Narwhal on a Sunny Night Page 4

  With a word that will glow.

  “I forgot about those lines, too,” said Jack. “What do they mean? What’s the word?”

  “I don’t know. But if it glows, it must be written down somewhere,” said Annie. “Check your notebook.”

  Jack pulled out his notebook, and he and Annie looked at it together.

  “Oh, man. I forgot to take any notes,” said Jack. “What about our Greenland book?” He took out the Greenland book and thumbed through it. “Nothing glowing here.”

  “Wait, what about our message to Leif’s family?” said Annie.

  Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled note. He and Annie looked at it together.

  “Nothing,” said Jack.

  “Hold on!” said Annie. “Look at the letter T!”

  Annie pointed at the letter T near the bottom of their note. The letter seemed a little brighter than the other letters. Then suddenly it glowed like it was on fire. Next to the T, the letter H grew brighter. Then A grew brighter. Then the next letter, N.

  One by one, the letters grew brighter—until T-H-A-N-K-S was all aglow.

  “Thanks!” cried Annie. “That’s the word!”

  “Thanks?” said Jack. “Why thanks?”

  “I’ll explain when we get back,” said Annie. “We can go now.”

  Annie pointed at the picture of Frog Creek again. “I wish we could go there!”

  The wind started to blow.

  “Yay! It worked!” said Jack.

  The tree house started to spin.

  It spun faster and faster.

  Then everything was still.

  Absolutely still.

  Warm air filled the tree house. No time at all had passed in Frog Creek. The sky was dark blue. The first stars were out. Jack and Annie were wearing their summer clothes again.

  “Welcome home,” said Annie.

  Jack sighed with relief. Frog Creek seemed especially nice in the soft twilight. The woods smelled of green trees and green plants.

  “Let’s go,” said Jack. He left Morgan’s rhyme, the Greenland book, and their note for Leif on the floor of the tree house.

  Then he put his notebook into his backpack and headed down the rope ladder. Annie followed.

  As Jack and Annie started through the woods, the air was filled with the sounds of crickets and tree frogs.

  “So, do you get it about thanks?” Annie asked.

  “Uh…sort of, but it seems so ordinary,” said Jack. “People say it all the time and they don’t even think about it.”

  “Exactly!” said Annie. “So, let’s think about it.”

  “Okay…,” said Jack.

  “You say thanks when someone helps you or is nice to you or gives you a gift, right?” said Annie.

  “Yeah,” said Jack.

  “Leif helped us free the narwhal. And we said thanks,” said Annie. “His parents gave us food, and we said thanks. We gave Leif our map, and he said thanks. The narwhal came back and said thanks. And I thanked him for thanking us and for just being amazing.”

  “Got it,” said Jack. “But what does thanks do?”

  Annie took a deep breath. “Okay. This is the important part,” she said. “When the Vikings say thanks to us and we thank them, our world joins with their world. We unite our worlds, like the rhyme said. Two worlds, a thousand years apart, come together.”

  “Whoa. That’s cool,” said Jack.

  Jack and Annie came out of the woods and started down the sidewalk.

  “There’s more,” said Annie. Her eyes were shining. “When the narwhal says thanks, our world joins with his world, a world in the darkest deep sea no one knows much about. But if people really knew how to thank narwhals just for being amazing and how to hear their thanks, it could change everything…like, it might save them if they’re ever in danger….” She sounded close to tears. “Do you get it now?”

  “Yeah…I do actually,” said Jack. “Thanks to you.”

  “No, thanks to you,” said Annie.

  “No, you,” said Jack.

  “You!” said Annie.

  “You, you, you!” said Jack.

  “Thanks to BOTH OF US!” shouted Annie.

  “Come on, we’re late,” said Jack.

  He and Annie ran down their dark street. They crossed their yard. They dashed up the porch steps and banged through the front door.

  “Mom! Dad! We’re home!” shouted Annie.

  “Thanks for everything!” yelled Jack.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Fact:

  Erik the Red was a famous Viking explorer. Around AD 982, he was the first European to discover Greenland.

  Erik’s son Leif Erikson (known as Leif the Lucky) led the first European expedition to the mainland of North America, 500 years before Christopher Columbus.

  Fiction:

  Jack and Annie gave Leif a map to help him get there.

  Studying the Arctic Ocean takes a lot of planning. Some scientists work in stations built right on the ice. They must have snowmobiles, ice drills, and lots of research equipment, as well as food and medicine to last for months.

  Young, Older, Oldest!

  By studying the lens of a narwhal’s eye, researchers can usually tell its age. Based on this, they think that narwhals can live to be ninety or even one hundred years old!

  The color of a narwhal’s skin is another way to guess its age. Young narwhals are pale blue and gray. As they get older, their skin becomes darker and has dark spots on it. As time passes, the spots grow whiter. Old narwhals are totally white. To some people they seem like sea ghosts quietly gliding by.

  Baby whales are called calves

  In 2016, a young narwhal was spotted swimming with a pod of young beluga males in the St. Lawrence River in Canada. No one knows why, but he had strayed about six hundred miles south of his Arctic home.

  Belugas and narwhals are close relatives, and the belugas seemed to have adopted the narwhal into their pod. All the whales were bumping against one another and playing together. The narwhal even started blowing bubbles like his beluga pals! As of 2018, the narwhal was still swimming with the belugas.

  Yang Yun was a young Chinese woman learning to work with whales at an aquarium in Harbin, China. In 2009, she and some other students tried to see how long they could hold their breath underwater.

  There were some beluga whales in the tank with them. The water was twenty feet deep and icy cold. Yun began to have terrible leg cramps. She found it impossible to move her legs and started to sink to the bottom. She knew she was in serious trouble when she couldn’t get any air and began to swallow water and choke.

  Suddenly there was a strong force pushing her up to the surface. It was Mila, one of the belugas! She had Yun’s leg in her mouth! People watching were stunned as Mila pushed Yun up to safety. She was saved by a whale!

  Humpback Whale

  Humpback whales are huge gray animals that weigh up to 80,000 pounds and are forty to fifty feet long. They get their name because they hump their backs up when they dive.

  Humpbacks spend summers at the North and South Poles. Then they head to warmer waters in places like Mexico and Hawaii. They don’t eat all winter and survive on the fat stored in their bodies.

  Humpbacks can go four months without food.

  Humpbacks swim the longest distance of all whales. They cover about 16,000 miles going back and forth between their summer and winter homes. They sing as they swim. Their songs might be heard many miles away!

  Blue Whale

  Blue whales live at the North and South Poles in the summer and in warmer waters in the winter. They are the largest creatures ever to have lived on earth and can be up to 100 feet long and weigh about 300,000 pounds!

  Their heart alone weighs about 1,000 pounds…that’s the s
ize of a small car! And their tongue is as heavy as an elephant! Isn’t it amazing that these animals feed on sea creatures the size of your fingernail?

  Blue whales are one of the loudest animals on the planet. When one makes noise, the sound travels miles through the water. It’s louder than a jet engine!

  WILL OSBORNE

  is the author of many novels, picture books, story collections, and nonfiction books. Her New York Times number one bestselling Magic Tree House series has been translated into numerous languages around the world. Highly recommended by parents and educators everywhere, the series introduces young readers to different cultures and times in history, as well as to the world’s legacy of ancient myth and storytelling. She and her husband, writer Will Osborne (author of Magic Tree House: The Musical), live in northwestern Connecticut with their three dogs. Ms. Osborne is coauthor of the companion Magic Tree House® Fact Trackers with Will and with her sister, Natalie Pope Boyce.

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