by Debbie Dadey
The ocean floor grew darker and darker as they floated away from the city. Pearl was grateful for the light coming from a school of glowing jellyfish, but soon even that light faded. All three merkids gasped as a spiky coffinfish darted between them, nearly slamming into Pearl.
“I think we’d better turn back,” Wanda whispered. “We could get really lost out here.”
Pearl didn’t want to admit it, but she knew Wanda was right. “Fine,” Pearl huffed, whirling around to swim home.
“Wait!” Rocky yelped, pointing straight ahead. “There it is!”
Pearl couldn’t believe her eyes. Just beyond a large crop of dead man’s fingers, she could make out the murky outline of a huge wooden ship. It looked exactly like the picture from the library, but it was much bigger in real life. And darker.
Wanda whispered like she was afraid ghosts might hear her. “That’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen. We should leave. I bet there’s a whole bunch of evil ghosts in there.”
“Maybe she’s right,” Rocky said quietly.
Pearl had to admit that it was terrifying. There was no telling what was inside the mysterious black holes of the rotting ship. She jumped when a blackdevil fish slithered out of one.
Suddenly they heard a sound.
“Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh.”
“What was that?” Rocky asked, his eyes as wide as a toadfish’s.
“Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!”
“Oh my Neptune!” Wanda shrieked. “It’s a ghost! Swim for it!!”
Pirate Ghost
ROCKY AND WANDA ZOOMED off. Although she was frightened, Pearl didn’t want to let all those jewels slip away. “Don’t wimp out now!” she yelled after them. “Let’s swim inside and look for the treasure.”
“Are you crazy?” Rocky said, screeching to a halt.
“Didn’t you hear that—that spooky sound?” Wanda said with a gasp.
“My dad was wrong,” Rocky added. “That had to be a ghost!”
Though Pearl was afraid, she hadn’t come all this way to get scared off by a little noise. “At least stick around to see if it happens again!”
The merkids waited a few minutes, but they didn’t hear anything. Finally Rocky and Wanda agreed to swim back toward the ship. They floated along until they were only about a shell’s throw from the hulking vessel. Wreckfish darted in and out of its broken hull. Zoanthid coral covered much of the wood. A harmless goblin shark slithered through the debris.
“Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!” This time the sound was even louder!
“You call that a little noise?” Rocky shivered. “It sounds like an entire army of pirate ghosts!”
Pearl shook her head to get rid of the idea of pirate ghosts. “I bet it’s just the wood creaking,” she said bravely, although she wasn’t sure anymore. “My dad said the boat is rotting.”
“Really?” Wanda squeaked.
Pearl nodded. “Of course. Plus, just think about that treasure! Imagine what you could do with all those diamonds!”
Pearl knew how badly Wanda wanted to be a part of the Tail Flippers even though she hadn’t made the team. So Pearl said, “Wanda, I bet they’d put you on the Tail Flippers if you gave diamond necklaces to every member. How sparkly special would our routines be then?”
Wanda didn’t disagree, so Pearl turned to Rocky. “You could buy your very own Shell Wars team! Or an entire zoo of friends for Zollie!” Zollie was Rocky’s pet sea horse. “Plus, we’ll get our pictures in the Trident City Tide! We’ll be famous. Everyone will think we’re the bravest merkids in all of Trident City!”
Rocky and Wanda were quiet for a minute. Finally they both nodded. “All right,” Rocky said. “I’ll do it for Zollie.”
“And I’ll do it for the Tail Flippers!” added Wanda.
Pearl grinned. “That’s the spirit! Let’s go.” She floated up, up, and over the top of the ship.
“Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!”
Pearl froze at the sound, then gulped and looked behind her. Where were Wanda and Rocky?
She peered over the side of the ship and saw the two merkids hiding behind a large cup coral. “Come on, you scaredy slugs!” Pearl yelled.
Rocky’s eyes were wide with fright. “That doesn’t sound like rotting wood to me,” he said. “It sounds like ghosts!”
Pearl couldn’t believe that Rocky of all merkids was scared to explore the ship. He was always bragging about being brave. Plus, he was still wearing his pirate costume! Weren’t pirates supposed to be fearless? Some pirate he turned out to be! “Well, forget them!” Pearl whispered. “If they don’t come, that just means more treasure for me!” She took a deep breath and disappeared into the belly of the dark ship.
Trapped
IT WAS SO DARK INSIDE the ship that Pearl could barely see her hand in front of her face. Why hadn’t she thought to bring a glowing phosphorescent jellyfish to help light the way? Still, it was thrilling. “I can’t believe I’m in a pirate ship!” she exclaimed. She floated through what looked like storage rooms filled with shelves and old cabinets, but she didn’t see any treasure.
“They probably kept the valuables, like jewels, deeper in the ship,” she told herself as she glided through a trapdoor. She saw some pots and pans and figured this must have been the kitchen. Then again, she wasn’t even sure if humans needed kitchens.
She saw a small light through a doorway and raced ahead, hoping it was the treasure chest. But it was just the glowing blue-green lure of another blackdevil fish. “Ew!” Pearl snapped. “You’re a creepy-looking fish!”
She swam in between broken boards and cracked barrels. The water grew much colder as a bad feeling crept over her. She gulped and tried not to think that dead pirates could be watching her. She didn’t want to be scared, so she got mad instead.
“I hate this!” Pearl muttered to a deep-sea angler that floated past her. “I like pretty rooms—not ones that are broken, splintered, and smashed. This isn’t exciting at all!” She looked everywhere as she hurried through another storage room, but didn’t see anything that looked like a pirate’s treasure chest. All around her the wooden walls were encrusted with thousands of round adult barnacles. She couldn’t help wondering why humans needed so many containers and coils of rope.
Pearl floated around the rusty barrel of a human cannon, just like one she’d seen at the People Museum, and through a small hole in one of the ship’s walls. Something sparkled up ahead. “I bet those are the jewels!” she exclaimed. “Wanda and Rocky are going to be sorry they were so scared!” Pearl’s mind raced as she thought of all the things she could do with the jewels.
She had to wiggle through one more hole and the treasure would be hers! But when she tried to glide through it, her tail fin got caught. Pearl pulled and pulled, but it was no use! “Help! Help! I’m stuck!” she yelped. Tears welled in her eyes. The hole was pinching her tail!
Once again the ghostly sound echoed throughout the ship:
“Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!”
“Oh no!” Pearl wiggled. She tugged. She jerked, but it was no use. She was totally, completely stuck! “What was I thinking?” she moaned. “I shouldn’t have come here without my parents. What if I’m trapped forever?”
She would have started crying, but a common fangtooth darted toward her, baring its huge, saberlike teeth. Instead of crying, Pearl yelled even louder for help. “Rocky! Wanda! Help meeeee! I’m stuck!”
Luckily, the fangtooth was frightened off by her screaming. Pearl shivered, then listened for Wanda and Rocky. Hadn’t they heard her? “Help!” Pearl hollered again, but still no one came. Then she started to really worry. What if Rocky and Wanda had left? What if she was stuck and all alone?
Diamonds?
IN A FEW MINUTES, PEARL’S worry turned to anger. She was still stuck, and her throat was sore from yelling. But did Rocky and Wanda come to her rescue? No! Some friend Wanda turned out to be. “Didn’t I help her when she was too scared to sleep in the same room
as Kiki’s skeleton bed?”
Pearl thought back to when Wanda had shared a dorm room with Kiki. Kiki slept in a horrible bed made from a killer whale’s skeleton. The bed terrified Wanda, so Pearl had fixed it so that Kiki and her whale bed got a room of their own—away from Wanda. But now that Pearl needed help, where was Wanda? “She’s probably having a sea cucumber snack at the Big Rock Café with Rocky!”
Pearl shook her tail hard, but it still didn’t come loose. “They’re having treats and I’m starving! I didn’t even get an after-school snack. And with me gone, Wanda will probably try to steal my place on the Tail Flippers team!” Pearl had been sorry that Wanda hadn’t made the team, but now she wasn’t. The more she thought about it, the madder she got.
A baby octopus floated past her. “I guess I’m going to have to get myself out of this mess!” she hissed at the octopus, and angrily jerked her tail. It loosened just a tiny bit. Pearl closed her eyes and yanked with all her might. Whoosh! This time she tumbled away from the small hole.
She was free! Pearl carefully felt all around her fins, not really believing her good luck, then sighed with relief. She was loose and there wasn’t a scratch on her.
She thought about heading home, but only for a second. The treasure chest was just too tempting. She had to have those jewels!
Pearl floated through a larger hole, toward the faint glow ahead. The closer she got, the more it sparkled. “It must be diamonds!” she cheered. Maybe her day was turning around after all! Now she’d have the most fabulous story to tell the class tomorrow—and a necklace made of diamonds and rubies, too!
But when she got closer, Pearl saw neither diamonds nor rubies. In fact, there wasn’t a treasure at all. The glow was coming from a large bed of bioluminescent plankton. The tiny sea creatures sparkled, but they weren’t a treasure. “No!” Pearl shrieked. She had never been so disappointed.
Just then she heard the ghostly sound again.
“Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!”
The sound was so close that it made the water around her vibrate. Pearl knew she should dart home as fast as she could, but she had come too far not to find out what was making that sound. Was it really a ghost? And if so, was it guarding the treasure?
“Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!” The sound seemed to be coming from behind a metal door. The door creaked as Pearl pushed it open and swam inside a dark room.
“ARRGH!” A huge blast of water sent her plummeting backward.
“Oh no!” she shrieked. What was that? The pirate ghost?
Rescue
SO THAT’S THE PIRATE GHOST! Pearl thought. She hadn’t really believed there was one, but now she’d seen it with her own eyes. Only it wasn’t a pirate and it wasn’t a ghost.
It was a giant octopus—the biggest one she’d ever seen. In the brief second she had glimpsed the octopus, Pearl noticed two things. One, the octopus was pale pink—almost white. Pearl knew from a recent lesson that they became white when they were hurt or in trouble. Of course, the second thing she’d noticed was that the octopus was stuck. Trapped—just like she had been!
“Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!” the octopus wailed.
“It’s calling for help, just like I did,” Pearl said. Should she help it? She was pretty sure octopuses didn’t eat mermaids, and she’d never heard of a mermaid being killed by an octopus. And besides, maybe the giant creature was sitting on the treasure!
With a quick flip of her tail, she did the unthinkable. Pearl parted the water with her arms and came face-to-face with the enormous octopus.
Somehow one of the octopus’s arms had gotten tangled in a coil of rusty wire. Pearl knew that just one of its long arms could squeeze her to death, but that didn’t stop her. She was feeling very brave, and the treasure might be close at hand!
“Um . . . hi!” Pearl squeaked. She pulled on the wire, but it wouldn’t budge. Then she tried to unwind the coil from the octopus’s leg, but the wire was so stiff that she could barely move it. She needed something stronger; something that would slice right through it! But what?
Pearl glided back to the metal doorway.
“Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!”
She stared at the octopus. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back. I have to find something to break that wire.” She wasn’t sure if the octopus understood or not, but it blinked one of its huge eyes.
Pearl swam through the doorway and searched all around for something to cut the wire. “Where’s a sawfish when you need one?” she muttered. “A diamond would work too.” After all, Mrs. Karp had said that diamonds were used for cutting doors in shells.
But Pearl couldn’t find a sawfish or a diamond. What was she going to do? She couldn’t just leave the octopus, like Wanda and Rocky had left her. She had to help!
Just then something grabbed her from behind and jerked her around.
Giant Octopus
AAAAH!” PEARL SCREAMED.
“I guess we scared you,” Rocky said with a smile. Wanda giggled nervously beside him.
Pearl didn’t think it was funny at all. “Where have you been?” she demanded, her green eyes flashing with anger. “Why didn’t you help me when I was stuck?”
“You were stuck?” Wanda gasped, staring at Pearl. “What’s wrong with you? You look funny.”
“You’d look funny too if your tail had been caught in a hole!” Pearl snapped.
“We heard you screaming, but this ship is huge! We looked all over for you,” Rocky said. “Don’t get your tail in a knot.”
Even though she was mad they hadn’t rescued her, Pearl was still hopeful that they had found the treasure. “Did you find anything?”
Rocky shook his head, causing his pirate hat to tilt slightly. “No, we were too busy looking for you! We didn’t find anything except some peanut worms.”
“Which he ate!” Wanda said, rolling her eyes.
“Hey, what can I say? I was hungry!” Rocky said with a grin, patting his stomach.
Pearl studied Rocky’s pirate costume. She still couldn’t believe how silly he looked. Then her eyes landed on the needlefish, and an idea popped into her head.
Pearl pulled the needlefish from Rocky’s worm belt. “I need to borrow this,” she called as she zoomed toward the metal doorway.
“Hey, that’s mine!” Rocky cried, starting to follow her.
“I need it to—” Pearl said from the doorway, but the octopus interrupted her.
“Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!”
“Whoa!” Rocky yelled, skidding to a stop. “Get away from that door. The pirate ghosts are in there!”
Pearl shook her head. “There are no pirate ghosts.”
“Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!”
“Pearl, don’t go in there,” Wanda said in a trembling voice.
“Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!”
“Let’s get out of here!” Rocky yelled. In two merseconds, he and Wanda had zoomed away.
“Stop!” Pearl shrieked, but they didn’t even look back. They were so terrified that they didn’t seem to realize she wasn’t with them.
“They left me!” Pearl couldn’t believe it. Well, she’d show them! She would save the octopus’s life and find the treasure, too.
She swam into the room with the octopus and hacked at the wire with the needlefish’s long, thick snout. Nothing happened.
“Oooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!” the octopus moaned. Pearl hoped she wasn’t hurting the octopus. She knew the needlefish’s snout was very tough. Her father said it was strong enough to poke a hole in a boat.
“Rocky, get back here and help me!” Pearl cried. But Rocky didn’t come back and neither did Wanda.
Pearl sniffed and kept chopping away. The whole time she muttered, “I wanted a chest full of sparkling jewels and all I found is an icky, nasty, and disgusting ship! This is the worst treasure hunt ever.” Luckily, the wire was rusted and with one final whack, it broke.
“WEEEEoooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!” With a groan and a huge whoosh, the octopus exploded
through the wall of the ship, sending pieces of wood flying in every direction.
Pearl ducked to avoid a big board. “How rude! That octopus didn’t even thank me!” With the octopus gone, Pearl searched the room for any hint of the treasure. But it only had junk and not one single jewel.
This day had been one of the worst in the history of the ocean! She’d gotten stuck. Her friends hadn’t helped her. And to top it all off, there was no treasure! That meant no headline in the Trident City Tide. No diamond necklace for her story tomorrow! Could things get any worse?
Trouble
ROCKY AND WANDA WERE LONG gone. There was nothing for Pearl to do but head home. By the time she got back to her shell, she was too tired to move. Mrs. Swamp was waiting at the doorway, angrily thumping her tail. “Where have you been?” her mother demanded as Pearl slowly swam inside. “I was about to call the shark patrol on you!”
Before Pearl could answer, her mother gasped. “Why are you purple?”
“What?” Pearl screamed. She soared over to the massive mirror in the hallway and peeked at her reflection. It was true. Her face was purple! Her hands were purple. Her hair was purple. Even her beautiful pearls were purple!
The octopus! Its ink must have stained her completely and totally purple! Pearl knew that octopuses sometimes sprayed ink when they were scared. This was the only thanks she had gotten for saving a trapped creature. Pearl couldn’t help it. She burst into tears.
Her mother wrapped her up in a big hug. “Don’t worry, angelfish. We’ll get you scrubbed up in no time.”
Within two tail shakes, Pearl was soaking in a mixture of sea foam and coconut milk. After a couple of hours, the color had faded to a pale pinkish purple. She was dogfish worn out, and she still had to work on her story for tomorrow.
