Chapter Five
Underwater vegetation sure was different than land vegetation. Everything was very floaty and twisty, unbound by something as silly as gravity. On top of that, the gardens always aimed to get the most unique and colorful flora from the area. One of the flowers was taller than Aimes and it seemed to sway in the currents. Aimes watched the plant dance to unheard music, lulling her ever closer, until Verdana pulled Aimes away.
"You don't want to touch that one," Verdana urged. "Or you might need another diaper change."
"Oh..." Aimes blushed a little, feeling a little silly. When she noticed Pawson smiling, she stuck out her tongue at him.
"Come on, this way." Verdana led the way toward a series of heavy looking boxes. She opened one up like it was a treasure chest and pulled out a handful of colored pearls.
"Are those the colors?" Pawson asked.
"How do you use them?" Aimes asked, a much more pressing question.
"They are concentrated from some of the local flora," Verdana explained. "The surface of these pearls is permeable, so you can put your finger in and take it out again without breaking the seal. Then you draw with the color."
"That's incredible!" Aimes said, grabbing for the pearls.
"Ah, ah," Verdana laughed. "We should do this outside the city. Colors get everywhere."
"Especially with Aimes painting," Pawson added.
"I'm an excellent painter," Aimes said, "especially with my fingers!"
With the cloth and the colors, Verdana led Aimes and Pawson back to the front of the city. She couldn't pull them along this time, and by the time Aimes saw the city gate, she was starting to understand what Pawson meant about swimming taking a lot of energy. It was exhausting!
"Is swimming easier with a tail?" Pawson asked Verdana.
"I don’t know," the mermaid said, laughing a little, "I’ve never swam without a tail."
"That does make me feel foolish for asking."
"Don’t feel silly! It’s a good question!"
"Is here good enough?" Aimes asked impatiently.
"A little further," Verdana insisted.
The three of them went past the entrance to Atlantis and stopped near the ocean floor. Aimes put her bare feet in the sand, but it was hard to keep from floating upward. Verdana unfolded the cloth. It was maybe six or seven feet long and two or three feet tall. It was a good size for a banner.
Verdana taught Aimes and Pawson how to paint with the colors. The banner would float in the water no matter what they did, so it was important to float along with it. If they dipped their finger in a color, they could paint with that color. The colors liked to run, because the whole banner was wet, but they could draw lines by rubbing the pearl on the fabric like a crayon.
It took Aimes and Pawson a long time to learn the tricks, and they still weren't very good at them. But each time they dipped a finger - or paw - into a pearl, it left a little splash of color in the water. Eventually those colors started to grow into wispy clouds, coloring the whole fabric in whirls of faded pastels. When the banner was complete, it was shimmery and magnificent, like no other banner in the world.
Aimes loved to learn things: she loved learning how to climb rocks, she loved learning how to count to a million, she loved learning how to travel through time, and she loved learning how to finger paint with Atlantian watercolors with her new mermaid friend. But like all good things, this adventure - just as all of Aimes and Pawson’s other adventures - had to come to an end.
"I’m going to hang this up," Aimes said to Verdana, "and you’ll get lots more visitors! I know you’re all very shy but do your best, okay?"
Verdana nodded nervously, and Aimes swallowed her sadness. Goodbyes were always the worst part of making new friends.
"I’m gonna miss you," Aimes said. "But we’ll come back to visit."
"We will," Pawson said in agreement. "Thank you for showing us around your home."
"Thank you for visiting," the blue-haired mermaid said with a smile. "I will miss you both." Then, as an afterthought, Verdana asked: "Are you sure you don't want a ride to the pool? It's a confusing path."
"We can do it," Aimes said confidently. "I left arrows to mark the way back."
"Alright then." Verdana waved. "Goodbye Aimes and Pawson."
"Goodbye Verdana," they both said in unison, and started swimming up toward the surface.
Aimes' arrows proved to be a good idea, but halfway through the cave she started to regret not asking for a lift. She didn't have the same mobility with the banner under her arm, and Pawson was struggling with a lot of upward swimming.
"Almost there," Pawson encouraged, noticing the exhaustion in his companion.
"It feels like forever," Aimes whined. The two of them were using the rocks to help them move, jumping from one end of the cave to the other. The strap under Aimes' chin was starting to chafe and Pawson's paws kept slipping off the rocks.
"Almost there," Pawson said again, a few minutes later.
"I don't even see the light yet," Aimes complained.
The glowing algae that had been so pretty on the way up was dim and sleepy now. Both of them felt like the could lull off to sleep at any moment, but falling asleep underwater was never a good idea. That’s Adventuring 101.
"Almost there," Pawson said once more, and just as he did, both of them broke the surface of the pool. There was no light to follow because there was no light out: the sun had gone down and the sky was growing crowded with stars.
Aimes crawled to the ladder and managed to pull herself up onto the deck. She collapsed on her back, soaking the cold concrete. Under the full effect of gravity, she struggled to move her arms and legs. Pawson sat at her side and patted Aimes on the arm for support. He tried to wring out his hands, but he was as waterlogged as Aimes' diaper.
"Do you think the mermaids come here at night to look at the stars?" Aimes asked. They were pretty tonight.
"I would if I were them," Pawson said.
"I can't believe we met a mermaid," Aimes laughed.
"I can't believe we found Atlantis," Pawson laughed.
"I'm glad we did though," Aimes said.
"I'm glad too," Pawson said. "I can always count on you to lead me to another adventure."
It was a long while before either of them felt capable of doing anything, but all that ended when Aimes spoke.
"One more thing to do," she said.
She didn't want to move, but she made a promise. Aimes returned the fish bowl to the diorama and strung up the banner over the top of it. No matter how much time seemed to go by, the fabric of the banner always felt a little bit wet.
Before leaving the public pool, Aimes and Pawson stood in the entryway and looked up at the banner, shimmering in the moonlight above the ocean life diorama. On the magnificent fabric was a rather juvenile painting of a mermaid with blue hair, a messy cityscape, and some splotchy colorful words: "Atlantis!!! Yes Diving".
The three exclamation points were Aimes' idea.