by Jason June
Baxter Beluga pulled out his shell phone. “I think I know some-fishies who can help.”
Nelia was still as giant as ever, but she wasn’t the only big critter above the square anymore. Three huge blue whales floated with her over the Beluga Bakery.
“Every-fishy, I’d like to introduce you to my cousins,” Baxter Beluga said. “Please welcome the Blue sisters: Violet, Mauve, and Lavender.”
“Our last name might be Blue, but purple is our favorite color,” Violet said.
“And doughnuts are our favorite dessert,” Mauve added.
“So we’re happy to help clean up,” Lavender declared. “Although it looks like you’ve already handled that on your own.”
Lavender was right. After Nelia used her Twisty-Turny magic to clear up all the baked goods, the rest of us got to work. Mom used her Builder Sparkle to rebuild Express Your Shell. The mermaids set their stage back up, and Mer-made for Music sang their latest hits. And the selkies used their Shape-Shifting Sparkle to turn all the jelly into actual jelly jellyfish.
The jelly jellyfish were fin-credible. They swam in silly circles, and they tasted mer-mazing. Fishies placed orders for them on the spot, and the selkies said there were no hard feelings that their Sugar Castle had been ruined.
“Oooh, look!” Ruby said when all the jelly cleared. She reached down and grabbed the toy trident. “The trident didn’t get smashed with the Grow Shell. That’s lucky, isn’t it?”
Flash pointed at me. “No, that’s Lucky!” he said. “Get it? Because his name is Lucky? Holy mackerel, I crack myself up sometimes. Don’t you think that was funny?”
Every-fishy laughed. It was basically a normal day in Mermicorn Island Square. Except for the giant narwhal with her tusk covered in huge doughnuts.
“I have an idea,” Baxter said. “Just because our Sugar Castles are a bit more circular than usual doesn’t mean we can’t still have a competition. Ladies?” Baxter looked up at his blue whale cousins. “Would you like to be the judges?”
“Of course!” Violet said.
“What an honor,” Mauve added.
“I’m positively famished!” Lavender declared. “When can we start?”
“How about now?” Baxter said.
Ruby wiggled like she was about to use her magic. But it turned out she was just doing a happy dance.
“We still get to be a part of the competition!” she said. “We didn’t ruin everything after all. And we might still get to win a shot at studying with Baxter Beluga. My dessert theater can still happen!”
“And the best part is, those doughnuts are big enough for every-fishy to have a bite,” Flash said. “Maybe even two bites. Or twenty!”
Echo held a flipper to her lips. “Shhh! They’re about to start.”
Baxter swam up to Nelia and touched the doughnut at the tip of her giant tusk. The big treat was blue and had white frosting all over it. When his flipper touched the frosting, Baxter shivered.
“First up is the sea dragon Sugar Castle,” Baxter said. “Whoops! I mean, Sugar Doughnut!”
Violet reached down and took the doughnut from Nelia’s tusk. Then she took a huge bite.
“Creamy,” Violet said. She handed the doughnut to Mauve, who took a big bite of her own.
“Vanilla-y,” Mauve added, then passed the treat to Lavender. Lavender finished the doughnut in one gulp.
“It’s so good, it sends shivers down my spine,” Lavender declared, shaking a bit from the sea dragons’ ice magic. “What’s next?”
Baxter swam down Nelia’s tusk to the next massive doughnut. It was covered in stars.
“Next is Luka Beluga’s Wish upon a Starfish Doughnut,” Baxter said.
Just like before, the Blue sisters finished the treat with three whale-sized bites.
“Magical,” Violet said.
“Fantastical,” Mauve added.
“It’s so good, I wish we had more,” Lavender declared. Then another massive Wish upon a Starfish Doughnut appeared out of nowhere.
“The Wish upon a Starfish magic really worked,” I said. “Lavender wished for more, and then, poof! There it was!”
“Maybe they’ll actually share this one,” Flash said. His stomach growled. “Do you hear that? My tummy’s rumbly.”
Ruby squinted her eyes and wiggled her tail. Her Baking Sparkle glittered, and a parrotfish peach pie appeared in Flash’s fins.
“Here you go, Flash!” Ruby said. “Maybe this will tide you over.”
Echo’s dorsal fin shook. She pointed up at Nelia, who only had one giant treat left on her tusk. “Here we go, every-fishy. The blue whales are about to eat your doughnut!”
“Time for our last entry,” Baxter said. “From Ruby, Nelia, and Lucky!”
Hope bubbled up in my belly. Maybe we would still be able to win the baking competition!
Violet took our doughnut in her flippers. It was covered in huge crab designs from the crab cutout cookies. It was also that perfect bronze color from the sea-salted caramel tart.
Violet took a big bite. “Caramel-y.”
Mauve was next. “And salty.”
Lavender took the last bite. “It’s so good, I don’t think I’ll ever be crabby again,” she declared. “The perfect end to a marvelous competition.”
“But who wins?” I blurted.
I smashed my hooves over my mouth. I couldn’t believe I yelled out like that.
“Sorry,” I said. My cheeks had to be brighter than Ruby’s tail. “I just got excited.”
Baxter laughed. “Not to worry, Lucky. This is a very exciting moment. Please give our judges a minnow to vote on the winner.”
We all floated there, waiting to hear who would be named the Sugar Doughnut champion. I was so anxious, but I realized I wasn’t the only one who was feeling nervous. Nelia still floated above us in her giant form, and she kept looking at us like she wanted to be down with the group.
“Oh my goldfish!” I said. “We need to shrink Nelia back. Flash, do you think you can use your superspeed to take me back to my place? I bet Poseidon’s treasure chest has a Shrink Shell in there.”
Flash nodded and held out his fin. “You bet! Grab on, Lucky!”
I grabbed Flash’s fin with my hoof, and in a blur of BUBBLES, we were in my bedroom. We moved so fast that my mane stuck way out behind me!
“Nice new do,” Flash said. “Although, it’s not quite as pretty as Ruby’s. You should ask Nelia to style it.”
“Maybe once we have her shrunk back to normal size,” I said, then flipped open Poseidon’s treasure chest. The first thing I saw on top of all the shimmery shells was a note! It said:
Right on top of the treasure chest pile was the tiniest shell I had ever seen. It was shaped like a teeny seed, and it was neon pink. I felt a pull in my hooves that this was the shell Poseidon said would help Nelia.
I grabbed it and put it in the toy trident. “All right, Flash. It’s time to share the Shrink Magic with Nelia.”
Flash grabbed my hoof and said, “I’ll get us there faster than you can say ‘seahorse superspeed’!”
He was right. In no time, I was floating in front of Nelia.
“Don’t worry, Nelia!” I said. “We’ll have you back to narwhal normal right away.”
“Thanks, Lucky!” she replied. “I was starting to feel left out that I couldn’t be with every-fishy down in the square.”
I waved the toy trident with the neon pink Shrink Shell, and the teeniest-tiniest little pink BUBBLE came out of it. It popped right on the tip of Nelia’s tusk.
First, Nelia’s tusk slinked back into her head. Then her fin and her flippers shrunk back to normal. It looked funny because her body was still giant! But then the rest of her popped back to normal size.
“Lucky, you did it!” Nelia cheered. She floated forward and wrapped me in a hug. Her tusk even went through my mane. Nelia might have been normal-sized again, but her tusk was still really long.
“Glad to have you back, Nelia,” I sai
d. “Sorry my Grow Shell Sparkle hit you.”
“It was all an accident,” Nelia said. "Fin friends forever?"
Tingles went up my tail that were a lot like the tingles I get from shell magic. “Of course!”
We swam back to the rest of the Fin-tastic Four down in the square. Right when we got next to them, the Blue sisters turned to the crowd.
Together, the three of them said, “It’s time to announce the winner!”
“This was a tough decision,” Violet said.
“It was a very close call,” Mauve added.
“And we wish we could name you all champion,” Lavender declared. “But there can be only one winner. And the winner is …”
The Blue sisters looked at one another, took a deep breath together, then shouted, “LUKA BELUGA!”
“His Wish upon a Starfish Doughnut blew us away,” Violet said.
“Eating it was a magical experience,” Mauve added.
“And the doughnut had us wishing for more,” Lavender declared. “Literally.”
My tail, horn, and mane all drooped at once. “Oh, blobfish,” I said. “I think I screwed everything up. We probably got points taken away because of the Grow Shell mess.”
Ruby grabbed my hoof. “Don’t say that, Lucky. We made the choice to use Grow Magic together!”
“That’s right,” Nelia said. “We were a team. And whether or not we win or lose, we do it as a group!”
“But now you’re not going to get to study new recipes with Baxter,” I said to Ruby. “What about your dessert theater?”
Ruby squinted her eyes and wiggled her tail. She used her Baking Sparkle to make perfect petite parrotfish peach pies. There was one for me, Nelia, Echo, Flash, and Ruby too.
“Don’t you worry about that,” Ruby said. “Even if I can’t work with Baxter just yet, practice makes perfect. The more recipes I learn, the more I can make with my magic, and someday I know I’ll grab Baxter’s attention.”
“You should give him one of these pies,” Flash said, his mouth covered in crumbs. “If this doesn’t make him want to bake with you, I don’t know what will!”
“Speaking of Baxter,” Nelia said, pointing toward him with her tusk. “Look at that trophy he’s carrying!”
Baxter swam out of the Beluga Bakery holding a big gold trophy. It was in the shape of a glittery Sugar Castle. With the help of a selkie and his Shape-Shifting Sparkle, the trophy changed from a castle to a narwhal with doughnuts on its tusk. Then the gold on the front moved to spell out LUKA BELUGA, SUGAR DOUGHNUT CHAMPION.
Luka took the award with a big grin on his face. He deserved it. His Sugar Castle looked really mer-mazing before I ruined everything with the Grow Shell and it had to become a Sugar Doughnut. And the Blue sisters all said he made his baked treat taste great.
“I know you said it’s okay, but I just want to say one more time that I really am sorry,” I told Nelia and Ruby. “I’ll do better next year.”
Baxter Beluga turned to me and winked. “Actually, we have a new award this year that I think you’re going to want to hear about.”
“A new award?” I said. “But I thought there was only one winner.”
Baxter nodded. “That is normally the case. But this year, we had some massive change.”
Guilt guppies swam back into my belly. If I had kept the Grow Shell at home, none of that massive change would have happened.
“Sometimes we make mistakes,” Baxter said. “And they have effects bigger than we could ever imagine. But it is very brave to face those mistakes head-on and clean up the mess we make. So …”
Baxter swam back into the Beluga Bakery again. He came out with five gold medals, each in the shape of a doughnut.
“This year I’d like to present the Beluga Bakery Bravery Award, for helping save the Sugar Castle Competition when all seemed lost,” Baxter said. “And the award goes to Ruby Scales, Nelia Tuskerson, Flash Finnegan, Echo Dolfina, and Lucky Bubbles!”
The crowd cheered. Ruby beamed. Nelia waved her tusk from side to side. None of us could believe we were getting an award!
Baxter put a shiny medal around Ruby’s neck.
“Oh my goldfish, Lucky,” Ruby said. “We won!”
“All of us!” Echo said, her dorsal fin shaking when Baxter gave her a medal.
Flash got his award next. “There is nothing in the whole wide ocean and nothing in all the seven seas that can stop the Fin-Tastic Four!”
“That’s not quite right,” I said.
Flash’s face fell. “It’s not?”
“You’re right that we’re unstoppable,” I said. “But we’re not the Fin-Tastic Four.”
I turned to Nelia just as Baxter was placing her medal around her tusk.
“We’re now the Fin-Tastic Five,” I said.
Nelia blushed. “Do you mean it? Even though I have to go back home to Atlantis tomorrow?”
I nodded. “Of course! You’ll always be a part of the group no matter where you are.”
Nelia sped forward and wrapped me in a hug. We both laughed when her tusk got caught in my mane again. Then Ruby, Echo, and Flash joined in, and we all floated there, five best fin friends forever.
Even with the Beluga Bakery Bravery medal around my neck, I knew memories with my fin-tastic friends were the best award of all.
JASON JUNE is a writer who has always dreamed of being a mermaid. He regularly swims in the lake that he lives on and tells stories to the turtles on the beach. If he could have any kind of Sparkle, it would be Shape-Shifting Sparkle. When he finally gets that mermaid tail, he hopes it’s covered in pink scales. You can find out more about Jason June and his books at heyjasonjune.com.
Copyright © 2021 by Jason June
Cover and interior art copyright © 2021 by Lisa Manuzak Wiley
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First printing 2021
Cover art by Lisa Manuzak Wiley, © 2021 Scholastic Inc.
Cover design by Yaffa Jaskoll
e-ISBN 978-1-338-74339-5
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