As he lay, the spume of his exhaled breath came across the canoe, across Leif, and he smelled it again as he had before, the rich thickness of it, smelling of fish and salt air and something deeper, warmth, personal heat from inside the big animal, a way Leif could know more about the whale. The signature of his breath, the private inside of him, and as he lay, still, breathing slowly but in sharp gasps, his large dorsal fin was next to the centre of the canoe. Right next to Leif. The fin standing shiny and glistening black next to the canoe, just an arm’s length away. Right there.

Right . . . there.

I should touch it, Leif thought. I should touch his fin and perhaps he could know me, know more about me, as I would know more about him. But he held back, not afraid but more embarrassed, as if it would be an intrusion, a meddling. What right did he have to interrupt what the whale was doing , thinking, by sticking a hand out and touching him, a giant animal gentle and kind enough to leave the boy alone in his canoe? What right did he have to reach out with his puny arm and silly hand to touch that dorsal fin pointing at the sky with shining pride? What right?

But still, he thought. Still . . .

How can I not?

There it was – the hot worm of thinking. It reminded him of the time he first learned to make fire with flint and steel into an old squirrel nest. The single spark, growing like a red worm, feeding on bits of dried grass, growing, growing until the first tiny tendrils of flame caught the tinder.

Almost the same thing. The hot worm of his thoughts, a nudge of a glow, feeding on thought and more thought, a glow of wanting, a small flame of needing, to know, to know more, be more . . .

This close, at this most perfect moment, how could he not touch the whale?

And his hand, almost by itself, moved out of the canoe, across a short space – but across much more than that, he thought, across two different worlds – and his fingers and thumb lightly, gently, grasped the trailing edge of that rigid fin.

For a moment.

Just that. A moment.

Then he let go and pulled his hand back. Thought on how it felt. Hard, harder than he thought it would be – like a live, shiny black stone – and slick. Maybe a little warm, though he couldn’t be sure because it was wet.

Not sure what to expect. Would the whale be mad? Upset? Would the whale destroy his canoe? Flip just one powerful time those huge flukes and slap him out of the water?