Untold Truth

#6 Obstacles of Life (Part 1)

Skylar woke up and found Carson sleeping on the couch opposite her bed. He seemed to be fast asleep after a long night of having to be on night guard duty, to make sure to tend to all of Skylar’s needs. She didn’t want to wake him up because she knew that he had a long night. Her legs weren’t actually working like how they used to and she could feel her feet. She attempted to get out of bed but the more she tried the harder it was to get out. She felt herself moving but it wasn’t the way she wanted it to, she was slanting to one side and was about to fall over. She braced for impact but there was no impact at all. Instead she felt the muscular arms of her boyfriend. She looked at him like she had just seen a ghost. 

“Good morning to you too, princess.” He said while placing her slowly back on her bed but he lost his grip and almost fell on top of her. 

At just the nick of time, Cody came in, only to find Carson hovering over his sister. “Hey, what’s the meaning of this?” Carson quickly got up before Cody got any more furious than he already was. 

Carson thought of a way to change the topic, “She almost fell and I was just in time to catch her before she fell.” As they continued to argue, Skylar looked over to the alarm clock sitting on her bedside table and saw that they were already late for school. 

She cut into the conversation and asked them, “What are you guys still doing here? I thought you were supposed to be in school.”

“If we were in school then who is taking care of you? You already saw how incapable you are of doing things on your own let alone helping yourself with breakfast.” Cody protested. “I highly doubt that you can even go down the stairs without any help.”

Skylar thought about it and though she is more comfortable being independent, she realized that her hands were still tied in this situation. Just as she thought of how her life could have gotten any worse, it just did, the pain just came to her in the form of shock waves that were impossible to not shout about. Quickly, Carson scooped her up and brought her bathtub. The moment the water touched her feet she felt as though all her problems had gone away. She apparently felt better in her mermaid form than in human form. That was when Cody came up with a brilliant idea. “If demon magic didn’t work, why don’t we try something that is more relevant. - We’re dealing with excess powers that are from the ocean, isn’t it a better idea to go to Clay about this?”

“No. If we bring her to Clay, he would just bring her back to the ocean telling us, the ‘I told you so.’ act and then make fun of us for even trying to bring her back to the ocean.”, said Carson. “Clay is the last person I would go to about this sort of thing.”

“What if we didn’t get Clay's help and instead got help from one of the guards that we just so happened to be friends with. Arion is the fastest swimmer we know and he happens to also be good at manipulating people to do whatever he wants.” Cody suggested. “With his sister on our side, we can just so easily get him to bring us the required ooze to cure Skylar’s pain.”

“Does any of your plans ever involve not manipulating people to do things that you want them to do, for example, asking Arion to help us to find the potion?” Carson continued to walk out, leading them straight for the ocean. 

“Alright, nice guy, we’ll try your plan but if it plops out then we’re going to immediately use my plan, got it?” They were already at the edge of the water. The two of them dove into the water to find guards searching the waters. They hid in the kelp forest until they saw a familiar face. They quickly pulled Arion into the kelp forest. 

“What’s the meaning of this?”, Arion exclaimed. “Why are the two of you hiding in the kelp forest?”

“The real question is why are the troops out of Atlantis? What’s going on? Is there a war going on?” said Carson while looking over to the guards who appeared to be looking for something, were sure looking rather thoroughly.

“On the contrary, your father has instructed us to find your girlfriend since she obviously can’t get very far out to the surface according to Clay.” Arion was about to swim off when an idea popped up in Carson’s mind. 

“We actually already have Skylar safe in the human world but it’s an uphill slope where we’re having some trouble ourselves. Here’s the deal, we would bring Skylar to my dad in one piece as he wants it and you would help us find a potion that should exist in Clay’s lair; it’s a potion that reverses pain. I doubt that you would have any trouble finding it looking as though Clay literally labels every single one of his potions. Find it and bring it to us, and we would in return bring Skylar to Atlantis. And also to make it more safe, make sure that Clay isn’t there.”

Arion noticed how Carson had literally become his father all of a sudden, “Jezz, when did you become so instructive? You’re starting to become like your dad already.”

“Just do whatever I say and stop comparing me to my father.” Carson rolled his eyes as Arion swam back to get his troops to retreat back to Atlantis. 

“Job well done, Mr. Nice Guy. I wouldn’t have done it any better myself but you, Carson are full of surprises. I thought you never had it in you to be that instructive.” Cody teased. “So what do we do in the meantime. We could go and explore the deep or go and join the warlocks in the rave party down at the bar.” He stopped to see that Carson was no longer in front of him but instead already headed back to the surface. 

Carson stopped and said, “Could you ever be more humble? I thought you cared about helping Skylar but you are just ditching school for your own reasons, if you never cared then why bother staying. You know Skylar didn’t even want any of this. And yet you still had the liberty of asking me to go and have a drink like everything is okay? Can you get your head out of the cloud for this once?” 

Cody tried to keep up with Carson’s pace, apologizing, “I know it might be hard having such a party animal as a friend, and I’m sorry for always making everything about me. Can you blame me?” Carson hushed him, stopped and went into defense mode. 

They were almost at the surface when they realized that there was something wrong. They could see a silhouette of a huge group of fish racing straight towards them. “Get down!” Carson jumped on Cody to get him to swim downwards.

Nick made a phone call to the principal of Crown Heights High School. Trying to convince the principal in the form of bribery, he told him of the opportunities that had been offered to Noah and Jackson, “Hi, Mr. Sylvester, I have heard about two of your students; Noah and Jackson’s high standing achievements in Crown Heights. I am here to offer them a fully paid first class scholarship to come to Crystal Cove as exchange students. With your permission they shall come over to Crystal Cove effective in 2 weeks.”

Mr. Sylvester was in shock that the very two guys that had been nothing but trouble had been given a fully paid scholarship so he asked to clarify, “Who is this? And how have you come to hear about these two’s achievements, if they were any to offer to the school.” He thought of all the opportunities that lay ahead that there wouldn’t be that much mischief around the school as often.

Nick thought to himself, This is going to be harder than I thought. “Mr. Sylvester, I understand the burden of having to give up two students that have apparently perfect attendance but there is also an addition to this. There would also be a bonus for you as a token of appreciation and compensation for the students I am taking from the clutches of your school.” Apparently buying people over with money was the only thing that Nick was good at. 

He knew that there was no saying no to money though it may be a scam. It was a yes or nothing. “I approve. But you also have to talk to the boys’ parents and get their consent before bringing them over 1500 miles away from home.”

“I’m talking to the boys’ parents as we speak. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you Mr. Sylvester.” Nick said it in a professional tone to continue the charade. He continued to look through all the dirt he could dig up about Jackson so that he would feel right at home during his permanent stay until the next summer break. He quickly screened through the number and dialled it on the landline. “Hello. Is this Mr. Orlando?”, he needed to clarify whether it was the right number first.

“Yes, this is him. What can I do for you?”, said Jackson’s father on the other line. 

“It’s not what you can do for me but instead what I can do for you. I’m calling from Crystal Cove High School, excited to tell you that your sons have been selected for an exchange programme and the air tickets, accommodation and school fees are already covered by the scholarship offered to them.” said Nick with an excited tone. 

“Oh that’s great and when are they required to fly over.” Their father sounded like he was waiting for an offer like this to come so he could quickly get rid of the two of them. Apparently after hearing about how Skylar, his pathetic son’s ex-crush, had been sent to Houston he had only been waiting for an opportunity like this to happen. 

Nick’s eyes widened at the excitement of Sean’s voice. “The flight is in 2 weeks time. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Sean.” Nick put down the phone before Sean said anything that would make his life anymore awkward. He had a feeling that he was a little too much when it came to using his name but it was the only way of being professional. 

He looked out of the window and let out a sigh, “It’s great to be back on top.”, but was distracted by the choking sound in the room. “Alright, that’s enough for now.”, he said to Coyote who was busy torturing the principal of Crystal Cove. He waltzed over to the man who was tied down to the floor and stared him right in the eye, “You will remember nothing of this event or remember anything I had said. You would think that it’s another bad day in school and you just had a very bad fall, which is the reason why you are on the floor right now. When the two exchange students come, you would treat them with respect despite their past, capisce?” He threatened the principal while still trying to erase his memory of even seeing him. 

He walked out of the principal’s office feeling a sense of fulfillment. He was doing Noah and Jackson a favour, getting out of that horrid school and coming to a more sophisticated school. Though Nick hadn’t been to school with mundanes, he knew for sure that it would be so much better to be reunited with a good friend. “Sire, you do understand that you would still have to compose a speech to tell Noah the truth of his family heritage. And also find a way to avoid the screaming part of the truth when he actually finds out.”

“When since was there a time that I wasn’t ready to face a crowd. I’ve given speeches before so how difficult will this one be?” Nick said with confidence that he would flop up the story. So while walking towards the car, his mind was busy at work and coming up with different formats of speech that once they got to the car, he already had something in mind to say to his long lost brother.