The sea was bubbling with life. There were sea creatures everywhere swimming around in the sea like it was nobody's business. There were all kinds of sea life in there including dolphins, sting rays, sea urchins, sea horses and much, much more. If those sea creatures were able to talk like humans do, you could hear a great big commotion of sounds, like a market or something.
That was when Max was awakened by the sound of faraway chattering and chit-chatting. He opened his eyes groggily and the first thing he saw was a pair of angelfishes whispering to each other and pointing at him. He was surprised to find out that he actually was able to understand what the fishes were saying and furthermore, he saw that he was surrounded by water and actually breathing in it! It was marvelous! Could it be...?
He sat up tentatively and took a look at his legs, only to see that they weren't legs anymore, but a long tail that shimmered slightly as he moved. He gaped in awe at the colour of his tail: a bright mixture of blonde and blue, like a mixture of his hair and eye colour. He waved the fins about and was excited to see it moving to his will. He had to try this out.
"Woah, look at who has dropped in this place! It's my dear ol' friend Maxwell Deanhart!"
Max turned to see his childhood sea friend Robert the seahorse gliding down from above his head towards him. The seahorse was actually a real life talking seahorse, as in able to talk in human tongue. He was one of those victims of sea pollution when he scorched his throat after accidentally eating polluted plankton (thanks to chemical waste dumped into the sea) and after going through a near death experience, he suddenly found himself able to understand and speak human language. He, Max and Norman were close friends as he provided information about the merpeople life he claimed he knew. He had introduced loads of things and told Max the names of those items he had discovered during his underwater trips and Robert would explain elaborately what does this and that do.
"Look at you, Max! Look at you! You have changed!" Robert said as he landed on Max's shimmering tail. "Now let's see, what's different about you, hmm? Wait, wait, don't tell me! It's a...new...haircut! No, not a new haircut...A new swimming gear! A new breathing thing-a-majigure? A new set of clothes? A new..."
"He's having a new tail, you dimwit!"
Max and Robert turned around to see Norman scowling at them. Only that Norman was not the huge, tough guy, barbaric-looking Norman, but the Norman with fins and scales and a tail and gills and all that. It seemed like SkullMaster had turned him into a fish as a payment to cure Virginia from her coma predicament, and a huge fat catfish at that! Max stared at him in awe while Robert rolled over the floor and laughed like a maniac.
"Oh my sea urchins! What exactly happened to you, Norman?!" Robert laughed non-stop. "You look...You look..."
"Stupid, I know," Norman muttered grudgingly. "I dunno why I've turned like this, but I sure don't like it."
"Well, what's this business about Max having a new tail, huh? Isn't he supposed to be human or something?"
Norman sighed and explained the whole story to Robert. While he explained, Max decided to try out the tail. He got up and tried to balance himself while flipping his fins to keep him like a standing position in the sea. So far, he was so used to swimming the human way that he couldn't keep his balance. He soon fell headlong onto sandy sea floor, sending the sand flying all over, covering Robert and Norman.
"Just look at him!" Norman exclaimed in horror, rambling on and on about how disastrous it was. It was obvious that he had finally lost his cool. "His tail...Scum merman tail! This is not good! Really not good! This is a catastrophe! What will his mother say? I tell you what his mother will say. She'll say she's gonna kill him, that's what his mother will say! I'm going straight right back up and go tell his mother..."
Max was horrified. While Norman was rambling, Max finally got the hang of swimming up straight and was dusting the sea sand off his body when he heard Norman threatening to go up and tell Virginia on him. He grabbed Norman's tail and pulled him close, shaking his head in fear, not wanting him to tell.
"And don't you shake your head at me, young man! You're just like your father, getting into trouble all the time! And I always had to back him up, just like what I'm doing right now for you! No more, Max, no more! We'll go back to that SkullMaster of yours and cancel the deal! Maybe he would renegotiate. Maybe you'll get back your voice. And then we'll all go home and you'll just be...just be..."
Max frowned sadly, begging him with his eyes not to make him change his mind about things. He looked so sad, as if like if this whole thing doesn't go happily, he was going to regret it. Norman sighed.
"Just be miserable for the rest of your life, I guess. Alright, alright, I'll help you to go and find your princess. Can't go up in open air anyway since I'm a fish."
Max hugged him gratefully and let him go. Somehow, the fish instinct set in and Norman was actually swimming naturally like all the other fish. Robert finally broke the sad ice and grabbed on to some seaweeds around the area.
"Well, it sure ain't decent for a merman to not have something on his body. One thing we gotta figure out is what to decorate you up with. Now let me see..."
Meanwhile, Princess Phoebe was riding on her pet dolphin around the sea. She greeted a few other merpeople passing by and played with a few fishes along the way, but nothing could keep her mind off her saviour that fateful night. She couldn't help thinking that there's something charming about the person who saved her and the voice that sang to her. It sounded so nice, so melodic, so suave and gentle...He has to be a very charming man to be able to rescue her and sing so beautifully. She hummed the song he sang for her to herself by memory.
As she hummed, the dolphin suddenly chirped and increased its speed. It had spotted something in the distance and was quite excited to go and find out about it. Phoebe was taken by surprise as she was dragged along for the ride. She clung onto the dolphin for dear life, hoping that she wouldn't fall off, all the while trying to slow it down. While the dolphin came in closer, Max was already quite decorated up with a necklace fashioned out of corals and seashells and a crown made out of seaweeds and pearls. He had to admit, he looked pretty good in it.
"Sensational!" Robert grinned as he marveled his piece of work. He was interrupted with the loud chirp of Phoebe's dolphin. Norman and Robert ran for cover and Max wanted to swim some place higher. He was quite shocked to see the dolphin coming up to him in such friendly manner and was butting its beak-like mouth at him.
"Reynard, stop it!" Max's heart skipped a beat when he heard Phoebe's voice. He saw her riding on the dolphin and was apologizing to him for Reynard's behaviour. He was stunned. There she was, his dream princess, lovely as ever with her chocolate-brown hair and jade-green eyes. The wonderful princess was actually up close and personal and actually talking to him! What a bliss this was! He couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the Phoebe that he had been watching from afar actually standing just right in front of him! All he could do was smile.
"I'm sorry about Reynard. He's always..." Phoebe continued to apologize when she stopped to look at Max's face. That blonde hair, those blue eyes...it's like she seen that face somewhere before. She muttered, "You seem very familiar to me...Have we met?"
Max nodded excitedly. Of course they have met! How could they not be? It was during the night he saved her.
"Yes, you're the one who rescued me! You're the one! The one that I've been looking for!" Phoebe said excitedly, finally meeting her saviour. "What's your name?"
Max wanted to tell her but no voice came out. He could only mouth out his name. He then realized that he had traded his voice to SkullMaster for this new body. He held his throat, disappointed.
"What's wrong? What is it?"
Max patted his throat.
"You can't speak?"
Max shook his head.
"Oh...then you couldn't be who I thought."
Max huffed. He was utterly disappointed. Of all payments, SkullMaster had to ask for his voice. 'Why couldn't he ask for an arm or a limb or maybe his eyes or something?' he thought, frustrated. 'I'd rather give him those than unable to actually talk to Phoebe and tell her how he feels. As if body language was enough...'
Then the thought struck him. Why not? He could use body language! He had played charades before when he was a kid. That shouldn't be too hard. He waved at Phoebe to get her attention, then made loads of gestures to tell her that he really was the one who saved her that night and that he really had sang to her. Phoebe was trying to guess what he was trying to tell her.
"What is it? You're sick? No, you need help? Woah, careful!"
It seemed that out of excitement and desperation for Phoebe to understand him, he had lost his balance from the rock his was sitting on and fell into the arms of his dream princess. Their eyes met—jade-green with blue—and were locked onto each other, staring as if the whole world was theirs and that time had stopped just for them. They both couldn't believe that they're looking at each other this close—Phoebe staring at her could-be saviour and Max at his princess he had longed to be with for so long. After what seemed like forever, Phoebe finally broke the ice.
"This could seem like a mysterious adventure for us. Come on. I'll take you to my castle. Careful now."
As they mounted onto Reynard and headed towards the direction of Phoebe's castle, Norman sneaked up behind and came in between Phoebe and Max, making Phoebe chuckle. She asked if he were his pet and he nodded absentmindedly. Max turned around to look for Robert and saw him giving him a thumbs-up behind where he was hiding.
Things sure looked pretty bright from then on.
Inside the castle, he was led into the cleaning room where he was cleaned off all the sea sand he fell on and was redecorated with other ornaments less organic like the seaweed by two of Phoebe's brothers Pjer and Pac. While he was being prepared, Phoebe and the rest of her brothers were in the dining room discussing seriously about matters.
"Are you really sure that he is the one who saved you?" Pablio asked. "I mean, you did say that your saviour sang to you before he disappeared mysteriously. But this guy can't even talk."
"Yeah," Peter agreed. "For all I know, you could've mistaken this young man for someone else."
"I'm telling you, brothers," Phoebe said indignantly. "He's the one. The one that I've been looking for. And I'm gonna marry him."
"What? You can't be serious, can you?! Have you forgotten about Prince Drakeb?" Pince asked in horror.
"I thought you guys are a couple," Pad said. "You can't be saying that you've fallen for a guy you barely know and just so happened to save your life!"
"Yeah, Father even arranged to let you and Prince Drakeb be betrothed and all! You can't just let it go!" Pablio tried to talk his sister out of this.
"Well, for your information, I decide my own love life, not Father," Phoebe replied. "Besides, I didn't see Drakeb saving me from being fried from the open air I fell onto. I saw him."
"Come on now, pal," Pjer's playful voice could be heard from the far end of the dining room as he and Pac tried to coax a quite nervous Max inside. "They're not gonna bite you."
"Yeah, come on. Don't be shy," Pac ushered him inside. Phoebe widened her eyes in wonder as she saw Max with his hair handsomely decorated by tiny butterfly-shaped seashells and wearing a necklace made out of shiny pearls and corals, his tail shimmering gallantly as he swam in with a nervous smile. Even her brothers couldn't help marveling at the way Max looked in his attire.
"Wow, I have to say, sis," Pablio said as he went over to get a closer look at Max. "He sure is quite a wonderful creature. I mean, we don't see people with that kind hair and eye colour. Only humans have that."
Max shuddered a little, afraid of his true identity be found. Norman, who was following from behind, winced as well. SkullMaster sure knew how to make deals; he got exactly what he wished for. No more, no less. And that means only his legs and internal organs changed to suit merman life, yet everything else stayed the same. It was true about what Pablio said—he could tell that all merpeople had strange hair and eye colour. None of them looked normal, and yet none of them looked bad either. He sure was the odd one out.
"Please, please. Don't let's stand here. Take a seat," Phoebe said hurriedly after snapping out of her trance. Everyone took a seat, and as expected, Phoebe and Max sat side by side. As they chit-chatted, Max surveyed the place. He marveled at the tapestry of the wall and the jewels of the sea that decorated the whole place. He took a look at the table and realized that it was actually made from a naturally-formed rock that was carved into a shape of a table. The chairs were also fashioned out of rocks carved and decorated with corals and whatnot. Then his eyes spotted on the Fringlers. It was actually a fork fashioned out from a coral but Robert had introduced it wrongly as a merman's comb (and made up that stupid 'Fringlers' name for the fork), so it wasn't surprising that everyone stared weirdly at Max when he picked up the fork and started combing his hair.
Robert sure needed to get his facts straight.
Max put down the fork awkwardly, embarrassed. He then shifted his gaze towards Pad who was sucking something out of a seashell. Max lit up. He remembered Robert telling him that this seashell was a Gurom, a type of flute-like musical instrument of the merpeople. Pad noticed Max was staring at it in interest and handed it over to him. Max took it eagerly and put it in his mouth. 'This has to be right,' he thought. 'For once let Robert be right.'
"You like it, don't you? It's really delicious and it's filled with..."
He didn't get to finish his words as Max suddenly blew at the seashell, sending black liquid spilling at his face. Everyone laughed in amusement at Pad's sooty-looking face glaring accusingly at Max. Needless to say, Robert seriously needed to get his facts straight. It was actually called Numnack, a type of tidbit for merpeople where they put in sweetened black ink of a squid into a seashell and they suck it through a mouthpiece. Max grinned apologetically as Pad rubbed his face clean. Luckily, Pad was able to take it humorously. The rest of the meal went by pretty smoothly. The food tasted great and Max liked all of them. He was mute, so he couldn't ask what they were made of. But then, come to think of it, it could be made out of something outrageous. He'd rather be left in the dark.
Later that night, Max was shown by Phoebe to his room. King Benedict and his wife were on a trip to the other side of the Pacific, so they wouldn't be home for a week. Phoebe asked Max if he would like to go downtown with her to see the sights. Max, of course, nodded happily. Phoebe smiled happily and gave him a peck on the cheek, wishing him a good night's sleep and a pleasant dream. Max could just die of happiness right here, right now.
"I wonder if Virginia's OK," Norman talked to himself as Max got ready for bed. It was actually a huge oyster with its tongue as a blanket, really soft and nice. "If she has awakened like SkullMaster said she would, what would happen if she finds us both gone? She might go into a frenzy and black out again. I'm worried, Max. What do you think?"
He turned around and saw that Max had already fallen asleep peacefully in his oyster bed. The oyster remained open, as if waiting for Norman to hop in and sleep. Norman smiled weakly and shook his head. It's been a while since he had seen Max so happy. Maybe it is his destiny after all to be with his lovely dream princess of the sea. If only he could kiss her in time. That would mean the world to Max to be able to stay with Phoebe happily ever after.
"Well, we'll just have to see what happens then," Norman sighed as he slipped into the tongue of the oyster and crawled closer beside Max.
As he, too, fell asleep, the oyster closed slowly.
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