“Why have we stopped?” one of the twins asked.

“We cut the engines because we don’t want to frighten the whales,” Birch explained to everyone. “If we see a whale, then we allow it to come to us—not the other way around. The ocean is their world. And it is important to always remember that we’re just its guests.”

The waves kept on slapping against the hull, and even the boat itself appeared to be waiting.

“We’re looking for whale plumes,” Marina said quietly. “That’s the easiest way to spot them. Remember how I said all whales come to the surface to breathe and then take a breath through their blowholes?”

While Marina retrieved her notebook from her pocket to record any gray whales they saw, Rio dug out his binoculars.

They were tiny but powerful and brought the far distance into startling clarity. What had looked like white specks with his own eyesight, transformed into pelicans resting on the ocean surface. Far out to sea, he could see the outline of a sailing vessel, gulls swarming around it hungrily.

But what he didn’t see was a . . .

“WHALE!”

17

Heart-Shaped Rainbows

“There!” Marina shouted excitedly, jabbing her hand toward the horizon. Rio nearly dropped the binoculars as everyone rushed over, throwing themselves to the edge of the boat and making the Spyhopper tilt and roll under their weight.

Marina grabbed Rio’s hand and redirected it, so his gaze would follow. “See? Five o’clock. A gray whale!”

Rio’s eyes widened, because there it was. Not even fifty yards away. The most magnificent spurt of water erupting out of the ocean surface like an upside-down waterfall.

The breath of a whale.

From shore, it had been impossible to hear the whale breathing. But out here, with the engine quietened, the loud whooshing sound reverberated off the water and sent tingles down his spine.

But it wasn’t even the sound of its breath that was the most miraculous thing.

It was the shape.

The breath didn’t just spurt upward in a vertical line of exhaled water—it was in the shape of a heart.

“How do they do that?” He turned to Marina in astonishment.

“It’s because they have two blowholes, unlike a lot of other whales, which just have one,” Marina explained, bringing her hands together to demonstrate. “When they breathe, the two plumes of water meet together at the top like this and it looks as if they’re breathing out hearts.”

“A heart made from nature,” Rio murmured, thinking back to the heart-shaped pebbles his mom used to collect. “The best kind.”

He turned back to the water and waited in hushed anticipation for the whale to come back up.

“Any minute now it’ll resurface,” said Marina quietly. “And this time, look extra closely at the heart.”

Rio fixed his gaze on the spot where the whale had been. The light off the water was so bright that it rippled upward in a shimmery blue haze. And just as his elbows were beginning to throb and he didn’t think he could hold his position a minute longer, he heard it. The sharp whoosh of breath as the whale exhaled once more. This time even closer to the boat—so close someone screamed.