The Hiccups of a Very Large Whale

At the bottom of a wide blue bay, where the water went soft and green and slow, there lived a whale named Barnaby who was extremely large and extremely polite. He said "excuse me" to jellyfish. He said "good morning" to the crabs. And every day he ate exactly one enormous mouthful of tiny silver fish, which was his very favorite thing.

But on this particular morning, Barnaby ate his mouthful a little too fast.

And then it happened.

The whole bay wobbled. A puff of bubbles shot out of his blowhole and popped at the surface with a tiny, embarrassed ploop.

"Oh dear," said Barnaby. "Excuse me."

This one was bigger. A passing seahorse spun around three times like a tiny wet merry-go-round and had to sit down on a rock to recover.

"I do apologize," said Barnaby.

And the bay went quiet. And the bay went blue. And Barnaby waited to see if the hiccups were finished.

They were not finished.

This time the bubbles came out so fast they made a shape in the water like a wobbly question mark, and a very small crab who had been standing on Barnaby's nose was launched gently upward and landed, unharmed and slightly delighted, in a bed of soft seaweed.

"Wheee," said the crab. "Do that again."

"I would rather not," said Barnaby.

But the hiccups had other plans.

The seahorse, who was feeling better now, swam up and folded his little fins very seriously. "I know exactly how to cure hiccups," he announced. "You must hold your breath and count to ten."

"I am a whale," said Barnaby. "I hold my breath all the time. It is basically my whole job."

"Right," said the seahorse. "New plan."

So the crab said Barnaby should be frightened out of them, and he crept up very slowly and yelled "BOO" in a voice about the size of a raisin. Barnaby, who was the size of a bus and then several more buses, did not hear it at all.

A whole school of silver fish went sailing sideways and rearranged themselves into a slightly different school, looking mildly surprised.

Then an old octopus came drifting over, all eight arms tangled in what he insisted was thinking. "You must drink water upside down," he said.

"I live in water," said Barnaby. "I am always drinking it. Also I am fairly sure I am upside down right now. Or is that up? The hiccups have muddled me."

Three in a row! The bay bounced. The seaweed did a little dance. The crab shouted "AGAIN" with tremendous joy, and this time nobody could tell him not to, because everyone was too busy holding on to something.

And the bay was wobbly. And the bay was warm. And Barnaby began, just a little, to laugh.

Because it was rather funny, wasn't it — a whale so big and so polite, undone entirely by a mouthful of tiny fish. He laughed a low, rumbly, enormous laugh, and the laugh rolled all through the bay like a soft thundery hum, and the seahorse laughed, and the octopus laughed with all eight arms at once, and the crab laughed so hard he fell off his rock, which of course made everyone laugh harder.

And a strange thing happened while they were laughing.

Barnaby forgot to be embarrassed. And Barnaby forgot to worry. And somewhere in the middle of all that warm rumbly laughing, the hiccups quietly slipped away, the way a shy fish slips into shade, and nobody noticed they were gone until they were already gone.

The bay grew still. The little school of silver fish drifted back together. The crab climbed onto Barnaby's nose again and settled down as if it were the very best seat in the whole ocean, which, for a crab, it probably was.

"There," said the octopus softly. "Cured."

"I think," said Barnaby, "it was the laughing all along."

The light through the water had turned to a deep and gentle gold. The seahorse tucked himself into a curl of seaweed. The octopus folded his arms one by one, slow as evening. And Barnaby lay long and warm and enormous along the sandy floor, breathing his slow whale breaths, in and out, in and out, no hiccups anywhere in him at all.

And the bay was quiet. And the bay was blue. And the crab on his nose rose up and down, up and down, riding each slow breath like a small boat on a very kind and very sleepy sea.