Passing her driving test was probably the best thing that had ever happened to her, Gemma White, mused to herself. She felt more of an adult, and she had a bit more freedom, too. Her Mum had a small car, which she was able to borrow under two conditions: the first was that she always had to ask before borrowing it; the second was that she had to pay 25p per mile if it was for her own personal use. However, her parents would pay her the same rate if she was doing an errand for them, and they always made sure there was fuel in it. In practical terms, a visit to the shops for some groceries a couple of times a week meant that she was able to take herself off to the coast at the weekend, without having to pay a penny. This freedom was priceless to Gemma, as she was studying for her A-levels in English, Theatre Studies and German. It gave her the opportunity to get out of the room that she shared with her younger sister, Emily, and enjoy some peace and quiet. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her sister, but as Emily was three years younger, they had different priorities. She didn’t really want Emily to be able to listen in to conversations she might be having either with, or about, boys she fancied. In other ways, Gemma and Emily were very much alike. Now that Emily was fifteen, they were similar heights, and similar builds. Their tastes in music were also very similar, as was their dress sense. Emily had grown up resenting the fact that she often had to wear Gemma’s hand-me-downs, but now that she had filled out, she often “borrowed” Gemma’s clothes. Gemma found this annoying, especially when she found the items that she wanted to wear sitting in the laundry basket, waiting to be washed. Fortunately, this did not extend to schoolwear, as Emily still had to wear a uniform, whereas Gemma was expected to wear “office dress.” The one thing Emily could not borrow was Gemma’s glasses. Poor eyesight ran in the family. Both of their parents wore glasses because they were short-sighted, and Emily had joined the club when she was nine years old. Gemma, on the other hand, had always been long-sighted. She vaguely remembered having her eyes tested before starting school, and then, sometime later, being given a pair of glasses that she was told she had to wear all of the time. She didn’t really know why she needed them, as she felt that she could see just as well without them, but she did as she was told. When she had reached her early teens, she had tried going without them as often as possible, but when she complained about having a headache, her mother simply told her to put her glasses on, and wouldn’t give her any painkillers until she had worn them for at least an hour. It was the occasion when Emily was told that she was going to have to start wearing glasses that their mother had asked what Gemma really wanted to know. Why was she long-sighted, when the rest of the family was short-sighted? The answer “sometimes, it just happens. We really don’t know why” didn’t seem like much of an explanation, but it was the only response Gemma was ever going to get, so she had to be satisfied with it. As she went through Secondary School, Gemma had begun to wonder about getting contact lenses. Her parents weren’t against the idea, but had suggested that she wait until after she had done her GCSEs. She didn’t want to be worrying about getting used to lenses, when she had more important exams to occupy her mind. It also meant that she could go into the Sixth Form at her school with a whole new image: new tops, new skirts and no glasses. She had taken the three months off to allow her hair to grow longer, and had then had it cut in a different style, with a fringe. When the day finally came for her to start her A- level courses, one or two of her acquaintances, and a couple of the teachers, thought she was a new pupil, until they recognised her voice. As her studies grew ever more intense, and needed greater concentration, Gemma increasingly felt the need to get out of the house, so that she could concentrate on what she was supposed to be doing. Often, she would drive the 6.3 miles to the coast (she knew the exact distance, as it cost her £3 for the round trip), park in a small car park, and either sit in the car and do her work, or scramble down to the little cove and sit on the rocks when the tide was out. Even this became harder to do as Autumn became Winter, but on days when the sun was out, it was pleasantly warm sitting in the car, and it was not uncommon for Gemma to doze off. Once or twice, she thought she spotted a girl sitting on her favourite rock, but as she could only just make out the top of her head, she was never 100% sure. One of the most important things Gemma needed to be able to do, for all three of her A levels, was to recall accurate quotations from the various books and plays she was studying. With this in mind, she spent several hours carefully selecting what she needed to know, and then recorded them all on her phone, so she could listen back to them whenever she got the chance. As the final set of Mock exams came around, it became increasingly important that Gemma knew the quotations off by heart. She set aside the Wednesday of her half term week in February to learn the phrases, and planned to borrow the car to help her get the necessary peace and quiet. When the day came around, it was a beautiful, sunny day – very warm for mid-February. After breakfast, Gemma got into the car, and drove off to her favourite car park. She was going to sit in the car, but it was so warm that she decided to go down to the little cove and sit there while learning the phrases. She took her nice, warm grey coat with her, and went down to her usual spot. She liked this particular rock because it was in the sun, usually out of the wind, and it was several feet above the water, so she could watch the tide coming in without having to worry about getting wet or cut off. She had been sitting there, listening to her quotations and daydreaming, for about fifteen minutes, when she became aware of something in the water. It looked like a head, moving steadily towards her. She couldn’t believe that someone had decided to go for a swim! The water did look inviting, but it was still only February. As the head came towards her, she realised it was a girl of about her own age. It felt like ages before the girl started to climb onto the rocks just below where Gemma was sitting. And then she saw the tail! There, about thirty feet from where she was sitting, was a real, live mermaid! Unable to believe her eyes, Gemma went to adjust her glasses, only to realise that she had put her contact lenses in that morning, so there was nothing on her face to move. The mermaid was working hard, using all of her upper body strength, to climb up towards where Gemma was sitting. When she was about twenty feet away, Gemma found her tongue. “Hello?” she said, somewhat tentatively. The mermaid glanced up, a look of horror on her face, when she realised she had been seen. She turned to make her way back towards the water. “Wait,” said Gemma. “I mean you no harm. Come and talk to me. There’s plenty of room up here for both of us.” The mermaid didn’t look too sure, so Gemma shifted herself slightly to one side, and patted the area of rock which she had just vacated. “Come on, there’s nothing to be afraid of. “ It took Gemma several minutes to win the mermaid’s trust, but eventually they were sitting side-by-side on the rock, and the mermaid began to open up. Her name was Laura Lye, and she lived with her extended family on the far side of one of the large stacks of rock about half a mile out to sea. Laura was reticent to say more, as she knew she was supposed to be avoiding humans at all costs. In fact, she admitted that she would never have come anywhere near shore if she had seen Gemma sitting there. Eventually, they agreed to meet again. Laura asked Gemma to wear something red next time, as it was easier to spot from out at sea. She asked Gemma to promise not to mention that they had ever met. Gemma was more than happy to agree, as she knew one would ever believe her if she did tell the truth. Over the next few months, Gemma and Laura met a number of times. Sometimes, it was only for a few minutes; on other occasions they would spend over an hour together. Laura explained that she found it hard to spend much longer out of the water, as she didn’t want her tail to dry out. Gemma also learned that Laura wasn’t overly fond of warm weather; she was far more used to spending her time in the sea, where the temperature remained fairly constant throughout the year. It did Gemma good to get out of the house to do her revision. Her parents had stopped charging her for borrowing the car, as long as she didn’t protest too much if her mother wanted to use it, or if they asked her to go out on an errand. Once or twice she had wanted to go and meet Laura and hadn’t been able to go, and on other occasions, either Laura didn’t turn up, or it started to rain, and Gemma didn’t want to get out of the car. Summer half term came around all too soon, and Gemma was in the final stages of her revision for her A-levels. Indeed, she had already sat a couple of exams, but the ten days after her week’s break were going to be crucial. She was just running through her plans for the week with her mother, to find out when she could have the car, when her mother told her that she had booked an optician’s appointment for both her and Emily. Emily had been complaining for several weeks that her glasses weren’t strong enough. Gemma would have been happy to wait until the Summer holidays, as usual, but her mother pointed out that, by then, she would have left school, and she would have to pay full price for new glasses, if she needed them. When Thursday morning arrived, Gemma was a little surprised that her mother wasn’t going to come with them. She didn’t need to drive the car, and the girls were old enough, and sensible enough, to go on their own. She did give Gemma some money, so that the girls did not have to get the cheapest glasses going, and sent them on their way shortly before ten o’clock. It had been a long time since Gemma had last sat and watched her sister having her eyes tested. For the last few years, their mother had gone in with Emily, and left Gemma in the waiting room, and then they had swapped places. This time, Gemma sat on the chair at the side, while Emily took her place in the big, black chair. Gemma was surprised by how few of the letters on the wall chart Emily was able to read, even with her glasses on. When the optician placed the trial frames on Emily’s face, it took about five minutes before he seemed happy that Emily had the correct prescription for the right eye. The left one was a little quicker, and a couple of times he asked Emily whether the letters were actually clearer, or just smaller and blacker. He then moved on to test her near vision with the new prescription, which Emily seemed to pass with flying colours. After that, he used a variety of machines to look deep into her eyes. This part was less interesting to Gemma, as everything was very quiet, and she couldn’t see very much. Finally, he had Emily put her glasses back on, and announced that she had had “quite a significant” change in her prescription He said that he was surprised she hadn’t been back sooner. He also showed her the difference between her current glasses, and what she would be able to see with her new ones, by holding a couple of lenses in front of them. Emily seemed genuinely surprised by how much more clearly she was going to be able to see. Then, it was Gemma’s turn. She was having both her contact lenses and her glasses checked. She sent Emily out of the room to start looking at frames, as past experience had told her that that could be quite time-consuming. She was also pleased that she was able to read to the bottom of the chart without any difficulty at all, although it did get a little bit easier when he changed the lenses slightly. The verdict was that she would probably find life easier with the next strength up in both her glasses and her contacts. He was going to change the contact prescription anyway, as she had those delivered every three months, but it was up to her whether she felt she needed to update the lenses in her glasses. As her mother had explained, she would probably be able to do that more cheaply if she did it now, rather than leave it, so she went out to join Emily in the hunt for new frames. It was lunchtime when they finally got home. Emily had invited a friend over for the afternoon, so Gemma decided to head off to her favourite rock. She put a red hoodie on, as was her wont, and set off just after two o’clock. She had managed to do half an hour’s work before she became aware of the head moving through the water towards her. Five minutes later, Laura was sitting on the rock. She seemed slightly unsure of herself. They had been chatting for a couple of minutes before Laura finally changed the conversation, and abruptly asked what Gemma had on her face. It took Gemma a couple of seconds to realise that Laura had never seen her in her glasses before. Laura wanted to know why she was wearing them, so Gemma explained that she couldn’t see very well without them. The idea of contact lenses was even harder to explain, but Gemma said that she needed the glasses to help her see more clearly. As an example of what she meant, she took her glasses off, and told Laura that, without them, she could see a rock about a hundred yards out to sea. With her glasses on, she could count the five gulls which were sitting on it. Laura was amazed. She could just about see the rock, but she could not see any birds at all, so she asked if she could try Gemma’s glasses, so that she, too, could see the birds. She put the glasses on, but was very disappointed that her vision seemed worse, rather than better. Gemma had to explain, patiently, that she was really quite long-sighted, and that the glasses were made especially for her – and that most people could not see through them. The next week flew past for Gemma. Every day, she had an exam, so the previous 24 hours or so were spent preparing for each successive one. She was pleased with how they went. She was able to answer all of the questions in her English and Theatre Studies exams, and felt that she had done reasonably well in the German, although there had been a couple of words in the translation exercise which she had not understood. By the time Friday came around, she just had two more exams to revise for – Shakespeare and German Literature. She was fairly confident of her knowledge of Hamlet, but still needed more time to learn her quotations from Der Besuch der Alten Dame and Der Gute Mensch von Sezuan. She was enjoying a Saturday morning lie-in, when she was aware of the phone going downstairs. Her mother answered it. “It’s for you, Gemma,” she called out. “It’s the optician’s.” Gemma hauled herself out of bed, and went to take the call on the upstairs phone. “Your spectacles are ready for collection,” was the message. She wondered why they couldn’t just have told her mother, and why she had to get out of bed to take the call. “If that was to say that your glasses are ready, can you give Emily a lift into town as well? Hers were ready yesterday, but she wants to go and spend her birthday money on some new clothes, and then go to the cinema in the afternoon, so if you can take her in, I can collect her later.” As her lie-in had been ruined, Gemma set about getting ready for the morning. The sooner she had dropped Emily off, the sooner she would have the rest of the day to herself. She showered and washed her hair, had some breakfast, dried her hair as best she could, and then got dressed. She didn’t bother putting any make-up on, as she wasn’t going to see anybody, and was ready to go into town some 45 minutes after getting up. They were probably only in the optician’s for about twenty minutes, while their new glasses were checked for fit. Gemma also had to put in the new contact lenses, just to make sure there wasn’t an issue with them, but they were fine. Her vision was slightly different – everything up close seemed super-sharp, whereas things in the distance were slightly fuzzy, but she was assured that this was normal. They also gave her the copies of the prescriptions, which they had forgotten to do the previous week. Her mother had been quite insistent that Gemma remember to ask for them. Rather than being dragged around the shops by Emily for half an hour, while she waited for her friends, the two girls stopped off at Nic’s Place in the food court for some refreshments. It gave Gemma a chance to look more closely at Emily’s new glasses. Emily was busy swapping between her old and new pairs, unable to believe how much more clearly she could see with the new ones. It didn’t take an expert to see that the new lenses were a lot stronger than the old ones – and noticeably thicker, too. The light flashed off the front of the lenses in a way that it hadn’t on Emily’s older pair. When Emily’s friends showed up, Gemma took her chance to escape. She took Emily’s old glasses with her, so she didn’t have to carry them around all day. She went back to the car, via the supermarket, as her mother had asked her to pick up couple of items while she was there. Once she was back in the car, curiosity got the better of her. She got out both of her pairs of glasses to compare them. The styles were slightly different, but the only real difference in the lenses was that the new ones were super-clean. She tried on both of her own pairs, and Emily’s old glasses as well, but couldn’t see anything much with any of them, as she still had contact lenses in. She then unfolded both of the prescription forms to get a closer look at them. Her own one read +6.00 for both eyes, and her next appointment was due in 2 years. Then she looked at Emily’s prescription: -6.25, and a next appointment in 6 months. She couldn’t believe that her younger sister already had stronger glasses than she did, and, to judge by what the optician had said when they had their eyes tested, would probably need stronger glasses later in the year. All of this gave Gemma an idea. Instead of driving straight down to the sea, she stopped off at home. Her mother was a little surprised to see her, but Gemma explained that she had forgotten to pick up some notes, and that she needed the toilet anyway. She grabbed a carrier bag, went to the bedroom she shared with Emily, put a folder into the bag, and then threw in all of Emily’s old glasses, before setting off to her favourite revision spot. She also picked up her red hoodie, as there was often a breeze down by the coast, even if there wasn’t one inland. She had been busy revising for about half an hour, before she became aware of something moving straight towards her in the water. It was Laura. They chatted for several minutes about what they had done since they last met, before Gemma told Laura that there was something she wanted to try. “You remember last time I was wearing my glasses, and you tried them but couldn’t see with them?” Laura nodded. “This time, I have brought all of my sister’s old glasses for you to try, to see if they work for you.” They started with Emily’s first ever pair of glasses. Laura couldn’t tell any difference – and even when Gemma put them on, they did little for her either. Gemma could tell there was a prescription in the second pair, but Laura still couldn’t see any better. It wasn’t until they reached the sixth pair – the ones which Emily had put on that very morning – that Laura could certainly say that they helped. Gemma wished that Laura could have tried on Emily’s newest pair, as she felt sure they would have helped even more. Then, she wondered whether two pairs of glasses were better than one, so she had Laura keep the last pair on, and started again with the weakest pair. She smiled, as she caught herself saying things like “better with, or without,” “better one, or two” and “is it clearer, or just smaller and darker?” At one point, they even tried three pairs, but that was just too awkward. Eventually, they decided that Emily’s third pair worked best with the newest one. Laura wanted to know whether she could keep the two pairs so that she could see properly, but Gemma said that she needed to put them back, as she was sure that her sister would want to compare them all when she got home that afternoon. However, Laura was able to keep both pairs on while they chatted – until her scales started to dry out, and she needed to get back out to sea. Gemma promised Laura that she would get her her own pair of glasses as soon as she could, that she would be able to keep. Once she had got home, Gemma put all of Emily’s glasses back where she had found them, except the pair she had been wearing that morning, which she left on the kitchen table. She offered to put the prescription forms away while her mother went to fetch Emily. She had a pretty good idea where they were all kept, and started about her task as soon as her mother left the house. When she opened the drawer with the medical details in it, she was surprised to find that the prescription forms dated back about twenty years for her parents. She found that her first ever glasses had been +2.50, rising to +4.00 a year later, +5.00 when she was six years old, and had then crept up to her new +6.00 this morning. Emily’s file had several years of “none required” before -0.75, -1.50, -2.00, -2.75, -3.50, -4.50 and now -6.25. No wonder the optician had said he wanted to see her again in 6 months, and no wonder that Emily noticed such a big difference! Curiosity then got the better of her, wondering how strong Emily’s glasses might become. It appeared that her dad wore -9.25 with a +1.25 add in his varifocals (this was news to her), and her mum wore -11.00 with (+0.50) in the add column – whatever the brackets meant. A little bit of maths told her that Emily might well have stronger glasses than both of their parents in just 3 years’ time. It also told her that she needed to order a pair of -6.50 glasses for Laura – the same strength as her own new contacts. When Emily got home, one of the first things she did was to compare all of the glasses in her collection, as Gemma had thought she would. Even though she had been wearing her new glasses for only a few hours, she was amazed how poorly she had been seeing only that morning. She also tried wearing two pairs of glasses to see which ones worked best as a combination – and came up with the same pairing as Laura had. As she knew that the combination was a little stronger than she really required, Gemma warned Emily that if her eyes kept changing at the same rate as they had recently, she would soon end up with eyesight which was worse than either of their parents. In response, Emily smiled. It was a fortnight before the postman brought Laura’s glasses. Gemma knew, from tracking the delivery, that they were on the way. She made sure that she was “getting something from the car” when they arrived, so that she didn’t have to answer any questions about them. She was also glad that no-one asked what that “something” was – as she didn’t have any idea, either. Fortunately for her, no-one did. She set off as soon as she was ready, eager to see her friend’s reaction to the glasses. She unwrapped the package in the car park, and carefully disposed of the rubbish in one of the litter bins. She put on her red hoodie, and went down to the rocks to sit and wait. She couldn’t resist having a look at the glasses, and trying them on. The lenses were every bit as thick as Emily’s, and she had to use her phone to take a couple of selfies so that she could see what they looked like on her. For some reason, she found the whole process slightly arousing, especially when she wore her own glasses, as well as the contact lenses and Laura’s glasses. Laura was thrilled with her new vision. Now that she could see the rocks out to sea, she told Gemma which was her home rock. She also pointed out a number of things on the opposite side of the cove which Gemma had never noticed before, and took great delight in counting the seagulls on the rock she had not been able to see a month earlier. The next time they met, Laura seemed a little down. Gemma asked what the problem was, but Laura seemed reluctant to say. Eventually, she managed to prise out of her that the glasses didn’t work well under water – she couldn’t see as well, and she was worried that they might fall off, and she wouldn’t be able to find them again. Also, as Summer was fast approaching, she wouldn’t be able to visit Gemma very much both because of the people and the increasingly warm temperatures. Gemma, however, thought she knew the solution, and promised to meet Laura in the same place at sunset in a fortnight’s time. It took her a few goes to find a suitably-priced pair of prescription swimming goggles on the internet. She didn’t want to pay the earth, but yet she would need something which would stand up to everyday use, so she read the customer reviews very carefully. The next issue was what strength to order; -6.00 would be a bit too weak, -7.00 a bit too strong. In the end, she went with the stronger option, as she had never heard of anyone’s eyes getting better. Her experience was only ever of the numbers going up. She still owed Emily a birthday present, so she ended up ordering two pairs. Emily was thrilled with the idea of being able to see underwater while she swam – and seemed to perk up even more when Gemma mentioned that she had ordered the slightly stronger pair “so that you can get more use out of them.” Laura, too, was thrilled with her present. Rather than sitting and chatting to Gemma first, she left her glasses with Gemma, put the goggles on, and went off to try them out. When she came back, she gave Gemma a great big hug. “They’re wonderful,” she said. “Thank you so much.” Gemma and Laura saw less of each other over the next few months. Laura didn’t want to spend too much time out of the water, and the Summer always saw a family or two spending the day swimming, sunbathing and playing in the little cove. As her A-levels had finished, Gemma also found herself spending more time with her school friends, but she never forgot about Laura, and still went to see her when she could.
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