Dream of the Blue Turtle Read online

  Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  TRIDENT CITY MAP

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  1 LEATHERBACK TURTLES

  2 MR. FANGTOOTH

  3 KIKI’S GIFT

  4 TURTLE SHELL

  5 WORST LUCK

  6 TEAMWORK?

  7 MADAME’S ADVICE

  8 T-DAY

  9 LIBRARY

  10 POLKA DOTS?

  11 TOO LOUD!

  CLASS PROJECTS

  THE MERMAID TALES SONG

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  GLOSSARY

  TREASURE IN TRIDENT CITY EXCERPT

  ABOUT DEBBIE DADEY

  To Mary Jo and Fred at Fredsusedwebsites.com. Thanks for all your help!

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to awesome editors Karen Nagel and Amy Cloud.

  Leatherback Turtles

  MRS. KARP, ARE YOU sure that is safe?” Pearl Swamp asked her third-grade teacher. Kiki Coral and the rest of the class waited for the reply.

  “Of course,” Mrs. Karp said, raising one green eyebrow as she responded to Pearl. “I wouldn’t have asked a leatherback turtle to visit our school on Thursday if there was any danger.”

  “But aren’t they awfully big?” Kiki asked. Her friends Shelly Siren and Echo Reef glanced at her. Kiki was one of the smallest mergirls at Trident Academy. She had been scared of whales because of their huge size.

  Mrs. Karp nodded. “Yes, Kiki. Leatherbacks can weigh up to two thousand pounds and be seven feet long.”

  “And it’s coming into our classroom?” Pearl said with her green eyes wide. “What if it sits on one of us?”

  “We’d have smashed Pearl jam!” Rocky Ridge teased.

  Several merstudents squealed until Mrs. Karp reassured them. “Marvin will not be in the classroom. We will meet him in the front hallway of the school, where there is plenty of room. Before we meet, I want you to prepare one or two questions to ask him.”

  “Marvin?” Rocky yelled. “What kind of turtle is named Marvin?”

  “A very big one,” Kiki said softly. Kiki knew leatherbacks weren’t as large as whales, but something made her feel uncomfortable. She didn’t know why.

  “Marvin is a lovely name,” Mrs. Karp told them. “Just as nice as Rockwell.”

  “Rockwell?” Pearl giggled. “Who is named Rockwell?”

  “Nobody,” Rocky said, but his cheeks were bright red.

  Mrs. Karp continued. “Leatherbacks are the largest turtles in the ocean, class. They breathe air, so they can’t stay underwater too long. They feed mostly on jellyfish.”

  “How do they get so big by eating just jellyfish, Mrs. Karp?” Shelly asked. “Jellyfish are made up of almost all water.”

  “It’s a bit of a mystery,” Mrs. Karp agreed.

  “Maybe the mystery is that they eat mergirls, too,” Rocky said with a laugh. This caused Pearl and several other mergirls to shriek in fear. Shelly just rolled her eyes at Rocky. He was always telling bad jokes.

  “That will be enough out of you, Rocky Ridge,” Mrs. Karp said with a slap of her white tail on her marble desk.

  Mrs. Karp went on to tell the merclass that leatherback turtles were endangered. “Floating plastic bags look very much like jellyfish. Sadly, the turtles don’t realize their mistake until they’ve eaten the trash. If they eat too many bags, they can die.”

  Most of the third graders listened to every word, but Kiki barely heard her teacher. Her eyes grew cloudy and her ears stopped up. She knew what was happening. She was having one of her visions.

  Kiki covered her face with her hands. In her mind she saw a frightening sight: Rocky Ridge, an enormous leatherback, and swirling water! Suddenly she shouted, “Mrs. Karp! I have to go see Madame Hippocampus! Now!”

  The whole classroom stared at Kiki. “What is the meaning of this outburst?” Mrs. Karp asked.

  Kiki twisted her hands together. She looked down at her purple tail. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I need to see Madame right away.” After what she had seen, Kiki desperately needed the advice of their merology teacher.

  Mrs. Karp shook her head. “That is impossible. She is ill today.”

  Kiki gulped. What was she going to do? This couldn’t wait. Not one more merminute.

  Mr. Fangtooth

  DO YOU SEE THAT?” SHELLY asked Kiki and Echo. “Mr. Fangtooth is smiling!”

  The mergirls looked up from their lunch table to stare at the cafeteria worker. Mr. Fangtooth was usually very grouchy. Since the beginning of the school year, the three friends had tried to cheer him up. Once they had made funny faces. Another time they’d made silly noises. One day they’d told jokes. Nothing had worked. But today Mr. Fangtooth smiled and even whistled a cheerful tune as he cleaned tables and served food to the merkids.

  Echo giggled. “I think he’s happy. I bet he got back together with Lillian, his old sweetheart.”

  Shelly tossed a piece of seaweed called sailor’s eyeball up in the water and caught it in her mouth. “I saw Mr. Fangtooth with Lillian yesterday at my Shell Wars game. They were holding hands!”

  “It’s so romantic!” Echo said with a giggle. She sipped her seaweed juice before saying, “Shelly, you were totally wavy yesterday. I cheered so hard when you made the winning goal.”

  “It was so exciting,” Shelly said. “I thought for sure the Poseidon Prep School’s octopus would block my shot. Did you see it, Kiki?”

  But Kiki didn’t answer. She was staring into a dark corner of the lunchroom. Her sea grapes sat untouched in front of her. “Kiki!” Echo said sharply. “What’s wrong with you? Didn’t you hear Shelly?”

  Kiki jumped and asked, “What makes you think something is wrong?”

  “Ever since Mrs. Karp told us about a leatherback turtle visiting us, you’ve been acting really funny,” Shelly told her. “Are you afraid of leatherbacks because they’re so big—just like with the whales?”

  “At first I was,” Kiki answered. “But I’m not afraid. I like leatherbacks. My dad even taught me to speak their language.”

  “Sweet seaweed,” Shelly said. “Can you teach us a few words?”

  “Maybe later,” Kiki said. She knew Shelly loved ocean languages, but right now Kiki couldn’t think about teaching anyone anything. She grabbed her tray and sped away from the table.

  “Where are you going?” Echo called after her.

  “I . . . I’m not hungry,” Kiki said, looking back at Echo. Kiki didn’t know what to do. She had never told her friends about her special dreams, or visions, of the future. Usually the dreams were good, but every once in a while they were scary. The one she’d had this morning had been horrible, especially for Rocky!

  Kiki needed to speak to a merology expert like Madame Hippocampus desperately. Madame would know what Kiki’s vision meant and what she should do. But what if Madame was out of school the rest of the week? Would it be too late for Rocky?

  As Kiki rushed away, she bumped into another lunch table. Her salad of sea grapes and sea lettuce splattered all over the Neptune, King of the Sea statue. A big blob of lettuce sat on his head like a slimy green hat.

  “Oh my Neptune!” Pearl screeched from across the cafeteria. “Look what Kiki did!” It took only a second for Rocky to point and laugh. Pretty soon half of the merkids in the cafeteria were snickering at Kiki’s accident.

  “Echo, look,” Shelly said, nodding at Mr. Fangtooth. He wasn’t whistling anymore. And he wasn’t smiling. He was swimming toward Kiki with a frown on his face.

  “We have to help Kiki before Mr. Fangtooth gets to her!” Echo squealed. “And then we have to find out what’s really wrong with her.”

  Kiki’s Gift
r />   SHELLY BRAVELY SWISHED IN front of Mr. Fangtooth as he swam toward Kiki. “Don’t worry, sir,” Shelly told him. “We’ll clean up the mess.”

  “It was an accident,” Echo added.

  Mr. Fangtooth grunted and floated away, acting like his usual crabby self. Quick as a bubble, Echo and Shelly grabbed two cleaner wrasse from the kitchen service counter. They held the fish next to the statue so the wrasse could eat the lettuce.

  Kiki reached for a grape that had rolled to the back of the statue. “I’ve almost got it,” she said, stretching her arm as far as she could. Just as she touched the sea grape, she felt something grab her hair and pull it hard.

  “Aaah!” Kiki squealed. “Save me! I’m stuck!”

  Shelly and Echo came to Kiki’s rescue.Her long black hair was caught on Neptune’s trident. “Wow, Kiki,” Echo said. “It’s really tangled.” Together, Echo and Shelly pulled Kiki’s hair free.

  Kiki rubbed her sore head. “I wish this was the worst of it.”

  “What do you mean?” Echo asked. “What’s going on?”

  Kiki glanced around the cafeteria. No one was looking their way anymore, but she still wasn’t certain that she should tell Echo and Shelly about her gift and what she had seen.

  Kiki had to be sure no other merkids overheard her, so she pulled her friends out to the play yard. No one was supposed to be out there yet, so it was deserted. Kiki gently tapped a sea-squirt ball with a purple tail fin.

  Suddenly Kiki was worried. Maybe she should keep her visions a secret. Would Shelly and Echo think she was weird? But then Kiki thought about what good friends the mergirls had been to her. After all, when Pearl had gotten Kiki thrown out of her dorm room, Shelly and Echo had helped her move. They had also supported her when she’d been scared of the whales. Maybe they could help now.

  Finally Kiki said, “Before I tell you anything, you have to promise not to tell anyone.”

  “Tell anyone what?” Shelly asked.

  “Seal swear?” Kiki asked, looking from Shelly’s blue eyes to Echo’s dark brown ones.

  Both girls repeated the merkid promise: “Seal swear.”

  Kiki took a deep breath. “You know how Madame Hippocampus said some merfolk can see the future?” Kiki said.

  Echo nodded.

  Kiki whispered, “I can do that.”

  “What? We can’t hear you. Speak louder,” Shelly said.

  Kiki splashed the water with her purple tail. “I can see the future. I have visions.”

  “No wavy way,” Echo said. “Since when?”

  Kiki shrugged. “I don’t have them all the time, but I’ve had them for as long as I can remember.”

  “Can your seventeen brothers do it too?” Shelly asked. “What about your mom and dad?”

  Kiki shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  Echo giggled. “That’s so cool. I thought you were going to tell us something bad.”

  “You don’t understand,” Kiki said. “I’ve seen the future, and it’s horrible!”

  Turtle Shell

  THE NEXT DAY BEFORE school, Shelly and Echo begged Kiki to tell them more about what she had seen and why it upset her. But Kiki wouldn’t say a word.

  Later, when swimming past the library, Shelly asked, “What did you see?” But Kiki still wouldn’t tell her.

  And during art class in the back of the room, Echo said, “Tell us what you saw!” But Kiki kept her mouth closed tight.

  When it was storytelling class, Echo whispered, “What was your vision about? You can’t keep a secret forever.”

  Kiki shook her head. “I want to tell you, but I really have to talk to Madame first to make sure what I saw was real.” After her vision yesterday, she hadn’t had any more. Maybe it was nothing after all, she thought.

  But during science class, Kiki was reminded of her dangerous dream. Mrs. Karp talked about the many different types of turtles in the ocean. She displayed several types of turtle shells. “Which one of these belongs to the leatherback?” she asked.

  Rocky’s hand shot up. He blurted out, “The biggest one!”

  “Good guess,” Mrs. Karp said, “but it’s not the answer I’m looking for.”

  The smile on Rocky’s face disappeared as Mrs. Karp explained, “That was a trick question because leatherbacks don’t actually have a hard shell.”

  “That wasn’t fair, Mrs. Karp,” Rocky’s friend Adam complained.

  Then Shelly raised her hand. “But I thought all turtles had shells.”

  Mrs. Karp smiled. “Actually, the leatherback’s carapace is rubbery, with no hard plates,” their teacher explained. And then she continued, “The leatherback turtle has been in the ocean for one hundred million years.”

  “That’s older than Madame Hippocampus,” Pearl said with a snicker. Kiki’s heart fluttered. Madame Hippocampus was still out sick today and Kiki was running out of time. Melvin’s visit was in a few more days. How much longer was she going to have to wait to ask about her vision?

  “Of course, our friend Marvin isn’t that old,” Mrs. Karp said. “But Marvin’s ancestors were here many millions of years ago. And now it’s time to learn about your next assignment.”

  “Oh no,” Echo said, before slapping her hand over her mouth. Kiki felt the same way. Mrs. Karp was always giving their class lots of homework and reports. Since the beginning of the school year they had sculpted mollusks, caught shrimp and krill, dived with humpback whales, and even learned about merfolk’s biggest enemy, the shark. What was their green-haired teacher going to ask them to do next?

  “This lesson is designed to encourage creativity and build cooperative skills,” Mrs. Karp told them.

  The merstudents muttered. What was Mrs. Karp talking about?

  Shelly raised her hand. “Does that mean we’ll work with someone else?”

  Mrs. Karp nodded. If Kiki had to have a partner, she hoped it would be Shelly or Echo. But maybe Kiki should ask to work with Rocky, just in case she had to make sure he was safe. Her vision had to do with Rocky, after all.

  Kiki looked around the room at the merstudents. She stared at Pearl’s pearl necklace and glittery shirt. Kiki sure hoped she didn’t have to work with Pearl. Something about her rubbed Kiki the wrong way. Pearl seemed to think she was better than everyone else.

  Mrs. Karp went on. “Since leatherback turtles don’t have a regular shell, I’d like you to design a fun kind of house for them.”

  “How about a clown-fish house?” Rocky teased. “Clowns are fun.”

  “Use your imaginations,” Mrs. Karp continued. “I expect you and your partner to be creative and original. This project will allow you to use math skills, such as measuring and shapes. You can show your artistic sides. And you’ll have a chance to learn how to be part of a team.”

  “Will we be building the houses in art class?” Adam asked.

  Mrs. Karp answered, “No, Adam. This is a homework assignment. But because of our classroom’s limited size, you should make your pretend house small enough to fit on the top of your desk. Your houses are due by the end of the week.”

  Kiki usually liked schoolwork, and this task sounded more fun than most. Now she just hoped for a good partner. She crossed her purple tail fins as Mrs. Karp began calling out names.

  “Shelly, you may work with Wanda. Rocky and Echo, you are partners,” Mrs. Karp said.

  Kiki could hear Echo’s gasp. She felt a little sorry for Echo because Rocky was a bit of a goof-off. But when Mrs. Karp announced, “Pearl and Kiki, you are a team,” she felt equally sorry for herself.

  Worst Luck

  I STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT to do! This has been the worst day ever,” Kiki told Echo and Shelly after the conch shell sounded to end the school day. They were standing in the enormous entrance hall to Trident Academy. The shell ceiling was filled with colorful carvings of famous merpeople. A gigantic chandelier of glowing jellyfish lit up the large gathering spot. The hall was big enough to fit a humpback whale. Kiki shivered when she
thought about the leatherback turtle that would be there on Thursday.

  Merkids from third through tenth grade floated past them, some to the school dorms and others to their homes. Kiki’s family lived far away in the eastern oceans, so she lived in the Trident Academy girls’ dormitory. Shelly and Echo lived with their families only a short swim away in Trident City.

  “I know what will cheer you up,” Echo said. “Come with us and we’ll treat you to some seaweed juice at the Big Rock Café.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Shelly said, tugging Kiki toward the door. “You’ll feel much better.”

  In less than ten tail shakes, the three mergirls sat in a booth near the front of the café. Lots of other students from Trident Academy talked and laughed at nearby tables.

  Kiki choked on her green juice and ducked under the stone table. Pearl was headed their way! “Don’t tell her I’m here,” Kiki begged.

  “Have you seen Kiki?” Pearl asked. “I thought we could start on our turtle house. She is so lucky to have me for a partner.”

  “Isn’t she in her dorm room?” Shelly asked innocently.

  Pearl frowned. “No.”

  “Do you want some seaweed juice?” Echo said, raising her shell cup toward Pearl. Kiki squeezed Echo’s pink tail.

  Pearl sniffed the water. “No, I guess I’ll just go home.” The girls watched Pearl swim out of the restaurant.

  “I can’t believe you asked her to have juice with you,” Kiki said, sliding up from underneath the table.

  Echo shrugged. “I knew she’d say no. She’s not very friendly.”

  “You guys are the best. You’d do anything for me,” Kiki said. And at that moment, she absolutely knew she could trust Shelly and Echo.

  “I want to tell you about my vision,” Kiki said.

  Shelly put her arm around Kiki. “We’re your buddies, Kiki. We want to help you. You can trust us.”