Chapter 1:  Ashi and the Secret

A cold morning breeze skims the surface of the clear blue ocean. Underneath a school of fish simmers as the first light of day hits the water. Above is me, a plain ordinary girl who leads a completely boring life. Each day it’s the same, sit on the dock watch the sun come up and dolphins play, get ready for school, then go to school, come home from school, do homework, eat dinner, go to bed. Wow! Exciting, isn’t? Just what you do everyday, right? Okay, maybe not the watch the sunrise and the dolphins, but that’s the only good part of my day. I’m sure you have something to do during those early hours, that you enjoy. For me it just so happens to be that, dreaming of being able to fly in that sky right across the sun in the morning air then diving straight into the ocean and join those dolphins. As if that would ever happen. I’m destined to live my current life as a normal girl going on with a normal boring life. I can dream about it all I want, but I know it’s not going to happen, or is it?
“Lina! Come inside it’s 7:40! School starts in 20 minutes and you still haven’t gotten dressed yet.” Joy! It’s that time already. Time for my mom to call me and force me to get ready, just like always. She always says that she’s going to make me get ready at seven, but always forgets, then blames it on me, by saying something like I told you to get ready, I’ll never let go and watch the sunrise again. All lies, of course. I’m still on the dock aren’t I? I’m just lucky she has a horrible memory.
“Mom, I’m going. See ya later.”
“Bye Sweetie have fun.” Fun… school equals fun…sure, whatever you say. I mean of course it’s fun, that is if you love examines, teachers that can’t be quiet, oh and did I mention all of the “popular girls” that are really “nice”, if so then school is heaven.
I go to Miya High. It’s said that it’s the best high school in Hawaii. It may have the students with the best grades, but the girls are ummm…how do I put it? Evil? I’m not even sure if that word covers it, but I’ll leave it at that and let you decide.
“Hey servant! Why aren’t you listening to me I am your mistress! SERVANT! HEY! LINA!” Meet Ashi, the leader of the “popular” group. Ashi believes that she runs the school. According to her I should be lucky to be her close “servant”. Ya, right! Lucky? Who would want to be an evil bratty girl’s servant, or even friend for that matter.  I have also found it interesting that her name, Ashi, means evil in Japanese. I wonder if her parents know how perfectly her name fits her.
“Lina! Did you hear me?! ANSWER ME!”
“Did you say something? I couldn’t hear you over that obnoxious person screaming servant.”
“Errrrr! I was talking to you, you are my servant! You shouldn’t be talking to me that way either! To YOU I am Madam Ashi, or your highness, will do. And YOU are MY servant!” What did I ever do to become her servant? Did she ever ask me? No!
“I am not your servant. You are going to have to live with the fact that not everyone bows down to you.”
“Oh, I see. You have forgotten, what I know.”
“You know?”
“You really have forgotten! Surely you remember your secret? Do you want me to remind you?”
“No, Madam Ashi.”
“Good. Now come with me to open my locker.” I always hope she will forget, but she never does. Because of it I have to do everything she says. One day though I will get her back. Oh, that’s right I haven’t mentioned my secret to you yet now have I? Well, this might take awhile to explain.
A while ago, Ashi discovered something about me. Something that could destroy my life if humans knew. See what I said about living a normal boring life, only applies weekdays. On Saturday and Sunday I have a completely different life. I can become a ma-meido hishou, which is a flying mermaid. She caught me transforming. I also forgot to mention that I can transform during the weekdays, but I don’t have enough time to, so I never do. You might be thinking that’s so cool, why are you hiding it or that it’s just plain weird. For those of you who don’t know why I’m hiding it, it may be a shock to you, but I would be a SCINCE EXPRIMENT! NOW WOULDN’T THAT BE FUN!
“Servant! Time to hold my books and take them to my classroom, while I go talk with these guys. Oh and wait for me by my desk.”
“Yes your highness.” Or should I say yes, your horribleness. That would be better, but I can’t bring myself to say it. All I can do now is take these books to her desk and wait, but she didn’t say not to highlight a few important facts in black Sharpe. Yup that’s what I did while I waited there, for ten minutes. When she got back she didn’t notice, but she will soon.
“Lina, do you have my homework?”
“Yes.” I handed it to her, competed of course, done well enough to get an A, B, or C? No. If I predict correctly, it will get an F. I wrote random things in for the answers. That’s what she gets for not doing it herself.
“Now class, please open you history book to chapter 10,” Ms. Shri said. Perfect, that’s the chapter I used my Sharpe on.
“Servant,” Ashi whispered, “Take notes for me. Oh and one more thing do it right, I will be comparing the notes you take for yourself with the ones you take for me, I will take your notes, if you do anything wrong.”
“Sure, let’s see what the teacher has to say about that.”
“Okay, then let’s see what everyone says about your secret, and the next time I see you will be at the zoo. With you in the exhibit.”  Great, she’s starting to become smarter, giving clearer instructions and using everything she knows against me. For now I’m just going to take some notes, properly, until I can figure a way out of this mess.
As the day goes on Ms. Shri gives us a science examine, which I have to allow Ashi to cheat off of. After the examine, Ms. Shri talks and talks giving us some lecture about…ummm…come to think of it I have no idea what she was going on and on about. Isn’t school as FUN as I said?
“Sweetie, how was school?” Mom asks cheerfully.
“Oh, great.”
“That’s good.” She never understands that I’m being sarcastic, even though I say the same thing every time she asks. Maybe next time I should say, “it’s terrible a nightmare come true!” If I did, then she’d just say, “that’s good.” Whenever I come home she is completely hypnotized by cooking.
I go up to my room and throw myself down on my waterbed that has some big, soft, fluffy, down pillows on it and stare up at my skylight ceiling, watching the birds fly overhead. I stare for a while dreading the double homework I have to do, double the math, science, and two essays. You would think our teacher would notice that the same person does it all, but she never does and most likely never will. I’ll have to keep doing extra schoolwork as well learning how to fly and use the powers that I will have to use to protect my hidden world. I can’t wait to learn how to use my powers, when I do we’ll see what Ashi has to say about it, or maybe by the time she’s done observing what I will be able to do, she won’t be able to speak anymore. Wouldn’t that be nice? That is the day I’ll be waiting for.
“Lina dinner’s almost done, have you finished your homework?”
“No”
“Well, hurry up then. When you finish come eat.”
“Okay.” I haven’t even started Ashi’s or my own homework. I better start working so I can attempt to finish it with thirty minutes, so my mom won’t start yelling at me telling me my food’s getting cold. Yes, it does take thirty minutes for her to realize that I still haven’t eaten. I do all of my homework minus the essay in thirty minutes then I go down to eat. Afterwards I went back to my room and finished all the homework, and the two essays, by the time I was done it was 3:00 AM. Three hours of sleep…again. Won’t I be wide-awake with 3 hours of sleep.