Dolphin Child (4 page)

‘
I was having such a nice dream’ she said. ‘I was flying
through the air with the gulls and swooping down over the heads of
humans.’

‘
Well I was having a dream that you’d caught me some mackerel
to eat’ joked Spirit, ‘but dreams like that never come
true.’

‘
Cheeky!’ exclaimed Dancer. They told Summer where they were
going and headed off.

Spirit felt pleased at the thought of seeing Lucy again. A few
months before when Lucy had saved him, an incredible energy had
passed between them when she touched him. But three days
afterwards, Lucy had had to return to her home far away from the
sea. It was hard to imagine what the world above water must be
like. Lucy had given him an idea, by using the power of her mind to
project an image to him of what her home and school looked like.
Spirit had been shocked at how small and cramped it had appeared.
He was used to the wide open seas. The thought of walls horrified
him.

It was painful for Spirit to realise that Lucy had to go home.
He had only seen her for real two more times before she did and
even then she had been with a fully grown adult on a boat, while he
had been in the water. It was not the same as swimming with
her.

Lucy had come to him using the power of her mind many times
since, but to see her in real life still felt special, even though
they could not speak when they did. Now she was back by the sea and
he had seen her for real half a dozen times or more, carrying her
on his back and feeling her warm skin against his own.

The two dolphins broke the waves happily as they sped
along.

‘
I’m hungry’ complained Dancer.

‘
We’ll eat soon enough’ replied Spirit. ‘You can wait a while
yet for your breakfast’ he joked.

They neared the high grey cliffs which sheered up above them.
They were the tallest things that Spirit had ever seen. Gulls
wheeled lazily above them in the updrafts from the sea. It was
along this stretch that he had become disorientated and confused by
a human on a jet ski machine and then he had been ensnared in a
great loop of steel cord attached to a discarded buoy. The thought
of it made him wince. He had learned since about how to deal with
the jarring noise of jet skis and had encountered them several
times since without problems, though the sound did still give him a
terrible headache. He was glad when he had swum out of sight of
that spot.

‘
Can you see her yet?’ asked Dancer. Spirit took a low leap
over the waves to look.

‘
I think so’ he replied uncertainly. He could see a figure
sitting on a rock by the water’s edge, knees tucked up under her
chin, looking out to sea. They got closer. ‘Yes, it is
her!’

As they approached Lucy spotted them and stood up on the rock
and waved in their direction. She called out making noises that
they could not understand.

‘
That’s her alright!’ exclaimed Dancer. She was pleased to see
Lucy too. Dancer had only seen her once since Lucy had returned to
the coast. It may be that Spirit had a special connection with Lucy
but Dancer was very fond of her too.

When they were a metre or two from the rock where Lucy was
standing, she jumped into the sea next to him. Spirit could tell
that for a human she was a good swimmer, but she was vulnerable in
the sea with its strong currents and undertows and he had to take
care of her.

Lucy stretched out her hand and touched Spirits flank. Again
he felt a current of energy pass between the two of them and a
sense of understanding beyond anything that could be said in words.
She said something and looked him in the eye. He could feel that
she was happy to be with him, just as he was happy to be with her.
Her eyes glowed warmly. They were both set in the front of her face
whilst he had an eye on either side. This meant that he was much
more aware of what was going on all around him. Humans couldn’t
click like dolphins could and so he realised that she was unable to
echo-locate in the water. This wasn’t surprising though; after all
humans didn’t spend much time in the water at all.

Dancer came up and greeted Lucy too, shyly at first until Lucy
touched her gently with her hand. Then Spirit let Lucy pull herself
up onto his back using his dorsal fin and they swam off through the
low waves together, with Dancer swimming close along side. Spirit
went as fast as he could and they started playing chase with
Dancer, turning swiftly to try and outrun her. Soon Lucy fell off
and rolled in the water, laughing as she did so.

Then it was Dancer’s turn and she hoisted herself onto the
older dolphin’s back and sped off, this time with Spirit in
pursuit. After they’d played that game for twenty five minutes or
so, Spirit could hear that Lucy was panting with exertion and he
knew that she probably needed a rest. They floated in the water and
she lay right down on his back and sort of hugged him, with her
arms wrapped as far round his body as they could go.

Eventually they came back close to the shore and Lucy slid off
Spirit’s back again and sat on a half submerged rock. Spirit
nuzzled into her and she gazed into his eyes. Dancer, not to be
outdone, came back with a piece of seaweed and they played
pass-the-seaweed for a few minutes, with Lucy smiling and laughing
as they did so. It was a simple silly game that the dolphins had
played together when they were much younger, but it was easy and
fun to do and they all enjoyed it.

It felt so natural and easy for Spirit to be close to Lucy,
that he wished it could go on forever. Although she was a human,
with strange gangly arms and legs and long soft fur on the top of
her head, it felt almost as though she were part of him. Spirit
knew that it may be a strange thought, but he couldn’t get it out
of his head. He wished that she could swim back with them to the
pod and stay with them forever, but that of course was impossible.
He looked at her and saw that she was beginning to shiver, which he
knew meant that she was cold. It was time for Spirit and Dancer to
go.

Lucy, sensing that their time was at an end, gave them both a
big hug and then waded back to the lip of the beach. Spirit and
Dancer dared not go too close in to the shoreline. The tide had
turned and they could easily become grounded if they were not
careful. The two dolphins hung in the water and Lucy turned back to
look at them. She called out something and then gave a big wave of
her arm. Spirit and Dancer reared up so that their head and top
half of their body was out of the water and clicked their goodbyes,
before turning towards the open sea. A short way out, Spirit turned
and looked briefly back towards the cove where they had left Lucy.
Spirit thought he could see another small human at the top of the
cliff looking down on her, but he could not be quite sure. It was
early and the light might have played tricks on him.

‘
That was fun’ said Dancer contentedly, as they swum lazily
back towards the pod. ‘It reminds me of the time that we used to
play with Star-Gazer when we were both much younger
calves.’

Spirit thought back to those days and the way his mother had
played with them both, a look daring and fun in her dark eyes.
Spirit realised with a jolt that he had never felt so close to
another living being since his mother had disappeared, as he now
felt about Lucy. He glanced at Dancer. Dolphins do not cry and
Spirit said nothing, but Dancer could tell that he was feeling
emotional and gave him a companionable nudge with her nose as they
swam slowly along.

‘
If only she hadn’t disappeared’ he said eventually in a quiet
voice. ‘I just wish I knew what happened to her.’

Chapter Three:

Before Lucy could ask the boy any more, they heard voices
echoing up the walls of the gulley they’d just come up. The boy
frowned.

‘
I’m off’ he said. He turned and ran up the grassy bank behind
them and then disappeared through a gap in the broken fence. The
two older kids who’d been chasing him suddenly appeared below Lucy.
They were both much bigger than the boy they’d been chasing, and
were wearing their Heavy Metal t-shirts and had thick unkempt hair
and spotty complexions. Lucy didn’t like the look of
them.

‘
Where is he?’ the taller of the two asked Lucy with a menacing
edge to his voice.

‘
I don’t know who you mean’ replied Lucy with feigned
nonchalance. The boy eyed Lucy suspiciously.

‘
You’re not from round here are you?’ he said.

‘
Nope.’

‘
And you didn’t see a scrawny kid with curly hair come through
here?’

‘
Nope’ said Lucy again.

‘
You say anything else other than nope?’

‘
Nope’.

The boy turned to his friend.

‘
That figures. He got away again’ he said to his companion.
They turned to go back. ‘We’ll get him next time.’ Lucy’s curiosity
got the better of her.

‘
What did he do to you anyway? Do you always pick on kids
smaller than yourself?’ she called out to them. The boy turned
briefly to reply.

‘
He’s always making up stories’ the taller boy replied. ‘Thinks
he’s something special when he’s not. He needs to be taught a
lesson.’ They clattered off back down the path of the stream,
slipping on the slime-covered stones as they went.

Lucy looked around her. The hill reared up behind. There was a
grassy slope with what looked like a couple of apple trees, some
nettles, then a fence and behind that some houses. Looking in the
other direction, Lucy could see the roof tops and then the harbour
and sea not so far away. The walled gulley where the stream
trickled was like a secret street for kids. ‘Cool’ she thought to
herself. There was nothing like this were she lived. It was all
signposts and safety railings there. She half expected the boy with
curly hair to reappear from behind the fence, but he didn’t. He
must have been long gone.

Lucy wondered how to get back down to the harbour. She glanced
at her watch and realised that she was late for her rendezvous with
Bethany. She guessed that there must be a road or a path or
something, but the most direct route was back down the stream she’d
just come up. She didn’t want to come across those older kids
again, but the noise of them had receded and she hoped she would
miss them. She made her way cautiously back down the walled gulley,
holding on to the sides of the stone wall on either side to steady
herself and then carefully stepping from one dry stone to the next
when she was back on the main stream bed. She carefully picked her
way along the stream, walked under the main road again and soon
found herself back where the trickle of water came out onto the
pebble beach. The children had gone, but the tide had come in
during the short time she’d been away and there was almost no beach
left under the harbour walls. It was that easy to get cut off by
the tide.

She found the cast-iron ladder again and climbed up over the
wall onto street level. Bethany was there waiting for her, looking
distractedly at her watch.

‘
Whoa!’ Where did you pop up from?’ she asked.

‘
Oh’ I’ve just been exploring’ replied Lucy.

‘
Well another ten minutes and you’d have been swimming’ Bethany
went on, peering down at the rising tide.

‘
Find anything interesting?’

‘
I was nosing around up that walled stream that runs from the
beach under the High Street.’

‘
Oh that? That’s a storm drain really. A town like this built
on a hill is like a funnel in a storm and could easily flash-flood
if they didn’t have that kind of thing. I hope you didn’t come
across any rats or anything down there.’ They turned to walk back
to the Land Rover.

‘
Bethany, what are the local kids around here like?’ asked Lucy
shyly. Bethany grinned. So that was why Lucy had been off
exploring.

‘
You tell me.’

‘
I’m not sure they’re that nice’ replied Lucy.

‘
Well there’s good and bad anywhere you go Kiddo’ said Bethany,
placing a companionable arm around Lucy’s shoulder as they walked.
‘But I’m sure you’ll find some good ones. I’m sorry I’ve not been
able to fix you up with any play dates’ she continued, ‘but I just
don’t know the kids your age round here. And I’m sorry that your
friend Amy couldn’t come down to join us. Are you getting bored
stuck down here with your old aunt?’

‘
No way’ said Lucy resolutely. ‘I like it here.’

‘
And I like having you here’ Bethany laughed, turning the key
in the lock of the car. They got in. ‘Maybe we can ask Thelma
tomorrow at tea’ she went on. ‘She seems to know everything about
everything around here.’

When Lucy had turned up in Merwater a fews months ago
unannounced and without Bethany’s address, it was Thelma who’d
helped Lucy get to Bethany’s studio. What’s more, if it wasn’t for
Thelma and her husband Nate and his fishing boat the Lady Thelma,
Lucy might never have been able to save Spirit that time. Lucy
already felt as though Thelma was like another aunt to her.
Thelma’s own children had already grown up and left home. Lucy
wondered if Thelma would really know much about what the local kids
were up to. Still, it was always nice to see her and she just loved
having tea there.