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someone else, another princess, and the Little Mermaid …” I take a deep breath. “The Little Mermaid dies.”
    “You’re wrong,” Jonah tells me. “I saw the movie. The Little Mermaid doesn’t die!”
    “The movie isn’t the real story,” I say. “Haven’t you ever heard of a Hollywood ending? When the movie writers give the story a happy ending even though that’s not what happens?”
    “But she can’t die,” Jonah cries, and bangs his fist against the sand. “That’s the worst ending I ever heard!”
    I nod. “It definitely is a bummer.”
    Okay. I think I do want to mess up the ending. “I have a new plan. I think we should change the rest of the story.”
    He twists his lower lip. “I thought that was against the rules.”
    I throw my hands up in the air. “Maryrose has never even spoken to us! Whose rules?”
    He cocks his head to the side. “Your rules.”
    Oh. Right. “Yes, well, technically changing the ending is against my rules. But maybe that rule is a mistake. I don’t want the Little Mermaid to die. I want to give her a new ending — a happy ending.”

T here’s another groan beside me. This time the prince’s eyes flutter.
    “I think he’s waking up,” my brother says.
    The prince’s eyes open all the way. He looks at Jonah and then at me. “Where am I?” he asks, his voice gruff.
    “You’re on a beach,” Jonah says.
    “How did I get here? I was on a ship.” The prince sits up slowly and rubs his forehead. “I don’t remember what happened. Wait. I do remember. There was a storm. I fell overboard. How did I survive?” He notices our soaking wet clothes. “Did you two save me?”
    I crouch beside him. “It wasn’t us. It was the Little Mermaid!”
    His eyes crinkle. “The what?”
    “The Little Mermaid!” I point to the water. “She was right there a few minutes ago.”
    He twists to look but the water is smooth. “What’s a mermaid?”
    “You know,” Jonah says. “Half fish, half person?”
    The prince shakes his floppy hair, and I wonder if he lost his crown in the ocean.
    “There’s no such thing as a half person, half fish,” he says. “That’s ridiculous.”
    “It isn’t,” I say. At home, I’d have to agree with him. If one of my new friends told me that she’d seen a mermaid at the beach I would have to ask her if she’d hit her head recently. But we aren’t in Smithville. “Where I live, you’d be right,” I say.
    “You don’t know that,” Jonah tells me. “We might have mermaids at home.”
    “We do not,” I say.
    Jonah shrugs. “You don’t know for sure. He thinks there are no mermaids here, and he’s wrong.”
    Fair point, I guess. I motion around me. “Where are we, anyway?” I ask. From the beach, I spot a path that leads towarda big stone building in the distance. Just as I’m trying to figure out what it is, a bell rings from it. A school?
    The prince stretches his arms up above his head. “The kingdom of Mustard.”
    Jonah and I both laugh. “Seriously?” I ask.
    The prince squints into the sun. “Why would I joke about the name of my kingdom?”
    “Your kingdom is named after something you put on a sandwich?” Jonah asks.
    “Maybe they don’t have mustard here,” I tell Jonah. “Like how in Floom they didn’t have brownies.”
    The prince shakes his head. “We eat mustard. It’s our favorite condiment. We eat brownies, too. We even dip them in mustard.”
    “That’s disgusting,” I say.
    Even Jonah agrees. “Yuck,” he says. “I wish we were in the kingdom of Ketchup.”
    My brother is obsessed with ketchup. He puts it on everything. Fries. Mac and cheese. Plain bread.
    Seriously, plain bread. Now, that’s disgusting.
    “Brownies in ketchup,” Jonah says. “That I’d try.”
    Now, that’s really disgusting.
    The prince wobbles to his feet. “Who are you?” He eyes our outfits. “You didn’t escape from a prison, did you?”
    I look down at our matching pj’s. Our matching