Марк Брендел - The Mystery of the Kidnapped Whale

Hullo out there. This is Hector Sebastian —

I was going to say this is Hector Sebastian speaking. But I’m not speaking. I’m writing this on my new word processor. That’s a computer with a typewriter keyboard and a memory to store what I write.

I’m a mystery writer by profession. I used to be a private detective. But that seems a long time ago now, and the case you’re going to read — at least I hope you’re going to read it — has nothing, or almost nothing, to do with me.

It’s a case that involved some young friends of mine, The Three Investigators, as they call themselves. So the best thing I can do is tell you about them first.

The Three Investigators are boys who live in Rocky Beach, a small city on the coast of southern California not far from Hollywood.

Jupiter Jones is the leader of the group. He is short and he probably thinks of himself as stocky. If you wanted to be unkind, you could say he was stout. You could even say he was fat. He has a keen deductive mind and a dogged determination to get to the bottom of anything that puzzles him. He also has a lot more self-confidence than I did at his age. Some people might even find him a little too sure of himself, but I’m fond of Jupe, as his friends call him, so I’ll just say that if he often believes he’s right about something — well, he often is.

Pete Crenshaw, the Second Investigator, is the most athletic of the three. He likes baseball and swimming and he keeps in good shape, which gives him a healthy appetite. He enjoys working on the Three Investigators’ cases, but he is much more cautious than Jupe about getting into dangerous situations.

Bob Andrews, the Third Investigator, is in charge of records and research. He is intelligent and studious and sensitive to other people’s feelings. He is also a born reporter. He carries a notebook around with him all the time and writes down everything that the Investigators learn.

So, now that I’ve introduced the boys to you, I’ll leave you to find out for yourselves how they solved the mystery of the kidnapped whale.

I hope you’ll enjoy it and that you won’t find it difficult to read. Reading, after all, is much easier than writing, even with a word processor.

You can lie down while you’re reading.

And, as the King of Hearts says in Alice in Wonderland , all you have to do is to start at the beginning and go on until you come to the end, then stop.

“There she blows!” Bob Andrews shouted. “Look. Over there.”

He pointed excitedly out to sea. Sure enough, three or four miles offshore a huge oblong shape had surfaced for a minute. A plume of water rose from its back, spurting out like a fountain in every direction. Then the great gray whale plunged back into the ocean.

The Three Investigators — Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw, and Bob — were standing on the cliffs above the beach. It was the first day of the spring school break. They had gotten up early that morning and cycled down to the ocean in the hope of seeing the gray whales pass.

Every year, in February and March, thousands of these huge creatures migrate down the Pacific coast from Alaska to Mexico. In the warm lagoons off the tip of the Mexican peninsula called Baja California, the female whales give birth to their calves.

Then the whales rest for a few weeks, recovering their strength, before beginning the five-thousand-mile journey back north to spend the summer feeding on the tiny shrimp and plankton that swarm in the Arctic waters.

“No one seems to know for sure how they get back up north,” Bob said.

Bob Andrews worked part-time in the library in Rocky Beach, the small coastal city where the Three Investigators lived, and he had spent the day before reading up on the whales.

“Why not?” Pete asked.

“No one has been able to track them,” Bob explained, glancing at his notebook. “On the way down they all stick together, and they’re easy to see. So some people think they must split up on the way back, just traveling in couples way out in the Pacific.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Pete Crenshaw admitted. “They’d be harder to spot that way. What do you think, Jupe?”

But the First Investigator, Jupiter Jones, didn’t seem to be listening to him. He was not even looking out to sea, where another gray whale had surfaced and was spouting its fountain of water into the air. His eyes were on the deserted cove below them. There had been a heavy storm the week before and the sand was littered with driftwood, odd pieces of plastic, and mounds of seaweed that had washed up in the heavy seas.

“I think I see something moving,” Jupe said in a worried voice. “Come on.”

Bracing his stocky legs, he slid down the cliff path to the beach and hurried off at an angle toward the water’s edge. Pete and Bob followed him.

The tide was halfway out. The three boys jogged along for several minutes before Jupiter stopped, panting slightly, and pointed at something a few yards out at sea.

“It’s a whale!” Pete said.

Jupiter nodded. “A stranded whale. Or it will be stranded in a moment if we don’t help it.”

The Three Investigators quickly took off their sneakers and socks. Leaving them on the dry sand, they rolled up their jeans and waded out into the ocean.

It was a very small whale, only about seven feet long. A baby one, Bob guessed, that had strayed away from its mother and been swept inshore by the heavy rollers.

The slope of the beach was so gradual that by the time the three boys reached the struggling creature, the water was still only just above their ankles. This was lucky for them because it was a chilly morning and the ocean was freezing. But the very shallowness of the water was what had prevented the whale from getting back out to sea.

The Three Investigators pushed and tugged at the whale. They even tried to lift it. It was amazingly heavy for its size — it must weigh a ton, Jupe thought — and its firmly packed body was as slippery as ice. There was nothing they could hold on to either, except its tail or its flippers, and the boys were afraid that if they pulled too hard on them they might hurt the little whale.

It did not seem frightened of them in the least. It appeared to understand at once that they were trying to help it. As the boys gathered around the whale, straining to heave it afloat from the sandy bottom, it looked at them in a friendly, encouraging way.

And then, as Bob leaned over, trying to get his arms around it, he noticed something about this whale, about the blowhole on top of its head. Remembering what he had read about gray whales in the library, he realized that he might be wrong in thinking this was a calf that had strayed away from its mother.

He was going to tell Jupe and Pete about his discovery, but at that moment a particularly heavy roller broke only a few yards out at sea. The three boys were swept off their feet. By the time they were all standing upright again, the water had receded. It scarcely covered their toes now, and the little whale, swept in by the breaker, was lying high and dry on the sand.

“Oh, rats,” Pete said. “It’s really stranded now. And the tide’s still going out.”

Bob nodded gloomily. “It’ll be over six hours before the water’s high enough again to float the whale off the beach.”

“Can a whale survive that long on dry land?” Pete asked him.