“A whale, miss,” Michael replied.
She was coming over to his table. She was picking up his book. “A whale? That sounds really interesting,” she said. “Goodness gracious. You’ve written pages and pages, Michael. You’ve never written this much before, have you? Would you like to read it for us?” Michael shook his head, which didn’t surprise Mrs Fergusson at all. Michael was never one to volunteer himself for anything. “Your handwriting’s a bit squiggly, but I think I can read it.” She leafed through the pages. “Yes, I’m sure I can. Shall I read it out for you? You don’t mind, do you, Michael?” Then she spoke to the whole class. “Would you like to hear Michael’s whale story, children?” And they all did, so there was nothing Michael could do to stop her.
He had to sit there and listen like everyone else. He wanted to put his hands over his ears. He didn’t dare to look up. He didn’t want to have to see all those mocking smiles. To begin with, Mrs Fergusson read it like she always did, in her teachery voice, as if it was just a story. Then gradually, her whole tone seemed to change, and she was reading it as if she was inside the story and down by the river, as if she was seeing it all, hearing it all, feeling it all, as if she was longing to know what was going to happen. Michael dared to look around him now. No one was laughing. No one was even smiling. The longer the story went on, the more Mrs Fergusson’s voice trembled, and the more silent the class became. When she’d finished she stood there for a long while, so moved she was unable to speak. But Michael was still waiting for the first sound of laughter, dreading it. Then, all of a sudden, Elena started clapping beside him, and moments later they were all clapping, including Mrs Fergusson who was smiling at him through her tears.
“An amazing story, Michael, the best I’ve read in a long, long time – and certainly the best you’ve ever written. Quite wonderful,” she said. “Only one thing I would say, Michael,” she went on. “It doesn’t really matter of course, but if you remember, Michael, I did tell you it had to be a true story, about something that really happened.”
“It is true, miss,” Michael told her. “It all happened, just like I said. Honest.”
That’s when Jamie Bolshaw started sniggering and snorting. It spread all around the classroom until everyone was laughing out loud at him. It didn’t stop until Mrs Fergusson shouted at everyone to be quiet.
“You do understand what ‘true’ means, Michael, don’t you?” she said. “It means not made up. If it is true, as you say it is, then that means that right now, just down the road, there’s a bottle-nose whale swimming about in the river. And it means you actually met him, that he actually talked to you.”
“Yes, miss. He did, miss,” Michael said. “And I did meet him, this morning, early. Promise. About half past five, or six. And he did talk to me. I heard his voice and it was real. I wasn’t making it up. But he’s not there any more, miss, because he’s gone back out to sea, like I said. It’s true, all of it. I promise you, miss. It was just like I wrote it.” And when Jamie Bolshaw started tittering again, Michael felt tears coming into his eyes. Try as he did, he couldn’t hold them back, nor could he hold back the flood of words. He so wanted to make them believe him.
“It’s true, miss, really true. When it was all over I ran back home. Mum was already having her breakfast. She told me I was late, that I’d better hurry or I’d be late for school. I told her why I was late. I told her all about the whale, the whole thing. She just said it was a good story, but that she didn’t have time for stories just now, and would I please sit down and eat my breakfast. I said it was all true, every word of it. I crossed my heart and hoped to die. But she didn’t believe me. So I gave up in the end and just ate my breakfast like she said.
“And when I got to school I didn’t dare tell anyone, because I thought that if Mum didn’t believe me, then no one else would. They’d just laugh at me, or call me a liar. I thought it would be best to keep quiet about it. And that’s what I would have done. But you said we all had to write about something that had really happened to us. It could be funny or sad, exciting or frightening, whatever we wanted, you said, but it had to be true, really true. ‘No fantasy, no science fiction, and none of your shock-horror stories, Jamie Bolshaw, none of that dripping blood stuff. I want you to write it down just as it happened, children, just as you remember it.’ That’s what you told us.
“And I couldn’t think of anything else to write about except my whale. So that’s what I wrote about. It was very long, the longest story and the most important story I’ve ever written. That’s because I didn’t want to leave anything out. I don’t usually like writing stories, I’m no good at them. Can’t get started, can’t find a good ending. But this time it was like it was writing itself almost. All I had to do was to let it flow on to the page, down from my head, along my arm, through my fingers. Sometimes, though, it was really hard to concentrate, because I kept thinking about my whale, hoping and hoping he was out in the open sea by now, with his family again, safe again. The more I hoped it, the more I believed it, and the more I believed it the more I wanted to tell his story. That’s why I stayed in all through breaktime to get it finished. It was raining anyway, so I didn’t really mind.”
When he’d finished there was a long silence.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jamie sneered.
“That’ll be quite enough of that, Jamie,” Mrs Fergusson snapped, clapping her hands for silence. She could see now how upset Michael was becoming. “All right, Michael, all right. We’ll say no more about it for the moment. Now children, what I want is for you to illustrate the story you’ve just written. Like that poem poster on the wall above the bookshelf – the tiger one, over there. I read it to you last week, remember? ‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright’. I told you, didn’t I? The poet illustrated it himself. And that’s what I want you to do.”
Through blinding tears Michael drew his bottle-nose whale, with the birds all around, the heron and the ducks and the cormorants, and the snowy white egret watching from the buoy. Then he drew himself, crouching down by the river’s edge, with the sun coming up over London, all just as he’d seen it that morning. He had almost finished when, very surreptitiously, and making sure Mrs Fergusson wasn’t looking, Elena slipped him a folded piece of paper. Michael opened it and read it. “Liar, liar, pants on fire.” Elena was shaking her head and pointing at Jamie Bolshaw, who was making a face at him. That was the moment Michael lost it. He scrunched up the paper, walked across the classroom and hurled it at Jamie’s grinning face. “I’m not a liar,” he screamed at him. “I’m not, I’m not!”
Mrs Fergusson put Jamie in one corner and Michael in another. They hadn’t been there five minutes before Mr Jenner, the head teacher, came in. Much to Michael’s surprise and relief he didn’t seem even to notice him standing there in the corner. He was pulling on his hat and coat. He was clearly going somewhere, and in an almighty hurry too. “Mrs Fergusson,” he was saying. “I want your class to stop whatever it is that they’re doing right now. I want them to get their coats on and assemble at once in the playground. And hurry, please.”
“Why? What’s going on?” Mrs Fergusson asked. “Is it a fire drill?”
“No, no, nothing like that. You’re not going to believe this,” Mr Jenner said, “but apparently there’s a huge great whale in the river, right here, right now, just down the road from us. It’s true. Not every day a whale comes to town, is it? It’s on the telly. But we can see it for real. So I thought we’d all go and take a look. Quick as you can, please, else he could be gone before we get there, and we don’t want that, do we?”
Everyone was gaping at Michael. For some time after Mr Jenner had left, no one said a word, not even Mrs Fergusson. But in spite of the look of utter amazement on Jamie Bolshaw’s face, Michael could not for one moment enjoy his triumph. All he could think of was that his whale hadn’t made it to the sea, that he must still be floundering in the river, still there, and trapped. He knew only too well what that might mean. He had to be ther
e, now. He was out of the classroom, across the playground already full of excited children being herded into lines, and on his way down to the river before anyone could stop him.
By the time Michael arrived, there were crowds everywhere, hundreds of them lining the river on both sides, and all along Battersea Bridge too. He pushed through the crowds and hoisted himself up on to the wall so he could see over. There were police down on the shoreline keeping everyone back behind the wall. From the moment he saw the whale Michael could see he was in serious trouble. He was wallowing helpless in the shallows, at the mercy of the tide, unwilling or unable to move.
Standing next to Michael was a building worker in a yellow hard hat and muddy boots. He was screaming down his mobile phone. “It’s huge! Humungous, I’m telling you. Looks more like a bleeding shark to me. And he’s going to get himself well and truly stuck in the mud if he’s not careful, and that’ll be his lot. Yeah, just below Battersea Bridge. I’ve got my yellow hat on, you can’t miss me. I’ll look out for you. No, he’ll still be here. He’s not going anywhere, poor blighter. And don’t forget to bring the camcorder, right? This won’t happen again. Once in a lifetime this.”
There were half a dozen people around the whale, a couple of divers amongst them, trying to encourage him back into the water, but Michael could see it was no use. Without him the whale seemed to have lost all will to live. He was trying to decide what he could do, how he could get to the whale without being stopped by the police, when he found Mr Jenner beside him and Mrs Fergusson too, both breathless.
“You shouldn’t have gone running off like that, Michael,” said Mrs Fergusson. “You had us worried sick.”
“He needs me,” Michael told her. “I’ve got to go to him.”
“You leave it to the experts,” said Mr Jenner. “Come on over with the other children now. We’ve got a great view where we are.”
“I don’t want a great view,” Michael shouted. “Don’t you understand? I have to save him.”
Michael didn’t think twice after that. He climbed over the wall and raced along the shore towards the whale, dodging the police as he went. When Mr Jenner tried to call him back, Mrs Fergusson put her hand on his arm. “Best leave him be,” she told him. “It’s his whale. I’ll go after him.”
By the time the police managed to catch up with Michael, Mrs Fergusson was there to explain everything. They took some persuading, but in the end they said they could make an exception just this once, provided she stayed with him all the time, and provided both of them wore lifejackets, and didn’t interfere.
So, along with several others, Michael and Mrs Fergusson were there when the tide began to rise, and at last the whale began to float free of the mud. Michael stayed as close to his head as he could get, and talked to him all the while to reassure him. “You’ll be all right now,” he said. “There’s lots of us here, and we all want to help you. You’ll swim out of here just like your grandfather did. All you have to do is swim. You must swim. You’ve got your whole family waiting for you out there. Do it for them. Do it for me.”
They walked knee high with the whale out into the river, one of the divers swimming alongside him the whole time. Michael could see how hard the whale was trying. He was trying all he could, but he was so weak. Then, to the rapturous cheers of everyone around, the whale seemed suddenly to find strength enough to move his tail, and he managed to swim away from the shore, blowing hard as he went. They watched him turning slowly out in the middle of the river. And when everyone saw he was swimming the right way, another huge cheer went up. But Michael just wished they’d keep quiet. He sensed that all this noise must be bewildering and disorientating for him. But when the whale swam away under the bridge back towards the sea, even Michael joined in the cheering.
Like everyone else, when the whale dived down and disappeared, Michael thought he would be all right now, that he was well and truly on his way, that he’d make it this time for sure. But for some reason, by the time the whale surfaced again, he had turned and was coming back towards them. Within no time at all he had drifted back into the shallows, and despite all they tried to do to stop him, he had beached himself again.
Mrs Fergusson tried to stop him, so did the others, but Michael broke free of them and waded as far out into the river as he could, until he was as near to him as he could get. “You’ve got to swim!” he cried. “You’ve got to. Go under the bridge and just keep going. You can do it. Don’t turn round. Don’t come back. Please don’t come back!”
There were people and boats everywhere, bustle and ballyhoo all around, so much of it that Michael could barely hear the whale when he spoke. “I’m trying,” he said. “I’m trying so hard. But I’m very tired now, and I don’t seem to know where I’m going any more. I’m feeling muddled in my head, and I’m so tired. I just want to sleep. I’m afraid that maybe I stayed too long. Grandfather warned me, they all warned me.” His eyes closed. He seemed almost too exhausted to say anything more. Then his eyes opened again. “You do remember everything I said?” he whispered.
“Of course I do. I’ll never forget. Never.”
“Then it was worth it. No matter what happens, it was worth it. Stay with me if you can. I need you with me.”
So Michael did stay. He stayed all that day, and Mrs Fergusson stayed with him, long after all the other children had gone back home. By late afternoon his mother was there with them – they’d got a message to her at work. And the white egret stayed too, watching everything from his buoy.
As evening came on they tried to make Michael go home to sleep for a while.
“There’s nothing more you can do here,” his mother told him. “And anyway, you can watch it on the television. You can’t stay here all night. You’ll catch your death. We’ll get a pizza on the way. What do you say?” Michael stayed crouching down where he was. He wasn’t moving.
“I tell you what, Michael,” Mrs Fergusson said, “I’ll stay. You go home and get some rest, and then you can come back in the morning. I won’t leave him, honestly I won’t. And I’ll phone if anything happens. How’s that?”
Between them they managed to persuade him. Michael knew everything they said was true. He was tired, and he was cold, and he was hungry. So in the end he agreed, just so long as he could come back in the morning, at first light, he said.
“I won’t be long,” he whispered to the whale. “I’ll be back soon, I promise.”
Back at home in a hot bath he shivered the cold out of him, but all the while he was thinking only of his whale.
He ate his pizza watching his whale on the television. He knew he couldn’t go to bed. He didn’t want to sleep. He wanted only one thing, to be back down by the riverside with his whale. He begged his mother again and again to let him go, but she wouldn’t let him. He had to get some sleep, she said.
There was only one thing for it. He would wait till his mother had gone to bed, then he’d get dressed and slip out of the flat. That’s what he did. He ran all the way back down to the river.
All the rescue team and the divers were still there, and so was Mrs Fergusson, sitting by the wall wrapped in a blanket. And everywhere there were still dozens of onlookers. The egret was there on his buoy. And the whale was floundering near the shore, not far from where Michael had left him. But there was something else out on the river. It looked like a barge of some kind, and it hadn’t been there before – Michael was sure of it. He ran over to Mrs Fergusson.
“Miss, what’s that barge there for?” he asked her. “What’s going on?”
“They’re going to lift him, Michael,” she said. “They had a meeting, and they decided it’s the only way they can save him. They don’t think he can do it on his own, he’s too weak and disorientated. So they’re going to lift him on to that barge and carry him out to sea.”
“They can’t!” Michael cried. “They’ll kill him if they do. He can’t live out of the water, he told me so. He’s my whale. I found him. They can’t, they mustn’t!
I won’t let them!”
Michael didn’t hesitate. He dashed down to the shore and waded out into the river. When he found he couldn’t wade any more, he began to swim. A few short strokes and he was alongside the whale. He could hear Mrs Fergusson and the others shouting at him to come back. He paid them no attention. The whale looked at him out of his deep dark eye.
“I need you with me,” he whispered.
“I know. I’m back,” Michael said. “Are you listening? Can you hear me?”
“I hear you,” replied the whale.
“I’m going to swim with you,” Michael told him. “I’m a really good swimmer. We’re going together. You just have to follow me. Can you do that?”
“I’ll try,” said the whale.
From the bank they all saw it, Michael and the whale swimming away side by side towards Battersea Bridge. They could hardly believe their eyes. They could see the whale was finding it hard, puffing and blowing as he went, that Michael was battling against the tide. But incredibly, they were both making some headway. By now the rescue team had sent out an inflatable to fetch Michael in. Everyone could see what was bound to happen in the end, that the tide was against them, that it was too cold, that it was impossible. Both the boy and the whale tired together. They hauled Michael out of the water, and brought him back to the shore. From there he had to watch his whale swim bravely on for a few more minutes, before he had to give up the unequal struggle. Even Michael knew now that there was nothing more he could do, that the barge was the whale’s only chance of survival.
Michael was there on the shore with his mother and Mrs Fergusson later that morning when they hoisted the whale slowly from the water, and swung him out in a great sling on to the barge that would take him off to sea. With the world watching on television, followed by a procession of small boats, the barge carried him along the river, under the bridges, past Westminster and the London Eye and St Paul’s, out towards Greenwich and the Thames Barrier and to the sea beyond. There was a vet on hand to monitor his progress all the way. And Michael too never left the whale’s side, not for one moment. He stayed by him, pouring water over him from time to time, to keep his skin moist, soothing him and talking to him to reassure him, to keep his spirits up, all the while hoping against hope that the whale would have the strength to survive long enough to reach the open sea.