So... after months of waiting, I finally deliver the third chapter. I hope there are still some readers around to see it.

I'm sorry I took so long to get it out, but my personal life has called on many fronts, and I have been grappling with my other story, Seas of Change, which also hasn't been updated in long, and will likely be completely retooled soon.

But rest assured, Aratoro will be staying here, and I'll try my best to take less long between updates this time.

Chapter 3 - One's Misfortune Is Another's Fortune

Around lunchtime on the day after their 'swim-in' with Charlotte, Cleo, Emma and Rikki went to a park about two blocks from thei school, followed by Lewis and Zane. Although it was a school day, all those still in school had the same lunch period, and Ash happened to not have classes at that time, so he could also meet them.

He was already there, sitting on a garden bench, with a folded newspaper in his hands, a finger marking a specific page. He stood up when he saw the others, and as he walked toward them he could see noticeably serious looks on just about every face. Emma spared him a brief smile when she approached and they exchanged a kiss in greeting, but all the others remained somber, even as they exchanged greetings with him.

"Why the long faces, guys?" he asked them after a greeting of his own.

Rikki glanced at Emma to see if she would answer, while the others exchanged looks amongst themselves. Then, Zane replied, "We don't have good news."

"How come?"

There was another exchange of looks. This time, it was Emma who answered.

"Charlotte hasn't shown up to school all morning. We don't know why, but we were starting to speculate it may have to do with some plot she's cooking up."

Understanding dawned in Ash's eyes.

"Well, I won't say she isn't plotting, but I don't think that's why she missed school."

Both Rikki and Zane tensed up. Ash raised his free hand and added, "If you read this, you'll see what I mean."

He handed the newspaper to Emma. She opened it on the page he had marked. Rikki and Cleo peeked over her shoulders so they also could read.

For the next half a minute or so, their eyes ran over the width of the page on their left several times. By the time they had reached the bottom of the page, their eyes had widened noticeably. Meanwhile, Zane and Lewis looked at them expectantly.

"So, what happened?" Lewis asked.

Ash glanced at the girls as if for permission. When they didn't stop him, he explained, "According to an article in that newspaper, Charlotte's mother lost all her money after her secretary stole it and hightailed it out of the country with it."

Both Zane's and Lewis' eyes widened in surprise. For a few moments, no one said anything. The only thing breaking the silence was the angry crooning of two pigeons fighting for a piece of bread a few benches away.

"Poor woman," Lewis said.

The girls looked at him with as much shock as if he had been referring to the likes of Adolf Hitler or Osama bin Laden. Lewis took a step back in startle and raised his hands.

"I only said poor woman. Whatever Charlotte did to you or me, her mother didn't do anything of the sort."

The girls softened at the explanation. Cleo in particular turned her eyes down, with an ashamed, almost guilty look, as if recalling something she had done that she wasn't proud of. But Emma, although somber-looking, pointed out, "Let's look on the bright side. Now Charlotte may be too distracted to plot against us."

"Someone like her?" Rikki countered. "I don't think so. If she wants to plot, she'll do so even if she needs to beg for money on the street."

Emma turned to Rikki as if to reply. Cleo looked up and cut in before the other two could start an argument.

"What she'll do doesn't matter. What matters is what we do." Cleo paused to see if someone would interrupt, and then turned to Lewis, "You suggested we talk to her, Lewis. How do we decide who goes?"

Lewis put his hands behind his back, one clasping the back of the other. After a nervous gulp, he replied.

"I don't mind going, But I'd be lying if I said I look forward to it."

No one seemed relieved at Lewis offering himself for the job. But no one volunteered to take his turn either.

"Does anyone else want to?"

The other five exchanged looks among themselves. Then Cleo asked, "Are you sure you don't mind, Lewis?"

"I told you; I'm not thrilled about it, but I can take one for the team."

"When are you going?" Ash asked.

Lewis thought for a moment. "At least a few days from now. Maybe longer. To give time for her shock to fade and all that."

Yet again, no one seemed too happy at Lewis' suggestion, but no one argued against it either. However, Rikki pointed out, "In the meantime we should come up with something to do in case diplomacy fails. Just in case."

Lewis and Ash frowned at her tone, as if thinking her 'just in case' meant more 'for when she strikes', but like Lewis' decision, it went without response.

"But what?" Emma asked. "We don't know anything about other ways to deal with mermaids."

"We could ask the old man for help." Zane suggested.

"We can't," Lewis replied. When the others' surprised looks turned on him, he added, "I already talked to Max. He said he wouldn't stand against Gracie's granddaughter. He wouldn't tell her anything else either, but he also won't be responsible for her getting hurt."

Both Rikki and Zane snorted.

"That's nice of him," Zane deadpanned. "Especially after it was his big mouth that got the girls into this mess."

Lewis narrowed his eyes. "Whoever heard you would think you never spoke too much yourself, Zane."

Zane glared at the blond boy. Then Ash spoke up before things could escalate.

"I looked through my grandmother's stuff, but I didn't find anything that could help us. We'll really have to look for answers somewhere else."

Once again, all those listening to the answer turned disappointed gazes at who spoke. This time, however, Emma's eyes widened as if she had remembered something. she glanced at her watch, and then said, "And speaking of going, we should be getting back, if we don't want to cut it close for our next classes."

Rikki scowled at the reminder of school, but this time it only lasted a second before she smiled as Zane bumped shoulders with her. The smile, however, was also brief, as she pointed out with a much more serious look, "We should still meet later. Just so we come to some actual decision on what do about Charlotte."

The others nodded in agreement.

"See you at the JuiceNet after school?" Ash asked.

"Sure," Emma replied. The others nodded.

After she and Ash exchanged a goodbye peck, the older boy walked away from the others as they made their way back to school.

Inhaling the soothing marine breeze that blew into her face, Charlotte stepped away from the easel supporting her newest painting. As she looked over the washi paper, her trained eyes picked out a few flawed spots to correct, but she still smiled at her latest artwork: a pigeon crashing downwards against a blue backdrop, feathers flying in all directions. The bird looked more than a bit like Gratton Bird, mostly thanks to its cat like eyes, huge forehead, and long thin feathers on the tips of its wings. And the fact it was crashing to the floor depicted what Charlotte wanted to do to him if she found him.

She didn't want to actually kill him - even though he was a bastard, the thought made her stomach churn - but she wouldn't mind roughing him up if she could do so without getting caught. The only thing stopping her was that she'd go to prison herself if she got caught. That couldn't happen. Hiding after an unexpected transformation was difficult enough when she was free. Doing it locked in a cell 24/7 would be impossible.

But even if she was still a normal human, she'd find the idea of ending up there terrifying. Even being at a station as a witness could be unnerving, as she had found out only hours before.

A particularly loud wave broke onto the beach, just like the memory of the time she spent at the police station. Spending hours there because of about Gratton Bird (which wasn't even the bastard's real name) had made her want to slam her head on the wall, all the more so because for her much of that time consisted of waiting and pointless questions.

While Charlotte got a rather brief interrogation, she still got asked so much trivial stuff she had almost snapped at her interrogator, a middle-aged man with hawk-like eyes. She couldn't imagine what it had been like for her mother, whose interrogation lasted at least three times longer and was given by a guy who looked capable of breaking her in half with his bare hands. Her only consolation was that, thanks to her Aunt Nicole, things would move faster for them.

All the same, Charlotte couldn't wait to get out of there, and even now, after having lunch and shedding her frustrations on her painting, remnants of tension clung to her. All because of a scumbag who embezzled her mother.

Bastard. Charlotte thought yet again as she looked at the canvas and pictured the real thing in place of the bird. If you were here…

Her fist clenched in anger. The water vial where she dipped her brush started to bubble.

Charlotte loosened her fist and willed her temper down. She couldn't lose her cool like that. Her mother had already gotten suspicious over the pool, and if incidents with her powers became too recurring, her mother would learn the truth. And her mother already had enough on her plate; Charlotte wanted to spare her at least one thing. Besides, she was out of water to put in that vial.

Just like soon, she'd be out of ink and brushes and washi paper. With them having to save up, there was no way she could continue painting as a hobby, at least as much as she was used to.

Her eyes turned back to one of the flawed spots she had picked out: a streak on the pigeon's left wing that was too light.

Charlotte raised her brush and dipped it in the paint. She might have to stop painting soon, but as long as she could do so, she'd make sure her works were well done.

Hours later, as the sun sank below the horizon, Charlotte put up a new sheet of washi paper. The struck bird's painting was as close to perfection as she could put it. Time to paint something else. And the orange, purple, and yellow streaks spreading across the horizon were the perfect inspiration.

Smiling at the sight, Charlotte dipped the now clean brush into the ink and raised it to the paper.

A polite cough broke through her thoughts the moment before she touched the paper. Charlotte set the brush down and turned around.

Max stood before her, in one of his usual flower-printed shirts, khaki trousers and hiking shoes, with the added touch of a jacket.

Charlotte's heart shrank to a tenth of its size. She hadn't seen Max since the day she had begged and wheedled the moon pool's secret out of him. And since then, he had probably heard all sorts of less than flattering things about her from Cleo and Lewis, like how she had broken Cleo's spirit so much she'd basically swum into the middle of a school of sharks so they'd eat her.

The urge to just turn away and bolt to the sea invaded her, but far too many of her belongings were here for her to turn her back on them. Besides, she was no five year old caught after breaking a knickknack. She could face the music.

"Hello, Charlotte," Max greeted her, his voice as calm as when he'd told her about Mako Island.

Charlotte barely managed to repress an utterly baffled expression. Had Max somehow not heard about what she did, in spite of her greatest fears? Or was he just that forgiving a person?

"Hi," she murmured.

Max took a few steps closer. "Can I talk to you for a second? Or is your inspiration too imminent to repress?"

"You can talk." While inspiration was indeed imminent, she owed him a conversation if he wanted to have it. It was the least she could do after manipulating him into spilling the beans about her grandmother and her friends.

"I heard about what happened to your mother," Max's face softened further. "I'm really sorry."

Charlotte's heart recovered some of its size, but at the same time it sank in her chest. Perhaps that was why Max was being so nice.

"Thanks," Charlotte mumbled. She didn't know what else to say.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

In spite of herself, Charlotte mustered a chuckle. "I'd better not. You wouldn't like to hear what I have to say."

The corners of Max's lips, visible even through his sailor's beard, curled upwards in a smile. "I take it you wouldn't be very pleasant to the man who stole your mother's money if you could get your hands on him."

"Can you really blame me for it?"

For the first time since they had met, Max's expression hardened into a stern look.

"I can see where you're coming from," he replied, his voice lower and more severe than she had thought it capable of. "But two wrongs don't make a right."

"Are we still talking about that embezzler?" The words got out of Charlotte's mouth before she could stop them.

She almost put her hands to her lips after she uttered them, but Max didn't seem any angrier. In fact, his expression seemed a tad less stern than before.

"We can still be," he replied. "Though I do know about the other recent event in your life."

So Cleo and her two sidekicks must have gone to Max already then, if they hadn't sent Lewis as an errand boy. Max knew she had gotten her tail back. Shame pricked at her. After all, she had only ever gotten it in the first place because she had manipulated him.

"I couldn't let it go without one last attempt to get it back," she said, her voice a subdued murmur. "I liked - like it - far too much."

"I understand," Max replied, a sad smile on his face. "Though let me tell you, you don't take after your grandmother in that respect."

Realization struck her like a slap. Max hadn't just found out she had gotten her tail back, he had found out her grandmother had lied to him. Up until she had gotten her tail back, Max had thought that the full moon that had taken her powers really did so permanently, with absolutely no chance of them returning. Yet, Charlotte had unwittingly destroyed fifty years' worth of a belief by getting her tail back.

"I'm sorry," Charlotte offered, a wave of sympathy going out to him. "I have no idea why my grandmother lied to you."

"She must have decided she couldn't live with a tail again," Max suggested, the same sad look on his face.

Probably. But, now that Charlotte thought of it, maybe her grandmother hadn't known how to live without it either. Given that she had died at fifty-five, and that she was apparently healthy beforehand, perhaps the loss of her tail had gradually worn her down over the years until it claimed her. From what Charlotte knew, the same was true of Louise and Julia, who had both died at sixty-six; hardly children, but noticeably less than the average life expectancy these days.

Max's sadness finally faded. A wave of sympathy for him surged out of her. Even though they hadn't spent much time together, Charlotte had known for a fact that he had loved her grandmother. It must have been painful to know she had lied to him.

But then again, Cleo and the others probably had already comforted him about that, and taken the chance to pull some more secrets out of him.

Horror invaded her at the thought. She knew that her grandmother's two friends, Louise and Julia, also had lost their tails, but unlike her grandmother, they had lost them through some other method. Could Max know it? Could he actually have shared it with the others already?

A colder gust of wind blew through the beach in tune with her thoughts, ruffling the grass in the dunes.

Her fears must have been obvious, because Max's expression softened even further.

"Don't worry, I wouldn't tell them anything about how to take your tail away again," he said. "Even if I knew of such a way to begin with." His expression hardened a touch. "But I won't tell you anything else either. Not after what you did to them."

Charlotte's heart sank again. Apparently, Max had heard about her misdeeds after all, and hadn't brushed them off, even if he wasn't holding them above her head per se.

"They started it," she mumbled.

"What did I just say?" Max asked, his eyes narrowed again, as if Charlotte was his actual granddaughter and he was scolding her after catching her in the wrong.

Two wrongs don't make a right. She inwardly repeated. She didn't believe things were exactly that simple, and she still planned to teach the girls a lesson on the first chance she got, but she could see where Max was coming from. And she didn't want to argue with him right now.

"If you see them again, you can tell them to keep their scales on. The way things are right now, I don't have time for anything other than trying to help my Mum cope with this."

Max's gaze pierced her like a giant stiletto, but the next instant it softened and he asked, "Should I leave you to it then?"

He gestured toward the blank washi paper, and Charlotte saw what he was getting at.

"This is nothing special. I'm just painting. That's all there is to it. Painting helps me."

Max nodded. "I see. But if you ever change your mind, I'm sure you'll do very well."

"I won't," Charlotte stated. "My paintings are mine."

She'd had lost a few, and had been forced to throw away others after they got ruined, but she still had the bulk of the paintings she had made since she had first started Japanese brush painting, three years ago. Some of those may not be the best, but she was proud of them and wouldn't part with them even if she was paid.

"Good luck with them nevertheless," Max replied. "And good luck with everything else also."

He waited as if to see whether she would say anything else. When she didn't, he said, "Have a good evening."

Charlotte mustered a small smile. "You too, Max."

He nodded at her again, and then walked away.

After Max vanished behind the dunes, Charlotte turned back to the blank paper and the scenery before her. Most of the yellow and orange in the sky had faded, replaced by vibrant purple streaks. Still, this picture would also look lovely on paper. It might even sell for something, if she decided to do it.

But she wouldn't do it. And she wouldn't give away or even sell any of them. Her paintings were hers.

Isn't that kind of what you thought about Lewis? A voice at the back of her head reminded her. And look at how that turned out.

Charlotte pursed her lips and gulped as if that would shush the voice. But it had a point. She had done quite a lot of things wrong. That party she had readied for Lewis where she hadn't even bothered to find out what he liked or to invite any of his actual friends hadn't been her best moment; not to mention that she hadn't exactly been able to invite any actual friends of hers either. And perhaps she had been a bit too forceful in trying to keep Lewis away from Cleo and those two stupid blondes.

When she tackled that issue again, she'd have to be a bit smarter.

Not like I'll do it anytime soon. She thought as she applied the first stroke of ink to the paper. With finding out to help my mother, I won't have time for anything else.

That by itself isn't a problem. Charlotte thought as she dipped the brush in ink once more.

She knew she could help her mother by getting a job. But unlike Emma or especially Cleo, she wasn't dumb enough to work a job bound to get her wet and risk her secret. That alone gave her less options than most. And she couldn't work a full time job either; her mother had expressly told her she didn't want her grades failing, and Charlotte wanted to spare her that concern. And she didn't really have a resumé either, as she had never worked a job before. People these days didn't really give chances to anyone. She might end up knocking on a hundred doors before anyone even listened to her, much less accepted her.

And in the meantime, who knew what financial state she and her mother would end up in.

You wouldn't have that problem if you followed Max's suggestion and sold your paintings.

Charlotte let the brush hang in midair. There might be a point to those words, but she wouldn't do that. Her paintings were her pride and joy.

But can't you really part with just a few? Don't you think your mother needs the money more than you need to have the paintings gathering dust?

Charlotte frowned. She didn't want to part with any of her paintings. They were her creations. She had invested hours in each and every of them. They were special. But the voice was right. There was no way how much money they had saved up, how fast it would be spent, or when her mother would find her next job. Given that her mother was forty-three, that could take quite a while, and any job she found could be badly paid. Her mother would need the money more than Charlotte needed to keep all those paintings.

Charlotte looked past the paper into the sea. The water mirrored the purple streaks in the sky, like a huge tapestry of abstract art. Beauty might be in the eye of the beholder, but Charlotte's was showing her a lot of it. And underwater it would be even more beautiful. The treasure of any artist.

Treasure! Charlotte thought as if a camera's light bulb had flashed in her mind. There are plenty of sunken treasures! If I find one, mother and I will be set for life!

And not only treasures. There were corals, pearls… if she thought hard enough, the sea was more valuable than a goldmine. All she had to do was get some of those things and that would be it.

And how would you explain your mother how you managed to get those things?

Charlotte's heart dropped again, as her expression. True. The trade of just about everything that could be found in the sea ranged from highly regulated to illegal, and if Charlotte was caught trying to sell any of those things, she'd go to jail - which again, she couldn't as a mermaid. Besides, she didn't want to unwittingly contribute to some kind of nature disaster, no matter how small. If she was a mermaid who spent most of her time in the sea, she might as well take proper care of the place.

As for a treasure, how would she explain that either? For all she knew, removing it could be illegal as well, and even if it wasn't, she hadn't been exactly an expert swim or diver before being a mermaid. She had been able to swim well enough, but nothing like what would be needed to be able to scuba dive, which she hadn't been interested in either. Her mother would get too suspicious if she showed up with a treasure.

It looks like the paintings really are my only option.

Charlotte let out a deep sigh. It seemed the battle was lost. But regarding this matter, she could be a graceful loser. At least selling some of her paintings would be easy enough. Her aunt could help her get the paperwork she would need to be able to legally sell them at some stand. Not to mention that these days it was possible to sell such things online, anyway. If she sold them at both places, she'd have a higher chance of selling more, and thus making more money.

The breeze quickened a bit as if to snap her out of her thoughts. Charlotte refocused on the setting, and noticed that the sun was already even farther below the horizon. If she waited much longer, she wouldn't have anything to paint but a black stain specked in white, and that wasn't what she wanted to capture.

Charlotte took a resolute breath, and then again put the brush to the paper. The light kept decreasing around her. But if she was lucky, her decision to sell her paintings would bring some of it back into hers and her mother's lives.

So, another chapter has gone by. I know the girls keep being 'unduly aggressive' but again, remember they still have no reason to think Charlotte has 'improved' so to speak.

And I know Charlotte hasn't improved that much herself either, but remember it's only been two days since she regained her tail. It takes longer than that to undergo significant changes.

Until next chapter. Again, I'll try my best to take less time with it.