimes it’s all I feel like doing. But, Mom being Mom, she made me choose between figure skating or piano. Every time I try to sing while doing either, she’d scold me! She doesn’t get that I can’t help it when I sing along to the music. How can you not?!” She gave out a heavy sigh as she looked up to her camp counselor turned mermaid.
“That...sounds really frustrating, Meili. If you ask me, your mother doesn’t realize how good she has it already.”
“Thanks, Miss Angela.”
Angela looked over her surprise guest, then a thought popped in her head... it’s time.
“Meili?”
“Hmm?”
“Would you like to swim with me for a bit... just until you start to feel better?”
Something about Angela’s voice made Meili feel compelled to stand back up and remove her pyjamas, revealing her two-piece hot pink swimsuit underneath; just as she and the others were advised to do when they first arrived at camp.
“I’d love to!” she announced before lightly sprinting into the water toward her mermaid counselor. Angela watched as Meili started unloading nearly all the swimming techniques she’d learned from her over the past couple weeks; but what she seemed most interested in was the girl’s take on the breaststroke (it being the closest to how the merpeople swim) Finally, Meili surfaced just a foot away from Angela’s face, feeling strangely refreshed.
“Spectacular, Meili. Your swimming’s made some real improvement.”
“Thanks, ma’am,”
Angela then held out the palms of her hands in front of Meili. “I’d like to show you something special, Meili. Take my hands...” The moment their hands clasped together, a dim but growing blue glow started to appear on them. Before she could ask what was going on, Meili felt Angela kiss her forehead. That seemed to put Meili in a bit of a daze, not unlike how she felt when she was drawn to the beach by Angela’s singing, only this was steadily feeling more intense.
“Now, Meili...look to the moon,”
Compelled by her counselor’s now hypnotic voice, Meili stared up at the moon. It was full, and shining brighter than usual for a night like this. Angela continued, “Mermaids and mermen draw strength from the moon which guides the currents and waters of our world. Can you feel its magic wash over you?”
Meili was feeling so transfixed by the full moon that she barely noticed what was starting to happen to her body. The glow from her hands was now spreading up her arms towards her torso, then her legs and feet, and finally up towards her head. With a somewhat satisfying smile on her face, Angela said, “Now, Meili...sing!”
While still staring up at the moon, Meili felt compelled to belt out her most heartfelt song ever. It was more akin to Ariel from “Disney’s The Little Mermaid” vocalizing right before her voice was stolen by Ursula, but still powerful. Then it happened: below the water’s surface, Meili’s feet and legs started changing into water, just as Angela’s had. As the magic worked its way up towards Meili’s torso, she was still singing, oblivious so far to her changes.
“Feel the magic of the sea augment your voice, Meili, as your mind, body and soul become... one with the ocean...” said Angela as she still held on to the girl’s transforming hands. Meili, for her part, still had her human shape despite looking less and less human by the second. Just as the magic water spread over her face and hair, a bright light engulfed the girl for a brief moment before revealing her watery outline.
“You, Meili, are human no more! Now and forever, you are ONE WITH THE OCEAN!” Angela proudly announced. Meili was still in such a... pleasurable daze that she didn’t notice her feet and lower legs extending and growing out to look more like a fish tail. Within moments, the magic water surrounding her turned to bubbles and dissipated, revealing her new form.
“It’s done, Meili. Open your eyes,” Angela said calmly.
The young girl slowly did exactly that, still a bit confused as to what’s just happened to her and feeling a tad strange at that. She looked at Angela’s smiling face, then down toward where she thought her feet were, and gasped with strange glee at what she saw.
She stared in awe as she realized her feet, legs, and bottom half of her swimsuit had all been replaced with a shimmering pink mermaid tail and fins. Meili then noticed something different on her torso: in the place of the tube top part of her swimsuit were glittery pink fish scales patterned to look like two lotus flowers covering her chest. Her long black hair felt almost a foot longer, and, what she couldn’t see without a mirror, her eyes had changed colour from brown to hot pink; framed with eye shadow the same colour as her scales.
In her amazement, Meili tried to speak, “Oh...M...Gosh! I...I...”
Angela interrupted, “Go ahead and say it, Meili. You know you want to.” With that, Meili smiled and excitedly dived below the river’s surface, where she surprisingly had no trouble swimming circles around Angela’s tail with her own, or even breathing underwater. She then amazed herself further by shooting back up towards the surface like a torpedo.
As she leapt up from the water, Meili shouted with all her might “I’M A MERMAID!!!!” She almost forgot about the other sleeping campers in their bunks. All she could think about as she splashed back down was that she was finally living out her biggest fantasies.
She surfaced again, faced Angela and exclaimed “This is awesome, Miss Angela! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!! This is totally a dream come true! This might sound crazy, but I...I never wanna be without my tail!”
Despite feeling a little taken aback with how well Meili was taking her change, Angela replied, “I’m so happy you think that, Meili. Would you like to help us coax some of your campmates to join us in the sea’s embrace?”