We all hold our breaths and wait for the next big wave.
‘Now,’ yells the biologist, and the whale is pushed forward into the deeper water. The people from Sea World swim out with her and help her through the waves. We are all holding hands and cheering as the little calf slips through the last wave and out to sea.
Brett is waving madly from his board. He signals that the whales are heading in the right direction and he puts his thumbs up when the mother reaches her calf.
The whole beach cheers and every face is smiling.
We stagger up to our camp site and collapse onto the chairs. The people from Sea World are going to stay on for a while, to make sure more whales don’t beach themselves.
Mum looks exhausted, but happy. ‘Well, you did say you wanted to see a pilot whale, Juliet!’
I look around for Curly to give him a hug. I haven’t seen him all morning.
‘Dad, where’s Curly?’
‘I thought he was with you?’
None of us have seen him for ages.
We all start to call out for him.
I start to panic. We were so caught up with the whale that nobody kept an eye on Curly.
‘Curly! Curly!’ I bellow.
We run around the camp site asking if anyone has seen him. The lady in the tent next door remembers giving him a biscuit around morning tea time, but there are no reports since then.
‘Oh where could he be?’ I sob.
Max, Chelsea and I are all crying now, and Mum and Dad look really worried too. What a terrible way to end our holiday! First the whale, now this!
A huge garbage truck is coming up the dirt path to collect the wheelie bins. He honks his horn for us to hop off the track. Can’t he see we are freaking out? He honks again. I look up to signal for him to stop so I can tell him that our dog is missing. Then I see a very familiar face looking out of the window at me.
It’s Curly, still covered in little pigtails.
The driver stops his truck and lifts Curly down. ‘Are you looking for this?’ he laughs when we run over.
Max, Chelsea and I all hug Curly. He doesn’t know who to lick first.
‘I saw him in my rear-view mirror following the truck while I collected the bins,’ says the driver, ‘so I thought I’d better bring him back. With a hairdo like that, he obviously belonged to someone!’
Chelsea looks very proud.
‘We should have guessed. He followed the mullet!’ says Dad, shaking his head and laughing.
It takes ages to pack all the gear up and sweep the sand out of the tent. When we are finally finished we all go down to the beach for one last swim. As I jump in the waves I look out to sea and smile at the thought of the whale calf back with its mother.
‘You know,’ says Dad, when we are back in the car and driving home, ‘I’m sure I can still smell that dead fish.’
Mum shakes her head and smiles.
Chelsea and I give Curly a hug.
Max puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out a pet pipi he’s been saving from two days ago.
Curly barks excitedly as the smell fills the car.
Every year, our family goes camping with great friends to a beach where there are heaps of rock pools to explore and wonderful things to see and do. Sadly, we can’t take our dog, Noodle, with us, but I’m sure he’d love it! The thing I like about beaches and rock pools is that they change every day and there is always something new to find. This year we were lucky enough to see a large turtle being released that had swallowed a plastic bag. Watching him swim off into the surf after months in care was really special.
As a little girl, I always wanted to be a vet. I had mice, guinea pigs, dogs, goldfish, sea snails, sea monkeys and tadpoles as pets. I loved looking after my friends’ pets when they went on holidays, and every Saturday I helped out at a pet store. Now that I’m all grown up, I have the best job in the world. I get to draw lots of animals for children’s books and for animated TV shows. In my studio I have two dogs, Jed and Evie, and two cats, Bosco and Kobe, who love to watch me draw.
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First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2014
Text copyright © Rebecca Johnson, 2014
Illustrations copyright © Kyla May Productions, 2014
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Cover and text design by Karen Scott © Penguin Group (Australia)
Illustrations by Kyla May Productions
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ISBN: 978-1-74348-451-7
THE BEGINNING
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Beach Buddies Page 3