Purrmaids #1

by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen

  “I don’t know why we don’t come here more often,” Angel said. She darted behind an elkhorn and disappeared.

  “Angel?” Coral called. “Where are you?”

  Angel popped up from behind a huge sea fan. “Here I am!” she shouted.

  Coral yelped and hid behind Shelly.

  “Coral!” Angel said. “You weren’t scared, were you?”

  “Of course I wasn’t scared,” Coral lied, “just surprised.”

  Shelly patted Coral’s paw and said, “It’s all right. Angel surprised me, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” Angel apologized. She put her paw around Coral and led her toward the sea fan. “Can you help me with something?” she asked. When Coral nodded, Angel said, “I don’t remember all the different creatures who live here in Tortoiseshell Reef. You know them better than I do. Will you show me?”

  Coral smiled. Angel was a good friend. Together, they swam toward the floor of the reef. Coral pointed out different animals.

  “That’s a butterfly fish,” Coral said. “And that is a cleaner shrimp.”

  “Cleaner than what?” Angel joked. The two purrmaids giggled.

  “Look over here!” Shelly called. She was looking at something hiding inside a sea whip.

  Coral swam closer to get a better look. She saw a beautiful orange-and-white fish zipping between the fronds of the sea whip. “It’s a clown fish!” she whispered.

  “Where’s the rest of the circus?” Shelly laughed.

  The clown fish didn’t find the joke very funny. He swam away.

  The purrmaids paddled slowly around the reef. Coral showed her friends all sorts of animals and plants. She spotted a family of sea horses. “Let’s take a closer look,” Coral suggested.

  “Great idea!” Shelly agreed.

  Coral looked over her shoulder. She started to wave to Angel. But Angel wasn’t there!

  Coral gasped. “Where is she?”

  Shelly spun around. Coral knew she couldn’t see Angel, either.

  “Angel!” Coral yelled. “Where are you?” Her heart began to pound. I knew something terrible would happen, she thought.

  Coral and Shelly kept shouting their friend’s name. Finally, they reached the edge of Tortoiseshell Reef. The coral there had formed a deep tunnel. “Be careful near the tunnel,” Coral warned Shelly. “Sometimes eels live in those!”

  Suddenly, something came whooshing out of the tunnel. Without thinking, Coral swam in front of Shelly. She closed her eyes and braced herself for whatever was coming her way.

  Then Coral heard giggling. She opened one eye. “Angel!” she yelped. “You scared me!”

  “You scared me, too,” Shelly added.

  “We thought you were an eel!” Coral said. She was still trembling from fear.

  “If you thought I was an eel,” Angel said, “why did you swim in front of Shelly instead of swimming away?”

  “I was—I was trying to protect her,” Coral stammered.

  Angel grinned. “You’re not such a scaredy cat after all!”

  Shelly gave Coral a hug. “That was pretty brave, Coral.”

  Coral smiled. “I guess it was,” she said.

  “Well, I have something else for you to be brave about,” Angel said. She pointed to the tunnel. “It’s the coolest thing. On the other side of the tunnel, there’s a geyser that spins you head over tail. If you swim through really fast, it will flip you over and turn you around. Then you can swim back.”

  “That sounds so exciting!” Shelly said.

  “Let’s all do it!” Angel suggested.

  “I—I don’t know.” Coral pulled back from her friends. “What if I can’t do it and get stuck upside down? What if I sink? What if…?” She hung her head in embarrassment.

  “Haven’t you ever tried a flip?” Angel asked. “I’ve been doing them since I was the size of a minnow!”

  Coral felt as small as a grain of sand on the ocean floor. “No, I guess I haven’t ever tried.”

  “We can help you,” Angel offered.

  “That’s what friends do,” Shelly added.

  Coral sighed. “I don’t think I could start by swimming the tunnel,” she said.

  “You don’t have to!” Angel cried. She took Coral’s paw. “Let’s go over here.” She led them to an open part of the ocean. “There’s plenty of room to flip here!”

  Coral gulped. “What do I do first?”

  Shelly and Angel took turns showing Coral how to do underwater flips. “Look at me!” Angel yowled. She flipped easily, over and over again.

  “The trick is to swim as fast as you can before you start the flip,” Shelly said. She swam into the open water and did a flawless flip. “That way you have the oomph to get all the way around.”

  Coral narrowed her eyes. She shook her tail out to get loose. Then she started to swim.

  Shelly said to go fast, so Coral swam with all her might. Then she tucked her head down and threw her tail back, just like Angel and Shelly had shown her.

  And she did it!

  Coral was catching her breath when Angel and Shelly swam up to her. “That was purr-fect!” Angel cried.

  “You got it on the first try!” Shelly added.

  Coral couldn’t believe it! “That wasn’t scary,” she said.

  “Do you want to try again?” Angel asked.

  Coral nodded. “Yes, I do!”

  The girls swam through the clear blue water. They took turns doing flips. Soon Coral couldn’t remember why she had ever been afraid. “This is so much fun!” she shouted.

  “I need a break!” Angel said. She plopped down on a rock. “I’m just going to sit here for a minute.”

  “Good idea,” Shelly said. She sat down next to Angel.

  Coral was tired, too. There was no room left on that rock, so she looked around for someplace else to rest.

  That’s when she realized nothing looked familiar. “Hey!” she shouted. “Do you know where we are? Because this is definitely not Kittentail Cove!”

  “What do you mean, this isn’t Kittentail Cove?” Angel asked.

  “We’re not allowed to leave the cove!” Shelly cried. “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know,” Coral moaned. She bit her lip. “I wasn’t paying attention while we were swimming and flipping.”

  “Neither was I,” Shelly groaned.

  Angel looked worried. “We’re going to be in so much trouble!” she said. “How are we going to get home?”

  If there were little butterfly fish fluttering in Coral’s tummy earlier, now it felt like big blue whales! She couldn’t remember ever being this nervous. “We need to stay calm!” she said. “We just need to look around. I’m sure we’ll see something familiar soon. And then we’ll hurry home!”

  “Good plan,” Shelly agreed. “Should we split up? That way we can see more of the ocean at once.”

  Angel shook her head. “I don’t want to be alone out here! I think it’s better for us to stay together.”

  For once, Coral agreed with Angel’s plan. She nodded and said, “Come on. Let’s try to retrace our swim.”

  The three purrmaids moved slowly through the water. They couldn’t see Tortoiseshell Reef from where they were. All there was up ahead was a giant kelp forest.

  Every moment they were lost made Coral worry more. What are we going to do? she thought.

  Coral, Shelly, and Angel were very busy trying to find their way home. So they didn’t notice the school of fish swimming toward them until they were surrounded by a hun-dred bright-green parrot fish.

  Suddenly, Coral remembered something. “The South Canary Current!” she shouted. “Maybe these fish are headed there!”

  Shelly’s face lit up. “If we can find the South Canary Current…”

  “…it will take us home to Kittentail Cove!” Coral finished.

  “You are so smart!” Angel applauded. “I knew there was nothing to worry about!”

  Coral rolled her eyes. Angel had definitely been worried!
“Let’s follow those fish,” she said.

  There were so many parrot fish, they formed a green cloud. That made it easy to follow them without spooking them. Soon Shelly cried, “Look over there! It’s the South Canary Current!”

  A line of fish, turtles, and other sea creatures traveled in the flow of the South Canary Current. It was like a high-speed highway for ocean folks. “We’ll be home in no time!” Coral cheered. She started to swim toward the current.

  But Angel grabbed Coral’s paw. “Don’t!” she yelled.

  “Why?” Coral asked. “We have to go!”

  Angel wouldn’t let go. She pointed at the water in front of them. “Does that look like smooth sailing to you?”

  Coral scowled. “I don’t understand.”

  “Look closely,” Angel urged.

  “Is that a swarm of jellyfish up ahead?” Shelly gasped.

  “I think it is,” Angel said. Jellyfish were pretty harmless to purrmaids—unless they got stuck in a big group of them. One sting wasn’t so bad, but getting stung over and over was not a good idea. “We can’t go straight to the current.”

  “We have to find a way to go around them,” Coral agreed.

  “But they’re everywhere,” Shelly said. She was right. As the girls swam closer, they saw that the cloud of jellyfish stretched over most of the ocean. It was in front of them, from the top of the kelp forest almost to the surface of the water.

  Angel pointed downward at the kelp forest. “If we can’t go up, we’ll go down.”

  Shelly shrugged. Coral frowned. But then they both nodded.

  “I’ll go first,” Angel said. She swam toward the kelp. Shelly followed on her tail.

  Coral hesitated. She was trying to be brave in front of her friends. But she felt nervous. Who knew what was hiding in all that kelp?

  “Come on, Coral!” Shelly said.

  “It’s not so bad,” Angel added. “Don’t be a scaredy cat!”

  Coral lowered her eyes. She didn’t mean to be scared. She just liked doing things the safe way. The safe way never involved sharks or jellyfish or getting grounded. But now the safe way seemed to be through the forest. She gulped, then shouted, “I’m coming!”

  The three friends entered the kelp forest together. There were a few natural passages that let them swim freely. But in other parts of the forest, the girls had to use their paws to part the kelp in order to get through.

  “How do we know if we’re going the right way?” Shelly asked.

  Coral looked up. She tried to catch a glimpse of the South Canary Current, but all she could see was kelp. “I don’t know,” she answered.

  “Let’s keep moving,” Angel suggested.

  Coral nodded. She pushed aside a large kelp leaf. “Wow!” she cried.

  “What is it?” Shelly asked. She shrank behind Angel. “Is it dangerous?”

  Coral grinned. “No! It’s the way out!” She held the kelp aside so her friends could swim through. They were back in the open ocean!

  “Where’s the current?” Angel looked around.

  “It’s up there!” Shelly said. “And I don’t see any jellyfish, either!”

  “Let’s go!” Angel cried.

  But Coral didn’t move. She was staring at a trench in front of them. When she looked down, the water was darkened by shadows.

  Coral thought something was lodged in the sand at the bottom of the trench. At first, it looked like a whale resting on the ocean floor. But then she realized it wasn’t a living creature. “We’ve found a shipwreck!”

  “I can’t believe it!” Coral whispered. “I’ve read about shipwrecks. But I’ve never seen one!”

  “That’s because you never leave Kittentail Cove,” Angel purred.

  Coral scowled at Angel. But when she saw Angel’s face, she knew her friend was kidding.

  “Speaking of Kittentail Cove,” Shelly said, “it’s time for us to get back.”

  “I want to tell everyone at home about what we found!” Angel said.

  “Wait!” Coral shouted. She gazed down at the shadowy ship. All afternoon, every time she had gotten scared, she had made herself be brave. If she could do it one more time, she and her friends could find something truly paw-some. “We have to explore the shipwreck first!”

  Shelly’s eyes grew wide, and Angel’s jaw looked like it was going to fall off. “What did you say?” Angel sputtered.

  “The South Canary Current will get us home in a flash,” Coral said. “So I think we have a little bit of time. Just a quick look won’t hurt, right?” She smiled. “Maybe we’ll find something in the shipwreck to bring to school.”

  “That would be fin-tastic!” Angel said. She shrugged. “I guess I’m in!”

  “Me too,” Shelly said. “We won’t get a chance like this again.”

  Coral started to swim down into the trench. Angel and Shelly swam beside her. “We can’t explore for too long,” she said.

  “There’s the Coral we know and love!” Shelly laughed.

  “I’m serious!” Coral added. “We have to be home soon. I don’t want to—”

  “Get grounded,” Angel said. “We know, we know.”

  Shelly elbowed Coral playfully. “We’ll just take a quick peek.” She flipped in the water, grinning. “This is so cool!”

  The purrmaids swam closer to the ship. It had sunk down into the sand and was tipped over to one side. Giant barnacles covered the hull. Tattered bits of sail hung from the masts. There were holes scattered around the deck. Beams of sunlight shone down to light different parts of the ship.

  Coral peeked in a jagged hole to see into the ship’s hold. A small fish swam out toward her. The hold was too dark to see very far. “This is scarier up close,” she whispered.

  “Do you want to go inside?” Angel asked.

  Coral gulped. She didn’t know if she could be brave enough to do that. But then she noticed a fancy door. It didn’t look as creepy as the hold. She pointed. “Let’s look there instead,” she suggested.

  All three girls had to yank on the handle to get it open.

  “I hope this is worth it,” Angel muttered.

  Shelly peered through the door. “It’s worth it!” she shouted, and raced ahead.

  The room behind the door must have belonged to the captain of the ship. The floor and the walls were dotted with holes just like on the deck outside. Shelly swam straight to a large table nailed to the floor in the middle of the room. Angel studied the giant globe on one side of the room. Coral saw that the floor was littered with barrels, coils of rope, and tangles of seaweed. She took the lid off one of the barrels.

  Something popped out and Coral squealed. “Yikes!”

  Immediately, Angel and Shelly came to her side. “What happened?” Angel asked.

  “That little guy scared me!” Coral said. A small crab scuttled away.

  The girls giggled. Then Shelly said, “Come over here!” She led her friends back to the table. “Look what I found!” She held up a small golden tube. When she pulled on one end of the tube, it extended to be longer than Shelly’s whole arm.

  “What is it?” Angel asked.

  “I think it’s a spyglass,” Shelly said.

  Coral nodded. “Human sailors use these to see things far away,” she said.

  “I’ve never actually seen one,” Shelly said.

  “So it’s purr-fect to show Ms. Harbor!” Angel grinned from ear to ear.

  “One down, two to go!” Coral laughed. She put one paw around Angel’s waist and the other around Shelly’s. She hugged them tightly. “Let’s see what else we can find!”

  Angel’s face lit up. “Actually, I have something to show you, too.” She swam back to the globe.

  Coral frowned. “Hey, Angel, you know that is way too heavy for us to carry home, right? Even if it wasn’t nailed to the floor!”

  “I know, Coral.” Angel laughed. “I wasn’t talking about the globe. I wanted to show you this.” She held out her paw.

  Coral s
wam closer to examine a small silver circle. She noticed a tiny needle under a glass cover, pointing at the letter N. “You found a compass!” she cried.

  “It still works, too!” Angel turned around and waved the compass. She held it out again. The needle spun and pointed to N for north.

  “It’s paw-some, Angel,” Shelly said.

  “I’m bringing this to school tomorrow,” Angel said. “That spyglass and this compass are purr-fect treasures from a shipwreck!”

  Coral smiled, but she didn’t feel completely happy. Angel and Shelly found fabulous treasures to share with Ms. Harbor tomorrow, she thought. But I still have nothing. And it was my idea to come here in the first place. It’s not fair!

  Shelly had the same thought. “Angel and I have our special things,” she said. “We just need to find something for you, Coral.”

  Coral nodded. But there was nothing else in the captain’s room that she could bring to school. Then she had an idea. “We still have the hold to search!” she cried. She pointed to a hole in the floor. “We can get down through here.”

  “I thought you said it was scary in there,” Angel said.

  Coral shrugged. “You keep saying not to be a scaredy cat. And we’ve been fine so far.” She darted through the hole in the floor. “See if you two can keep up with me!”

  The floor of the hold was covered in sand, seaweed, and coral. It was like being in an underwater cave instead of a human ship. There were broken barrels scattered on the ground. Some sunlight filtered down from above.

  Coral ignored all of that. She swam right to a half-open chest that was lit by a single sunbeam. “Over here!” she shouted.

  “Wow!” Angel gasped. “Look at all these coins!”

  Coral picked one up. “They’re beautiful!” Purrmaids sometimes found one or two human coins around the ocean. But the girls had never seen this many in one place. “I’m going to bring a gold coin to school tomorrow!” she announced.