"W ake up!" said Frannie's mother. "Today is your first day of Second Grade!""Mom! Just five more minutes?" Frannie whined. "Nope. Get up, lazy fins!" Frannie's mom grabbed the green and red seaweed blanket and quickly uncovered Frannie. She shivered in her cold bedroom. "Brrr," she said.

"Get up and start swimming. You'll be warmer in no time," Mom said as she headed for the kitchen.
Frannie swam across the room and looked into the mirror on the wall. Her fins were ruffled and her eyes looked tired. "Well, I can't go to school looking like this," she said, straightening her fins. "Not that I want to go anyway. What if no one likes me? What if it's too hard? What will my teacher be like? Why can't Mom and Dad come, too?" she asked into the mirror.

She stared back at herself for a few minutes, hoping that the mirror would answer back. Very scared now and wishing for happy answers to her fearful questions, Frannie swam over to her closet. She took out a blue shell fin clip that matched her shiny new book bag. "This'll look nice," she said. She swam back over to the mirror and clipped the shell on her back fin for a fun decoration.

Frannie, now dressed, was ready for breakfast. She swam down the hallway to the kitchen.
"Sand muffins!" squealed Frannie. "You made my favourite breakfast!"
Frannie's little brother, Freddie, was already in his chair chewing his sand muffins with his mouth wide open. Her father, as usual, was at the table reading the Coralville Times newspaper. He
lowered one corner of the newspaper when Frannie swam in.

"Well it's about time the princess joined us at the table," her father joked. "Freddie and I thought we were going to have to eat all the sand muffins ourselves! Freddie! Chew with your mouth closed, please."
"No way, Dad. Save some for me!" Frannie grabbed a stack of the warm, yummy sand mufins and put them on her plate.

"So Frannie, are you ready for Second Grade?" her dad asked. "Not really," answered Frannie. "I'd rather stay home with all of you.""Well sweetie," her mom responded, "Dad is getting ready to go to work, Freddie is going to day care, and I'll be heading to my office. So you see, there isn't going to be anybody home today. Besides, don't you miss some of your friends from last year?"

"Well, I haven't seen Suzy Starfish and Tommy Tuna for a really long time." Suzy and Tommy were her best friends from First Grade. "I would kind of like to see them again, I guess," Frannie admitted. "See? It'll be fun, and you'll learn all sorts of new things. You'll be smarter than your parents one day," her dad said.
"What do you mean one day?" asked Freddie. "I'm already smarter than Frannie!" Frannie stuck her tongue out at Freddie.

"Okay you two, stop acting like a couple of dumb fish. Finish your breakfast, it's almost time to leave," her mother said. The family of four finished breakfast and prepared to leave. Luckily, her dad had just bought a nice new car and he offered to drive Frannie to school, since it was her first day.

"Awesome," thought Frannie. As they got closer to the school, she started feeling less nervous and more excited. After all, she had a nice morning with her family, and they reminded her that she would get to see her friends again.

Plus, she'd ridden in her dad's cool car! As they pulled up to Coralville Elementary School, she saw Tommy and Suzy waiting for her. She was so excited to say hello, she almost forgot to thank her dad and give him a hug goodbye.

"I'll be back to pick you up after school!" her dad called as she swam up to Tommy and Suzy.
"Hey guys! What's up?" she asked. "We're all in the same class again this year," Suzy said, frowning.
"What"s the matter with that? Isn't that a good thing?" Frannie asked. "Yeah," Tommy said, "but our new teacher is a sea-monster!"

"A sea-monster?" Frannie asked, getting scared. "Yeah, my brother's friend's neighbour said she's super mean and super hard, and she doesn't let you have recess!" Suzy said. "What? No recess?!" Frannie said.

The three friends were growing more nervous as they tried to change the subject to something fun, like their summer vacations. They had almost forgotten about their scary new teacher when... the bell rang.

To be continued.......!