Willa and the Whale

by Chad Morris

  “When you make scratches on something so that you will always remember that it happened, right?” Meg answered. “I do learn some things from the people I see.”

  I was impressed.

  No one was around and the sun was going down soon. I tried to finish up my entry while I could still see it.

  The water lapped at my toes—in and out, in and out. Meg spoke up again, “How did your swimming thing go?”

  “It wasn’t—” I started, but then caught myself. “Wait. How did you know?” I hadn’t told her about swim team at all. “Oh,” I said, realizing what happened, “you were . . .” I was about to say “eavesdropping,” but I was pretty sure a whale wouldn’t understand that word. “You were listening to us?”

  Meg gave her bubble chuckle. “You were having your whole conversation right by the ocean.” She was right. I beat Marc at rock skipping and our whole chat was right by the waves.

  I’ve heard kids get all conspiratorial about the fact that their home AI or their phones can always hear them. That’s nothing compared to the idea that all of those sea creatures with great hearing are listening in on everyone’s conversations near the ocean. Thank goodness they’re not spies for the government.

  At least I didn’t think they were.

  “Swim didn’t go great,” I said. “I’m not very fast.”

  “Maybe I can teach you,” Meg sang said. “I am kind of an expert. And I can swim faster than boats.”

  Swimming lessons from a humpback whale sounded absolutely epic. But I doubted that everything would transfer over to a human. “I’d love some pointers,” I said. “But you’ll have to remember that I am a different species. I’m a lot shorter and lighter. And my body doesn’t move like yours.” I was about seventy-six feet shorter, and thirty-three tons lighter. But I didn’t bring that up.

  Meg agreed.

  “It was good to go, anyway,” I said. “To show Marc that I want to be his friend again.” I quickly added, “and just his friend. No lip smacking.” I heard a melodious chuckle come from the water. “But,” I scooped up some rocks off the ground and sifted through them for shells, “Marc made the team, and I didn’t.”

  Meg waited for a moment. “I don’t know what that means.” That took a while to explain, but eventually Meg got it. “So, it’s like you humans put yourselves in pods, but don’t let other humans in.”

  “Yeah, if you’re not good enough,” I said.

  I could almost hear Meg thinking. “You are strange, strange creatures.”

  “I guess,” I said. And I spilled out everything about Lizzy too. I think all the sadness from mourning my mother took up almost all of the space inside of me; I didn’t have room to harbor all of these other feelings. So I dumped them on Meg.

  “Lizzy is like a bottom feeder of the ocean,” Meg said, trying to summarize what I said. “Like a cuttlefish that has hypnotized other people into thinking she’s amazing, but she’s really terrible and lethal.”

  “I think you got it,” I said.

  “Except she’s your same species,” Meg said.

  “Yeah,” I said. But that felt a little strange. She was my same species.

  “I have the perfect story for you,” Meg said.

  I closed my journal. “Okay,” I said, “hook me up.”

  She paused then said quite seriously, “Hook you up? Like bait?”

  “No,” I said, having not even thought about it, “it means you’re going to give me something. In this case a story.”

  “You humans use your words so oddly,” she said. Then her voice became cheery again. “Anyway, when I was up north, a few migrations ago, we came upon these orcas who had bullied a seal onto a small slab of ice. They circled the ice, even breaking pieces off, trying to get to the seal. When they couldn’t reach it, they got diabolical. Two of them swam together, causing a wave that washed over the ice and almost carried that poor seal into the ocean. Another orca was waiting on the other side.”

  “That’s so mean and smart—but really just mean,” I said. I think I just found a new nightmare. The idea was terrifying.

  “Oh, it made me so mad,” Meg said. “That seal wouldn’t have made more than a snack for one of them. And to taunt and torture it. It upset me. So my friend and I headed straight for them.”

  Charging orcas? This story was intense.

  “Again, the orcas swam together,” Meg continued. “But this time, four of them swam in a line. The wave would be huge and the seal would definitely wash off the ice.” I could imagine the whole terrible situation. “My friend raced closer. The wave hit the seal and it didn’t have a chance. But as the seal slid off the ice, my friend pushed himself between the seal and an orca. He spun onto his back, reached out a pectoral fin, and scooped the seal onto his upturned belly.”

  “Whoa,” I said. #HeroHumpback

  “The orcas didn’t quit, but rammed right into my friend’s side in hopes of dislodging the seal from his spot on my friend’s belly. But my friend kept going. Still floating on his back, he filled his chest with air and raised that seal clean out of the water to a height the orca could never reach him.”

  “That’s amazing,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Meg agreed. “Now, my friend wasn’t the bravest humpback in the ocean. When he was little, he was terrified of orcas. But he carried that seal until the orcas gave up. Then he dropped the frightened thing off on an ice shelf that gave him plenty of room to get away to safety.

  “When I asked him what made him so brave,” Meg continued, “he said that he wasn’t really thinking about what would happen to him if he got involved. But he couldn’t stop asking himself what would happen to that seal if he didn’t get involved.”

  After a pause, I realized that was the end of the story. “That was really cool,” I said. “But what does it have to do with what we were talking about?”

  Meg got quiet then gave a melodious giggle. “Um,” she said, “yes, I had a great point.”

  “Maybe because Lizzy is an orca?”

  “Yes,” Meg said. “That’s it. Maybe she is an orca, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get involved. Don’t let her intimidate you. Help others. Think about how you could make a difference.”

  A pep talk about whales and orcas from a whale. Nice. That was my language. “Thanks,” I said. I really did feel better. Maybe I shouldn’t let Lizzy get to me.

  “Sure thing,” Meg said. “When you swim from one side of the great ocean to the other, you’re bound to have a story or two.”

  My phone rang. “Just one second,” I said. “My phone . . . my rectangle is, um . . . signaling me.” It wasn’t always easy to speak in a way Meg could understand. I turned away from the ocean trying not to be rude. “Hello,” I said.

  “Hello,” the person on the other line said. “This is Coach Jackson down at the Tupkuk Island Community Pool. Is this Willa Twitchell?”

  “Yes,” I said, my heart suddenly pumping a decillion times a second. It was probably almost as bad as the seal trapped on the ice.

  Okay. Maybe not that bad, but it was pounding.

  Coach Jackson continued, “I’m just calling to let you know that you made the Tornados. Congratulations.” It sounded like she had been saying this almost word for word over and over again since yesterday. There wasn’t much enthusiasm. But I didn’t care. I think my heart almost floated out of me, and my brain rocketed through four different thoughts one right after the other:

  1. I made it. I was good enough. Phew. Phew. And phew again.

  2. Take that, Lizzy Wallace. Take your smug little questions and shove them in the toilet. I’m the humpback that stopped your orca attack.

  3. But I wasn’t that good of a swimmer. What did that say about the team? Did they take everyone? And was I going to be on the team just to mess up in meets and bring everyone down?

  4. But
still . . . take that, Lizzy Wallace.

  “We’ll have our next practice on Monday,” Coach Jackson said. “I look forward to seeing you there.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said. As I hung up, it felt like I was riding the biggest wave in the world and it wasn’t going to ever come crashing down. I gave out a happy yell over the ocean.

  “What did your rectangle say?” Meg asked.

  “I made the team!” I shouted.

  Meg gave a musical hurrah, then I imagined that she did a huge back flop. I mean, I couldn’t see her from where I was.

  And she did it just for me.

  Willa Twitchell, Journal #5, today

  The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or sometimes called the trash vortex, is where the currents take a lot of the junk that people throw into the ocean. It’s between California and Hawaii and about three times the size of France. Some of it is plastics that break down into tiny pieces over time. And then they can end up in animals’ bodies.

  Whales, dolphins, sea turtles, and lots of birds migrate through the garbage patch. That worries me.

  And sometimes it feels like I’m going through a garbage patch too.

  I texted Marc.

  Though I was definitely conflicted on how good this actually was, I had something I was going to do with Marc. Something went right. Maybe the universe didn’t hate me. I was getting my friend back. We were going to hang out twice a week and every now and then on nights and Saturdays when we had meets.

  I found myself pedaling my bike back home a lot faster than I usually do. And I was going uphill.

  It was like when I just got my grades and had proof that I had earned straight As. My mom was so proud. Or when I decided that I should buy the milk we needed from the grocery store in Japan on my way home from school. And I spoke to the cashier in my broken Japanese and totally got the job done—by myself. I had done it. I tried it and it worked. My mom loved that too. Or when we were diving at Senjojiki Beach and I found a feather star. It wasn’t swimming, but I saw it even before the world’s leading authority on the species. That one felt extra good.

  My phone buzzed. I waited to check it until I reached the house.

  I wished he would have said that he always knew I’d make it, or thanks for really putting myself out there just for him. But “Gonna be fun,” was something. And I hoped it would be fun.

  I parked my bike in the shed and rushed to the house. But as soon as I walked through the door, my wave crashed. It crashed and threw me against a coral reef. Like a surfer going in the wrong direction.

  I saw Masha sitting on the sofa looking at her phone.

  Masha.

  Not Mom.

  Somehow, somewhere in my mind, I actually expected Mom to be there. To be excited to hear my news.

  How had that gotten into my head? Just because I had accomplished something? My mom and I hadn’t lived in this house for years. But somehow, I had expected her, or hoped for her, or my heart knew how much I counted on her that it forgot.

  Everything drained out of me, like I was a squeezed sponge. I wanted to disappear. Not like run away or sneak back out to the beach. Just disappear. Just dissolve. Just be anywhere but here.

  “Willa, where have you been?” Masha asked, after finally looking up from her phone. “I thought you were upstairs.”

  Part of me wanted to answer, but it was just the smallest part. Another part of me wanted to scream at Masha for not being my mom. Why was she on our couch? Why wasn’t she in some different home and why wasn’t my mom here? Maybe if we hadn’t left Tupkuk Island, then we would have gotten Mom to the doctor’s office fast. Or maybe Dad would have seen warning signs and we could have stopped it. Anger filled me. On some level I knew it didn’t make sense at all, but it was real to me.

  I didn’t answer and ran upstairs. As soon as the door clicked behind me, I clenched my fists and whisper-screamed. Every emotion locked in my heart, or bones, or floating under my skin tried to shoot out. I wanted to cry and punch and scream and fade into silence. I wanted to explode. To melt. To rocket away. All at once.

  Instead, I just stood there. Like a statue. Like a memorial to nothing. Like I had been turned to stone.

  Knock-knock.

  I couldn’t even respond.

  My dad opened the door anyway. “Where have you been?” my dad asked, his words loud and upset. Plus, with his beard he seemed a little angrier all the time.

  “I . . .” I didn’t want to break down, or scream. I could hear my heart beating in my ears. Everything in me pounded. Quick breath. I could do this without bursting at him. “I went down to the beach.” My voice came out steadier than I expected.

  “What were you doing down there alone?” my dad asked. His voice was gruff and abrupt.

  Seeing him mad funneled all my emotions into anger. “I need to be there to . . .” Then I couldn’t finish. The anger flooded over my brain. Why was he angry at me? Why wasn’t he upset about Mom? Why didn’t he walk into every room of this house missing her? Like me.

  “You didn’t ask,” he said, stern. “I need to know where you are.”

  I thought about telling him that I had gone several times this week and he hadn’t noticed. I just forgot to sneak back in tonight. But I didn’t want him to know so I let the anger sink enough for me to calmly say, “Sorry.” I didn’t mean it. I just didn’t want to fight right now.

  “And. . . .” His eyebrows raised. He was about to lecture me hard.

  But I just looked down, trying not to cry. Moments ago, I was hoping to tell Mom my good news. Now this.

  My dad looked at me, but didn’t say anything.

  And then Masha was there, right inside the doorway. She launched into all the same questions about where had I been, and the same statements about how I couldn’t be down at the beach alone and I had to ask permission. At one point she got loud enough that Hannah started to cry from her room. Then Masha looked at me like it was my fault.

  But then my dad jumped in. “Willa just needed some space,” he said.

  What was that?

  Masha looked at him and then at me. Was he on my side now?

  “You need to be more obedient and more careful,” Masha said, and gave an exaggerated nod. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to. “Everyone else is in bed,” she added. “You should be, too.” She left, probably to go get Hannah who was awake now, though it wasn’t my fault.

  My dad stayed in the doorway.

  I just stood there. And then he walked over and gave me a hug. A big lumberjack hug. Except I always pictured lumberjacks as huge musclemen. My dad was a little mushy around the middle. But I didn’t care. I got lost in it. And then tears came and my legs got weak. And he just squeezed tighter. And I think I cried more.

  He whispered, “I miss her too.”

  Willa Twitchell, Journal #5, today

  Different kinds of Cephalopods ink; octopi, squid, and cuttlefish all shoot out a dark substance from an ink sac between their gills. The inks are different colors, black to more bluish to brown. The idea is that the ink makes like a smokescreen so they can escape from predators. But you have to admit that a distraction of ink is cooler than smoke any day. The ink might also have some chemical qualities that throw off the predator as well. I’m sure predators feel really stupid when they think they’ve got their prey, but it slips away. That happens to me sometimes. Not that I’m a predator, but something I really wanted sometimes slips right past me. And sometimes it happens to a friend. Marc got inked and I’m not sure what to do about it.

  “Hey, Masha,” I said, pulling two slices of bread out of a bag. She glared at me a little. She didn’t like that my dad gave me permission to make a snack after school. She kept a tight rein on all the food for her kids. “I just wanted to remind you that I have swim practice today.” After last night, I was trying to be nicer to her and
make sure she knew where I was going. And I liked saying it. Being on the swim team sounded so good. My insides were bubbling like lava out of the ocean floor, both from nerves and excitement.

  “What?” she asked, then processed what I had said. “Okay.” She just didn’t have the energy to worry about me. She was always chasing kids and changing diapers and making meals. I went from having a mom who was my best friend and I was hers to having a mom who checked in every now and then.

  “Swimming!” Nadia said. “I wanna go. I wanna go.” She had been in the next room, but apparently heard me. And then she pretended to swim around the room, her arms whirling in big circles, her blonde pigtails bouncing. She looked more like a moving windmill than a swimmer. Garth followed her example, but more awkwardly.

  “Shhhh,” Masha said, “you’ll wake Hannah.” She said it like waking Hannah was like killing off the last hawksbill turtle. I think Masha spent half her life trying to keep Hannah sleeping.

  “Hey,” Nadia said, fake swimming up next to me. She looked at what was in my hands, then up to my face. “I want a sandwich too.” I had just thrown tomatoes and lettuce between my slices of bread.

  Masha glared at me like I just caused an oil spill. I was in danger of causing two huge crises in ten seconds. “Nope,” she said, speaking to Nadia. “You’ve already had a snack.”

  “But a sandwich is better,” Nadia said.

  “Sandwich, sandwich,” Garth repeated.

  Masha rolled her eyes. She was even better at that than glaring.

  “Better go,” I said, slapping the meat on my sandwich, throwing everything back in the fridge and getting out of there before Masha could look at me like I’d drained the whole ocean.

  As I walked out the front door, I almost stepped on Caleb. He was sitting on the doorstep. “Sorry, Caleb,” I said, stumbling past him.