Emily was a nervous wreck. It was the day of the biggest musical moment of her career, and if crabs could sweat, she would have flooded her shell. She had gotten up early and polished her red carapace so it shone brightly, and carefully reviewed her sheet music for both herself and the copy for the band multiple times to make sure that they were coordinated perfectly. Climbing into her small carriage pulled by two goldfish, she jiggled one of her eight legs, mentally preparing herself. Breathing deeply, Emily heard King Richard be announced, and a thunderous applause soon followed. Then, she heard her own name be called out. Show time. Calmly, she snapped the reins, making the two fish rear up and eagerly swim out. A bright light followed her out, and she tried her best not to squint. A mild applause scattered throughout the crowd, but Emily would not be deterred by the lack of enthusiasm. She steered her shell up to where King Richard was sitting proudly and hovered by his head.

"I'm really looking forward to this performance Emily," King Richard said with a sparkle in his eye.

"Oh Your Majesty, this concert will be the finest you will ever hear," Emily said proudly. "Your daughters will be spectacular!"

"Yes," King Richard crossed his arms and grinned widely. "Especially my little Andrea."

"Of course. She has the most beautiful voice," Emily plastered a grin on her lips and snapped the reins to guide the fish to the podium. Muttering under her voice, she grumbled, "If only she'd show up for rehearsals once in a while."

Emily landed on the stand and let her hyper fishes go. She climbed out and then reached back in to pull the heavy music out of the shell. She scuttled up the podium and plopped the music down, causing a few bubbles to drift up. Puffing out her chest, Emily pulled her conductor's baton out and tapped the edge of the stand. Raising it, the band all took a huge breath, and then Emily lowered it again and began to conduct the upbeat, cheery tune. Everything was going smoothly, until it was Andrea's turn to shine, and when the shell opened to reveal Richard's youngest daughter was missing, the whole entire room gasped. Emily weakly slunk down into her shell, and the band faltered except for one fish who awkwardly kept spluttering out the next few notes until the eel next to him jabbed him in the side.

King Richard grasped his trident and his eyes shone a fiery glare. "Andrea!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Andrea's already large eyes were even rounder as she looked at the sunken ship not 20 feet away.

"Andrea! Wait up!" her best friend, Doug cried out.

"Dougie! Hurry up," Andrea hissed, waving her arm.

The juvenile Atlantic blue tang swam desperately up to Andrea, breathing heavily. "You know I can't swim that fast Andy!"

Ignoring him, Andrea fixed her gaze on the old ship in the distance. "There it is," she breathed and cupped Doug's face from the side. "Isn't it fantastic?"

Doug looked at the ship, not understanding his friend's fascination with it. It looked more like a death trap to him. But he couldn't look like a wimp in front of Andy-she was the bravest person he knew, and he didn't want the brunette thinking he was a baby. So he swallowed and stammered, "Yeah...um, it's great. Uh, can we go now?"

"You're not getting cold fins now, are you?" Andrea looked affectionately at her best friend before flipping her tail and swimming towards the abandoned ship. Doug frantically followed his courageous friend, trying to come up with an excuse. Finding a not-so plausible one, he decided to run with it.

"Me? Nah!" Doug coughed. "I think I'm coming down with something! Listen, it's terrible!" he coughed hard again.

"Alright," Andrea beamed. "You can just stay here and look for sharks!"

And with that, she swam through a small window hole and disappeared from sight.

"Whew," Doug grinned dopily, glad he had avoided a dangerous situation. Then, Andrea's words hit him. "Wait...S-sharks? Andy!"

He tried to jam himself through the porthole, but got stuck. "Andy! Come back! Please help me!"

Andrea laughed sweetly and swam back towards her scared friend. She held Doug's small fins and pulled.

"Hey Andy," Doug whispered.

"What?"

"Do you really think that there might be sharks?" Doug gulped. A large shadow passed behind him.

"Oh Dougie, don't be such a guppy," Andrea giggled and pulled him through the hole.

Doug cautiously swam around, looking at the ship's eroded walls. Barnacles were growing on the rusty sides, and there were a lot of holes. He shifted his gaze, and came face to face with a skull. Doug screamed and yelled Andy's name, trying to frantically swim away. He knocked over a pillar and then crashed into Andrea's arms, trembling and shivering.

"Oh honey, are you okay?" Andrea gently stroked Doug's head.

"Yeah," the shaken-up fish gulped, still vibrating from fear.

Andrea continued to sooth her friend before she looked up and saw a strange object glinting in the soft light. She gasped and swam up the opening Doug made from his earlier outburst. Doug reluctantly followed. Andrea picked up the three-pointed dull silver object and picked it up in wonder. It looked like a mini-trident.

"Oh my goodness," she sighed. "Have you ever seen anything so wonderful in your entire life?" she thrusted the object under Doug's nose and then pulled it away just as fast to hold it up closer to the light.

"No I haven't," Doug blinked. "Do you know what it is?"

"No, but I bet Lily will!" Andrea carefully stored the strange but amazing object in her bag and swam over to where a black object was sitting on a chest. "Oh wow! What is this one?"

"Andy, did you hear that?" Doug gasped and whirled around. Something had moved behind them, but Andrea was too absorbed with the new object she found to pay him any mind.

"Um, hey Andy..." Doug started and then screamed. He was looking straight into a huge mouth with rows and rows of teeth! "Go go go! We're gonna die!" Doug cried and swam as fast as he could to Andrea. Andrea grabbed him and helped propel them both out of the angry shark's path. Dodging closed doors and sharp pieces of broken wood, Andrea flipped her tail as fast as she could. Honestly, she wasn't scared. It was so exhilarating to finally be involved with something that wasn't boring. She felt bad that she got Doug roped into this mess though, and vowed that she wouldn't let anybody or anything touch him. With new determination, Andrea swam faster and crashed through the porthole, barely beating the shark, who just plowed straight through the side of the ship. She kept swimming until her bag snagged on a piece of broken wood. Gasping, she released Doug and went back for it. Doug didn't realize that she had let go of him, and kept swimming frenziedly. He conked into a mast and spiraled down with a dazed look on his face.

Andrea growled when she saw the shark descend down to chase after her best friend, and plowed down to beat the long fish. She barely saved Doug, snatching him through the circle before the shark rammed into it, getting its neck stuck in the process. Both trembling, Andrea clutched Doug close to her and squeezed her eyes shut, convinced that they were dead. Slowly, she opened her eyes to see that the shark was squirming in its trap, frustrated. She allowed a grin to creep over her face and did a somersault. "We're okay!"

Doug, trying to impress Andrea, swam up to the shark and shakily stuck his tongue out at him. "You big bully!"

The shark snarled and bit at him, and Doug shot behind Andrea's thick, long hair. Shaking her head, Andrea laughed, "Dougie, you really are a guppy." She began her ascent up to the surface and chuckled as Doug furtively tried to deny her statement.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey Lil!" Andrea waved her arm.

The seagull jumped up and grabbed her telescope, pointing in the wrong direction. She peered through the lens, and shouted, "Andy! How are you?" She lowered it to find herself face to face with the mermaid in question. "What a swim," she muttered under her breath.

"Lily! Doug and I visited a sunken ship today and-"

"It was super scary," Doug injected.

Andrea rolled her eyes fondly and continued, "anyways, we found this really neat stuff." She reached down and set the bag down on Lily's island.

"Human stuff?" Lily padded over to the discarded bag and pulled out the silver object with a wing. "This is very unusual," she said, examining the item from every angle.

"What is it?" Andrea said excitedly.

"A dinglehopper!" Lily exclaimed and proceeded to demonstrate on herself. Pulling the dinglehopper through the tuft of hair on the top of her head, Lily swirled it around and let it snap back into place. "See? Humans use 'em to straighten their hair out. It gives a person a beautiful head of hair that everybody loves."

"Whoa," Andrea breathed and took the human object in her hand.

"And this," Lily's voice was muffled by the bag she was digging in. She wiggled her butt as she pulled her head out and her voice became clearer, "is a banded, bulbous, snarfblat."

"Wow," Andrea and Doug turned to each other, their eyes wide.

"This fine object dates back to prehistorical times when humans had nothing to do except sit around and stare at each other," Lily said confidently. "So, they invented this wonderful object, the snarfblat, to make music. Allow me." she blew in the black curved object, and seaweed sputtered out the end.

"Oh no!" Andrea clapped her hand to her forehead and winced. "Music! I forgot about the concert!"

"The concert was today?" Doug looked confused.

"Thank you so much Lily," Andrea hurriedly snatched the snarfblat from Lily's wing and stuffed it in her bag. "I gotta go."

After waving, she dove underwater, leaving Lily to smile affectionately after her.

TBC...