Whale Pot Bay (9 page)

When I’d first volunteered to kill the magpies, I’d had visions of sauntering into the house, dumping their bodies on the table and saying, ‘There! They’re dead! What do you want done next?’

I certainly couldn’t do that after Scott ‘Vermin’ Grey had killed them. Dad would know that they’d been shot with something more powerful than an air rifle. So I cut off their feet as evidence that they were dead, and then buried the rest of their bodies. I also sprayed the house with air-freshener to get rid of the cigarette smell.

Only after I’d finished did I realize that I was covering things up. I’m not sure why I did that. Maybe because I didn’t want to admit that someone else had killed the magpies for me. Whatever it was, I didn’t tell anybody that Scatworm had entered the house and stolen information about Pimi. All I told the others was that the magpies were dead, after which I presented Steph with the four feet, so that she would have a keepsake of the event. She was suitably impressed and promised to hang them on her wall, although I don’t think she ever did.

As things turned out, it was just as well I’d kept quiet about Scatworm’s visit or people might have started blaming me for what happened as a consequence.

The first hint of the approaching disaster came with the arrival of the morning’s paper.

screamed the main headline. Then below that:

Calf dies, but mother lives,
thanks to Milton Summer

Alongside was a photo of Pimi in the water with us trying to move her out to sea. The only face clearly visible was Milt’s. It was a good photo, considering that Scatworm must’ve taken it from his hideout which had to be a hundred metres or so away.

The article was accurate enough, even if it did overplay Milt’s role in the rescue. There was nothing on the front page for us to worry about. It was only when we turned to page three, where the story continued, that we began to get concerned.

At first it looked OK. There were two more photos, including a spectacular one with Milt on the tractor beside me. The scoop containing the dead calf covered most of the frame, with Milt and me in the background, looking very upset about what we were doing.

The bad news came at the end of the article. This was a full description on how to locate Pimi: the website to access; the buttons to click; and the ID code to enter. Anyone could now locate and visit Pimi. She was now in danger—and all because she had been touched by a rock star.

While we were discussing the matter and its implications, the telephone rang. It was Milt.

‘Have you seen the paper?’ he roared, loud enough for us all to hear.

‘Yes,’ replied Dad. ‘We were just talking about it.’

‘We’re going out there,’ Milt said. ‘We hope to get close enough for Colin to change the ID number. If we’re quick enough we might get it done before anybody else arrives.’

Dad thought for a moment. ‘Do you think it’s such a good thing for you to go? That might attract more interest than we want. I could take my boat out instead.’

‘No, I’ll take that risk. It’s because of me that she’s in danger, so it’s my job to sort it out.’

‘OK,’ agreed Dad. ‘Do you want a hand?’

‘Yes, that’s what I was calling for. There’s room enough for all of you, if you want to come. We’ll be leaving in quarter of an hour.’

Dad turned to us. ‘Who wants to go on the boat with Milt to see Pimi?’ Of course we all did. ‘They all do, Milt. We’ll see you in quarter of an hour.’ Then he added, ‘You never know, we might be the only boat out there.’ But by then Milt had hung up.

Milt’s boat was a sixteen-metre jet-powered catamaran. It had to be a jet, as they were the only boats that could be launched from Whale Pot Bay because of the sandbanks; any other vessel would get its propellor stuck in the sand. Even with the jets, it needed a special sort of rig to launch it far enough out to float.

On that day, Milt’s caretaker drove the tractor—the rest of us were already on the boat. We got underway just after eleven o’clock. Apart from a moderate southerly swell, the weather was perfect. Dad said that the swell
was probably a good thing, as it would keep the smaller boats ashore. This meant that only boats from Castlepoint or as far away as Wellington would be able to get out to where Pimi was reported to be. More than likely, we would be the first on the scene. A check on the radar showed a couple of boats to the south of us.

As soon as the course was set, Milt turned on the computer system which was one of several screens surrounding the wheel in the steering house.

‘Let’s see if the satellite’s working,’ he said, entering a lengthy username and password. A while later he was logged onto the Internet and accessing the tracking site. Pimi’s path showed as a series of dots heading north along the Hikurangi Trench.

‘She’s feeding,’ said Colin. ‘Run the mouse up the dots, Milt, so we can see the times.’

As the mouse moved from one dot to the next, the time and location popped up on the screen.

‘About forty minutes apart,’ reported Colin. ‘She’s definitely feeding.’

‘Can she hold her breath for forty minutes?’ asked Steph.

‘No,’ replied Colin. ‘She can’t hold air in her lungs or she wouldn’t sink.’

‘Then how does she breathe?’ I asked.

‘She doesn’t need to under the water. She does it all before she dives. Have a look at the figures again.’ He moved the cursor over the last dot. ‘See, she was on the surface for eighteen minutes before diving. During that time she would be breathing almost continuously. She has to get the carbon dioxide out of her muscles, and fill
up with oxygen. Then she’s ready to go again.’

‘What about her baby?’ Steph asked, ‘Does the baby go with her?’

‘No, she hasn’t had the calf yet,’ replied Colin. ‘She wouldn’t go down for forty minutes if she had. For the first couple of months the calf has to stay on the surface. She wouldn’t leave it for long at all.’

‘We’ve got company,’ interrupted Milt, pointing to the radar where two more blips had appeared to the south. There were now five boats zeroing in on Pimi.

‘What’s our ETA?’ asked Dad.

‘Depends where she surfaces,’ replied Milt.

Colin put his finger on the screen. ‘She’ll come up there.’

Milt nodded. ‘Then it’s about twenty minutes.’ He studied the radar for a while. ‘The others will be about twenty-five minutes.’

‘When will she surface?’ asked Vicky.

Again Colin adjusted the cursor on the screen. ‘She dived ten minutes ago.’ He thought for a moment, before adding grimly, ‘Which means she’ll come up in the middle of us.’

‘Surely she’ll see the boats and move away?’ said Dad.

‘Yeah, she’ll sense the boats, using her sonar. She’ll even hear the motors. But after forty minutes below, she won’t have the energy to move far away. If she doesn’t get to the surface quickly and rest, then she could pass out. They’re very weak and vulnerable when they surface from a dive.’

From then on we were silent, with each of us staring
out at the sea. I don’t know about the others, but I wasn’t really seeing much. I was thinking about the other people converging on Pimi. I felt sure that some of them would be journalists, and if they were anything like Scatworm they’d go to any lengths to get the photos they wanted. More than likely Scatworm was one of them. Then I thought of Vermin. Maybe he was there, too. I shuddered. That man was a nut case—anything could go wrong with him around.

As predicted, we were the first on the scene. Colin had fiddled with the computer and now had our position showing as a green dot. It was sitting in exactly the position where Pimi should appear.

Milt climbed onto the upper deck to control the boat from up there, where the view was better. Some of the others joined him, but not me. Now that we had stopped moving, the rolling swell was beginning to make me feel sick. I moved into the driver’s seat and made out I was the captain. Every now and again the controls in front of me would shift as Milt adjusted for the southerly current.

Three minutes passed before the first of the other boats arrived. The captain looked like a wealthy businessman; no doubt trying to impress some of his mates by bringing them out to see Milton Summer’s whale. It was plain they were surprised to find the superstar himself out there, and soon the cameras were out and aimed at us.

The next two boats were similar, although not up to the same standard of luxury. It was the last one
that carried the media contingent. There were five or six reporters and an equal number of photographers, including Scatworm. Surprisingly there were no TV cameras, although there was somebody with a small video camera. At first I couldn’t see clearly, but when he moved out of the shadows I saw the shaven head. It was Vermin. He’d swapped the camouflage kit and rifle for respectable clothes and a camera. Yet he seemed no calmer than before—he looked just as wild as when he was killing magpies.

My observation of the man was broken by a voice from a speaker above my head. ‘Jake, can you turn on the fish-finder?’ asked Milt. ‘We want to try and see Pimi. It’s the box to the left of the computer screen.’

I found it and switched it on.

‘Thank you,’ said Milt, ‘I can adjust it from here, now.’

I watched as the image slowly formed on the screen. There was little to see except a few red dots on a blue-black background.

‘Not much there,’ came Dad’s voice.

‘Probably too deep for most fish,’ added Milt.

‘Scan wider,’ Dad suggested.

The image blanked for a moment, before returning much the same as before. Then right at the edge a red shape appeared.

‘That’s her,’ said Colin.

The other captains must also have been watching their fish-finders, for we heard motors revving up all around us.

‘She’s about four hundred metres to the north,’
said Milt as the throttles in front of me were rammed forward. The boat reared up and sprang into life like a frightened horse. Already three of the other boats were ahead of us.

‘This is madness!’ shouted Colin. ‘They’ll kill her if she rises in front of them.’

I saw the throttle levers ease back, and a moment later the engines calmed and we were slowly cruising through the wake of the other boats.

‘He’s given up,’ said a voice beside me. It was Vicky. ‘There’s nothing he can do to stop them.’

My heart sank. This was not the way I wanted it to be. As long as we were close to the other boats, I felt we had a chance of stopping them doing anything crazy. Now it was out of our control. They could do what they wanted to her and there was nothing we could do except watch the fish-finder and hope.

By then Pimi was closer to the surface, although it was impossible to tell where she was in relation to the boats. Then, suddenly, she changed direction and began to move back towards us.

‘She’s seen them,’ said Vicky, excitedly grabbing hold of my shoulder.

But the other boats must have also seen her, for all of them began to turn around.

We watched anxiously as Pimi’s image got closer to the centre of the screen. Surely she would break the surface at any time.

‘There she is!’ shouted Steph from the deck above.

‘Yes!’ said Vicky, pointing a little to port of where we were heading.

Pimi surfaced with hardly a ripple. Almost immediately a thin wisp of spray issued from the left side of her head. She was breathing again.

The other boats were now heading back towards her. ‘Go around and head them off,’ suggested Dad.

Milt must have agreed: the pitch of the engines increased and the bow lifted as we took off again. However, this time we had the advantage, as we were closer to Pimi. Within seconds we were on the other side, between her and the racing boats.

She was only a few metres from the hull, floating almost lifelessly in the water. There was a steady stream of mist from her breathing hole. While she couldn’t know that we were the people who’d saved her when she’d stranded, I got the feeling that she knew that we meant her no harm.

The same could not be said of the other boats, which were approaching at high speed. Milt throttled back so that we were stopped in the water. Now they would either have to crash into us, or slow down and pull over to one side.

Colin dropped down onto the deck in front of me, holding the remote control. He pointed it towards Pimi and started pressing buttons. ‘Hold it steady, Milt!’ he yelled. ‘It’ll only take a moment.’

‘Those other boats are not slowing,’ Dad warned.

‘And I’m not moving,’ replied Milt, grimly.

I turned and saw that the lead boat was the one carrying Scatworm and Vermin. It was coming straight towards us at full throttle. I was already bracing myself for the impact when, at the last minute, it throttled back
and swerved to one side. After rushing past our bow, it turned in towards Pimi. Fortunately, it was going too fast to turn sharply, and the boat shot past, just a few metres clear of the startled whale.

‘Done it!’ shouted Colin. ‘I just hope she’s got enough energy to dive and get out of here.’

We all stared at the whale, willing her to dive. But she just lay in the water as if frozen with fear. Then a red stain started spreading from her tail end.

Above us, Steph screamed.

‘Oh my God!’ cried Vicky beside me. ‘She’s bleeding. ’

‘Is that blood?’ asked Milt.

‘Yes,’ I said more to myself than anyone. The water surrounding Pimi was quickly turning red-brown.

‘She can’t have been hit,’ said Dad, puzzled. ‘They weren’t close enough.’

‘It was certainly not us,’ said Milton, forcefully. ‘Maybe she was attacked while she was feeding.’

By then the journalists on the other boat had seen the blood and the photographers were shooting rapidly. Vermin was almost falling over the back as he leaned out to video the scene. Scatworm was gesturing to the captain to move the boat in closer. There was a great churning from the stern as the boat went into reverse. Slowly it crept back towards Pimi. The photographers all jostled to get to the side nearest her, tilting the boat perilously.

Then two more boats arrived alongside. As they came to a stop, their wake welled up and hit the journalists’ boat side-on, thrusting the still-churning propeller towards Pimi. There was a thud of contact. Then the boat swayed
dangerously, causing the photographers to scramble to stay on board. I could see the captain struggling with the wheel as he tried to keep an even keel. Finally he managed to change gear and the boat eased slowly forward.