This is part 4 in the series Mike & Alex, a rabbit and a wild boar, who have grown very big because the farmer allowed them to eat the leftovers of sow Sophie. In this way, they become the leaders in the Animal Forest and lead the actions against animal-unfriendly acts by people. They do the same in book 2, traveling through Western Europe. In book three, the Dol-Phin family picks them up in Normandy. To go to Wally the Whale. He escaped the whalers but with a very painful harpoon in his back. They take them out. Then they will probably offer Wally a trip around the world with him as a thank you. Then we are in book 4. Daafrin masks Mike and Alex a plan to teach the whalers at the South Pole a lesson. That succeeds, and then the tuna come asking if they also plan to clean up all the human waste in the seas. That plan comes, and the junk is delivered to the people at the doorstep of their existence. The blanks for books 5 and 6 are ready.
This is part 4 in the series Mike & Alex, a rabbit and a wild boar, who have grown very big because the farmer allowed them to eat the leftovers of sow Sophie. In this way, they become the leaders in the Animal Forest and lead the actions against animal-unfriendly acts by people. They do the same in book 2, traveling through Western Europe. In book three, the Dol-Phin family picks them up in Normandy. To go to Wally the Whale. He escaped the whalers but with a very painful harpoon in his back. They take them out. Then they will probably offer Wally a trip around the world with him as a thank you. Then we are in book 4. Daafrin masks Mike and Alex a plan to teach the whalers at the South Pole a lesson. That succeeds, and then the tuna come asking if they also plan to clean up all the human waste in the seas. That plan comes, and the junk is delivered to the people at the doorstep of their existence. The blanks for books 5 and 6 are ready.
Chapter 7
Women's talk amongst the lady octopuses
Slowly, Wally swam to where the octopuses were busy sewing the nets. As he got closer, he heard more and more sounds from the depths. He turned on his translator. There, he heard the most beautiful female speaking:
“Too bad Mien can't join in, huh? She's so many weeks pregnant that she almost has to release her eggs now—”
“Say, have you heard that there are magnificent sea anemones near those rocks? You can use them to make such an attractive color and smell on your head; you'll probably asked out by a boy.”
“You must like the boy; he must be a good lad.”
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“Say, do you have trouble keeping your girls under control? They hardly listen to my husband and me.”
“Ah, neighbor, give them an extra jar of make-up and point out those colorful anemone fields—”
“Have you been to Pierre's new restaurant? It has such delicious mussel soup!”
Suddenly, the deep voice of a male octopus interrupted: “Don't you girls have to work?
At this moment, a young octopus with a beautiful soprano voice began to sing
'A-straight and an a-reverse,
a-straight and an a-reverse,
an a-reverse'“
The male quickly retreated. The women smiled.
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Wally struggled to stifle his laughter. But they were on to him. “Whale upstairs, watch out, girls!” he heard.
“I'm the whale with the land animals who decided you ladies should sew these nets together,” Wally said.
“Oh girls, this whale is good people; we need not be afraid. Say up there, you sure are curious, aren't you?” the leader of the octopuses called out.
“Indeed, ma'am, I want to bring good news to Mike and Alex. They are sleeping right now. Mike has had an operation on his eye because our president wants to see what kind of garbage they have taken out of the whales' stomachs.”
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…it’s really cozy among the ladies, Octopus…
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“You mean all that junk the two-leggers throw into the sea. That's terrible, huh? We talked about that when we were sewing. It's so good that you guys are going to clean that up. We are happy to help.“
Mrs. Octopus was eager to continue chatting, but Wally wanted to know how long they would take.
“Oh boy, how long it will take, I can't tell you. And to be honest, I don't mind too much, you know. It's nice here with all the other lady octopuses...”
“Mrs. Octopus, our president, Mike, and Alex would like the whales and tuna to start cleaning the sea as soon as possible. For that, we need these nets. If you are not ready, then we cannot clean,” Wally called out with desperation.
“Carmen, you know what,” chimed a very
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different voice, “We have three big nets to sew. One is ready now, and we're about half done with the second one. Surely we can give you the first net now?”
“That's a great idea!” exclaimed Wally enthusiastically. “It’s true, we can't use all the nets simultaneously. Each net is intended for a different piece of the ocean because we want to return the nets with the trash to the two-legger litterers.”
“Don't the two-leggers live in the sea? I've never seen them,” echoed one of octopus women.
“We all live in the world. You and I live in the big water, the sea, the ocean. But there is also land. We can’t live up there, but the two-leggers and land animals can. The two-legged creatures make a real mess. Of course, they should do something about it on their land, but
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they find throwing it into the sea much easier. And we are the victims. I have two land animals with me now. They have already done a lot on land for the animals bothered by two-leggers. They also removed a dreadful arrow from my back. And they also devised the plan to punish the whalers...”
Underwater, the octopus women yelled loudly. “Say whale, can I see those land animals just once? I won't do anything to them, you know,” asked the leader of the octopus women.
“Mrs. Octopus, there are two ways to see them. First, you have to swim into my mouth. In my mouth, you must keep to the right; otherwise, you will go into my stomach. Then you will enter my belly. Then I'll ask Mike and Alex to speak to you, and you can see them.”
“Isn't it dark in your belly?”
“No way, I have many light spirits here;
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Mike and Alex can see inside me very well, too. The second option is to look into my left eye. Then you can see Mike and Alex in the sitting room. But Mrs. Octopus, Mike is sleeping now. Father and son Ray operated on his eye to give him a camera eye. But first, the cloth has to be removed from his eye, and he still has to be taught to use his new eye by Father Ray. I'll return in two days. Is that okay?”
Of course, that was all right. Wally's visit was a delightful change for the Octopus women's sewing group. What fun they had had with Wally. It had given them much to gossip about!
~* ~* ~* ~
Mike was tired from all the work of cleaning the whales' stomachs. But all the thinking and talking to the fish had also been tiring. In addition, the eye surgery had also
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taken its toll. With the help of the Narwie, he had fallen asleep. He slept so soundly that he didn't notice that father and son Ray had taken his eye, modified it, and put it back in. Mike was in a deep slumber; he’d slept for over a day now.
It was dusk. In the bedroom inside Wally's belly, Mike couldn't see much. He felt that his friend Alex was also in bed. Thank goodness he was not alone! But how strange, he could only see with one eye! He felt carefully at the other. There, he felt the bandage. 'Oh dear, yes! Father and son Ray have operated on his eye!' Mike decided to lie quietly. But he was too awake for that now. He got up and found the sitting room near Wally's eye. He looked out through the whale’s eye. Outside, it was dark, though the moon and stars provided a little light. It was clear that Wally was floating on the surface of the sea. He would be asleep by now,
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too. Mike saw a dish of seaweed on the small table. He smelled it. Yummy!
‘So, just a little treat to fill my stomach and then just a bit more sleep until it gets light,’ Mike thought as he nibbled the tasty seaweed. Then he realized. “Oh, this isn't the Narwie! Yes, it certainly is; it tastes just like. Oh, soon to bed, for I shall fall asleep in a trice.”
Mike was right. He had eaten a slice of Narwie and fell into a deep sleep as soon as he lay on his cozy bed.
The sun woke Wally. He immediately recognized where he had drifted and swam calmly back to the appointed spot near the Philippine island. Alex woke next. He went to the sitting room and smelled the dish of seaweed. “Hmm, something’s not right,” he thought aloud. “Too sweet, that can't be a good sign.”
Father and son Ray had also been
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awakened by the sun. In the strange surroundings, they felt a little uneasy. Too bad they hadn't slept in Wally's mouth this time. They hid until they saw Wally pass by, and they signaled to the whale. There was no answer. What’s more, their signal was picked up by a bunch of disobedient and hungry orcas. Father shushed his son: Be quiet! They waited. The seconds felt like hours. Fortunately, the hungry orcas passed by without noticing them. Now it was time to remove the seaweed from Mike's eye and teach him how to take photographs with it.
After some hesitation, son Ray sent out a message: “ Whale Wally, Mike needs treatment. Where are you?”
Only a little later came a response: “I'm on my way.” Wally had drifted far away.
It took Wally quite some time to reach them.
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Mr. Ray became impatient and frightened.
Finally, after almost three hours, Wally arrived, happily honking his horn. The Rays quickly learned how to find their way inside a whale. They hopped to the right, the stomach entrance leaving to the left. The son jumped onto the big knot and allowed himself to be hoisted to the top. There, he jumped onto the ledge and into the sitting room. He immediately saw the platter of Narwie. There were still four slices there. “Oh, Mikey must have found that Narwie to be irresistibly delicious,” he thought aloud.
Alex appeared in the doorway. “Mike is still asleep. What did you give him?”
“I'm afraid,” said the young Ray, “that Mike woke up, was hungry, and ate a second slice. Is he just lying in bed?”
Alex: “Yes, he's fast asleep in his bed.”
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Son Ray went to look in the bedroom. He felt Mike's pulse. “Good, good,” he muttered. “Alex, he most certainly ate a second slice. I can tell that from his heartbeat. But that was many hours ago. We can wake him without risk; call my father.”
Alex stared at his friend. “Oh Mikey, silly Mikey, for taking a slice of the anesthetic. Mikey, Mikey...”
There was a stirring in the bed of seaweed. “Oh, Alex,” Mike said softly, “how nice you’re here. Why are you waking me up?” He yawned a considerable yawn. “I want to sleep in, Alex. It’s simply bliss, lying in this bed...”
Father and son Ray heard Mike stirred and swiftly entered the room. They wanted to ensure Mike would not fall asleep again.
“Hello, Mike. How are you? Have you slept well and are now back to full strength? Are you
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ready for new challenges?” Father Ray trilled cheerfully.
Immediately, Mike was wide awake. He stretched. “There is still a bandage on my eye. I can't see you guys very well,” he said.
“We came to take that bandage off now, Mike, and teach you how to use your new eye properly,” explained son Ray.
Father asked the giant rabbit to stand. Mike managed to do so with some difficulty. “I'm still a little sleepy,” he said. “Mike,” Father asked, “tell me honestly. Did you leave your bed and take a slice of that seaweed on that dish?”
“Yeah,” said Mike with a coy face. “It was tasty and sweet. I'd love another slice!”
Father: “You ate Narwie. It makes you sleep very well, but it's also addictive; that much is clear. Frederick,” he turned to his son, “would
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you please put the Narwie away immediately? Mike must not eat any more of it!”
Frederik Ray quickly made his way out and returned a few moments later. “It is done, father.”
In the sitting room, Mike was given lessons in photography. Father told him what to do, and he practiced it with Frederik. After a while, Father felt that his excellent pupil could now do it on his own. Frederik picked up the bag of tools (and the Narwie). “We're finished with Mike,” he said to Wally. You can drop him off at the land. Then shall we look for the president, Bruno?”
Wally laughed. “Bruno needed a camera eye so badly that he completely forgot about it when someone suggested he go see how the whale boats we left in the pack ice are doing.”
Total of both admiration and disbelief, father and son Ray looked at Wally. “Did you guys trick
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the fishermen? Fantastic! What happened to those two leggers?”
Wally: “What happened to the two leggers at the Ross Sea? I don't know. Two little orange boats came from another boat. One of those little boats was used as a ball. I have heard that many of the two-leggers in that little boat are all injured. What became of the other one, I don't know.”
Both rays cheered. “All broken two-leggers! That's great! And what are you doing now?” the older ray asked.
“With the big fish, we have collected many tuna nets. Now, the octopuses are sewing many smaller nets to cover the large holes. With these, we are going to collect the dirt from the ocean. When a net is full, we will return it to the two-leggers.”
“That's great. The garbage will go right back
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where it belongs!” thought the two rays.
Dear Rays,” Wally said, “Please now go and have a nice swim, rest, eat, and sleep. Soon, you will have a more difficult patient. I am now going with Mike and Alex to the garbage station. Mike will take pictures there.”
~* ~* ~* ~
Humans get their Dirt Back, is the fourth instalment of the Mike & Alex series, offered by Peter Wermeskerken. Almost immediately, I had issues with the book. Within the first few lines, the reader is referenced to ‘Part 3’. I am not against serials, but if there are going to be several books in the series, parts of the backstory really should be threaded rather than making the reader feel they are missing out, therefore, pushing them to buy the previous book. Given that the book is 17,500 words, I wonder whether it could have been sewn together with the previous three books to create a novel or whether greater effort should have been made to make it a complete stand-a-lone novella. The book is marketed on Amazon for 9–18-year-olds i.e. an audience that could potentially cope with a longer book. Overall, it appears quite obvious from the language and the flow of the story that the reader has landed in the middle of a tale and should be privy to earlier material related to the wider story. This would have been solved had the book reintroduced features about the characters, rather that abruptly stating ‘Mike, the rabbit’ or
Another item about the book that caused distraction was the formatting. I appreciate that different writers may employ artistic license in different ways, but I struggled with the speech. I am of the opinion that one should either write the text as a script (without speech marks) or write it using markers such as ‘replied Alex,’ or ‘said Mike’ when depicting characters conversing. This book jumps back and forth between the two depending on the length of the conversation. Another point about the conversation would be that it seemed quite stunted at times. By this I mean the conversation was strung out longer than I was sometimes able to maintain interest, although, it included stammers, interruptions, and trailing off, as is natural with spoken language.
The book could do with a review. Some passages are printed twice, e.g. ‘“Don't you think,” said Mike as Alex sat down in his chair by the whale’s eye, “that there will most likely be a thousand whales at the South Pole?”’ appears before and after the illustration depicting Mike and Alex sitting in armchairs, chatting in front of a circular window. I hope it is just an occurrence related to the format the ARC was received in, but Chapter 3 saw some weird placement of dashes in words, almost like they were trying to disguise a bad word, which is not the case in the slightest. There are also a few grammatical errors such as missing periods, but not so much that these distract the reader in anyway.
Once I acknowledged the initial concerns I had with the book, I was able to settle in and enjoy the book a little more as the story picked up. It was pleasant to watch a plan to thwart the whalers develop over time and to see the characters consider the flaws in their plan throughout the process. The fact that an idea has to be revisited and tweaked gives the book a natural and realistic feel.
Some of the plus points about this book include the subject matter. For the most part, there were some interesting points made about the South Pole, with some vivid descriptions about the land and the ocean of ice that surrounds it. It was also interesting to read about Wally’s family and why they had settled in the South Pole, and why the Japanese Whalers were able to find the whales they hunted with ease. I especially like reading about the migration pattern. The story also considered pollution as a major theme and strategized how to save the ocean inhabitants from plastics that had strayed far from their initial starting point. Let us just say there was a lesson about consequence threaded throughout the latter half of the book.
I found myself googling facts about water density and the countries closest to the Antarctic based on what Wermeskerken was channelling through his characters. However, although there are fantastical elements in this book, which give the book a novel identity, I think it is important not to stray too far from the truth when setting the story in the real world. I had a hard time trying to picture 18,000 tonne whales when Blue Whales are generally around 200 tonnes, and 50-foot fish. That aside, I appreciated the mechanical aspects of Wally with his ability to literally house his friends in comfort in his belly. I also like the touch of science fiction when a character was given a camera eye. It is a pity this element was not used more.
Despite the Amazon marketing mentioned above, this book would probably appeal to children between the ages of seven and 12 years. In particular, it will suit those with an interest in environmental issues, the ocean, and sea creatures. The book introduces creatures like sperm whales, blue whales, octopi, swordfish; some with imaginative parts to play. Thus, given the subject matter, there is a lot of focus on whales, ships, and the tasks of a crew members. The book also covers a lot of ground with characters based in Japan, boats in the region of Mexico, ships deeply entrenched in the South Pole. In addition, there was diversity in the characters, although this is told rather than shown.
All things considered; I rate this book as average. It was highly repetitive. This serves young children well by aiding their comprehension, but it is unnecessary as readers get older. Some elements were added for awe factor but not well used, which I found anticlimactic. There were some stylistic choices that were a huge departure from anything I had witnessed meaning I had to adapt to something that in hindsight still does not make sense. However, there was a good use of imagery that children will appreciate. The time it took to plan almost invites the reader to think up, and rethink their own ideas, and there was a strong message about doing the right thing for the planet and all its creatures.