Willa and the Whale

by Chad Morris

  He looked up at me, then my sandwich. Here we go again. I started to leave before he could make a big deal.

  “I followed you to the beach yesterday,” he said quietly.

  I stopped. That didn’t have anything to do with my sandwich. And I didn’t like the idea of my seven-year-old stepbrother at the ocean by himself. He didn’t know what I knew. I remember how mad Masha got at me. I could only imagine how angry she’d get at Caleb. Then again, he was probably making this up.

  “Pretty sure I would have seen you,” I said cocking my head in disbelief.

  “I was hiding,” was his only answer.

  “Don’t go down there anymore,” I said. “It’s dangerous.”

  He didn’t respond. He was probably sitting on the doorstep because he was in some sort of trouble. Best to let him be.

  I ran over to get my bike from the shed. “And don’t follow me to the pool,” I shouted over my shoulder as I jumped on and pedaled away.

  Soon I was near sailfish speed. I’d been biking twice after school today, trying to get in better shape for swim. I met up with Marc and we both rode our bikes to practice.

  When I got there, someone other than my stepmother tried to kill me with their eyes. Well, to be fair, at first Lizzy looked at me in total confusion. Then realization. Then a glare.

  I’ve never been prouder to be standing anywhere in an electric yellowfish swimsuit.

  “Welcome, Tornadoes,” Coach Jackson said. “You’ve made the team!” She said it like it was some sort of great accomplishment. And I felt it. I looked down the line to see who else made it. Then I looked again. Were there the same amount of people as last time?

  “Did you cut anyone?” Lizzy asked, apparently realizing the same thing.

  “Everyone made the minimum requirements,” Coach Jackson said.

  Great. Now my accomplishment wasn’t really an accomplishment.

  “We timed all of you,” Coach Jackson said, “and you all were within the range of a new swimmer for your age and height. Plus, it’s good practice to go through tryouts like you will if you go on further with swim.”

  I think I heard Lizzy sigh.

  “I’ll be timing you more,” Coach Jackson said. “We have our first meet in two weeks. And then you get to see not only how fast you are compared to each other, but how fast you are against another team. It should be challenging and fun.”

  I think she believed it, but I didn’t. My insides flubbed like a spineless sea blob. Unless I improved a lot, I would be losing to most of my team and strangers with an audience looking on.

  Yay.

  Forty-five minutes later, practice was over. I definitely wasn’t sure it was a good thing that I made it. I didn’t do any better. I always came in close to last. Always. Lizzy did really well, almost giving Marc a run for the second spot. But then he also did a good job of catching up to the girl with the sandy blonde hair who kept winning. Those three seemed to be pushing each other to be faster and faster. I really wished I was one of them. Of course, Lizzy took every opportunity to look over at me after a lap to make sure it was clear that I wasn’t on her same level. When she saw me looking at her, she even gave one of her gloating smiles.

  At the end of practice, Coach Jackson sent us to change but said she wanted to talk to us before we went home. When I walked out of the locker room to meet Marc, Lizzy had beat me out. And she was standing right next to him, laughing at something he had said.

  Now she was trying to steal my friends.

  “Hey, Willa,” Marc said and waved me over. I didn’t want to join him, not if she was there.

  “I don’t even like raisins,” Marc said, and raised his fingers. “Now all my fingers look like them.”

  Lizzy laughed again. I guess they were talking about water-­wrinkled fingers.

  I stood next to them both, confused. Why was Lizzy hanging out here? Marc was my friend. Not hers. And how could Marc be talking to her and joking around? He knew she was a despicable bottom feeder.

  “I hope we become immune eventually,” Lizzy said, looking at her own pruney hands.

  I had no idea what to say. But I wanted to say something that was better than what Lizzy said. I could spurt out facts about humpbacks or dolphins or crabs, but I didn’t think that would do much good.

  “Are you ready for our debate tomorrow?” Lizzy asked me. And she asked it like she was ready and even if I thought I was ready, I wouldn’t be nearly as ready as she was.

  “Yeah,” I lied. I still had to study up tonight.

  “Me too,” she said and smiled an evil, I-want-to-eat-you-alive smile.

  “Okay,” Coach Jackson said. I hadn’t seen her come out. She was still wearing her swimsuit, though she never actually swam with us. And when she stood out in the lobby with the rest of us in regular clothes, she seemed out of place. “Gather around.” She waited for us to obey. “So here is your info packet,” she said, and began handing out large envelopes. “Inside are copies of the swimming regulations, the schedule, and the cost of being on the team.” I opened my envelope and started to thumb through it. “Let me know if you have any questions.”

  I looked through everything for a minute like everyone else, but wanted to get out of there. I had to get back home to study for the debate tomorrow. Coach Jackson dismissed us so I turned to Marc. “Ready to go?” I asked.

  “Give me a minute,” he said, watching a few of the others who started asking Coach Jackson questions. “I’ll meet you outside.” Was that a hint? Like he didn’t want me around? Before I had time to react, he turned to Lizzy. “See you next time, Lizzy.” At least he was brushing her off too.

  I waited, trying to figure out what he was doing, but when he saw me, he repeated. “Seriously, I’ll catch up. I just need to ask a question.” He was definitely trying to get rid of me.

  I went outside and watched in through the big glass doors. Thankfully, Lizzy left. Marc waited until no one else was there, then approached Coach Jackson. He pointed at his packet then asked a question. What had he waited so long to ask about? What did he not want the rest of us to hear?

  Wait. I had an idea. Coach had mentioned the cost for being on the team. I had asked that before and Marc told me it wouldn’t be a problem because they had scholarships. I bet he was asking about them. But why all the secrecy? And was he asking for me? Maybe he thought that since I just lost my mom we could use the help.

  Sweet, but I’d be okay.

  Last time the subject had come up, I told him that I could pay for myself, didn’t I? I wasn’t sure, but I did remember his grumpy musselcracker face.

  Coach Jackson shook her head. Marc asked something else and she shook her head again. I couldn’t hear it all, but if that was what he was asking about, I didn’t think they did scholarships anymore.

  From the look on Marc’s face as he walked back toward me, it was like he just got inked by an octopus.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  His jaw was tight. “I don’t think I can swim,” he said flatly.

  What? Why couldn’t he swim? What had he been asking about? “Why?” I asked.

  Marc pounded his fist into his open palm. I had never seen him do that before. He let out a low growl, but didn’t answer my question.

  I didn’t know what to do. Should I ask again, or just let him keep punching himself? He looked up at me, then punched a couple more times. “It’s just my family doesn’t . . .” he stopped himself. “We’ve had to spend a lot on . . .” He didn’t finish but pounded his fist a few more times. I hung there in silence, waiting to see what he would say.

  He didn’t say anything.

  I didn’t really understand what was wrong. It sounded like money was a problem. But that couldn’t be it. His family was well off. But just in case, I thought I’d offer to help. “I can talk to my dad, and maybe we could pay for—�
��

  “Don’t,” Marc said, loud and forceful. It was like a command from an emperor.

  “Really, I think that maybe—” I tried again.

  “I said don’t,” Marc repeated. Full-on black musselcracker.

  Then we got on our bikes and he didn’t say a thing as we rode together.

  Just like that I was pretty sure swimming and hanging out with Marc a couple times a week was gone.

  Willa Twitchell, Journal #5, today

  The Mariana Trench is the deepest, darkest trench in the ocean. You could put Mount Everest in it and it would still be covered by over two miles of water. The pressure is 1,000 times more than at the surface. I think I know what that feels like.

  “Meg,” I called out, running down to the surf, “are you around?” Of course, she didn’t answer quickly—but she never did.

  “Willllla,” she eventually called back, her voice as melodious as ever. “Good to hear from you. How was your swimming game?”

  I caught my breath. “Swim team practice? It was . . . fine. I liked it.” I tried to sound more positive than I felt. She sounded so happy for me. But I was still thinking about what had just happened with Marc after practice.

  “Of course you did,” Meg sung out loud and deep. I guess that was the humpback way of celebrating. “Good job, little human. You boulder!”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But what does ‘you boulder’ mean?”

  “You know,” Meg said. “For some reason when you humans do something really impressive, you say, ‘You boulder!’ I don’t know why. Do you just like rocks? It doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “We don’t say that,” I said. “We don’t . . . Oh.” Realization swept over me. “You mean that I rock.”

  “Rock. Boulder. Same thing,” Meg said, her voice a little flat with confusion.

  “No,” I said using a stick to brush aside a bunch of seaweed that had crowded a small pool, “‘you rock’ makes sense. ‘You boulder’ doesn’t.”

  “It’s the same thing,” Meg insisted. “How could it not make sense?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But we only say one of them. Anyway, I can’t stay long, Meg.” I had stopped in for just a few minutes on my way home from swimming.

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” Meg said, her song going a little sad. “I like our talks.”

  “I’m just stressed out right now,” I said. “I’ve got my big debate tomorrow so I have to go home and study a lot.”

  “The one where you are going to beat the bottom-feeder?” Meg asked.

  “Yes, exactly,” I said. “And on top of that, something went wrong at swim practice today and I don’t think Marc’s going to go back.”

  “But you both just started,” Meg said.

  “I know,” I said. “I think it has to do with some secret he’s keeping from me.”

  Meg waited for a moment. “Keeping secrets doesn’t sound good,” Meg said. But by the way she paused I could tell she was going to say something else. “But what is a secret?”

  “You don’t know what a secret is?” I groaned. This was not going to be as quick of a trip as I wanted. Talking to a whale was hard sometimes.

  “Um, no,” Meg said. “I guess we don’t have those in the ocean.”

  “Sure, you do,” I said. “It’s like an anglerfish with its light in the deepest parts of the ocean.” We had already talked about anglers. “Fish get attracted to it, but the secret is that behind the light is a fish that wants to eat them. That’s a secret. It’s something that others don’t know.” I glanced out over the water at the sun getting closer to the horizon. It sent out beautiful reds and golds across the water.

  “Oh . . .” Meg said. “Are you saying that Marc is trying to eat you? That doesn’t sound like a very good friend at all.”

  “No. No. No,” I said, taking off my sandals and stepping into the water as another wave lapped up on the beach. “I didn’t explain that well. It’s not like that. It’s like I see that there’s a light, but I’m not sure if it’s a good light or a bad light.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re doing in the deepest parts of the ocean,” Meg said, her song confused again. “The pressure down there would kill you. It would probably kill me.”

  “I’m not in the deepest part of the ocean,” I said. This was getting tricky. “Forget the anglerfish. Marc knows something and he won’t tell it to me. And I just want to know because if he needs help, I want to help.” I still couldn’t imagine why he wouldn’t be able to pay for the swim team. If that even was the problem. Maybe it was just that his parents were making him earn it and he didn’t have enough time.

  “Oooooh,” Meg said. “But if I understand this right, sometimes I think you’re keeping a secret from me.”

  “What?” I asked, stepping out of the water. Where did that come from? It was like a Pacific Ocean perch swam past me out of nowhere.

  “Something is bothering you, Willa,” Meg explained. “Some­thing that you haven’t quite told me about. I think you’ve almost said it a couple of times, but you haven’t. Maybe it’s just because we’ve been interrupted. Or maybe you don’t tell me about it because you don’t think a whale could understand. But if I can, I would like to help.”

  I didn’t say anything. The stings crept across my body. They started at my feet and then ran up until I was almost trembling with the pain. It was like a cone snail. They can sting, poison, paralyze, and then eat their prey whole.

  “Maybe I’m like you,” Meg said. “I just want to help my friend with their secret.”

  I waited a second, letting that sink in.

  “You’re right,” I said. And then before I thought about it anymore, before I kept it all inside anymore, I just let it burst out of me. I didn’t want to be swallowed by it. “Meg, my mom died.” I wanted to say more, it just wasn’t quite coming. I closed my eyes. “And I miss her, all the time.”

  Everything went quiet.

  The waves still rolled in and out and birds still flew overhead, but silently. Like time stopped.

  At least that’s how it felt.

  It was good and terrible at the same time. Like I was brave. Like the words were swimming in truth. But also, like it made it more real. And that brought the emptiness as wide and deep and dark as the Mariana Trench.

  “Oh, Willa,” Meg said, “I’m so sorry.” And she let out a long mournful call.

  I listened as the moan went on. It was lower and trembled. And I liked that about it. “Yeah,” I said, “I’m sorry too.”

  More silence.

  “At times like this,” Meg said, “we humpbacks swim close to one another to let each other know that we are right here. I wish we could do that. I think you humans wrap your fins around each other. I wish I could do that too.”

  A humpback hug. I think that might have helped. “I wish you could too,” I said.

  She let out another long sound. And then everything went quiet again. I really needed to get home, to study for the debate, to get ready for something important, but I didn’t. I stood there, pushing my feet into the pebbles on the beach.

  “Life is meant to be and so is death,” Meg said. “Just like waves start, they crash. And death happens often in the ocean. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt when it happens.”

  I mumbled my agreement and sat down just out of reach of the tide.

  “I have children,” Meg said. “They are grown and living their own lives now, but I can imagine what it would be like to lose someone that close to you. In fact, I can imagine very well.”

  I didn’t know where this was going, but I waited. Maybe partly because I wanted to hear, and partly because the stings had frozen me. I didn’t want to move. They could do that. Like when I didn’t get out of bed for days.

  “I can imagine it,” Meg said, “because I’ve seen it. A gray wh
ale I knew was expecting her first calf.” Meg started into a story with a little less song. “She was so excited. It was her first. She sang about it all the time. I did that too when I was expecting. But with her, you could have known all about it for months and she’d still make it a point to tell you about it again. But when the cute gray whale calf was born, it didn’t move.” Meg paused. “It had died.”

  I gasped.

  “The mother whale was devastated,” Meg continued, “and in her sadness she lifted her child with her rostrum and carried that baby as her pod migrated. She carried it for days and days.” I could picture it all in my head. “And when she got tired, others in her pod took over, carrying the baby, and giving it back to the mother when she wanted it back.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “She wasn’t ready to let go,” Meg said. “When something that sad happens, we don’t usually move on very quickly.”

  I thought about that. “I know,” I said, “but sometimes it would be nice if we could.”

  “Sure,” Meg said, “but the more you love someone, the more it hurts when they’re gone.” Meg paused. “And that’s okay.”

  I hugged my own knees. Meg was right. I loved my mom a whole lot. So it’s not surprising that I miss her a whole lot too. That the pain is a whole lot.

  “I wish—” Meg said, and then her call broke up a little. “I wish,” she started again, “that I could carry your sadness a while for you.”

  I just sat there, hugging my knees tighter and pressing my feet in the pebbles. I did that for a while. What Meg had said sounded wonderful.

  Finally, I spoke again. “For a little bit there,” I said. “I think you kind of did.” I took in a deep breath of ocean air. “Thanks.”

  And then it was like we both just appreciated one another. Like whatever space of ocean between us didn’t matter. It felt like a humpback hug.

  “I’m glad,” Meg said. “And you’re welcome. But the sorrow will come back over and over again.”

  “I know,” I said, feeling it now and wondering when the next tsunami of sorrow would hit.