Lana Swims North

by Lisa Ann Scott

  To A.M.—Aren’t you so glad narwhals are real?

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Sneak Peek: Mermaids to the Rescue #3

  About the Author

  Also by Lisa Ann Scott

  Copyright

  Princess Lana sat at her desk at the Royal Mermaid Rescue Crew School, tapping her pencil. She couldn’t stop thinking about their assignment: how to rescue five stranded sea turtles at once. She looked out the window at the fish swimming by as she searched for an answer.

  “Lana, what do you think?” Principal Vanora asked.

  Suddenly, she got a great idea. “I could put them all on a raft and pull them to safety!”

  Some of the other merchildren and seaponies in class laughed. Even some of the younger first-year students chuckled.

  The principal swished her sparkly blue tail and adjusted her hair. “What are you talking about?”

  Lana blinked a few times. “To rescue the turtles,” she said quietly.

  The principal frowned. “That’s a fine answer for our homework assignment, but right now, we’re studying jellyfish. I asked which one is the most dangerous. And the answer is the box jellyfish. It’s one of the most deadly in all the seas.”

  Lana sunk down in her seat. She wanted to disappear, which wasn’t easy with her pink-streaked hair. She fiddled with the hem of her shirt.

  “Please pay closer attention, Lana,” the principal said.

  Lana nodded and bit her lip.

  Her magical seapony partner, Marina, smiled nicely. “The raft was a great idea,” she whispered.

  “Thanks.” Lana loved being a Rescue Crew member, but sometimes it was hard to stay focused. There was so much to learn and remember. And her classmates were some of the smartest, bravest merkids in the sea. Lana wanted to impress them all, but whenever she got the courage to speak up, she usually embarrassed herself.

  “Anyone know what the biggest jellyfish in the world is?” the principal asked.

  Lana remembered studying a species from the Northern Seas called the lion’s mane jellyfish. Its tentacles could be over one hundred feet long! But she didn’t dare speak up now after bungling the last question.

  “It’s the lion’s mane jellyfish,” Princess Cali said.

  “Very good,” the principal said.

  Lana frowned, wishing she had been the one who’d impressed the principal.

  “Now, to help you identify the many types of jellyfish, I want you each to draw a picture of five different species by the end of the month,” Principal Vanora said.

  “Hello? I need help!” A call came in through the rescue shells each crew member wore around his or her neck. The calls always reached the crew members closest to the emergency. Today, it was the children in the Rescue Crew School.

  “Princess Nixie, why don’t you respond,” the principal said.

  Lana was glad she didn’t have to answer the call in front of everyone. Nixie was so brave. She’d already been on a mission by herself and saved her two best friends from a shark!

  Nixie picked up her rescue shell and spoke into it. “This is the Rescue Crew. What’s the problem?”

  “My little merboy, Nico, is missing. He was at the park, but now we can’t find him!”

  “Stay there. We’ll meet you at the park,” Nixie told the worried mermother.

  “Class, we should all go and help,” the principal said.

  “Even the first years?” asked Drake, the youngest of the royal merstudents.

  “We need everyone’s help, and it’ll be good practice for the day you’re sent on a mission alone,” the principal said.

  Lana was surprised. This was the first time the whole class was going on a real call. Usually, just a few crew members responded to an emergency. But a missing merchild was a very serious situation.

  The students swam out of the school, through the city. They headed toward the park at the edge of the capital city of Astoria.

  “I hope I can help find him,” Lana whispered to Marina.

  “You’ve got this. Remember what we say in class?” Marina asked.

  Lana nodded. “Breathe, focus, solve.”

  Lana heard the merboy’s parents and a few merchildren calling for him. “Nico! Where are you?”

  “Cali and Cruise, you’re the lead members on this rescue,” Principal Vanora said.

  “Got it!” The twin mermaids flicked their shiny silver tails as they swam over to the missing merboy’s family.

  “Tell us what happened,” Cali said.

  “We were playing hide-and-seek in the park,” a mergirl said, “and we told Nico to wait on the swings.”

  “He’s only four years old!” his mother said. “You shouldn’t have left him alone.”

  “But he likes the swings,” said a merboy. “We thought he’d stay there.”

  “So what happened after you left him?” Cruise asked.

  “We played the game. By the time we found the last merkid hiding, Nico was gone,” his sister explained.

  “I wonder if he’s ever run off before?” Lana quietly asked Marina as they waited off to the side.

  “Good question,” Marina whispered back.

  “Has he ever disappeared before?” Cali asked.

  “No, never. He’s a very good little merboy,” Nico’s father said.

  “Oh, you have to find him,” his mother said.

  “We will,” Cruise said. “We’re the Royal Mermaid Rescue Crew. You can count on us.”

  Lana stared at the swing set, thinking. Hide-and-seek was a long game. Nico probably got bored. Where would I go if I were still a little merkid?

  “Okay, there are eight of us,” Cali said. “Lana, you’ll join Cruise and me with our seaponies to search the park. Dorado and Nixie, take your seaponies and follow the route back to his home to see if he got lost on the way.”

  Cruise turned to the first-year students. “Drake, Darya, and Waverly, search the areas just outside the park.”

  “Quickly!” Cali pointed to where they should swim. “He could be injured.”

  “I hope not—we’ve just started learning about healing!” Nixie said.

  “Let’s go!” Dorado said.

  The Rescue Crew members swam to their assignments. Lana stayed where she was, thinking.

  Cries for the boy filled the air. “Nico? Nico, where are you?”

  Cruise and Cali zipped around the park, poking their heads in every hole and crevice.

  Maybe he decided to join the game and hide, too? Lana thought. But why wasn’t he answering? She snapped her fingers.

  “What is it?” Marina asked.

  “He probably felt left out. Maybe he joined the hide-and-seek game without them knowing and then fell asleep while hiding!” Lana said.

  Marina nodded. “That’s a very good theory.”

  Lana’s gaze swept across the park, looking for places a little merboy might hide. “Maybe he’s in the garden over there. It would be comfortable, and it’s not far from the swings.”

  As she and Marina looked, Lana noticed that Cruise was on the other side of the park, swimming over to the seaweed garden. Before Lana knew it, he was shouting, “Hey, I think I see something over here.”

  Everyone rushed to the garden. Lana spotted the tip of a tiny green fin sticking out from under a patch of seaweed. The tail was the same color as the plant.

  Cali must’ve seen it
, too. “Look!” She carefully parted the seaweed. A little merboy was curled up, napping.

  “Nico!” The merboy’s family scooped him up, hugging and kissing him.

  “We found him!” Cruise hollered.

  “Hey, I found him,” Cali said.

  “But I told you where to look,” Cruise said.

  Cali rolled her eyes.

  “We all worked together on this,” Principal Vanora said. “Well, almost everyone. And we found the missing merboy. Nicely done.”

  Nico rubbed his eyes. “Did I win hide- and-seek?”

  While everyone laughed, Marina whispered to Lana, “You figured out where he was before anyone else. You should have said something!”

  Lana sighed. “I know.”

  Cali picked up her shell and called the other crew members back to the park.

  “Excellent work, class!” Principal Vanora said. “You are dismissed for the day.” Then she turned to Lana and her smile fell. “We need to talk.”

  While the other crew members swam off to celebrate their successful mission, Lana approached Principal Vanora. “Yes?”

  “Why weren’t you searching for the boy?” The principal sounded disappointed.

  Lana stammered. “But—but I was.”

  “You didn’t move a fin. You stayed in the middle of the park.”

  Lana’s mouth opened and closed a few times, but nothing came out. Sometimes, it was so hard to find the right words.

  The principal sighed. “When an emergency is unfolding, we have to act quickly.”

  Marina spoke up. “But she—”

  The principal held up her hand. “Lana has to speak for herself.”

  Lana hung her head. “I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time.”

  “I hope so. Until I see some improvements from you, you can’t lead a rescue mission,” the principal said softly. “I just don’t think you’re ready.”

  Lana gasped.

  The principal set her hand on Lana’s shoulder. “Some crew members need a little more time and work to get the hang of it. You have one more year of Rescue Crew School. Work your hardest. Ask your partner for help. You’re a team now. Remember what we say? ‘A team takes two.’ You can do this.”

  Lana nodded, blinking back tears. “I’ll try my best.”

  “Good. I’ll see you tomorrow in class.” Principal Vanora swam off, leaving Lana and Marina alone in the park.

  “Why didn’t you tell her you figured out where Nico was?” Marina asked.

  Lana shrugged. “Because it didn’t help find him.”

  “But you were right—and you would have searched the garden if Cruise and Cali hadn’t gotten there first,” Marina said.

  Lana shook her head. “No, I should have been swimming around and looking. I’m a horrible Rescue Crew member.”

  “You’re not!” Marina said. “But you do need to speak up for yourself.”

  “I don’t know how,” Lana said. “I get so nervous when I have to talk to the principal. Or in front of the class. And when I do speak, sometimes I say the wrong thing and I get so embarrassed. Like talking about rafts.”

  “As your partner, I’ll just have to keep reminding you how good you really are until you believe it yourself,” Marina said.

  Despite her sad mood, Lana smiled. She was lucky to have such a kind and thoughtful seapony partner.

  Marina nudged Lana with her long snout. “Let’s go home and have dinner. Get some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

  “Let’s go for a swim first,” Lana said.

  Together they swam to the coral gardens at the edge of the kingdom. Lana went there sometimes to daydream.

  “Can you use your Sea Savvy to make us blend into the background?” she asked Marina. “I don’t want anyone to see me. I want to be alone for a while.”

  “Of course. Climb on,” Marina said.

  All magical seaponies had a special Sea Savvy, and Marina’s was wonderful. Lana wrapped her arms around Marina’s neck, and they both faded into the colors of the coral behind them, disappearing from view.

  Lana sighed. “Maybe I don’t belong on the crew.”

  “You’ll find your place,” Marina said. “There were times at the Enchanted Seapony Academy when Headmaster Caspian scolded me. I know how you feel.”

  Lana heard the sound of sniffles and crying.

  “Please don’t cry,” Marina said.

  “It’s not me!” Lana whispered. She saw something big and dark approaching them. “Look!”

  A creature emerged from the shadows. Lana had never seen anything like it.

  “What is that?” Marina whispered.

  “I don’t know!” It was a gray animal, like a dolphin, with a horn coming out of its head. The creature looked so sad, Lana thought it couldn’t be dangerous. “Hello?” she called.

  The creature stopped. It looked around. “Who’s there? Where are you?”

  Lana giggled. “Marina, we’re still blending in with the background.”

  “Oops!” Quickly, Marina and Lana reappeared.

  “Oh, that’s quite a trick!” the creature said.

  “Marina’s a magical seapony,” Lana said. “And we’re members of the Royal Mermaid Rescue Crew. Do you need help? Are you lost?”

  “I’m not lost, exactly,” the creature said. “But I’m not entirely sure where I am.”

  Lana smiled. “That sounds a little bit like being lost. What’s your name?”

  “Spike. Because of my …” He rolled his eyes up to look at his horn.

  “I’m Lana, and this is Marina.”

  “Where are you from? I’ve never seen anyone like you,” Marina said.

  “I live in the Eastern Seas with a pod of dolphins. But I’m the only one with a horn,” Spike said.

  “How magnificent!” Lana said.

  “No, it’s not. Some of the dolphins tease me about my horn, of course. But that’s not the biggest problem.”

  “What is?” Marina asked gently.

  Spike frowned. “I keep poking other dolphins by mistake. I cut my best friend. He was bleeding!”

  “Oh my goodness!” Lana said.

  “I can’t let that happen again. They’re not safe with me,” Spike explained. “It’s better if I’m on my own. I just don’t fit in.”

  “I know how you feel,” Lana said. “All the other Rescue Crew merkids are better at everything than me.”

  “It’s not a good feeling, is it?” Spike asked.

  Lana shook her head.

  “That’s why I’m not lost,” Spike said. “I’m searching for a new home. But I don’t know where I am.”

  “We can help you,” Lana said. “I live in the kingdom of Stillwater, north of here, but I’m spending the weekend in my dorm at the Rescue Crew School. Stay with us tonight!”

  “Oh, thank you,” Spike said. “I never thought I’d run into such helpful creatures.”

  A warm feeling spread through Lana’s chest. This is what it was supposed to feel like being a Rescue Crew member. Why couldn’t it always feel like this?

  Lana and Marina brought Spike to their room while everyone else was at dinner.

  “Let’s stay here,” Lana said. “I don’t want anyone teasing me about what happened in class. I’ve got kelp cakes. Let’s share those.”

  “I hope you don’t get in trouble for having me here,” Spike said as they ate.

  “As far as I know, there’s no rule against letting a dolphin with a horn sleep over!” Marina joked.

  “Thank you so much for your kindness,” Spike said.

  “We keep the seas safe for all creatures,” Lana said. “Even ones we’ve never seen before.”

  Spike smiled as he fell asleep.

  But Lana stayed awake much of the night, wondering how she could fit in better on the Rescue Crew. It would probably be as easy as Spike losing his horn.

  Lana woke up early the next day, worried as soon as her eyes opened.

  “I hope I don’t
get in trouble for this,” she said to Marina as they swam to class.

  “He needs our help. You’re doing the right thing,” Marina assured her.

  “I don’t know. I never seem to do the right thing these days,” Lana whispered as she opened the door to the classroom.

  Principal Vanora stopped talking. “You’re late, Princess Lana.”

  “I know. I … I … ” She gulped. “I brought a guest. A new friend.”

  The class gasped as Spike swam in.

  “Who is this?” the principal asked.

  Lana froze; she was so nervous. So Marina explained how they met.

  “I’ve heard of creatures like you,” the principal said to Spike.

  “Really?” he said.

  She nodded. “But I can’t remember your name. You’re not a dolphin. You’re a very rare animal.”

  “I am?” Spike sounded amazed. “So I’m not just a mistake?”

  “No creature is a mistake,” the principal said. “But you’re not the only one of your kind.”

  Spike smiled. “That’s wonderful.”

  “Indeed. But unfortunately, any books that might tell us more about you were swept away from our library during the Great Storm, many years ago.”

  “I’ve seen creatures on land with one horn,” Marina said. “At the Enchanted Pony Academy. They’re called uniponies.”

  “Maybe you’re a uniphin!” Dorado joked.

  Spike smiled. “Maybe.”

  I wonder if the uniponies might know something about horned creatures of the sea, Lana wondered.

  “Hey!” Nixie said. “We should go to the Enchanted Pony Academy and find out what the ponies know about creatures like Spike.”

  “Excellent idea. Sounds like a good reason for a field trip,” the principal said.

  Lana sighed. She’d had the very same idea. Why hadn’t she been brave enough to share it?

  “Marina, since you’ve been there before, can you lead the class to the academy?” the principal asked.

  The class buzzed with excitement. Normally, merchildren weren’t supposed to swim to the river.

  “I’d love to!” Marina said.

  “Come directly back to school and tell me what you’ve discovered,” the principal said.