Do you ever think that water might actually have a shape?   

We mold it into bottles, 

bathtubs, 

bubbles, 

Ice-cubes 

.... but what about its original form? 

Does it have one?                                            Does it want one?              

                         Does it even know?                                                    Is it scared of finding out? 

Are we?  

Do we make water feel safe when we assign its 

       shapes?

It's how I feel. I feel like water.

• decorated eclair

• a set of nail polishes (must be in season!!) 

• Body shimmer WATERPROOF body shimmer 

• Romeo and Juliet. Get this from Poet?? (1142 Summer Salt Lane, Port de Sel) if Poet says no, tell him Nate will give him his 2005 Dictionary of Internet Slang AND his copy of Old man and the Sea 

• MEET NATE AT SUNSET!! 

I regretted only writing down so little about this Poet guy. I had gotten everything Nate wanted but I had just wished I wasn’t outside this stranger’s door. 

A tall woman opened the door wearing an apron and stilettos. I was too busy thinking about how anyone could cook wearing heels like those that I didn’t hear what she had said. 

She repeated more annoyed this time, “Hello?” 

“Oh, hi. I’m looking for Poet? Does he live here?” I asked, trying not to look down at her heels again. 

“I suppose you’re looking for my son, Declan Poet and not my husband, Arbus Poet?” she continued to look at me strangely. 

“I think - um, yeah,” to be honest, I wasn’t really sure if Nate did mean Arbus. I wouldn’t put it past him to befriend a classmate’s dad before he could befriend the classmate themself.

She stepped back in and leaned over the stair railing, “Declan! You have a visitor!” 

She smiled at me in our awful silence until a tall boy raced down the stairs. He seemed disappointed that it was me he was meeting.  

“Who are you?” he asked as his mom walked away. 

“I’m Nate’s friend. Do you know Nathaniel Funkel?” I tucked my hair back nervously. 

“Yeah, unfortunately sometimes I do know him,” he responded and crossed his arms, “What does he want this time?” 

“He wants Romeo and Juliet-” 

“No. You know how hard it is to find Shakespeare these days? I only have three copies of that play,” he explained and I could see his patience withering away. 

I reviewed my list again, “He said he’ll give you the 2005 Dictionary of Internet Slang and his copy of The Old Man and the Sea.”  

“It’s from 2005? Are you sure? That’s ancient!” his green eyes lit up and a smile washed up on his face, “2005...wow. I have to have it. The Old Man and the Sea - he can keep that. Worst book I ever read.” 

“Well then the dictionary is yours but I need Romeo and Juliet now. Like right now,” I replied as colors like pink and purple started to fly their way across the sky.  

Poet climbed his stairs and returned the next second as if he was prepared for Nate’s request. He insisted on tagging along because “he usually has to get Nate out of trouble” and whatever we were up to was probably going to require his heroism. 

“How do you know Nate?” Poet asked, clutching the play in his arms. 

“He’s my grandmother’s neighbor. His mom asked if I could…” I didn’t want to embarrass Nate. I knew he was an outcast but I didn’t want anyone to think that even his mom thought that too. 

“If you could bring him out of his shell? Make him like the other boys?” he filled in, “Yeah, I know. He doesn’t have any friends. People at school avoid him at every cost. The rumors are worse. New ones about him sprout up everyday.” 

Another awkward silence filled a conversation between me and another member of the Poet family but this Poet wasn’t afraid of breaking it, “You don’t live here, do you? You don’t go to Seaside Bridge Prep, at least.” 

“No. I live in Westwilde but I’m staying in Port de Sel over the summer,” I explained, walking past the shops now and hoping to make it to Cursed Coral Beach in 10 minutes.  

“Lucky! I’d give anything to move to the literary capital of this country,” he smiled at me again and this time I figured out that I really, really liked it. 

“You’re really into reading and all of that, aren’t you?” I asked feeling embarrassed that my past times included shopping, getting lectured by my mom for shopping too much, and eating overpriced pastries. I felt like I needed to impress him and have intelligent things roll out of my mouth every second. 

“You’re not?” he asked and then he stopped walking, “Look at this place.” 

I glanced around but I didn’t know what he wanted me to look for.

“Boring. Boring trees. Boring people. Boring life. Our only escape is that there,” he pointed at the sea that was minutes down this grassy hill, “And guess what? We can’t even sail it. Isn’t it weird that nobody cares that much to explore it?” 

Poet was right. We were all content with hardly any access to the water that surrounds our country. No one is allowed to be at sea and only some beaches were okay to explore.

“The only way to truly go someplace else is through reading,” he finished. 

“I never thought of it that way,” I replied but truthfully, I had never thought about it at all. 

“The only time where Nate and I agree is when he shouts in math class that our government doesn’t want us to think that much. I guess that makes me a bit of a conspiracist but it doesn’t make me as passionate as it does to Nate. Who knows what the hell we’re going to be doing tonight,” Poet went on and again, he was right.  

“HELP!” 

Poet and I looked at each other and then, ran down the rest of the hill and onto the forbidden beach. We darted over the seaweed and through a 

 crowd of small flies  crowd of small flies 

crowd of small flies       crowd of small flies

 crowd of small flies crowd of small flies crowd of small flies. 

Nate was struggling at the end of a group of mossy rocks that met the ocean and something was pulling him in. He looked back and screamed at us. 

Poet handed me Romeo and Juliet, “Guard this with your life!” 

I didn’t want to sit back and Poet was crazy if he thought I was going to do just that. I put the play inside the bag of items Nate sent me to get and left it where the waves would not reach it. I followed Poet whose longs legs had already helped him climb the large rocks and sprang him forward towards Nate. 

“POET!” Nate let out another yelp. 

The monstrous green moss stared back at me as I searched for a clear part of the rock to grab. I was close to letting Poet remain right. Maybe I should stay down here but my curiosity was stronger than my repulsion. As I climbed, my knees and my perfectly polished, Cynthia Faye white block heels with the star ankle strap grazed the moss as I hoisted myself up and I felt apart of myself die inside. 

Poet was tugging Nate away and cursing him all at the same time. I crawled slowly over and saw Nate’s aggressor: 

A slimy woman whose eyes were positioned on the side of her face and a large scaled tail splashing furiously like a boat propeller.  

I screamed as I flinched back because nothing in my life had prepared me for this. I felt like all my being had been squeezed out of me and evaporated into air.  

Nate was let go immediately and whispered, “She has sensitive ears…I forgot.”  

He scurried off the rocks and Poet tugged at me.

“Poet, what was-” 

“Do you really want to know?” he asked as he helped me down and kept eye contact. It was as if he saw the best version of me and I wanted to know what that looked like.

“Hey, Romeo and Juliet,” Nate called.  

“What?” Poet and I answered together. 

“Poet, you brought Romeo and Juliet. I thought the only way I’d get my hands on it is over your dead body,” he replied. 

Poet walked closer, took the play, and pointed out Nate’s arm, “What’s that?”

Nate was examining the purple blotches on his arm and Poet asked, “Is that thing poisonous or something? Did it poison you with its grip?”

“No,” Nate answered quietly, shivering at her continuous splashes a few feet away, “The water is.” 

I pushed him and that broke him out of his fascinated daze. 

“What was that for?” he asked. 

I looked out at the water and I had no clue what was staring back at me but I knew that it didn’t like me very much. I also knew that it would send me to jail if anyone knew.

“What the hell, Nate?” All I could muster was a calm but confused anger. Angry that he sent me running errands for this THING. Already getting me in trouble for trespassing onto this smelly beach and now I was going to go to jail for being apart of this crime. I wanted to be nice to him this one time because I knew it would mean a lot to my grandmother. He made it hard to be his friend.

REALLY HARD. 

“Look, she was nice. She is nice! We just got into a little...argument,” he explained. 

“That was no little anything! What are you even doing talking to a mermaid? You- we all could go to jail for this!” I scolded. 

“She’s important! Haven’t you ever been curious about what one looked like? Because they all don’t look like her. There’s many mermaids in the sea apparently. The scientists made many versions: some who look like humans, some that can’t breathe air, some that are large, etc. The one thing they all have in common is that they’re all dying out here. Even the ones equipped to survive.” he explained frantically, “I wanted to know why and now I know. Now you know.” He raised his arm in front of our faces to show the blotches.

I looked over at Poet for help but he did not seem to care. He was nose deep in Romeo and Juliet. Probably reading it for the tenth time as a goodbye. 

“So what’s your plan? Save all the mermaids?” I asked in disbelief. 

“Not all. But at least this one.” he replied, “It’s our duty as humans to care for every creature. I mean, look what our ancestors have done. You don’t think I wanted to see a whale in my lifetime?” 

“But that doesn’t make sense,” I responded, giving another glance at the annoyed mermaid, “Didn’t they say they were replenishing the sea? There’s pictures. There’s so many fish now.”

“It’s all one big lie! This mermaid, she and I decided that her name is Iris - Iris told me that there aren’t any of the fish they showed us.” 

“So what is down there then?” 

“When she described them to me, I couldn’t think of any animal like it. I even checked Poet’s animal dictionary and nothing came close to resembling it. The worst part is that the animals down there are changing so fast that children don’t even look like their parents. There could be millions of new species down there. All of them thriving in whatever that is because the ocean isn’t filled with water anymore. Does that even make it an ocean? What makes an ocean?” 

“What’s making it so toxic?” 

“I don’t know but Iris can’t survive being there. She’s going to die soon if we don’t get her to-” 

“Look!” Poet exclaimed. We met him at a pool of water that trickled down to the ocean. “Look at your reflection.” 

“What about it?” I asked. I looked at myself. It was the same as looking into any body of water except now, it reflected back a criminal and not a sweet granddaughter, not the most popular girl at Westwilde Prep, or the girl Poet was just looking at.  

“There’s double reflections,” Nate answered, “But how…” 

I kept looking at myself and now my appearance had doubled. There was two of me. One reflection fit into my silhouette like the perfect size. It was still like a mirror reflection but the other was distorted as the water moved. The other didn’t know what shape it wanted to be. Even though it was strange, it felt like a more accurate portrayal than what regular water would show you.  

“Well this is enough for one day,” Poet concluded, “Let’s just all go home before we’re caught.” 

“Let’s meet early tomorrow. That’s all I can bear to wait. I need to move Iris out of here asap,” Nate declared. 

“You also need to go to the doctor’s.” 

“But it doesn’t hurt or anything. It’s almost like color dye.” 

“I wouldn’t be so complacent.” 

“What about the stuff? The stuff you made me buy?” I asked, pointing at the bag. 

“Is it alright if I keep Romeo and Juliet but also have the 2005 slang book?” Poet asked. 

“Keep Romeo and Juliet … for now but the 2005 book will stay with me. I’ll need it again in the future to convince you to trade again,” he laughed, “I’ll go leave the stuff at the shore and she’ll grab it herself.” 

“Okay, well I’ll see you two later.” Poet said as Nate waved and started to take the list of items sans Romeo and Juliet to the shoreline, “Hey, I never got your name.” 

“Oh, right. I’m Misha. Misha Procella.” I smiled. 

“Procella? Interesting. I hope your husband changes his last name to yours,” he commented as he shook my hand gently. 

“Poet is a pretty cool last name too.” I complimented back. 

“Not as cool as Procella,” he let go of my hand and I think if it wasn’t for my bones giving me shape, I would have turned into puddles of insecurity, “I’m pretty sure I’ll see you tomorrow. Another day of having to save Nate. Not how I imagined my summer. But anyway, don’t let him get into too much trouble from now and until morning.” 

I waved him goodbye and was joined by Nate. He lead us back to our street in Port de Sel. 

“Of course, popular Miss Misha Procella and popular Poet are drawn to each other by their popular DNA,” Nate teased, “Next time you want to do romantic stuff together, maybe just don’t bother saving me.” 

“We just met! Besides, DNA does not control who you’re attracted to. At least, I don’t think so,” I defended, “And what about you, huh? I’ve-” 

“I admire her strange beauty but I’m not in love with her,” he said and I didn’t want to doubt him on that. 

That night, I lied to my grandmother on how Nate and I spent our day. I lied to her about meeting Poet. I lied to her about the mermaid and the new information I knew. I just lied into bed and wanted to stop lying. 

Then, I couldn’t stop thinking about my reflections. I couldn’t stop thinking about who I was. I couldn’t stop thinking about how even my body changes naturally. I could never be the same person as I was the previous second. I had a feeling of loss for who I once was as if I had any clue. Everything about me was constantly changing if not with my body then with my words and interactions. All of that composed me. All of that was trying to shape me.  

I still felt all over the place like someone tipped me over and I was scared of someone stepping into an ocean of my most negative qualities: stubborn, a coward, and plenty more.

I was scared of becoming because I didn’t know who I was becoming. All I knew was that I felt safe when my grandmother described me to her friends over the phone and safe that Nate wasn’t complaining about my shape. Even Poet liked the shape of me and maybe everything inside it too. 

Will I ever know my shape? Is it a good one? Do I even have one or will I be constantly morphing?

And then I thought about what Nate asked earlier. If the ocean is constantly changing, how is it still an ocean? If I’m constantly changing, what makes me, me?