The Whale That Wouldn’t Leave Harpenden

The first thing I saw on my Harpenden round was a whale trying to reverse through a garden gate.

It was blue, roughly the length of a small car, and wearing an expression I recognised from my own attempts at parking the equipment trolley. Two yellow wellingtons stuck out underneath it.

‘Left a bit,’ called a woman in a cardigan covered with embroidered carrots.

The whale went right and knocked a flowerpot over.

I put down my buckets. All three of them. I’d only needed one, but I like to be ready for developments.

‘Morning,’ I said. ‘Is this a bad time for the windows?’

The woman introduced herself as Mrs Fenella Prowse. The wellingtons belonged to her nephew, Kit, and the whale was called Captain Blubberworth. He was the star attraction of a tiny sea-themed procession planned for their neighbour, Mr Oswin Bell, who was recovering from a knee operation.

‘He used to make scenery for the village plays,’ she explained. ‘He’s been missing everyone. We thought we’d bring a bit of theatre past his window.’

There were six children waiting further along the pavement with paper jellyfish and a crab costume made from two oven gloves. Everything was ready, apart from one small detail.

They had built the whale in the garden.

They had not measured the gate.

I’ve been an apprentice long enough to know that looking at a gap and saying, ‘That’ll probably go,’ isn’t the same as measuring it. Unfortunately, I’ve mostly learnt this by getting things stuck.

We tried turning the whale sideways. Its tail caught in the rose arch. We tried tipping its nose upwards, but Kit couldn’t see anything except cardboard sky.

Then the wind arrived.

Not a dramatic gale. Just a very particular Harpenden gust that seemed personally interested in paper sea creatures. A jellyfish sailed past the gate and wrapped its ribbons round my spare bucket.

Mrs Prowse looked towards Mr Bell’s house. His curtains were open, and there was a little table beside his armchair, set with two mugs.

‘He’s expecting me for tea,’ she said quietly. ‘I told him there might be something to watch.’

That was when Kit ducked out from underneath the whale. Without his shoulders holding it up, the middle sagged, revealing a line of string bows joining the cardboard sections.

‘Does it come apart?’ I asked.

‘For storage,’ said Mrs Prowse.

I looked at the narrow gate, then at the waiting children.

‘What about for swimming?’

We untied the middle and carried the head and tail through separately. Mrs Prowse fetched a length of blue fabric from her sewing basket. We pegged it between the two halves, leaving enough room for the whale to bend. Two older children held the fabric edges like rippling water.

My unnecessary buckets became temporary stands while we fastened everything. I tried not to look too pleased about that.

Captain Blubberworth finally set off along the pavement, bending magnificently round a lamppost.

Mr Bell spotted the crab first. Then the jellyfish bobbed into view, followed by our enormous, slightly wrinkled whale.

His laugh reached us through the open window.

‘A jointed sea monster!’ he called. ‘Now that’s proper stagecraft.’

Mrs Prowse went in to put the kettle on, and the children gathered outside his window while he showed them how to make the whale dip its head for a bow.

I got back to the windows, still grinning. By the time I’d finished, Mr Bell was sketching plans for cardboard seagulls on the back of an envelope.

I carried all three buckets back to the van. For once, every single one had earned its ride.