The Tide Knot by Helen Dunmore

Author:Helen Dunmore [Dunmore, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Ages 10 and up
ISBN: 9780061972607
Google: Nm6S3iJXCNsC
Amazon: 0060818557
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2006-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I don’t want to say good-bye to the whale. In her company I feel as safe as if she were my mother. I wish that she would tell another of her ponderous whale jokes, and this time I would make sure to laugh. She’d be pleased about that.

There’s no time left. She slows and halts about fifty meters from the bright surface. I can see her clearly now.

Her skin is wrinkled, almost shriveled looking. I wonder if she is very old. She is like a mountain of protection at my side.

“Leave me now,” she says. “You are safe here. Climb on this current, and it will take you where you want to go. I must rise quickly.” She needs to breathe. She’s probably risen more slowly from the Deep than she should have done, for my sake.

“Good-bye, dear whale. Thank you thousands of times.”

“Good-bye, little barelegs.”

She backs away from me. Slowly, like an air balloon sailing up into the sky, her huge bulk rises with majestic grace to the surface.

“Good-bye, dear whale!” I call after her. I wonder if we’ll ever meet again. I hope we will .

There’s the current she told me to take. A warm, bright, bubbling current. I swim slowly toward it. Every muscle in my body aches with exhaustion. I feel weighed down, as if I still haven’t escaped the pressure of the Deep. I turn into the current, and a warm fountain of bubbles explodes against my skin. I stretch out, and the flow of water buoys me up like a pil ow. Relax, the current whispers; I know where I’m going and I’ll take you there safely. Just relax and trust me. Close your eyes.

And I do. I must be crazy. The last current I trusted turned on me like a tiger and dragged me into the Deep. But what choice have I got? I don’t know where I am. The whale has already disappeared. I wish I’d asked her name. I hope we meet again….

It’s so peaceful. The current rocks me gently as it moves along. There are no monsters here. I can relax. In fact the light is so strong after the dark of the Deep that it stings my eyes. I’ll just close them for a little while….

I slept. You know those warm, delicious sleeps full of dreams that are so wonderful that you never want to wake?

That was the sleep the current gave me. Sleep full of sea colors and sea music. Sleep full of singing voices, so far away that I could only catch a few lines of the song.

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