With Pirate perched on her lap, Fran was looking at him in an open, hopeful way. A way that reminded him of the tourists on the Spyhopper as they were about to set off on a trip.

Something shameful ran through him. She’d been looking after him, feeding him, washing his clothes, even buying him a new phone to replace the one he’d dropped in the ocean.

And what had he given back?

He’d told her almost nothing, save from being invited to become a crew member. Birch always said that the ocean was a two-way thing. If we expected it to look after us—to feed us, to nurture us, to keep us safe—then, in turn, we must look after it.

Rio opened his phone and fished through various pictures before finding the one he wanted. Then he gently slid the phone across the table.

His grandmother picked it up, and then she dropped it again so that it clattered onto the table. “Is that . . . White Beak?”

Rio nodded. He hadn’t even been sure whether Fran would know about White Beak, let alone recognize her. Something in his heart softened as she took off her glasses and wiped her eyes.

She picked up the phone again. “How do I zoom in?”

Rio climbed to her side of the table and showed her. “See, those are the parasite scars on her snout that we use to identify her.”

“It really is her,” her voice trembled. “Oh, how your mother loved that whale. How happy it made her.”

Not just happy, but better too, Rio thought.

He pulled up a seat and showed her the rest of the pictures on his phone. Not only the ones of White Beak but also of all the whales he had spotted since arriving in California. For a long time, grandson and grandmother sat shoulder to shoulder at the table, flicking through the footage.

“Just think, by the time you’re back in London, White Beak will be in one of the lagoons,” Fran remarked. “Hopefully, if we’re lucky, she’ll have a calf too.”

Rio sat up in his chair with a start as his grandmother’s words hit home. He’d be home in just over one week!

How had the time zipped and sped along so fast? He’d been looking forward to going home for so long, and yet now it was almost here, he didn’t know what to think. Of course, he was buzzing. But as he gazed back down at the photo of White Beak, something else pressed against his insides. Something spiky and hard and painful.

“Hopefully, if White Beak does have a calf,” Fran continued, “that means they’ll be spotted passing by Ocean Bay on their way back north. Your mother used to love seeing the calves.”

“Why did she leave?” Rio asked suddenly.

“None of the whales stay in the lagoons that long . . .”

“No!” he said sharply. “Mum. Why did Mum leave Ocean Bay if she loved it here so much?”