Free Call of the Whales by Siobhan Parkinson Page A

like a currach nosing in to a harbour wall. On the third impact, Henry’s outstretched arm brushed mine, and on the fourth attempt, he took a flying, floundering leap and landed in the umiaq like a huge, thrashing fish. The boat rocked dangerously with the impact, and hit off the ice floe several times, but I steadied it by bracing my feet against the sides, and gradually it settled on the water.
    Henry scrambled off the floor and, keeping his body bent to prevent overturning the boat, he managed to sit down.
    ‘Hey, Henry!’
    He looked smaller than himself, and his body was shaking, shaking, his face white and thin.
    ‘Hey, Tyke!’ he said, his voice wobbly and small. He looked as if he was trying to smile, but he couldn’t manage it.
    He leaned over the side of the boat then and projected a stream of vomit out over the sea.
    I stared at him, listening helplessly to his retching. It was only when I saw him getting sick that I realised howclose he’d been to death, how scared he must have been. I started to feel scared myself, then – up to then I’d felt only panic and unnamed terror, but now it was real, logical, believable fear, fear of death, fear of drowning, fear of never seeing my dad again. Mum, I thought suddenly. Oh, Mum! I felt bile rise in own throat. I swallowed hard and looked away, determined not to join Henry in getting sick. Somebody had to keep upright, and it would have to be me.
    Henry turned to me then, still half-hanging over the side of the boat, vomit-streaked snot hanging from his nose, and I could feel the shaking of his body rocking the boat.
    ‘Here,’ I said, and I threw a hanky at him. ‘Wipe up.’
    He wiped his streaming face with the handkerchief and then he held it out to me.
    ‘Yuck!’ I said, and pulled away from it.
    ‘Oh, sorry,’ he said with half a smile.
    He trailed the hanky in the water, wrung it out and wiped his face with it again. He bunched the wet hanky up then and threw it in the bottom of the boat.
    ‘That’s better,’ Henry said, and picked up a paddle.
    ‘You OK?’ I asked.
    ‘I’ll live,’ he said and leant over the side of the boat to help me manoeuvre it away from the ice floe. We paddled furiously, but without co-ordination, and so instead of moving the boat away from the island, we rammed it back against the edge of the ice with double-force, and, with a sickening scrunch, the prow of the boat wedged itself into a crevice in the ice and we were stuck fast.
    Henry pushed against the ice with his paddle, but the boat wouldn’t budge. I leant over and we both pushed andheaved with all our might, but we didn’t have much strength left between us, and the umiaq had embedded itself in the ice. It wouldn’t give an inch.
    ‘What’ll we do?’ I wailed. My teeth were chattering now, with fear as much as cold, and my body was shaking from the efforts I was making to shift the boat.
    ‘One of us is going to have to get off the umiaq and back onto the ice floe,’ said Henry, ‘and use the paddle to lever the boat away from the ice.’
    ‘Not me,’ I said quickly. I knew my own limits. I’d probably slip, I’d probably fall into the water, I’d probably die. I knew what a spill into the arctic waters could do. I could feel the pain of the freezing water gripping my limbs without so much as a splash getting on my skin.
    ‘Me then,’ said Henry.
    I stared at him, and he stared back. I couldn’t see how he was going to muster either the strength or the courage to get back off the boat, having just made it aboard. I’d have cowered in the boat and refused to move.
    ‘But it’s moving!’ My voice was thin and high with anxiety. I couldn’t believe this was happening to us, that my dad and Henry’s dad were less than a quarter of a mile away and here we were going to be lost at sea.
    ‘Yup,’ said Henry, his eyes scrunched up in concentration. ‘Still, that’s the only way we can get the umiaq loose. Otherwise we’re going to drift off