by Chad Morris
Marc smiled wide and looked at me. I think he was expecting that answer.
“I don’t think you usually say burn,” I explained, “if someone says something mean to you. Just if they say it to someone else.”
“Burn again,” Dante said.
Marc and I full-on laughed. Dante really didn’t understand. We wiped the boat and then Mr. Mendoza used his truck to pull it into the dockyard, just in time for Marc’s mom to call us all in for dinner.
As we came into a little kitchen just off the office, Mamá Mendoza kissed everyone on the forehead, even me. Especially me. “Good to have you here, Willa. You are getting prettier all the time.” She hugged me.
At home, I felt like one more thing to stress Masha out. Here I was invited, kissed, and hugged. I was wanted. Except maybe not by Marc. He was still being a little weird.
The room felt warm from all of the cooking, and a spicy smell filled the air. Mamá Mendoza pulled a pot of boiled chicken and rice off the stovetop and placed the sizzling food in front of us.
We dug in. Mamá Mendoza’s food was always yummy. Papá Mendoza was also a talented cook, but Mamá was the best.
“This is great,” I said between bites of chicken. It was seriously good. Soon we launched into conversation about school and video games and how exactly Dante had spilled the lemonade on the Xbox. Marc even smiled a few more times. And everything felt right somehow.
Wait. Not everything.
Something was off. Not with the food. Something else. Even with all the talk, the table was quieter. No, not quieter, just—Sofia, Marc’s sister. She wasn’t here.
“Where’s Sofia?” I asked.
For a split second, everything paused.
“She’s away for a little while,” Marc’s dad said, and everyone went back to eating. Even Dante focused on the plate in front of him. Suddenly, everything felt awkward.
Mamá Mendoza put down her fork and looked at me. She tilted her head and tried to explain. “She’s at a hospital in Everett.”
“For schooling.” Papá Mendoza piped in. “She’s learning lots.” He took a big bite of food.
“Oh,” I said, “that’s cool. What’s she studying?”
“Health,” Papá Mendoza said and smiled, but it was different. In fact, it reminded me of some faces Marc had made recently. A little fake and angry. Or something just a little off.
“Will she be back for summer?” I asked.
Marc’s mom shook her head.
“Probably longer,” Dante said, obviously repeating what his parents had told him.
“Yeah,” Marc’s dad said, “we don’t know for sure. She has to finish what she’s doing. She’s really busy and it’s really important. Hopefully she comes back soon, though.” And he smiled the same way as before. I didn’t understand that. Why would a smile be fake when his daughter was off at school?
I looked at Marc, but he didn’t look back. He just kept eating, his left hand clenched into a fist. Was this what they were spending money on? Was her schooling so expensive that Marc couldn’t join the swim team?
Something felt off. Sofia didn’t seem like the type to work in a hospital. She was nice and everything, but not that focused—she was more fun-loving and impatient. I could picture all of the other Mendozas working in a hospital before I could picture Sofia. Had she changed that much since I had last been here? But then, why all the awkwardness about it?
“Can you name ten Pokémon?” Dante asked out of nowhere. “Because I can name like 700.”
“Oh, no,” Marc said, his fist unclenching a little. “Just don’t ask him to do it.” He shook his head a couple of times. “He’ll go on for hours.” I could imagine that and how much it would bother Marc. His parents seemed to agree.
“I can’t name any,” I said, though I might be able to name a couple. “Can you name ten different types of whales?”
Dante thought for a moment. “Gray, blue, black, white . . .”
Marc raised his hand between bites of chicken. “Don’t ask Willa how many she can name, either. She can go on for hours too.”
I couldn’t help but push him a little, which almost made him spit out his chicken. Which made everyone laugh.
I was so glad I came. We talked and ate and talked. And after we all finished, I told them that I’d better get going. I hoped Marc would see me out so I could make sure he was okay.
“Thank you so much for coming,” Mamá Mendoza said. “Come back any time.”
“It was good to see you,” Papá Mendoza said.
“Yes,” Dante said. Was he saying it was good to see me too? “But next time know some Pokémon.” He paused. “Burn.”
Maybe he was catching on. I loved that kid.
I said thank you and Marc followed me out.
There was a storm starting, I could tell. There was something about the taste to the air. I’d better get on my bike soon. “Thanks for letting me come over,” I said as we walked toward my bike under a big fir tree.
“I didn’t really get to choose,” he said, looking at the sky. The clouds moving in were darker.
I wasn’t sure if that was a joke or if he was upset. I thought dinner went well and he was happier. Maybe not.
“Sorry.” I didn’t mean to make him feel like I was pushing my friendship on him. The whole reason I had come was to make sure he was okay. He had kind of freaked out after swim, and then he didn’t even talk to me after the debate. “Are you okay? Things got a little awkward when we talked about Sofia.”
He looked at me. “Yeah,” he said, “I am a little upset that . . . well, Sofia . . .” He wasn’t making sense. He clenched his fist again. “It’s personal stuff.”
I nodded. He didn’t have to tell me anything. But I wished he would. I had always liked Sofia. She was three years older than us and always made me laugh and Marc blush. Maybe he just really missed her. Or maybe he was mad that her schooling cost so much.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” I said, “and I’d like to pay for you to do swim with me. I got some inheritance money—”
“Stop it!” He cut me off.
I jumped. I hadn’t seen that coming.
“I don’t want you to pay for me and I don’t want you to bring it up again.” His musselcracker face was back.
I just stared at him. He had full-on yelled at me.
“I’m just trying to help,” I defended.
“But you’re not,” he said. “Just don’t.”
“But do you need me to—”
“Just don’t,” he cut me off again, his voice just as loud. I expected his mom or dad to come running out the door to see what had their son all riled up. I wanted them to come. Maybe then Marc would calm down.
But no one opened the door. I stood under a tree, getting drizzled on through the branches and listening to my only friend yell at me for trying to help him.
Marc spoke again. “Just leave me alone.”
And then the closest thing I had to a friend turned and walked back into the marina office and slammed the door.
Willa Twitchell, Journal #5, today
A big storm hit last night. Some kids my age still get scared when storms roll in. They are pretty dangerous on our island. But I get really excited. The louder and windier, the better. Because that means cool stuff washes up.
My mom and I always rushed down to the beach the first thing in the morning after a storm. Once I found a Pacific spiny lumpsucker in the tide pool. A cute green one with big blue eyes that looked like sapphires and a tiny, darling mouth. It was shaped like a ball and had suction cup feet on the bottom. I wanted to take him home so bad, but I knew he needed to stay in the ocean. My mom was impressed. She said the bright green color meant that he was far from home.
I like storms because of what they wash in. But then I started to worry about that
tiny, quarter-sized fish. I hoped it could find its way home. Swim, lumpsucker! You can do it!
I was up at 5:30, threw my hair in a ponytail, didn’t even brush it, and threw on a hoodie. This early on the northwest coast was cold, even in the spring.
The morning after a storm.
Well, actually it was the morning after two storms—one in the sky and one in me. I couldn’t stop thinking about how badly last night ended with Marc. I messed everything up. I didn’t really know what I did wrong or how to fix it.
Nothing was going right, not getting a friend, not debate, nothing. Tide pools might help me think. Or at least distract me.
After a storm, the most interesting things wash ashore. My mom had an entire collection of Japanese glass fishing balls that she’d collected on Tupkuk Island after storms. I only found one with her. Not many washed up anymore, but I always crossed my fingers that I would find another.
I have found a seahorse not native to Washington, wolf eels, a big starfish with ten legs, and a broken wooden chest. I like to think it used to be pirate property, but missing the treasure.
I hoped I’d find something today.
I left a note for my dad and took off for the beach. I was getting faster on my bike from exercising for swim, but now it probably didn’t matter.
“Glad you’re back,” Meg said after I called her. Apparently, humpback whales don’t sleep in either. “I’ve thought of a lot of questions I really want to ask a human. Like how can you possibly stand upright? Why do you eat so many different things? And what’s it like to have both your eyes on the front of your face instead of on the sides of your head like me? How can you see a shark coming behind you?”
The questions took me off guard. “I can answer those later, Meg,” I said, scanning the shore for anything new or out of place.
“Are you feeling okay?” Meg asked. Immediately I remembered how I told her about my mom. I didn’t regret it. That was one thing that had actually been good in the last few days.
“I’m okay,” I said. But just because I talked about my mom last time, didn’t mean I wanted to talk about her now. Under some seaweed, I found an orange longfin sculpin, not the brown ones I usually saw. I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
“Meg, what do you do if someone is mad at you and you’re not exactly sure why?”
“Hmmm, that sounds like a difficult situation,” she sang.
“It is.” I got pictures of the sculpin.
“Well,” she said, “there is a legend that a small pod of beluga whales were stolen from their homes in the arctic, and were brought to work for the humans as spies.”
I wasn’t really sure what this had to do with my question, but she had my attention.
“They called these belugas the Cold Ops,” Meg explained. “I never met a Cold Op myself, but plenty of whales that I trust have told me about meeting them where the water starts turning warm. Anyway, one of these Cold Ops was named No-Sea, clearly named by people, because that makes a terrible call. But it is said that No-Sea learned to talk to people. Not like how I speak to you. No-Sea could speak to all people. He wasn’t supposed to be able to speak human but he did . . .” She was quiet like she was thinking. “Where was I going with this?”
“That I should get a whale to spy on my friend to find out why he’s angry?” I asked.
“Oh, no,” Meg said. “I was just thinking that if No-Sea and humans can talk, and if you and I can talk, maybe you and your friend could talk. He could tell you himself. That would be better than any spy.”
I thought about that for a moment. “That sounds good,” I said, “but what if the person doesn’t want to talk?”
“You’ve got a silent clam, do you?” Meg said. “Well, make sure that they know that you are always willing to talk to them even if they’re not ready to talk to you.” That sounded like something my mom would say.
I had spent the night missing my mom, thinking about Marc, and wishing I knew how to help him. I wished he’d just let me pay for swim team.
I had walked a good portion of the tide pools and hadn’t been looking as hard as I should have. I stepped down from the rocks and onto the pebble beach when I noticed something large on the far end of the beach, just barely in the break.
“What is that?” I said, mostly to myself.
“Are you pointing?” Meg asked. “You need to remember that I can’t see you.”
“There’s a boat, I think,” I said. “Down a ways on the shore. Tipped over.” But I had never seen a boat here. Maybe it was washed in from the storm.
I started walking towards it. With the sun rising behind it, it left a silhouette, like a shadow, hard to identify. “I’m going to check it out.”
“Are you sure it looks like a boat?” Meg asked. There was a tenseness to her voice I didn’t understand.
“Yeah,” I said. “Well, I don’t know what else it would be.” I couldn’t really tell. “I’m coming up on it.” And right as I said that I noticed that it looked odd. It wasn’t exactly the size of a boat. More . . . floppy. And something was sticking out of the side. Like a sail? Nope. Like a fin. My heart stopped, then crashed down through my chest.
“It’s a whale,” I said in total unbelief, and then sprinted toward the poor thing.
“Oh, no,” Meg said.
The closer I got to it, the bigger it got. And bigger. And bigger. It was absolutely huge. “It’s bigger than you,” I said quietly. “A lot bigger.”
“Bigger than me?” Meg said with the same quiet awe. “Is it moving?”
I searched the thing with my eyes as best I could. I scanned from mouth to tail for any sign of movement. Then right as I opened my mouth to answer, a soft breath escaped from its blowhole. “It’s alive.”
Meg let out a series of calls.
Cautiously, I got closer. It was the size of an eight-story building lying on its side. Seriously huge. I felt tiny next to it. “Hello?” I said to the whale, but it didn’t respond. I didn’t even know if I could talk to any other whales, but I had to try.
“It’s a blue.” As the words slid out, it all felt surreal. I had always wanted to see a blue whale. Larger than the dinosaurs. A true behemoth of this world. “It’s a blue whale,” I repeated to Meg. One of the most majestic creatures ever. A total titan. Stuck on my beach. This was not how I wanted to see one in person for the first time.
“Take a deep breath,” Meg said. I guess she could hear how tense I was. “There is a pod of blue whales near here. I’ll reach out to them.”
“Can you talk to it?” I asked. “I can’t but maybe you can.”
“I already tried, dear. It must be too exhausted,” Meg said. “Now listen to me.” She sounded serious. “Being stuck on land is a whale’s worst nightmare. I wish I could come up on the shore and help, but I can’t. I need you to do it. Please do everything you can.”
“I will,” I said, but the whale looked so still.
A stillness like I’d seen a little over a month ago.
A stillness I never wanted to see again.
Willa Twitchell, Journal #5, today
Blue whales are the largest creatures in the world. They are as big as three school buses put together. But it would be so much cooler to ride a blue whale than a bus. Of course, I’m assuming I had scuba gear and a way to hold on.
Blue whales grow so big because gravity doesn’t affect creatures as much under water. There is no way a whale could grow so huge if it had to walk around on land. Blue whales are also one of the loudest animals. Its calls can get as high as 188 decibels. That’s louder than a rock concert.
Did you know that you can figure out how old a blue whale is by the amount of earwax it has? I know. Gross. But still, that’s cool and super interesting. They get another layer of wax every six months, so you can count them like rings on a tree. The oldest one ever found was
110 years old. That’s great-great-grandma blue whale. And a blue whale eats four tons of food a day. That’s four times what a human eats in a whole year.
But when I finally met one in person, I really wished it could have been in totally different circumstances.
“911. What’s your emergency?” the operator asked. She sounded professional but concerned.
“I need help,” I said, finally freeing my arm from my hoodie and removing it. I had to be careful not to drop my phone or get it too wet, but this whale needed me.
I had never called 911 before. My pulse rolled and crashed like waves against the rocks. “I’m at Rocky Cove Beach, on the south end.” I was in the tide mid-shin, my hoodie in my hand. The whale hadn’t moved at all and its eyes were closed. I thought that was good. When things die they often have their eyes open, right? Hopefully it was just resting.
My first instinct was to push it back into the water. I know: that’s incredibly stupid. It weighs tons and tons. I weigh eighty-seven pounds. It would be like me pushing a semitruck with two full trailers. Scratch that—it would be like me pushing a house, maybe even a couple of houses.
Nope. Definitely not.
I needed better ideas.
Like calling the authorities.
Thinking about how much the whale weighed made me even more nervous. I was on the lookout for any movement. Even a tail swish could do some serious damage to little me. That thing had muscles bigger than my whole body.
And its skin was still slick and wet. That was good. It hadn’t dried out.
“What’s the emergency?” the lady asked for clarification.
“There’s a beached whale,” I blurted out, while dunking my hoodie in the water. “It needs help fast.” I took my wet hoodie and put it on the side of its face. I had to keep it wet. And once placed I realized that one hoodie was impressively insufficient, like hardly did anything.
A bucket and towels would be really useful about now.
Scratch that. About a hundred buckets and towels and a hundred other people. Hopefully the authorities would bring them.