SARAH AND THE WHALE
by Jack Pledge
Sarah was a little girl but if you asked her, she would say she was a big girl. "I'm four," she would say, holding up four fingers (or sometimes five, or sometimes three). She lived in a lovely little house by the sea, and although her mother complained about the sand always blowing in, and her father about the dampness in the winter time, and her brother Davie, that there was nothing to do (Davie was nine and he knew everything!), Sarah loved it.
She liked to get up in the morning before anyone else, dress herself (which she was very good at), make her breakfast (which she was not so good at), brush her teeth (which she was not very good at all) and go down to the beach alone, but she never went near the water!
One morning, after doing all these things, she came running back to the house calling, "Daddy, daddy!"
"Don't slam the door," her mother said as she slammed the door.
"Daddy, daddy!" she yelled running through the kitchen and up the stairs.
"Don't wake daddy up!" her mother shouted after her. "This is his only morning to sleep, he'll be very cranky with you!" But what Sarah had seen on the beach was far too important for anyone but her daddy. Besides, she knew that daddy loved her and if he did get cranky, he wouldn't stay that way. And she had to tell him right away.
"Daddy, daddy'." she said. "There's a big fish, on the beach'"
"Mmmm...? What...?" Her daddy was barely awake. "A fish?" he asked. "What about a fish?"
"It's on the beach, and it's singing, and it's big!"
"How big?"
She stretched her arms out as far as they would go and said, "This big ...no, bigger! As big as our whole house! As big as the whole beach!"
Daddy chuckled. "That big? Well, I'll have to come and have a look after I wake up." He closed his eyes again.
Sarah shook his shoulder. "But, daddy," she said. "It's alive!"
"That's nice, sweetheart ...mmmm..."
"Oh!" she said, and clapped her hands. Davie was at school, so she would just have to tell her mum; at least mummy was awake! A little while later her mother, looking a little pale, woke her daddy. "John, you've got to do something..."
When Sarah's daddy came back from the beach he looked very cross. He talked for a long time on the telephone and he sounded very cross. Then, when he almost stumbled over Sarah, he was cross! ''Will you please try to stay out of the way?" he snapped. Sarah hung her head and said, ''I'm sorry, daddy..."
Daddy quickly knelt down and gave her a cuddle. "No, no, sweetheart, I'm sorry for being cross with you. It's not your fault."
"Are you cross with the fish? "
Daddy looked very sad. "No, I'm not cross with anyone. I'm concerned. You see, it's not a fish, honey, it's a whale, and if we don't help it, it will die."
Soon, some of daddy's friends arrived with trucks and ropes and shovels and tools. Best of all, Grandpa came with his boat. One man had a rifle. Sarah didn't like the man with the rifle.
All morning they worked digging ditches and pulling with ropes and trying to push the whale into the surf with their trucks, but it wouldn't budge. Grandpa walked around with her, telling her what everyone was trying to do. They thought he was too old to work. Finally, daddy came running over to them. "Dad," he said to Grandpa. "Do you think your boat could tow it off the beach?"
