Books vs. Looks

  Contents

  MAP OF TRIDENT CITY

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  1 A SPECIAL LETTER

  2 DR. BOTTOM

  3 CLUB FLUB

  4 CLASH OF THE POSTERS

  5 THE BEST CLUB EVER

  6 FLOATING WITH STYLE

  7 FRIEND STEALER!

  8 PEARL’S PRIZES

  9 A SWEET SURPRISE

  10 FASHION FORWARD

  11 RUNWAY TIME!

  12 A FIN-TASTIC FINISH

  KIKI’S GUIDE TO STARTING A BOOK CLUB

  PEARL’S GUIDE ON HOW TO START A BUBBLING BEAUTY BUNCH CLUB

  SCENES OF SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIPS

  THE MERMAID TALES SONG

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  GLOSSARY

  FLOWER GIRL DREAMS EXCERPT

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT DEBBIE DADEY

  To Ava and her grandmother, Karen Thurby Browder

  A Special Letter

  KIKI CORAL WAS SWIMMING to her dorm room after school one Friday when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

  “Miss Coral,” Madame Hippocampus announced. “You have a letter.”

  “Thanks,” Kiki said as Madame handed her a kelp envelope. Kiki smiled as she raced down the Trident Academy hallway. She bumped into a mergirl from her third-grade class.

  “Watch out, for shark’s sake!” Pearl Swamp snapped.

  “Sorry,” Kiki said, still clutching her letter. Her heart pounded in excitement. Kiki loved getting notes from her family in the Eastern Oceans. It made going to school so far away, in the Western Oceans, a little easier.

  She soared through her doorway and swam straight to her killer-whale skeleton bed. Once she had curled her purple tail among the gray heron feathers, Kiki ripped open the letter.

  Dear Kiki,

  Hi! How is school? I wish I could go 2 Trident 2.

  Guess what? My f riends started a book club! We are reading a scary book. I will show it 2 u when u get home!

  Miss u,

  Yuta

  Kiki read the letter twice and blinked back a tear. Her brother Yuta was a year younger than she was. She had been very close to him ever since they were small fry. Now that she went to school so far away, she really missed him.

  Kiki glanced around her dorm room. Rainbow-colored jellyfish lamps hung from the curved ceiling, and a small waterfall tinkled gently in a corner. One whole wall glittered with plankton. A magnificent coral reef made up another wall. Kiki knew she was lucky to have such a fin-tastic space all to herself. At home her brothers had to share bedrooms.

  But living all by herself could be lonely. Sometimes she wished she had someone to talk to. Weekends were the worst, because her best friends, Echo and Shelly, usually spent those evenings with their families. Many students who lived in the dorms also left to visit relatives.

  At least she had plenty of books to read! Kiki looked at her tall rock bookcase and smiled. She had read every book on her shelf over and over. Reading stories always helped her feel less lonesome.

  Kiki read Yuta’s letter one more time before hopping on her tail with excitement. Even though Yuta was far away, he had given her a mer-velous idea!

  Dr. Bottom

  THE FOLLOWING MONDAY, Kiki couldn’t wait to tell her merfriends about her idea. She had read in a book that humans had a device that allowed them to talk to people far away. Kiki wished she had one of those.

  “Where are they?” Kiki tapped her purple tail on the classroom floor. If Shelly and Echo didn’t swim in soon, they would be tardy. Their teacher, Mrs. Karp, was already at the front of the class. Just as the conch sounded to start the school day, Shelly, Echo, and a merboy named Rocky swooshed into the room.

  Mrs. Karp raised a green eyebrow at the almost-late arrivals before starting her lesson. “Class, today we will begin a new area of study. Who can tell me about symbiosis?”

  “I know! I know!” Rocky called out. “That’s where you bang two shiny things together to make a really loud noise.”

  “Not quite,” Mrs. Karp said. “Symbiosis is when two different creatures live together in the same environment.”

  Kiki raised her hand. She remembered her father talking about that last year, before she had come to Trident Academy. “Don’t the clown fish and the anemone do that?”

  Mrs. Karp smiled and slapped her white tail on the classroom floor. “That’s exactly right. It is a type of symbiosis called mutualism. Each one helps the other. The clown fish gets a safe home, and in return it cleans the anemone and even makes waste for it to eat.”

  Pearl gagged and twisted her pearl necklace. “That’s disgusting!”

  Mrs. Karp shrugged. “That’s science. Today we have a special guest who will tell us more about different symbiotic relationships. Students, please welcome Dr. Bottom.”

  Kiki knew that Dr. Bottom usually taught fourth grade, but he sometimes switched with other teachers to teach science, his favorite subject.

  “Good morning, Dr. Bottom,” the merstudents said together. Rocky snickered when he said the science teacher’s last name, but a quick look from Mrs. Karp silenced him.

  “GOOD MORNING, CLASS!” Dr. Bottom shouted.

  Kiki almost fell out of her chair. She quickly figured out that Dr. Bottom was hard of hearing. Over the next two hours he screamed his lesson about three different types of symbiotic relationships: mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. Kiki tried to pay attention, but her mind kept wandering to her great idea.

  When Dr. Bottom was finally finished, Kiki raced to the cafeteria for lunch. She just hoped her friends would love her idea too.

  Club Flub

  KIKI LOADED HER LUNCH tray with candy-stripe flatworms and warty frogfish fritters and hurried to her usual spot at a table in the corner of the cafeteria. Her heart was pounding as she tapped her fingers on the gold Trident Academy logo in the center of the table.

  Echo sat down with a giggle. “Guess what I read in a MerStyle magazine?” she said. “Princess Corissa eloped!”

  “What does that mean?” Shelly asked as she slid into her seat. Her long red hair floated around her face.

  “It’s when merfolk swim away to get married,” Echo explained.

  “I heard that Mr. Fangtooth’s wedding is in just a few weeks,” Shelly told them before taking a bite of her fritter. Mr. Fangtooth was the grumpy cafeteria worker at their school. The girls had actually found a letter that had reunited him with his long-lost love.

  “A wedding!” said Echo. “That is so romantic. I hope—”

  “Guess what? I have the best idea ever!” Kiki blurted suddenly. She didn’t mean to interrupt Echo, but she really couldn’t wait any longer.

  Echo and Shelly stared at Kiki in surprise. “What in the ocean is it?” Echo asked.

  Kiki looked at her merfriends. They were so different from her. Shelly liked all kinds of sports, but mostly she loved playing Shell Wars, a game of tossing a shell around with long sticks. Echo loved sparkling things and tail-flipping on the school’s dance and gymnastics team, the Tail Flippers. What if they hated her idea? There was only one way to find out.

  Kiki took a deep breath and told her friends all about Yuta’s letter. “My brother joined a club,” she finished. “It gave me the idea to form one here at school, too.”

  “Splashing good!” Echo squealed. “We could start a human studies club and learn more about people.” Kiki knew that Echo was fascinated by anything to do with humans.

  Shelly nodded. “A cave-exploring club would be wavy too.”

  Kiki shook her head. “That’s not what I had in mind. I want to start a book club.”

  “That could be fun,” Echo said. “What happens in a book club?”

  “We pick a book to read ever
y week, and then we talk about it—our favorite parts and what we liked or didn’t like,” Kiki explained. “I have to ask Miss Scylla for permission, but I’d like to have the first meeting in the library tomorrow.”

  Shelly slurped up a long flatworm before saying, “I’m willing to give a book club a try.”

  Just then, a mergirl named Wanda floated by with her tray of food. She stopped and smiled. “A book club? That sounds mer-velous. Can I join too?”

  “Of course!” Kiki said. “Everyone’s welcome.”

  Pearl splashed up to their table. “A club?” she sputtered, turning her pointy nose up in the water. “What are you talking about? Wanda, are you joining something without me?”

  “I’m starting a book club here at Trident Academy,” Kiki told Pearl. “And it is open to everyone. Do you want to join? We’re hoping to have the first meeting tomorrow after school.”

  Wanda smiled. “Come on, Pearl! It sounds totally wavy!”

  Pearl sniffed at Kiki. “Why would I want to join your club, when I can make my own that’s a zillion times better?”

  With that, Pearl swirled around and floated toward her own table. Wanda shrugged and followed her.

  “Uh-oh!” Echo said. “I think Pearl is mad!”

  Kiki had a sinking feeling in her stomach. She knew that when it came to Pearl, there was no telling what might happen next.

  Clash of the Posters

  THE NEXT MORNING KIKI left for school extra early, carrying a big kelp poster that she had made herself. She had stayed up very late making sure her handwriting was perfect. She’d even drawn some pictures of her favorite books on the poster.

  Kiki planned to ask Mrs. Karp for permission to hang the poster next to her classroom’s door. Kiki hoped everyone would see it and want to join in the book club fun.

  But when Kiki floated into the front hallway of Trident Academy, she got a huge surprise. Several posters were already plastered all over the walls:

  JOIN THE BEST CLUB EVER!

  PEARL SWAMP’S BUBBLING BEAUTY BUNCH!

  TODAY AFTER SCHOOL IN FINN AUDITORIUM

  **FREE FOOD FROM MERLIN’S!**

  Kiki’s heart sank. Why would anyone want to join her book club when they could get free food at Pearl’s beauty club? Kiki was so sad that she almost ripped her poster to shreds, but she didn’t. Instead she swam into her classroom and asked Mrs. Karp if she could put up her poster. When Mrs. Karp agreed, Kiki found an empty spot to hang her sign. Compared to Pearl’s many signs, Kiki thought her one poster looked very small.

  “No wavy way!” Shelly said as she swam into the classroom. “Did you see Pearl’s posters?”

  “For shark’s shake,” Echo said, swimming in right after Shelly. Echo pushed back her curly dark hair. “What happened in the front hallway? It looks like a whale threw up posters!”

  “I think Pearl wants to make sure that everyone joins her club and not mine,” Kiki said with a frown.

  “That’s so mean!” Echo frowned. “I’m going to tell Pearl that it was your idea first.”

  Kiki shook her head. “No, I don’t mind. Her beauty club sounds different from my club anyhow.” Truthfully the posters did hurt Kiki’s feelings, but she didn’t want her merfriends to know that. She didn’t want them to think she was jealous of Pearl.

  “A beauty club could be fun,” Echo admitted. “But why does Pearl have to have it at the same time as your book club?”

  “I would change the day of our meeting, but today is the only time that all of us are free,” Kiki explained.

  On Mondays, Shelly often had Shell Wars practice. On Wednesdays, Echo usually practiced with the Tail Flippers. Kiki had vision lessons with Madame Hippocampus every Thursday. (Kiki was one of the few mermaids who could see the future.) The only school days left were Tuesdays and Fridays, and Kiki knew that on most Fridays both Shelly and Echo spent time with their families.

  Shelly put her arm around Kiki. “Don’t worry about Pearl,” she said. “Your club will still be the best club ever.”

  “How do you know that?” Kiki asked.

  Shelly laughed. “Because we’re going to be in it!”

  The Best Club Ever

  KIKI TRIED NOT TO THINK about Pearl’s club that day, but it was hard not to. At lunchtime Pearl’s table was crowded with mergirls. Kiki heard Pearl bragging loudly, “Besides the food from Merlin’s, my mom is bringing fresh coconut milk and broiled blobfish burritos for snacks. And next week she promised to get some cuttlefish candy!”

  The girls at Pearl’s lunch table squealed with delight at the mention of this rare treat. Even Kiki loved cuttlefish candy. She looked at Shelly and Echo and knew they were thinking the same thing.

  “You guys can join Pearl’s club if you want. I won’t mind,” Kiki told them. She actually didn’t want her friends to join the Bubbling Beauty Bunch. But she didn’t want to stop them either.

  “Don’t be silly,” Echo said. “We’re your merfriends, and merfriends don’t do that to friends.”

  Wanda swam up to Kiki and tapped her on the shoulder. “I’m really sorry,” Wanda said, “but I can’t go to your meeting after school. Pearl told me that I have to join her club or she won’t be merfriends with me anymore.” Wanda hung her head.

  Kiki tried to smile. “I understand.”

  Wanda nodded and rushed away.

  “Pearl makes me so mad sometimes!” Shelly snapped.

  “Don’t let it make your tail spin,” Kiki said. “It doesn’t bother me.”

  But it did. Kiki had seventeen brothers, so she was used to not always getting her way, but sometimes Pearl just made Kiki bubbling mad.

  Suddenly an announcement boomed over the conch shell from Headmaster Hermit. “Will Pearl Swamp—or the merstudent who put posters all over the school without permission—please come to my office?”

  All eyes turned to Pearl, whose face became bright red. She frowned as she floated out of her seat and swam past Kiki’s table. “You’re probably happy that I’m getting sent to Headmaster Hermit’s office,” Pearl hissed. “You just want to ruin my club!”

  Kiki’s long, dark hair swirled in the water as she shook her head. “No, I don’t!” she cried.

  But Pearl was already out the lunchroom door.

  * * *

  All afternoon, Pearl glared at Kiki during Mrs. Karp’s lessons. In art class Pearl even stuck her tongue out at Kiki while the merstudents were drawing pictures of symbiotic relationships!

  As she passed by Kiki’s art table, Pearl whispered, “Headmaster Hermit told me to take down the posters, but I’m not in real trouble. And my beauty club is going to be the best ever. No one will want to join your silly book group.”

  Kiki put her hand over her mouth. Her tummy felt like it was doing tail flips. She didn’t want to start a club war with Pearl! But that seemed to be exactly what Pearl was doing.

  Finally the school day was over. That meant it was time for Kiki’s very first book club meeting!

  Kiki, Shelly, and Echo sat in the library with a stack of kelp and stone books on the table in front of them. They were the only students there. Kiki didn’t know whether to feel disappointed or excited, especially when she heard cheers coming from Finn Auditorium, where Pearl’s Bubbling Beauty Bunch was meeting for the first time.

  The librarian floated up to the three mergirls. “Your book club is a wonderful idea,” Miss Scylla told them. “Let me know if I can do anything to—”

  Miss Scylla was interrupted by a roar of laughter from the auditorium. Kiki cringed but smiled at the librarian. “Thanks for suggesting these books,” she said. Miss Scylla nodded and floated back to her desk.

  Echo picked up a brightly colored book with a human on the cover. “Which story should we read first?” she asked.

  “Hmm,” Kiki said. “It should be one that we all like.”

  Echo frowned. “But what if we can’t agree?”

  “Maybe we each choose one book? Kiki, you can start, since the
club was your idea,” Shelly suggested.

  “That is a splashing good plan,” Kiki agreed.

  “Shouldn’t our club have a name?” Echo asked.

  “Mer-velous suggestion!” Kiki exclaimed. “What should we call it?”

  Shelly giggled. “Well, you know how we’ve been studying symbiotic relationships and how some creatures work together?”

  “Sure,” Echo said. “But what does that have to do with a book club?”

  “Since we all get friendship from one another, we could name our club the Mutualism Book Club,” Shelly suggested.

  Kiki smiled just as another loud roar of laughter came from the auditorium. She didn’t know how long the Mutualism Book Club would last, but for now she was happy.

  Floating with Style

  THE NEXT MORNING ROCKY, Adam, Morgan, Wanda, and Kiki were the first ones in Mrs. Karp’s classroom.

  “I ate so many broiled blobfish burritos at Pearl’s club yesterday, I burped blobs all night!” Rocky told Adam.

  Kiki looked at Rocky in surprise. “You went to a Bubbling Beauty Bunch meeting?” she asked.

  Rocky shrugged. “Free snacks! And I was hungry.”

  “Me too,” Adam said. “I didn’t even care that Pearl put ribbons in my hair. That coconut milk was tail-kicking! I think it’s even better than the Big Rock Café’s.”

  “Yeah, b-but Pearl was being b-bossy!” Morgan complained. “She said Tyra B-Baybanks, the fashion expert, insists that f-f-fin decorations are shelltacular. Then she told us since it’s her c-c-club we have to d-d-do things her way.” Morgan held up her sparkling orange tail. Kiki noticed that Wanda’s red tail glittered as well.

  Rocky smacked his plain brown tail on the classroom floor. “Well, I don’t care what Pearl says, I’m not wearing jewel anemones!”

  “No cuttlefish candy for you then,” Adam teased, although Kiki noticed that Adam wasn’t wearing fin jewelry either.

  “What book is your club reading?” Wanda asked Kiki.