“Indeed,” Miss Haniver said, looking over her tiny glasses at Rocky and patting the rock with her green tail fin. “But there are four different techniques in sculpting: carving—”

“Yes!” a boy named Adam cheered. “That sounds awesome.”

Miss Haniver glared at Adam, but continued. “Casting, modeling, and assembling. In casting, we pour mud into a mold. In assembling, we put pieces of materials together. We will attempt modeling, where we form clay into the shape we want.”

Rocky groaned. “That doesn’t sound fun.”

“It’s very enjoyable,” Miss Haniver told the class. “Today we will be using sand to practice, but when you’ve made your mollusk selection, we’ll switch to clay. Now, take some sand from the floor and give it a try.”

Shelly scooped a handful of muddy sand from the ocean floor. She liked the way it squished between her fingers. She tried making an octopus. Some of the arms were really fat and some were too skinny. “This is harder than I thought,” she said to Kiki.

Kiki nodded. A big blob of sand sat in front of her. “Does this look like a sea slug to you?”

Shelly didn’t want to hurt Kiki’s feelings, but the blob didn’t look anything like a sea slug. “Well . . . ,” Shelly said.

Kiki sighed and dug her hands back into the sand as Rocky teased, “My vampire squid is sucking my arm off.” The whole class turned to see Rocky’s hand stuck inside his molded vampire squid.

“Save me!” he yelled.

“Rocky!” Miss Haniver snapped. “That will be quite enough out of you for today.” She swam with Rocky to the back of the room for a little conference about proper classroom behavior.

“Sweet seaweed, you shouldn’t be getting your hands dirty like that,” Pearl said to Shelly.

Shelly looked up in surprise. Pearl had talked to her twice in one week. “Why not?” Shelly asked.

“Aren’t you a princess?” Pearl asked.

Shelly didn’t want to answer, especially since she thought everyone was listening. “Yes, my grandfather told me the truth,” she said softly. “My mother was a princess.”

“Then put that nasty sand away.”

“Why?” Shelly asked.

Pearl rolled her eyes and took a seat next to Shelly. “Because you are a princess, and princesses don’t ever get dirty.”

“Who says so?” Shelly pushed her red hair out of her face with a muddy hand.

“Everybody knows that,” Pearl said.

“Pearl,” Miss Haniver said from the back of the room, “get back to sculpting.”

“Yes, Miss Haniver,” Pearl said sweetly, but she didn’t move away from Shelly. “Now that I’ve found out the truth, I have a gift for you.”

“For me?” Shelly said.

Pearl smiled and pulled a sparkling tiara out of a small bag. “My dad gave this to me for my birthday. You can borrow it,” Pearl said, “until you get your own.”

“I can’t wear this,” Shelly said.