Read Online Longest Whale Song by Jacqueline Wilson - Free Book Online

baby. They pat me and hug me and offer me paper hankies.
    I’m treated in this special way all day long. I can’t help wallowing in the attention. When one of the dinner ladies at lunch time tells me to hurry up because I can’t choose whether I want spaghetti or fish and chips, a whole chorus of voices defends me.
    â€˜You mustn’t pick on Ella, miss!’
    â€˜Ella’s mum’s dangerously ill in hospital.’
    â€˜Ella can’t think straight because she’s so worried about her mum.’
    â€˜We’ve all got to be kind to Ella, miss.’
    The dinner lady looks really sorry and upset, and gives me spaghetti
and
fish and chips. I only pick at them, still not really hungry, but I feel proud she let me have a heaped plate.
    I think about Mum, who hasn’t eaten for days and days. They drip liquid food into her tubes. She can’t even suck from a bottle like Samson.
    I don’t like to think of him all lonely in the nursery with no mummy to cuddle him. It’s horrible for me but perhaps it’s even worse for him. I wonder if he’ll think of her soft chest and cry to be lying there again. Maybe he’ll struggle up in his cot, slide down to the floor and toddle along on his bandy little legs, looking for her, wailing, ‘Mama, mama, mama.’
    I wonder when babies can really walk, really talk. I wonder what he’ll be
like
, this little brother of mine. Will he stay fair like me and keep his blue eyes? Will he like all the things
I
used to like? Will he love spaghetti, especially if he can suck each strand up into his mouth? Will he like those big fat wax crayons? Will he cut pictures out of magazines with little plastic scissors? Will he watch
Charlie and Lola
on the television? Will he love Thomasthe Tank Engine? Will he like to cuddle up in bed with a teddy guarding him on either side?
    I think of this future fantasy brother and I want to rush to the hospital to start looking after him right this minute.
    But he’s Jack’s little boy, not Dad’s. I imagine a little Jack, showing off, telling silly jokes, picking his nose, doing daft monkey imitations. No, I don’t want a baby brother like that. He’d be far worse than Sally’s brother, Benjy.
    I leave nearly all my spaghetti and fish and chips. I want to go off somewhere secret with Sally, but half the class are still hanging around with us. Dory and Martha even trail with us to the toilets. I sit in the cubicle and have a little private cry. I try to do it very quietly, but I must have made a sniffing sound because Sally’s hand comes under the partition from next door. I bend down and cling to her hand for comfort.
    Then the bell goes and I’ve still got the rest of afternoon school to get through. It’s science, and Miss Anderson starts talking about food chains.
    â€˜From the tiniest shrimp to the biggest whale, all living things play roles in the food chain,’ she says.
    I draw a tiny shrimp on the back of my rough-book. It’s hunched up and wrinkled, a bit likeSamson. Then I draw an enormous mouth and huge teeth. It’s open wide, ready to gobble up the shrimp. The rest of the class are writing but I keep on drawing great pointy teeth. Then Sally gives me a nudge. Miss Anderson is walking towards me. I freeze. She’s already told me once.
    She shakes her head. ‘You’re meant to be taking notes, Ella,’ she says quietly. ‘What’s that you’re drawing?’
    â€˜It’s a tiny shrimp, Miss Anderson. And the biggest whale.’ I give a little nod. ‘I
was
listening.’
    â€˜Mm. All right, what kind of a whale is it?’
    What kind?
    â€˜It’s a very big one.’
    â€˜There are many different kinds of whales, Ella. Seventy-seven different kinds. There are eleven baleen whales. What are baleen plates, everyone? Come on, I’ve just told you. Joseph?’
    â€˜They’re instead of teeth, Miss