Part of Your Nightmare

  Copyright © 2020 Disney Enterprises, Inc.

  Illustrations by Jeffrey Thomas © Disney Enterprises, Inc.

  Design by Lindsay Broderick

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney Press, an imprint of Buena Vista Books, Inc. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney Press, 1200 Grand Central Avenue, Glendale, California 91201.

  ISBN 978-1-368-05059-3

  For more Disney Press fun, visit www.disneybooks.com

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1: Under the Sea

  Three Days Earlier…

  Chapter 2: #Strawssuck

  Chapter 3: Octopus Queen

  Chapter 4: Shell-Fish

  Chapter 5: Part of Your Nightmare

  Chapter 6: Something Fishy

  Chapter 7: In a Bind

  Chapter 8: Green Around the Gills

  Chapter 9: The Fastest Swimmer

  Chapter 10: Sinking Feeling

  Chapter 11: Webbed

  Chapter 12: Catch of the Day

  Chapter 13: Poor Unfortunate Soul

  Chapter 14: Sink or Swim

  Chapter 15: Hook, Line, and Sinker

  Chapter 16: Night Dip

  Chapter 17: The Trident

  Chapter 18: Last Straw

  Chapter 19: Fish Out of Water

  Triton Bay Tribune

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Cold water enveloped Shelly as she plunged.

  She spiraled down through what appeared to be tangles of kelp. What was happening to her? Where was she going? Finally, she somersaulted to a stop in a dim underwater cavern.

  She began to swim, holding her breath, not sure where she was going, just knowing she needed to find an exit, to find air. But seaweed snagged at her ankles, trapping her.

  “Leave here . . . turn back!” came a tiny, pained voice as clear as day, even that far underwater.

  Shelly looked down and saw faces on the seaweed. And with her heart racing and air running out, she realized it wasn’t seaweed at all, but withered gray life-forms with sallow eyes and gaping, contorted mouths. They were nothing she had ever studied or seen in the aquarium. They couldn’t be talking to her, though. She must have imagined it.

  A current gripped her and sucked her down.

  She tried to swim against it, but it was too strong. Her lungs ached, fit to burst.

  Suddenly, an enormous crystal ball clamped around her, and her mouth opened in a silent scream. But then the water drained from the enclosure, and she was able to breathe, though she spluttered and spat and pounded her fists on the curved crystal.

  “Help! Let me out!” she yelled. Everything looked distorted through the glass. She could barely make out the underwater cavern. Glass bottles lined the rough-hewn walls, and there were glowing anemones and the eyes of those . . . things. She gasped as something huge, bulbous, and black swam past her. What was that?

  “Lose something, dear?” The same deep, rich voice she’d heard in her little brother’s bedroom emanated from the shadowy corner of the cavern. “So coy!” A black tentacle shot out of the gloom and rapped on the glass. Shelly cowered, fear gripping her.

  “Wh-what do you want?” she gasped.

  “Circle up and pay attention, students!”

  Mr. Aquino attempted to corral his class, a rowdy group of sixth graders from Triton Bay Middle School, as they gathered around the main aquarium exhibit. When the chatter quieted only a little, he raised his voice again. “Now, who can tell me what this marine animal is called?” he said, pointing to a large graceful creature paddling through the rippling blue water.

  Before Shelly could stop herself, she stuck up her hand. “Leatherback sea turtle.”

  “Very good, Shelly,” Mr. Aquino said. “Now, why do sea turtles eat plastic bags?”

  “ ’Cuz they’re dumb fish!” Normie Watson said, prompting snickering.

  “Actually, they’re not fish—they’re reptiles,” Mr. Aquino said with a disapproving frown. “And they’re not dumb. They’re actually very smart! Now . . . anybody else?”

  Shelly was secretly glad that he’d shut Normie down. Serves him right. She watched the sea turtle drift past the sunken pirate ship and treasure chest that decorated the faux-undersea environment. It wheeled around a rusty, barnacled trident, the centerpiece of the exhibit, which stuck out from the bright white sand. Suddenly, a huge reef shark swam behind Mr. Aquino.

  “Watch out!” Normie yelped, pointing to its huge jaws, filled with jagged teeth. Gasps and nervous giggles rang out. “Megalodon just tried to chomp Mr. Aquino’s head!” he said.

  As if anything could swim through the glass, Shelly thought. She thrust up her hand again, since no one had answered their teacher’s question yet, and Mr. Aquino pointed at her.

  “Because sea turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, their main food source,” she said.

  “Correct again, Shelly,” Mr. Aquino said, flashing her a smile while her classmates groaned.

  Shelly’s new best friend, Kendall, shot her a look and mouthed one word: Nerd. Attina and Alana—the twins who rounded out their friend group—giggled at Shelly. Kendall had long blond hair that swooped around her shoulders like it was out of a shampoo commercial and blue-green eyes the color of the sea. The twins were identical, with curly auburn hair in a stylish asymmetrical bob and brown eyes. All three girls were dressed the same, in designer athleisure clothes from Ever After Boutique in downtown Triton Bay, the quaint seaside city where they lived. The trio also slurped iced lattes from disposable plastic cups with two plastic straws each. Shelly’s cheeks burned with embarrassment.

  I shouldn’t have kept raising my hand, Shelly thought. It was a hard instinct to fight.

  Science nerds were more revolting than rotting fish to the popular kids. She’d had to change schools at the beginning of the school year, when her mother moved her and her little brother, Dawson, from their big old house by the ocean to the townhouse in the complex on the edge of the canals, and it had taken her many long months to make new friends.

  One glorious day, Kendall had invited Shelly to sit with her group at lunch. Shelly had become fast friends with the three of them after that. Nothing was going to ruin Shelly’s happiness about that friendship, including her father leaving their house and moving into the weird dingy apartment with the stained carpets that always smelled like greasy delivery food, and her brother’s goldfish, Mr. Bubbles, going belly-up and getting flushed down the toilet the past week. Nothing was worse than having no friends.

  “Nice job, Shelly,” Mr. Aquino said with a wink, snapping her out of her thoughts.

  “Nice job, Shelly,” Normie mocked. “Of course she knows everything about fish.”

  Everyone knew that Shelly’s parents owned the Triton Bay Aquarium. A year earlier, she and her little brother used to love going to work with their parents on the weekends, following their mother around while she managed the feeding schedules and directed the staffers, or hanging with their father in the office while he handled the bills and dealt with guest relations.

  But the days of both her parents being at the aquarium at the same time had passed.

  Shelly followed as Mr. Aquino led the class to the next tank on the tour. Shelly caught sight of her reflection in the tank’s clear barrier. She had long, curly dark hair streaked with blond highlights from all the time she spent on the aquarium’s outdoor sundeck feeding the dolphins. Her eyebrows and eyes
were darker brown than her sun-kissed skin. Her favorite thing about her appearance was her long, strong legs, which helped her swim fast.

  Sunlight filtered through the water, casting strange shadows onto her classmates. She didn’t need to look at the illustrated placard to know what this exhibit housed: spiny lobsters, stingrays, barracuda, and garden eels. The lobsters, looking like giant red insects waving their antennas, lumbered around the bottom of the tank filled with coral reef and sea sponges.

  Mr. Aquino held up a white plastic straw. “Now, can someone tell me what this is?”

  They all stifled their laughter at the easy question. All except for Shelly, who prevented her arm from rising. She wasn’t going to risk Kendall calling her a nerd again.

  “Uhhh, I’m pretty sure that’s a straw,” said Normie. “Do I get extra credit now?”

  The class broke into laughter.

  Our sea sponges here are smarter than Normie, Shelly thought with a head shake.

  “It’s not just any straw,” Mr. Aquino replied, ignoring Normie’s request. He slipped into his full-on enthusiastic-teacher mode, waving the straw around. “It’s a plastic straw I found on the beach this morning.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Did you know that ninety percent of seabirds and fifty percent of sea turtles have been found to have plastic in their stomachs?”

  Shelly felt a lump form in her throat. She did know. How could she not? She used to be the head of the Kids Care Conservation Club at the aquarium. Earlier that year, she had spoken to Mr. Aquino about starting a chapter at school. That was before she became friends with Kendall.

  “This straw looks harmless enough,” Mr. Aquino went on, gesturing to the exhibit, where a smiling stingray drifted serenely behind the glass. “But it’s no laughing matter. This little straw could kill an endangered animal like that turtle—or poison our precious oceans.”

  “Death by killer straws,” Kendall murmured, shaking her iced latte with its two straws at Attina and Alana. “Anything but the Killer Straws!” she added, flicking the tops of the straws.

  Attina and Alana giggled at her quip and sipped from their own iced lattes.

  Shelly cringed, feeling bad for Mr. Aquino.

  Her teacher gave up. “All right, I’ll give you two options—dolphin exhibit or gift shop.”

  They all yelled, “Gift shop!” at the top of their lungs.

  Shelly kept her mouth shut. She wanted to visit the dolphins—watch the feeders toss fish to Sassy and Salty and maybe even dip her hand into the open-air tank and pet Lil’ Mermy, the youngest dolphin in the pod. But it would just have to wait for another time.

  Fit in at all costs, she told herself as she sidled up to her new friends.

  “Please,” Kendall said to her posse, then loudly slurped her iced latte through its two straws. “First no more plastic bags, and now they want to take away my straws? No thanks.”

  “For realz,” Attina chimed in, fiddling with her sparkly headband, which perfectly matched her sister’s, though Attina’s was pink and Alana’s was blue. “Who cares about boring old fish, anyway?”

  “Hashtag BTD,” Alana added. “Bored to death.” She drank from her iced latte.

  The three girls turned to Shelly expectantly, each sipping from her drink.

  “Right . . . so boring,” Shelly mumbled, forcing out the opposite of what she actually felt.

  “Totally,” said Kendall with a smile. “Shells, we love how you’re such a know-it-all.”

  Alana and Attina tittered at her remark.

  Shelly didn’t know how to take it, so she simply smiled. “Thanks, I think,” she said.

  The girls began to trail behind the rest of the class, heading for the aquarium gift shop. Shelly glanced at the front entrance that led up to the main exhibit, and she spotted the new security system and alarms installed on the doors. She’d overheard her father talking on the phone with the police, saying that somebody had been trying to break into the aquarium the past few weeks.

  But then the entrance passed out of sight as Shelly and her friends headed into a dark and narrow corridor marked by portholes. Only shadowy light filtered through the round windows, and undersea creatures darted past the glass. This was Shelly’s favorite part of the aquarium.

  Kendall nudged her side. “Hey, who is that?” she asked, cocking her eyebrow.

  Shelly followed her gaze to a boy about their age leading a group of tourists past them through the corridor. He had curly black hair paired with green eyes the color of ocean shallows. His smile lit up as he talked animatedly, pointing to jellyfish spinning and twirling in a graceful undersea dance. Their transparent bodies glowed with bioluminescence in the large porthole.

  Shelly shrugged. “Oh, that’s just Enrique.”

  “Just Enrique,” Kendall said in mock horror. “Major swoon.”

  “Total swoon,” Attina and Alana said in unison.

  Shelly studied his face, trying to see what Kendall, Attina, and Alana saw. But all she could see was a friendly boy who shared her fascination with marine life. Everyone at the aquarium was family, including Enrique. She couldn’t think of him any other way.

  “His older brother Miguel is a college kid,” Shelly said. “Miguel studies marine biology and volunteers here for his fall internship. Sometimes Enrique tags along to help out. He’s actually pretty silly. And kind of a . . . science nerd,” she added, the last words slipping out.

  “Science nerd, huh?” Kendall asked, pulling a grossed-out face. “Never mind.”

  Suddenly, something gelatinous swam up to the porthole behind Kendall’s head. It moved like a gigantic spider, only quicker, cutting through the water and blocking out the light.

  Attina squealed and dropped her cup.

  Alana pointed to the porthole. “Kendall, watch out!”

  Just then, a slimy tentacle shot toward the glass.

  “Get that slimy monster away!” Kendall yelled, leaping back from the porthole and squeezing her cup of iced latte as she did. The plastic top popped off, and coffee splashed all over her pink designer tank and yoga pants, staining them a milky brown. Attina and Alana both screamed again and cowered from the glass, which frightened Shelly more than the tentacle or the sea creature to whom it belonged.

  “It’s okay,” Shelly said. “That’s Queenie, our giant Pacific octopus. She’s harmless—”

  Another tentacle slapped the porthole, making the girls shriek again. But not Shelly. Then Queenie unleashed a thick cloud of black ink and darted into it, her huge body swallowed by the darkness she had unleashed in the tank. As fast as she had appeared, Queenie was gone.

  Kendall aimed her manicured nail at the porthole. “Harmless? That thing attacked me!”

  “Actually, she’s probably more scared of you,” Shelly said, defending Queenie as if she were an old friend. “Octopuses only release ink when they’re afraid. It’s how they escape—”

  “Look what it did to me,” Kendall interrupted, pointing to her stained clothes. “And news flash for you,” she said, staring daggers at Shelly, “I could have been seriously injured.”

  Shelly bit her tongue. She failed to see how an iced coffee stain could have seriously injured anyone. She glanced back through the porthole, where ink still clouded the water, and wondered if Queenie was on to something about her new friends. She pushed the thought away.

  Kendall rapped with her knuckles on the porthole, which, Shelly knew, was against aquarium policy. “You hear that, you big ugly monster?” Kendall called out to Queenie. “I’m going to file a complaint with the school. They should cancel this dumb field trip next year.”

  Shelly felt her stomach churn. School field trips like this one were the bread and butter of their family business. They depended on them to keep the aquarium running smoothly and to put food in the tanks and on their table. This was the day all the local schools came to the aquarium. It was practically a city holiday. Shelly spotted Little River Middle School making their way past an exhibit across t
he room—and she saw Judy Weisberg’s familiar silhouette framed by the tank.

  Judy was surrounded by the other swimmers from the Little River team—rival swimmers.

  Judy was tall for her age and stood out from her classmates. Her curly black hair was cropped short, better for tucking inside a swim cap. Her tanned face sported a constellation of freckles that dusted her cheeks. She must have been swimming outside all summer to prep for swim season, Shelly thought with a frown. Between the separation and move, Shelly had barely had a chance to dip her toes in the water, let alone train.

  Judy’s friends giggled and pointed at Shelly, who felt her cheeks burn once more. When Judy caught Shelly’s eye, she sneered at her. The year before, Shelly had lost to Judy in the fifty-meter freestyle at regionals. Badly. And Judy wasn’t about to let Shelly forget it.

  “This aquarium stinks,” Kendall went on, oblivious to what had just happened between Shelly and Judy. Attina and Alana desperately dabbed at Kendall’s clothes to soak up the coffee stain.

  Shelly tore her gaze away from the Little River swimmers. She had to turn her attention back to Kendall. All it took was one formal complaint to ruin everything. And a formal complaint from Kendall Terran would be the worst. Her family practically ran Triton Bay. Her mother sat on the city council, and her dad was the head of the PTA. If Kendall followed through on her threat, the school could cancel the annual field trip, and other local schools might do the same.

  Shelly had to find a way to fix this, for her family’s sake. “Guess what,” she said, forcing a smile. “The concession stand has a new coffee bar. My dad installed it to boost attendance.”

  Attina perked up. “Espressos?” she asked.

  “Lattes?” Alana chimed in, eyes wide. “Mochas?”

  “Yup, yup, and yup,” Shelly said proudly. “Better yet, they make a killer flavored latte this time of year. And it’s a double shot.” She grinned at each of her friends.

  Now she had Kendall’s undivided attention.

  But then Kendall pulled a face. “Ugh, but my credit card maxed out.”

  Shelly dug in her pocket, feeling for the bills and loose change crammed in there. Technically, it wasn’t her money; it belonged to Dawson, her six-year-old brother. He’d worked all summer to save it up, selling lemonade at a tiny stand, and before she’d left for school that morning, she’d promised to buy him a new goldfish on the way home to replace Mr. Bubbles. Now, as she counted the money, she realized that it wasn’t enough to buy lattes for her friends and a new goldfish for Dawson. But a new goldfish wouldn’t keep her friends happy.