Purrmaids #7 Read online

  The Scaredy Cat

  The Catfish Club

  Seasick Sea Horse

  Search for the Mermicorn

  A Star Purr-formance

  Quest for Clean Water

  Kittens in the Kitchen

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2020 by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen

  Cover art copyright © 2020 by Andrew Farley

  Interior illustrations copyright © 2020 by Vivien Wu

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC. PURRMAIDS® is a registered trademark of KIKIDOODLE LLC and is used under license from KIKIDOODLE LLC.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Bardhan-Quallen, Sudipta, author. | Wu, Vivien, illustrator.

  Title: Kittens in the kitchen / by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen; illustrations by Vivien Wu.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Random House, [2020] |

  Series: Purrmaids; 7 | “A Stepping Stone Book.”

  Summary: After a field trip to learn about new foods, purrmaid friends Shelly, Angel, and Coral decide to cook a surprise meal for teacher Ms. Harbor and her friend, but unexpected challenges arise.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019002137 | ISBN 978-1-9848-9607-0 (trade pbk.) | ISBN 978-1-9848-9608-7 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-1-9848-9609-4 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Mermaids—Fiction. | Cats—Fiction. | Food—Fiction. | Cooking—Fiction. | School field trips—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.B25007 Kit 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9781984896094

  This book has been officially leveled by using the F&P Text Level GradientTM Leveling System.

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Other Titles

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Excerpt from Purrmaids #8: Merry Fish-mas

  To Jim,

  my personal paw-some chef

  Shelly thought field trips were one of the most fin-tastic things about sea school. And in Ms. Harbor’s class, the trips were even more paw-some. Ms. Harbor was the kind of teacher who knew how to plan something fin-teresting and fun!

  Shelly was very particular with the way she dressed. She always tried to look purr-fectly clean and purr-fectly beautiful. When she swam into the kitchen, she twirled around and asked her family, “What do you think?”

  “Shelly!” Mom said. “You look so purr-ty.”

  “I love that new top on you,” Dad added.

  “Thanks!” Shelly purred. She loved her new green top, too, especially the small silver scallops along the sleeves. They sparkled in the light as Shelly swam around. “I can’t wait to show Angel and Coral!”

  Angel and Coral were Shelly’s two best friends. They did everything together! Even though they didn’t look alike, they matched each other every day in a small way. They wore identical friendship bracelets, decorated with all the same charms. Their bracelets were signs of their friendship for the entire ocean to see.

  Shelly loved matching her best friends. But she also loved to stand out!

  “Hurry up and eat your breakfast,” Mom said. She pointed to a plate on the counter.

  “Mom made frog egg jelly donuts,” Shelly’s sister Tempest said.

  “Just be careful,” her other sister, Gale, warned. “The jelly is really messy! It’s all over my paws.”

  “And your face!” Dad laughed.

  Shelly scowled. She said, “I don’t want to—”

  “Get your clothes dirty!” Her sisters laughed. Everyone knew that Shelly hated messes.

  Shelly frowned and began to cook. “I think I’ll make scrambled tuna eggs,” she said.

  Usually, Dad made the scrambled tuna eggs using his secret ingredient—a sprinkle of sea urchin. Shelly reached for it, but then she saw a mango. “Maybe I’ll try something new,” she said to herself. She peeled the mango and cut it into small pieces. She carefully avoided the oval pit in the center of the fruit. She added the pieces to her eggs.

  When she went to the table with her creation, Mom asked, “What did you make?”

  “I thought I’d try something new,” Shelly said. “Would anyone like a taste?”

  Tempest and Gale frowned at Shelly’s mango-and-eggs. They shook their heads.

  “That looks weird,” Tempest said.

  “I don’t want to be the first one to try it,” Gale said.

  Shelly could feel her face getting hot. She didn’t think she’d had a bad idea. It hurt that her sisters wouldn’t try any.

  Then Dad said, “I want some.” He popped a spoonful into his mouth. Immediately, he grinned. “This is fin-credible!” he exclaimed. “You invented a brand-new recipe.”

  Shelly smiled as she ate her breakfast. It wasn’t the same as donuts, but her recipe was good. I’m glad I tried something new, she thought.

  After breakfast, Shelly swam toward Leondra’s Square to meet her friends. She saw a black-and-white kitten and an orange kitten from a block away. Angel and Coral were waiting for her. Shelly sped up to reach her friends sooner.

  “You’re finally here,” Angel said. “I thought I was the one who was always late!”

  Before Shelly answered, Coral said, “We need to leave! I want to be on time for school.”

  “Sorry,” Shelly said. “I made my own breakfast this morning, so it took a little longer to get ready.” She turned toward sea school. “But we can make up some time if we race!”

  Soon, the purrmaids were settling into their desks in Room Eel-Twelve. The morning bell rang, and Ms. Harbor swam to the board. “I’m so excited about today,” she purred. “Before the field trip, though, let’s talk about your homework.”

  Some of the students groaned. But Ms. Harbor added, “No homework tonight!”

  “No homework!” Baker exclaimed.

  “That’s the best kind!” Taylor cheered.

  “We’re visiting Coastline Farm today,” Ms. Harbor continued. “We’ll learn about the fruits and vegetables that they grow.”

  Angel scowled. “A farm doesn’t sound very…exciting,” she said.

  “You might be surprised,” Ms. Harbor answered. “There will be foods there you may not have ever seen. I don’t even know recipes for most of them.”

  Shelly smiled. She already knew she was good at thinking of recipes. Cooking was something that made Shelly really stand out. I’ll figure out some great recipes tonight, she thought. Ms. Harbor will be so i
mpressed!

  As the class lined up to leave for the field trip, Shelly leaned over to Coral and Angel. “Maybe I can cook something with the foods we see,” she whispered. “With your help, of course.”

  “That would be paw-some!” Angel replied. “We could teach Ms. Harbor how to use the foods we learn about today.”

  The purrmaids of Eel-Twelve swam to the Cross Cove Current. It was one of the quickest ways to get around Kittentail Cove. Shelly and her friends sometimes used the Cross Cove Current to get to places like the Kittentail Cove Science Center.

  Today, the class rode the Cross Cove Current past the Science Center. After another two stops, they were at the edge of Kittentail Cove. Ms. Harbor announced, “We’re here!”

  Shelly looked around. She had been to many farms with her parents to get ingredients for their restaurant. Sea lettuce or sea lemon farms had huge fields for those foods to grow in. Farms for shrimp or sea cucumbers had pens where the animals were raised. But here, Shelly only saw open ocean all around. The water was bright from the sun—except for one large shadowy area. It looked like there was an island above them.

  “This doesn’t look like a farm,” Shelly whispered to Angel and Coral. “Do you think we came to the wrong stop?”

  Coral shrugged. “If Ms. Harbor says we’re here, then we must be in the right place.”

  Ms. Harbor noticed her students’ confused faces. “We’re not quite at the farm yet,” she said. “We have to wait for Mr. Bengal.”

  “Who’s Mr. Bengal?” Angel asked.

  Ms. Harbor smiled. “He’s an old friend of mine,” she purred. “We actually went to sea school together. His family moved to Kittentail Cove from a village in the Indian Ocean when we were kittens.”

  “And Ms. Harbor was one of my first friends,” someone said. A purrmaid with orange-and-black-striped fur floated next to Ms. Harbor.

  “Arnab!” Ms. Harbor exclaimed. “It’s so nice to see you!”

  “You, too, Azurine,” Mr. Bengal replied. He gave her a kiss on the cheek. Then he turned to the students. “I was a little surprised that Azurine decided to be a teacher.” He grinned. “But I guess after spending so much time in the principal’s office, she got used to being at school!”

  Shelly gasped. Ms. Harbor? In trouble at the principal’s office? She couldn’t believe it!

  “Arnab!” Ms. Harbor yowled. “Don’t tell my class that! What will they think of me?” She turned to her students and winked.

  “I can’t imagine Ms. Harbor in trouble,” Coral whispered.

  “I can!” Angel giggled.

  “Could we get back to the tour, please?” Ms. Harbor asked. She sounded stern. But she was smiling, so Shelly knew her teacher wasn’t really upset.

  Mr. Bengal nodded. “Welcome to Coastline Farm,” he said. “I can’t wait to show you all the fin-teresting things we do here!”

  Shelly raised her paw. “Mr. Bengal,” she said, “where is the farm?”

  Mr. Bengal laughed. “You were expecting fields of sea lemons or pens of shrimp, weren’t you?”

  Shelly nodded.

  “Coastline Farm is different from the kinds of farms you’re used to in Kittentail Cove,” Mr. Bengal said. “We don’t grow anything underwater.”

  “What?” asked Angel.

  “Where else would you grow things?” Coral asked.

  “On land!” Mr. Bengal replied.

  “Are you ready to see the farm?” Ms. Harbor asked. The students said yes.

  “Follow me!” Mr. Bengal called.

  As the purrmaids got closer to the surface, Shelly noticed the island looked like a donut from below. It was shaped like a circle with a large lagoon in the center. When they reached the lagoon, Mr. Bengal waved for the purrmaids to poke their heads out of the water. “You can even sit on the edge of the lagoon,” he said. “Then you’ll be able to get a really good view.”

  Shelly sat on the rocky shore. The first thing she did was smooth down her fur. Angel and Coral saw her and giggled.

  “You look very purr-ty, Shelly,” Angel said. “You don’t have to worry.”

  Shelly smiled. “Thank you!” she purred.

  Mr. Bengal pointed to the island’s outer edge. “Does anyone recognize those trees?” he asked.

  Shelly looked over her shoulder. The tall trees had branches filled with large green leaves and bright red and yellow fruit. They grew close together and almost formed a wall around the island.

  “Do you know what those are?” Coral whispered to Shelly.

  Shelly nodded. She raised her paw. “I think those are mango trees,” she said.

  “You’re correct!” Mr. Bengal exclaimed.

  Shelly grinned. “I used mango in my breakfast today.”

  Angel scratched her head. “How do you reach the mangoes up there?” she asked.

  “We wait until they fall off,” Mr. Bengal replied. “We have so many trees that there is always some fruit on the sand.”

  “So this is a mango farm?” Coral asked.

  Mr. Bengal shook his head. “We do collect the mangoes,” he said. “There’s no reason to let them go to waste. But the trees are there so any humans sailing by won’t see the purrmaids working on the farm.”

  “I thought it looked like a wall,” Shelly purred.

  Mr. Bengal pointed to some fenced-in patches near the lagoon shore. “Those are our fields.”

  Some of the fields were in the sand near the water’s edge. Others were on the rocks that jutted out into the lagoon. “We grow a few kinds of food,” Mr. Bengal said. “We mark the different fields with these.” He pointed to the small sculptures on the tops of the fence posts.

  “They’re beautiful,” Angel said. She gently touched the nearest sculpture. It looked like a turtle shell.

  “Thank you,” Mr. Bengal said. “I carve them myself.”

  Shelly examined one of the sculptures closely. There was something about the shape that was familiar. “Are these mango pits?” she asked.

  Mr. Bengal nodded. “You’re right again!” He turned to Ms. Harbor. “You have very smart kittens in your class,” he said.

  “Yes, I do,” Ms. Harbor agreed.

  There were yellow and brown blobs growing inside the fence with the turtle-shell carvings. They looked a little slimy. “We grow some of our crops right on the rocks,” Mr. Bengal said. “These are sea cauliflowers. Has anyone tasted these before?”

  Everyone shook their heads.

  Mr. Bengal plucked a few blobs off the rocks and passed them out. “Try a piece,” he said.

  Shelly looked down at the sea cauliflower in her paw. It looked even more slimy up close than it had in the field. She wrinkled her nose. I don’t want to eat this, she thought.

  Angel whispered, “This doesn’t look so yummy.”

  Even Ms. Harbor didn’t look eager to taste her piece. She poked at it with a claw, but she didn’t put it in her mouth.

  “What are you waiting for?” Mr. Bengal asked. “Go ahead.”

  But no one moved. The smile on Mr. Bengal’s face began to fade.

  Shelly always got upset when she cooked something new and no one was brave enough to try it. She didn’t want Mr. Bengal to feel that way. She also couldn’t think of recipes for sea cauliflower without knowing what it tasted like!

  Shelly took a deep breath. “I’ll go first,” she purred.

  Mr. Bengal’s smile came back. “Thank you for being brave,” he said.

  Shelly nodded and put a small bite in her mouth. She chewed for a moment. Then she grinned. “This is really good!” she exclaimed.

  The students of Eel-Twelve soon agreed that sea cauliflower tasted a lot better than it looked! Angel even asked, “Can I have another piece?”

  “I’m glad you kittens like th
ese,” Mr. Bengal said. “And I’m glad Shelly had the courage to take the first bite.”

  “Shelly reminded us all that it’s important to try new things,” Ms. Harbor added.

  The purrmaids swam to the shallow water between the next two sandy fields. On the left, there were clumps of green plants dotted with small purple flowers. That fence was decorated with mango pits carved to look like scallop shells. Plump plants with bright pink flowers grew in the field on the right. The fence around it was decorated with carved fish sculptures.

  “These aren’t the same plant, are they?” Shelly asked.

  Mr. Bengal shook his head. “No, they’re not. These,” he said, pointing to the side with the scallop-shell fence, “are sea mustard plants.” He pointed to the fish sculpture side. “And these are called beach bananas.”

  This time, the students weren’t as nervous about trying the foods. “I want a beach banana,” Coral said.

  “I’ll have the sea mustard,” Angel said.

  “I want to try both!” Shelly laughed.

  “I think everyone should taste everything,” Ms. Harbor said.

  Mr. Bengal picked some little green pods off the sea mustard plants. Then he did the same with the dark red beach bananas. He also picked some leaves off the beach banana plants. “You can actually eat the flowers and the stems,” he explained, “but the fruit and the leaves are probably easiest to eat.”

  Each student got a green pod and a red fruit. “Peel the beach banana and eat the fruit inside,” Mr. Bengal said. “You can eat the beach banana leaves and the sea mustard pods whole.”

  Shelly peeled the beach banana and plopped it into her mouth. “This is sweet,” she said.

  Coral added, “It’s a little tangy, too.”