The Girl Who Dreamt of Dolphins (6 page)

Lucy had a CD of whale song that Bethany had given her for her
birthday. It wasn’t dolphin song, but to be honest whale song
sounded more beautiful. She put it on her CD player and turned the
volume up loud. She knew Dad didn’t like it, but really, she didn’t
care that much tonight. He just said he didn’t have any time for
that hippy dippy stuff. The whale song CD was full of the whale’s
eerie, melancholy calls and made her feel as if she actually was in
the ocean, floating in the currents, gently buoyed along in the
salt water.

She imagined a great, enormous blue whale the size of a
double-decker bus slowly beating its great tail fin as it swum from
one side of the world to the other in search of feeding grounds.
She thought about Giapetto, the wood-carver who’d made Pinocchio,
trapped on his little raft in a great whale’s stomach and wondered
if that could actually happen in real life.

Then her thoughts turned to orcas, otherwise known as killer
whales and she knew that they could be dangerous to dolphins. She
wondered if the dolphins of her dreams could be in danger from
orcas. But then she thought, her dolphins existed only in her
dreams. Surely, she reasoned, if they were her dreams, she could
influence what would happen in them. Maybe tonight she could dream
her little dolphin somewhere nicer, she thought. And so Lucy
day-dreamed on.

‘
Lucy, do your homework.’ Dad had put his head round the door
interrupting her thoughts, half a sandwich in his mouth. Lucy
emerged reluctantly from her reveries.

‘
Okay Dad’ she said, picking up her pen and pulling her school
bag towards her. Maths didn’t exactly fill her with joy, but she
didn’t mind it either. Sometimes when you got into it, it could be
quite satisfying. Soon it was time for bed. Showered and clean, she
sunk in between the sheets and quickly fell asleep.

Chapter Four
:

The wind played on the surface of the sea the next morning as
Spirit stirred from his sleep. It whipped up into little whirlwinds
and pulled the sea up into plumes. It licked the tips of the waves
that peaked, white and frothy, in this direction and that. Stone
grey clouds scudded above and coloured the water below. Spirit
slowly realised that the day had broken. He had slept later than
the others, as usual and became aware of their restless circling in
the water.

‘
Wake up Spirit!’ Summer nudged him with her muzzle. ‘Let’s
chase sardines.’ The fish, in the depths, were as disturbed by the
strange weather conditions as the dolphins, but the mammals weren’t
about to let the opportunity to catch fish flash past them. Summer,
Dancer and Spirit slipped down into the deeper waters where
Moonlight, Storm, Chaser and Breeze had already been corralling the
fish. Fish swim together, instinctively knowing that there is
safety in numbers. However this is not always right. The dolphins
worked together to surround the shoal of sardines and get them
tighter and tighter until the sardines became a silver, flashing
ball of life. The dolphins were experts and soon Storm clicked the
signal. He dove into the centre of the ball of sardines, taking a
mouthful of fish as he did so. Quickly, in turn the other dolphins
followed suit, plunging in and through the sardines. Breeze,
Chaser, Moonlight, then Summer, Dancer and finally Spirit, each in
turn took a mouthful of fish as they passed through.

Then they let the shoal disperse into the waters around them
and flash away into the gloom below. Dancer and Spirit had asked
Chaser once why they let the rest of the shoal get away. ‘Take only
what you need’ Chaser had told him. ‘We must live in balance with
the fish around us.’ ‘If we eat too hungrily today, we will go
hungry tomorrow. Once there was a great famine. The men in their
boats came with their nets and fished and fished. They raked up the
sea bed. They took all the shoals. There was nothing left. We were
hungry for days and weeks. We had to swim many leagues with hollow
stomachs before we came to good fishing grounds again.’

‘
But the men’ Spirit and Dancer had asked, ‘did they not know
that if they took and took, there would be nothing
left?’

‘
They may seem clever in some ways’ replied Chaser sagely ‘but
they are not really intelligent. They are like children. They have
never truly learned the ways of the sea. They need to be taught,
but there is no one to teach them.’

The dolphins lazed after their meal, watching the weather and
the squall playing across the surface of the water. Summer leapt
high to see what was happening above. Grey mists swirled and the
islands beyond were barely visible. No boats were evident. Rain
broke above them and drummed the water with thousands of tiny
blows.

Storm came up to Spirit’s side. Spirit was the youngster of
the pod and Storm the most senior. Storm did not generally spend
time with him. Spirit was surprised and a little bit in awe of the
older dolphin.

‘
Swim with me’ said Storm in a tone which invited no
disagreement. ‘The squall will soon pass and we can join the others
later.’ The young dolphin swam off with the elder, curious as what
he wanted to say. Storm was silent and for a while they swum
without words passing between them. They passed into a current of
colder water. Spirit knew that the seabed tumbled down deep, deep
below them to where strange creatures lived in the dark zones,
where the water pressure was so great that no dolphin could swim
there.

Spirit worried about what Storm might say to him. Yet when
Storm broke his silence, his tone was warm.

‘
You are a young dolphin’ he said ‘but you will soon come of
age.’ Spirit whistled his agreement. ‘As with every dolphin in the
pod and every dolphin in the wide seas, there will come a time soon
when you must swim alone. You must find yourself out here, in the
vastness of the ocean. You will experience fear, but you should not
feel hunger. You will be alone, but that will bring you closer to
all dolphins and to every living thing. And when you come back
after your journeying, you will swim into brighter waters with all
of us.’

Spirit knew of this rite of passage and was eager to undertake
it himself. He wanted to catch up with Dancer who had passed
through hers the year before. Only then, Spirit felt, would he be
an equal among the rest of the pod.

‘
You have a special destiny’ said Storm quietly, ‘your test
will come sooner than for others.’ Spirit swam on, disturbed and
wondering at Storm’s words.

‘
But how?’ he asked simply.

‘
Your destiny is not yet told’ replied Storm calmly. ‘I do not
know your story.’

‘
Then how can you know that I have a special
destiny?’

‘
You were born on a moonless night, under a windless, starry
sky on the longest night of the summer. You have a small white star
under your chin. You cannot see it, but we can. Stars fall from the
sky you know’ he added, ‘and we dolphins believe that a new-born
with a star on his body is born of his mother, but born of the
stars as well. These are all signs that we look for in every
dolphin that is born, anywhere.’

‘
Well, no one’s ever treated me in a special way before. I’m
always the last to eat and no one listens to what I have to say,’
Spirit complained. ‘I don’t feel special at all.’

‘
Well we wouldn’t want you to treat yourself too seriously,
would we?’ Storm smiled.

He gave Spirit a playful nudge and the two chased each other
through the water, twisting, turning and then leaping high over the
spray tipped crests of the waves. The dark clouds had been swept
away and blue sky and sunshine illuminated the water. The wind had
calmed down and the waves were lapping more gently than
before.

The two dolphins slowed and lolled under the rays of the
sunshine. After their playing, Storm became serious
again.

‘
Not all dolphins pass their test. They are not all ready to
meet their destiny. Neither will you be if you lose your
playfulness, your sense of curiosity, your sense of adventure. You
must learn. That is what makes you. We will not treat you too
differently either; not till you have learned our ways and earned
our respect. You are still a young dolphin and that is the way of
things. You are the baby of the pod. Come!’ Storm swam on and
Spirit followed. The greyness of the early morning had by now
almost entirely lifted. It was going to be a beautiful
day.

A mile away, shapes moved through the water. First one, then
two, then three hulking forms moved silently, their bulk held
lightly in the water, their great fins propelling them quietly
onward. They could hear the clicking, the whistling of the two
dolphins north of them and they turned and swam towards the
sound.

In her bed, far away, Lucy moved restlessly, her bed-clothes
crumpled up around and on top of her. She was dreaming of dolphins
again, of two dolphins ploughing through the seas and of the warmth
of feeling between the two animals at that moment. Yet at the same
time she felt uneasy, though her sleep shrouded brain could not
tell why. One leg kicked out in her sleep and she turned, bringing
a slew of bedding with her.

As they swum on, Storm told Spirit again some of the stories
that all dolphins tell each other. He started off with a silly
story he used to tell Spirit when he was very young
indeed.

‘
Sometimes, if you are close to the shore, you may see a hairy
thing, with four legs, kicking about in the water. They are called
dogs and they are often seen with man. We dolphins of course,
should never venture into too shallow water, as you know very well,
for the tides might turn and you will be stranded. Do not be led
there by your curiosity. Most creatures on the land, so it is said,
propel themselves with four legs. They breathe as we do and cannot
dive about in the water for long without surfacing for air. They
are not like the fish and sharks of the seas, but neither are we.’
He paused briefly.

‘
Of course those animals known as dogs are land animals and
know little of the seas. Four legs are not good for swimming and
they have four claws, which are little help in the strong currents
away from the shore. Even sea otters, which are found in the north
and which can frolic and play in the water, must stay close to the
land’s edge if they are to feel safe. Dogs are the cousins of
otters, so it is said and they live together on the land. Long ago,
dogs wished to conquer the seas and looked down from their cliffs,
dreaming of eating the fish, which leapt and boiled the water in
the shallows.

The dogs were not brave, so they said to their cousins the
otters “Swim out and catch us some fish and bring them back to the
rocks for us to eat”. But the otters just lay on their backs in the
water and ate fish and laughed at the dogs on the shoreline. So the
dogs came up with a clever plan. “Cousin otters” they said “We have
discovered that in the shoals of fish there is a fish of gold, that
can only be found by laying the fish on the dry stones at high
water. On the break of day, the light from the fish of gold will
spill forth, hitting the creature that caught it and who will be
declared king. We dogs have divined a plan to capture the fish of
gold and soon a dog will be king of all creatures of the
land.”

The otters, not to be out-done, set about capturing all the
fish and setting them on the stones at high water for the break of
day, but were surprised when the dogs devoured all the fish and
laughed at them.

Dolphins swam amongst the otters and warned them of the danger
of what they did. If they took all the fish, otter and dolphin
alike would go hungry and the dogs would grow lazy, indolent and
fat. So the next morning, just before the sun rose, the otters laid
stones from the shallows on the high water rocks. The dogs, eager
to be fed, fell greedily upon them before the sun had risen, but
bit on the rocks instead and howled and barked in pain. They have
howled and barked ever since.’

Spirit smiled, he knew the story well. ‘Tell me how dolphins
came to be’ he asked.

‘
The North Star laid down a challenge to the South Star that he
could shine down through the oceans and bring day to all the
creatures of the depths. The South star declared to the North Star
that she could shine through the very earth itself. But they both
forgot about water and how it reflects and shatters their beams
into a million points of light. The North Star shone with all his
might, but instead of illuminating the depths, his light merely
played on the surface and out of that light was created a male
dolphin. The South Star shone with all her might, but her light too
was split into thousands of points and out of her starlight was
created the first female dolphin. And so dolphins are made of star
light are destined to swim the seas like the million shattered
beams of light that made us.’