“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 vampire 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.”