Chapter Forty-Nine
I say goodbye to Francesca that night, alone in my bedroom, reciting the lines of the familiar story.
“Once upon a time, there was a girl named Francesca and a whale named Francesca. Francesca the girl lived by the sea, and the best thing about living by the sea was the whales.
“Francesca loved the whales that fed in the waters by her home on the Bay of Fundy. She waited all year for them to arrive. She waited for winter to turn into spring. She waited for spring to crawl closer to summer, because that’s when the first of the whales would come.
Enormous finbacks and marvelous minkes appeared with the harbor porpoises.
Soon, the white-sided dolphins and the humpbacks sailed in.
By the time school was out, almost all the whales were there.
Pilot whales and sei whales, and—if she was very lucky—belugas, blues, sperms, and even orcas.
Francesca loved all the whales, but there was one whale she loved most of all: a North Atlantic right whale who was also named Francesca.
“It was the funniest thing to share her name with a whale, but Francesca didn’t mind.
Because Francesca was a very special girl, and Francesca was a very special whale.
Every morning, the girl would rush from her bed and look out her window onto the bay, and her whale would greet her by leaping from the water and landing with a tremendous splash.
“The girl ate her breakfast very fast, then ran to the shore with her flippers and mask. And together, the girl and the whale went on great adventures.
“They raced the flounders and sturgeons, and swam with the loggerhead and leatherback turtles. They searched for krill and plankton so the whale could grow strong. They explored the horse mussel reefs and the cold-water corals, marveling at the anemones and sea squirts. When the girl got tired, the whale would carry her on her back. When the girl was sad, the whale would call upon the seals, who would bark and chirp and show off for the girl and always made her laugh. When it was time for the girl to go home for dinner, the whale said goodbye with a wave of her tail. And every night, both the girl and the whale would go to sleep, happy and ready for whatever great adventure tomorrow held.”
I whisper the whole story into the dark, and then I say, “Good night, Francesca.”