The Lost Princess Read online

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  TRIDENT CITY MAP

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  1 BLOODSUCKERS

  2 HIPPOCAMPUS

  3 EMPRESS!

  4 PERFECT PRINCESS

  5 LOVE LETTER

  6 PRINCESS SHELLY

  7 A CROWN

  8 “MERSTYLE” PRINCESS

  9 THE END OF THE VAMPIRE SQUID

  10 MOLLUSK MUCUS

  CLASS SCULPTURES

  THE MERMAID TALES SONG

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  GLOSSARY

  The Secret Sea Horse Excerpt

  About Debbie Dadey

  To the students, faculty, and families of Sandy Hook Elementary

  Acknowledgment

  Thanks to Shelly Plumb of Harleysville Books for your support.

  Bloodsuckers

  CLASS, HERE’S A RIDDLE. What creature has a head, a soft body, and one foot?” Mrs. Karp asked her classroom of twenty third graders.

  One excited merboy blurted out, “A dolphin with a big belly?”

  Mrs. Karp raised a green eyebrow. “No, Rocky, these creatures sometimes have a shell. Can anyone else tell me the correct answer?”

  Shelly Siren pushed her red hair out of her face and slowly raised her hand. “Is it a mollusk?”

  Mrs. Karp slapped her white tail on her marble desk. “Correct! And mollusks are the subject of our next project.”

  Rocky groaned. “Mrs. Karp, do we have to do another seaweed report?” The entire class held its breath. The merkids had been at Trident Academy for only a few weeks, and already they’d done assignments on sharks, whales, krill, and famous merpeople.

  “No. Instead of reports we’ll be making sculptures!” Mrs. Karp said. “Tomorrow your art teacher, Miss Haniver, will give you a lesson on sculpting. Won’t that be delightful?” Mrs. Karp smiled at the merboys and mergirls.

  Shelly thought making a sculpture sounded hard, but she hoped it’d be easier than a written report. She’d much rather be playing Shell Wars than sculpting or writing a paper. Shell Wars was a fun game where you used a whale bone to toss a shell into a chest guarded by an octopus, while the other team tried to stop you from scoring.

  Shelly’s good friend Kiki Coral asked, “Mrs. Karp, I read in the Trident City Tide that there’s a group of vampire squid living on the other side of Whale Mountain. Are they mollusks?”

  Mrs. Karp nodded. “Yes, they are. Vampire squid are one of my favorite mollusks because their light organs make a lovely glow when they are disturbed.”

  “Vampire squid?” Rocky gasped. “I’ve heard about them. They come into your shell at night and suck your blood!”

  A few merkids squealed. Shelly’s other close friend, Echo Reef, looked ready to cry. “Is that true?”

  Mrs. Karp frowned at Rocky. “Of course not. That’s just an old mertale told to scare merkids.”

  Echo’s eyes widened and her pink tail shook. “It worked,” she whispered to Shelly. “I’m terrified.”

  “Now, students, we have quite a busy day. First, we’re going to meet Madame Hippocampus, who will teach you merology. Then, after lunch, we’ll visit the library so you can decide which mollusk you would like to sculpt.”

  Rocky and a few other boys frowned. “Do we have to study merology?” Rocky asked.

  “Of course,” Mrs. Karp said. “To be a well-rounded merperson, you must know everything about merhistory, government, and society. And, class, if you have never seen a hippocampus before, do not scream when you first see Madame. It is not polite.”

  “A hippocampus!” Rocky shrieked. “I heard they have six heads and twelve eyes!”

  Mrs. Karp glared at Rocky. “That will be quite enough. You must stop spreading these silly rumors. They can only cause trouble.”

  “What’s a hippocampus?” Shelly whispered to Kiki as they glided to line up. Kiki was probably one of the smartest merstudents in class and usually knew the answers.

  Kiki whispered back, “A hippocampus is part dolphin and part horse. But I’ve never seen one. I wonder which part is which.”

  “I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Shelly said. “Whatever she looks like, I sure hope she’s nice.”

  Hippocampus

  OH MY NEPTUNE! WHAT IS wrong with Trident City?” Pearl Swamp complained as the third graders floated down the hall to merology class. “We have bloodsuckers around the corner and hippopoopuses for teachers.”

  “That’s ‘hippocampus,’ ” Kiki corrected Pearl.

  Pearl rolled her green eyes. “I don’t care how you say it, it’s still awful. Six heads are horrible!”

  Shelly started to tell Pearl that Madame Hippocampus probably didn’t have six heads, but they were already by the merology room. In a mersecond Pearl would see for herself.

  In spite of Mrs. Karp’s warning, several students gasped when they first saw Madame Hippocampus. Even Shelly jumped when she saw the teacher’s large horse face, hooves, and plump lower end of a dolphin. Shelly figured Madame must be used to that reaction from merkids, because she chuckled. “Welcome to my lair!” she announced with a big smile.

  Rocky snickered quietly. “Now, that’s a dolphin with a big belly.”

  “Ah, Master Rocky Ridge,” Madame Hippocampus said. “The first to speak is the one I seek! You have volunteered to be my assistant. Please come to the front of the classroom.”

  Rocky’s cheeks turned red as he slowly drifted toward Madame. “You will point to the correct place on this chart as we discuss the merpeople hierarchy,” she told Rocky.

  “What is a hierarchy?” Shelly asked. Then she immediately put her hand over her mouth. Maybe Madame didn’t like people asking questions.

  “Shelly Siren, I am glad you, of all mermaids, asked that question,” Madame said.

  Several merstudents whispered, “How does she know our names already?”

  Pearl muttered, “She’s creepy. Is she magical?”

  Luckily, Madame ignored the muttering. She told the class to find their seats. Then she addressed Shelly’s question. “ ‘Hierarchy’ is just another word for the levels of rulers of our undersea world. As you can see from my chart, emperor or empress is the highest royalty, but rarely do we have such a leader.

  “All our rulers are born into their positions, except of course for mayors, who are elected. Emperors or empresses are chosen from the kings or queens by a high council, if there is a need.”

  Shelly scanned the chart. She knew from the lessons her grandfather taught her when she was a small fry that Trident City belonged to the Western Oceans. It was governed by King Rudolph and Queen Edwina. Shelly knew that even brothers and sisters of the kings and queens were royalty, and their children were princes and princesses.

  Shelly’s grandfather hadn’t been strict about much of her education, but he had made sure she was taught everything on the chart. He had made it into a fun mermaid-royal guessing game, so Shelly even knew the location of most royals’ castles and estates. She’d never actually seen one, since none of them were near Trident City, but it had been interesting to learn about. Maybe merology class would be easy.

  Rocky pointed to the lowest level of the chart. “My dad is the mayor of Trident City,” he bragged.

  Pearl raised her hand. “My cousin is married to Duke Armas of Vortex,” she said. “A duke is higher up on the chart than a mayor.”

  “Yes,” Madame Hippocampus agreed, “but a princess is on a higher level than a duke. And, class, we are honored to have one in this very class.” Everyone gasped and glanced at each other.

  A princess? Shelly looked around the room. Who in the ocean could it be? She hoped it was her good friend Echo. They’d known each other since they were small fry. Ec
ho would be a fantastic princess. She loved wearing glittering plankton bows in her dark curly hair, so she’d adore a princess’s jewels.

  If it wasn’t Echo, Shelly wanted the princess to be her new buddy Kiki. After all, Kiki was from a part of the ocean very far away. Maybe she was princess of the Eastern Oceans.

  “Who is it?” Pearl demanded. “Maybe it’s me. My father did give me a crown for my birthday one year. Oh, I hope it’s me! I would have special royal tutors and my pick of all the jewels in the sea, and the Rays would play music at all my parties!”

  Shelly scrunched her nose. She really hoped Pearl wasn’t a princess. With her gold tail, blond hair, and pointy nose, Pearl already thought she was better than everyone else. After all, lots of small fry played at being princesses and wearing crowns.

  “Why, it’s Shelly Siren, of course,” Madame Hippocampus said. “I assumed you all knew. Queen Edwina is Shelly’s great-aunt.”

  All eyes turned to Shelly, who felt herself turning every shade of red. What is Madame saying? she thought in a panic.

  “Shelly!” Pearl screeched. “She can’t be a princess!”

  “No way!” screamed Rocky.

  “Why not?” Echo said. “Shelly would make a wonderful princess.”

  “She’d make a better bottom sucker,” Pearl said. “She’d rather explore the ocean and be friends with a disgusting lizardfish than be a princess.”

  Shelly didn’t like agreeing with know-it-all Pearl, but she knew this time Pearl was right. Shelly couldn’t be a princess, and she really would rather play with ocean animals than wear a glittery crown.

  “There must be some mistake,” Shelly said, looking at Madame hopefully. “My grandfather would definitely have told me if I was a princess.”

  Madame did not nod her head in agreement. She simply continued, teaching them the king and queen of the Northern Oceans.

  Shelly looked down at her blue tail. She couldn’t listen to the lesson anymore. She kept hearing Madame’s words in her head: Why, it’s Shelly Siren, of course. Her stomach felt funny and her scales shook. Maybe her grandfather had made her learn about royalty because she was royalty. Her parents had died when she was young, and she’d never met many of her relatives. Could it be true? Could she really be a princess?

  Empress!

  WHEN IT WAS TIME FOR lunch, Echo, Kiki, and Shelly swam into the cafeteria. Shelly was glad to be surrounded by her closest friends after the big news of the morning.

  “I always knew you were special, but I didn’t know you were royalty!” Echo said.

  “Look,” yelled Rocky, “it’s Shelly, princess of Trident Academy!” Every merkid in the cafeteria, from grade three to grade ten, stopped eating and stared at Shelly.

  “Shhhh, Rocky,” Shelly hissed. “You don’t even know if that’s true!”

  Kiki stopped eating her hagfish jelly sandwich and asked, “What if it’s not a mistake? You would make a great ruler. I mean, you could be an empress someday.”

  “Empress!” Shelly squealed. “Are you kidding?” Immediately, she was sorry that she’d been so loud. Rocky grinned and nudged his friends at the merboys’ table. He made a low bow in Shelly’s direction, and all the merboys laughed.

  Shelly took a deep breath and gazed at the carvings of merfolk history on the cafeteria walls. She had stared at them every day since she’d started Trident Academy a few weeks ago. Now she looked at them differently. The famous kings and queens in the carvings could be her uncles and aunts! She couldn’t believe it.

  “It’s all right,” Kiki told her, patting her arm.

  Echo nodded. “Come on. Let’s go ask Mr. Fangtooth to tell us about his days with the Shark Patrol.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Shelly said, glad to have something to take her mind off Madame Hippocampus’s news and everyone’s whispers.

  Mr. Fangtooth worked in the Trident Academy cafeteria. He constantly had a grumpy look on his face, and the mergirls always tried to cheer him up, usually without success. Recently, he had saved them from a shark, and they’d found out he was a retired colonel from the Shark Patrol.

  “Hi, Mr. Fangtooth,” Echo said. “What was it like being in the Shark Patrol?”

  Mr. Fangtooth wiped the lunchroom counter off with a black dragonfish. The fish’s open mouth scooped up tiny scraps. The fish burped, but Mr. Fangtooth just grunted.

  Kiki tried, “Mr. Fangtooth, what was the scariest thing that ever happened to you?”

  Mr. Fangtooth looked right at Kiki and snapped, “Working at Trident Academy.”

  “Gee, that wasn’t very nice,” Echo said as the girls swam back to their table. “Why is he always such a grump?”

  Kiki tied back her long, straight black hair with a bow and grinned. “I have a plan,” she said, and whispered the idea to her friends.

  Echo smiled. “That sounds great. Watch this.”

  Echo glided over to the service window of the lunchroom, followed by her friends. Mr. Fangtooth frowned at the mergirls. “Mr. Fangtooth,” Echo said. “What kind of hair does the ocean have?”

  Mr. Fangtooth grunted again.

  Echo giggled. “Wavy. Like ocean waves,” she said. “Wavy hair, like mine.”

  Kiki laughed, but Mr. Fangtooth didn’t crack even the tiniest smile. “Mr. Fangtooth,” Kiki said. “Why are fish so smart?”

  When Mr. Fangtooth didn’t answer, Kiki gave the punch line: “Fish are smart because they live in schools!”

  Shelly couldn’t believe it. Mr. Fangtooth didn’t look up from scraping ribbon worms off trays. So Shelly tried the joke she’d heard a few days ago at Shell Wars practice. “Mr. Fangtooth, which fish is the most famous?”

  Mr. Fangtooth put a big sign that said CLOSED! in front of the cafeteria window and swam away. “Well, that was rude,” Echo said.

  Kiki nodded. “I wonder what made him such a meanie.”

  “Tell us the answer,” Echo said to Shelly.

  Shelly shook her head. “I don’t know what happened to him.”

  Echo put her right hand on her hip. “No, silly. I mean which fish is the most famous?”

  “Oh, that,” Shelly said with a giggle. “It’s the starfish, of course.”

  Rocky soared over beside Shelly and announced in a loud voice, “I guess Princess Shelly is the most famous fish in our school.”

  A group of third graders gathered around Shelly, led by Pearl.

  “As a princess expert, I know that Shelly won’t be at Trident Academy for long. She’ll be moving to Neptune’s Castle to begin her royal duties,” Pearl said with an air of authority.

  “Is that really true?” Pearl’s friend Wanda Slug asked.

  “I don’t know! I don’t know anything about this!” Shelly cried, and raced out of the cafeteria. She stopped out in the hall. Her heart was pounding. Pearl had talked about royal duties and moving. Shelly didn’t want to move, and she definitely didn’t want any royal duties. What was she going to do?

  Perfect Princess

  I’M SO EMBARRASSED,” SHELLY whispered to Echo when they were in the library later that day. “Everyone in the lunchroom was talking about me. And saying all kinds of wild things.”

  “Don’t worry,” Echo said. “But if it’s true, you’ll be perfect.”

  Shelly’s heart jumped in her chest. She very much doubted that she’d make a good princess, but Echo continued, “And if it’s not true, then you have nothing to worry about.”

  Kiki tapped Shelly’s arm. “You’d better get busy selecting a mollusk; Miss Scylla is looking our way.”

  The Trident Academy merlibrarian liked everyone to be busy, so Shelly thumbed through a stack of seaweed papers while her friends checked the rock books. She didn’t know if she should choose an oyster, a sea slug, or an octopus. An oyster would be easy to sculpt, she thought, but an octopus would be way more fun.

  “Let me have that,” Rocky said, snatching a seaweed book from the table in front of Shelly. “I want to see what those killer vampi
re squid look like.”

  Shelly shook her head. “You know Mrs. Karp said they aren’t bloodsuckers.”

  Rocky opened his mouth to say something, but Miss Scylla looked their way, and he floated off to a table full of merboys.

  Shelly was reading about the nautilus when Pearl sat very close to her. A little too close. “Would you like to come to my house after school today?” Pearl asked.

  Shelly was so surprised she couldn’t talk. Pearl had never been nice to her before. She hadn’t even invited Shelly to her birthday party. Finally, Shelly asked Pearl, “Why?”

  Pearl shrugged her shoulders. “We have a big library at home, even bigger than this one. I bet you’ll find a mollusk to sculpt that no one has ever heard of before.”

  Shelly looked around the Trident library. It was filled with shell, rock, and seaweed books. Fancy chandeliers with glowing jellyfish lit up the whole space, making the mother-of-pearl ceiling glisten. “I think this library is big enough,” she said.

  “Sweet seaweed,” Pearl said. “Don’t you see that I’m trying to be friends with you? After all, a princess should get to know all the merpeople in her kingdom.”

  Kingdom! Shelly couldn’t believe she had a kingdom. “I don’t even know if I really am a princess. Madame Hippocampus might be wrong.”

  Pearl sniffed the water. “Madame Hippopoopus is supposed to be a merology expert. I doubt she is wrong.”

  Shelly shook her head. She didn’t even bother correcting Pearl on Madame’s name. “I can’t come over to your house after school. I have to go straight home and talk to my grandfather about this royalty stuff. He’s the only one who can tell me the truth.”

  Shelly was glad she didn’t have Shell Wars practice today. She had lots of questions for her grandfather, and she sure hoped he had lots of answers.

  Love Letter

  THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON passed too slowly. Shelly tapped her tail fin up and down nervously, waiting for the last conch shell to end the school day.