by Jason June
To Tayrra, Caytlyn, and Brennon! Dream so big that you’ll never need a Grow Shell!
Title Page
Dedication
1. Meet Nelia Narwhal
2. Twisty-Turny Treats
3. Massive Mane Event
4. Cracks in the Competition
5. Growing and Growing and Growing
6. Make a Magical Mess
7. Things Get Sticky
8. Smashed to Pieces
9. Doughnut Worry
10. Gigantic Judges
11. Back to Narwhal Normal
12. And the Winner Is …
13. Beluga Bakery Bravery
About the Author
Copyright
“Oh my goldfish, Ruby, this cake is mer-mazing!” I said, starting in on my second slice of sea sponge cake. It was vanilla-y and covered in frosting with barnacle berries on top.
“And so are these angelfish food cake doughnuts,” Flash agreed. “And those crab cutout cookies, and these sea-salted caramel tarts! All of it is fin-credible!”
Flash always talked a million miles a minute, but with his mouth full, about a million crumbs flew everywhere.
Echo’s dorsal fin shook with excitement. “You are for sure going to win the Beluga Bakery Sugar Castle Competition tomorrow.”
The Sugar Castle Competition was the most sea-licious Mermicorn Island tradition. Every year, any-fishy who loved to make desserts could enter their own sandcastle made out of sweet baked treats. Ruby’s magic—her Baking Sparkle—was perfect for making Sugar Castles.
All sea creatures in Mermicorn Island have powers. We call it having Sparkle. Echo and all the other dolphins have magic echolocation that helps them find things. Flash and all the other seahorses have magical superspeed. Mermicorns each get their own unique Sparkle, and Ruby’s lets her make baked goods.
My Sparkle hasn’t come in yet, but I was still able to help with the competition. Ruby knows how much I love to draw, so she let me design the Sugar Castle.
“I’ve been working my tail off to get all these pastries and cakes just right,” Ruby said.
Ruby squinted her eyes and wiggled her tail. She always did that before she was about to do magic. Red sparkles flew from Ruby’s horn and turned into a perfectly round, perfectly golden sea-salted caramel tart.
“You really have been working so hard, Ruby,” I said. “Remember when you could only make cupcakes with your magic?”
“Mmm, cupcakes,” Flash said. “Maybe you should make some more of those. I could always eat another cupcake. I love your cupcakes.” Flash was always hungry. He needed a lot of energy for his magical seahorse superspeed.
Ruby blushed. Her cheeks matched the color of her red tail. “Thanks! And now I can make pies, breads, cakes, cookies, and tarts like this one.”
She added the tart to the pile of desserts she’d stacked onto her captain’s-wheel kitchen table. Ruby’s house was made out of an old sunken ship! We put on plays for our parents on the roof deck sometimes, with a spotlight following us from the crow’s nest.
“Just having tasty treats isn’t going to be enough to make my Sugar Castle stand out,” Ruby said. “All the entries in the Sugar Castle Competition are going to be sea-licious. The castle needs to look fin-tastic too. Luckily, Lucky has that covered!”
I pulled out my Sugar Castle drawing. On it was a picture of a kraken, my favorite magical creature. Krakens look like massive giant squids but hadn’t been seen in Mermicorn Island for hundreds of years.
“Our Sugar Castle is going to look like a kraken,” I said, showing Flash and Echo my drawing. “The tentacles will be the turrets. Doughnuts are the tentacle suckers. And sea-salted caramel tarts are the eyes!”
“Mermidude,” Flash said. “No-fishy out there will think of something this great. It’s the best Sugar Castle design ever!”
Echo nodded. “Yep, you two are totally going to win.”
“Lucky’s design is the best, isn’t it?” Ruby said. “But when I tried to make my cakes turn into tentacles, I couldn’t get them to look right. They kept coming out more like the electric eel cupcakes I made for Flash’s birthday.”
My tail drooped. “Oh, blobfish,” I said. “But if any-fishy can think of a fin-tastic idea to make tentacles, it’s the Fin-tastic Four.”
The Fin-tastic Four was the name we used for our group of four BFFFs: best fin friends forever. It was me, Ruby, Flash, and Echo, together for every adventure.
An idea swam into my head. “Maybe there’s a magic shell from Poseidon’s chest that can help us make mer-mazing shapes.”
Poseidon is the most magical mermicorn in all the seven seas. He can use every type of Sparkle known to mer-kind. Poseidon even gave me a whole treasure chest full of magic shells a few weeks ago after Ruby and I escaped a bunch of hungry electric eels. I may not have Sparkle of my own yet, but the shells give me special powers, just as if I had my own magic. My friends and I call it Shell Sparkle. So far we’d found a shell that turned me invisible, one that let me grow seaweed, and another that let me speak Dogfish.
“Actually, I found some-fishy who can help,” Ruby said. “My pen pal, Nelia, came in from Atlantis to visit her aunt and uncle, and she’s got Sparkle that would be perfect for the job.” A knock came from a porthole window. “That must be her!”
Ruby swam to the porthole and pushed it open. The first thing that came through was a shiny, spiral horn. I thought it would be another mermicorn. But then the horn kept going and going and going. It was the longest unicorn horn I’d ever seen!
Then, finally, the fishy attached to the horn swam inside. It wasn’t a mermicorn at all. It was a narwhal!
“Every-fishy, meet my friend, Nelia,” Ruby said. “Her Twisty-Turny Sparkle is going to get us first place in the Sugar Castle Competition!”
“Nice to meet you, Nelia!” I said. “I’ve never seen Twisty-Turny Sparkle in real life before. I’m excited to see it in action.”
“I heard that Twisty-Turny Sparkle is how the best rides at the Narwhal Adventure Theme Park were made,” Echo said.
Just like all other creatures in Mermicorn Island, narwhals have a magic power. With their superlong and spiral-shaped horns, narwhals are able to make everything twist and turn into the most mer-mazing shapes. Narwhals made Twisty-Turny Taffy, one of my favorite candies, which comes in loop the loops! And they made the fin-credible spiral bookshelves in the new Sea Glass Library.
“My aunt and uncle own the theme park!” Nelia said. “I’m actually in Mermicorn Island visiting them. We should all go sometime!”
“That would be fin-tastic,” I said. “Wait a minnow. Are we going to use your magic to turn our Sugar Castle into a big baked ride?”
“Hold your seahorses!” Flash said. “That’s the best idea ever! With sugar slides and roller coaster cookies.”
Nelia threw her head back and laughed. Her horn was so long, it hit the ceiling!
“That would be fun,” Nelia said when she stopped giggling. “My Sparkle isn’t strong enough to make a whole baked theme park. But it can do this.”
Nelia floated toward the captain’s-wheel table. She dipped her horn so that it gently touched a sea sponge cake. Then she hummed softly, and a bright yellow light flowed down her horn. When the light hit the cake, the sea sponge twisted and curved and turned itself into a kraken tentacle.
“No way,” I said. “Your magic is mer-mazing, Nelia. And your horn is sea-utiful.”
“Thanks,” Nelia said. “My horn is actually a tusk. That’s a type of tooth. All narwhals have a magical tooth that grows from their forehead.”
Flash flashed a big toothy grin. “I wish all my teeth were magical!”
Nelia laughed and tapped her tusk against each bake
d treat on the table. With every tap, the dough moved and stacked. Nelia was building the Sugar Castle before our eyes!
Sea sponge cake twisted and turned. Sea-salted caramel tarts curved and oozed into golden eye shapes. Angelfish food cake doughnuts wriggled and bent. All the baked goods became the twistiest, turniest kraken-shaped Sugar Castle I had ever seen!
As a finishing touch, Ruby used her Baking Sparkle to make crab cutout cookies for castle guards.
Echo looked at the Sugar Castle, her eyes so big that barnacle berries reflected in them. “Nelia, it’s perfect,” she said. “There’s no way you three can be beat!”
“That’s what I’m hoping,” Nelia said.
Ruby stared at the kraken Sugar Castle. There were really deep wrinkles in her forehead. Deeper-than-the-Sea-Dragon-Trench deep.
“What’s wrong, Ruby?” I asked.
Ruby sighed and crossed her hooves. “I love our Sugar Castle. You, me, and Nelia make a great team. But I went to the Beluga Bakery Competition last year, and the castles were huge. Ours fits easily on the kitchen table. There’s no way a castle this small will win.”
Winning the Sugar Castle Competition was a big deal for Ruby. The winner got to study under Baxter Beluga, the best baker in town. When she grew up, Ruby dreamed of opening a dessert theater, where customers got to eat her delicious baked goods while she performed plays. She wanted to bake the best recipes with Baxter to really make her dessert theater stand out.
“Hmmm, you’re right,” Flash agreed. “I remember going last year too. The castles were so big, I bet eating one of them would actually make me full.”
“Then those castles must be huge,” I said. “Can your Twisty-Turny Sparkle make things stretch bigger, Nelia?”
She shook her head. Her long tusk accidentally brushed through my mane as she moved her head from side to side.
“Unfortunately, no,” Nelia said. “I can make anything twisty-turny, but I can’t grow things bigger than their normal size. Do any of you have Grow Sparkle?”
Echo didn’t shake her head, but her dorsal fin sure shook. “No, but we might have Grow Shell Sparkle!”
“What’s that?” Nelia asked.
I swam to Ruby’s porthole door and waved for the group to follow me. “Come on! I’ll show you!”
Poseidon’s treasure chest was where I always left it: right at the foot of my bed. The chest filled my bedroom with a golden glow. My favorite Leonardo da Fishy poster looked mer-mazing in the glittery light!
I flipped open the lid. Dozens of sparkly seashells lay in front of us.
“There are so many,” Nelia said. “How will we know which one has Grow Sparkle?”
“I always just reach for the shell that feels right,” I said.
That’s how I found the Dogfish Sparkle Shell. Flash wanted to have a sleepover at his house. But Floofy, his dogfish, has magical barks that make us fall asleep before we get to have any fun. I looked for a shell that could solve the problem, and felt a pull in my hooves toward the one that let me speak Dogfish. That’s how I learned Floofy barked all the time because he gets gassy. Now he eats kelp kibble and doesn’t fart or bark at all!
“Pick that one!” Flash pointed toward a big black shell with white stripes. “No, that one!” This time he pointed at one that was purple and yellow. “Oh, wait, that’s the one! I know it!” Now he was looking at a shell with green stars all over it.
But the pull in my hooves told me the shell I needed was different. It was an orange conch shell that was bigger than all the rest.
“I think that’s the one,” I said, and pointed to the conch.
“Ooooh. Grab it, Lucky, and let’s get this adventure started!” Echo said. “I can’t wait to see what happens.”
“And I’ll grab the trident,” Flash said. “I’ll be right back in—wait for it—a flash!” He laughed and clapped his fins together.
With a burst of magical superspeed, Flash sped out my window and back in two seconds. He held his shiny toy trident. “Here you go. Put the conch shell in, and let’s see what happens.”
Poseidon controls all the Sparkle in the sea with his trident. When he left me his treasure chest full of magic shells, he said Flash’s toy trident could help me control each shell’s power.
I took the conch in my hooves. The most mer-mazing feeling of warm, tingly bubbles flowed from my tail to my horn. Magic! I placed the conch right below the three prongs of Flash’s trident. It stuck snugly, like there was a magical magnet meant just for shells.
“What now?” Nelia asked. “How does it work?”
“I usually just wave the trident and picture what I want to happen,” I said.
“But we left the Sugar Castle back at Ruby’s house.” Echo groaned. “How will we know if this is the Grow Shell?”
“Oh, I know!” Ruby said. She ran a hoof through her mane. “I want to grow my mane out for the role of Rapunzel at the Mermicorn Island Theater. Try the Grow Shell Sparkle on my mane!”
“Okay,” I said. “Hold very still.” I thought super hard. My tongue poked out between my teeth. I pictured Ruby’s mane growing twice as long.
“Hair we go,” I whispered, and waved the trident.
The warm bubbly tingles of magic went from my hoof all the way down to the tip of my tail. Then big orange bubbles billowed out of the opening in the conch shell. They floated toward Ruby. They popped all around her mane, and her bright red hair started to grow!
“It’s working!” Echo said.
“And it tickles!” Ruby giggled. By the time her mane stopped growing, it was halfway down her tail.
“Look at all that hair,” Flash said. “That’s the most epic mane I’ve ever seen on a mermicorn in my whole life!”
Ruby looked at herself in my bedroom mirror. “This is perfect, Lucky! I will definitely get that Rapunzel part.”
“I might be able to help,” Nelia said. She hummed her Twisty-Turny tune. When her tusk glowed yellow, she tapped it against Ruby’s mane. All Ruby’s hair curled up into the most mer-nificent hairdo.
“Wow, Nelia,” Ruby said. “You could open your own hair salon.”
Nelia smiled. “Thanks, but I’m thinking ‘Beluga Bakery Sugar Castle co-champion’ has a nice ring to it. With your Baking Sparkle, my Twisty-Turny magic, and Lucky’s Grow Shell, there’s no way we are going to lose tomorrow!”
The next day, our parents dropped us off in Mermicorn Island Square. Dad made BUBBLES that spelled GOOD LUCK, then swam off to go shopping while we got our Sugar Castle set up.
The square was packed with every type of sea creature you could imagine: The Turtlebergs sold Sugar Castle Competition T-shirts at their clothing store, Express Your Shell; the mermaid band Mer-made for Music sang near the bubble fountain; and Sadie the octopus painted eight mermicorns’ faces at once.
But the most noticeable thing of all was three fin-credible Sugar Castles outside the Beluga Bakery.
“Holy mackerel!” Flash said. “Look at that Sugar Castle over there. It’s covered in sea dragon ice frosting! I bet if you licked it, your tongue would get stuck!”
Echo pointed to the one next to it. “And that one is made by selkies with cookie dough guards that change shape! Look, they’re sharks. Now they’re squids. Now they’re sea cucumbers!”
“That one says it’s covered with starfish that can grant wishes,” Nelia said, pointing with her long tusk. “How in the ocean did they find real-life Wish upon a Starfish? They’re so rare!”
If it was any other year, we would all flip tail over horn for the Sugar Castles. But this year, the castles were our competition.
The giggle that was usually in Nelia’s voice was nowhere to be found. “Our castle is just Twisty-Turny,” she said. “There’s no way we’re going to win.” Her tail drooped to the ocean floor.
“Plus, all those castles are huge,” Ruby added. “More than three times as big as ours. You could fit inside them. Some of them would make a really good set for a play, actually.”
Normally, talk of putting on plays made Ruby happy. But she looked really bummed out.
Baxter Beluga, owner of the Beluga Bakery, swam through the sea dragons’ Sugar Castle with a crab claw clipboard in his flippers. He shivered when he swam by the ice frosting. Even from across the square, I could see him give the sea dragons five gold starfish on his judging sheet.
“Do you think the Grow Shell could make our castle that big?” Nelia asked.
I opened my backpack and pulled out Flash’s toy trident. The orange Grow Shell was attached. My whole body tingled with that warm magic feeling. It gave me so much hope. I just knew we could still win the Sugar Castle Competition.
“You bet your bottom sand dollar it can make our castle that big,” I said. “It can make ours the biggest Sugar Castle that’s ever been seen!”
I waved the trident back and forth and thought, Make our Sugar Castle HUGE! Then I pictured the castle growing and growing and growing. I thought about the sea sponge cake tentacles and the sea-salted caramel tarts and the angelfish doughnuts getting super big.
Glowing orange BUBBLES poured out of the Grow Shell’s opening and streamed toward our Sugar Castle. Each BUBBLE popped against the twisty baked goods. The sugary treats grew two times bigger. Then three times!
“You’re doing it, mermidude,” Flash said. “This is going to be so big, we can all move in! We’ll each have our own room! Ooh, be sure it’s big enough that I can have a racetrack. And a closet for all my racing goggles!”
The magic BUBBLES popped against our Sugar Castle until it was as big as the others in the square.
“That’s perfect, Lucky,” Ruby said. “I think that should do it.”
“Sounds great,” I said.
Our castle was big enough now that other fishies noticed. Before I could picture the magic stopping, our friend from school Roger the jellyfish drifted over.
“Oh my goldfish, your Sugar Castle is ginormous!” Roger said. “I bet my uncle Leon could even fit in there. His tentacles are over a hundred feet long!”
