Willa and the Whale Read online

  Instead of visiting, I chatted with my dad every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for an hour on video call. We tried to talk about life, but Dad and I have never had that much in common. So he learned a few new magic tricks to show me. That was fun for a while, but that fizzled over time too. Pretty soon it was just Monday and Friday.

  Then Dad met someone, and we only talked on Mondays.

  Her name was Masha—like Marsha but without the r—and she seemed okay. I talked with her a few times on our Monday chats. I mean, she wasn’t nearly as cool as my mom, but she was nice enough.

  I didn’t go to the wedding. I was invited, and Dad even offered to fly me out, but I didn’t want to be there. It was like Dad was replacing my mom and everyone was going to be happy about it. So I just said it was too expensive.

  A year and a half later, the worst thing happened.

  The very worst.

  I used to think the worst thing that could happen would be being trapped in the Mariana Trench with a zombie worm. They’re terrifying. They love to eat bones. You’d think brains, like normal zombies, but nope—bones. Gross. I know.

  Okay, they usually only eat bones from fish and whales that are already dead, but it’s still creepy.

  This was so much worse than being trapped with zombie worms.

  A quintillion times worse.

  I was in geography class when Mr. Yamamoto checked me out of school. He was a nice old man that worked with my mom, with silver hair and long cheeks, but it was really strange that he checked me out of school. He said we had to hurry to the hospital because my mom had problems with her heart. I knew she took some meds for her heart, but it wasn’t anything major. At least, it hadn’t been. Inside Mr. Yamamoto’s little blue car on the way to the hospital, it felt like something major. It was like all the air around me was thick and serious. Like a giant tsunami wave ten stories tall was about crash onto me and there was nowhere to hide.

  By the time we arrived, climbed the hospital steps, and hurried down the hall to room 213, my mother had already passed away.

  Gone.

  The tsunami hit me. And it destroyed everything.

  That’s a day I don’t think I’ll ever stop thinking about.

  I stared at Mom in her hospital bed. She looked like a shell of who she had been. Like I was only looking at the sloughed-off exoskeleton. I still have nightmares about it.

  And she left me alone in Japan.

  Willa Twitchell, Journal #4, one month ago

  Mom is gone.

  After talking on the phone with Grandpa Lowe and my dad, and meeting with Mr. Yamamoto lots of times, Chihiro helped me pack my things and I got on a plane to Seattle. My dad picked me up from the airport and brought me back to Tupkuk Island, the place I had grown up. The place I hadn’t been to since I was nine, three years ago.

  Dad really tried to help. He hugged me lots. He brought me breakfast in bed when I didn’t want to get up. He brought me lunch and dinner, too, on the days I never left my room. He made a few coins disappear and cut a rope and made it whole again. And I’m sure I wasn’t a good audience. Once, I even blurted out for him to stop. He wasn’t much of a talker, so we didn’t say much. Which was fine with me. It was like I was in the blackest part of the ocean and I didn’t even know which direction to swim to get out. There were times I cried, and he just rubbed my back.

  And now, on the one-month anniversary of my mom’s death, I stood on a boat with him. He was worried about me, so he chose something he thought I’d like. Especially something out of the house. It was my first whale watch without her.

  And I did like it.

  It was just a hard day.

  And out on the ocean I saw her everywhere.

  I sniffled, then hated myself for doing it. I was so sick of crying. There shouldn’t be any crying on a whale watch, unless the whale does something so amazing there are tears of awe. Watching sea creatures was one of my mom’s favorite things to do.

  I wanted the whale to come back. It seemed like somewhere in her humpback heart she knew I needed her. She had done so well. On some whale watches, you don’t see much. That’s tragic. Then it’s not much of a whale watch; it’s just a watch. But for Mom, for today, I needed a little more.

  Thankfully, the water bulged up just a little and the humpback surfaced again. It was different though, not a huge, take-my-picture-as-I-shoot-out-of-the-water sort of way. No. She was sneaky like a spy. And she was behind us now and off to one side, coming out just enough for one of her eyes to peer out over the waves. She was probably checking our reactions. Maybe she wanted to see if we loved her show.

  I don’t think anyone else noticed her. It took a trained eye.

  And I had a trained eye.

  I snuck through the crowd to the back of the boat, walking slowly up to the rail. I didn’t want to spook her. I just looked at that amazing creature and I think she looked back at me. Her eye was bigger than mine, but it worked the same. I mean, I think it was more sensitive to light because it usually looked underwater, but she could see me. Like really see me. I could tell, even feel, that she was smart. She wasn’t like plankton that just flows with the current. She had thoughts and life and feelings. She was deep and wonderful. And she was looking at me.

  Maybe she was on a human watch. Maybe she thought that I was intelligent, too. Maybe she would go home and log everything she remembered in her “humans” journal, just like I did with my ocean journal. No. She didn’t have hands, or fingers, and paper wouldn’t really work under the water. But maybe she held all that information in her great whale mind.

  “Good job, whale,” I said, almost whispering to myself. I wanted her to know how much I loved her splashes and back flop. “That was beautiful.”

  The whale didn’t respond.

  I wasn’t really surprised. I mean, I know whales talk to each other, but they definitely have never spoken with humans. Of course, if they did, it would be a little inconsiderate not to reply when I had just complimented her. Well, at least I think so. I don’t know much about whale manners.

  The humpback dipped back under the water. If she did understand me, that would maybe even have been a little rude. But I caught a glimpse of movement and followed her around to the far side of the boat, even further away from the crowd. She surfaced again.

  “I really needed to see you today,” I said. “It’s kind of special. I needed to remember . . .” I trailed off.

  It almost looked like the whale nodded, like she understood me.

  The boat started up again and began to move, churning the water out and moving us forward. But the whale followed.

  Maybe she knew I still didn’t want her to leave. Whales have amazing instincts. Newborn whales instinctively swim right after they are born. And they know to go to the surface for air, and to go to their mothers for food. Maybe this one knew instinctively that I needed her to stay.

  “Thanks,” I said as a final word, noticing the whale still approaching the surface.

  Then the whale rose again, but this time she came straight up, just barely bobbing her large head above the water. They call it spy hopping. She twisted in the water until she was looking at me with one of her big eyes. And that’s when the whale talked back.

  Willa Twitchell, Journal #4, one year ago

  Today, while I waited for my mom to get off work, I crouched down in the tide pools outside of the biological station. It was a minus tide, and I could go out further than normal. Inside one of the pockets of rock I spied a long white fuzzy thing moving slowly along the bottom. It had tiny black dots on its “fur” and two pointed ears like a rabbit. But the whole thing wasn’t much bigger than my thumb. I looked it up later and people call it a sea bunny even though it’s really a slug. The little creature seemed to move with a purpose, though I couldn’t guess where it was going. And for a long time I just watched it and wondered
what it thought about. I was the only one at that part of the beach, so I talked to it and imagined how it would respond to me. Maybe that’s a little crazy, but it seemed like at any moment it would just look up at me (though I never saw eyes on it) and explain what was going on in its little fuzzy brain. Maybe one day we may actually know what animals think.

  #IWantToTalkToAnimals #YouKnowYouWantToToo

  “Hello, little human,” the whale said.

  My mouth dropped open so far my tongue practically fell out of my mouth. The whale just spoke back to me.

  “Sorry that I didn’t respond right away,” the whale apologized. “I was kind of . . . well, surprised.” I thought a whale’s voice would be like garbled thunder, roaring out from under the water—a voice big enough to match its large body. But it wasn’t. It was more like an incredible mix of a woman singing with cello playing in the background. Like a one-whale opera. “Not bad surprised, like orcas are approaching,” she explained, “but good surprised, like discovering a pacific snake eel or a hundred-year-old sea turtle.” She rolled a little in the water. “Humans have never spoken to me before.”

  I didn’t know if I understood humpback language or if she spoke English, but I knew this was working. And I liked it. Loved it. And something about her sing-songy voice was almost as soothing as the ocean. Maybe it filled a little of my ocean-sized emptiness.

  I couldn’t believe this was happening. A whale was talking to me. That wasn’t even possible, was it? I didn’t have time to think or analyze or even doubt. I had to answer back. But it was like trying to talk to a famous scientist. I had loved whales ever since I was a toddler, but I couldn’t go all fangirl and giddy laugh and tippy-toe dance. That wouldn’t do. As far as I knew, this was the very first interspecies conversation between human and whale; I had to make a good impression.

  I took a deep breath and tried to say something clever. “If it makes you feel any better,” I said, “whales haven’t ever talked to me either.” Not the most insightful thing to say, but hopefully I wasn’t embarrassing my species.

  The whale nodded, her big snout dipping up, then under the water. Good. That seemed to go over okay.

  I was actually talking to a whale. Inside I was full-on screaming in joy. #SoAwesome

  “I didn’t know that humans ever wanted to talk to us whales,” she said, then started to laugh. It sounded like bubbles and an orchestra together. “Usually I come to splash out and give you people a pleasant surprise, not to have a conversation.”

  “You were absolutely amazing,” I said, letting a little of my excitement spill out. “Seriously the best slaps and back flops I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been whale watching a lot.” I suddenly realized that I was so excited I was speaking in full voice again. I quickly looked around, hoping that no one else had noticed what was going on. I didn’t want the crowd to come over and spoil it. So far, I was safe. I think some pelicans were fishing on the other side of the boat and everyone was watching them.

  “Oh goodness, I’m not the best out here,” the whale said. “I have a friend who can jump so high his tail comes out of the water. His whole family is known for doing leaps together. It’s really incredible,” she said. “I just want to give you blubberless rectangle-watchers something fun. Even if I know I’m only okay at it.”

  What had she just said? “Blubberless rectangle-watchers?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “You’re blubberless. You don’t have all the attractive fat on you that I have on me. But don’t worry, you’re still a very cute species.”

  “Thanks,” I said. It wasn’t every day a whale called me cute. She had a thick layer of fat all around her to keep her warm in even arctic temperatures. And she was a water-­rising, back-­flopping acrobat. “What did you mean by rectangle-­watchers?” I asked.

  “Oh,” the whale said, “those little tiny rectangles that most humans look at all the time.” She blew a little air out of her blowhole, but she did it quietly. I think she didn’t want the crowds to come over either. “All the time,” she repeated. “You look at them instead of at each other or at the ocean.”

  “Rectangles?” I thought hard. “Oh—phones,” I said, realizing what she was talking about.

  “Is that what they’re called?” the whale asked. “They must be hypnotizing, like the bioluminescence of an anglerfish.”

  I immediately pictured the dot that glows in front of an anglerfish. It is designed to be fascinating, but there are sharp teeth right behind it.

  It was strange to think that a whale ever even thought about our phones. “I guess they are kind of hypnotizing,” I said. “But not like an anglerfish. Not in a dangerous way. I mean, they can also be good. I used one to film you. So I can watch your fantastic jump over and over again.”

  “You can watch it again?” the whale asked. She bobbed up and down a little in the water.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Want to see?”

  She gave a huge whale nod, then swam in closer to the boat. I leaned my phone over the edge, playing back her latest rise and turn out of the ocean.

  When I woke up this morning, I had no idea that I’d be talking to a humpback whale and showing her a video of herself crashing into the ocean. I just thought it was going to be another day of trying not to cry. This was getting better and better.

  “Oh, these rectangles are amazing,” she said, watching a screen for the first time, “and I didn’t do badly at all.”

  “Not at all,” I said.

  “Thank you, little human,” she said. And I really think she meant it. Again, I wasn’t an expert on whale manners, but now that I got to talk to her, she was actually really polite.

  My mom would have loved this. Absolutely, nothing held back, loved this. She would definitely fangirl, even if it was just on the inside.

  A sting of sadness shot through me. I missed her. But I hated those stings—they were so much worse than stings from a jellyfish. Worse than a stingray jab.

  I shook my head. Whale watches are no place for sadness. And whale talks even less.

  “My name is Willa,” I said, trying to be polite and keep the stings away. “I mean, I guess you could call me ‘little human’ if you want, but that would mean I would call you ‘large whale.’”

  The humpback laughed again, like an orchestrated song. “Willa seems like a fine name,” she said. “At least as far as humans go. And my name is Megaptera Novaeangliae.”

  As strange as it sounds, I had heard that name somewhere before. I mean, it’s not the name of someone else in one of my classes. That would be some pretty crazy parents if they’d named their human kid Megaptera Novaeangliae. But it was fine for a whale. So where had I heard it? I searched my brain files. “That’s the scientific name for humpback whales.” I felt embarrassed it had taken me so long to realize it.

  “You’re really bright,” the whale said.

  I may have blushed a little. I tried really hard to know a lot about marine life, but most people didn’t notice or care. “But that can’t be your name,” I said, thinking this through a little more. “Then every humpback would have the exact same name.”

  The whale took a moment. “We all share that name.”

  That seemed strange. “Are you telling me that if you want to shout out to a humpback that is far away you just yell at them, ‘Hey, Megaptera Novaeangliae’? Wouldn’t they all respond at the same time?”

  “What? No!” She laughed more musical bubble sounds. “That’s just our name. If I wanted to speak to just one humpback friend, I would use their call.”

  Oh, so each whale had a specific call. That was pretty much the same as a name. I guess we just didn’t understand each other at first. I bet that happened a lot in interspecies friendships. “So we say ‘name’ and you say ‘call.’ Let me ask my question differently, then. What is your call?”

  “My call is . . .” and she san
g a whale song. I tried my best to pay attention to the order of it all. Three sounds like a squeaky balloon, something that sounded a little bit like a Wookie, a door that needs to be greased, and back to the squeaky balloon.

  When she stopped, it got quiet.

  I wanted to try to say it back, but how was I going to do that? I couldn’t make all those sounds, could I? I looked around to make sure that nobody was watching from the boat, then I tried. Three squeaks, a Wookie, creaking door, then another squeak. But they didn’t come out right. It sounded more like three pig squeals, a sick tiger, an angry Chihuahua, then another pig squeal. Nothing like the cool sound that the whale just made. I hoped I didn’t offend her.

  But she didn’t get upset. She didn’t laugh. At least not out loud. She rolled in the water and I saw her smile. Then again, her mouth always looked like a smile. “That was pretty good,” she said. I hoped she wasn’t lying. “But you mistakenly called a humpback bull a decent swim away from here. We humpbacks can hear from long distances.” She turned and called out in the ocean, listened, then called again. “He thought you wanted to go get some krill with him. I told him that you were a human and probably not looking for a dinner date. That set things straight.” She swam a little closer to me. “Unless you want to eat krill with him. Do you want me to call him back?”

  I shook my head furiously, my cheeks blushing like the scales on a red snapper. I didn’t need a whale boyfriend. “I’m sorry. I’m no good at your call,” I said. I thought that with some practice I could get it right. But I hadn’t really had time to practice. “Maybe I could call you something else until I figure it out. Maybe—” I thought for a moment. “Can I just call you Meg?”

  “Meg?” she said.