Without pause, Birch fired up the engine, and the boat sped across the water. They traveled for over ten minutes, zipping and bumping over the waves, the wind whipping against their faces.

“There!” Marina shouted finally. “I can see something!”

She pointed frantically at a distant point on the starboard side. Rio squinted his eyes and stared, seeing nothing, until gradually a gray shape came into focus.

A whale.

38

In Trouble

“It might not be White Beak,” Birch said cautiously. “Let’s get closer.”

He gently coaxed the boat forward, worry furrowing his forehead. The whale was about one hundred yards away. Rio couldn’t see much except for the occasional spurt of water shooting high into the sky. But nevertheless, a horrible feeling had climbed inside of his body. His fingers tightened on his life jacket, and he watched anxiously.

“Something’s wrong.” Marina pressed the binoculars to her face and frowned. “Look.”

“She’s trapped. In some fishing netting.” Birch glanced at the darkening clouds. “We’ll need to be careful.”

“Oh my!” Marina exclaimed, clamping her hand over her mouth. “The poor thing!”

Because there, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, was the most terrible sight Rio had ever seen. The gray whale was lying partly on its side, but tangled around it were yards of thick blue rope, wrapped so tightly the whale couldn’t move. Worse than that, clouds of blood were drifting around her body.

The boat, now with its engine idling to almost nothing, gently edged closer still, so they were now just a few yards away. Sensing their approach, the whale lifted its nose.

Its white nose.

“Rio! You found her!” Marina cried. “It’s White Beak!”

As Rio stared into her face, he knew for however long he lived on earth, he would never forget this moment.

She was slightly tilted on her left side, and her one visible eye stared straight up at him. It was an eye the size of a tennis ball that gazed into the deepest part of him.

“What is it?” Rio asked “What’s that stuff she’s caught in?”

“Blue steel,” said Birch, swearing under his breath. “It’s vicious. Industrial thick rope that fishermen use to weigh down crab and lobster pots on the seabed. Lethal for whales if they get caught up in it—which they often do. The ropes trap them, and the more they try to escape, the more tangled up they become.”

“But can’t we get her out?” Rio begged.

As if she had heard them, White Beak slapped a fin against the surface of the water. Birch nudged the boat closer still so there was only an arm’s width between them and her. She was three times the size of the boat and so close Rio could hear her breath—rapid and shallow and raw. His heart lurched, and he looked away. There was something hugely vulnerable about an animal that size being in such pain.

“She’s very weak, aren’t you, girl?” said Birch gently as White Beak’s fin slowly slipped back into the water. “Are you going to let us help you?”