The Mystery of the Kidnapped Whale - Marc Brandel [1]
“Sounds reasonable,” Pete Crenshaw admitted. “They’d be harder to spot that way. What do you think, Jupe?”
But the First Investigator, Jupiter Jones, didn’t seem to be listening to him. He was not even looking out to sea, where another gray whale had surfaced and was spouting its fountain of water into the air. His eyes were on the deserted cove below them. There had been a heavy storm the week before and the sand was littered with driftwood, odd pieces of plastic, and mounds of seaweed that had washed up in the heavy seas.
“I think I see something moving,” Jupe said in a worried voice. “Come on.”
Bracing his stocky legs, he slid down the cliff path to the beach and hurried off at an angle toward the water’s edge. Pete and Bob followed him.
The tide was halfway out. The three boys jogged along for several minutes before Jupiter stopped, panting slightly, and pointed at something a few yards out at sea.
“It’s a whale!” Pete said.
Jupiter nodded. “A stranded whale. Or it will be stranded in a moment if we don’t help it.”
The Three Investigators quickly took off their sneakers and socks. Leaving them on the dry sand, they rolled up their jeans and waded out into the ocean.
It was a very small whale, only about seven feet long. A baby one, Bob guessed, that had strayed away from its mother and been swept inshore by the heavy rollers.
The slope of the beach was so gradual that by the time the three boys reached the struggling creature, the water was still only just above their ankles. This was lucky for them because it was a chilly morning and the ocean was freezing. But the very shallowness of the water was what had prevented the whale from getting back out to sea.
The Three Investigators pushed and tugged at the whale. They even tried to lift it. It was amazingly heavy for its size – it must weigh a ton, Jupe thought – and its firmly packed body was as slippery as ice. There was nothing they could hold on to either, except its tail or its flippers, and the boys were afraid that if they pulled too hard on them they might hurt the little whale.
It did not seem frightened of them in the least. It appeared to understand at once that they were trying to help it. As the boys gathered around the whale, straining to heave it afloat from the sandy bottom, it looked at them in a friendly, encouraging way.
And then, as Bob leaned over, trying to get his arms around it, he noticed something about this whale, about the blowhole on top of its head. Remembering what he had read about gray whales in the library, he realized that he might be wrong in thinking this was a calf that had strayed away from its mother.
He was going to tell Jupe and Pete about his discovery, but at that moment a particularly heavy roller broke only a few yards out at sea. The three boys were swept off their feet. By the time they were all standing upright again, the water had receded. It scarcely covered their toes now, and the little whale, swept in by the breaker, was lying high and dry on the sand.
“Oh, rats,” Pete said. “It’s really stranded now. And the tide’s still going out.”
Bob nodded gloomily. “It’ll be over six hours before the water’s high enough again to float the whale off the beach.”
“Can a whale survive that long on dry land?” Pete asked him.
“Afraid not. They dehydrate pretty fast out of the water. Their skin gets all dried up.” Bob leaned down and gently patted the whale’s round head. He felt so sorry for it. “Unless we can find some way of getting it back into the ocean at once, it’s done for.”
As though it had understood what he said, the whale opened its eyes wide for a moment. It looked at him sadly, resignedly, Bob thought. Then its eyes became slits and slowly closed.
“Get it back into the ocean?” Pete asked. “How? We couldn’t even move it when it was half floating out there.”
Bob knew he was right. He looked at Jupe. It struck him that the First Investigator hadn’t said anything for a long time. That wasn’t like Jupe. He was usually the first one to come up with a suggestion