Shelly grinned. “What a great idea. Let’s put our lunch trays away and make faces at him.”

Echo and Shelly stood at the service window of the cafeteria kitchen. Shelly crossed her blue eyes and pushed her nose up against it to look like a dog fish. Echo pulled her dark hair into tall points and puffed her cheeks out. Mr. Fangtooth frowned at them.

Echo blew out the air in her cheeks, making lots of little bubbles. “Why didn’t he smile?” she whispered. “That always works with my dad.”

“I have the feeling that Mr. Fangtooth hasn’t smiled in a very, very long time. I think we’re going to have to do something drastic,” Shelly said.

“Like what?” Echo asked.

Shelly shrugged and looked around the cafeteria at the scenes of merfolk history carved on the walls. Merstudents of all ages talked and ate their school lunches at polished granite tables with the gold Trident Academy logo in their centers.

Shelly saw Kiki sitting with Pearl and a group of mergirls. Kiki smiled at Shelly, and Shelly gave a little wave, wishing she had thought to invite Kiki to sit with them. Then she turned back to Mr. Fangtooth.

Mr. Fangtooth made a horrible face and bellowed at the mergirls. Roar!

Echo screamed and fell right into Rocky. His plate of ribbon worms flew onto Echo’s hair.

“Eeewww! Get them off!” Echo squealed. Shelly quickly began pulling the long, thin, black-and-white worms out of Echo’s curly hair. She stopped when she heard a booming sound.

It was Mr. Fangtooth! His laughter rocked the cafeteria.

All the students looked up from their lunches to see what was happening. Pearl glared at Shelly. “See?” Shelly said. “I told you we could make Mr. Fangtooth laugh. We win the bet!”

Pearl opened her mouth, but she didn’t get the chance to talk because Headmaster Hermit’s voice came over the conch shell: “Shelly Siren and Echo Reef, please report to the headmaster’s office immediately.”

“Ooooh,” Rocky teased. “You’re in big trouble now.”

Shelly gulped. It was only her first day at Trident Academy. Now she was worried it would also be her last.

Disaster

IT WAS HORRIBLE,” ECHO TOLD HER older sister, Crystal, later that after-noon at their shell. “I thought for sure we were going to get kicked out of Trident Academy on our first day!”

Crystal shook her head. “You shouldn’t have made faces at Mr. Fangtooth. Then you wouldn’t have ended up with worms in your hair. The headmaster has spies everywhere, so you have to behave yourselves.”

“We were only trying to cheer up Mr. Fangtooth,” Shelly explained.

“You’d better stay out of trouble,” Crystal warned.

“That’s why I’m here,” Shelly said. “We’re going to work on our project so we’ll get finished early.”

“That’s great,” Crystal said. “I can help you if you’d like.”