This Morning I Met a Whale by Morpurgo Michael

Author:Morpurgo, Michael [Morpurgo, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781406362596
Publisher: Walker Books
Published: 2014-10-15T16:00:00+00:00

“An amazing story, Michael, the best I’ve read in a long, long time – and certainly the best you’ve ever written. Quite wonderful,” she said. “Only one thing I would say, Michael,” she went on. “It doesn’t really matter of course, but if you remember, Michael, I did tell you it had to be a true story, about something that really happened.”

“It is true, Miss,” Michael told her. “It all happened, just like I said. Honest.”

That’s when Jamie Bolshaw started sniggering and snorting. It spread all around the classroom until everyone was laughing out loud at him. It didn’t stop until Mrs Fergusson shouted at everyone to be quiet.

“You do understand what ‘true’ means, Michael, don’t you?” she said. “It means not made up. If it is true, as you say it is, then that means that right now, just down the road, there’s a bottle-nose whale swimming about in the river. And it means you actually met him, that he actually talked to you.”

“Yes, Miss. He did, Miss,” Michael said. “And I did meet him, this morning, early. Promise. About half past five, or six. And he did talk to me. I heard his voice and it was real. I wasn’t making it up. But he’s not there any more, Miss, because he’s gone back out to sea, like I said. It’s true, all of it. I promise you, Miss. It was just like I wrote it.” And when Jamie Bolshaw started tittering again, Michael felt tears coming into his eyes. Try as he did, he couldn’t hold them back, nor could he hold back the flood of words. He so wanted to make them believe him.

“It’s true, Miss, really true. When it was all over I ran all the way back home. Mum was already having her breakfast. She told me I was late, that I’d better hurry or I’d be late for school. I told her why I was late. I told her all about the whale, the whole thing. She just said it was a good story, but that she didn’t have time for stories just now, and would I please sit down and eat my breakfast. I said it was all true, every word of it. I crossed my heart and hoped to die. But she didn’t believe me. So I gave up in the end and just ate my breakfast like she said.

“And when I got to school I didn’t dare tell anyone, because I thought that if Mum didn’t believe me, then no one else would. They’d just laugh at me, or call me a liar. I thought it would be best to keep quiet about it. And that’s what I would have done. But you said we all had to write about something that had really happened to us. It could be funny or sad, exciting or frightening, whatever we wanted, you said, but it had to be true, really true. ‘No fantasy, no science fiction, and none of your shock-horror stories, Jamie Bolshaw, none of that dripping blood stuff.

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