by Jason June
Speaking of tentacles, Roger wasn’t very good at keeping track of his. He was so distracted by our Sugar Castle that he didn’t see where they were going. One of them drifted right into Nelia, stinging her.
“Yowch!” she yelped. She jumped out of Roger’s reach. Her tusk swung toward our castle and straight into the stream of magic Grow Shell bubbles! Then her tusk knocked the trident right from my hooves. It crashed against the square’s oyster cobblestones.
I rushed to pick up the trident. When I had it in my hooves, the tingly magic feeling left my body.
The Grow Shell was broken.
“Oh, blobfish,” I moaned. I’d never broken one of Poseidon’s magic shells before.
“Whoops!” Roger said. “It’s always hard to keep track of these tentacles. Are you all right, Nelia?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t look like that shell is.” Nelia rushed forward, extra careful of where her tusk went this time. “I’m so sorry, Lucky. Can we fix it?”
There was a huge crack in the front of the shell. I tried to take it off the trident, but it was stuck. The shell glowed a dull orange instead of bright orange. It looked like it was sick.
“This has never happened before,” I said. “I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Um, e-e-every-fishy?” Ruby stuttered. She shook so much the curls in her new hairdo bounced up and down. “I think we’ve got bigger problems than the broken shell.”
“Yeah.” Flash nodded at superspeed. “Really big. Really, really, really, really BIG!”
I turned around to see what they were looking at.
Our Sugar Castle was humongous! And with a funny BLOOP sound, it grew bigger right before our eyes!
The sea sponge cake tentacles stood taller than the Beluga Bakery. The crab cutout cookies loomed over me. I had to flick my tail to float out of the way before I got knocked over by an angelfish food cake doughnut.
Nelia turned to me. “How do we get it to—”
BLOOP!
“Ow!” I yelped.
Nelia’s tusk poked me in the eye. But not because she wasn’t looking where she was going. Nelia and her tusk were growing too!
“Does your tusk normally grow like that?” Ruby asked.
Nelia shook her head. “This is totally not narwhal normal.”
BLOOP!
Our Sugar Castle kept moving. One of the crab cutout cookie claws burst forward with magical growth and knocked into Echo. She flipped tail over dorsal fin.
“Okay,” Echo said when she finally stopped flipping. “I know I said I like adventure, but I’ve had enough for one day.”
“I got it,” I said. I squinted my eyes shut. It helped my stinging eye and let me picture everything and every-fishy completely still, no growing at all. Then I waved the trident twice.
I peeked my eyes open to see two icky orange BUBBLES flow from the broken Grow Shell. They popped against the sea dragon and Wish upon a Starfish Sugar Castles.
BLOOP!
Those castles started growing too. Waving the trident had made things worse!
“What’s going on?” Baxter Beluga shouted. When he saw the panic on Nelia’s face as she grew again, he dove right into help mode.
“Kids, are you all right?” He swam over, but—BLOOP!—our Sugar Castle doubled in size. Baxter had to dive out of the way so he wouldn’t get stuck in giant caramel tart gooeyness.
“Not good, mermidude,” Flash said. It was the shortest sentence I’d ever heard him say. That meant things were definitely not good.
And then they got worse.
CRASH!
Our growing Sugar Castle knocked the selkie shape-shifting castle right over. Dough guards in the shape of seals, then lobsters, then anchovies flew everywhere. Puffs of powdered sugar covered everything. Every-fishy swam around waving their fins in a frenzy.
“What do we do?” I asked.
Baxter Beluga shrugged his flippers. “I don’t think I can bake us out of this, kids. My Taste Sparkle can only turn sweet things savory, and savory things sweet. It can’t stop runaway sea sponge cake.”
BLOOP!
Nelia grew again. Her tusk jammed through the shell in the Express Your Shell sign. She was as big as a building now!
Nelia wiggled back and forth. “I’m stuck!”
The Grow Shell was still glowing that icky orange color. It was like it had turned sour. Maybe the magic in it had gone bad when the shell broke.
BLOOP!
Nelia grew once more and knocked the entire store over. “Oh my goldfish. This is definitely not narwhal normal,” she said.
Nelia swam over the square. Her gigantic body cast a shadow over us.
“I’m getting too big!” she said. “If I stay in the square, I might break more things.”
BLOOP!
I didn’t have time to tell her everything would be okay because the sea dragon Sugar Castle grew again too. It swiped through the stage in the middle of the square. The mermaids of Mer-made for Music had to swim away so they weren’t hit by frozen sea bass guitars.
I saw all our parents on the other side of the stage. It looked like they were trying to get to us, but there was so much growing that they couldn’t get through. Flash’s mom stretched her tail out just like Flash does before he’s about to use his magical superspeed.
“I’m coming, kids!” Flash’s mom said. She had a Speedy Seahorse Taxi saddle on her back. “I’ll get you out of the square!”
BLOOP!
But the Sugar Castles were growing so big that they blocked Mrs. Finnegan before she could get to us.
“Some-fishy help!” Baxter hollered. “We’ve got runaway Sugar Castles!”
Two sea dragons dodged a giant doughnut. “We’ll stop the castles with ice!” one of them said.
They swam close to our colossal Sugar Castle. Then they took three big breaths and blew magical ice all over our big baked kraken.
In seconds, the Sugar Castle was covered in frost. It looked like a gigantic ice sculpture. And the castle didn’t budge at all.
“It worked!” Ruby cheered. “Thank you so—”
BLOOP!
Crack! Crick! Crack!
Lines popped all over the frozen castle.
BLOOP!
Ice burst everywhere, and our Sugar Castle grew even bigger! A sea sponge cake tentacle knocked over the BUBBLE fountain and swiped right toward us. Flash and I dove to the right. The toy trident and broken Grow Shell flew from my hooves. Echo and Ruby dove to the left.
SMASH!
The cake tentacle slammed down. No-fishy was hurt, but now Flash and I were separated from our friends.
Before I could think of a plan to get back to Ruby and Echo, two selkies swam over our heads.
“Don’t worry, kids. We’re going to use our Shape-Shifting Sparkle,” one of them said. “We’ll try to turn this castle into something soft that does less damage.”
The two selkies wiggled their whiskers, and green glitter flowed from their noses. When the glitter touched a baked turret tentacle, it turned to jelly!
“Jelly is my jam!” Flash said. He slurped up some of the sugary goop with a big grin on his face. “This is the most sea-licious selkie solution. Can I bottle some of this and take it home?”
The selkies moved to a tentacle that formed one of our Sugar Castle walls. With another whisker wiggle, that wall turned to jelly too.
“Thank goldfish,” I said. “Everything is fixed.”
But then—
BLOOP!
The jelly and all the Sugar Castles grew bigger. The jelly became so thick, Flash got trapped in it. He tugged and tugged his tail to try to get out. But it didn’t work. Then he tried a burst of superspeed. That didn’t work either.
“Lucky, I’m stuck!” Flash said. “My magic isn’t working with my tail caught in all this jelly. What are we going to do?”
BLOOP!
Our Sugar Castle and all the jelly got bigger again. I couldn’t see the selkies anywhere to ask for help.
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“Lucky! Hurry!” Flash cried. “Get me out of here!”
Flash was now covered all the way to his neck. I had to tug him free or the jam would swallow him up!
I reached under the jelly and grabbed Flash’s fins. Then I pulled with all my might.
“Come on! Come on!” I said. I pictured Flash pulling free from the jelly. But unlike when I had a non-broken magic shell, thinking about what I wanted to happen didn’t work. Flash was still stuck.
If only I had a Superstrength Sparkle Shell. I could try swimming home to look in Poseidon’s treasure chest for one. But there was no way I would make it back in time. Flash would be swallowed up by the jam. And Mermicorn Island Square would be toppled over by gigantic baked goods.
I tugged and pulled and hoped, but it was no use. I needed more strength. Nelia definitely had strength now that she was huge. But she was so big there was no way she’d be able to help without smashing even more buildings.
I needed more fins or flippers to help me pull Flash out. I needed …
“The Fin-Tastic Four!” I shouted.
“Lucky!” Through all the baked goods, Echo’s shout sounded like a whisper. “Where are you?”
I looked around, but I couldn’t see Echo and Ruby anywhere. All I saw were cake walls and giant cookies that grew bigger by the minute.
“Nelia, can you see them?” I shouted up at her.
She shook her head from above the square. “The Sugar Castles are growing too fast to see anything.”
I knew of only one thing that could help my friends find me.
“Echo!” I called. “Use your magic!”
I could just barely hear a few musical clicks. It was Echo’s magical echolocation. She could find whatever she was looking for with it, as long as it wasn’t too far away.
“Found you!” Echo yelled. “We’ll be right there.”
I looked up and saw Ruby and Echo way up high, swimming over a massive twisty-turny sea sponge cake tentacle.
BLOOP!
Everything got bigger again: Nelia, the Sugar Castles, and the jelly Flash was stuck in. It oozed so much that it covered his head. His whole body was stuck under the jelly.
“Hurry!” I yelled. “We’ve got to save Flash!”
“Don’t worry!” Ruby called. “We’re almost there!”
They were so close. They had made it over the last kraken castle tentacle and were almost to us.
BLOOP!
But then another growth burst happened, and a massive doughnut sucker tumbled off a tentacle. It was the size of a boulder.
And it was going to fall right on top of my friends.
“Look out!” I screamed. My mane itched like it always does whenever I’m really, really nervous.
But at the same time I yelled, Echo shouted, “Almost there!” She didn’t hear me.
I looked down into the jelly. Flash was looking up at me with wide, scared eyes.
“I promise I’ll be right back,” I said. “I’ll be back in a … a flash.”
Even with jelly all over him, I could still see him smile a bit. And that’s what I needed. I needed to be like Flash. I thought all the fast thoughts I could muster, then swam toward Ruby and Echo with all my might.
My tail swished back and forth faster than it ever had before. I had to get to Ruby and Echo before they were squashed. I may not have had magical superspeed, but I was still pretty fast.
But so was the huge doughnut about to smoosh my friends.
“Lucky, slow down!” Ruby said.
I was just inches away from them.
“Yeah,” Echo agreed. “You’re going to run into us! Oof!”
I smacked right into her and Ruby. We tumbled manes over tails over flippers over horns. But we were safe.
CRASH!
The doughnut boulder smashed just an anchovy’s length away.
Ruby looked at the massive doughnut chunks scattered around us. “Lucky,” she said. “We would have been smashed flatter than pancakes.”
“I know it’s a Sugar Castle Competition, but a pancake is one sweet treat I do not want to be a part of,” Echo said.
We all laughed, but then I saw a fin just barely peek out from the jelly oozing down the street.
“We’ve got to save Flash!” I cried. “He’s stuck!”
Echo, Ruby, and I dashed to where Flash’s fin poked out of the jelly ooze. I grabbed it with my hoof. “You two grab my tail. On the count of three, we all pull. Ready?”
Ruby and Echo got into position and nodded.
“One,” I counted. “Two. Three!”
We all pulled together. We huffed and puffed and tugged. Slowly but surely, Flash’s fin fully popped out of the jelly.
“It’s working!” I said. “Keep pulling!”
We pulled and pulled and pulled. I could see Flash get closer and closer to the top until—
GASP!
Flash’s head pulled free. He sucked in big breaths. After taking four big gill-fuls of water, he said, “Can you believe I could hold my breath that long? That’s got to be some kind of record, don’t you think? Maybe they’ll put me down in the Atlantis Book of World Records!”
“Sounds like you’re back to normal!” Echo said with a giggle.
“But still covered in jelly from the tail down,” Ruby said. “We’ve got a bit more work to do.”
With a few more tugs, Flash was finally out.
“The Fin-Tastic Four could be a rescue team!” Flash said. “But maybe we leave the Grow Shell out of it. It seems to cause a lot of trouble, don’t you think?”
“Speaking of which,” I said, “where is the Grow Shell?”
Echo let loose a few magic echolocation clicks. She turned around and pointed to the pile of big smashed doughnut pieces.
“My echolocation shows it in there,” Echo said. “Or some of it is at least.”
I swam closer. Sure enough, broken pieces of the Grow Shell were everywhere. It must have been smashed by the huge doughnut boulder when it fell. The shell bits didn’t glow that gross orange color anymore. And now that I had a minnow to think, nothing was growing bigger anymore either. Not the jelly, not the Sugar Castle, not Nelia.
“I think when the Grow Shell was smashed, its magic was destroyed,” I said. I turned to my friends. “The coast is clear.”
Then I looked back to the square. “Well, it isn’t clear exactly,” I said. “We have a lot of cleaning up to do.”
The huge Sugar Castles crowded everything. There were giant crab cutout cookies all over the place, sea dragon ice frosting had frozen the fountain, and the mermaid band was stuck behind a sea sponge cake tentacle.
But now that the castles weren’t growing anymore, creatures were able to come out safely. Our parents led the way and rushed right over to us.
“I’m so glad you’re all okay,” Mom said.
“But how in the ocean are we going to clean up this mess?” Ruby asked.
“We could eat it!” Flash said. He took a big bite out of a lemon square the size of a door. Even though the bite was big, it only took a tiny dent out of the treat. “Eating all this might take a while.”
Flash was right. Even if every-fishy in Mermicorn Island tried to eat the mess, we would still be there until next year’s Sugar Castle Competition.
“I don’t want to burst your BUBBLE, Flash, but I don’t think we can eat our way out of this,” I said.
Talking about bubbles made me think of the magic orange ones that came from my Grow Shell. I caused this whole mess. Guilt guppies swam in my belly.
I needed to think of a way to clean everything up. I swam back and forth thinking of ways to clear the square. But I wasn’t watching where I was going and smacked right into a massive doughnut.
Wait a minnow.
“That’s it!” I said. “Doughnuts! I’ll be right back!”
I swam up to Nelia. She was still floating over the square in her magically massive body.
“Nelia,” I said. “Do you t
hink you could use your Twisty-Turny Sparkle on all the giant baked goods down below?”
Nelia nodded, and I had to dodge her big tusk. “Absolutely. Now that the Grow Sparkle is under control, I think I can help!”
“Perfect! What if you twisted all this dough into doughnuts and wrapped them around your tusk? Then the square would be clear again!”
“My tusk would be like a doughnut kebab!” Nelia said. “I’ll have this cleaned up in no time. Doughnut worry about a thing.”
Nelia took a deep breath, then began to hum. I swam back down to the square, and every-fishy went quiet. Nelia’s humming was even prettier than whale song.
As Nelia’s music got louder, her tusk started to glow with sea-utiful yellow light. It shined so bright, I bet seagulls could even see it from the surface.
The tarts and cookies and cakes all around us started to shake.
“Is that supposed to happen?” Echo yelled up to Nelia.
Nelia didn’t say anything. She just kept humming. But she slowly nodded her head.
The shaking got stronger and stronger. Flash grabbed me and Ruby and Echo into a big hug.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said. Nelia’s humming got louder and louder, but it was really calming. “I feel it in my scales.”
All at once, the baked goods twisted and turned and broke off into three perfectly round, giant doughnuts. There was one for each of the magnified Sugar Castles. Our kraken even looked like it was hugging itself with its big tentacles until it twirled into a doughnut shape.
As each new doughnut formed, Nelia dipped her head and looped it around her tusk.
In no time at all, the whole square was clear, and Nelia’s giant tusk was covered by three huge doughnuts.
“Nelia, you did it!” I cheered.
“No, we did it,” Nelia said. “That was a great idea about the doughnuts, Lucky. But … what do I do with all these?” She jiggled her tusk, and the big doughnuts bounced.