The Girl Who Dreamt of Dolphins (9 page)

It wasn’t working and she couldn’t do it, but as she sat there
on the sofa, her eyes half closed, imagining, she began to slip
into a light doze. As she did so, she became aware that there was a
gap between her conscious mind and sleep that she hadn’t noticed
before. She could sense the conscious world around her and felt the
urge to sleep. But there was something else, almost like a secret
door, leading to a hidden path that she could follow if she wished.
Behind that secret door within her mind, she could feel with a
vivid rush the sea around her and she was swimming, swimming
towards the pod of dolphins that cruised slowly through the
greeny-blue of the sea, just metres in front of her.

‘
Wake up sleepy head’ said Dad, gently shaking her by the
shoulder. ‘You were dozing off. I’ve made you fried egg on toast
and here’s a glass of juice to drink with it. You really are wiped
out today aren’t you?’ Lucy felt the rush of the real world
returning as the vision of the sea and dolphins faded away around
her. It took a few seconds to adjust. She gave him a half smile and
got up stiffly. He put the plate and glass down on the table and
she sat down to eat.

‘
It’s a good thing I did keep you off school today’ he added.
‘You’d never have made it through the day.’ Lucy didn’t reply, but
her mind was full of thoughts. Was this the way to get back to her
little dolphin? Lucy ate slowly. She wasn’t hungry, but knew that
she should eat. Dad had pulled her out of her trance right at the
worst moment. He stood at the counter quickly munching a sandwich,
unaware of what was going on in her mind.

‘
I’m just off upstairs to finish an email’ he said. ‘I won’t be
long. Then maybe we can play a game or something together.’ Lucy
knew that he wouldn’t surface for the rest of the afternoon and
that when he did, all he’d want to do would be to watch
TV.

‘
Oh sure’ she said. Off he went again, back upstairs to his
laptop and phone. Lucy was aware that he worked in an office for a
company and that he was on the road a lot. She was never sure
exactly what he did though. The company was in difficulties and
things weren’t easy for Dad at work. He was reluctant to talk about
it, but Lucy knew his boss was putting him under a lot of pressure.
Still though, even when he was actually there with her, he wasn’t
really. He was always thinking of some report or sales statistics,
or Lucy didn’t know what. She didn’t care anyway. He hadn’t been
there for her last night. She finished her egg and took her plate
through to the kitchen. She threw the crusts of her toast out for
the pigeons in the garden. She sighed, closed the back door and
came back to the sitting room. Could she find the secret door in
her mind again? Could she train her mind to get back to her
dolphins when she wanted?

Lucy went upstairs to her room and sat down on the rug on the
floor. There was a picture of her, Mum and Dad on her window sill.
They were all smiling. She wished that she could speak to Mum about
the dolphins. She knew that Mum would understand. She could never
tell Mum now though and the thought made her feel wretched. It was
Mum who loved the sea and all the creatures within it, particularly
dolphins. Mum had always told her stories about dolphins and
mermaids from as early as Lucy could remember. Mum even had a
machine that made sounds of the ocean and used it to lull her to
sleep when she was a baby. Dad had got rid of it now. She wished
she still had it. It might help her focus her mind. Dad seldom
talked about Mum now and she didn’t really understand why. It would
be nice to look through old photographs together. Bethany said that
Dad didn’t want to because it would be too painful for him, but
Lucy thought it would be really nice to do.

Lucy remembered one time that they’d all gone to the seaside
together. She’d been about seven years old at the time. The first
three days it had rained non-stop, but after that it was sunny
every day. Lucy and Dad had played badminton on the beach and
afterwards Dad had settled down to read his book. Mum and Lucy
would wander off to the rock pools at the edge of the beach under
the granite cliffs. Lucy loved to peer into the perfect little
pools. She’d see tiny fish darting from one frond of seaweed to the
next, or hermit crabs ambling over the rock haphazardly until they
realised they were being watched, when they’d retreat into their
adopted shell, pincers hunched up in a defensive gesture. Sometime
there were little orange sea anemones, their tendrils waving
dreamily, searching blindly but patiently for morsels of food to
float past. Mum knew all about the life in the pools, even naming
the different types of seaweed, though Lucy couldn’t quite remember
them now. Lucy would creep up quietly on the limpet shells and then
try to take them by surprise with a quick kick to dislodge them.
She was seldom successful.

Sometimes she’d glance up and see Mum staring, far far out to
sea, searching the horizon for something. Lucy always had the
feeling then that someday Mum would tell her what she was looking
for, but it never quite happened and now she never
would.

Mum was an excellent swimmer too. Dad would never let Lucy go
too far out, even with both armbands on and they’d play in the
shallows while Mum swam out away from the shore. She knew all about
the currents and the tides and even though she was a confident and
powerful swimmer, she never forgot to take notice of the wind, the
weather and the waves. To Lucy, it seemed that Mum knew the sea
better than the sea knew itself. She would dive off a rock into the
water with barely a ripple and would swim down deep amongst the
rocks before appearing again at the surface somewhere quite
unexpected. Often Mum would bring her strange shellfish to show
her, before carefully putting them back in the water where she
found them. Mum was quicker in the water than anyone else she knew
and never seemed to tire.

Lucy sat on the rug in her bedroom. She was desperate to reach
out to the little dolphin, as though somehow he could tell her
something she didn’t know. When she’d slipped off the bed the night
before last, she’d ended up kneeling on the floor, amidst all her
bed clothes, staring up in the direction of the window. She decided
to adopt the same position again, as if that might in some way help
her to focus.

She decided not to close her eyes this time, but to look into
the distance as though she was not seeing what she was looking
towards, but looking through it instead. Somewhere between her
conscious mind and sleep, she knew, there was a crack, a chink, a
door into another way of thinking, another state of mind that could
take her to the little dolphin and his pod in the deep sea far
away.

Lucy concentrated hard for several minutes, trying to will
herself into a trance, but to no effect. All she heard was Dad
droning away on the phone in the next room. All she could see were
the clouds in the sky through her window, grey and sluggish and
wet.

Lucy tried twice more, but it became no easier and she made no
progress at all. For all her imagining and force of will, she could
not do it. In defeat Lucy gave upconcentrating and let her mind
drift. Suddenly, she felt that she was entering a different state
and became aware of the doorway between consciousness and sleep
opening up before her. Her mind impelled her through the doorway
and as she did so, she realised that she was passing from the world
of air, to the world of water and she felt herself flowing through
salty cold sea again, floating effortlessly while the light dappled
and danced upon the gentle waves above her head.

In the distance she could make out the silhouette of five or
so dolphins, riding in a care-free way just below the waves, lazing
away the afternoon after feeding. They broke the waves and
breathed, the sun warming their backs momentarily as they did so.
Lucy glanced down. The seabed, sandy and flat, was two or three
metres below her and as she looked she saw the little dolphin
cruising slowly past below her, unaware of her presence.

Lucy gave a kick and dove down in a fluid movement that
brought her to the side of the small dolphin. In a way that she did
not understand, without speaking as a human would or clicking as a
dolphin might, Lucy said one word.

‘
Hello.’ The dolphin startled and glanced her way.

‘
Hello’ he said.

Chapter Six
:

The next morning, the sea was calm and placid. The sky was
clear apart from a few wisps of cloud high up in the atmosphere. In
the distance, a sailing boat sat becalmed in the water, its sails
empty, barely moving. Spirit lay at the surface of the water,
eyeing the world of air above him. What would it be like to be up
there, out of the water, in world of people? He could not dive into
the world of people as they could plunge into the sea where he
lived. He would never know what it was truly like to be up there.
Yet for Spirit, those two worlds had just moved closer. He thought
back over the last few days. He could not quite believe what had
happened.

Dancer swam up to Spirit’s side.

‘
Hey Spirit, follow me, I’ve got something to show you.’ Spirit
followed Dancer as she led them down to the seabed. They were in a
shallow part of the sea and the seabed was only a few metres below.
The bottom was an expanse of sand, along which small fish darted
and the occasional crab scuttled along from crevice to crevice.
Brightly coloured shells were scattered here and there and then
they came to a big, red coloured sheet of metal lying on the sand.
On it were strange markings, which neither of them could
read.

‘
It wasn’t here yesterday’ said Dancer. ‘It’s just appeared
overnight’ she said.

‘
Is it from the humans?’ asked Spirit.

‘
I suppose it must be’ replied Dancer, but I cannot imagine
where it might have come from. No boats have been past here in the
last day or so.’

‘
Maybe it fell from the sky’ said Spirit, marvelling at the
shiny redness of the metal in the water. ‘You’ve seen those droning
things, high above the clouds?’ he asked Dancer. ‘Well they’re not
birds and they’re not insects. I think they’re something to do with
humans. Maybe it fell from a flying machine that the humans have
made.’

‘
I think you’re becoming a bit obsessed by humans’ laughed
Dancer, only half in jest. Spirit started awkwardly because Dancer
was not entirely wrong. Storm, he knew, had a very low opinion of
humans, but Spirit was beginning to think differently.

‘
So what is it that has come over you Spirit in the last couple
of days?’ asked his friend casually. ‘It seems like you’re in a
world of your own now’ she added, glancing at him quizzically.
Spirit turned his friendly gaze towards her.

‘
I’ve seen one, a human….up close I mean’ he
started.

‘
You mean the diver we saw at the wreck the other day?’ asked
Dancer.

‘
No, yes of course we’ve seen one then, but I mean another
human, more recently.’ He went on hesitantly, ‘I’ve seen a human
swimming by my side, as close as you are to me now.’

‘
Is that when you and Storm hid from the orcas by the side of
the fishing boat?’ asked Dancer thoughtfully. ‘Did one of those
humans swim in the water with you?’

‘
No, although it’s true I felt as though one were with me then
as well’ Spirit went on. ‘I…., oh it’s so difficult to say. Never
mind.’ He turned and started to swim slowly away from Dancer.
Dancer followed.

‘
You know you can tell me Spirit. I’m your friend.’

‘
You’ll just think I’m silly’ replied Spirit. ‘You won’t
believe me.’ Spirit swam up to the surface and took a long breath
through his air hole. ‘Never mind.’

‘
Maybe later then’ said Dancer. ‘I’ll never think you’re silly,
no matter what you tell me.’

Just then Moonlight swam up to them.

‘
When the sun is highest, Storm is calling the council
together. You two must come along.’

‘
But we’ve never been allowed to come to the council before’
protested Dancer. ‘Aren’t we too young still to do so?’

‘
I should say so’ said Moonlight with a smile, ‘but Storm
thinks otherwise. He says that it’s important that you be there,
now that you are a little older.’

‘
I can’t think why’ responded Dancer. ‘I don’t know anything.’
Spirit said nothing. He knew that he did have something to say, but
he didn’t know where to begin. If he couldn’t bring himself to tell
Dancer about it, how could he tell the whole council?