Sure enough, Ursula found an angle to lean over at, and stuck to it. Mia quickly got dressed. She felt a lot better wrapped in warm, dry gear. She hadn’t realised how much she was cooling down, even standing in the sunshine up on deck. She picked her way back across the leaning-over cabin, and took hold of the ladder to climb back onto deck.

Suddenly the whole boat shook and shuddered, as if it had run into a rock.

But there are no rocks in the ocean, Mia thought indignantly.

Another, harder shock ran through the boat. This time she heard the sound of splintering wood and running water. The blow knocked Mia to her knees. That was impossible! The boat had been lifted up!

“Hey, Mia!” Bear called urgently. “Get up here, quick!”

Mia quickly clambered onto deck. Bear’s expression was taut and concentrating as he gripped the wheel. He nodded his head at the sea. Mia followed his gaze, and gasped.

All around them, huge, grey shapes, two or three times as big as Ursula, were breaking out of the sea. Mia recognised them from television and videos but she had never known they were so huge in real life. One of them must have hit the boat just now.

“Whales!” she gasped.

4

WHALE OF A TIME

“Are they attacking us?” Mia asked nervously. She had no idea what she and Bear could do if one of those mighty shapes took a real dislike to Ursula. But they didn’t look aggressive.

“I think one of them just came up beneath us without looking up.” Bear gripped the wheel and scanned the sea ahead. “When you weigh thirty thousand kilos you’re probably going to be okay whatever you bump into, and a thirty-ton wooden boat is always going to come off worse.”

Mia remembered the water sound in the cabin.

“Um, Bear,” she gasped nervously. “It might have knocked a hole in us.”

Bear pulled a face.

“Ursula is handling differently. I’ll check properly once our friends are out of the way. Meanwhile, we both need to keep a sharp lookout. If it looks like another one of them is heading for us, point and yell.”

“Point and yell,” Mia agreed. “Right.” That was one instruction that Mia was happy to follow.

Her gaze leapt from whale to whale. The whole herd was just cruising peacefully past. All she could see was their backs – ugly and bumpy and covered with tiny little shellfish. But they were still beautiful, and it was impossible to be angry with them. The whale hadn’t attacked Ursula. It just hadn’t noticed that there was anything there.

One of the whales blew out, with a sound like a steam engine letting off pressure. A cloud of white mist drifted over the boat. It stank of fish and the worst bad breath ever.