Free The Sound of Whales by Kerr Thomson

under his duvet and looked out of the window, down towards the harbour. It made no difference that he was grounded; Ben was gone. The Moby Dick had sailed some time in the early morning. It had been gone when Fraser first looked, just after his mother had woken him to say that she and his brother were catching the early ferry to Skye to buy Dunny’s school uniform. They would be away all morning but Fraser was not to leave the house if he valued his life.
    He turned from the window and noticed something lying on his pillow. It was a shell. Dunny! It was annoying enough that Dunny came into his room when he wasn’t there. Now his brother was coming into his room when he was .
    It was a razor shell, long and thin and shiny white with speckles of blue. Inside, like a pearl, was a small lump of dull glass. As Fraser picked up the shell the glass tried to sparkle in the sunlight. He took the shell to Dunny’s room and tossed it through the door.
    He returned to his room and lay back on his bed, in no rush for breakfast, or a wash, or clothes. He pictured the orcas again, the sleek black of their bodies hidden in the darkness of the ocean, the white parts shining in the moonlight, their high fins silhouetted against the horizon, circling slowly, his brother smiling at the water’s edge, like lord of the whales  . . .
    A loud knock on the front door woke him from his doze. The sun still streamed through the window but it had moved across the bed, no longer on his face, the world spinning on its axis. The knock came again and he hauled himself to his feet and pulled on a pair of jeans and the same T-shirt he had worn yesterday. As he was going downstairs there was a third knock, an anxious, something-is-wrong knock. He hoped it was Ben, hoped the scientist had somehow heard about the orcas and wanted to know more.
    Fraser pulled open the door and saw Hayley Risso. Her face was white and her bottom lip trembled.
    â€˜Come quickly,’ she said.
    â€˜I’m grounded.’
    â€˜Put on your shoes on and come quickly!’
    â€˜I’m not supposed to leave the house.’
    â€˜You have to come.’
    â€˜But what if I’m caught?’
    â€˜When this gets out, all that won’t matter.’
    â€˜When what gets out?’
    â€˜Just come.’
    Hayley moved back down the path, heading towards the harbour. She didn’t look behind her, confident, it seemed, he would follow. Fraser had to walk fast to catch up.
    â€˜Where’s your mum?’ he asked breathlessly.
    â€˜Gone to that big island, can’t remember its name.’
    â€˜Skye?’
    â€˜Yeah, that’s it.’
    â€˜Why she’s gone there?’
    â€˜No idea. She said she would be back on the afternoon ferry.’
    Past the harbour, Hayley jumped down on to the beach and headed in the direction of the cliffs. Fraser wondered how many times he had walked this piece of sand in the last couple of days, wondered if he was walking in his own footprints.
    The ocean was still and blue, the sand sparkled, but ahead lay a large, dark object.
    â€˜Oh, God,’ Fraser said, his heart sinking. ‘Another whale.’
    Not an orca, he prayed. Another pilot whale, a dolphin, a baby sperm whale, even. Just not one of the orcas from the night before. They had been too special, too magical, to now be washed ashore, dead and decaying.
    He moved towards it slowly, searching for a fin or a tail fluke, heard Hayley behind him say, ‘No, Fraser.’
    He stood above it now, frowned slightly as his brain slowly made sense of what his eyes already knew.
    That wasn’t a fin, that was an arm. That was no tail fluke, that was a leg.
    Fraser staggered back, fell on to the sand and tried to push himself backwards, clawing hopelessly at the beach that slid through his fingers.
    It was a body, a human body. Just lying there on the beach of Skulavaig, on a warm July morning, with the ocean calm and not a soul to