A Titanic Friendship

Debbie Dadey, Tatevik Avakyan

• Publisher: Aladdin
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781534457355
• eBook ISBN: 9781534457379

Echo struggles to share her friends with a new student in this twenty-second Mermaid Tales adventure. Echo has always been fascinated by human inventions, so she's especially interested when her class studies the history of the Titanic and the bacteria discovered there, Halomonas titanicae. When Mrs. Karp announces that the class will be going on an ocean trip to the sunken vessel, Echo is thrilled to have a chance to see it, since the ship is decaying and won't be around much longer.The ocean trip isn't the only big news at school—a new merstudent, Anita, will be joining the class! But Echo and Anita immediately don't get along. Anita is rude to Echo the first time they meet, and all of Echo's friends seem to like Anita better than her.As the trip approaches, the merfriends learn that the Titanic site isn't wheelchair accessible, meaning Anita won't be able to join the class. Her friends decide to boycott the trip, but Echo has been looking forward to it for weeks. Is Echo willing to look past her jealousy and give up the trip? Or can she find way for everyone to be included in both the ocean trip and her friend group?

1 Ship Eating

WHAT IS A BACTERIUM that eats ships?” Mrs. Karp asked.

Rocky Ridge shook his head. “Little bitty bacteria can’t do that. Their stomachs would explode!”

Echo Reef had to agree with Rocky. Her third-grade class had just started studying them, but she was sure her teacher had said something about bacteria being really, really small. Since they’d started their lessons, Echo scrubbed carefully every night. She didn’t want to think about icky bacteria or their cousins, archaea, on her pretty pink tail.

Echo’s merfriend Kiki Coral raised her hand slowly. “Doesn’t it depend on whether the ship is wood or steel?”

“Why would that matter?” Pearl Swamp asked.

Mrs. Karp grinned. “Actually, it makes a big difference. Some bacteria like to eat wood, and some eat steel. In fact, over the next week we will be studying different types of bacteria and creating paintings of large clusters of them in art class.”

Painting sounded a lot better than doing a big report. Echo would have to learn about the different types. How many could there be?

“The bacteria H. titanicae is named after the steel ship it has been eating for about a hundred years,” Mrs. Karp told them. “Does anyone recognize that name?”

Echo’s hand shot in the air. “Are you telling me that something is eating the most famous ship ever? The Titanic?” Echo loved everything about humans, and that particular ship was legendary.

“It’s true.” Mrs. Karp nodded. “In fact, in twenty years it may be completely gone.”

“No wavy way!” Echo said in disbelief.

“Let’s get rid of that tica-tockie bacteria!” Rocky urged.

“It’s called H. titanicae,” Kiki said. “The H is for ‘Halomonas.’ ”

“Isn’t there a way to stop the bacteria?” Echo’s good merfriend Shelly Siren asked.

Mrs. Karp shrugged. “I’m not sure we should. It’s the way of nature.”

Echo couldn’t believe it. She’d read about the fabulous human ship that had been like a floating palace. People had thought it couldn’t be sunk, but sadly it had—on its first voyage! How could the whole thing be disappearing?

“But luckily we’ll get to see it before it’s gone,” Mrs. Karp announced. “We will go on an ocean trip to visit it next week.”

Several kids gasped, but Echo couldn’t help squealing. Were they really going to visit the Titanic? It was a dream come true!

2 New Merkid

ECHO WAS STILL THINKING about the Titanic later after Tail Flippers practice. “Did you hear the exciting news?” Pearl said as she floated over to Echo. They were in the middle of MerPark’s biggest kelp field.

“Yes!” Echo said. “I’m so excited about the ocean trip!”

Pearl frowned and twisted her long pearl necklace. “Who cares about visiting a rusty old ship? I’m talking about the new merstudent!”

“We’re getting a new merkid in our class? How do you know?”

Wanda Slug swam up beside Pearl. “I overheard Mrs. Karp talking with Headmaster Hermit when we went to the cafeteria. Isn’t it shelltacular?”

“Fins crossed for a cute merboy!” Pearl giggled.

“Maybe he’ll want to join the Tail Flippers team,” Wanda agreed. “We need a new top person.” Wanda had just recently been added to the team herself.

“I’m usually the top person on the pyramids,” Echo said. But Pearl and Wanda had already splashed away to chat with other Tail Flippers about the new merstudent.

Echo overheard lots of comments like “I heard he’s from the Northern Oceans!” and “I hope she’ll sit by me.”

Pearl said, “Maybe the new merkid will be able to do the Scale Dropper really well!”

Echo had heard quite enough. The Scale Dropper was her favorite flip! It sounded like her whole team was ready to replace her. How she wished her merfriends Kiki and Shelly were on the team.

Echo grabbed her book bag and headed home, but at the last minute she made a slight detour toward the Trident City Library, swerving around the Trident Academy manta ray bus outside. She wanted to do extra research on the Titanic. She sailed past the marble pillars that lined the entrance to the oldest library in the merworld. Echo barely glanced at the pink marble walls and the sparkling diamond pictures on the ceiling. She knew just where to go inside the big space, although usually one or two of her buddies were with her. She’d looked at the ship books many times. Human things were fin-tastic, and ships were the biggest human things ever!

Echo swished to a stop in front of several empty shelves. Every single Titanic book was gone!

3 Mean Merstudent

A MERGIRL ABOUT ECHO’S age sat at a table covered with books. They were all about the Titanic! The stranger turned a kelp page in the biggest one.

Echo frowned. It wasn’t right to take all the books on one subject. “Excuse me, do you mind if I borrow a couple of these?” She’d already read her school’s single volume three times over.

The mergirl pushed back her brown braid with her bright orange fingernails. “Are you going on the Titanic ocean trip?”

Echo grinned. “Yes, I’ve always wanted to go. I just want two books. You can have th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Map of Trident City
• Dedication
• Cast of Characters
• Chapter 1: Ship Eating
• Chapter 2: New Merkid
• Chapter 3: Mean Merstudent
• Chapter 4: Titanic Dream
• Chapter 5: Boycott
• Chapter 6: Solutions
• Chapter 7: Rustycycle
• Chapter 8: A Reason to Shout
• Chapter 9: Hiding
• Chapter 10: In the Dark
• Chapter 11: Scare
• Class Reports
• The Mermaid Tales Song
• Author’s Note
• About the Author
• Glossary
• Copyright