by Debbie Dadey
Echo wiped away a tear. “Do you really think so?”
Shelly nodded. “She wore a sparkly cloth today, didn’t she?”
Echo laughed. “That’s right, she did.”
“I bet my grandfather can get that pot off,” Shelly said, finally glad to be telling Echo her plan.
“That’s a great idea!” Echo yelled. “He is, after all, an expert on human things.”
Shelly shrugged. Not only was Echo fascinated with human stuff, but so was Shelly’s grandfather. He was the director of the People Museum and knew more than anyone in Trident City about human beings and what went on above the sea. There had been many afternoons when Echo had been content to wander around the museum with Shelly’s grandpa, looking at useless human tools. But Shelly had been bored to tears.
“And if he can’t get your pot off, then I’ll find one to put on my tail so we’ll match,” Shelly said. “We’ll have a pot-tail club.”
Echo smiled at her friend. “You are the best merfriend in the whole world.”
“Come on, let’s go find Grandpa,” Shelly said.
GRANDPA SIREN TOOK ONE LOOK AT ECHO’S tail and grinned. “Are you sure you want it off? You never know when a good pot could come in handy.”
“Grandpa! She really wants it off,” Shelly pleaded.
Grandpa Siren rubbed his chin. “I wonder … ,” he said as he floated off to his storeroom of extra human gadgets.
Bang! Crash! Bang!
“What’s he doing in there?” Echo asked.
Shelly shrugged. Her grandpa came out of the storage area with a large wire basket full of small glass bottles, which he immediately began searching through.
Echo picked one up labeled DANGER: MOTOR OIL. “Will this help me?” she asked.
Grandpa immediately snatched the bottle away. “It would help, but it would also pollute our water. It’s deadly to ocean life.”
Echo gulped and backed away from the bottles. Grandpa continued looking until he held one up. “This should do the trick.”
He poured the tiniest amount of yellow liquid over Echo’s tail, and immediately the water filled with round blobs that bounced off each other. “What is this stuff?” Echo asked.
“Vegetable oil,” Grandpa explained. “I just applied a drop, but I think it worked.”
Echo squealed as the pot slid off her tail. She gave Grandfather a hug. “You’re the greatest!”
“Now we can finish our projects,” Shelly said. “And look! You’ve already caught two shrimp.” Sure enough, two glowing hinge-beak shrimp floated in the bottom of the pot.
Grandpa raised his furry eyebrows. “Girls, do you need any help with your assignment?”
Shelly looked at Echo. Echo giggled. “No, we’re supposed to do it on our own.” And that’s exactly what the friends did.
AFTER THE GIRLS HAD WORKED FOR several hours, Echo said, “I don’t want to go to school tomorrow.”
“But our projects are turning out great,” Shelly answered. “We even found two snapping shrimp.” Shelly almost wished they hadn’t found the loud creatures. Their popping noises were driving her crazy.
“I’m afraid the kids will make fun of me,” Echo said.
Shelly thought her friend might be right. Even though the pot was finally off Echo’s tail, Rocky and Pearl did like to tease, and a pot on a tail was kind of funny. But then Shelly remembered something her grandfather had told her: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”
“But words do hurt my feelings sometimes,” Echo said.
“They only hurt if you let them,” Shelly said. “Just pretend you don’t care. If you don’t get upset, everyone will stop teasing.”
“Will that really work?” Echo asked.
Shelly nodded. “Of course it will.” She sure hoped she was right.
Best Merfriend Ever
HEY, POT-TAIL, WHER E’S YOUR pot?” Rocky asked the next morning at school.
“Right here,” Echo said, holding up the pot that now held Shelly’s and Echo’s projects.
Rocky grinned and said, “I liked it better on your tail.”
Shelly was surprised and happy that Rocky didn’t say another word. Echo had been worried for no reason.
Mrs. Karp splashed her tail sharply, and all the merstudents quickly found their desks. Shelly and Echo proudly turned in their reports, but they couldn’t believe their eyes when Kiki turned in at least a dozen seaweed pages and a small chest full of shrimp and krill.
“Wow,” Echo whispered. “She must be really smart.”
Kiki overheard this as she sat down in her seat. She shrugged. “I’m so sorry I hit you in the stomach at practice yesterday. I felt so bad, I came back to school and worked late on my report.”
“It’s okay,” Shelly said. “I wasn’t hurt.” Now she felt sorry. She hadn’t said goodbye to Kiki when she’d left the park yesterday. Shelly hoped she hadn’t hurt Kiki’s feelings.
Mrs. Karp frowned when Rocky turned in two small seaweed pages with a harlequin shrimp and Pearl handed in four shrimp that clearly had prices marked on their tails.
Pearl swam back to her seat and muttered, “My dad had to work late. He said the project was silly anyway.”
Shelly had to admit she’d actually enjoyed working on the project. She’d never known there were so many different kinds of shrimp in the waters around her home.
At lunchtime, Echo and Shelly sat at a table together. Wanda and some other mergirls who boarded at Trident filled up Pearl’s table. Many of them wore sparkly cloths tied around their tails.
“See what you started?” Shelly smiled. “Now everyone’s wearing something glittery around their tails.”
“How funny is that?” Echo said with a giggle. “Maybe something even funnier would make Mr. Fangtooth smile. But what can we do?”
Shelly took a bite of her glasswort sandwich before looking around the lunchroom. She saw Kiki floating over to a small table in the corner. She was going to eat lunch all by herself. “Would you mind if we made someone else smile today?” Shelly asked Echo.
“Who?” Echo asked.
Shelly nodded toward Kiki. “She’s new to Trident City, and I think she’s a little lonely. Her family lives far away.”
The two friends stared at Kiki. She wasn’t smiling, and she looked like she’d rather be anyplace but Trident Academy.
Echo smiled. “I told you that you are the best merfriend ever. Let’s go sit with her and make her feel at home.”
And that’s exactly what they did.
Class Reports
SNAPPING SHRIMP
By Shelly Siren
My favorite shrimp is the snapping shrimp, even though it is noisy. It’s only the size of my finger, but when its jaws snap shut, it sounds like a hundred merpeople cracking their knuckles. I was lucky to find one, since they usually live in warm, shallow waters.
HARLEQUIN SHRIMP
By Echo Reef
My favorite shrimp is the harlequin shrimp. I like the blue-spotted ones the best, although the purple-, red-, and orange-spotted ones are nice too. The only thing I don’t like about harlequin shrimp is that they eat starfish. I like starfish a lot, and I hate to see them hurt.
CLEANER SHRIMP
By Rocky Ridge
Cleaner shrimp are the best because they eat dead stuff out of a fish’s mouth. One time I let a cleaner shrimp live in my mouth for a month. I didn’t have to brush my teeth until my dad saw it and made me spit it out.
ANEMONE SHRIMP
By Pearl Swamp
I think all shrimp and krill are disgusting, but if I had to pick a favorite, I would pick the anemone shrimp. I like its purple and white spots because they look a little bit like pearls. This shrimp can live beside an anemone without getting stung.
ANTARCTIC KRILL
By Kiki Coral
I think Antarctic krill are interesting, but I am very worried about them. Because the waters are getting warmer, there are fewer kr
ill. A single blue whale can eat as many as four million krill in a day. What will happen to the whales if the krill disappear? I think merfolk should find out what is making the waters warmer and stop it.
WORDS BY DEBBIE DADEY
REFRAIN:
Let the water roar
Deep down we’re swimming along
Twirling, swirling, singing the mermaid song.
VERSE 1:
Shelly flips her tail
Racing, diving, chasing a whale
Twirling, swirling, singing the mermaid song.
VERSE 2:
Pearl likes to shine
Oh my Neptune, she looks so fine
Twirling, swirling, singing the mermaid song.
VERSE 3:
Shining Echo flips her tail
Backward and forward without fail
Twirling, swirling, singing the mermaid song.
VERSE 4:
Amazing Kiki
Far from home and floating so free
Twirling, swirling, singing the mermaid song.
Author’s Note
OCEANS ARE HUGE, WILD, wonderful places that need our help. Grandpa Siren knows the dangers of oil in the ocean, and I hope you do too. We must do what we can to protect our waters from pollution.
Scientists find new creatures in the ocean all the time. Maybe one day they will find a mermaid! Check out the glossary for some interesting information about oceans and their inhabitants. Write to me on Kids Talk at www.debbiedadey.com and tell me your favorite sea creature.
Take care,
Debbie Dadey
Glossary
BLUE WHALE: The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived. Its heart is the size of a car!
CLAM: In real life, the giant clam is usually only five feet wide.
CLEANER SHRIMP: These shrimp clean parasites and bacteria off fish.
CONCH: Sea snail shells are sometimes used for decoration or even for blowing to make noise.
CRAB: The Japanese spider crab is the largest crab and can sometimes live for one hundred years!
CRUSTACEAN: Krill, lobsters, crabs, and shrimp are all part of a group of animals known as crustaceans.
DOGFISH: The piked dogfish is actually a shark. It can live to be one hundred years old.
DOLPHIN: The bottlenose dolphin is known to play with humans in the wild.
EMPEROR SHRIMP: Emperor shrimp live on sea cucumbers.
GLASSWORT: Common glasswort can be eaten. Sometimes it is boiled like asparagus.
GREEN SEA TURTLE: Green sea turtles lay up to two hundred eggs at a time, but their numbers still have dwindled because they are hunted for human food.
HAMMERHEAD SHARK: The strange, broad shape of this shark’s head actually helps it in hunting for food.
HARLEQUIN SHRIMP: Somehow these small shrimp are able to work in pairs to catch much larger starfish.
HINGE-BEAK SHRIMP: Some shrimp actually glow!
HUMPBACK WHALE: Male humpback whale songs can be heard from miles away by other humpbacks.
JELLY FISH: The moon jellyfish is the most common of the two hundred types of jellyfish, some of which glow.
KILLER WHALE: The killer whale is not a whale at all, but a dolphin.
KRILL: Antarctic krill are only about two inches long. Krill feed on algae that grow under the ice.
OCTOPUS: The giant octopus changes color to suit its mood. If it’s mad, it turns red.
ORANGE SEA PEN: This sea creature looks like an old-fashioned quill pen.
OYSTER AND MUSSEL: Oysters have long been eaten by man, and this has led the common oyster to nearly disappear. Most oysters eaten today are commercially farmed.
PAINTED STINKFISH: Painted stinkfish are colorful and like to bury themselves in the sand.
PLANKTON: Plankton is an organism that cannot swim strongly, so it flows with the currents.
RIBBON WORM: Nemertine worms, also known as “ribbon worms,” can grow to be as long as a football field is wide.
SEA CUCUMBER: Sea cucumbers clean up the bottom of the sea.
SE ALILY: Sea lilies live on the seafloor and are similar in many ways to starfish.
SEAWEED: Giant kelp is the largest seaweed. It can grow two feet in one day!
SNAPPING SHRIMP: This tiny creature is only one to two inches long, but its tremendous snapping sound makes it one of the loudest animals in the ocean.
SPONGE: The Mediterranean bath sponge is soft enough to make a cushion!
STARFISH: Starfish are also known as sea stars. Most have five arms, but there is a seven-arm starfish as well as the crown-of-thorns starfish, which has up to twenty arms.
VENT TUBE WORM: Huge worms (as tall as a person) live near hot water vents on the ocean floor.
ZOOPLANKTON: This is animal plankton. Jellyfish are a type of zooplankton.
The News
WHAT IS TAKING SHELLY so long?” Echo asked. She swam back and forth, then peeked around the corner of her shell. If Shelly didn’t hurry, they would be late for school.
“Too bad I don’t have one of those gadgets humans use to talk to someone who’s far away,” Echo said.
People fascinated Echo. Ever since Shelly’s grandfather had told her about their machines that capture singing, Echo had wanted to see a human. She even wondered what it would be like to not have a tail.
She did a huge backward flip and smiled. Having a tail did have some advantages. If she kept practicing her flips, she hoped to make the Tail Flippers team at her new school, Trident Academy. Tryouts were this week. Her best friend, Shelly, had already tried out for the Shell Wars sports team at school. Echo did another flip, this time twisting sideways.
“That was great,” Shelly said, swimming up beside her.
“There you are!” Echo squealed. “Have you heard the news?”
“Yes!” Shelly shouted. “I can’t wait!”
“Me neither,” Echo said. “Come on, let’s get to school.”
The two mergirls splashed past the statues of famous merfolk in MerPark.
“I can’t believe Pearl was able to do it,” Echo said as they swam quickly along.
Shelly brushed a lock of red hair out of her face. “Pearl?” she asked. “Pearl didn’t even try out.” Pearl was another mergirl in their third-grade class, who seemed to think she was better than everyone else.
Echo laughed as they reached the entrance to their school. “You don’t have to try out; you just need lots of jewels to pay for them.”
“You can pay to get on the Shell Wars team?” Shelly asked. “I thought Pearl hated Shell Wars.”
Echo stopped and stared at her friend. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Shell Wars. Coach Barnacle announces who made the team today. What are you talking about?”
Echo grabbed Shelly’s hands and squeezed them tightly. “I’m talking about Pearl’s birthday party. She’s invited the Rays!”
“You’re kidding!” Shelly screamed. There wasn’t a merperson alive who hadn’t heard of the Rays. They were an amazing boy band and they were very, very cute.
“Didn’t you get your invitation?” Echo asked.
Shelly shook her head.
“I bet you’ll get it today,” Echo told her friend. She smiled as they went into the school, but she was a little worried. Pearl wasn’t exactly the nicest mergirl in their class, and she didn’t like Shelly very much.
What if Pearl hadn’t invited Shelly? What would Echo do?
Debbie Dadey is the author and coauthor of one hundred and fifty children’s books, including the series The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids. A former teacher and librarian, Debbie now lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with her wonderful husband and children. They live about two hours from the ocean and love to go there to look for mermaids. If you see any, let her know at www.debbiedadey.com.
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