The Girl Who Dreamt of Dolphins (19 page)

Spirit swam on, thinking that the best thing was to act
decisively and hope that things would turn out alright. Luck was
with him and before long the sky cleared of cloud. He still could
not see the moon, but instead above him there were a sprinkling of
stars and that was better. They might not light up the sea like the
moon would have, but the stars could show him his way. He could see
the clam shell constellation, the starfish cluster and the octopus
formation high above him as he skimmed the surface of the shallow
waves. He wondered what humans called them. As long as he could
keep the star-fish constellation to his right, with the north star
behind him, he knew he would not go far wrong.

As the bell rang and children streamed out of school, Lucy
headed off across the wet playground to the after-school club. At
best it was a dreary couple of hours, with raucous boys throwing
things and yelling at each other while she tried to do her
homework. None of her friends generally went there anymore, but Dad
insisted that she shouldn’t go home on her own and be a latch-key
kid, as he called it. Today though, she had things she needed to
research. She walked through the door, hoping that the computer
desk would be free. It wasn’t. Toby Nugent had already claimed it
for himself. She peered over his shoulder with irritation. He was
playing some game and she was worried he’d be on it for the next
two hours if he had the chance. She sighed. She sat herself down as
close as she could and got out her homework book.

‘
Toby, how long are you going to be on that game?’ she asked.
Toby ignored her. ‘Hey Toby!’ she said, louder this
time.

‘
What?’ he replied as he carried on gaming.

‘
I need fifteen minutes on the computer’ she announced. Toby
ignored her again. ‘I said I need fifteen minutes on the computer!’
she repeated.

‘
What?’ he asked again. She gave him an exasperated prod and
thrust a piece of paper in front of his nose on which she’d written
‘I need the pc for 15 min.’ He glanced down.

‘
No way!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m half way through the
level.’

Lucy decided to give him an extra few minutes. If she wanted,
she could reach our with her foot under their desk and flick the
switch at the power socket which would shut down the machine. It
was a very tempting thought. She slipped her shoe off and let her
foot hover close to the switch. Guiltily, Lucy cast a sly look over
her shoulder to see if the coast was clear. Fortunately she caught
the supervisor Ben’s eye. He was well used to fights over computer
use. Lucy seldom asked to use the computer so it was only fair that
she have a turn just this once. He came up behind Toby.

‘
Toby Nugent, if you’re not off that thing in five minutes I’m
dragging you off it myself. Lucy needs a turn.’ Lucy shot Ben a
grateful smile. Toby, distracted, glanced up a moment too
long.

‘
What!? Oh no I’ve lost my last life line’ Toby exclaimed
clearly annoyed, looking back at the screen again. He crashed back
down to the previous level.

‘
Well you may as well finish and come with me’ continued Ben.
‘I’ve got something for you to do.’ Toby stomped off after Ben and
Lucy quickly slid into Ben’s vacant chair in front of the
screen.

Lucy went online and started searching. It wasn’t the kind of
thing that she was used to looking for. On the other hand there
were so many choices of sites to look at that she knew she could
easily spend ten minutes just finding the right one. Not only that,
but she needed to find one that offered good prices. After five
minutes she found a promising looking site, but to get a good price
she had to book for a certain time on a particular date with a
specific return. Then she realised. Of course! She had no means of
paying. Instead she had to jot down the times and prices into the
back of her exercise book.

‘
Wotcha doing?’ Toby appeared at her shoulder, standing
uncomfortably close, hoping she might quit the computer and let him
back on it.

‘
Nothing!’ replied Lucy smartly, clicking off the web browser
with the mouse. ‘It’s all yours’ she said with a smile, getting up.
If she could not book online, she would have to pay a visit, but
when would be a good time? She decided she’d have to confide in
Amy. Well it wasn’t a hard decision. Really she was itching to tell
her friend her plans. They’d figure it out together.

The rest of the after-school club was as boring as ever. Lucy
almost hoped that Dad wouldn’t turn up to pick her up as normal,
after their argument and the way she had stormed out that morning.
She suddenly began to feel hollow inside and anxious.

‘
Hey, why the long face?’ asked Ben sympathetically as he
walked past.

‘
It’s a long story’ Lucy replied. She knew he didn’t have time
to hear it.

‘
Give me five minutes and I’m all ears’ answered Ben brightly.
Soon parents started picking their children up and the club got
quieter.

‘
So what’s up with you then’ Ben asked, appearing again at
Lucy’s side while she read a book. Lucy looked up, wondering what
she could say to him.

‘
It’s sort of like me and Dad have had an argument’ she started
uncertainly. ‘I slammed the door in my Dad’s face this morning and
now, well….’ Before she could continue a familiar voice called out
across the room.

‘
Hey Lucy, time to go home’ called Dad. She turned her head and
saw Dad standing there in the doorway, with his rain coat over his
suit, hands thrust deep into his coat pockets.

‘
Well you can tell me more next time if you want Lucy’ said Ben
quietly getting up. ‘Any time you want a chat.’

Reluctantly, Lucy got her things and her coat and left with
Dad. Both of them opted not to say anything at all, rather than
risk their argument flaring up again. The drive home wasn’t long
and they were both lost in their own thoughts.

‘
Let’s watch a bit of telly’ said Dad as they walked into the
cold house. ‘We can eat dinner on our laps. I’ll just go and rustle
something up.

‘
Just four more days to go’, Lucy thought to herself as she sat
there. ‘That’s all.’ They ate their dinner in companionable silence
as they watched TV. Lucy washed up. She knew that Dad hoped that
things had blown over and that everything was back to normal. ‘No
chance’ she thought to herself as she put the plates away. Before
she knew it, it was bedtime.

Lucy gladly went to get ready for bed. Dad came in and gave
her a peck on the forehead as she lay in bed in her pyjamas reading
a book.

‘
I love you, you know’ he said. Lucy gave him a wan
smile.

‘
Night Dad’ she said.

‘
Lights out in ten’ he said, quietly closing her bedroom door.
She heard a step creak as he went downstairs.

Lucy got out of bed and went over to her bookshelf. She’d had
her birthday a few weeks before. It had been a miserable affair
without Mum, but she’d been given money by several aunts and
assorted relatives and she still hadn’t got round to putting it
into her savings account. She’d hidden the bank notes in the back
of her old copy of Alice in Wonderland and the loose change was in
her purse. She quickly counted it up. She had forty seven
pounds.

Lucy jumped into bed and was soon asleep.

The sun was red in the sky as dawn broke across the sea. The
storm winds had completely passed now and the sea was quiet, almost
still. Spirit had swum all night and was tired, but he had to keep
going. He was pleased with himself though. He’d put a good distance
between himself and the pod and hopefully they would only just be
waking and hadn’t realised that he’d gone. The thought made him
feel guilty though. What would Dancer think when she realised that
he’d gone without saying goodbye?

‘
Don’t think about it’, he said to himself, ‘just keep
swimming.’ He mustn’t let himself forget what he was aiming to
achieve. He would swim solo, as all young dolphins had to do to
pass into adulthood and then when he returned he’d earn the respect
of the pod. They would listen to him then, even Storm and he’d be
the equal of any dolphin in the seas. Still though, he couldn’t
help remembering that normally when a dolphin embarked on a
coming-of-age swim, all the pod would see the adventurer off,
singing the old songs as he swam away. It wasn’t like that for
Spirit though. No one had sung to him as he left, not even Dancer.
It didn’t feel right, but it was too late to turn back now. He’d
feel terrible if he turned and went back to the pod after barely a
day. He had to prove himself.

As he swum, Spirit tried to imagine Lucy there next to him,
moving without effort in the water by his side. He knew she wasn’t
there, but the thought comforted him and made him feel less alone.
He hoped that she would come to him soon. He spied a small shoal of
fish and dived upon them hungrily, snatching two from the rest
before the shoal disappeared down into the depths.

To a human the seas are vast and featureless. To a dolphin
though, it was like moving through a constantly changing landscape.
Even though he was still quite young, Spirit had learned to sense
the subtlest changes in the water and everything about it helped
tell him where he was; the saltiness, the current, the warmth of
the water, the particles on its surface, the smell of the water
itself. It was as natural to Spirit as breathing.

Last night’s storm had churned up a lot of debris from the
depths but he could also sense the waters washing out from the
land’s edge, even though he could not see it. He would soon be safe
in the shadow of the coast. In the meantime, even if he knew it was
too soon to relax, his worries suddenly seemed less serious. The
sea was calm and the sun was high in the sky. It was going to be a
good day.

‘
You’re doing what?!’ Amy exclaimed, her eyes wide and her
mouth open. Lucy felt shy, almost self-conscious, even though Amy
was her best friend. They were sitting on Amy’s bed round at her
house a day later after school.

‘
You can’t just go to Cornwall on your own’ her friend
continued. ‘What will your Dad say?’ she asked
incredulously.

‘
He won’t know’ Lucy replied quietly.

‘
Won’t the police arrest you or something if you get on a train
without a grown up?’

‘
Don’t be daft’ Lucy laughed, ‘I’ll not be doing anything
wrong!’

‘
But you’ll be running away from home’ said Amy.

‘
Course not’ replied Lucy, I’m just going to go and see my Aunt
for a few days.

‘
She won’t let you do that will she, not without your Dad’s
permission?’ Amy still could not believe her ears.

‘
She won’t know either, not till I get there.’ They both heard
Mrs Hodges coming up stairs and Lucy continued in a whisper. ‘Once
I’m there there’ll be nothing my Dad can do about it. He won’t be
worried coz he won’t even know I’ll be gone till he gets the call
from Bethany when I get there. He’ll be too busy to come down and
drag me back home. I’ve got it all figured out.’

‘
If it was my Dad he’d hit the roof if I tried something like
that’ exclaimed Amy. Lucy thought about how her Dad would react.
She knew that he’d be pretty angry too, but she didn’t care. She
had to do something.

‘
What if some weirdo gets you’ Amy asked. ‘There’s all sorts of
strange people out there Lucy, you know that. Some creepy guy could
try to grab you or something.’ They’d all been taught at school
about not talking to strangers, not accepting lifts from people
they didn’t know, not accepting sweets or anything else and not
having anything at all to do with strangers, especially strangers
that might approach them. Dad was always drumming the same message
into her and he said that suspicious people sometimes hung around
train stations. He said that occasionally people seemed nice, but
really they were weird and dangerous and you should stay away from
them, just in case.

‘
I’ll be ok’ said Lucy, though she didn’t feel it. ‘I’ll just
use my common sense. I’ll tell anyone that asks me that I’m going
to visit my Aunt and that she’s meeting me at the other end. It’s
true, well, sort of.’

You’re mad!’ said Amy, marvelling at her friend’s audacity.
‘Wotcha want to do it for anyway?’ Lucy winced inwardly. She didn’t
know how to explain to Amy. She could tell her about the fight that
she and Dad had had about swimming practice and she could tell her
friend about Dad not wanting her to visit Bethany at all. But that
wasn’t the only reason. She couldn’t even really explain it to
herself, but deep down, she had a sort of deep need, a yearning to
go there and to be near not only Bethany, but to be near the sea.
She just had this feeling that she had to go. She felt almost as if
there was something bigger going on that she was caught up
in.

That morning Lucy had woken early with the dawn light. She’d
been dreaming about her little dolphin Spirit, swimming and
swimming through the endless seas. She knew that he wasn’t happy
and that something was wrong, but also that he was determined to
press on. Lucy had put herself in the mental state she needed to
reach out to Spirit. She was getting better at it now. She focused
her thoughts and then relaxed and by this method found the door in
her mind that let her slip from her own world into
Spirit’s.