Her eye pried open even more. No longer opaque but alert.

Not just with intelligence and kindness and compassion and all the things he had seen in it—but with life.

White Beak gazed at him for the longest time, and Rio gazed back. Knowing that there was no difference between them really. Just like there is no difference between any human or animal.

Not deep down.

As he cradled her face, the divers burst out of the water with a triumphant yell. “We’ve freed her tail!”

“She’s moving! Get out of the ocean!” Birch thrust out the pole. “Now!”

“No!” Rio said firmly. “I’m staying.”

Birch shook his head. But Rio knew White Beak wouldn’t hurt him.

White Beak trembled, and then she nudged Rio gently with the tip of her nose.

“She’s telling you something,” Marina called out.

The whale nudged him again. Rio reached out both hands and wrapped himself around her, resting his cheek on the softness of her face so his eye was level with hers. Looking into her eye, Rio could see right down to the bottom of her soul and beyond. And it was the most beautiful soul he had ever seen.

“You’re just saying thank you, aren’t you? Because we freed you?” he whispered. “But you don’t need to. It’s you who freed me, not the other way around.”

The whale moved softly under his words. “I’ll never forget you.” Rio kissed her nose. “Not as long as I live.”

As he said that, a huge spume of water spurted out of her blowhole and caught in the oil of her breath, was the biggest and brightest and most magnificent of heart-shaped rainbows.

Then White Beak slowly pulled away, and with one last lingering look, she swam off.

41

Ocean’s Promise

The Spyhopper stayed in the area for another half an hour or so, long enough for the crew to help the marine rescue vessel remove the blue steel, the pots, and the netting from the water so no other marine animal could get trapped.

Apparently, this was something they did often—freeing whales, dolphins, porpoises, turtles, who regularly became entangled in ghost nets or fishing debris. Patrolling the ocean so they could remove large discarded or lost pieces of plastic that could be fatal to wildlife. After it was all cleared, the divers thanked everyone on board the Spyhopper before receiving another call about a dolphin snared up in some netting twenty miles farther down the coast. They sped off, and suddenly, it was just the four of them on the boat.

“Well,” said Fran, looking decidedly queasy, “you three may be perfectly content out here, but I am most definitely looking forward to being back onshore. Shall we go?”

The Spyhopper made good speed. With the wind firmly behind her she skipped over the waves, and by the next morning they were back in Ocean Bay. Birch gently navigated his way through the harbor before pulling up alongside the berth. After the silence of the ocean, the sudden hustle and bustle of the quayside was deafening.