Midnight Dolphin (10 page)

Minutes crept
by before the ambulance crew reached them and swimming was
abandoned as the cloud of watery blood spread out from the edge of
the pool. Other members of the pool staff appeared with bandages to
quench the flow and towels to keep Lucy warm. The children were
ushered away. Lucy lay inertly at the edge of the pool, looking
very still and very small.

Eventually
Miss Baldwin heard the siren of the ambulance as it drew up
outside. The crew came in and Miss Baldwin was relieved to be able
to step back and let the professionals take over. The ambulance
crew put a temporary dressing on the wound and soon transferred
Lucy onto a stretcher.

At the
entrance of the pool a small crowd of children had
gathered.

‘
Is she
alright?’ called out Amy as she strained to peer over the heads in
front of her. ‘She’s my friend. Can I come with her in the
ambulance?’ The still-dripping Miss Baldwin walked next to Lucy’s
stretcher.

‘
No Amy’ she
replied. ‘Mr Baines is going to go with Lucy to the hospital.’ Amy
glanced round. There was Mr Baines wheezing his way through the
throng. ‘I’m going to the school office to get her dad on the phone
and tell him what’s happened’ Ms Baldwin added.

A few moments
later the doors of the ambulance clunked shut and it moved off
slowly through the car park to the road, its lights still flashing.
The small crowd of children dispersed as they realised that the
lunch break had finished ten minutes ago and that they were late
for their lessons. Amy was left there standing alone.
‘
Please make her be
alright
’ she muttered to
herself.

It took Dad
over an hour to drive to the hospital. Miss Baldwin had gone
straight to the school office where the contact details of parents
were kept. She’d dripped her way along the corridors past surprised
pupils and teachers. She’d been shocked by what had happened to
Lucy. It was her responsibility to keep the children at the
swimming pool safe and she felt as though she’d let Lucy down
somehow. The truth was though that it was one of those freak
accidents that could have happened to anyone.

‘
Hello, Mr
Parr?’ she’d said hesitantly when Dad had answered his mobile
phone. She was just relieved that it hadn’t gone straight through
to voicemail.

‘
This is Miss
Baldwin. There’s been an accident at school I’m afraid. Lucy had a
nasty knock to her head at the swimming pool and has been taken to
hospital.’

‘
Oh no!’
exclaimed Dad. She could hear the shock in his voice. ‘Is she
alright?’

‘
Well she lost
consciousness. I don’t know how she is now. Mr Baines went with her
to the hospital in the ambulance about five minutes ago. I came
straight to the office to call you.’

‘
Of course’
replied Dad. Miss Baines knew that he wasn’t keen on Lucy swimming
and wondered if he would get angry with her. Instead, all he said
was that he’d come straight away. They rang off, and as she did so
she felt her legs go weak and wobbly. She sat down heavily and
wetly on one of the office chairs.

‘
Are you
okay?’ asked one of the administrators in a concerned tone. ‘You
look as white as a sheet.’

Dad’s heart
was still pounding uncomfortably as he drove into the hospital car
park. The traffic had been bad and it had taken him longer than he
thought to get there. He’d longed to put his foot down and speed
along the motorway but the cars had been bumper to bumper. Miss
Baldwin hadn’t called again and he didn’t know if that was a good
or a bad thing. One minute he imagined that Lucy would be sitting
up in bed smiling with a bandage round her head. The next minute he
imagined finding her as a pale lifeless form on a mortuary slab.
Even finding a parking spot proved difficult but eventually he was
able to squeeze into a tight space and clambered out of the
car.

Dad ran across
the car park and up the ramp to the entrance of Accident and
Emergency. Precious minutes were wasted as he spoke to the
administrators to find out exactly where Lucy was. Eventually a
nurse ushered Dad through to a room of four beds where Lucy was
curtained off from the rest by the window.

Mr Baines was
sitting next to Lucy holding her hand while a nurse was checking
the monitors.

‘
Mr Parr,
thank goodness you’re here!’ exclaimed Mr Baines as Dad came
through the curtain. Lucy looked rather small in the big hospital
bed. They’d cut away her swimsuit and put her in a hospital gown.
She had various sensors fitted to her body and the monitor beeped
regularly as it charted her pulse, blood pressure and other
indicators that Dad didn’t understand. Her face was deathly white
but it looked as though she was merely asleep.

‘
She’s still
unconscious’ said the nurse anticipating Dad’s question.

‘
But will she
be okay?’ Dad asked anxiously.

‘
Mr Parr,
she’s had a very nasty knock to the head but as far as we can tell
her condition’s quite stable. There’s no immediate risk of her
deteriorating. We need to do some more tests though. I’ll get the
doctor to come and speak to you.’ The nurse bustled
away.

‘
You sit down
here next to Lucy’ said Mr Baines getting up. Dad gratefully sat
down and took Lucy’s hand.

‘
Come on Lucy’
Dad murmured squeezing her hand. ‘Just wake up and give me a
smile!’ He turned to Mr Baines. ‘How did it happen?’ Mr Baines knew
barely any more than Dad did, but he said what he could. The doctor
appeared around the curtain. She seemed incredibly young to
Dad.

‘
How’s she
doing doctor?’ he asked. The doctor took her time to look at Lucy’s
chart. She felt Lucy’s pulse, even though her heart rate was on the
monitor. The doctor took a small pen-torch out of the pocket of her
white coat and gently pulled up one of Lucy’s eyelids and shone the
torch into her eye briefly, before letting it close again. The
doctor turned to look at Dad.

‘
Well it’s a
serious case of concussion’ replied the doctor eventually. ‘In the
majority of cases we’d have expected the patient to have regained
consciousness by now. Sometimes these things happen quickly, but
occasionally it takes hours before the patient comes round. We’ve
got to check for potential problems like swelling to the brain or
internal bleeding and so we’re going to take her for a scan in a
few minutes when a machine becomes available. Hopefully nothing
will show up, but you never know.’

‘
Can I come
too when she goes for the scan?’ asked Dad. Now that he was here he
didn’t want to lose sight of Lucy. The doctor smiled
understandingly.

‘
Of course you
can Mr Parr. Try not to worry, we’re doing everything we can and
she’s in the right place’ she said reassuringly. She glanced at her
watch. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’ She disappeared behind the
curtain again. Dad cupped Lucy’s small hand in his and looked into
her pale face anxiously.

‘
Maybe I
should leave you now’ said Mr Baines quietly. ‘May I phone you on
your mobile to find out how she is?’ Dad nodded.

A few minutes
after Mr Baines had gone, the nurse came with the
porter.

‘
Alright,
let’s get this young lady down to the scanner room.’ The nurse
removed the sensors from Lucy’s skin.

‘
Is it safe to
take those off?’ asked Dad hesitantly.

‘
Well they
can’t very well go in the scanner with her can they?’ replied the
nurse. ‘We’ll soon have her back on the ward.’ They wheeled Lucy’s
bed down the long featureless corridor. At the end was a set of
swing doors that led through to the scanning suite. There was the
massive white tube-like machine that Dad recognised from medical
dramas and documentaries. A couple of nurses carefully moved Lucy
from the bed onto the scanner bed, which Dad knew would slide into
the machine, engulfing Lucy in its magnetic coils.
‘
MRI
’ thought
Dad, ‘
magnetic resonance machine. That’s
what they’re called.
’

‘
I’m afraid
I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the room Mr Parr’ said
the nurse in a formal tone. ‘Unauthorised personnel are not
permitted to remain in the area while the MRI is functioning’ she
went on. ‘It isn’t safe. Please, come this way.’

Dad allowed
himself to be led out of the room. He glanced back at Lucy lying so
still in the mouth of the great white machine. They’d only been at
home having breakfast that morning, barely six hours ago. Now here
she was unconscious in a hospital examination room. It didn’t seem
real. The door closed behind him.

Fifteen
minutes later the door swung open again as the porter and the nurse
wheeled Lucy out on her bed back in the direction of Accident &
Emergency.

‘
Well, what’s
the verdict?’ asked Dad anxiously. The nurse’s face revealed
nothing.

‘
The doctor
will get the results through on the computer in about half an
hour’s time’ she replied. ‘We’ll get your daughter back to the ward
and you can speak to the doctor there okay?’ Dad had no choice but
to comply. Minutes crept by as Dad waited for the doctor to
reappear. Dad sat there by the bed holding Lucy’s hand, wishing he
knew what was going on.

Eventually the
young doctor came through the curtain. She looked tired.

‘
I’m pleased
to tell you Mr Parr that there’s no sign of any significant
swelling on the brain or bleeding. The MRI scan showed no sign of
brain damage either.’ Dad let out a sigh of relief.

‘
I can’t tell
you how good it is to hear that’ he replied, smiling. The doctor
paused a moment before continuing.

‘
In fact
electrical activity on the brain was high; more consistent with
consciousness than the patterns you might expect if your daughter
were, say, merely dreaming in her sleep. I have to say it’s
unusual…’

‘
But it’s good
news isn’t it?’ asked Dad. The doctor paused a moment longer and
then smiled.

‘
It should be’
she replied. ‘It should be. It seems that Lucy’s free from any
immediate risk. We’ll admit her to the general ward and keep a
close eye on her. Now it’s just a matter of waiting for your
daughter to come round. Let’s hope it’s soon, huh?’ The young
doctor flashed Dad another smile and then disappeared round the
curtain again.

Chapter
Seven
:

Megan ran back
to the holiday cottage, desperate not to let other holiday-makers
see her tear-stained face. She turned over the stone by the back
door and picked up the spare key to the cottage where Mum had
hidden it. She let herself in and went up to the girl’s bedroom.
Megan changed quickly into her flared jeans and a tee shirt. She
threw her purse into her bag and slung it over her shoulder. A few
minutes later she was walking up the lane to the main road and the
bus stop. She didn’t care what Mum and Dad said. She was going in
to Merwater on her own and they weren’t going to stop her. Just for
once the Green-Line bus came more quickly than she expected and
soon she was sitting at the back with the another passenger looking
over the hedges at the fields beyond.

Megan wondered
what she would do when the bus pulled into Merwater. She wanted to
go straight over to Rachel’s. On the other hand she’d like to show
the older girl that she’d found out something for herself. Megan
decided to go to the town library first. There was bound to be
something in the local history section about Jeremiah Smith or
about dolphin children. The trouble was she wasn’t even exactly
sure where the library was. She’d have to ask when she got off the
bus.

The bus wound
its way along the country lanes. Megan felt rebellious at going off
on her own without Mum and Dad’s permission, but she had left a
note saying where she was going and she was used to taking the bus
to and from school on her own when they were back home.

Half an hour
later Megan found herself standing outside the town library. The
Victorian building had a dilapidated air about it. The roof was
stained with bird droppings, the gutters sagged and a seagull stood
on a ledge above the entrance sign looking down at her with a
disapproving eye. She was slightly afraid it would swoop down on
her, but the bird left her alone. Walking inside, she noticed a
dry, slightly musty smell. It was almost like the nineteen
seventies hadn’t arrived there at all.

Megan went up
to dark wooden card index cabinet with its rows of small neat
drawers containing endless index cards cataloguing the contents of
the library. She didn’t understand the Dewey Decimal system though
and soon despaired of finding the right book at all. She felt shy
about asking the librarian for help and opted to wander up and down
the bookshelves in the hope of chancing upon the right section. Her
footsteps seemed particularly loud as she walked up and down. The
only other people there seemed almost as dry and musty as the
library itself.

Eventually
Megan found the local history section and stooped to scan the
shelves. She’d half imagined finding a neat row of all Jeremiah
Smith’s other journals, but of course there was nothing of the
kind. There didn’t even seem to be anything about him at all. There
was certainly nothing about dolphin-children. After half an hour of
peering at book spines and leafing through indexes, Megan gave up.
She looked up and wondered about asking a librarian. Perhaps they
had a special section under lock and key like they did at the
bookshop.