The day of the beach trip was finally upon them and everyone was excited.

“Ooh, I can’t wait to get on my cozzie and get into the sea!” Lottie squealed that morning over breakfast.

“Cozzie?” Aurora asked, spoon halfway to her mouth.

“It’s what I call my swimming costume!”

“Oh, I see.”

“I hope there’s some good waves for surfing,” Jim said.

“The Prof says we can go poking around the rockpools, so that’ll be cool,” Merida said.

“I hope they sell ice cream nearby,” said Jasmine. “No beach trip can be complete without ice cream.”

“I hope I can sneak away for a fag,” Meg muttered.

For the students it felt like breakfast was never going to be over, but then suddenly it was, and so they all snatched up their stuff and ran out of the school where the bus and Professor Porter were waiting for them.

“Now remember to stick together,” he reminded them, “either in pairs or in groups; and no swimming alone, got that?”

“Got it!” the class chorused, before they all piled onto the bus. Belle was particularly excited.

“I haven’t been to the beach since I was six,” she told Adam. “We used to live near the sea, me and Papa, but then we had to move to the town and I just haven’t been since.”

Adam put an arm around her and gave her a squeeze. “Well, I hope it’s as good as you remember.”

Belle smiled and snuggled against him. Flynn, being tugged along past them by Rapunzel, rolled his eyes. “Give us a break!”

“Oh, shut up,” smiled Adam as Rapunzel dragged Flynn into a seat.

Belle closed her eyes. “I remember when I was a child I used to pretend I was swimming with mermaids at the beach.”

“Oh, I read a book about mermaids once,” chirped Lottie, turning about in her seat to face her. “I think it was called Forgive My Fins or something. It was good.”

“I read that!” Belle exclaimed. “I loved that book!”

“Tell you what was a good series,” piped up Snow White from beside Lottie. “The Narnia Books by C.S Lewis.”

That got everyone embroiled in a conversation about mythical creatures up until the bus finally pulled up and they all piled off, facing the beach.

“Woah!”

That was from everyone as they stared at the scenery that lay ahead of them. Words couldn’t describe it.

“It’s beautiful!” sighed Audrey.

“What are we waiting for?” gushed Lottie, clasping her hat on her head to stop it from blowing off. “Let’s go!”

“Now, hold on a moment, class!” exclaimed Professor Porter as they all flew past him, leaving him to juggle specimen jars and nets by himself. “You forgot-oh, for Disney’s sake!”

Chuckling, he shook his head and followed after his charges.

“Last one in the sea is a soggy piece of seaweed!” cried Rapunzel, already tearing her clothes off and patting down her lilac bathing suit.

“Are you not coming?” John asked Ariel, who looked a little doubtful.

“What? Oh, yeah, I’ll join you in a minute.” Scrabbling for an excuse, Ariel turned to Professor Porter. “I’ll give you a hand with those, Professor.”

“Thank you, my girl,” he smiled.

“Ok.” John shrugged and began to pull off his clothes. Ariel took a second to revel in how hot his body was before he raced into the sea, followed by a great many of the others. Belle was relieved to see that she wasn’t the only one with a non-sexy swimming costume on; Lottie, Aurora, Audrey, Merida and even Meg had ones that were in no way revealing, and even those girls who did have sexy costumes didn’t seem bothered by what everyone else was wearing. They all splashed into the seat in a great clump, kicking up sea water and laughing at the tops of their voices.

“You know,” puffed Merida. “It’s harder running in the sea than it looks, isn’t it?”

“I once tried it in flipflops,” Lottie giggled, “but it was like they were weighing my feet down!”

“Aw, yes!” exclaimed Jim, joining them with his surfboard. “Killer waves!”

“You’d better go with him, Flynn,” grinned John. “Make sure he doesn’t drown!”

“Aye, sir!” grinned Flynn, saluting him.

Jasmine laughed. “What are we, pirates, or what?”

“That’d be so cool!” Aladdin, swimming casually on his back, looked up. “Imagine it; if we all boarded a ship and sailed out to find buried treasure; with John Smith as our Captain and us as the crew.”

“I like the sound of that,” Meg said.

“As long as I’m not the Cabin Boy!” Jim called as he surfed over, with Flynn swimming in his wake.

“Seriously, though, if we could only jump aboard a ship of our own,” Meg mused, squeezing water from her hair.

“Maybe one day we can,” said Hercules.

“Yeah!” Audrey laughed and splashed him. “We could find the lost city of Atlantis or something!”

“When you’re all done splashing about,” called Professor Porter, “I have sandwiches and ginger beer in a hamper!”

Though, it turned out, he had brought more than just sandwiches and ginger beer; crisps, fruit and tiny fairycakes, and, much to their surprise and delight, ice cream stored in a freezer he had installed in the bus. Afterwards, everyone did what Professor Porter had brought them to the beach for in the first place, and went scouting in the rock pools, due to his insistence that they wait at least an hour before going back in the sea. This still proved to be fun, however, scrabbling over rocks and slipping in rock pools.

“Hey, if I fall,” grinned Aladdin, balancing on a rock, precariously, “would you give me the kiss of life, Jasmine?”

“No, in fact I’d push you myself,” teased Jasmine, giving him a little nudge.

Aladdin pretended to stagger to the ground. “Argh! Oh, my God! She’s killed me! I’m dying!” He put an arm over his eyes, dramatically. “Oh, goodbye, cruel world!”

Adam laughed. “You’re not going to win any Academy Awards for that performance, Al!”

“Ah, well, worth a try!” he grinned, jumping to his feet.

“You’re a fool,” Jasmine told him, fondly tucking her arm though his.

“Hey, has anyone seen Ariel?” Belle asked, looking around, suddenly. It occurred to her that Ariel hadn’t ventured into the sea in the end, and, come to think of it, she hadn’t seen her since the picnic lunch.

“Um...” John looked around and scratched his head. “Come to think of it, not lately.”

“Ariel!” they all began to call, searching around.

“We need to split up,” Jim decided.

“Yeah.” Flynn nodded. “Ok, John, Rapunzel and I’ll check over by the bus. Jim, Audrey, Merida and Linguini over to that cove over there. Lottie, Snow, Aurora, Hercules and Meg, check out the sea. Belle, Adam, Al and Jasmine, check over by the opposite cove.”

They all split up and ran to search. Belle scrabbled over large rocks heading out to sea, her heart in her mouth for her friend. “Ariel? Ariel!”

“Be careful!” Adam called to her.

Belle looked all around, brushing sand from her hands onto her skirt. “Ariel?” she murmured, weakly, looking around, hoping that she was alright. “Ari-?”

Belle blinked and then gasped. It was there one second and gone the next. She stared at the spot where she had seen it disappear, willing it to appear again. But nothing happened.

“Belle?” Adam hurried up to her. “What is it?”

“I think I just saw...I must be going mad!” Belle shook her head. “No.”

“What? Was it Ariel?”

“No, I think...you’ll I’m mad, but I think I just saw a mermaid!"

Adam blinked at her. “I’m not losing my mind,” Belle insisted, gripping his arm. “I saw...well, it was like a large scaly fish tail, but too big for any fish.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t a whale or something?” Adam asked.

“Whales aren’t green and scaly, Adam.”

“Ok.”

“I’m not losing my mind; I’m not!”

“Ok,” Adam said, gently. “If you say you saw it then you saw it, and hey, that’s amazing, but we really need to find Ariel.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“Found her!” Jasmine was pointing off to the right. Adam and Belle made their way back over and followed her gaze. Ariel was standing over behind Professor Porter, towelling her hair. “Hey!” she called, waving casually to them.

Naturally, everyone ran up to her and seized her in a group hug. “What happened to you?” asked John, incredulously.

Ariel looked embarrassed. “I kind of wandered off, sorry. Don’t tell the Professor,” she added, in a worried whisper.

“What’s going on?” Professor Porter asked, coming up to them.

“Um...Sardines!” grinned Flynn, buddying everyone up and hugging them. “Ariel’s great at it!”

But Belle couldn’t help wondering whether Ariel’s disappearing trick was anything to do with her sighting of the mermaid, if that was even what it was that she had seen in the first place...