Petunia's Pandemonium

by Robyn Peterman

  No one.

  I loved her mostly because she was my mother. However, I only liked her on the rare occasion. Hopefully, today would be one of those occasions.

  “I know you’re fibbing, Delphinus my little Yummy Gummy Bear,” she replied, snapping her fingers and magically replacing the unattractive jeweled ensemble with a more slimming pair of black harem pants and a sequined boob tube. “I need to get the butt implants removed. I just can’t seem to find the time to do it. J. Lo’s ass is so last week. Right?”

  There was no reply that wouldn’t get me zapped into next year. I shrugged and smiled—hoping my smile didn’t look like a constipated wince.

  “So, how has the last quarter of a century been treating you, Mother?” I inquired politely, making small talk before I got back down to business.

  Her eyes narrowed dangerously and her blond locks began to blow around her head. Small talk was a bad idea.

  “Well, Dirty Apple Pie Flamingo,” she huffed as she seated herself on a diamond-covered chaise and positioned herself with her best side showing. “Let’s see, I spent ten years explaining to my hamster-humping, crap-faced bridge club why you thought displaying your danglies on national television was a fine idea. Although, yours are far larger than any of their sons’ bits.”

  “Thank you,” I said, letting my head fall back on my shoulders and closing my eyes. Coming here was a bad plan. However, I didn’t have another one at the moment.

  “You’re welcome, Dazzling Blueberry Ferret,” she said. “You get those big balls from your father. Literally. His balls are bigger than his brain. You also got your drinking problem from him.”

  “I don’t have a drinking problem,” I snapped.

  “Says the Genie who displayed his salami at the Super Bowl.”

  “Fine point. Well made,” I admitted. However, she was wrong—not that I would tell her. I rarely imbibed. It was my injured pride and broken heart that had gone on a bender. Never again.

  “All your bad habits come from your shart hound of a father. I’m perfect,” she announced.

  “Speaking of, would you like to confirm who he is?” I questioned, not about to touch the balls intel.

  Ignoring my request—as usual—she went on.

  “I have a facelift, Botox and filler appointment in an hour. After that I’m getting my nether regions waxed and then I’m having my palm read. I’m certain this isn’t a social visit since you never visit me. What is it that you want, Delphinus?”

  After that bizarre and distasteful diatribe, I’d almost forgotten why I’d come. “You’re immortal,” I reminded my mother. “Why are you having plastic surgery?”

  “Pish,” she said with a wave of her expertly manicured hand. “It’s fun. Fish lips are all the rage. I’ll look fabu! Vega, my online Scrabble partner who cheats, got a set. I need to one-up that lazy boner clown.”

  Gods, I’d hate to see the words they came up with for Scrabble. The conversation was degenerating quickly. I needed to get to the heart of the matter immediately.

  “Right,” I said, removing my sunglasses and staring at my mother.

  Her gasp was not music to my ears. Part of me was hoping Botein had been wrong about my light going out and that my mother wouldn’t notice.

  “Sweet Goddess Genie Barbra Eden on a bender,” she shrieked so loudly several of her mirrors shattered. “What has happened to you?”

  She noticed. Shit was serious.

  “Did those scum-sipping, boner-camper elders do this to you when you were in the glass pokey?” she demanded as she began to levitate and spark. “I despise those pie-eating sphincter waffles.”

  “Not as far as I know,” I replied, ducking a glittering zap of fire that flew from her fingers. I suppose if she got angrier, I’d die by fireball this afternoon and not have to worry about my Genie light going out. I’d been borne of a certifiable nut-job. It might be fitting if she took me out as well. At this point I didn’t have much to live for anyway.

  “I will call on those crap-banging nose farmers and make them sopranos for harming my Sugar Lump Monkey. They will rue the day they were hatched,” she hissed as small shimmering silver and golden fires broke out all over her mansion.

  “You might want to tamp that shit back, Mom,” I said, quickly jumping out of the line of fire. Literally.

  “Sorry, Happy Iguana Kiwi,” she said, waving her hand and dousing the flames. “You must go to your father. The butterfaced bitch-goblin will know what to do.”

  “Why will my father know what to do?” I asked, frustrated. “He’s not a Genie.”

  “No,” she agreed. “He’s not. He’s a frilly rectum canoe along with being a god.”

  “So I was right about the identity of my father?” I demanded, both relieved and horrified.

  “I’ll give you three guesses, Squishy Popsicle Hedgehog,” she said with her right brow raised so high I thought it might reach her hairline.

  “Does he wear a diaper?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Carry a scepter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is known as an idiot all over the Immortal Universe?”

  “Yes.”

  Fuck. My next stop was Mount Olympus to see my father… Poseidon.

  3

  Petunia

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” Tallulah announced with her lavender locks blowing ominously around her head as she stood in the doorway of my hut. “If you leave, we’re coming after you.”

  “And we’ll kick your ass,” Madison added with a grin.

  “With love. We’ll kick your ass with love,” Ariel was quick to chime in with a giggle.

  “I mean, it’ll hurt like a mother humper, but it will definitely be in the name of love,” Misty finished off with gusto.

  “You think you could take me?” I inquired with a wide smile. It tickled me how violent my sea-loving family was.

  “Four on one,” Madison explained with a wink. “Odds are on our side.”

  She did have a point. I was a maniac, but they were certifiable.

  With the sun shining bright behind my cousins, they looked like avenging crayons with fantastic figures and fabulous boobs. Of course, I fit right into the crayon box. Mermaids had very specific traits.

  Our hair and our eyes were set from birth. My color was orange. Madison’s color was pink, Ariel’s was blue, Misty’s was emerald green and Tallulah’s was lavender. Each Mermaid’s hair and eyes were unique to them and no two were alike. However, the color of our tails changed with our moods and our fashion choices. I always matched my tail—or when in human form, my sarong skirt—to my bikini top.

  “Not to mention, Upton will be devastated if you leave,” Tallulah pointed out. “Right, Upton?”

  “Aye,” Upton agreed, grinning as he dusted my hut and picked up my dirty sarongs. “Me little Petunia is a delight. Yolanda is gonna love her. Plus, Petunia is gonna join the online dating site! We’re gonna find her an upstandin’ scallywag. And if the tar stain treats me little swimmer bad, I’ll send the crab-infested dingly dangler to Davey Jones’ locker.”

  “Maybe,” I said with an eye roll as my cousins’ ears perked up.

  “I think it’s a great idea!” Ariel said, clapping her hands together. “Which dating site are you going to use?”

  “There’s more than one?” I asked, confused as I glanced over at Upton.

  “Nay,” Upton told the group. “Me little Mermaid is going to use the same site that I met me cackle fruit, Yolanda, on. It’s the one Poseidon runs.”

  “Holy hell and seashells,” Madison said with a belly laugh. “Our de facto, drunk, non-related pappy has an online dating service?”

  “Makes sense,” Misty said. “He meddles more than an old lady. It’s perfect.”

  The talk made me nervous. This was a bad idea. Poseidon was an idiot. I mean, I loved him, but he was a diaper-wearing dolt. I could find dumbasses on my own. I didn’t need help from the God of the Sea.

  �
�What’s the site called?” Tallulah asked.

  Upton blanched and shook his head. That did not bode well. The Pirate thought licking his nards was acceptable. The name had to be bad.

  “Well,” he said with great hesitation. “Poseidon wanted to call it Immortal Match.”

  “Isn’t there already an Immortal Match?” Ariel asked.

  “Aye. They sued him somethin’ terrible,” Upton said. “So, the soused dumbarse went with umm… another name. Ye know… somethin’ similar.”

  “The name?” I requested again with great trepidation.

  “Immortal Snatch,” Upton whispered.

  “It’s called Immortal Snatch?” I shouted, not knowing whether to laugh or blow something up. “He named a dating service Immortal Snatch? That’s disgusting.”

  “It really is.” Ariel scrunched her nose and tried not to laugh.

  She failed.

  “Very… umm… descriptive,” Madison said, not hiding her mirth at all.

  “Well, we are talking about Poseidon,” Tallulah pointed out. “His balls are bigger than his brains.”

  “You’ve seen his balls?” Misty asked on a gag.

  “NO,” Tallulah shouted. “I’d be blind if I’d ever seen his junk. It’s just the rumor on the High Seas.”

  “Aye,” Upton said, turning green-ish. “Tis true.”

  “You’ve seen his gangoolies?” I asked, shocked and appalled.

  Upton nodded and shuddered.

  “And you lived?” I pressed.

  “Upton’s a Sphinx,” Tallulah informed me. “It would take more than an oversized set of wrinkly god nards to kill a Sphinx.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” I said, glancing over at my BFF with new admiration. I’d always believed the Sphinx were myth. I thought back to our earlier conversation and shook my head. I’d punched a Sphinx… and lived.

  My BFF and I had our first disagreement earlier over my housekeeping skills. Upton thought I had none. I’d punched him in the head and he just laughed like a loon. The little Pirate then pointed out all my faults while using examples. Amazingly, he was correct. I was a slob.

  Turned out Upton liked to clean—said it relaxed him. I felt kind of guilty about that so I suggested a trade. I made killer chocolate chip seaweed cookies and promised him a weekly batch. Upton squealed like a girl and did an outstanding cheerleader herkie jump. Chocolate chip seaweed cookies were his favorite. I felt better about myself when Upton admitted that he burned water. It wasn’t exactly a fair trade since Upton got the raw end of the deal, but he seemed very happy.

  “Umm… sorry about slugging you in the face earlier.”

  “Nay, lassie,” Upton said gleefully. “I deserved it for callin’ ye a slob.”

  “But I am a slob,” I reminded him.

  “That ye are,” he said with a grin and continued to clean.

  Leave it to me to wallop a Sphinx who can do a herkie jump.

  “I’d also like to have it go on official record that since becoming your BFF, Upton hasn’t licked his nards in public,” Misty said with a thumbs up to the Pirate.

  All four of my cousins broke into applause for my scrawny BFF. Basking in his adoration, Upton grinned and slid in the splits while continuing to dust. The Pirate-Sphinx was talented.

  “I would like to thank you for that miracle, Petunia,” Ariel said with a giggle. “I just finished taking care of a lawsuit with a human guest family who were traumatized by Upton’s limber hobbies.”

  “Sorry about that,” Upton said, turning pink in the face.

  “No worries,” Ariel told him and kissed the top of his head. “I think they were jealous. Plus, the father ended up in traction trying to have a go at his own pork sword.”

  “So, anyhoo,” Tallulah went on, marching into my hut and making herself comfortable. “As you can plainly see, running a tourist trap for humans in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle comes with a unique set of challenges. We could really use your help here, Petunia.”

  With a roll of my eyes, I sighed and then laughed. My cousins wouldn’t give up until I’d firmly planted roots right next door to them. It made my tail tingle with happiness and dread. Reminding myself that I was bad luck, I got ready to make up something semi-plausible about why I had to leave.

  “First of all,” I said, helping Upton get out of the splits. “I’m not really good at much besides partying and killing stuff. My skill set doesn’t actually help in any kind of legal business.”

  “Actually, it might,” Madison said, glancing warily over at her sisters who nodded for her to continue. “We have an issue that needs to be eliminated.”

  “The issue?” I inquired, wondering what they’d come up with this time. My family had been concocting bullshit reasons for me to stay for weeks.

  “Whirlpools,” Madison said with a shudder. “Deadly whirlpools have started developing in the water around the Mystical Isle.”

  My gut clenched in fury and my fingertips began to shoot bright orange sparks. My parents had died in a toxic magical whirlpool. I’d seen it happen with my own eyes. We’d been swimming happily in the ocean on a gorgeous starlit evening and then next thing I knew, I was being thrown a mile away from the fatal tragedy. With his last bit of strength, my father grabbed me and hurled me away from the poisonous maelstrom.

  I’d swam back like Hades himself was on my tail to where my parents were dying, but I was too late. My father’s last act in this world had been to save me. Sadly, I knew I wasn’t worth saving. I’d amounted to little more than a party Mermaid with an aptitude for terminating bad dudes and dudettes. I’d never mated—never given them little swimming grandbabies. I didn’t even have a home for the love of the Goddess and no career to speak of either. I should have died with them.

  I’d pretty much failed at immortal life. But then again, immortal meant forever.

  Maybe I could turn the frown my life had become upside down. Was this a sign? A gift?

  Had the time arrived for me to avenge their deaths? I’d searched for a century to find out what had caused the whirlpool and had no luck.

  “Has anyone died?” I ground out. I knew my eyes were blazing orange. Everything in my line of vision appeared bathed in fire.

  “Not yet,” Tallulah said, not backing up an inch even though I was pretty dang sure I was quite scary at the moment. “There have been a few close calls. We’ve had to close down the beaches for swimming.”

  “Guests have canceled in droves,” Misty added.

  “Do you have any idea what or who is causing it?” I asked, tamping back my magic so I didn’t blow up the hut with all the people I cared about inside it.

  I knew everyone would survive an explosion because we were immortal. But it sucked having to heal from fire—itched like a mother humper. Plus, my hut was clean for the first time in weeks. It would be a dang shame to mess it up.

  “Not a clue,” Tallulah said, shaking her head in frustration.

  “Well, if ye violent lassies want me humble opinion, I’d have to say it sounds like the bandana wearin’ pantaloon splinter that me and the arses have come across a few times while sailing the Seven Seas on our pilfering tours. The shite’s a fake-bearded crab-infested rockpool if ye ask me,” Upton said, seating himself next to Tallulah and looking quite serious.

  “Can you repeat that in English?” I asked, not wanting to offend my BFF, but I had no clue what he’d just said.

  “Certainly,” Upton said. “The cutlass flappin’ fish stink is a black spot in the dungbie. Ate our powder monkey, Winwood ‘No Smile’ Camden. Now, no one liked that ole seadog Winwood, but it was a bad way to feed the fish. The Old Salt got sucked down in the worm riddled fish gizzard whirlpool never to be heard from again.”

  All of us were confused now. Well, everyone except Upton.

  “Mmkay,” I said, trying to figure out another way to get the information I needed. “What was the cutlass flappin’ fish stink called? Did it have a name?”

  “Oh,”
Upton said with a giggle. “Yar should have just asked. It’s called Charybdis—meanest monster of the sea. Rumor has it the shite-stinkin’ frigate-eatin’ riffraff started on a rampage about a century ago.”

  The timing was right. My parents had been killed a hundred years ago. I could feel excitement mixed with sadness and rage burning in my gut.

  “We need to tell Poseidon,” Tallulah said, standing up. “Immediately.”

  “Nope,” I insisted, grabbing her hand to stop her. “Charybdis is mine. I’m sure she’s the monster who killed my parents. Plus, Poseidon would screw it up. You think someone who named a dating service Immortal Snatch is capable of good ideas in how to eliminate a lethal problem?”

  “She has a point,” Ariel said.

  “I’m really good at killing shit,” I volunteered.

  “She is,” Madison chimed in. “Petunia took the evil Gnomes out with a freakin’ finger flick.”

  “Impressive,” Tallulah said, twisting her lavender hair in her fingers as she thought. “But, if memory serves, I seem to recall learning back in school that Charybdis is a daughter of Poseidon. Of course, he had over a thousand children.”

  Well, that was news. Bad news. And all the more reason Poseidon should not be involved.

  For the first time in a century other than when I was supposed to be mated, I felt hopeful. I felt like I could make a real difference. I could avenge the people I loved from my past while keeping the people I loved right now safe. Win. Win.

  Maybe, if I did something for others, I would finally find my elusive star.

  “I have to do this,” I told Tallulah. “You have to let me.”

  “Will you stay then?” Tallulah asked, watching me closely. “For good?”

  Nodding before I’d even processed what she had said, I realized it was what I wanted. If I couldn’t have the whole package of a happily ever after, I could at least have the happy part. The Mystical Isle felt like more of a home to me than any other place had since my parents were alive. The people who loved me—warts and all—were right here.