Of Lions and Unicorns

by Michael Morpurgo

  That was when I saw he was drifting closer and closer to the shore again. I was just about to warn him when he must have realised the danger himself, because suddenly his tail began to thrash wildly in the shallows. The birds took off in a great flurry of panic. The whale didn’t stop flailing around till he’d found his way back out into deeper waters, where he dived down and vanished altogether. This time I wasn’t really worried. I knew in my heart that he would come back, that he had much more to tell me. All the same, he was gone a long while before he appeared again, and I was so pleased to see him when at last he did.

  It was the strangest thing, but when he began speaking to me again this time, I found I wasn’t just hearing his words and understanding them. It was as if I could see in my mind everything he was telling me. I was seeing it all happen right there in front of my eyes. He wasn’t just telling me. He was taking me round the world, round his world and showing me.

  He showed me the bottom of the sea, where a coral reef lay dying and littered with rubbish. I saw a sperm whale being winched bleeding out of the sea, a leatherback turtle caught up in vast fishing nets, along with sharks and dolphins. There was an albatross too, hanging there limp and lifeless.

  I saw the ice-cliffs in the Arctic falling away into the sea, and a polar bear roaming the ice, thin and hungry.

  He showed me skies so full of smoke that day had become night, and below them the forests burning. An orang-utan was running for her life along a beach, clutching her infant, the hunters coming after her. I watched as they shot her down, and wrenched the screaming baby out of her arms. And then he showed me people, thousands upon thousands of them in a tented city by the sea, and a skeletal child lying alone and abandoned on the sand. She wasn’t crying, because she was dead.

  “Grandfather said all this killing has to stop. You are killing the sea we live in! You are killing the air we breathe. You are killing the world. Tell a child, Grandfather said. Only the children will put it right. That’s why I came. That’s why I found you. Will you put it right?”

  “But how can I?” I cried.

  “Tell them why I came. Tell them what I said. Tell them they have to change the way they live. And don’t just tell them. Show them. Will you do that?”

  “Yes,” I cried. “I promise!”

  “But do you keep your promises?” he asked.

  “I’ll keep this one,” I told him.

  “That’s all I needed to hear,” he said. “Time for me to go now. I don’t want to get myself beached, do I? I like your town. I like your river. But I’m more at home back in my sea.”

  “But what if you are beached?” I asked. “What if you die?”

  “I’d rather not, of course,” he said. “But like I told you, I had to come. It was important, the most important thing I ever did. I promised I’d do it, didn’t I? Now I’ve done it. The rest is up to you.”

  And away he swam then, blowing loudly as he passed upriver under Battersea Bridge, so that the whole river echoed with the sound of it. There was a final flourish of his tail before he dived. It was like he was waving goodbye, so I waved back. I stayed there watching for a while just in case he came up again. All around me the birds were watching too. But that was the last we saw of him.

  And that’s the end of my story.

  Mrs Fergusson was so delighted to see Michael writing away that she let him go on long after the others had finished. That’s why she let him stay in all through breaktime too. She stayed in the classroom with him because she had some marking to do anyway. Every time she looked up Michael was still beavering away at his story. She’d never seen him so intent on anything, and certainly not on his writing. Until now, he’d always seemed to find writing rather difficult. She was intrigued. She was longing to ask him what he was writing about, but she didn’t want to interrupt him.

  Michael finished just as the bell went and everyone came rushing back into the classroom again, filling the place with noise. When they’d settled down Mrs Fergusson thought she’d try something she hadn’t tried before with this class. She asked if any of them would like to read their story out loud to the rest of the class. It was the last thing Michael wanted. They wouldn’t believe him. They’d laugh at him, he knew they would. So he was very relieved when Elena, who always sat next to him, put up her hand. He was quite happy to sit there and listen to another of Elena’s horsey stories. Elena was mad about horses. It was all she ever wrote about or talked about, all she ever painted too. Mrs Fergusson said it was good, but a bit short, and that perhaps it might be nice if she wrote about something else besides horses once in a while. Michael was looking out of the window, thinking of his whale deep down in the sea with his family all around him. So it caught him completely by surprise when she suddenly turned to him, and said, “Well, Michael, why don’t you read us yours? What’s it about?”

  “A whale, miss,” Michael replied.

  She was coming over to his table. She was picking up his book. “A whale? That sounds really interesting,” she said. “Goodness gracious. You’ve written pages and pages, Michael. You’ve never written this much before, have you? Would you like to read it for us?” Michael shook his head, which didn’t surprise Mrs Fergusson at all. Michael was never one to volunteer himself for anything. “Your handwriting’s a bit squiggly, but I think I can read it.” She leafed through the pages. “Yes, I’m sure I can. Shall I read it out for you? You don’t mind, do you, Michael?” Then she spoke to the whole class. “Would you like to hear Michael’s whale story, children?” And they all did, so there was nothing Michael could do to stop her.

  He had to sit there and listen like everyone else. He wanted to put his hands over his ears. He didn’t dare to look up. He didn’t want to have to see all those mocking smiles. To begin with, Mrs Fergusson read it like she always did, in her teachery voice, as if it was just a story. Then gradually, her whole tone seemed to change, and she was reading it as if she was inside the story and down by the river, as if she was seeing it all, hearing it all, feeling it all, as if she was longing to know what was going to happen. Michael dared to look around him now. No one was laughing. No one was even smiling. The longer the story went on, the more Mrs Fergusson’s voice trembled, and the more silent the class became. When she’d finished she stood there for a long while, so moved she was unable to speak. But Michael was still waiting for the first sound of laughter, dreading it. Then, all of a sudden, Elena started clapping beside him, and moments later they were all clapping, including Mrs Fergusson who was smiling at him through her tears.

  “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. I want you to write it down just as it happened, children, just as you remember it.’ That’s what you told us.

  “And I couldn’t think of anything else to write about except my whale. So that’s what I wrote about. It was very long, the longest story and the most important story I’ve ever written. That’s because I didn’t want to leave anything out. I don’t usually like writing stories, I’m no good at them. Can’t get started, can’t find a good ending. But this time it was like it was writing itself almost. All I had to do was to let it flow on to the page, down from my head, along my arm, through my fingers. Sometimes, though, it was really hard to concentrate, because I kept thinking about my whale, hoping and hoping he was out in the open sea by now, with his family again, safe again. The more I hoped it, the more I believed it, and the more I believed it the more I wanted to tell his story. That’s why I stayed in all through breaktime to get it finished. It was raining anyway, so I didn’t really mind.”

  When he’d finished there was a long silence.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Jamie sneered.

  “That’ll be quite enough of that, Jamie,” Mrs Fergusson snapped, clapping her hands for silence. She could see now how upset Michael was becoming. “All right, Michael, all right. We’ll say no more about it for the moment. Now children, what I want is for you to illustrate the story you’ve just written. Like that poem poster on the wall above the bookshelf – the tiger one, over there. I read it to you last week, remember? ‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright’. I told you, didn’t I? The poet illustrated it himself. And that’s what I want you to do.”

  Through blinding tears Michael drew his bottle-nose whale, with the birds all around, the heron and the ducks and the cormorants, and the snowy white egret watching from the buoy. Then he drew himself, crouching down by the river’s edge, with the sun coming up over London, all just as he’d seen it that morning. He had almost finished when, very surreptitiously, and making sure Mrs Fergusson wasn’t looking, Elena slipped him a folded piece of paper. Michael opened it and read it. “Liar, liar, pants on fire.” Elena was shaking her head and pointing at Jamie Bolshaw, who was making a face at him. That was the moment Michael lost it. He scrunched up the paper, got up, walked across the classroom and hurled it at Jamie’s grinning face. “I’m not a liar,” he screamed at him. “I’m not, I’m not!”

  Mrs Fergusson put Jamie in one corner and Michael in another. They hadn’t been there five minutes before Mr Jenner, the Headteacher, came in. Much to Michael’s surprise and relief he didn’t seem even to notice him standing there in the corner. He was pulling on his hat and coat. He was clearly going somewhere, and in an almighty hurry too. “Mrs Fergusson,” he was saying. “I want your class to stop whatever it is that they’re doing right now. I want them to get their coats on and assemble at once in the playground. And hurry please.”

  “Why? What’s going on?” Mrs Fergusson asked. “Is it a fire drill?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. You’re not going to believe this,” Mr Jenner said, “but apparently there’s a huge great whale in the river, right here, right now, just down the road from us. It’s true. Not every day a whale comes to town, is it? It’s on the telly. But we can see it for real. So I thought we’d all go and take a look. Quick as you can, please, else he could be gone before we get there, and we don’t want that, do we?” And then he was gone.

  Everyone was gaping at Michael. For some time after Mr Jenner had left, no one said a word, not even Mrs Fergusson. But in spite of the look of utter amazement on Jamie Bolshaw’s face, Michael could not for one moment enjoy his triumph. All he could think of was that his whale hadn’t made it to the sea, that he must still be floundering in the river, still there, and trapped. He knew only too well what that might mean. He had to be there, now. He was out of the classroom, across the playground already full of excited children being herded into lines, and on his way down to the river before anyone could stop him.

  By the time Michael arrived, there were crowds everywhere, hundreds of them lining the river on both sides, and all along Battersea Bridge too. He pushed through the crowds and hoisted himself up on to the wall so he could see over. There were police down on the shoreline keeping everyone back behind the wall. From the moment he saw the whale Michael could see he was in serious trouble. He was wallowing helpless in the shallows, at the mercy of the tide, unwilling or unable to move.

  Standing next to Michael was a building worker in a yellow hard-hat and muddy boots. He was screaming down his mobile hone. “It’s huge! Humungous, I’m telling you. Looks more like a bleeding shark to me. And he’s going to get himself well and truly stuck in the mud if he’s not careful, and that’ll be his lot. Yeah, just below Battersea Bridge. I’ve got my yellow hat on, you can’t miss me. I’ll look out for you. No, he’ll still be here. He’s not going anywhere, poor blighter. And don’t forget to bring the camcorder, right? This won’t happen again. Once in a lifetime this.”

  There were half a dozen people around the whale, a couple of divers amongst them, trying to encourage him back into the water, but Michael could see it was no use. Without him the whale seemed to have lost all will to live. He was trying to decide what he could do, how he could get to the whale without being stopped by the police, when he found Mr Jenner beside him and Mrs Fergusson too, both breathless.

  “You shouldn’t have gone running off like that, Michael,” said Mrs Fergusson. “You had us worried sick.”

  “He needs me,” Michael told her. “I’ve got to go to him.”

  “You leave it to the experts,” said Mr Jenner. “Come on over with the other children now. We’ve got a great view where we are.”

  “I don’t want a great view,” Michael shouted. “Don’t you understand? I have to save him.”

  Michael didn’t think twice after that. He climbed over the wall and raced along the shore towards the whale, dodging the police as he went. When Mr Jenner tried to call him back, Mrs Fergusson put her hand on his arm. “Best leave him be,” she told him. “It’s his whale. I’ll go after him.”

  By the time the police managed to catch up with Michael, Mrs Fergusson was there to explain everything. They took some persuading, but in the end they said they could make an exception just this once, provided she stayed with him all the time, and provided both of them wore lifejackets, and didn’t interfere.

  So, along with several others, Michael and Mrs Fergusson were there when the tide began to rise, and at last the whale began to float free of the mud. Michael stayed as close to his head as he could get, and talked to him all the while to reassure him. “You’ll be all right now,” he said. “There’s lots of us here, and we all want to help you. You’ll swim out of here just like your grandfather did. All you have to do is swim. You must swim. You’ve got your whole family waiting for you out there. Do it for them. Do it for me.”

  They walked knee high wit
h the whale out into the river, one of the divers swimming alongside him the whole time. Michael could see how hard the whale was trying. He was trying all he could, but he was so weak. Then, to the rapturous cheers of everyone around the whale seemed suddenly to find strength enough to move his tail, and he managed to swim away from the shore, blowing hard as he went. They watched him turning slowly out in the middle of the river. And when everyone saw he was swimming the right way, another huge cheer went up. But Michael just wished they’d keep quiet. He sensed that all this noise must be bewildering and disorientating for him. But when the whale swam away under the bridge back towards the sea, even Michael joined in the cheering.

  Like everyone else, when the whale dived down and disappeared, Michael thought he would be all right now, that he was well and truly on his way, that he’d make it this time for sure. But for some reason, by the time the whale surfaced again, he had turned and was coming back towards them. Within no time at all he had drifted back into the shallows, and despite all they tried to do to stop him, he had beached himself again.