*+A+Whale+of+a+Tale

By: Mrs. Clark Evans

I **jump** out of bed and run to the window because there is some kind of strange loud noise outside. My **home** is next to a canal and sometimes I hear the whistle of a ferry boat or a tug boat chugging and pushing a large barge across the mile wide waterway. But this sound was different - deeper and more sonorous, like some kind of cry for help.

From my second floor window I could see the source of the frightening sound. A fifty foot blue whale surfacing in the middle of the canal. I couldn't believe my own eyes! Not having a camera I grabbed the nearest **pen** and began writing this. Who would ever believe a whale could make its way up the Hudson Bay Canal, but it did. And this proves it. Thomas D'Amore / U.S. Coast Guard via AP