Echo's Lucky Charm

by Catherine Hapka

  Echo smiled confidently and rubbed Pearl’s fin. “We’re all going to do fine on the test. Don’t worry, Pearl!”

  At that moment, Riptide called for attention again. The ray was gone, and it was time to go back to class.

  “Great!” Splash did two quick flips. “Time for Jumping and Swimming. Let’s go!”

  Pearl followed her friends out of the cove. Jumping and Swimming class always took place in the open water outside the coral, where there was more room to move around.

  “Shake a fin, class!” Riptide bellowed as he zipped past them. “We’re starting late because of that ray, and we have a lot of work to do today!”

  He wasn’t exaggerating. He started class by asking the students to show him everything they’d been practicing so far—swimming fast, doing flips in and out of the water, and more. Pearl was already tired by the time she finished all that.

  Then Riptide called for attention again. “Now we’re going to learn something special,” he said with a big grin. “It’s a trick I learned from a dolphin who lived with Land Leggers when he was younger.”

  “What do you mean?” Flip asked. “Land Leggers live on the land, and dolphins live in the water!”

  “That’s right,” Riptide said. “Some Land Leggers caught this fellow and brought him to a special pool of water surrounded by land. They kept him there for a while before they brought him back home.”

  Echo shuddered. “That sounds horrible! I wouldn’t want to be stuck on a bunch of land.”

  Pearl nodded. She liked looking at the island where the baby turtles hatched. But she definitely wouldn’t want to get any closer than the surf breaking on the beach.

  “Never mind that.” Riptide sounded impatient. “The Land Leggers taught him a fun trick, and he taught me. Now I’m going to teach you. It’s called tail walking, and it goes something like this.”

  He led them to the surface. Pearl watched in amazement as Riptide lifted himself out of the water—and scooted backward while almost fully upright, with only his tail still in the water propelling him along!

  “Wow!” Splash shouted when the teacher finally collapsed back into the water. “That was so cool!”

  Most of the other students seemed to agree. Even Echo looked impressed.

  But Pearl was worried. Tail walking looked really hard!

  She turned out to be right. Tail walking was hard. It only took Splash a few tries to be able to do it, but even he couldn’t stay upright for nearly as long as Riptide had. Flip, Harmony, and one of the other males started to get it after a few tries, too. Echo and the other two students weren’t as good, but at least they could lift themselves all the way up and wiggle a little before flopping back down.

  But not Pearl. No matter how hard she tried, she could only lift herself halfway out of the water. By the end of class, she was exhausted and discouraged.

  “Never mind, Pearl.” Echo touched her fin as the class swam slowly back toward the coral reef. “It’s a hard trick. But I’m sure you’ll get it.”

  “Yeah, I can help you practice later,” Splash offered.

  “Me too,” Flip said. “I’m sure I’ll be just as good as Riptide before long. Maybe even better!”

  Pearl just nodded. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to tail walk—no matter how much her friends tried to help!

  Harmony swam past with a couple of the others. “I hope Riptide doesn’t give us a test on tail walking anytime soon,” she was saying.

  Pearl gulped. “Do you think he will?” she asked her friends. “I’m definitely not ready for a test on tail walking—or anything else we’re doing in Jumping and Swimming, either!”

  “He hasn’t said anything about a test,” Flip said as they all swam in through the cove entrance. “We probably won’t have one anytime soon.”

  “I hope not.” Pearl blew out a sad stream of bubbles. “I’m just not very good at that class.”

  “Don’t worry, Pearl.” Splash swam a circle around her, then touched her fin. “Hey, if we do have a test, maybe Echo will lend you her lucky shell! That might help, right?”

  “Sure.” Echo smiled and lifted her fin as if to touch her necklace. Then she gasped. “Oh no! My lucky shell—it’s gone!”

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOUR SHELL IS GONE?” Pearl swam closer to her. Sure enough, there was no sign of Echo’s necklace! It was strange to see her not wearing it. “Oh no!” Echo cried again, spinning around in the water. “The seaweed string must have broken during class.”

  “Probably,” Flip agreed. “You hit the water pretty hard while doing all that tail walking.”

  “I have to go back and find it!” Echo exclaimed.

  “You can’t,” Splash said. “Ocean Lore starts in a few minutes. You’ll get in trouble if you’re late.”

  “I don’t care.” Echo sounded frantic. “I have to find my shell!”

  Pearl was worried, too. Echo’s lucky shell was really special. But she also didn’t want her friend to get in trouble for skipping class.

  “We’ll help you find it right after school,” she said. “We promise. Right, guys?”

  “Right!” Splash said, and Flip nodded.

  Echo hesitated, still staring out through the entrance toward the open water outside. But finally she nodded, too.

  “Okay,” she said. “I guess I can wait.”

  Ocean Lore seemed to pass even more slowly than usual. Old Salty spent the first half of the class talking about the feeding habits of tube worms. Then he switched to describing the different types of sea slugs in the area. Pearl was pretty sure she wouldn’t remember anything the teacher was saying. She was too worried about Echo. What if they couldn’t find her lucky shell?

  Finally Old Salty dismissed them. Magic class was next. As Pearl and her friends swam past the school entrance, Echo paused.

  “I wish I could go look for my shell now instead of waiting,” she said. “What if the current carries it away?”

  “The current isn’t very strong where we were,” Splash pointed out.

  Pearl touched Echo’s fin. “Come on. We only have one more class, and then we’ll find your shell.”

  Echo nodded and followed Pearl and the boys. But as soon as they reached the Magic area, she swam over to Bay.

  “May I be excused for a few minutes?” Echo asked the teacher. “I lost my lucky shell during Jumping and Swimming, and I need to go out and find it.”

  “I’m sorry, Echo,” Bay said. “You’ll have to do that after class. The test is the day after tomorrow, and we have a lot of work to do before then.”

  “But I won’t do as well without my lucky magic shell,” Echo argued. “I won’t be gone long.”

  “I said no, Echo.” Bay’s voice was kind but firm. “Now take your spot and let’s get started.”

  Echo stared at the teacher for a moment without moving or saying anything. Finally she turned with a flip of her tail and swam over to Pearl.

  “Can you believe she’s being so mean?” Echo whispered. “I thought she’d understand!”

  Pearl gave her a sympathetic look. But she didn’t say anything, because Bay was already talking about the lesson plan for that day.

  “We’ll start by reviewing what we did yesterday,” the teacher was saying. “Since some of you had trouble guiding the school of fish, we’re going to back up to a smaller number of creatures.” She waved a fin at three cute little striped coral shrimp clinging to a piece of mushroom coral on the seafloor. “I’d like each of you to guide those shrimp to climb down off the coral. Now, who wants to go first?”

  Pearl expected Echo to volunteer, like she usually did. But Echo was staring at the seafloor, looking distracted and anxious.

  “I’ll try!” Flip called out. “I’ll probably do great without Splash holding me back.” He glanced at Splash. “No offense.”

  Flip swam up for a breath of air. Then he returned and focused on the shrimp. It took him a long time, but he finally got two of them to hop down from th
e coral. The third one stayed where she was, but Bay still looked pleased.

  “Well done, Flip,” she said. “Who else would like to give it a try? Echo, how about you?”

  “I guess,” Echo muttered. While Bay guided the shrimp back onto the coral, Echo swam slowly up to the surface to take a breath and sank even more slowly back down.

  “What’s taking her so long?” Pearl heard Harmony whisper just behind her.

  “Go ahead,” Bay said. “Whenever you’re ready, Echo.”

  Echo sent out a burst of magic energy. One of the shrimp moved a few steps toward the edge of the coral. But the other two stayed still.

  Pearl held her breath, expecting Echo to try again. Instead, she felt the magic energy stop. Echo backed away and looked at Bay.

  “I can’t do it,” she said. “Not without my lucky shell.”

  “Nonsense,” Bay said firmly. “Try again, please.”

  Echo frowned, looking as if she wanted to argue. Instead, she swam back over to the shrimp and sent out another weak burst of energy.

  “Go, Echo!” Splash cheered. “You can do it!”

  But the shrimp didn’t budge. They just sat there, their long antennae waving in the current.

  “Come on, Echo,” Bay said. “I know you can do better than that.”

  “No, I can’t!” Echo sent out a sudden wild burst of magic energy. The shrimp all jumped up as if an electric ray had just shocked them, then leaped off the coral. One scuttled off across the seafloor, while the others hid under the coral’s wavy edge.

  Bay frowned. “I asked you to guide them, not push them.”

  Pearl’s eyes widened in surprise. Pushing was related to guiding, but more advanced—and much less nice. While guiding was a way of asking creatures to do something, pushing was a way of forcing them. Dolphins weren’t supposed to push other creatures unless it was absolutely necessary.

  “I didn’t mean to!” Echo’s muzzle quivered, and her fins flapped in distress. “It’s hard to control my magic without my shell to help.”

  Bay didn’t say anything for a moment. Finally she blew out a narrow stream of bubbles.

  “All right, let me gather the shrimp again,” she said. “Harmony, you can go next.”

  Pearl reached for Echo’s fin when she swam back over. But Echo kept her fins close to her body, out of reach.

  Pearl wasn’t sure what to think about how her friend was acting. She was used to Echo being the most talented in the class at magic. Could it really just have been her lucky shell all along?

  AS SOON AS BAY DISMISSED THE CLASS, ECHO flicked her tail and zipped away in a stream of bubbles. “Hurry!” she called back.

  Pearl, Splash, and Flip swam after her. They caught up at the school entrance, and all four of them swam out together. They’d left class so fast that no other students had left yet.

  “Slow down, Echo,” Flip said breathlessly. “Pearl is probably getting tired from trying to keep up with you.” Then he swam up to get some air.

  Pearl went with him. While both their heads were above the surface, she said, “Do you think we can find her shell? It’s pretty small.”

  “I’m sure I can find it,” Flip said. “I’m good at stuff like that.”

  He dove down, and Pearl followed. She hoped Flip was right!

  The Jumping and Swimming class area was deeper than the rest of the school, but not too deep for sunlight to reach the seafloor. There weren’t any large coral formations, but there were plenty of smaller bits of rock and coral, along with patches of seaweed and lots of shells.

  “It’s going to be hard to spot it here,” Splash said. “It could have fallen anywhere!”

  “We have to find it!” Echo snapped, glaring at him.

  “It’s okay,” Pearl said quickly. “We will.”

  She swam lower, pushing aside a clump of seaweed with her snout to check for the shell. But it wasn’t there, so she moved on to a small pile of shells and started sifting through them with her muzzle and fins.

  “Hey, what are you babies doing down there?” a familiar voice called.

  It was Mullet. When Pearl looked up, he was floating above them near the surface. Finny and Shelly were nowhere in sight.

  “We’re searching for Echo’s lucky shell,” Splash told the older dolphin. “She lost it during class today.”

  “You lost your lucky charm, Echo?” Mullet said mockingly. “Uh-oh, now you’ll never pass your Magic test!”

  Echo stopped searching and swam up to him. “What are you doing here, Mullet?” she demanded. “Did you steal my lucky shell?”

  “What? No!” Now Mullet sounded annoyed. “Why would I want to take your dumb baby toy?”

  “I bet you did!” Echo swam even closer, glaring into his face. “You were hanging around us during recess—I bet you grabbed it then!”

  Pearl traded a worried look with Splash. “I don’t think so,” Splash said. “We would have noticed if he did that.”

  “Not if he was sneaky about it,” Echo said. “And we all know Mullet’s totally sneaky!”

  Mullet just glared at Echo. Then he swam away without another word.

  Uh-oh, Pearl thought. He seemed kind of insulted. I hope this doesn’t make him even meaner to us!

  But she didn’t say anything out loud. Echo was staring after Mullet. She didn’t look angry anymore, though. Now she looked sad.

  “How am I going to tell my mom I lost her special gift?” she said. “She picked it out just for me.”

  “I know.” Pearl swam over and rubbed her fin. “Don’t worry—you might not have to tell her. We still have time to find it.”

  “Yeah,” Splash said. “We hardly started looking yet!”

  “Anyway, your mom probably won’t be that upset,” Flip said. “It’s just a shell. There are lots of them in the sea.”

  “What?” Echo squeaked, a wild stream of bubbles escaping from her blowhole. “How can you say that?”

  “Because it’s true!” Flip said. “Your mom probably won’t even notice the necklace is missing.”

  “Of course she will!” Echo exclaimed. “That shell is special! You know that. It has some of Mom’s magic in it. That’s why I was having so much trouble in class today.” She glared at him. “Wait a second—you didn’t take it, did you?”

  “Huh?” Pearl said. “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he’s jealous of my mom’s magic and mine, too.” Echo frowned. “That’s probably why he’s always talking about it. I bet he saw my shell fall off today during class and hid it somewhere!”

  “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t do that!” Flip cried. “I can’t believe you would think that. You should apologize to me!”

  “You should give back my shell!” Echo yelled in return.

  Flip puffed out a whole cloud of bubbles. Then he spun around and swam away as fast as he could.

  THE NEXT MORNING, ECHO WAS WAITING BY the entrance when Pearl arrived at school. “I’m glad you’re here,” Echo said. “I need to tell you something.”

  “What is it?” Pearl asked. She could tell that Echo was still upset. Even though Pearl, Echo, and Splash had searched until it was almost dark, they hadn’t found Echo’s necklace.

  Echo blew out a few bubbles. “I didn’t want to tell my mom I lost my lucky shell,” she said. “So I told her I loaned it to you—you know, to help you study for that Magic test tomorrow.”

  “You did?” Pearl felt uneasy. It wasn’t like Echo to lie—especially to her mother. Losing her lucky charm wasn’t just making Echo worse at magic. It seemed to be turning her into an entirely different type of dolphin!

  Pearl wanted to say that to Echo, but she didn’t dare. They hadn’t been friends for very long. Pearl didn’t want Echo to get mad at her like she had at Flip yesterday. She definitely didn’t want Echo to accuse her of stealing the lucky shell!

  “I wanted to tell you, just in case you see my mom,” Echo said. “You know, so you don’t give away what really happened
.”

  That made Pearl feel even worse. She didn’t want to lie to Echo’s mother—or anyone else, for that matter! But she figured she probably wouldn’t see Echo’s mother, anyway. So she just nodded.

  “Come on,” she said. “We should get to class.”

  Echo was quiet during Music class. When it was her turn to sing, Pearl could barely hear her. Pearl also noticed that Echo and Flip were staying as far apart as they could. She was pretty sure that Bay noticed, too. But the teacher didn’t say anything about that, or about Echo’s weak singing, either.

  When it was time to go to Jumping and Swimming, Flip swam off ahead by himself, even though Splash called out for him to wait. “Are you and Flip still mad at each other?” Pearl asked Echo.

  Echo shrugged. “I guess so,” she said. “I don’t know. I barely saw him after school yesterday, and he left without me this morning. I swam here with some of the older kids from my pod.”

  Soon they arrived at Jumping and Swimming class. Riptide announced that they wouldn’t be practicing tail walking that day.

  “Some of you had more trouble than I expected,” he said. “We’re going to do swim sprints today instead. That will make your tails stronger for when we return to tail walking.”

  Pearl almost groaned. Swim sprints were hard! But they weren’t as hard as tail walking, so she didn’t complain.

  Riptide told the whole class to line up behind a cluster of oysters. When he gave the word, the dolphins were supposed to swim as fast as they could to the edge of a seaweed bed, then flip in the water and swim back just as fast.

  “First one back gets to rest during the next round!” Riptide shouted. “Go!”

  Pearl whipped her tail back and forth as hard as she could to propel herself forward. She wished Riptide had given them a chance to take a breath first, since she didn’t have much air left. But she did her best, anyway, swimming as fast as she could.

  As she reached the seaweed, she focused on her flip. She’d been the worst one in the class at flipping on the first day. But she’d been practicing at home, with Squeak helping her. Splash had been helping her whenever he could, too. And all that practice paid off! Pearl flipped smoothly without getting disoriented, slowing down, or bumping into anyone else. She was so excited that she zipped forward even faster on the way back.