Read A 52-Hertz Whale for Free Online

things don’t always go perfect. But I still want my players pursuing perfection even if it’s sort of an impossible thing to actually get. I’m sorry I didn’t make that clear in my original letter to the parents.
    Irregardless, I have enjoyed working with Michael so far this season. He has a natural knack for the game, and I believe he will be a great asset as a tight end this season. He sometimes makes costly mental mistakes, but that is part of learning the game and to be expected.
    Thank you for reaching out and expressing your concern,
    Jack Olmstead
    From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: September 27, 2012 at 3:37 PM
Subject: Status Update
    Dear Darren,
    I don’t know what to say about your situation, but I do have a movie suggestion. There’s an awesome documentary, The Whale , about an orca (hate the “killer whale” moniker)—uplifting, friendship and rainbows kind of stuff. Maybe that will help?
    Things here are actually somewhat better. Just when I’d resigned myself to mourning in private (more whale songs on CD, Pop-Tarts in bed, etc.), today on the bus home, my neighbor, Sophia Lucca, sat down next to me. Sophia and I don’t usually talk very much (recall completely awkward phone call), but I went with my parents to her father’s wake last year. In the receiving line, I offered my condolences (only after my mom elbowed me twice) and Sophia threw her arms around me. Her blouse was damp from tears or sweat and I felt her bite down on a funeral home breath mint, she was so close. Curls loosened from her ponytail brushed my cheek. I felt bad for getting giddy about that hug. But a hug? From a girl not related to me? That was my first. Her mascara ruined my best dress shirt. And you know what? I didn’t really care. She was clinging to me like I was going to save her, and for a nanosecond, I wondered if I could. Also, it just so happened that Sophia was unloading her books at her locker on the awful day when Sam and the rest of the soccer team destroyed my Biology diorama and trashed my only picture of Salt.
    But then today, there she was next to me on the bus. Smelling like flowers and licorice and clutching her violin case. She wanted to know if I found Salt. It didn’t occur to me at the time that she was asking about the picture the soccer team dumped in the trash, not the actual humpback whale himself. And so I told her the whole story: tracking the dot, alerting the cetologist, and how my efforts were too little, too late. He was beached. Dead. As I said that last word, she sucked in a breath and I thought about her father, worried I’d said too much. Man, my pulse sounded so hard in my ears, there was no way she couldn’t hear the drumming. But Sophia just said, “It’s hard when you lose someone you love.”
    Now, I don’t know much (okay, anything) about girls, but it occurs to me that what Sophia said to me on the bus today might apply to your situation with Corinne. I won’t offer you any words of sympathy. You obviously cared for Corinne. What was so great about her? I’m not criticizing, believe me. I never even met Salt, and his death is eating away at me. It all just sort of makes me wonder: Is it worth it to like someone so much if there is a chance of ending up alone again anyway?
    Sincerely,
    James Turner
    P.S. Any Netflix recommendations?
    From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: September 27, 2012 at 6:30 PM
Subject: Update
    Hi Stanley:
    Thanks for all of the help while I was out of the office. As expected, it’s a little hard getting back in the swing of things. I never heard from my sister Elsie, even though I sent Dad’s obit to her last known address, this halfway house in New York. Then I get back here and I have an email (one of 143 I received while out of the office) from a teenage kid wanting a full report on the latest loss of a young whale and a