Longest Whale Song (7 page)

I was cross with her for a while. I thought Dad didn't come to see me because she shouted at him. Then I got cross with Dad instead because he broke his promise to me. But I stopped minding ages ago. I gave the teddy to my school's jumble sale, but the blue dress is still hanging in the back of my wardrobe.

I get out of bed and search for it now. It's weird thinking I was once that small. I can barely get my arms in the sleeves and the dress wouldn't even cover my bottom. I thought I'd grown out of needing my dad the way I'd grown out of my dress, but now I want him so badly I start trembling.

I put on my dressing gown and go downstairs. Jack is sprawling on the sofa in the living room, empty cans of beer littering the carpet. The room smells horrible. Jack has his hands over his face.

‘You're drunk!' I say accusingly.

‘No, I'm not,' he mumbles. ‘I've just had a beer.'

‘You've had lots and lots of beers!'

‘Well, I
need
lots and lots of beers,' Jack says.
‘What is it now, Ella? I thought you'd gone to bed.'

‘I want my dad.'

‘What?'

‘I want my
dad
,' I repeat.

‘Well, what do you want
me
to do? I can't conjure him up right this second. According to your mum you haven't seen him for donkey's years.'

‘I need to see him now,' I say, clenching my fists.

‘All right. I'll try to find out where he is. I'll get your mum's address book, OK? I'll contact him tomorrow.'

‘No, you won't.'

‘Yes I will, I promise. Now, go to
bed
!'

JACK GETS READY
to take me to school on Wednesday. He hasn't done any washing so we have to fish my grubby school blouse out of the laundry basket. I'm running out of socks and knickers too.

I struggle with my bunches myself. I don't know
what to do with my fringe. I want Mum so.

Jack makes us both toast, which we crunch in silence. We've barely said a single word to each other this morning. He drives me to school, but instead of stopping in the road to let me out he drives right in through the gates to the car park.

‘What are you doing?'

‘I'm going to talk to your head teacher.'

I feel a sudden clutch of fear. Mrs Raynor is very strict and shouts a lot. I once dared shout back and she got
furious
.

‘Are you going to tell on me?' I whisper.

‘Tell on you?' Jack says, looking puzzled.

‘That I shouted at you.'

Jack blinks at me, and then gives a silly laugh. ‘No, of course not. I'd have to tell on myself too. I did my fair share of shouting. I'm going to tell Mrs Raynor about Mum – explain that things might be difficult for you for a while.'

‘I don't want you to talk about Mum to
Mrs Raynor
,' I say, shocked.

‘I think it's the best thing to do. We'll tell your form teacher too. What's she called?'

‘Miss Anderson.'

‘She's OK, isn't she?'

‘Yes, I like her lots, she's ever so kind.'

‘Great. Well, you sit outside Mrs Raynor's door
while I have a little chat, and then I'll take you to your classroom.'

‘You don't have to take me! I'll look like a
baby
,' I say – but I actually
feel
like a baby.

It suddenly seems so loud and noisy in school. Some boys run down the corridor, and one knocks me with his school bag. I don't think he did it on purpose and it didn't really hurt, but I have to screw up my face to stop myself crying.

I sit on the chair outside Mrs Raynor's room while Jack is in there. Everyone going past stares at me as if I've done something really bad. I wait, kicking my legs against the wall. Jack's inside for an
age
. Mrs Raynor's usually so busy you're in and out in a flash. I try hard to catch what they're saying but I can't hear a word. When the door opens, there's Jack, red in the face, eyes all teary – and Mrs Raynor's got her arm round him! She gives him a pat on the shoulder and then turns to me. She reaches out and pats me too.

‘I'm so sorry about your mother, Ella. It must be dreadful for you. I do hope she recovers soon,' she says.

I can't
believe
she's being so nice. Then she comes
with
us to Miss Anderson's class. Everyone stares at us, sitting up straight. Even Miss Anderson flushes pink.

‘Hello, everyone,' says Mrs Raynor. ‘I'd like you all to be especially kind to Ella. Her mother's very ill in hospital.'

She pushes me gently towards my desk beside Sally and I sit down, burning. Sally reaches out and squeezes my hand. Dory mouths,
Poor you!
Even Martha nods at me sympathetically. Joseph, the boy behind me, gently pats me on the back. Mrs Raynor whispers to Miss Anderson. Jack catches my eye and waves goodbye to me.

‘Is that your dad?' Dory asks.

‘No! He's my stepdad,' I say wearily.

Sally sighs and squeezes my hand again. After Mrs Raynor goes out, Miss Anderson comes up to my desk and squats down beside me so that her face is very close to mine.

‘Chin up, Ella,' she says softly. ‘You're a good brave girl to decide to come to school.'

I didn't do the deciding at all, but I smile in a good brave way.

‘Don't worry if you find it hard to concentrate in lessons.' Miss Anderson is so close I'm breathing in her rosy soap smell, and her long hair lightly brushes the backs of my hands.

‘You tell me if you want anything,' she says, getting to her feet.

I really want a cuddle with Miss Anderson
because she's so soft and warm and gentle, but I'm not an infant, so I nod and smile instead.

The first lesson is maths and we're doing division. I'm a bit rubbish at maths,
especially
division. I write down all the numbers but they stay squiggles on the page. I mutter my way through my times tables, but I can't remember my seven times, so I have no idea how many times they'll go into twenty-eight. Sally obligingly writes ‘4' as an answer, so I copy her. I draw four stick people in the margin – a lady, a man, a girl and a blobby little baby. Then I draw a safe line all round the lady, and sun rays. I put the girl inside the safe line too, joining them together. I give the lady big, wide-open eyes with long lashes.

Miss Anderson walks past and peers at my notebook. ‘It's a maths lesson, Ella, not art,' she says quietly, but she doesn't tell me off!

Sally has worked her way through a whole page of long division now, but I can't be bothered to copy her any more. I sit and sigh and yawn because this division is a very l-o-n-g lesson, but at last it's over and play time.

I usually just hang out with Sally: we swap snacks and play drawing games and giggle together. Jack forgot to give me a little box of juice and my mini pack of raisins, but it doesn't matter.
Sally hands me half her Twix bar, Dory gives me a handful of crisps, Martha offers me a bite of her apple, Joseph gives me a carrot stick, and I get sweets and orange slices and peanuts and a quarter of a Marmite sandwich from people who aren't even my friends.

I stand in a great cluster of children, Sally's arm round me because she's my best friend.

‘Tell us about your mum then, Ella!'

So I tell them about the hospital with the special room, and the nurses and the doctors and Mum's tubes and her closed eyes. My heart's thumping as I speak because I feel this might be a bad thing to do. It's as if I'm taking them all into hospital with me to gawp at Mum, to peer in her face and poke her still body. I try to stop, but my mouth keeps on saying stuff. I start crying, but no one sneers and calls me a baby. They pat me and hug me and offer me paper hankies.

I'm treated in this special way all day long. I can't help wallowing in the attention. When one of the dinner ladies at lunch time tells me to hurry up because I can't choose whether I want spaghetti or fish and chips, a whole chorus of voices defends me.

‘You mustn't pick on Ella, miss!'

‘Ella's mum's dangerously ill in hospital.'

‘Ella can't think straight because she's so worried about her mum.'

‘We've all got to be kind to Ella, miss.'

The dinner lady looks really sorry and upset, and gives me spaghetti
and
fish and chips. I only pick at them, still not really hungry, but I feel proud she let me have a heaped plate.

I think about Mum, who hasn't eaten for days and days. They drip liquid food into her tubes. She can't even suck from a bottle like Samson.

I don't like to think of him all lonely in the nursery with no mummy to cuddle him. It's horrible for me but perhaps it's even worse for him. I wonder if he'll think of her soft chest and cry to be lying there again. Maybe he'll struggle up in his cot, slide down to the floor and toddle along on his bandy little legs, looking for her, wailing, ‘Mama, mama, mama.'

I wonder when babies can really walk, really talk. I wonder what he'll be
like
, this little brother of mine. Will he stay fair like me and keep his blue eyes? Will he like all the things
I
used to like? Will he love spaghetti, especially if he can suck each strand up into his mouth? Will he like those big fat wax crayons? Will he cut pictures out of magazines with little plastic scissors? Will he watch
Charlie and Lola
on the television? Will he love Thomas
the Tank Engine? Will he like to cuddle up in bed with a teddy guarding him on either side?

I think of this future fantasy brother and I want to rush to the hospital to start looking after him right this minute.

But he's Jack's little boy, not Dad's. I imagine a little Jack, showing off, telling silly jokes, picking his nose, doing daft monkey imitations. No, I don't want a baby brother like that. He'd be far worse than Sally's brother, Benjy.

I leave nearly all my spaghetti and fish and chips. I want to go off somewhere secret with Sally, but half the class are still hanging around with us. Dory and Martha even trail with us to the toilets. I sit in the cubicle and have a little private cry. I try to do it very quietly, but I must have made a sniffing sound because Sally's hand comes under the partition from next door. I bend down and cling to her hand for comfort.

Then the bell goes and I've still got the rest of afternoon school to get through. It's science, and Miss Anderson starts talking about food chains.

‘From the tiniest shrimp to the biggest whale, all living things play roles in the food chain,' she says.

I draw a tiny shrimp on the back of my rough-book. It's hunched up and wrinkled, a bit like
Samson. Then I draw an enormous mouth and huge teeth. It's open wide, ready to gobble up the shrimp. The rest of the class are writing but I keep on drawing great pointy teeth. Then Sally gives me a nudge. Miss Anderson is walking towards me. I freeze. She's already told me once.

She shakes her head. ‘You're meant to be taking notes, Ella,' she says quietly. ‘What's that you're drawing?'

‘It's a tiny shrimp, Miss Anderson. And the biggest whale.' I give a little nod. ‘I
was
listening.'

‘Mm. All right, what kind of a whale is it?'

What kind?

‘It's a very big one.'

‘There are many different kinds of whales, Ella. Seventy-seven different kinds. There are eleven baleen whales. What are baleen plates, everyone? Come on, I've just told you. Joseph?'

‘They're instead of teeth, Miss Anderson,' says Joseph. ‘They're all frayed like old hairbrushes.'

Joseph nearly always knows the answers to everything. Some of the naughtiest boys groan and mimic his voice.

Miss Anderson frowns. ‘Shh, now! Well done, Joseph.'

‘And there are sixty-six toothed whales,' says
Joseph. Sometimes he forgets and gives answers without even being asked.

‘So my whale's a toothed whale,' I say.

‘Ah, he's certainly got lots of teeth,' says Miss Anderson. ‘But as you say, he's very big, with a massive head. That means he's more likely to be a baleen whale. They like to scoop huge mouthfuls of food from the sea and strain it through their baleen.'

‘I eat spaghetti like that, Miss Anderson,' says Toby, laughing.

He's the largest boy in our class. We're not allowed to call him fat, but he is.

‘Now, Ella, I think you'd better settle down and copy from Sally's notes,' says Miss Anderson. ‘Why weren't you taking your own notes, hm?'

‘I like drawing whales, Miss Anderson.'

‘Well, perhaps you can draw me one for homework. You can borrow a book from the book box and copy a picture, making sure all the details are accurate.'

‘Can I draw a whale for homework too, Miss Anderson?' asks Joseph.

‘Of course you can, Joseph,' she says, smiling at him.