The next thing he knew he entered the water with a very loud and very cold splash.

Even though he was wearing a life jacket, Rio’s entire body, including his head, dropped below the surface. It was so sudden and so frightening that the first thing he did was open his mouth to shout for help. Which was a silly thing to do because the seawater rushed in and then he was spitting and gagging and coughing. By the time he had bobbed back up to the surface, the boat looked frighteningly far away. All he could see was the slippery gray hull and seven very pale faces peering over the edge.

“RIO!” Marina yelled. “Stay there and don’t panic!”

Don’t panic? It was too late for that. Rio flailed his arms and thrashed his legs desperately. He couldn’t even see the bottom, let alone touch it. There was just a vast well of horribly dark water and the sensation of knowing he was way, way out of his depth.

“MARINA!” he shouted just as another wave splattered against him. He gasped in shock. “MARINA!”

Birch leaned over the boat, holding out a long pole with a hook on the end. “Stay calm, Rio. Grab hold of this and I’ll pull you in.”

Rio stretched out an arm and tried to grasp the hook. He nearly had it when a wave shoved him roughly aside. He coughed and spluttered and gagged. Then he tried again. But as much as he desperately tried to reach the pole, the current kept pushing him backward.

It was then Rio remembered he wasn’t alone.

There was also a fifty-two-foot-long gray whale in the water with him.

Marina had said gray whales weren’t dangerous. That they would never deliberately hurt a human. But it was easy to think that if you were looking at them from the safe, dry deck of a boat. Not when you were actually in the water with them and they had a mouth bigger than your entire body.

Just as he was about to enter full panic mode, Rio heard the same echoey noise as before, except this time it was much closer. He cocked an ear. He definitely was not imagining it. The noise sounded deep and shadowy and bass-like. A series of low rumbles followed by a click, then a drumming and another click.

The only way to describe it was like a ripple coming up from somewhere beneath the surface of the water and traveling up through the soles of his feet.

But where was it coming from?

It was a strange and unworldly sound but not, Rio realized gratefully, a threatening one. Instead, it was almost comforting—like one of those bedtime stories his mother used to tell of faraway mystical lands and strange, mythical creatures that used to lull him to sleep.

And Rio knew in his heart that it was White Beak.

As if in agreement, he felt a gentle nudge on his back.

His first reaction was to spin around. But turning around in water wasn’t easy. All Rio ended up doing was flopping facedown. He gasped for air and swallowed some more seawater before finally managing to maneuver himself around.