Trident Academy

ICAN’T BELIEVE IT!” ECHO SAID. “IT’Sfinally happening.”

Shelly took a small sip of her seaweed juice before pushing a lock of red hair from her face. Usually she didn’t care if her hair stuck straight up, but today was special. “We’re so lucky to get an invitation to Trident Academy. I didn’t think it would happen to me.”

Echo and Shelly both lived in Trident City, not far from the famous Trident Academy. They had been friends since they’d played together in the small-fry area of MerPark. The eight-year-old mermaids were celebrating their first day of school with breakfast at the Big Rock CafÉ, a favorite hangout. The place was packed with students proudly wearing their Trident Academy sashes. The two mergirls didn’t see a third mergirl swimming up behind them. Her name was Pearl. Echo and Shelly usually tried to avoid the bossy mergirl from their neighborhood.

“Oh my Neptune!” Pearl snapped when she saw Shelly. “I can’t believeyou, of all merpeople, got into Trident.” Usually only very wealthy or extremely smart students were accepted. Pearl was rich. Echo was a quick learner. Shelly was neither, but she knew more about ocean animals than both of them put together.

Echo came to her friend’s defense. “Of course Shelly got into Trident. She is very talented.”

“Atwhat?” Pearl asked. “Digging for crabs?”

Shelly glanced at her dirty fingernails and immediately hid them under her blue tail fin. “At least I knowhowto hunt crabs. I bet you’d starve to death if you had to do something for yourself.”

Pearl flipped her blond hair, stuck her pointy nose up in the water, and said, “I know how to do plenty of things.”

“Name one,” Shelly said.

“How to be on time for school, for starters,” she said. Pearl spun around and flicked her gold tail, knocking seaweed juice all over Shelly’s new Trident sash!

Splash!

Pearl giggled and swam off toward school.

“Oh no!” Shelly squealed, dabbing green juice off the gold-and-blue sash. “She did that on purpose!”

Echo glared after Pearl before helping her friend wipe the sash. “It’s fine now. You can hardly see it,” Echo said. That wasn’texactlytrue—there was definitely a green blob on Shelly’s sash.

“We’d better get going,” Echo said, adjusting the glittering plankton bow in her dark curly hair. “We don’t want to be late on our first day.”

Shelly groaned. She wasn’t quite so excited now. “If Trident Academy is filled with merpeople like Pearl, then I don’t think I’m going to like it.”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Echo said, taking a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

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Excerpted from Trouble at Trident Academy by Debbie Dadey
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