A retelling of a Just So Story By Rudyard Kipling

In the sea, once upon a time, my young friend, there was a whale, and he ate fish. He ate the starfish and the garfish, the crab and the dab, the plaice and the dace, the skate and his mate, the mackerel and the pickerel, and the truly twirly-whirly eel. All the fishes he could find in all the sea he ate with his mouthโ€”so!

At last, there was only one small fish left in all the sea, and he was a small โ€˜Whiz Fish, and he swam a little behind the Whaleโ€™s right ear to be out of harmโ€™s way. Then the Whale stood on his tail and said, โ€˜Iโ€™m hungry.โ€™ And the little Whiz Fish said in a tiny, clever voice, ‘Oh great and kind Whale, have you ever tasted man?โ€™

Whiz Fish swims with the whale in a just so story

โ€˜No,โ€™ said the Whale. โ€˜What is it like?โ€™

โ€˜Nice,โ€™ said the small โ€˜Whiz Fish. โ€˜Nice but rather lumpy-bumpy.โ€™

โ€˜Then fetch me some,โ€™ said the Whale, and he made the sea froth up with his tail.

โ€˜One at a time is enough,โ€™ said the โ€˜Whiz Fish. โ€˜If you swim to latitude Fifty North, longitude Forty West (those are the magic numbers), you will find, standingย onย a raft,ย inย the middle of the sea, with nothing on but a pair of blue canvas breeches,, a pair of suspenders and a jack-knife, one ship-wrecked sailor, who, it is only fair to tell you, is a genius at getting out of trouble.

So the Whale swam and swam to latitude Fifty North, longitude Forty West, as fast as he could swim, and on a raft, in the middle of the sea, with nothing to wear except a pair of blue canvas breeches, a pair of suspenders and a jack-knife, he found one single, solitary shipwrecked sailor, trailing his toes in the water. 

The sailor shipwrecked at sea

Then the Whale opened his mouth back and back and back till it nearly touched his tail, and he swallowed the shipwrecked sailor and the raft he was standing on, and his blue canvas breeches, and the suspendersย andย the jack-knifeโ€”He swallowed them all down into his warm, dark, inside tummy rooms, and then he smacked his lipsโ€”so, and turned round three times on his tail.

The whale swallows the sailor in a just so story

But as soon as the sailor, who was a genius at getting out of trouble, found himself truly inside the Whaleโ€™s warm, dark, inside tummy rooms, he stumped and he jumped and he thumped and he bumped, and he pranced and he danced, and he banged and he clanged, and he hit and he bit, and he leaped and he creeped, and he prowled and he howled, and he hopped and he dropped, and he cried and he sighed, and he crawled and he bawled, and he stepped and he lepped, and he bounced around like he was on a trampoline where he shouldnโ€™t. The Whale started to think that eating the sailor might have been a big mistake. So he said to the โ€˜Whiz Fish, โ€˜This man is very lumpy- bumpy, and besides he is making me hiccough. What shall I do?โ€™

โ€˜Tell him to come out,โ€™ said the โ€˜Whiz Fish.

So the Whale called down his own throat to the shipwrecked Sailor, โ€˜Come out and behave yourself. Iโ€™ve got the hiccoughs.โ€™

โ€˜Nay, nay!โ€™ said the Sailor. โ€˜No way! Not gonna happen,” said the sailor. “Take me back to my home country with its famous white cliffs, and then maybe I’ll consider it.” And he started jumping around even more wildly than ever. โ€˜You had better take him home,โ€™ said the โ€˜Whiz Fish to the Whale.

My bad! Did I  mention this guy is a genius at getting out of trouble.

So the Whale swam and swam and swam, using his flippers and tail as fast as he could, trying to get rid of his hiccups. Finally, he saw the coast of the sailor’s home country with its famous white cliffs. The Whale rushed halfway up the beach and opened his mouth super wide. He shouted, “All passengers for London, Brighton, Dover, and other seaside towns, please exit here!” And just as he finished saying “here,” the clever sailor strolled right out of the Whale’s mouth.

The whale swims to the white cliffs of Dover

But while the Whale had been swimming, the sailor, who was indeed a genius at getting out of trouble, had taken his jack-knife and cut up the raft into a little square grating all running criss-cross. He had tied it firmly with his suspenders and dragged that grating good and tight into the Whaleโ€™s throat, and there it stuck! Then the sailor said a funny little rhyme that went like this:

The sailor escapes from the whale

With this gate in your throat, 
You can’t eat a boat.

The sailor stepped onto the beach, went home to his mom, and lived happily ever after. The Whale did, too, in his own way. But from that day on, the gate stuck in his throat. He couldn’t cough up or swallow it, and it stopped him from eating anything except tiny fish. And that’s why whales today never eat people – not men, women, or children.

The sailor walks away to his home

The clever Whiz Fish, worried the Whale might be mad at him, swam far away and hid in the mud at the bottom of the ocean.

The Whiz Fish hides from the whale

And that’s the end of that story!

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