Dolphin Child (10 page)

Lucy contented herself with standing at the bow of the boat
and looking down at the low waves beneath her. She imagined Susan
Penhaligon and her followers swimming out to sea and their
mysterious fate. What was going through their minds when they did
so? Lucy looked back at the town. Merwater was disappearing in the
distance as they went round the headland. The sheer rock of the
cliffs steeped up to their left.

Nate gave the tourists a commentary over a loud speaker as
they sailed along. They were heading towards a rocky outcrop a
quarter of a mile from the shore. Lucy had never seen a seal in the
wild and was keen to see them up close. Before long Bob cut off the
engine and the Merry Widow sat quietly in the water near the seals
basking on their rocks. It wasn’t possible to get up too close, but
they had a good view and the tourists on the boat snapped away
happily with their cameras. There were some young seals amongst the
group and oohs and aahs emanated from the tourists on deck. It made
Lucy think about Summer’s calf. She had only seen No-Name in her
visions and had never been able to meet the tiny dolphin in real
life. She longed to do so.

On their way back Lucy scanned the sea for any sign of
dolphins. At one point she saw what looked like a dorsal fin
briefly breaking the surface of the water, but then it disappeared
again and she could not tell whether her eyes were deceiving her
and it was really only a wave. Nate beckoned her to join him and
Bob in the cabin and he gave her a turn steering the vessel, as he
did with all of the other children who came out on the boat and who
were old enough to have a go.

The two hours quickly passed and before she knew it, they were
back at the harbour, ready to disembark and go home. Bethany would
be waiting for her in the Land Rover at five o’clock. Lucy chatted
to Nate and Bob for a while and then glanced at her watch. She
thought she’d better go and find her aunt. She thanked both the two
of them again for the trip on the boat and then headed
off.

As she started on her way back to the car park where Bethany
would be waiting, there sitting on the harbour wall was Paul
Treddinick. His distinctive curly hair was easy to spot. He was
looking out at the waves rolling in to shore and seemed to be
frowning unhappily.

Chapter Six:

Spirit stirred from his waking sleep. Half of his brain was
alert to the changes in the waves and the current in order to stay
close enough to the surface to breathe through his blow hole. On
the other half of his brain he dreamt troubling dreams.

At first he dreamt about the girl on the rock that he and
Dancer had helped. Just before he awoke though, he dreamt that
there was a dolphin some distance ahead of him in the water. He
couldn’t see the dolphin, as in his dream the water wasn’t clear.
He clicked rapidly and using his echo location was able to
ascertain the shape of a dolphin in the water. The dolphin didn’t
answer though and although Spirit swam and swam towards the shape,
he simply could not reach it.

For some reason he felt that the silhouette of the dolphin
ahead of him was familiar but he couldn’t say why. He desperately
wanted to get to it, but the more he tried, the further away he
seemed to be. Eventually the dolphin just appeared to dissolve into
the water.

Spirit woke up with a start. Dancer was already
awake.

‘
What’s the matter?’ she asked.

‘
Oh I just, you know, had sort of a nightmare.’

‘
Was it of a herring as long as a ship?’ joked Dancer. ‘That’s
what I dream about. And that herring’s really, really hungry and
chasing me!’ Spirit smiled. Already the memory of his own dream
seemed less immediate, disturbing though it was.

‘
Are you hungry?’ asked Dancer.

‘
Actually I’m famished’ Spirit replied. They slipped away from
the main pod and hunted around on the shallow seabed for flounder,
but without success. As they did so, Spirit felt a tingle of
anticipation run down his spine and then Lucy suddenly came into
focus in the sea just in front of them, appearing as though an
apparition, not quite there because her physical self was still
miles away on dry land.

Spirit had learned now that when a human pulls up the corners
of its mouth, that is mostly a sign of friendliness, although not
always. Lucy smiled broadly at them both. Human expressions were
very hard to read. They seemed to mostly just use their faces to
show how they felt, while dolphins expressed themselves in a myriad
of ways; the way they swam, jumped or flicked a fin, or clicked and
whistled. Even though he knew he would never fully understand the
strange ways of humans, he was sure that Lucy really cared for him.
He felt the same way about her. Though they were so different from
each other in so many ways, he felt that somehow at a fundamental
level they were quite alike.

‘
Hi Spirit, hello Dancer’ she said. When she came to them as a
vision, they were able to communicate with each other without human
words or dolphin clicks and whistles. Spirit had spent many hours
trying to figure out how it worked, but he just couldn’t. Somehow
thoughts seemed to pass straight from her mind to his. All three of
them started to glide along through the water
companionably.

‘
Did you dream of us last night?’ Spirit asked. He often asked.
He’d had been enchanted to discover that Lucy had dreamt of him and
the rest of the pod almost every night since she was a little girl
and he was still a very young calf.

‘
Actually, I didn’t’ admitted Lucy ‘I sort of dreamt of
dolphins, but not any one in particular, I don’t think’. Spirit
quickly told Lucy about his own dream. He thought that she might
make a joke about it like Dancer did, but instead she seemed
surprised and startled. Spirit wondered whether she was going to
say something, but she seemed to hold back. Instead she changed the
subject.

‘
How did you feel about helping the little girl?’ she asked the
two dolphins.

‘
Oh, you know, when we saw her in trouble, we knew that we
simply couldn’t leave her until she was safe’ said Dancer. ‘But she
was scared of us, otherwise we might have been able to carry her to
safety. That’s when Spirit reached out to you with his
mind.’

‘
I’d never done that before’ said Spirit, wondering why Lucy
had changed the subject away from dreams and what it was that she
wasn’t telling them. ‘I didn’t think I knew how to do it. I had to
use all my mental energy to reach out to you. I was glad that I
could though. I don’t know how we’d have helped the little girl if
I hadn’t got through to you. I tried to swim up to the people
splashing in the water at the edge of the beach, but they didn’t
seem to understand.’

‘
It was amazing when you contacted me’ replied Lucy. ‘It was as
though an electric shock ran through my body. Every nerve stood to
attention.’

‘
Well I’m glad’ said Spirit modestly.

‘
You were a sensation at the beach’ continued Lucy. ‘Everyone’s
talking about the dolphins appearing there and hordes of people are
going there now to try to catch sight of you again. It’s even been
on the local TV.’

‘
Oh I’m not going there again’ laughed Spirit hurriedly. ‘It
was scary having all those arms and legs in the water around us,
trying to touch and grab at me. I’m not going to put myself through
that again unless I really have to.’

‘
Why do humans go in the water like that anyway Lucy?’ asked
Dancer. After all, humans are not sea creatures are
they?’

It’s difficult to explain really’ Lucy said. ‘The sun makes us
feel healthy and happy and so does the sea. But we only like the
sea when it’s sunny, otherwise we get too cold.’

‘
You humans need a layer of fat round you to keep you warm’
joked Dancer.

‘
But it’s strange isn’t it’ said Spirit thoughtfully. ‘You
humans can’t really swim properly at all, well not like us anyway.
You should be afraid of the sea shouldn’t you, instead of being
attracted to it.’

‘
I know’ said Lucy turning slowly in the water, ‘maybe we’d all
secretly like to return to the sea again. You know scientists say
that all the animals on dry land evolved from sea creatures
millions of years ago. They say that whales and dolphins were
land-living mammals once which evolved to return back to the sea
again.’

‘
I don’t really understand that’ said Spirit. ‘Dolphins have
been the same since time itself began. That is what the elders
teach us. You couldn’t just grow flippers and a blow hole could
you?’ Lucy laughed and then paused for a few moments. Spirit felt
that she was deciding whether to ask him something.

‘
Spirit’ she said eventually. ‘I know its silly, but have you
ever heard of humans turning into dolphins?’

‘
No, never’ replied Spirit. ‘Not in any of the old stories that
I’ve been told. Why?’

‘
Oh, well…’ Lucy hesitated again and Spirit could tell that she
was uncertain about how to continue. ‘Amongst people, there are
stories about humans turning into dolphins and I just wondered….’
She trailed off.

‘
I can ask if you like’ said Spirit, his imagination aroused.
‘I can ask Storm or some of the other older dolphins.

‘
That would be good’ she replied. It was Spirit’s turn to
become thoughtful. Her question reminded him of what Moonlight had
said the day before.

‘
Why do you think that we are linked together in this way; I
mean you as a human and me as a dolphin. Is there a purpose to
it?’

‘
I don’t know, I….’ Spirit could see that Lucy’s energy was
giving out and that she was fading away into the water as she and
Dancer looked at her.

‘
Goodbye Lucy’ he called to her. Then she was gone.

‘
You really shouldn’t worry about what Moonlight said to you’
Dancer reassured him once Lucy’s image faded away into the salt
water. ‘He’s never going to understand that there’s more to life
than eating fish.’

‘
But he’s right though in a way, isn’t he Dancer’ replied
Spirit, his voice tinged with doubt. ‘There must be some reason for
the link between me and Lucy.’

‘
Sometimes we cannot understand the reasons for things’ said
Dancer after a few moments thought, ‘but we just have to accept
them. Maybe we will never discover the reason for the connection
between you and Lucy, but my guess is that your life is better
knowing her than not.’ Spirit looked at Dancer’s face. There was
wisdom behind those normally playful eyes.

‘
Why do you think that Lucy asked about humans turning into
dolphins?’ asked Spirit.

‘
I don’t know’ replied Dancer. ‘Storm believes that humans are
foolish creatures. He says that they’re more like children than
fully grown adults and that they just pollute the seas and destroy
everything around them. Maybe they actually do believe stories like
that. I don’t imagine that any dolphins would though.’

With these curious thoughts still fresh in their minds, they
swam back to join the rest of their pod, still hungry. It would be
better to hunt all together. When they got nearer, Summer’s young
calf No-Name saw them and swam enthusiastically towards them. The
little calf became separated from his mother’s side doing so and
before anyone quite realised, No-Name was some tens of metres away
from both Summer and Dancer and Spirit.

Vulnerable and alone, he could fall easy prey to any larger
predators that might be prowling the waters. As if to confirm their
worst fears, suddenly the white and black bulk of a killer whale
appeared off to one side of the calf, swimming rapidly in No-Name’s
direction, appearing as if from nowhere.

Spirit himself had been the subject of an attack by orcas only
a few months before and knew just how dangerous they could be. He
had learned a lot since then and gained greatly in confidence, but
orcas still scared him.

‘
Orcas!’ he cried as loud as he could. He could tell that the
same thought passed through Dancer’s mind as his. The orcas would
try to attack No-Name. It was always easier for them to attack the
young, weak and inexperienced dolphins in the pod. A calf makes an
easy meal for a pack of hungry killer whales.

Dancer darted forward through the water to try and protect
Summer’s calf, with Spirit just behind. The orca closed in on
No-Name rapidly and it looked like they would not be fast enough to
save the lone calf. Dancer gave a last burst of speed and slammed
into the side of the killer whale just in time, forcing it off to
one side, just before it was able to close its jaws on Summer’s
calf.

Spirit got there a moment later and used his body to shield
the calf against any further attacks. Summer swam up anxiously
moments later and in no time at all the whole pod had come to
No-Name’s rescue, circling around him defensively.

The orca, recognising the overwhelming force of numbers on the
part of the dolphins, gave up and disappeared back into the
vastness of the ocean.

‘
Thank goodness you got to him in time!’ Summer said to Dancer,
relief in her voice.

‘
Yes, that brute nearly got him. You did well Dancer. No
special powers needed there’ added Moonlight pointedly. Dancer had
been winded badly when she slammed into the side of the hefty Orca
and took a while to calm down and recover her breath.