Longest Whale Song

Contents

Cover

About the Book

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

About the Author

Also by Jacqueline Wilson

Read on for Chapter 1 of
Sapphire Battersea

Copyright

Dear Mum,

Oh dear, I know you can't read this but I still need to write to you. There's so much I want to tell you. I've been doing a special project about whales. Did you know that humpback whales can sing? Isn't it amazing to think of all those whales down in the depths of the ocean, singing? Usually the songs are quite short – but one whale was recorded singing non-stop for TWENTY-TWO HOURS! I'd sing for even longer if it would only make you wake up. I'm going to play you some beautiful whale songs when I visit you in hospital. You'll listen, won't you?

Lots and lots and lots of love

Ella xxxxxxxx

For dear June and Georgie and Max,
Gabby, Emma and Joel, and Anna and Georgina

‘
WHY DON'T YOU
come and help me with my breathing, Ella?' says Mum.

I stare at her. ‘You don't need help
breathing
, Mum! You just do it. Like, in and out, in and out!'

‘No, this is special breathing, darling. For when I have the baby.'

I wrinkle my nose. I don't really like it when she talks about the baby. I just want to forget about it. It's getting harder and harder, though, because Mum's e-n-o-r-m-o-u-s. Her tummy sticks out so far she can hardly get her T-shirt over it. I can see her tummy button through the material and it makes me shudder. When I was very, very little, I thought that was how babies were born: you just pressed the button and the tummy opened, and out popped the baby.

I wish they really were born that way. I haven't seen a real baby being born but I've seen actresses pretending on the television. They shout and scream a lot and go bright red in the face.

‘Does having a baby really hurt a lot, Mum?' I ask.

‘Mm, quite a lot,' says Mum. ‘That's why I do the special breathing. It helps control the pain.' She holds out her hand to me. ‘Come and lie on my bed with me and I'll show you.'

I hesitate. I hate going into Mum's bedroom now. It's not just hers. It's Mum-and-Jack's, and I can't stand Jack. But it's Saturday afternoon, and Jack's out at his stupid football so Mum and I can have a bit of peace together. We used to go to Flowerfields
shopping centre or for a walk round Berrisford Park, but Mum's too tired to do anything much now. Imagine wanting to spend a Saturday afternoon
breathing
.

‘Please, Ella,' she says softly.

I sigh and take her hand and go to her bedroom with her, because I love her so much, even though I'm still cross with her for marrying Jack.

I used to love Mum's bedroom back at our old flat. It always smelled beautifully of her scent and her soap and her hair stuff. It looked so pretty too. She had a red lampshade that made the whole room glow rose. She dangled her necklaces on her mirror and hung her prettiest dresses on the door and outside her wardrobe, so that it looked like there were Mums all around the room. She had deep pink velvet curtains right down to the floor. I used to like sitting beside them and stroking them, rubbing them over my nose like a comfort blanket. She had matching pink velvet cushions on her bed and a lovely rose-patterned duvet where we'd cuddle up together.

We hardly ever cuddle up together now because of Jack. This is a horrible, boring blue bedroom and it smells of
him
. Mum doesn't wear her perfume now because she says the smell makes her feel queasy. Well, Jack's lemony aftershave and the
musty smell of his stupid short dressing gown hanging on the door make
me
feel queasy. But I lie down on the bed beside Mum, glad that I'm on
her
side, my head on
her
soft pillow. Mum's huge tummy sticks out ahead of us. It seems to grow a little more every time I look at it. If we lay here for a couple of days, maybe it would bump right up against the ceiling.

‘You're so
big
, Mum,' I say.

‘Don't you think I've noticed!' says Mum, rubbing her tummy. ‘Still, not long now. So let's practise. When the baby starts coming, I have to do slow, steady breathing. Let's do that first.' She breathes slowly in and out, and I copy her, both of us blowing through our lips as if we're cooling giant bowls of soup.

‘It's easy-peasy, isn't it?' says Mum. She chuckles. ‘I think the baby's practising too – feel.'

I reach out gingerly and lay my hand very lightly on top of Mum's tummy. I can feel fluttering underneath, as if the baby is blowing bubbles inside. It's so weird to think it's swimming away in there all the time.

‘Can it hear us?' I whisper.

‘I think so,' says Mum. ‘Why don't you have a little chat?'

I prop myself up on one elbow and put my mouth
close to Mum's tummy. ‘Hello, baby. I'm Ella, your big sister. Well, not your
proper
sister. Your half-sister.'

‘Which half do you want to be, top or bottom?' says Mum. ‘You'll be a
whole
sister, you noodle. The baby's very, very lucky to have the best girl in all the world for a sister.'

If Mum thinks I'm the best girl in all the world, why does she want another child? Why does she want a husband, especially one like Jack? She always said she didn't miss my dad at all – she didn't care that he left us when I was a baby myself. She said she was glad we were just the two of us together. But now there are three, and very, very soon there are going to be four. What if she goes
on
having babies, filling the house with little miniature Jacks, all of them loud and laughing and making rude noises?

‘I do hope the baby's a girl,' I say. ‘Why didn't you ask if it was a boy or a girl when you went to the hospital for that scan thing?'

‘I don't want to know. It'll
spoil the surprise,' says Mum, rubbing her tummy. ‘I don't mind which I have, and you won't either, not when it's born. Now, when the pain gets stronger, you do a different sort of breathing – lots of little pants, like this . . .' She makes funny quick puffing sounds, so I do too.

‘Does panting like this
really
stop it hurting?' I ask.

‘It's supposed to help. Perhaps it just acts as a distraction. Oh well, I'll have Jack there to distract me too.'

‘Why can't
I
come?'

‘Oh, darling, you don't want to be around.'

‘Yes I do!'

‘I don't think the hospital would let you.'

‘I wish you didn't have to go to the hospital, Mum.'

‘I won't be there long, I promise. Jack will drive me there when the baby starts coming, while you stay with Liz. She'll bring you to see me the next day – and then it'll be time for me to come home, right?'

‘Mm. I still can't see why Jack gets to stay with you at the hospital and I can't.'

‘They don't let children hang around when babies are being born, you know that.'

‘The babies themselves are children. The baby will be hanging around.'
For ever
, I add mournfully, inside my head.

Mum gently pinches my nose. ‘Don't be difficult, Ella,' she says.

I suck my lips in tight so that my mouth disappears. She's only started calling me difficult this
past year, since she went to Garton Road and met Jack.
He's
the one who's made everything difficult.

Mum's friend Liz says it was a whirlwind romance. I think that's rubbish. It's stupid and disgusting for grown-up, quite old people like Mum and Jack to start fooling around like teenagers. Especially as they're
teachers
. Not at my school, thank goodness. I would have totally died of embarrassment if Mum and Jack taught at Greenfield Primary. I can just imagine all the rumours and gossip and giggling at Garton Road when Mum and Jack started going out together. What if anyone saw them holding hands along the corridor or kissing in a classroom?

Mum says they always acted perfectly professionally and were very discreet. They certainly
weren't
discreet when Jack started coming round to our flat every wretched weekend. I hated the way they snuggled up together on the sofa. One time I walked into the room and they were kissing in this awful slurpy way.

They must have done more than kissing at some stage, because suddenly Mum started being sick before we went to school in the morning and I got really worried that she had some awful illness. I couldn't
believe
it when she said she was going to have a baby.

Then everything
really
started changing. Mum and Jack decided we all had to live together. I wasn't asked, I was just
told
. Our flat wasn't big enough for three and a bit people, and neither was Jack's, so they sold their flats and bought this house together.

I don't like it one bit. It's miles away from my old home and my best friend, Sally. We used to live just round the corner from each other and could play any time we wanted. Now we have to wait for our mums to arrange things and drive us. It takes ages for Mum to drive me to school and we get caught up in the traffic. I've been late four times this term and I got really told off, and it's not
my
fault. I have to wait an awfully long time for Mum to finish at her school and come and pick me up in the afternoon. I did start going to after-school club, but it felt weird not having Sally with me. There's this girl, Martha, who bosses everyone around and is very mean to you if you don't do exactly what she says. Thank goodness Mum said I didn't have to go to after-school club any more after that first week.