The Secrets of Pimsim Cove - 22. Chapter 22

Only three more hours until we leave for the airport. I was so excited about going back to Pimsim Cove that I packed my bags weeks ago and now I’d forgotten what I had packed. Plopping the big black suitcase onto my bed shook Cassy’s feet off the edge. She pulled her ear buds out and gave me an irritated scowl.

“I thought we’d checked this already?” She said, as I grabbed outfits from my suitcases and double-checked each item that she had matched-up. I had to make sure they still looked good. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her savvy fashion coordination, but I was super-duper nervous and needed something to fiddle with.

Cassy was a fashion goddess. She’s been accepted to the Istituto Marangoni School for Fashion and was getting ready to leave next week for Paris.

“I know, I know, I know, but I want to make sure that everything is still perfect…I need to look perfect when I see him again.” I told her as I nervously checked all of my most important belongings.

White flashed from Cassy’s sparkly teeth when she smiled, showing every perfect tooth in her pretty head. I was going to miss her so much. Tears overwhelmed my eyes as I pulled her into a tight hug and whispered, “I love you! You’re more than just my best friend. You’re the sister that I’ve always wanted.”

“I love you, too!” Cassy murmured.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! We both jumped when the loud thumping banged on my bedroom door. “Jimmy!” We both said in unison and started giggling.

“Come in, you little monster.” I finished the last part under my breath. A wild haired ball of energy catapulted into my bedroom, leaped through the air and landed inside of my open suitcase. Noticing his dirty tennis shoes on my clean and neatly folded clothes, I let out a shriek.

“Mommy told me to tell you that she wants to load up the car in five minutes.” He held up his hand and wiggled all the fingers on his left hand for emphasis. “So…get your butt moving!”

He flashed an adorable grin before jumping out of my suitcase and darting out of my room before I could swat his skinny little butt. Who was I fooling? I could never stay upset with Jimmy after he gave me one of his sweet lopsided grins.

***

Summertime in Atlanta is sweltering. My hair spiraled into unruly curls as soon as I stepped onto the front porch. Dad finished loading the bags into the car, while Mom bounced baby Marcus on her hip.

“Aayaa!” Marcus squealed when he saw me. His bright green eyes sparkled in the sunlight. I know that I might be a tad biased, but Marcus was the cutest baby on earth. Chubby little, sticky hands clapped as he grinned wide enough to see his two baby teeth poking through the bottom of his gums.

When he began to squirm uncontrollably, Mom smiled. “Hold on wiggly bug,” she said trying to keep him from falling, but he launched himself into my arms instead.

“Aayaa!” Marcus squealed with triumph when I held him tight and kissed his curly red head. Mom’s eyes misted with tears for the millionth time this week.

“Do you have everything?” She asked.

“Yes Mom.”

“You have your tickets and papers?” She nervously asked for the fifth time today. The tickets and passports were safely tucked away in my purse, along with the temporary guardianship papers that Mom and Dad filled out, giving me permission to take Jimmy out of country.

***

Jimmy had cried for two days straight when Dad told him that they had to change their original plans because of an important project at work. Since Dad had to oversee the ribbon cutting ceremony at the Nikomoto Building next week, they had to bump their flight to Ireland to the following week, but they were still planning on staying the entire summer.

“Why can’t I just take Jimmy with me?” I asked when Dad announced they couldn’t come with me right after graduation like we’d planned. From their look of utter shock, I guess the idea had never occurred to either one of them.

“Anna honey, you’re way too young--” Dad started to protest.

“Wait a minute! I’m old enough to travel halfway around the world, by myself might I add, to save your butt from evil Talbot…

“Anna--”

“No Dad!” I impatiently tapped the toe of my uber-cute Sketchers on the hardwood floor. “I fought Forest Fairies, big hairy Trolls, and I even out-swam a shark!”

“Anna--”

“I’m old enough to chaperone my little brother to our grandparents’ house.” I huffed.

“I agree!” His sudden agreement caught me off guard. I still had a few more points to make for my side of the argument, but now they were no longer important.

“You agree?” I asked. My big green eyes were wide with surprise.

“Yes, honey, you’re absolutely right. You have to be the bravest young woman alive and I know that Jimmy will be perfectly safe in your care…so yes, when you go to Pimsim Cove after graduation, Jimmy can go with you.” He turned to look at Jimmy who was anxiously watching our argument, with his head bouncing back and forth like a furry red tennis ball. “That is, if you still want to go with Anna?”

Jimmy’s face lit up as he jumped up on top of Mom’s favorite leather ottoman and leaped into Dad’s arms. “Yes! Oh yes! Oh yes! I want to go…I want to go to Pimsim Cove with Anna and see Grandma Rosy and Grandpa Stony.”

“Well then,” Dad swung Jimmy around in his arms as he carried him through the house. “It’s settled. You two can go on ahead of us and we’ll bring Marcus after I finish up with work.”

***

The seats in first-class were comfy. I was glad that most of the other passengers were flying coach, leaving Jimmy and me with nobody sitting in the seats immediately surrounding us.

Most of the blinds had been pulled closed when we first boarded the plane, but Jimmy made it his mission to dart between each row of seats to push them all up, letting the bright sunshine fill the cabin.

I was so worried that I would forget something, that I checked, and double checked, and triple checked to make sure that I had everything. Boarding passes, check. Passports, check. Jimmy’s guardianship papers, check.

I was forgetting something…what could it be? It looked like I had everything. Everything else that I needed for the summer, was packed in the belly of the plane, so what could it be?

“Smurf!” I muttered remembering that I had left my journal sitting on my bedroom dresser. How could I have left it behind? I clenched my eyes closed. I would just have to call Mom and have her mail it to me or bring it with her when she and Dad joined us in two weeks.

Every night, for the last year, I would read and re-read all of my notes about Pimsim Cove and Sean so I could fall asleep with the memories of last summer’s visit still fresh in my mind. I wanted to document this trip as well and add every new detail to my journal.

“What’s wrong, Anna?” Jimmy’s soft voice was full of concern. Letting out a deep breath, I opened my eyes and gasped when I saw my journal in his tiny little hands.

“My journal,” I exclaimed. “You have it! Oh my goodness, Jimmy. I thought that I had left it back home.”

Jimmy shook his strawberry head and giggled. “There’s no way that I would let you forget this.” He said hold it up in his hands. That’s when I noticed the words gouged into the front cover. Jimmy had scratched, ‘The Secrets of Pimsim Cove’ onto the front of my journal.

“Your book needed a good title.” He said as he handed it over to me.

“Jimmy, it’s not just a book.” I turned the journal to him. “This is not like one of those fairytales, that Mom and Dad read to you before bedtime. This is real…it’s my story about all the things that happened to me, back in Ireland.”

“So the parts about the stinky Trolls and those mean Fairies…they were real?” He finished on a gulp.

I nodded my head and looked around the nearly empty plane cabin to make sure that nobody had taken a sudden interest in what we were talking about. “Yep, it’s all real. The crazy stuff, the good stuff and even the really bad stuff…it was all real.”

“But Mom said that you’re going to be a writer someday and that’s why you take all of those craftive writing classes--”

“Creative writing classes,” I corrected him with a smile.

“Yeah, creative writing classes to learn how to write make-believe stories.”

“That’s why I’m going to college in the fall, I want to become a writer someday…but this story,” holding up my blue journal with the little embellishments of the sun, and the moon, and the soft ocean waves. “This story is all real!” I whispered to him making him giggle.

“Dad told me that everything that happens there…is a secret. He said that I can never-ever-ever tell anyone, no matter what.” Jimmy suddenly got very serious.

“He’s absolutely right. It is a secret and we can’t tell anyone outside of our family…so it’s okay for the two of us to talk about it, but it has to stay a secret to protect everyone in Pimsim Cove.”

He scrunched up his freckled nose. “Even the hairy old Trolls?”

“Yep, even the hairy old Trolls. They might be a little smelly, but they aren’t so bad after you get to know them…and get past all of their clutter.”

Jimmy rested his head on my shoulder while his eyes gazed out at the fluffy clouds fluttering past the airplane window. His lower lip trembled. “In your story, Anna, you said that you were different ‘cause Mom is Human and Dad is a fish.”

“Triton, Dad is a Triton.” I giggled at the thought of Dad swimming around in Jimmy’s fishbowl back home in Atlanta. Dad in a fish tank…hehehe!

“What if I’m different too?” He looked scared of his unknown future.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re like me…or like Mom…or even like Dad, as long as you are you! At least you’ll have me there to help you through it. No matter what happens, Jimmy, I’ll always stick by your side.”

“Thanks Anna,” he whispered as his big, green eyes fluttered closed when he drifted off to sleep.

***

“We’re here, Anna, we’re here!” Jimmy shouted and jumped up and down on the front seat of Rook’s pickup truck. The large stone wall surrounding the little town of Pimsim Cove came into view when we drove over the last sloping hill.

I knew that he was going to go crazy when he saw the drawbridge lower the huge wooden door down, letting us pass over the watery moat.

Rook smiled at Jimmy’s enthusiasm for everything.

“Jimmy is really a very good kid.” I told him. “He’s just a little bit excitable and this is all so new and different for him. He’ll calm down…eventually.” Rook shot me a doubtful look when he bounced around looking from side to side, out the truck windows, but I knew Jimmy. After all of the amazement and the wonder wore off a little, he would settle down.

The wind blew through the mystical forest of twisty trees. I saw the Fairies step out from their intertwining tree limbs and sniff at the evening air. I didn’t want to get Jimmy stirred up too much more, but Rook and I both watched their leader take her place in front of the moat. She held up a thin bony hand, silently welcoming me back.

The last rays of sunshine reflected off the sparkly ocean water. I wanted to see Sean before it got dark. A year had been way too long to wait to feel his warm arms wrapped around me. Suddenly, fear coiled inside of my chest…what if he didn’t wait for me…I had only received three letters from him over the last year. All of them had been brief, more like notes than actual letters and the last one had arrived weeks ago…what if Sean had found someone new?

He was the King of Pimsim City after all. He had to be considered the most eligible bachelor around. Not to mention that he was drop dead gorgeous, his body was breathtaking and those eyes…I would die if those beautiful gray eyes ever looked at someone else.

I wasn’t aware that my breath was suddenly coming in quick little panicked gasps until Rook whispered softly, “It’ll be okay.”

Lost in a nightmare of make-believe infidelities, I hadn’t noticed how quickly that we had passed through the quiet little town, until I felt Uncle Rook’s truck come to a jarring stop in front of the McLoughlin’s home.

Daylight was gone. The last glimmer of sunshine had been chased into the night. My heart sank as I looked out over the dark water behind the cottage. The moon hung low in the summer sky, casting the tiniest bits of silver shimmers across the calm ocean.

Rosy and Stonebrook shuffled around inside the house, rushing towards the front door. As I turned to head towards the open doorway, I heard a soft chuckle floating on the breeze from the sea.

“I think the fish are laughing at me,” I muttered.

“No, you beautiful American, I’m laughing at you, my love.” His voice washed over me like a warm comforting song.

“Sean!” I gasped as Rosy smiled down at me from the tiny front porch.

“Well darling, don’t just stand there…go say hello to the boy. He’s been lovesick something terrible ever since you’ve been gone.” Stonebrook teased.

“Da!” Rook scolded him, but I didn’t care. I kicked my shoes off as I raced down the stone steps that led to the wooden dock.

I rushed to empty my pockets as I ran. The salt water would destroy my cell phone and ipod so I cautiously left them on the first plank at the start of the long dock and then kept running.

Dashing to the edge, I jumped. Incredibly, I soared through the night sky. Moonlight sparkled off my purple scales as I changed in mid-air before I even plunged into the salty water.

“Wow,” Rook laughed from back on shore. “Looks like little Anna learned a few new tricks while she was gone.”

Sean rushed to meet me and for the first time, I was glad that he could swim faster than I could, because when he pulled me into his arms and captured my lips in the most spectacular kiss, I knew that he loved me. That was one secret that I didn’t have to keep.

The end