What he did, or didn’t, do completely surprised the boy. The whale slightly raised his head, rolled a bit so he could see Leif sitting there – looked directly at the boy with his eye, eye to eyes – and rolled back and remained as he was, lying there.

Protecting.

Then the whale exhaled suddenly and the boy breathed in at the same time. Leif had been holding his breath the whole time without thinking and took air deep now, inhaling some of the exhaled breath of the whale that came over him, breathing in the warm, inside smell of the whale and the odour mixed with the touch on the fin and he wished they could speak to each other, wished he could ask the whale . . .

What? Ask the whale what?

Ask him about everything. All things a whale would, could know that he himself wanted to know and understand and he said aloud softly: ‘I wish . . .’

Then he stopped. Not knowing what he would wish, what he wanted to know. And instead of the wishing came a sense of wonder. There had been this . . . this thing, this moment when the whale knew him and saw him and understood that Leif meant no harm and he, the boy, had seen that the whale meant him no harm as well and they were just there.

The two of them. Right there alongside each other, knowing that about themselves, that they meant no harm to each other.

It was a kind of talk. There was that. Some kind of talking.

Not words, nor songs, but an open knowing had passed between them, and Leif knew that he would never lose that, never forget that knowing, for the rest of his life and hoped it would be the same for the whale. With that knowledge he came to believe they were friends. No. More and less than that. On one side of the fin there was a small diagonal, dimpled scar, no longer than the boy’s hand, and he knew that if he saw that scar again he would know the whale, would know he had passed knowledge to that individual whale and this same whale had passed some of his thinking, his being, to Leif . . .

Not a friendship, exactly. But next to it. Close to it. And he thought he would stay in the inlet with the whales for the time being because he enjoyed their company, liked this whale’s company.

But in a few moments they were done with the pebble beach and with the young ones’ rolling and playing and they all turned and, again with purpose in their movement, made their way out of the inlet and disappeared around the point into the channel.

Gone.

Hunger

He took purpose from the whales.

They were gone, moving at a much higher speed than he could ever master with the canoe and he knew, or thought he knew, that he would probably never see them again.