Shelly shook her head. She didn’t even bother correcting Pearl on Madame’s name. “I can’t come over to your house after school. I have to go straight home and talk to my grandfather about this royalty stuff. He’s the only one who can tell me the truth.”

Shelly was glad she didn’t have Shell Wars practice today. She had lots of questions for her grandfather, and she sure hoped he had lots of answers.

Love Letter

THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON passed too slowly. Shelly tapped her tail fin up and down nervously, waiting for the last conch shell to end the school day.

“I’m going home,” Shelly said to Echo when it finally sounded. “I have to talk to Grandfather Siren about this princess business right away.”

“May I come with you?” Echo asked. “I want to hear all the details about royalty.”

Shelly nodded. Together, they swam by the Manta Ray Express Station.

Enormous manta rays were used to take the merpeople of Trident City from place to place. For just a couple of shells, the rays would take you anywhere in the ocean. They even took merfamilies on long trips. The flashing blue-green light of the eyelight fish warned that a manta express was getting ready to leave.

An elderly merwoman pushed past the mergirls on her way to the station. Shelly noticed something fall as she rushed by. “Excuse me. I think you dropped this!” But the merlady didn’t stop; she just floated quickly onto the big ray.

“I guess she didn’t want to miss the last ray of the day,” Echo said. “What did she drop? Is it a pirate map?”

Shelly laughed. She knew her friend had always wanted to find a treasure map. “No, silly. It looks like a letter.”

“Let me see,” Echo said, pulling the folded seaweed out of Shelly’s hand.

“We shouldn’t read it,” Shelly said. “It’s her property.”

“But we have to if we’re going to find out who she is so we can return it to her,” Echo explained.

“All right,” Shelly said, and waited while Echo read. “Well, what does it say?” Shelly asked after a minute.

Echo giggled. “You are not going to believe this! It’s a letter—a love letter—from Mr. Fangtooth to that lady!”

“No wavy way!” Shelly leaned over Echo’s shoulder as they read together.

“Mendel?” Shelly said.

“ ‘Yours in love,’ ” Echo said. “Isn’t that romantic?”

“It’s old,” Shelly said.

Echo looked up from the seaweed. “What are you talking about? Love isn’t old-fashioned.”

“I mean the seaweed letter,” Shelly explained. “It’s very old. Maybe Mr. Fangtooth wrote it when he was young.”

“It’s still romantic,” Echo said. “And we have to get the letter back to that merlady somehow.”