Trouble at Trident Academy (2 page)

Thanks to Fiona Simpson, Karen Nagel, and Bethany Buck for letting me swim with the mermaids!

  
1
   
TRIDENT ACADEMY

  
2
   
BURPS

  
3
   
MRS. KARP

  
4
   
THE BET

  
5
   
DISASTER

  
6
   
MERBRATS

  
7
   
HARLEQUIN SHRIMP

  
8
   
PEARL

  
9
   
A NEAT TRICK

10
   
BEST MERFRIEND EVER

       
CLASS REPORTS

       
THE MERMAID TALES SONG

       
AUTHOR'S NOTE

       
GLOSSARY

I
CAN'T BELIEVE IT!” ECHO SAID. “IT'S
finally happening.”

Shelly took a small sip of her seaweed juice before pushing a lock of red hair from her face. Usually she didn't care if her hair stuck straight up, but today was special. “We're so lucky to get an invitation
to Trident Academy. I didn't think it would happen to me.”

Echo and Shelly both lived in Trident City, not far from the famous Trident Academy. They had been friends since they'd played together in the small-fry area of MerPark. The eight-year-old mermaids were celebrating their first day of school with breakfast at the Big Rock Café, a favorite hangout. The place was packed with students proudly wearing their Trident Academy sashes. The two mergirls didn't see a third mergirl swimming up behind them. Her name was Pearl. Echo and Shelly usually tried to avoid the bossy mergirl from their neighborhood.

“Oh my Neptune!” Pearl snapped when
she saw Shelly. “I can't believe
you
, of all merpeople, got into Trident.” Usually only very wealthy or extremely smart students were accepted. Pearl was rich. Echo was a quick learner. Shelly was neither, but she knew more about ocean animals than both of them put together.

Echo came to her friend's defense. “Of course Shelly got into Trident. She is very talented.”

“At
what
?” Pearl asked. “Digging for crabs?”

Shelly glanced at her dirty fingernails and immediately hid them under her blue tail fin. “At least I know
how
to hunt crabs. I bet you'd starve to death if you had to do something for yourself.”

Pearl flipped her blond hair, stuck her pointy nose up in the water, and said, “I know how to do plenty of things.”

“Name one,” Shelly said.

“How to be on time for school, for starters,” she said. Pearl spun around and flicked her gold tail, knocking seaweed juice all over Shelly's new Trident sash!

Splash!

Pearl giggled and swam off toward school.

“Oh no!” Shelly squealed, dabbing green juice off the gold-and-blue sash. “She did that on purpose!”

Echo glared after Pearl before helping her friend wipe the sash. “It's fine now. You can hardly see it,” Echo said. That wasn't
exactly
true—there was definitely a green blob on Shelly's sash.

“We'd better get going,” Echo said, adjusting the glittering plankton bow in her dark curly hair. “We don't want to be late on our first day.”

Shelly groaned. She wasn't quite so excited now. “If Trident Academy is filled with merpeople like Pearl, then I don't think I'm going to like it.”

“There's only one way to find out,” Echo said, taking a deep breath. “Let's go.”

W
OW,” SHELLY SAID,
staring up at the ceiling of the huge clamshell. “This is amazing.” Only a few shells in the ocean had ever grown as large as Trident Academy. The front hall alone could fit a humpback whale, and the ceiling was
filled with colorful old carvings that showed the history of the merpeople.

“It's awesome, but we'd better get to class,” Echo said, grabbing Shelly's elbow. “Third graders are down this way.” Echo's older sister went to Trident Academy, so Echo already knew a lot about the school.

Shelly didn't think she'd ever seen so many merpeople in one place. Hundreds of students swam quickly through the massive shell, looking for their classrooms. Each wore a different-colored sash for their grade, from third to tenth.

“Here's our room,” Echo said. She shoved aside a seaweed curtain and disappeared inside.

Shelly gulped and followed her friend.
She hoped Pearl wouldn't be in their classroom, but as she entered the class …

“Oh no. Did a stinkfish just swim in?” Pearl snapped as she sat at a rock desk.

“No,” said a merboy with a big head. “But a burpfish did.” He let out a big, long burp right in Pearl's face.

“That is so disgusting, Rocky,” Pearl said. “Didn't your parents teach you any manners?”

“I'll tell you what's really disgusting,” Rocky said. “That jewelry you're wearing.”

Pearl shook her head. “My pearls are
sooooo
beautiful.” She ran her fingers over the long necklace.

“Actually,” a tiny, dark-haired mergirl said, “pearls
are
sort of disgusting. They're
made when an oyster or mussel secretes nacre around an irritant.”

Pearl sniffed at the tiny mergirl. “So what?”

“Secretes?” another merboy asked. “What's that?”

“Kind of like spitting,” the mergirl explained.

“I knew that,” Rocky said with a grin. “That means she's wearing puke around her neck.” Several merboys and mergirls in the class giggled at the joke.

The small mergirl nodded, and Shelly took a closer look at her. She had long black hair that reached all the way to her tail; wide, dark eyes; and the palest of skin. Her mertail was a brilliant purple, unlike any Shelly'd ever seen. Shelly's own tail was blue, and Echo's was pink. The mergirl with the purple tail didn't look even a little bit afraid of Pearl. Anyone who could stand up to Pearl was awesome. Shelly knew she was going to like this mergirl.