Dolphin Child (32 page)

‘
It’s okay!’ said Spirit excitedly. ‘We’re going to save
Star-Gazer. There’s going to be a heavy storm tonight. Fresh water
will flood down from the land. It will wash away all the silt from
the inlet and around the fence. We’ll find a way through the fence,
or we’ll get Star-Gazer to jump over it. She’ll follow us down to
the sea and she’ll be free! It’s all been decided.’

As Lucy’s tiredness overcame her and she was pulled back to
the world of dry land, she knew that she was going to be there to
help them.

Chapter Nineteen:

‘
Would you like a snack Luce?’ Dad called up the stairs of the
cottage. Lucy became slowly aware of the room around her
again.

‘
Not at the moment’ she called back down the stairs. Lucy got
up and looked out of the window. The air had become cloying and
muggy, as though it were heavy with moisture and she could see that
great black clouds had boiled across the sky. It looked like there
was going to be a storm but Lucy didn’t care. She wanted, no she
needed to be there with Spirit. She just had to get back to the
lagoon.

Lucy padded downstairs, unsure about what to do or say next.
Dad was in the kitchen making himself a sandwich.

‘
There’s going to be a good old thunderstorm’ said Dad from the
other side of the doorway. ‘You can almost feel the electricity in
the air. I’m just glad I’m not a sheep or a cow out there in the
rain and wind, that’s all I can say’ he continued conversationally.
Just then there was a spattering of light rain against the window,
the precursor of worse weather to follow.

Lucy stood there in the small dining area of the cottage,
tense and uncertain. Dad was just through the doorway. She knew
that she should walk through and tell him that she had to do
something, something important and that he had to let her go to do
alone. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it though.

Lucy had already been amazed that Dad had let her go off on
her own that morning. Six months ago he wouldn’t even have let her
come down to the coast at all. He’d changed so much and she was
beginning to feel so much closer to him and yet there were still
things that she was simply unable to speak to him about. She was
reluctant to tell him more than she needed to about the world of
dolphins that was so important to her.

If Lucy went through the door now to tell him what she wanted
to do, she knew he’d forbid it. There was no way he’d allow her to
walk out into that dark and brooding storm. Even Bethany would have
said no, she realised.

‘
I’m just popping over to the studio to talk to Bethany’ Lucy
called back to Dad through the doorway. ‘I expect I’ll be a while’
she added.

‘
No worries’ Dad answered trustingly. ‘I’ll have dinner on the
table by about seven, so if you’re not back by then I’ll come over
and get you. Take your coat now’ he added ‘We don’t want you
getting a soaking now do we?’

‘
See you later then Dad’ Lucy replied, slipping out of the
cottage. She felt terrible about lying, but by the time Dad
bothered walking down to the studio to find out where his daughter
had got to, she’d be long gone. It was the only way she could think
of to get away. Heaven knows what Dad would do or say when he
caught up with her, but she’d worry about that later.

Lucy slipped on her rain coat and ran down to the farmyard
where the bikes were stored. Fortunately no one else was around so
she pulled out the bike, jumped on it and started peddling off up
the lane again.

The blackness of the clouds made it much darker than it
normally would be for that time of day. Despite the rain that had
begun to fall, the air still felt sticky and close and Lucy quickly
started to sweat as she pedalled up the lane. The weather had
brought out the snails, that trailed up plant stems in search of
dinner. Lucy couldn’t quite believe she was doing what she was
doing and for the second time that day she half expected Dad to
come chasing after her and tell her to come back to the
cottage.

Just as Lucy turned out from the end of the lane onto the main
road, the rain that was falling from the slate-grey clouds became
heavier and Lucy could feel the drops of rain from her hair trickle
down her back. Lucy realised that she had a choice. Turning right
would be the quicker route out to the Penrose place. On the other
hand if she turned left and decided to go and try and find Paul,
she’d be going in the opposite direction and it would take much
longer.

Lucy leant on the handle bars of the bike with one foot on the
ground while she thought. Then impulsively she turned left in the
direction of Merwater and Paul’s house. She didn’t know how Paul
might help and in some ways she thought that she’d be better on her
own. Paul was part of all of this now though. He had a right to be
there with her.

It was raining steadily by the time that Lucy got to Paul’s
house and she was already wet through. Her rain coat was only
designed for light showers and by now it was thoroughly
waterlogged. Lucy glanced at her watch. It was already twenty past
six and maybe Paul had given up waiting to see if she’d put a
pebble on the gate post. Still, it was worth a try. She certainly
didn’t want to risk knocking on the door and dealing with Mrs
Treddinick again. She’d never let Paul go out in the rain. Besides,
Dad may have realised she was gone and already spoken to Mrs
Treddinick on the phone. She daren’t risk it.

Lucy took the pebble out of her rain coat pocket that she’d
picked up from the beach and placed it on the fence post. She went
back across the road and into the recreation ground opposite, where
she looked back at the house from the protection of the straggly
hedge.

The minutes ticked by. First Lucy promised herself that she
would just wait five minutes and then go if Paul did not appear.
Then she added another minute and then another but still he did not
come. In the meantime Lucy was acutely aware that all the time she
waited here was time she could be spending getting to the lagoon.
More rain trickled down her neck as she stood there. It might not
be cold rain, but it still felt uncomfortable.

After nine minutes, Lucy decided that Paul either hadn’t seen
the pebble, didn’t care, or wasn’t allowed to go out in the rain at
this time. She sighed and pushed her bike back onto the street to
leave, but just then Paul appeared pushing his own bike up the side
of the house from the shed. He gave Lucy a shy grin.

‘
Let’s get out of here’ she said, relieved that he was there.
He mounted his bike and then both of them went off up the
rain-swept and deserted street together. Soon they had left
Merwater and the houses gave way to hedgerows on either side. The
wind had picked up and the rain was falling as fat heavy drops,
each smacking into them with what felt like the force of small
canon fire.

‘
What’s the plan then?’ Paul asked eventually. Neither of them
had said much at all until they were clear of the town. Lucy
glanced over at him. Paul was already almost as wet-through as she
was.

‘
The rain will wash away the silt round that fence barrier
thing’ Lucy answered between pants as they pedalled up an incline.
‘Star-Gazer will be able to jump over the fence or something. Then
she’ll be free.’

‘
Is that it?’ asked Paul sceptically.

‘
That’s it’ replied Lucy. Something will happen. Something’s
got to.’

The sky was so dark that they could hardly see the hedgerows
on each side of them as they pedalled along. The rain was coming
down harder and it almost hurt the skin of Lucy’s legs under her
sodden shorts. The feeling of oppression and closeness
intensified.

Suddenly there was a crackle of electricity in the air and in
a blinding flash of lightning the whole countryside around them was
briefly illuminated. The lightning struck a dead tree in the field
to their left. Before they could adjust their eyes to the
brightness it was gone again, but immediately the ear-splitting
crack of thunder followed. The storm was immediately above them
now. Lucy could hear the shattered tree topple over in the
field.

‘
Go faster!’ yelled Paul, putting on a spurt of speed on the
pedals, desperate to get away.

‘
No stop!’ Lucy hollered back at him urgently. ‘Get off your
bike NOW! They’re metal and metal attracts lightning.’

Paul did as he was told and they both threw down their bikes
into the ditch and continued on foot. Thankfully they were not far
from the old railway embankment and the path that took them to the
wall of the Penrose estate.

Just then another bolt of lightning hit the ground so close to
them that Lucy almost felt that she could stretch out and touch it.
The thunder struck in the same instant with a crash that left her
ears ringing. The two children hurried on, fear crackling in their
veins, not daring to turn and enjoy the strangeness of the scene
around them. Lucy could hear a cow lowing in a nearby field and she
wondered what it must be like to be a farm animal caught in an
exposed field in a storm like this. Then she thought of Star-Gazer
and pressed on again.

At the foot of the railway embankment a torrent of water was
pouring out onto the road from the slope. They made their way up
and were soon running along the overgrown path of the abandoned
railway track, gravel crunching underfoot as they went.

They were both out of breath when they reached the base of the
high stone wall separating them from the woods and the lagoon
beyond. Paul started to climb the tree in order to scramble over
the top of the wall and drop down on the other side.

‘
Wait’ said Lucy, leaning against the wall. ‘I need to
focus.’

‘
You what?’

‘
I need to reach out to Star-Gazer and tell her that we are
coming.’ Another crack of lightning came down close by and moments
later the thunder burst above them making them jump in alarm.
Strangely the noise and the confusion of the storm around her made
it easier to focus and before she knew it she was gliding through
the dark waters of the lagoon to where Star-Gazer was circling
nervously.

‘
Star-Gazer!’ Lucy whispered so as not to alarm her by her
arrival. ‘It’s me, Lucy, Spirit’s friend.’ Rain pounded the surface
of the water just above their heads. The dolphin turned to face
her. ‘It’s just like you told Spirit, the storm will wash away the
silt. In a few minutes I’ll be there with my friend Paul. Somehow
we will set you free’ Lucy continued.

‘
That sounds great Lucy’ replied Star-Gazer, but in a way that
made Lucy think that she didn’t quite believe her. Lucy could sense
that the dolphin was so sad that her spirit was almost entirely
crushed. Lucy guessed that she was near the end.

‘
And Spirit’s coming up the estuary too’ she added. Immediately
Lucy could see Star-Gazer’s eyes light up again. ‘Just hang on in
there.’ Lucy was about to return to her physical self when she
turned back.

‘
You know the old man in the house, Norman Penrose. Is it true
that you have some sort of a link with him?’ asked Lucy.

‘
What, the man human pushed on wheels? We used to swim
alongside their boat sometimes. Then the man and the woman saved me
when I was in trouble. But now they just keep me here. I don’t know
why. They throw dead fish to me every day but that’s no way to
live. I want to look up at the stars again from the wide open sea,
not here in this terrible place. No, there is no special link with
him, not like you have with Spirit. None at all.’ Lucy’s mind came
back to where she was standing with Paul.

‘
We’re coming!’ she assured Star-Gazer, as her silhouette
dissolved back into the dark water.

Back under the wall, Lucy came to and looked up at Paul, half
way up the small tree next to her.

‘
Let’s get going again’ she told him. Paul quickly disappeared
over the wall and she heard a wet thud as he landed on the other
side. Lucy clambered up behind him. She leapt down from the wall
but instead of landing on her feet, she slipped on the sodden muddy
earth at the base of the wall on the other side, tumbling over. She
was unhurt and stood up again quickly, but mud was streaked all the
way up her legs, rain coat and one side of her face.

Paul and Lucy ran on through the trees, muddy pools forming at
their roots and then battled through the rhododendron bushes to get
to the side of the lagoon. The eye of the storm had moved on a
little now and although the rain was still intense, it did not feel
as dark and oppressive as it did before.

Both Lucy and Paul were completely bedraggled, their wet hair
plastered down flat over their skulls, with mud splattered up all
over them.

‘
My mum would say we’ll catch our death of cold’ smiled Paul.
They’d reachedthe edge of the lagoon. With a flash of lightning the
scene was brightly illuminated again. Star-Gazer was racing
agitatedly from one end of the inlet to the other. The water was
too shallow to leap, but she was trying to do so anyway. With
convulsive flicks of her tail flukes Star-Gazer repeatedly tried to
jump. It was a desperate, heart-wrenching spectacle to
watch.

Lights flicked on in the big house at the end of the inlet as
someone evidently had noticed Star-Gazer’s distress. A door
clattered open at the side somewhere and then Mrs Penrose appeared,
holding an umbrella ineffectually over her head. It promptly blew
inside out and she let it drop to the ground.