Cleo Sertori

**Cleo Sertori** is one of the main characters who became a mermaid in *H2O: Just Add Water*. Along with Emma and Rikki, Cleo discovered her powers after her trip to Mako Island. She was portrayed by actress Phoebe Tonkin.

## Background

Cleo Sertori grew up in a family that consisted of herself, her father Donald, her mother Bev, and her younger sister Kim. Don is a successful fisherman and owns three fishing boats and can employ others into his service. While Don tends to work a lot at the harbor, Cleo's mother stays home at as a housewife. Cleo claimed that she had known Lewis McCartney since they were five years old and never once had she seen him get angry or frustrated. Later on, she met Emma and the two of them became good friends. While her birthday parties seemed fun at first, Cleo came to despise them as she got older, because her father and sister insisted on giving her childish parties. The two knew each other well enough where Cleo knows that Emma is always prepared and Emma knows that she is tone deaf. In one episode, Rikki describes her and Emma as having "The Perfect Families" but Cleo quickly protests.

Although not as wealthy as Emma's family, Cleo's father's fishing
 job enables them to have enough money to live in a house by the canal.
It is revealed in "Moon Spell" that she is lactose intolerant. Unlike Emma, Cleo doesn't get along
with her younger sibling. At the most, they would both argue and get on each others' nerves as much as possible to the point where it would
drive their parents insane. Cleo's parents got divorced late in season 1, and in season 3 her father develops a relationship with and eventually marries a woman named Samantha Roberts.

Aside from her family, it is revealed that Cleo also has a cousin, Angela, who is even more deceitful and manipulating than Kim when she tried to trick them into accusing each other while she went body-boarding herself.

Her friendship with Lewis remained platonic, although Lewis had developed a crush on her later on in season one. Cleo doesn't respond to
 his crush until the end of season one, but she continues to display a caring attitude towards him and would encourage him many times whenever he was feeling down.

Because Cleo and Emma were best friends before they met Rikki Chadwick, they both understand each other more and both of their
families get along well. Because Emma's family does associate with Zane's, Cleo and Lewis come to be familiar with him as well. Unlike Emma, Cleo
is more wary of Zane, especially due of the fact that he kept pulling pranks on her in season 1.

In the first few episodes of series one, Cleo seems to have a small crush on Byron, but she later gave up on him for Emma's sake.

Before she became a mermaid, Cleo was afraid of the water and could barely swim. She also tends to rely on Lewis for academic success in the first two seasons. After he leaves to study in America, Cleo took it upon herself to study more and was able to achieve an honorable diploma, and after the ceremony her, Bella and Rikki see Lewis coming down the steps of the school to see Cleo, who is still in love with him.

## Appearance

Cleo has brown hair that stops mid-back and hazel-green eyes. She is quite beautiful despite some of her insecurities. Throughout the series, Cleo would often arrange her hair in various styles ranging from simple buns, braided, loose, or pony-tailed. Her skin is clear and is an extremely light tan color. She has a slender figure and is quite tall standing at 5'10*.* As a mermaid, her hair is let down and she has an orange-scaled tail with a matching top. After being in the moon pool at Sirena Island on a full moon, Cleo's tail and top changed to a pinkish-purple color.

She wears a lot of colorful clothes based on her ability on moving water into shapes, similar to the colors of the wind. Her favorite color is pink, and her based colors: purple, lavender, etc. though she seems to wear different shades of blue throughout season 3.

She also wears a locket identical to Emma, Rikki, Bella, Natalie, and Andrea's, only with a purplish-blue stone, to represent the water's controlling ability. Towards the end of season 3, she wears a blue crystal necklace that she got from Will. After Emma's return, she begins to wear her locket and necklace every day by switching them ever so often.

## Becoming a Mermaid

Cleo becomes a mermaid in first episode of season one. After helping Emma train by timing her laps, she walked home and was tricked into helping Zane Bennett repair his boat. Deciding to pull a prank, he and Nate set her adrift in his spark plug-less boat and into the sea, knowing that she could barely swim. Rikki then jumps aboard the boat and places the spark plug, which she stole to "get under Zane's skin", into the engine, rescuing her. Cleo and Rikki then take the boat for a joyride. Along the way, the girls ran into Emma and invited her to come along. With the carefree Rikki steering the boat out into the sea and miles offshore, the girls soon found out that they are now out of fuel in the middle of the ocean. With little choice, the three girls paddled their way to the closest land they could find: Mako Island.

Once ashore on the deserted island, Cleo and her friends pondered on how they should call for help. Being the most prepared one in the group, Emma brought out her mobile phone but only to find that it couldn’t get a signal. Emma suggested that they should head inland towards a higher altitude in hopes of getting a signal for a call. As they ventured in deeper into the jungle-infested island, the three girls soon came across a clearing where a river stream turns into a waterfall over several boulders. While Emma and Rikki were able to jump over to the small waterfall, Cleo became hesitant and without a warning, fell into a hole. The other two followed her and continued to pursue a way out of the underground cave.

Several minutes later, the three of them ended up at the end of the tunnel and found the moon cave with a pool at the bottom of the island’s dormant volcano. Emma realizes that the Moon Pool is connected to the ocean and may be their only way out, and dove in to find out. Confirming her find, she and Rikki convinced the hesitant Cleo to escape with them. When all three of them entered the pool, the full moon became aligned with the moon pool, causing it to bubble and glow a mystic blue glow and emitting small orbs of magical light particles into the air. Oblivious to what was happening to them, the girls ventured out into open sea where they were rescued by the local water-police.

Upon the next morning and twelve hours after their ordeal, Cleo decided to take a morning bath. To her surprise, she transformed into a mermaid with a large tail hanging at the edge of her bath tub only ten seconds after touching water. Cleo later confirms that she wasn't the only one who became a mythical sea creature as Emma and Rikki both became mermaids as well.

Cleo is the last person to embrace her new life as a mermaid. However, she later got over her fear and hesitation and tried her best to live a normal life and was able to grow to love her new abilities.

## Mermaid Powers

Cleo possesses the ability to transform into a mermaid ten seconds after touching water. She wasn't able to transform into a mermaid until an estimate of twelve hours after jumping into the Moon Pool at Mako Island. She turns back into a human several minutes after climbing out of the the water and once her body is completely dry, she turns back into a human along with the clothes she was wearing before she transformed. As a mermaid, Cleo has the ability to swim at super speed of 600km/h, hold her breath for more than fifteen minutes, and dive at a depth lower than any ordinary human being is capable of.

### Hydrokinesis

Cleo is the first of the three mermaids to discover her individual powers over water; the ability to control, manipulate water at her will, normally called *Hydrokinesis*. Her ability ranges in many forms. When moving the water, she can cause it to float in the air or spray it in a form of a water jet blast. To shape them, she manipulated the water into the air and cause them to form from simple water orbs to a miniature mermaid figurine. Her powers also allow her to multiply the water molecules, making the shape of the water to grow more and expand in sizes, despite the small amount in a glass to begin with. With this power, Cleo can control, manipulate, multiply and generate water and all other liquids that contain water.

### Aerokinesis

In the second season premiere, a special full moon along with a rare planetary alignment greatly strengthens and increases her powers to a much more powerful level. In Cleo's case, she develops the ability to create and control the wind. She can also control rainstorms and create them over a person or a large area.

When combined with Emma and Rikki's powers, she can produce hurricane-like weather. However, it appears that Cleo's power alone isn't enough to levitate a person or anything heavier- unlike Charlotte Watsford who could levitate all three girls at once, it takes all three to levitate one person. With this power, Cleo can control and manipulate the air and wind in her favor.

## Relationships

### Lewis McCartney

Cleo and Lewis became friends since they were five years old. As they grew up, Lewis developed a crush on her but she was only interested in being friends with him. Later, Cleo admitted that she's falling in love with Lewis and the two started to date at the end of Season 1 after they admitted their feelings for each other. At the beginning of Season 2, after Cleo got her new powers, Lewis becomes clingy and doesn't give her enough space. Cleo then breaks up with him to find the balance. When Lewis begins hanging out with Charlotte, Cleo grew jealous. Charlotte's new friendship with Lewis made her appear closer to him in hobbies and interest, causing Cleo to become more and more weary of Charlotte. When Lewis tried to divert Charlotte's attention away from Cleo on Mako Island, Charlotte took her opportunity to kiss him and making them an official couple. Cleo is heartbroken and accepted the fact that Lewis is moving on away from her, not knowing that Lewis only did it to protect her mermaid secret from Charlotte.

After Charlotte became a mermaid, she isolated Cleo from Lewis and broke her spirit by making her believe that she's pathetic and stole
 her locket. When Lewis found out the truth, he broke up with Charlotte and went to save Cleo from the sharks. He then admits his true feelings
for Cleo and they both got back together. Cleo and Lewis continue to maintain their relationship in Season 3 but when Lewis receives a scholarship from America, Cleo didn't want to let him go. But knowing that she can't be the reason to keep him from achieving his dream, she accepted the choice to let him go. Though they have departed, Cleo and Lewis still remain in contact with each other. At the end of Season 3, Lewis comes back from America to visit Cleo at her graduation. They get together and end up at the juice bar. They kiss and dance to Bella's music.