Cartoon whale with spotted back swimming above a small diver, bubbles, fish, and coral reef

Smiling Whale Over the Coral Reef

A huge smiling whale glides over coral branches and tiny fish while a wide-eyed diver floats beside its flipper.

🎨 How to color it

Color the whale slate blue with pale turquoise patches, the diver’s suit sunny yellow, the coral peach and lavender, and the little reef fish orange. Use sharp colored pencils for the whale’s thin mouth grooves and the many coral fingers, then switch to broader strokes for the whale’s smooth body. Try making each bubble fade from blue at the bottom to clear white at the top, as if the reef is full of secret lights.

The story behind this coloring page

Miro Waits for the Spots — Under Lantern Reef, Miro hummed into the blue and waited for the coral to hum back. Read the full story →

Under Lantern Reef, Miro hummed into the blue and waited for the coral to hum back. He wanted one answer before moonrise, just one, but the reef only clicked with shrimp, brushed his belly with cold sand-silk, and let bubbles wobble past his nose. So Miro held still beside a garden of tube sponges until his fins tingled.

A tiny diver drifted from behind a coral fan, helmet lamp dim as a firefly. “Don’t sing louder,” she whispered through a crackly speaker. “Sing longer.” In her glove she carried a snail no bigger than a button, its shell painted with pale rings. Miro hummed one low note. The snail opened. Another note, softer. The reef answered—not with sound, but with milky light that rose from the coral and settled on Miro’s back in cloudy patches.

He waited until the last glow found him. Ever since, whales who keep a patient note near quiet reefs wear pale tide-spots, little memories of answers that came slowly. If you find Miro above the coral, count the patches on his back; the smallest one is the first secret the reef ever told.