The Reunion
The whale leading the watery parade was powerfully propelling her sleek body through the water, her huge tail rising and falling as she scythed up the river. She swam on the surface of the river, resisting her natural instinct to dive under the water. The whale wasn’t about to drown the three friends that she and her fellow whales had just rescued in Effluvia.
The cameraman had only managed to catch a quick shot of the passengers riding on the whale’s back. But, if he had managed to zoom in on them, he would have been able to show the whole world who they were: Chilli, Ty and Oubaas.
“Wahaaaaaaaayyy!” shouted Ty, raising both hands in the air. “We made it, Chilli! We’re in Concordia!”
“We did it, Ty! We did it! We got rid of Morbidius! Wahoooooooo!”
It was almost too good to be true. If it wasn’t for the splash of icy water on his skin, Ty would have thought he was dreaming.
Their rescue from Oblivia had been almost miraculous. Gaia hadn’t let them down. She had kept her word. She had despatched her largest, bravest, gentlest of creatures to rescue them. The whales had plucked Chilli, Ty and Oubaas from amongst the ruins and debris, and taken them away from that place of decay and contamination.
And now Life had come full circle. The three friends were riding on Esperanza’s back as she swam towards Vida, anxious to be reunited with her mother.
“Wow! Look at all the people! There’re must be millions of them!” cried Chilli.
A blonde girl in front of the crowd caught her eye and waved at her. Chilli waved back enthusiastically. Then a few others waved. Someone whistled and shouted something. It was like a contagion was sweeping through the spectators. Waves of shouts of joy, whistles and scenes of jubilation moved up the riverbank as they made their way towards Vida.
“Now this is what I call a welcome!” Ty shouted to Chilli above the roar.
“We...” she turned around to face him and burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Your face!” she shrieked with laughter.
“You mean I look like you?” Ty answered.
“Whaddya mean?” It was Ty’s turn to laugh. Their faces were so smeared with filth from the polluted Effluvian Ocean that even their relatives wouldn’t have recognised them. They looked like two racoons staring at one another. Even Chilli’s bright red hair looked more like a tangle of seaweed.
“Keep steady!” Chilli shouted at Ty. Their laughing fit had nearly toppled them from their slippery seat.
They may have been laughing, but there was still the fear that they may not have been able to save Vida. They were afraid they would reach her only to be confronted with her lifeless body. They hadn’t yet seen what the crowd had witnessed a few moments ago.
The magnificent procession swam sedately up the wide river. Behind them, the dolphins churned up the brown water, making it looked like a chocolate milkshake. A flotilla of ships and boats followed them at a safe distance blowing their horns and hooters in a loud cacophony to welcome Esperanza and her friends. The larger boats were using their fire hoses to spray great arcs of water into the air.
One brave reporter was frantically flailing about in the freezing river. He had asked the skipper of a boat to draw alongside Esperanza. He knew that if he could get a few words from the children, he would be in for a Pulitzer Prize. But the whales had other ideas. A killer whale had slapped the side of his boat with her tail and sent him flying overboard. He bobbed around in his red lifejacket until someone fished him out of the water. He stood on the deck with a blanket wrapped around his shivering body.
“Itt... ittt’sss asss ifff they... th... they d... don’t w... want aaannyonne ccc... close to th... those... the ch... children,” he complained through chattering teeth.
Weee-ooo-weeee-oooo! Esperanza began calling to her mother as she got closer to her. Her whalesong reverberated through her body and was carried through the air and water.
Then came the reply: Weeee-ooo-weee! It was Vida, answering her child.
“Vida’s alive Ty! She’s answering!” Chilli shouted.
“We did it Chilli! We saved Vida!”
Meanwhile on land, Pricess Zoey was frantically threading her way through the throngs of cheering people trying to catch up with Chilli and Ty.
“Excuse me, pardon, please let me through...” Without waiting for her security escort to clear a path through the crowd, she politely elbowed people aside and ran to the railing.
“Hey! You down there!” she screamed. She waved anxiously waved and whistled to get them to notice her.
“Zoey, get down from there! You’re going to fall into the river!” Her grandmother grabbed hold of her granddaughter’s belt and tried to pull her off the railings.
But Zoey refused to listen. “I’ve got to find out who they are!” she insisted, and started running along the river bank. Her bodyguards tore after her. Her Royal Highness had never been as vulnerable as she was at that moment. But Zoey didn’t care; she had to reach the children.
Down on the river, Esperanza caught sight of Vida. Excited to be reunited with her mother, the calf powerfully flicked her tail and came within feet of her mother.
“Look, Vida’s trying to get off the sandbank!” cried Chilli.
“Whoa! Hang on tight Chills!” Ty shouted, almost slipping off Esperanza’s back, “or you’ll get dunked!”
Chilli and Ty clung onto Esperanza’s back as Vida splashed about, making huge swells that made Esperanza bob crazily in the water.
At that moment, Zoey managed to catch up with the children and Esperanza. The princess stood on a bridge crossing the River Novus and watched as Esperanza gently nudged her mother’s snout.
“Heeellooo! Down beloooow!” It was Zoey’s last words before her voice failed her. She tried again, but her voice had almost disappeared from all the shouting. But it had been enough; Chilli had heard her.
Chilli tilted her head back to see who was screaming at them them. She spotted Princess Zoey’s bright blonde hair. “Ty, look! Isn’t that...?” said Chilli. She yanked her friend on his shoulder and pointed up at Zoey.
“Oy, careful, you’ll...” he complained, nearly losing his balance.
“Up there!” Chilli insisted, pointing at the bridge, “it’s Princess Zoey! I recognise her from telly!”
“Huullllooooo!” Chilli and Ty yelled out in reply.
The Princess was hanging as far over the railing as she dared, screaming as loudly as she could. But all she managed was a croaky whisper.
Frustrated that her voice had gone, Zoey pulled one of her astonished bodyguards to join her at the railing. He wasn’t used to members of the royal family treating him like, well, a normal person.
“Please thank those people for me for helping Esperanza and Vida,” she croaked to the bodyguard.
“Uhm... yes, certainly, Your Royal Highness,” the guard answered. He had done some strange things for the royal family at times, but this must rank as the weirdest.
“Huulllooo, down belooooow!” yelled the guard. He was sure this wasn’t mentioned in his employment contract.
“Whaaaat?” Chilli screamed back.
“Her Royal Highness says thaaaaaaaannnks!” the bodyguard yelled.
Chilli gave the Princess a thumbs up in acknowledgement. Then, doubting that she would ever meet the Princess again, Chilli made a snap decision: she would give Zoey the piece of amber her nan had given her!
“I’m going to throw you something!” Chilli screamed. Zoey couldn’t quite hear what Chilli had screamed; she only managed only to catch the words “throw something”.
Chilli fished the piece of amber from her pocket. I hope those softball lessons are going to come in handy, she thought as she took aim. Chilli wound her arm back and flung the amber as hard as she could.
Zoey watched as the fossil flew through the air in a wide arc.
“Catch it!” the Princess croaked at the bodyguard. The guard bent double over the railing and scooped up the amber.
“Got it!” he grunted as the railing cut into his waist. He pulled himself back over the handrail and handed the fossil to the Princess.
“Thank you, Gerald” said Zoey, taking the fossil from him. “Wow! A dragonfly! In amber!”
“Thank yooouuu!” Zoey croaked, waving to Chilli.
But events on the river interrupted the princess and the redhead.
Esperanza began rocking from side to side as she grew impatient for her mother to join her. Ty patted the whale’s smooth skin to try and calm down the excited calf before she tipped them into the river.
“Steadyyyy!” Ty said to the young whale. In front of Ty, poor Oubaas’s teeth were chattering. This was an animal used to the African sun, not the freezing cold of the Northern Hemisphere winters.
Then, spurred on by her daughter and the screaming crowd, Vida gave her tail a massive swish and her great body slid off the sandbank.
The crowd went beserk. Chilli and Ty punched the air with their fists.
“She’s done it! She’s done it!” Chilli screamed. “She’s free!”
The mother whale swam towards her daughter and nuzzled her as if kissing her.
Behind them, the other whales tossed their massive bodies out of the water. They landed in the river with huge splashes that soaked some spectators to the skin. Joy too, it seems, is not the sole preserve of the human race.
“Hey, watch it!” laughed Ty out loud as Vida’s enormous body brushed up against Esperanza.
“Hang on tight. Whale love is big love!” laughed Chilli.
Then, as if they had heard a silent command, Vida and Esperanza moved alongside one other. With perfect timing they swam side by side until they were under the bridge.
Zoey watched as they disappeared from sight. She ran to the other side of the bridge and waited for what seemed an eternity. But when the whales swam out the other side the children and the baboon had disappeared! What had happened to them?
They must’ve fallen into the river! thought Zoey, panicking at the thought of them in freezing water. I must get them help!
“Gerald!” she shouted hoarsely to her bodyguard, “the children have vanished! Please ask the coastguard what happened to them!” She figured that the coastguard officers would have had a better view from their boat.
“Yes ma’am!” he answered, and began barking into the microphone in his jacket sleeve. He frowned when he received the reply.
“Your Highness... the coastguard said they... they just vanished into thin air!”
“Vanished?” Zoey asked, incredulous.
“That’s what they’re reporting, yes ma’am.” Even to his ears, it sounded pretty daft.
“Can’t be! Please issue orders for them to launch a search party immediately!” Zoey dreaded they might fish three frozen bodies out of the River Novus.
“Yes ma’am, will do.”
Hidden from sight, Esperanza and Vida had swum to a spot under the middle of the bridge and halted.
“Hey! Why’ve you stopped, Esperanza?” Chilli didn’t know if she was supposed to give the whale a gentle jab with her heels to get her moving again. She had ridden a horse before, but never a whale.
Then the children heard a familiar voice.
“Ahoooy, young people! Permission to come alongside?”
“Admiral Filibuster?” Chilli was astonished to see Admiral Lord Bismarck Filibuster on the poop deck of an ancient boat with three masts under full sail. Standing to attention at the old sailor’s side was Just Nuisance. The huge dog was proudly sporting his naval cap and wearing his drooling grin. Admiral Filibuster’s uniform was much tattier than the last time they had seen him, and there was very little left of his hat. He had been very busy hunting the hunted since they last saw him.
“This, my young landlubbers, is your ticket home. I have been despatched to make your journey comfortable. After your little run in with Morbidius, you must be plum tuckered out. Now, hop on board and let’s get this old bucket sailing southwards. The tide is with us and the wind is at our backs.”
As if she knew what was expected of her, Esperanza swam towards a rope ladder hanging over the edge of the old boat and waited patiently.
“At least we’ll miss the crush at the aiport” grinned Chilli. She leaned forward and gave Esperanza a kiss. “Look after one another and stay safe,” she whispered.
“Come along gel! The tide’s about to turn,” ordered the Admiral.
One by one, Chilli, Ty and then Oubaas hauled themselves up the rope ladder and clambered aboard the old vessel.
“Cut that out!” laughed Chilli as Nuisance greeted his old friends with a hello slobber. But they didn’t mind. Not even Oubaas. They were finally going home.
Weee-oooo-weee-ooo sang Vida and Esperanza as a goodbye to their human friends. Then the whales swung their huge bodies around to face the open sea and freedom. Ahead of them, the escort of whales and dolphins turned to face the river’s mouth, then dived beneath the waters of the Novus.
Vida and Esperanza however, remained on the surface. They swam sedately side by side as a victory lap for the spectators; a whale’s thank you to those who had helped keep hope alive.
The crowd silently watched as Vida and Esperanza reached the river mouth and then dove under the Boreal Ocean. It was finally over. The whales were free again.
Zoey watched as their huge tails disappeared, leaving the smallest of ripples on the ocean’s surface. “Goodbye,” she whispered.
The whales were safe, but what about Esperanza’s passengers? Her heart leaped as she thought of the missing children.
“Any news from the coastguard?” the princess asked her bodyguard.
“No ma’am. Nothing yet I’m afraid,” he replied.
“Thank you, Gerald. Please let me know as soon as you get any news. But right now, there’s something I’ve got to do.”
Bzzzzzzz. Click. Gronk. The P.A. system crackled into life. The crowd turned to see Princess Zoey on the podium. Behind her, the giant screen relayed the empty spot on the river where Vida had lain. There was an odd sense of bleakness now that Vida had gone.
“Hi everyone. I’m back again!” Zoey croaked. “I told you guys I meant business” she continued, relieved to see that the spectators were smiling back at her. “It’s brilliant that Vida and Esperanza have survived. But we have to listen to what Vida was trying to tell us. It’s time we opened our eyes to the way animals are treated. It doesn’t matter if it’s whales, rhino or elephants; or even cats and dogs! I’m talking about all animals! We must be their custodians, not their keepers. Starting now! Granny,” she turned to face the Queen, “are you coming with me?” The old lady nodded and smiled. She’ll make a fine queen one day she thought, taking her granddaughter’s hand in hers.
“Are you coming with me?” Zoey shouted at the crowd.
“I’m coming with you!” a young voice yelled. “Me too!” “Count me in!” More and more voices joined in until it became a roar.
“Good! I think we have something we have to tell the Prime Minister. And this time he will listen. It’s time that politicians listened to us instead of the other way around. Let’s go!”
The Princess stepped off the platform and headed towards the Halls of Governance, her grandmother at her side. Behind them, the crowd of over three million strong joined hands and followed her. They would not be quiet any more. The silent majority was about to become the vocal majority.