Treasure in Trident City

by Debbie Dadey

  Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  TRIDENT CITY MAP

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  1 MIRROR, MIRROR

  2 STORY TIME!

  3 DEEP-SEA JEWELS

  4 A MILLION RUBIES

  5 HAUNTED?

  6 PIRATE GHOST

  7 TRAPPED

  8 DIAMONDS?

  9 RESCUE

  10 GIANT OCTOPUS

  11 TROUBLE

  12 A REAL TREASURE

  CLASS STORIES

  THE MERMAID TALES SONG

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  GLOSSARY

  A ROYAL TEA EXCERPT

  ABOUT DEBBIE DADEY

  In memory of two treasures, my uncle John Dohr and my friend Kate DiRugeris

  Acknowledgment

  Thanks to Ellen Mager at Booktenders’ Secret Garden for your dedication to children’s literature.

  Mirror, Mirror

  PEARL SWAMP CURLED THE TIP of her gold tail to make a bow. Then she flipped it out quickly to make a circle. It was hard to do while seated, but just for fun, she began practicing her Tail Flippers dance. Her school, Trident Academy, had a dance and gymnastics group called the Tail Flippers. Pearl was so proud that she’d made the team this year!

  “Pearl!” her third-grade teacher, Mrs. Karp, snapped. “Are you paying attention?”

  Pearl sat up straight and stared innocently at her teacher. “Of course! I always pay attention to you, Mrs. Karp.” Of course, that wasn’t exactly true. Pearl did try to pay attention, but sometimes school was just too boring! She longed for something exciting to happen.

  “As I was saying, class,” Mrs. Karp continued, “today we will start a storytelling project.”

  A merboy named Rocky Ridge groaned loud enough for the whole class to hear. Pearl felt like groaning too. Mrs. Karp was always coming up with new tasks for them, some very dull!

  Mrs. Karp frowned at Rocky. “The project will include two assignments. For the first assignment, each of you will choose a story to study. Then you will practice telling it to your family or in front of a mirror. You will share your story with the class tomorrow.”

  Kiki Coral raised her hand. “What’s a mirror?”

  “Don’t you have a mirror?” Pearl asked in surprise. Even though Kiki was from far-off waters, Pearl couldn’t believe she didn’t know what a mirror was!

  Kiki shook her head. Most of the other third graders shrugged, so Shelly Siren explained, “It’s a piece of glass that you look in to see yourself. What you see is called a reflection. A lot of humans have them.”

  Pearl sniffed, tossing her long blond hair behind her shoulders. Shelly was such a know-it-all. Just because she lived with her grandfather in an apartment above the People Museum, she thought she was an expert on all human things. “My family has ten of them,” Pearl bragged.

  “No one has ten mirrors in their shell,” Rocky scoffed.

  Pearl lifted her pointy nose up in the water. “Well, we do! If you don’t believe me, you can come over and see for yourself!”

  Rocky made a face. “A giant octopus couldn’t drag me to your shell.”

  “That’s quite enough,” Mrs. Karp said sharply. “If you don’t have a mirror, you may practice with a friend.”

  A mergirl named Echo Reef raised her hand and asked, “What’s the second part of the storytelling project?”

  Mrs. Karp peered over her glasses and smiled at Echo. “Thank you for asking. The second assignment will be to make up your own story and tell it to the class.”

  “That’s more like it.” Rocky grinned, sitting back in his sponge seat. “I’m good at making up stories.”

  Pearl knew that was true. Rocky was always making up tales, and they were usually great big fat lies. But even Pearl had to admit she liked the idea of being in front of the class and telling a story she made up. She could say almost anything! Plus, Pearl loved it when everyone looked at her. It made her feel so special.

  Mrs. Karp thumped her white tail on her desk to get everyone’s attention. “It’s time to head to the library to choose the stories for your first assignment.” The merkids floated down the hall. Pearl wasn’t eager to find a story among all the rock and seaweed books, but she did love looking at the beautiful domed library ceiling. It was made of glistening mother-of-pearl, and its fancy chandeliers sparkled with glowing jellyfish. If the whole school was as pretty as the library, Pearl was sure she would like studying more.

  Pearl and her friend Wanda Slug sat down at a rock table that was piled high with stories written on pieces of seaweed. “What kind of story do you want to find?” Wanda asked. “I’d love one about a princess!”

  Pearl scrunched her nose. “A princess would be all right, I guess,” she said. “But only if it’s really exciting.”

  Just then there was a loud yelp across the room. “No wavy way!” Rocky yelled. “Look what I found!”

  Story Time!

  ALMOST THE ENTIRE CLASS gathered around Rocky. “I found a story about a pirate treasure!” he exclaimed.

  “Pirates are cool,” a merboy named Adam said, peering over Rocky’s shoulder.

  “That’s not even the best part!” Rocky boasted. “The treasure is right here in Trident City!”

  Pearl floated over to Rocky as the other merkids giggled in excitement. After all, Trident Academy was located in the middle of Trident City. The treasure couldn’t be too far away.

  “It’s just a pretend story from a book,” Shelly said. “There’s not really a treasure.”

  “But what if it’s not made up?” Rocky protested. “What if it’s real?”

  Pearl squeezed in next to Rocky. Her eyes grew wide as she scanned the story, which included a faded drawing of an old, abandoned pirate ship. “It says there are diamonds as big as a merman’s fist and rubies large enough to choke a shark!”

  Rocky nodded. “And they’re all hidden inside a treasure chest that’s haunted by pirate ghosts.”

  “Ghosts?” Echo Reef shuddered. “Ghosts are creepy.”

  Shelly shook her head. “Ghosts aren’t real.”

  Rocky pointed his brown tail at Shelly. “How do you know?”

  “Yeah,” Pearl said, rolling her big green eyes. “Ghosts are supposed to be invisible. For all you know, they’re floating all over this library.” Pearl didn’t believe in ghosts, but she hated when Shelly acted like she knew everything.

  Echo looked around as if she expected a ghost to jump out at any moment.

  “I know,” Shelly said. “I just don’t believe in them.”

  “Who cares about pirates or ghosts anyway?” Pearl said. “I want to know where to find that treasure!”

  Rocky continued to read the story aloud. “This doesn’t say exactly where the treasure is, but you wouldn’t want to go near it. The pirate ghosts guard it! There’s no telling what they’d do to you if you tried to take it.”

  Just then the librarian, Miss Scylla, swam over with one eyebrow raised. “What’s all the fuss about? Have you finished choosing your stories?” Everyone sighed and got back to work.

  But Pearl couldn’t stop thinking about how thrilling it would be to find a real pirate’s treasure. She’d probably even get her picture in the Trident City Tide, the local newsweed. She closed her eyes, imagining the headline:

  BEAUTIFUL YOUNG MERMAID FINDS TREASURE

  THAT NIGHT AT DINNER, PEARL asked her parents if they’d heard about the treasure in Trident City. “That’s just a silly old legend,” Mrs. Swamp said, wiping her mouth with a napkin.

  “Actually,” began Mr. Swamp, putting his glass of comb jelly tea down on the marble table, “I’ve seen the ship. It’s beyond Whale Mountain and the Big Volcano.” Whale Mountain w
as a big underwater mountain shaped like the hump on a whale’s back.

  Pearl slapped the table gleefully. “I knew it!” She couldn’t wait to tell that know-it-all Shelly that the treasure was real.

  “But the ship is haunted,” her dad said in a quiet voice.

  Her mom laughed. “Don’t be silly! There’s no such thing as a haunted ship.”

  Her dad raised his eyebrows, picking up his glass. “Maybe not, but there’s something spooky about that ship. Frank at work told me he swam by there one day and heard ghosts moaning. He said that over the years many merpeople have disappeared into that ship and never been seen again.”

  Pearl’s mom sighed. “You know Frank likes to make things up.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Pearl’s father said. “Merfolk stay away from it anyway, because the ship’s wood is rotting. It’s so old that the whole place is dangerous.”

  Pearl nodded and took another sip of her cuttlefish chowder. All she could think about was a big treasure chest full of diamonds and rubies.

  Deep-Sea Jewels

  SWEET SEAWEED! WHAT ARE YOU wearing?” Pearl asked Rocky the next morning. They were in their classroom at Trident Academy, and all the third graders were staring at Rocky.

  Rocky had a pirate hat on his head. He wore a necklace of bootlace worms and an acorn barnacle eye patch. A ferocious-looking black dragonfish was wound around his tummy for a belt, and a long needlefish stuck out of the belt. Rocky grinned. “I’m a pirate, just like in the story I found! Mrs. Karp should give me extra points for this getup.”

  Pearl pointed at Rocky and smirked. “You look silly!” Her blond hair swirled around her as she slid into her desk, secretly wishing she had thought to wear a costume. She had a tiara at home that would have gone perfectly with the princess story she’d found in the library yesterday.

  “All right, class,” Mrs. Karp said as she floated into the room. “Let’s get to”—she paused when she saw Rocky, but quickly continued—“work. Miss Scylla told me you had quite a lively discussion about pirate treasure in the library yesterday. So I thought we would have a quick lesson on deep-sea jewels before you share the stories you found.”

  Pearl’s ears perked up at the word “jewels.” She excitedly twisted her pearl necklace between her fingers as Mrs. Karp continued. “As you may know, human pirates sailed the ocean waters hundreds of years ago, stealing from other ships and collecting valuable jewels and gold. Sometimes they buried the jewels so that no one else could find them. There are four jewels that pirates liked best: diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds.”

  Pearl frowned, still clutching her necklace. “Didn’t they like pearls?” she asked.

  Mrs. Karp nodded. “I’m sure they did. But diamonds were their favorite. In fact, you may have seen diamonds around Trident City. They are quite hard, so merfolk often use them to cut doors in shells.”

  Wanda raised her hand. “Mr. Fangtooth carries a diamond saw sometimes.”

  “Yes, but pirates collected them for their beauty and value. Diamonds are worth a lot of money to humans, and we merfolk value them too. Diamonds come in many colors: yellow, brown, gray, blue, green, black, pink, violet, orange, purple, and red. Our historical records show that pirates liked the clear ones best.”

  Mrs. Karp opened a wooden box and took out a shiny object. “In fact, I’ve brought a diamond for you to see. Please be careful when you handle it.” She looked directly at Rocky as she said, “Remember, they are very valuable!”

  Mrs. Karp passed the diamond to Echo. It was bigger than her hand and a sparkling yellow color. Pearl could hardly wait to hold it.

  Next their teacher held up a glittering scarlet stone. “This is a ruby. They’re almost as hard as diamonds, and they are always red.” She passed the stone to Wanda.

  According to Mrs. Karp, emeralds were very rare and valuable, and transparent blue sapphires made up the windows in King Neptune’s castle. It was all very exciting, but Pearl could barely pay attention. Her eyes never left the diamond. Finally it was her turn to hold it!

  Pearl lifted the shining jewel to her face and sighed in delight. She could see her reflection about a hundred times in all its different surfaces! She’d never seen anything sparkle quite so much.

  Right then and there, Pearl decided that she was going to get her very own diamond—no matter what!

  A Million Rubies

  I THOUGHT OF IT FIRST!” pearl snapped.

  Wanda shrugged in her seat next to Pearl in the lunchroom. “That’s not true. Rocky was the one who told us about the treasure.”

  Pearl took a sip of her big kelp drink and frowned. They had spent the morning sharing the stories they’d found in the library. Of course, her story was the best. Then Mrs. Karp had told them that the day after tomorrow they would finish the second part of the storytelling project. They’d each tell a story that they made up themselves. Pearl had decided to make up a pirate story. But what fun would it be if everyone else was doing the same thing?

  Just then she had an idea. She knew how to make her story really stand out from the others.

  “I’m doing it,” Pearl announced to the girls at her table.

  “Me too,” Wanda agreed. “I just have to decide what to name my pirate. How about Pierre? Pierre the Pirate.”

  Pearl crossed her arms. “I’m not talking about pirate stories. I’m talking about finding a real pirate treasure.” She waited until she was sure everyone was watching. “Actually, I know where the Trident City treasure is, the one Rocky was talking about yesterday. My dad told me.”

  “Y-you do?” a girl named Morgan asked.

  “Yes, and I’m going to find it after school tomorrow,” Pearl told the girls. She could tell they were impressed.

  Echo floated past the table and glanced at Pearl. “Find what?” Echo asked.

  “The pirate’s treasure!” Pearl announced loudly.

  “Are you crazy?” Echo said. “Ghosts guard it!”

  Pearl shrugged. She didn’t believe in ghosts, and she certainly wasn’t going to let some old legend keep her from a chest full of jewels—not to mention having the very best story to tell the class tomorrow. “If someone wants to go with me,” she added, “I’ll let them have one ruby.”

  “I’ve always wanted to find a pirate’s treasure,” Echo admitted. “But I wouldn’t go on a haunted ship for a million rubies!”

  “I would!” Rocky said with a grin. He floated up beside Echo, still wearing his pirate getup.

  “I thought you were scared of ghosts,” Echo told Rocky.

  Rocky shrugged. “Last night my dad told me there’s no such thing. And he should know—he’s the mayor of Trident City.”

  “Don’t go,” Wanda warned. “It’s dangerous.”

  “And I bet it’s against the rules,” Echo added.

  “What rules?” Pearl asked.

  “I don’t know,” Echo said, “but I’m sure there’s a rule against it somewhere.”

  Pearl rolled her eyes. Who cared about rules? Rules were boring!

  Suddenly she couldn’t wait for tomorrow. She wished she didn’t have Tail Flippers practice after school; otherwise she’d go right away. She was going to find that treasure, no matter what.

  Haunted?

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON PEARL and Rocky raced out of Trident Academy as soon as the last conch sounded. “This is such a thrill!” Pearl exclaimed. She couldn’t believe she was going on a real treasure hunt.

  “I even brought my pirate costume, just in case we run into anything fishy,” Rocky added, pulling the costume and needlefish from behind a rock. In just a few minutes he had the costume on, with the needlefish in his belt.

  Pearl could care less about silly costumes; she just wanted to find the treasure!

  “Wait!” Echo called from the school doorway. “Don’t go!”

  Shelly glided around Echo. “Don’t worry,” Shelly assured her. “They won’t get far.”

  “Yes, we will,” Rocky insisted
.

  Shelly shook her head. “You’ll get scared and come back when you can’t find anything.”

  “You really think so?” Echo asked, looking relieved.

  “Of course,” Shelly said. Kiki floated beside her and nodded.

  “Wait!” Wanda cried as she rushed out the doorway.

  “Oh my Neptune!” Pearl complained. “What now?”

  “I’m coming with you,” Wanda said.

  Pearl put her right hand on her right hip and cocked her head. “I thought you were afraid.”

  Wanda giggled. “I’m terrified, but I don’t want to miss the chance to find treasure. I’ll go as long as I can have a diamond, plus the ruby you already promised.”

  “If she gets a diamond, then so do I,” Rocky told Pearl.

  Pearl let out a giant sigh. She didn’t really want to share, but she didn’t want to go alone. “All right. You can each have one small diamond, too.”

  Rocky high-finned the water and Wanda giggled. “This is totally exciting! We’re going on a real treasure hunt,” she said.

  Echo shuddered. “Some excitement is worth missing.”

  “You’re just jealous that you didn’t think of finding the treasure first!” Pearl told her before turning to Wanda and Rocky. “Now—let’s go find those jewels!”

  The three treasure hunters floated away from the school, leaving Echo, Shelly, and Kiki behind in a swirl of bubbles.

  “AHOY, MATIES!” ROCKY CALLED TO a colony of vampire squid as they passed Whale Mountain. But when they reached the Big Volcano at the very edge of Trident City, Rocky looked uncertain. “I’ve never swum past the Big Volcano,” he said with a gulp.

  Pearl had been on the Manta Ray Express with her family many times. The enormous manta rays took merpeople anywhere in the ocean for just a couple of shells. But Pearl had never been this far from home all by herself. She was a little afraid, but she wasn’t going to let Rocky or Wanda know. “My dad said the ship is close to Whale Mountain, so it shouldn’t be much farther,” Pearl said confidently. She couldn’t remember exactly what her father had said, but she was sure he’d said something about Whale Mountain.