Chapter Seven: Plans and Confessions

After everyone confirmed that they were going to stay and complete the mission, Lindsay suggested that they all go back to the forest to make their plans. Suddenly, before they started walking through the tunnel, someone came out of the tunnel to the right.

It was Sarah!

"Sarah!" Andrew exclaimed. "You're alright!"

"Guys!" Sarah said. She ran up to everyone and started hugging them. She was so happy to have found her friends.

After the happy reunions, Kelsey asked;

"What happened?"

Sarah sighed. "It was terrible! Those skeletons dragged me away during the fight back at the house, and took me through the tunnel where I absolutely ruined my shoes!"

Everyone grinned at each other. They just knew that Sarah was going to bring that up.

"Anyway," Sarah continued. "They took me through a factory place and put me into a room and locked me up. After they left, I banged at the door until it finally opened, then I decided to look for you guys." When Sarah finished, she looked around. "Where's Merrilee?"

Sean sighed. "She was kidnapped by pirates and now we're gonna try to go rescue her."

Sarah freaked out. "PIRATES!?"

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Half an hour later, Kelsey, Sean, Sarah, Eddie, Lindsay and Andrew were sitting in the forest that Eddie and Lindsay had found earlier with Merrilee. They were all planning how they were going to go through with this 'rescue mission.'

"We need to attack them while they're still here. They may lift anchor and go to sea at any time and then we'll never see Merrilee again!"

Kelsey shook her head and gave a short chuckle. "You don't need to be afraid of that happening."

Everyone looked at her quizziclly. "Why not?" they all asked.

Kelsey went on with her explaination. "According to my calculations, those pirates have hardly ever left the vicinity of this island. They come ashore every day for freash supplies. So all we have to do is wait until early tomorrow morning, sneak aboard the pirate ship while half of the pirates are on the island, and rescue Merrilee."

Kelsey looked around at the others and waited to hear their thoughts on her plan. Sean shook his head in astonishment. "Girl, I don't even wanna know where you figured all that out."

"Well it's a good plan," Lindsay said.

"Yeah, it's better than anything I tried to come up with," Andrew agreed. "What do you think, Eddie?"

At the sound of his name, Eddie jerked his head up and looked around at the group. "Huh!? What?"

"The plan," Sean said, looking at Eddie strangly. "What do you think of the plan that Kelsey came up with for rescuing Merrilee from the pirates?"

"Oh that," Eddie mumbled. "Uh... um yeah I think it's great."

His voice was missing the enthuiasim that everyone else had. Sarah knew that something was wrong. Eddie was never one for zoning out like he just had. She decided that she would find out what was bugging Eddie before the rescue mission was carried out tomorrow...

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After they had all agreed on the plan, Sean, Eddie and Andrew had gone fishing for their dinner. Eddie hadn't caught anything, and everyone knew that he usually did an excelent job at fishing. Something was defintally bugging him.

After dinner, they all went back into the forest, and found a grassy field and they laid out camp on the edge of the field so they still had trees around them for protection just in case.

It was midnight, and everyone should have been asleep. However, Eddie was not. He certainly tried to sleep. He tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable, but no matter what he did, he just couldn't fall asleep. Sarah, awakened by the noises of Eddie's movement, crawled over to him.

"Ed, what's wrong?"

Eddie rolled over on his side, keeping his back to Sarah. "Nothing," he mumbled.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "This isn't 'nothing,' Eddie. You're acting really weird. What's up?"

Eddie never would have thought that it would be Sarah who would be asking him this. She always seemed to care about her hair, or her shoes. No matter what, she was always acting very self-centered and he had never seen her act so serious as she was now.

He kept his back towards her, but this time he decided to come clean. "It's Merrilee."

Sarah cocked her head to one side in curiosity. "What about Merrilee?"

Eddie sighed. "It's my fault Merrilee got kidnapped. I was talking to these mermaids to make her jealous, and I guess it worked a little too well. She ran off be herself and that's how she got kidnapped."

Now Sarah understood. "It is not your fault," she said.

"Yes it is!" Eddie insisted. "If I hadn't tried to make her jealous then she never would have run off. It is my fault!"

Sarah shrugged. "Okay, whatever. But do you think that feeling guilty is going to help Merrilee? What's done is done and there's no way to change that. Now we just have to stay focused and most importantly, stay in control if we're gonna have any chance of saving Merrilee and completing this mission in time. So stop blaming yourself and try to get some sleep."

With that, Sarah crawled back to her own place and laid down once again.

"Okay," Eddie said. "And Sarah? Thanks."

Sarah smiled. No one had ever thanked her for anything before. They always just thought of her as a pain. Maybe she could change her reputation after all.

With this settled in her mind, she went back to sleep to get rested for the day that lay ahead of them. Everyone always said that no one knew what tomorrow would bring, but in this case, it was true that no one knew what tomorrow would bring...