Beluga by A. B. Lord. (little readers txt) 📕

window overlooking London. She was laying on her back. She was aware of voices.


“I think you need to just lie down, baby. It’s not been your day today. I think that panic attack shook you up and then you had a reaction to your meds for some reason. Maybe just rest. Go to sleep. I’ll check on you later. Nite nite, now.”


Hello? Can you hear me?


Can you hear any of us?


I’m not sure she can hear you.


We didn’t mean to startle you, Catherine...


“Yeah I can still hear you.”


“No darling, I’m saying go to sleep. You’re delirious. Shut your eyes and sleep for a bit.”


Sorry, we’ll come back at a better time for you. Goodbye, Catherine.


Bye darlin’.


“What?”


“Nite nite, sleep.”


Kate let the delirium take over and her heavy lids fell shut. She didn’t understand what was going on but decided to take Camilla’s advice and just sleep.


Chapter 8. Lucky enough to see the Northern Lights.

His gigantic hand engulfed hers, weathered and rough from his times at sea, as they walked along the short promenade.


“There’s something I want to show you, Catherine. Something very special.”


She was a little girl again.


Maybe four or five, and tiny. She wore her little navy duffle coat and black patent shoes. Her Dad, her hero, the strongest man in the world and the most magical person she had ever known, was leading her along the banks of the Forth in Edinburgh. It was winter and the rain lashed at them both.


They reached the railing that over looked the murky forth. The railings were dark grey and blue, mottled with rust and the assault of continuous sea water, smashing against them in harsher storms.


He picked her up and pointed out to sea.


“Do you see him, darling?”


She followed her Dads finger out to sea. Nothing. All she could see was endless greys, and blue; the horizon blurring sea and sky. But then... what was that? Something was in the water.


“Look! There he is!”


She saw him. A white lump rising in the water, then sliding back in, like a giant white eel. His back arched as he went down, then moments later he came back up. He floated on his side, showing her his fins.


She looked at her Dad astonished.


“What’s that, Daddy?”


“That’s a whale, sweetheart. When your old here Dad here went out to sea, he saw loads of them. I wanted you to see one too.”


“Please tell me about the sea again.”


“Oh I went everywhere in the Baltics. I was five miles inside the arctic circle once, and I saw them all; all those arctic animals. I saw belugas and narwhals and even a moose. Yeah, I saw everything. The arctic is the most peaceful place on earth. There’s nobody else there. That’s where I saw the Northern Lights.”


“The Northern Lights?”


“They are big sheets of electricity that run through the night sky, Catherine. They are blues, and pinks and blues. Very few people ever get to see them, but I was very lucky. I’m a very lucky person, darlin’. Maybe one day you will be very lucky too.”


She watched. The white whale continued to bob. Occasionally she saw his big bulbous face and his endearing smile. He looked as though he was deep in thought.


“He shouldn’t really be here. He got lost. He’s a Beluga and he belongs in much colder waters than these here Scottish ones. He’ll find his way back home though, don’t you worry. Never you worry, my girl. We’ll all be ok in the end. ”


Kate went to look up at her Dad, confused by his words, but he was gone.


Then the mood changed.


Where was her Dad? She was standing on the promenade on her own now. She looked around frantically, then caught sight of the ground around her. Gone was they greys of the concrete, and in its places blankets of snow, all pure white and sparkling around her. The rain had stopped too. Now snowflakes came instead, to join in bed with the blankets of snow.


She looked down at her feet and saw her little girls black patent shoes were gone. In their place, brown velvet heeled shoes with little almond shaped toes. They had a beautiful block heel of bright sunshine yellow to them. She saw them standing in the snow as little specs of snow rested on them, darkening the velvet from chocolate to a dark, eternal dark brown. Then she looked at her arms. They were bare. Her coat was gone. Instead she wore a beautiful evening dress of darkest navy blue, with a thin gold ribbon running horizontally around it in big swooshing and swirling circles, all the way down to the hem, where her black mesh petticoat poked out.


If she had thought of the most beautiful dress in the world, it would still have only come second to this.


Petticoats. Petticoats were for women, not little girls. And then she beheld her true form in its entirety, standing in the white snow. She had become a woman standing in this very spot, transformed by the magic in the snow. Her skin had lost its puppy fat and in its place, toned porcelain coloured skin, covering her everywhere. She felt the cold on her skin around her shoulders and collar bone, which were bare.


She looked out to the sea, in the depths of the snow storm, and then she saw it.


A boat.


A small Fishermans boat, nothing fancy. And on the starboard, a man. Her Dad. He was far away, but she could see him and she knew he was smiling. She saw it so clearly in her head. He was waving. In the trail of the boat, an unmistakable bobbing of a white creature, following him out of the Forth, out to sea.


And then, the booming. It came up from the ocean floor of every ocean to have ever existed, like a deep sonar which didn’t ring through her ears but vibrated through her very body and spirit.


Music and song came to her from the depths of the sea.


I see trees of green...


Red roses too...


I see them bloom,


For me and for you...


And I think to myself...


What a wonderful world.


The sea was singing for her.


Her Dad continued to wave from the starboard as his boat floated towards the horizon.


And then, without her mouth even opening, she spoke. It came from her like a giant travelling light, reaching her Dad. His blue aura lit up brightly as he received her message.


Where are you going, Dad?


Oh just over the horizon, petal. I’m here, just over the horizon... I belong at sea, love.


Everywhere went white, not with snow, but with love. All around her the world glowed so brightly, she lost sights of her Dad, of the boat, of the sea and the Beluga whale, of her own feet standing in the blizzards of the snow – it all disappeared in to a white so pure, she had to close her eyes against its brightness.


Kate stirred in her bed then slowly opened her eyes. And just like that the dream was over. She lay in complete silence absorbing her dream, the way you dream something so real, it affects you for days afterwards, and you tell anyone who will listen, about the very real dream you had. She glanced over at the alarm clock on the side of the room. 3:05am. She’d been asleep for most of the night and even some of the morning. To her other side, she sensed Camilla; she’d obviously come to bed too.


Sliding her feet out of her bed and on to cold laminate floor, Kate sat up and slipped out of bed. She padded through to the living room and put on a light. She sat mesmerised on the sofa. She felt she could cry. But that would be silly, it was only a dream.


She remembered the events of the previous night and how she’d felt as though she was hallucinating looking at pictures of the sea in an article about Scrimshaw in National Geographic magazine. She really wasn’t well. She needed a holiday.


Svalbard, Catherine. It is time to go to Svalbard...


She reached in to the coffee table and pulled out the first holiday brochure she could find.


“Svalbard – natura dominatur”, it read. Kate had read about Svalbard in the past and knew natura dominatur roughly translated as “the power of nature.” A big white polar bear lay on its back gazing back at her, inviting her. Its expression said, come see me, and my friends. The front cover sparkled in its shiny gloss, the snow enticing her with its depth.


She reclined back on the giant red sofa and began to read the brochure. First thing when Camilla was awake, they would book a trip to Svalbard. She needed a break from London.


Frank sat beside her on the sofa, smiling. A tear ran down his face. It was finally time.

Chapter 9. Wonderful World