6. In Which She Reveals a New Plan
1208 Words
“What do you mean you want to go to university?”
I bite my lip, as I face my father in his living room. He is sitting on a seaweed bed, while I hover above the floor, the tip of my fantail barely touching the floor. I fiddle with my thumbs, feeling nervous. I hadn’t felt as nervous telling Tony; the guy seems to be down for just about anything. But my dad… I figured that he might have reservations. He probably wonders why I can’t just be a normal siren, rather than become entwined in the human world to the degree that I am.
“I figured that if I learn more about mental health, I could help people like my mother.”
“And how long would you be there for?” he asks.
When I was a teenager, I actually did O Levels and A Levels, because I wanted to be as much a part of the human world as possible. My dad always saw me being that invested as a waste of time, but my mother encouraged me. I just got bored of underwater education; yes, you learned a certain amount, like English (we speak the same language as humans, and change it accordingly as time goes by, so that we can blend in, should we go to the surface), and history; our history. But science? Maths? Those things, I couldn’t learn underwater so I went to the surface to satisfy my hunger for knowledge.
My grades were good enough to get me into medical school; the issue is that I didn’t have enough money. That is where I need my father.
I gulp.
The medical school on Hulder, Hulder School of Medicine, Nursing and Dentistry, has a MBBS programme that lasts 5 years, plus 2 years of internship, plus 4 years of psychiatry. That’s the minimum time for this.
“Altogether? Eleven years.” Minimum. I don’t add that part, hoping that I can get straight into psychiatry. “Listen, Daddy, I am just trying to help Mummy. I want her to get better, and maybe… maybe the humans can help in some ways that we don’t know.”
He sighs, his gills expanding more as he does so. “You know that I love your mother, Meg. A lot. And I miss her. I keep hoping… that someday, she will be better.” The truth is that she isn’t the only reason why I am doing this; she is the main reason, but not the only. I also want to help the other citizens of Astra, but aside from that, I am trying to deal with my fear of ending up like my mother. It is a paralysing fear, one that gives me anxiety attacks far more frequently than I care to admit. The fear of going mad is driving me mad. How ironic.
I look at him, trying to focus my mind on the here and now. Right now is not the time to be falling apart.
“Well, I will try to help you.”
“I need money. Or something that can be exchanged for money. Their money. A lot of it.”
He looks at me, and I instantly know that he knows what I am talking about.
“The carvings,” he says.
He has a set of gold and platinum carvings of my mother, in her siren form. He has many of them, though, not just one. An entire chest. He has three sitting on a slab of rock in the middle of the room. It acts as a table. Sirens are well aware of humans’ love for precious metals.
“The ones that you want the least,” I tell him. “Daddy, I really need—”
“Take all of them.”
“What?” I ask incredulously. Surely, he couldn’t have said what I think he did.
“Take all of the ones that are in the chest. I only put the ones up in here that I really liked. The others… they can go.”
“I don’t think I will need that much platinum,” I admit. “But I will take them to some pawn shops tomorrow, and transfer the money to my bank account.”
“How did you get a bank account?” he asks.
“I got it a while back.”
“And how will you get into the school? Don’t humans need certain documents to do these things?”
“I have a birth certificate, remember?” My mother had me registered shortly after I was born. She took me to the surface, and sat with me on the beach until I transformed into my human form. Then, she registered me at a hospital. St Mary’s Hospital. My father thought that it was ridiculous, but she always said that it might come in handy. She enchanted the paper and envelope to be waterproof, and kept it. My father sometimes forgets about these things. “I renewed my passport last month.” As for Tony, who seems interested at the thought of going to school… we might have to break some laws to get him integrated into society.
“Oh,” he says, before sighing. “Well, tell me how it goes. If this is what you truly want… and if it will help your mother… I will support you.”
I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Thank you, Daddy,” I say. He gets up, and swims over to me, before hugging me.
“I love you,” he says to me. “You and your mother are my whole world.”
“I know, Daddy. I love you, too,” I say, my tears mixing in the salt water around us.
***
“How did it go?” Tony asks me when I get to my house, the underwater one. He has been staying with me, and he knows that I was nervous about going to my father for help.
“Really well,” I say. “He’s willing to help me financially, and….” I trail off as my throat clogs with emotion. The love and happiness towards my father and what he is willing to do for me, but also, the pain and fear for my mother, and what has happened to her, and the fear for myself. He seems to know that something is wrong, as he comes over to me, and wraps me in an embrace. I sigh once I am in his arms.
“You give nice hugs,” I murmur. His chuckle rumbles against my chest.
“That’s good to hear,” he responds, before I pull away.
“Let’s get ready to go to the beach. I want some pretzels, and you said you wanted to watch the next episode of Lizard Lick Towing, right?”
“Yes, mi amor,” he says laughing, probably remembering the antics of the people on the show.
- Writer
