Longest Whale Song

‘Not always. She sighs sometimes, as if she really is responding,’ I say.

  Dr Clegg glances at me. ‘I don’t really think this is the right sort of conversation to have in front of a small child,’ he says, looking at Jack reproachfully.

  ‘But Sue does sigh. I’m sure she’s aware of us sometimes, especially when the baby’s near her.’

  ‘These are involuntary responses. She might well move occasionally, even open her eyes – but these aren’t significant signs. We’ve been monitoring your wife scrupulously.’ Dr Clegg seizes Mum’s charts. ‘This refers to the Glasgow Coma Scale, a fifteen-point scale for assessing levels of consciousness. We evaluate three different behavioural responses – eye opening, verbal response and motor response. I’m afraid your wife has scored very disappointingly – and there’s no perceptible change as the days progress. At some stage we need to make a proper private appointment to discuss future plans.’

  ‘It sounds as if you’ve given up on her. Well, I’m not going to. I’m not putting her in a home!’ says Jack.

  ‘We will offer you help in coming to what will clearly be a difficult decision,’ says Dr Clegg. He nods curtly and moves on.

  Dr Wilmot looks agonized. She pats Jack’s shoulder, squeezes my hand, but walks on too. Jack and I are left with Mum. We’re both shivering, as if Mr Clegg has thrown buckets of cold water all over us.

  ‘Don’t take any notice of that horrible man, Mum. He doesn’t know anything,’ I say.

  ‘That’s right, Sue. Come on, baby, you wake up right this minute and prove him wrong,’ says Jack.

  We clutch Mum and will her to wake – but she stays silent and serene in her own faraway world. We want to stay with her for ever, but my tummy has started making silly rumbling gurgles.

  ‘Here, it’s way past lunch time, Ella – and you were sick, weren’t you, so you must be totally empty. Let’s go and get something to eat,’ says Jack.

  We go to the canteen on the ground floor, but it reeks of old chip fat and the sad pervasive smell of the hospital.

  ‘We’ll go out to eat,’ says Jack. ‘Come on, Ella, we’ll be wicked, we’ll have a pizza.’

  We go to the restaurant and I choose a Hawaiian pizza because I love pineapple. In fact Jack orders one for me with double pineapple. Sally had her birthday in this pizza place and she chose a Hawaiian too. Did she invite Dory to her party? I think she was there, but I didn’t really notice her then. Sally’s little brother Benjy came and kept pretending to be a puppy dog, begging for scraps from all our plates. He even got under the table and starting licking our legs, which was pretty disgusting. Sally’s mum told him to come out of there sharpish, and he stood up and bumped his head and made all our knives and forks clatter.

  I wonder if Samson is going to grow up to be as irritating. No, we’ll teach him to sit up properly in a chair, and if he’s interested in dogs, I’ll help him do a special project on them. Jack can teach him stuff too. I expect he’s quite a good teacher. I know they all like him at Garton Road. And Mum . . . and Mum . . . Will Mum ever be able to teach him anything?

  I chew and chew but I can’t seem to manage to get through my mouthful of pizza. I can’t even swallow the lovely sweet golden pineapple. I feel a tear spurt down my cheek and stab at it quickly with my napkin, hoping Jack won’t see.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he says quietly. ‘You don’t have to finish it.’

  ‘It’s lovely, especially the extra pineapple, it’s just—’

  ‘I know. I’m not making much headway myself.’

  ‘Jack, if Mum doesn’t get better—’

  ‘Hey, hey. We’re not giving up hope. Take no notice of that Dr Clegg. He might fancy himself like crazy but he’s not God. He doesn’t know our Sue. She’s such a fierce little fighter. I reckon she’ll pull through. Even if she can’t get completely better, I know she’ll come out of this coma. Some people are in comas for months and then recover.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I’ve got all the newspaper printouts from Joseph. But, Jack, if Mum doesn’t get better, will she have to go in a home?’

  Jack puts down his knife and fork. ‘The only home your mum is going in is ours. I’ll care for her myself if necessary.’

  ‘Oh, Jack! And I’ll care for her too. We can wash her and dress her and change her just like the nurses, can’t we?’

  ‘And I expect we’ll be able to have nurses come in every day to sort out any medical stuff. The only thing is, I’ll have to give up going to school,’ says Jack.

  ‘Ooh! Can I give up going to school too?’

  ‘No, silly, you have to go, it’s the law. But if I give up work it means we’ll be very poor – poorer than we are already. We’ll probably get some benefits but there’ll be four of us to keep.’

  ‘Five, counting Butterscotch.’

  ‘Ah, good point. Not that he costs much, funny little fellow. Perhaps we’ll all go on a diet of dandelions and guinea-pig nuggets.’

  ‘I could earn a bit of money for us. I could deliver papers or – or run errands for old ladies, or – or design homemade birthday cards.’

  ‘Thank you, Ella. Those are lovely offers – though I’m not sure girls your age are allowed to earn money. I am sure you’re going to have to miss out on a lot though – new clothes, games, treats, holidays—’

  ‘I don’t care,’ I lie. ‘Just so long as Mum’s home with us so I can go and cuddle up to her whenever I want.’

  ‘Well, that’s exactly the way I feel too,’ says Jack.

  He takes my hand and squeezes it. I cling onto him tightly and squeeze back.

  Chapter 14

  We’re fighting once more the very next day. It’s all Jack’s fault. He’s late picking me up again. I stand in the playground waiting and waiting and waiting. I have a new whale book to look at. Miss Anderson brought it into school specially for me, so at first I don’t notice just how late it’s getting. Then Miss Anderson herself comes across the playground looking worried.

  ‘Ella? I’ve been keeping an eye on you. Where’s your dad?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I see the time and start to panic. ‘Oh, Miss Anderson, what’s happened to him?’

  ‘Now, now, calm down. I’m sure he’s fine. Maybe something’s cropped up. Tell you what, he’s probably left a message with the school secretary. I’ll go and have a word. You wait here, OK?’

  She hurries off and I march up and down anxiously. Miss Anderson is back in less than a minute.

  ‘Oh dear, no message. Did he say he might be late?’

  ‘He’s always a little bit late.’

  ‘Well, this is silly. It’s not good for you, just hanging around the playground all by yourself. Why on earth doesn’t your dad fix you up to go to after-school club?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I mumble, though I do know: I’ve told Jack hundreds of times I’d sooner perforate my head with pins and eat cold sick than go to after-school club with Martha.

  ‘Well, never mind. I’ll have a word with your dad about it when he comes,’ says Miss Anderson.

  I shudder.

  ‘Oh dear, you’re shivering! Shall I put my jacket round your shoulders? We don’t want you getting a chill, especially after yesterday.’

  ‘I’m fine, Miss Anderson,’ I say, but I pretend to shiver a bit more because I love it when she fusses over me like a mum.

  She puts her hand on my shoulder and starts asking me all sorts of questions about whales, marvelling when I mostly know the answers. I’m not daft, I know she’s doing it to distract me – she’s not really impressed that I know that sperm whales can dive a whole mile deep, that blue whales weigh a hundred tons, that some baleen whales can live as long as ninety years. She does look a bit startled when I tell her about the twenty-two-hour love song of the humpback.

  ‘Twenty-two hours? Are you sure you don’t mean twenty-two minutes?’

  ‘Absolutely positive. Though mostly they just sing for ten or fifteen minutes. They dive down about fifteen metres and just hang t
here, totally still, and sing.’

  ‘What does it sound like, this song?’

  ‘I’m not really sure. It says in the books that it’s kind of moans and groans, which doesn’t sound very – very—’

  ‘Melodic?’ says Miss Anderson.

  ‘Maybe it just sounds funny underwater. Our ears can’t hear it properly. The books say that it’s only the males who can sing, but I think the females can too. I don’t see why not – they’re bigger than the males. They haven’t been heard, but perhaps they’ve got such high-pitched voices, like sopranos, that we can’t hear them at all, though really they’re singing away like crazy. Do you think that’s possible, Miss Anderson? All those whale experts, they don’t always know everything, do they?’

  ‘Indeed they don’t.’

  ‘Experts can sometimes be entirely mistaken, can’t they?’ I say. ‘Even very senior ones.’

  Miss Anderson squeezes my shoulder. I think she’s guessed what I’m talking about now. ‘Everyone can occasionally make mistakes, Ella,’ she says. ‘Even me!’

  Then we hear the chug-chug-chug of our old car and Jack comes jumping out, running through the gate.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ he says. ‘Total crisis! One of our oh-so-lovely parents attacked a member of staff. I had to help her deal with it. She got slapped across the face.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ says Miss Anderson. ‘I hope that doesn’t ever happen to me! But Ella was getting a bit worked up and worried. You’re forty minutes late.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I can see it’s a huge problem, getting all the way over here – but isn’t it easily solved? Why don’t you enrol her in our after-school club?’

  Jack looks at me. I shake my head violently. He takes no notice!

  ‘Yes, I think that’s the most sensible idea. Shall we nip along now, Ella, and get it all fixed up?’

  ‘No!’ I say, agonized.

  ‘I’ll fix it all for you so Ella can start tomorrow,’ says Miss Anderson.

  ‘That’s so good of you,’ says Jack.

  The moment we’re in the car I explode. ‘I’m not going!’

  ‘Now, come on, Ella, it’s the only sensible option.’

  ‘It’s not sensible at all! I hate hate hate after-school club, you know I do. You said I didn’t need to go again. Mum said.’

  ‘Yes, yes, and I thought I could cope, but I clearly can’t. We’re forever having crises at Garton Road and there’s no way of predicting them. I can’t have you standing there all lost and lonely in the playground.’

  ‘I wasn’t lost and lonely, I was having the most interesting conversation about whales with Miss Anderson. I was fine. I don’t mind if I have to wait. I just mind about after-school club.’

  ‘So what exactly do they do there that is so horrible? I thought you all played games and had a snack and watched cartoons? Why is that such torture?’

  ‘Martha’s there – and I don’t like her.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ella, don’t be so wet. If you don’t like Martha, stay out of her way. At least you’ll be safe and sensibly occupied at after-school club and I won’t have to worry so much.’

  ‘I won’t be the slightest bit safe at after-school club. Martha will get me. She hates me because I told on her, and I think she blames me because Dory’s not friends with her any more. She can’t do anything in school because Miss Anderson looks out for me, but those ladies who run the after-school club are useless, they won’t stop her. She’ll kill me.’

  ‘Oh, Ella! How is she going to kill you? Attack you with a machine gun? Hurl a hand grenade at you? Impale you with a bayonet? Exactly how many weapons of destruction does she have at her disposal?’

  ‘Oh, very funny. You don’t know what she’s like.’

  ‘No, but I’m very curious to find out why an ordinary small girl can be so terrifying. Or maybe she isn’t ordinary or small. Does she have super powers? Can she chop you in two with her cleaver arms, kick you to bits with her size-twelve feet? Is she six metres high so she can sit on you with her enormous bum and squash you flat?’

  He’s trying to make me laugh but I’m not having it.

  ‘She says such mean things.’

  ‘Oh, Ella, you can be Queen of Mean when you want. Don’t tell me you can’t match this Martha. If she says something mean, retaliate. You’re not a little shrinking violet. Stand up to her!’

  We break off our argument because we’ve arrived at Aunty Mavis’s. Samson is fast asleep, his little thumb in his mouth.

  ‘Shame to waken him just yet,’ says Aunty Mavis. ‘Sit yourselves down for a few minutes. You both look hot and frazzled.’

  So we sit on Aunty Mavis’s comfy old sofa, and she brings us each a glass of homemade lemonade and a cherry flapjack.

  Lily and Meggie are playing with Noah’s ark wooden animals. Jack helps pair them up in a long line, trumpeting like an elephant, roaring like a tiger, hissing like a snake. Then he puts the twins at the end of the long line.

  ‘You’re a matching pair. What kind of animals are you? Are you . . . little monkeys?’

  Lily and Meggie shake their heads, giggling.

  ‘Are you . . . great big hippopotamuses?’

  They start squealing with laughter as he runs through all the animals he can think of. I watch a little sourly, still worrying about Martha.

  ‘Hey there, chickie,’ says Auntie Mavis. She sits down on the sofa beside me and then reaches out and pulls me onto her lap. I know I’m much too old for this sort of cuddle, but it feels so good to snuggle against her warm cardigan and have her arms go round me tight.

  ‘How’s my special big girl?’ she says.

  I don’t want to be big at all. I want to be as little as the twins and Samson, and then I could stay with Aunty Mavis and I wouldn’t have to go to school, let alone after-school club.

  The next day I tell myself that Miss Anderson might have forgotten all about fixing it up. She doesn’t always remember things. She doesn’t mention it all the way through school and I think it’s fine. Jack isn’t going to be picking me up until five o’clock but I don’t care. I’ll hide in the girls’ toilets so people won’t see I’m waiting. I’ve got my whale book and I’ve even got provisions. Toby secretly shared his bumper chocolate bar with Joseph and me while we were working on our Tudor project. He said all that thinking about food was making him feel starving. I ate one square to show I was very grateful, but hid the rest in my school bag. I was so worried about after-school club I didn’t have much appetite, even for chocolate.

  The bell goes for the end of school, and Miss Anderson stands up and says goodbye to us, and then she starts packing her bag up, goes out of the door – oh glory, she really has forgotten! I rush out of the room – but, oh no, she’s standing in the corridor, waiting for me.

  ‘I thought I’d take you over to after-school club, Ella. I’ve fixed it all up with Mrs Matthews and Miss Herbert.’

  My heart is thudding. I feel sick. ‘Thanks, Miss Anderson, but it’s OK, I know where it is. I’ll go by myself,’ I gabble, thinking, Oh no I won’t.

  Maybe she can see inside my head.

  ‘I’ll take you,’ she repeats, smiling at me.

  So she walks me round to the hall as if I’m one of the infants. She even stops on the way and asks me if I need to go to the toilet. This gives me an idea. I spend a very long time in the toilet, until Miss Anderson comes into the room, calling me.

  ‘Are you all right in there, Ella?’

  ‘No, Miss Anderson,’ I say, flushing the lavatory and coming out. I try to look as weak and white as possible. ‘I’ve just been sick,’ I announce.

  ‘Oh dear,’ says Miss Anderson. ‘Perhaps it was the chocolate you ate while you were doing your Tudor project.’

  How did she know? Toby passed the chocolate bar under the desk ever so discreetly. Teachers can be so spooky at times, the way they know stuff.

  ‘Perhaps I’d better go and lie down on that couch
in Mrs Andrews’s office until my stepdad comes for me,’ I say.

  ‘No, if you don’t feel well you need someone keeping an eye on you, and Mrs Andrews will be going home soon. Come on.’

  ‘But I can’t go to after-school club – I might be sick again. And I might infect all the others with my sick bug. Imagine if we all started vomiting simultaneously.’

  ‘I think your imagination is a little too much in evidence at times, Ella,’ says Miss Anderson. She takes me by the shoulder and steers me out of the girls’ toilets. There’s nothing I can do. We go plod plod plod down the corridors to the hall.

  Miss Anderson takes me right up to Mrs Matthews. ‘This is Ella, Mrs Matthews,’ she says.

  ‘Ah yes, the little girl you told me about. Yes, I remember you, Ella. You came for a few days last term, didn’t you?’

  I remember Mrs Matthews too. She’s got very bright blonde hair even though she’s an old lady, and she puts her face very close to yours when she talks, and sometimes little bits of her spit spray your face.

  ‘I’ll look after you, Ella, don’t worry,’ she says. She puts her finger under my chin and taps. ‘Chin up, that’s my motto. Now, come and have something to eat.’

  ‘Ella feels a bit sick, Mrs Matthews,’ says Miss Anderson. ‘She might not want anything right now.’

  ‘Oh dear, have you got the collywobbles, Ella?’ says Mrs Matthews loudly, like I’m three – and deaf.

  I put my head down and pretend I’m not there.

  ‘Bye, Ella,’ says Miss Anderson.

  I’m not even going to reply. It’s all her fault I’m here. She pats my shoulder and then goes. And I’m left there, with spraying Mrs Matthews, a whole load of little kids I don’t know, some of the big kids I’m not keen on – and Martha.

  She comes swaggering up, her chin jutting.

  ‘Ah, Martha, you’re in the same class as Ella, aren’t you, darling?’ says Mrs Matthews. ‘Can you show her the routine, see if she wants anything to eat? She might not be very hungry because she’s feeling a little bit sick.’

  Martha’s eyes gleam. ‘Yes, I’ll look after Ella, Mrs Matthews,’ she says ominously. Then she hisses at me, ‘Oh, poor little baby Ella has to have all the teachers fuss-fuss-fussing. And you suck up to them so, going all dopey and big-eyed and telling tales. No wonder you feel sick. You make me feel sick just looking at you. Right, here’s the food. Get a plate. You’re allowed two sandwiches, egg or Marmite, and a glass of orange squash.’