Echo giggled. “Really? Then I can’t miss the trip. I’d do almost anything to see a real, live human.” She clasped her hands together, and Kiki could tell that Echo had forgotten her fear of whales in her excitement about seeing a human. Kiki felt totally alone with her secret. What was she going to do tomorrow? She just wasn’t ready to share her fears.

“Now that that’s settled, let’s make Mr. Fangtooth smile today,” Shelly told her friends. Ever since school had started a few weeks ago, the girls had tried to make the grumpy lunchroom worker cheer up. On the first day of school, they’d made funny faces at him. That had made him laugh, but it had also gotten them sent to the headmaster’s office. Another time, Kiki and Shelly had walked on their hands in front of Mr. Fangtooth, but that had made him frown even more.

“I know,” Kiki suggested, glad to think of something besides whales. “We could make weird sounds.”

“What do you mean?” Shelly asked.

“At home, when it was time to sleep, my seventeen brothers would make silly noises one by one, and by the time they got to number seventeen, we were laughing so hard my dad would have to yell at everyone to go to sleep. But then he’d make the silliest sound of all, and we’d start laughing all over again.” Remembering those good times made Kiki miss her family. The Trident Academy dorm room was a long way from her home.

Shelly giggled. “Let’s try it.” Shelly, Echo, and Kiki glided over to return their lunch trays. Mr. Fangtooth stood behind the rock counter, wearing his usual frown.

“BBBBBLLLLLLLSSSS,” Kiki said as she put down her tray. Her lips jiggled like a motorboat. Mr. Fangtooth didn’t laugh, but everyone else in the lunchroom did.

“What was that?” shouted Rocky from a nearby table. “Did you hear what Kiki did?”

A table full of mergirls, headed by Pearl, pointed at Kiki and laughed. Kiki rushed back to her seat and covered her face with her long hair. “I’m so embarrassed,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” Shelly told Kiki. “Rocky will find someone else to tease before long.” Rocky was always making mischief.

“He’ll be so excited about seeing the whales tomorrow, he won’t think about you,” Echo pointed out.

Kiki faked a smile for her friends. Trying to cheer up Mr. Fangtooth had made her forget about her fear of whales for a minute. Now she remembered again, and her stomach did a flip-flop.

She knew she was being silly. After all, whales were known for being gentle. But they were so big! And she was so small. She couldn’t help how she felt any more than she could help how little she was.

Kiki put her head down. Her stomach was hurting, and it wasn’t from the sushi. She had to think of a way to get out of the ocean trip tomorrow, and she had to think fast.