"Wake up Tim!" James, higher up the neck, prodded him with his toe. James and Marina, perched one above the other, still didn't look sleepy at all! Marina was pointing.   Far off a great ship was traveling, a line of lights strung brightly on all her decks, people were dancing, and some were even in a swimming pool.  It was a cruise ship, like the ones Tim had seen on TV.

The children watched in dismay as racing clouds filled the sky and the seas below grew dark green with white on their peaks and purple valleys of shadow between them. The giant waves were lashing the air with foam, higher and higher. The dragons began to climb higher as well to get above the violent winds and driving rain, and then higher still. Soon they looked down on the most remarkable sight you can imagine. A great mass of clouds like a creamy white river coiled below them, in an enormous slow circle that looked peaceful and lazy from high above.

The prince went down on his knees to them. "Oh, holy ones, the waters are rising. As the daily tides come and go, they grow higher and higher with each season. Little by little our precious island is disappearing into the waves..."

"Yes, but look," Marina pointed more insistently to the far corner of the cafeteria where a fat little man in a black jacket sat at a table. He had fallen asleep with his face pillowed right in the middle of his spaghetti noodles. He looked as happy as someone sleeping on a down pillow, although tomato sauce had trickled into his ears, and bubbled around his nose when he breathed.

"Yes, I AM the king of the whales," the whale answered, again without words, “but you can call me Horace.” And he seemed to beam up at them, though whales of course, do not smile exactly. He looked very nice though, somehow. His blue grey skin curved back in a long graceful arc some 90 feet long, bigger by far than any of the other whales. His great flukes, gently poling the water at his sides to hold him in position, were longer than a grown-up person.  Other whales had begun to surface nearby, all eyeing this amazing sight of their king talking with human children.

It was like a movie theater when someone pauses the projector. Every person on every boat stopped whatever he or she was doing. Every person gazed down at the sight below with open-mouthed wonder. Whales with children on their backs?  Impossible. Blue whales in Antarctica with children on their backs? They must be having a mass hallucination! The adults looked until it seemed their eyes must come out of their heads. Some even forgot to breath and several sailors on both ships fainted dead away.