Dolphins in the Mud

by Jo Ramsey

  The hubbub around the mud grew with the arrival of another van. People started wading into the muck and talking about the best way to haul the dolphins out. The animals just sat there, staring with sad eyes at the humans. Dolphins were always shown as these graceful, beautiful creatures. There was nothing graceful about them now. Some of them flopped around, trying to swim through the goop, and some of them just held still like they knew there wasn’t any hope of freeing themselves.

  They were still beautiful. I kind of wished Mom had let Cece stay outside. Then again, seeing the dolphins like this probably would have upset Cece. She liked watching dolphins swimming on TV and in movies, and she wouldn’t have understood why these just lay there in the mud.

  Or maybe she would have. Maybe Cece understood more than the rest of us and just wanted to hide it.

  Noah and I stood there next to each other for a long time without saying anything. I’d given up on talking, since he didn’t seem to want to share any more information with me. I didn’t know if he kept quiet because I did, or if he had something to hide. The reason didn’t matter to me.

  With everyone else I knew, silence always ended up feeling totally awkward. With Noah, I didn’t feel awkward at all. I’d just met the guy, and I already felt like maybe we’d become friends.

  Of course, I hoped we’d end up more than that. He was cute, and I had a sense that there was more to Noah than he was showing me. Mystery appealed to me. Plus I was just plain lonely.

  Like there was the slightest chance of a guy like him being gay. I decided to stop thinking along those lines and just be happy about having someone to hang out with besides my parents and Cece. At least for the time it took to free the dolphins.

  Chapter Two

  AFTER A while I started to shiver, and it finally occurred to me that I was outside in March with no shoes or jacket. At least I’d put on a sweatshirt and jeans when I’d gotten up, instead of sticking with the T-shirt and shorts I usually wore around the house. The temperature wasn’t as cold as it could have been, and the dolphins and Noah had distracted me from noticing it, but once I started shivering, I realized how cold I was. My teeth chattered, and my feet felt like blocks of ice.

  “I’m going back inside to warm up,” I told Noah, wondering if he’d even care. “I’ll be back in a while.” With shoes and a coat, or at least a warmer sweatshirt.

  “Sure.” He nodded toward the dolphin rescuers. “They’ll keep me entertained, at least until someone at the house notices I’m out here and drags me back inside.”

  I started to ask why anyone at his house would care if he was out there, but decided it was none of my business. “Well, if you’re still out here when I come back, see you then.”

  “Sure. And if I’m not, maybe you can come up to the house and say hi. Just knock on the door with the red wreath. That’s the ‘company’ door.” He made air quotes.

  “Okay.” I doubted I’d ever go to his house. At least not unless I got to know him a lot better than it seemed like I’d be able to. The place was big enough to be intimidating, and just the few things he’d said made his life sound a little on the weird side. If he’d gone in by the time I came back, I might change my mind. I wanted to talk to him more. Or not talk, as the case might have been.

  I walked up the slope. All the pebbles and pinecones I hadn’t noticed while chasing Cece jabbed into the bottoms of my feet. Catching up with her had been so vital that nothing else had registered in my brain. I’d be in enough trouble for her getting out. If anything had happened to her, I didn’t even want to think about what my parents would have done to me.

  Mom had locked the door. Apparently she’d learned from Cece escaping. So I knocked and stood there shaking while I waited for her to answer. The shaking was because of the cold, but I also dreaded what Mom would say to me once I was inside.

  Then again, if Mom hadn’t wanted Cece to take off, she should have made sure she locked the door after Dad had left for work that morning. Cece getting out wasn’t only my fault, but Mom would never admit she had any part in it.

  I shouldn’t have told Noah I’d be back later. Mom might not let me leave the house till sometime next week if she’s pissed enough.

  She opened the door and stepped back out of the way. “Get in here fast.” She didn’t sound as angry as earlier, but that didn’t mean much. She didn’t get over things quickly, especially when it came to Cece.

  I obeyed. She slammed the door behind me and locked it again. As the full impact of the destruction in the room hit me, all I could do was stare.

  Cece was kneeling on the couch, staring out the window at the cove. She rocked slightly, something she did when she was bored or trying to calm herself down. A bunch of torn paper covered the floor around her and most of the couch, and books were scattered all over the room. Apparently she hadn’t liked having Mom bring her back inside.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Mom demanded. She spoke in a quiet, calm voice. I turned to her. She narrowed her eyes, and I had no doubt about how angry she was. She just didn’t want to yell at me because yelling bothered Cece, unless Cece was the one doing it.

  I wished she would yell, because then I would have felt okay about yelling back. “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, speaking just as quietly as Mom.

  “Why didn’t you catch her?” She pointed toward the window. “That’s dangerous! And with all the neighbors standing around. Who knows what they thought?”

  “Who cares what they thought?” I countered. “Mom, Cece can’t help how she is. You know that and I know it, and if no one else understands, that’s their problem. Besides, she didn’t act up or anything out there. She just ran down the slope.”

  “That’s my point!” Her voice rose just a little. “She ran down the slope. She might have gone straight into that mud. You know she wanted to.”

  “Yeah, because she wanted to see the dolphins.” I took a deep breath. Mom wasn’t pissed off because I’d screwed up. She was pissed off because Cece had scared the hell out of her, and blaming me was convenient. As long as I remembered that, I probably wouldn’t lose my temper, no matter how unfair she was being.

  “Why didn’t you catch her?” she asked again.

  I pointed to my feet. The bottoms of them stung, and when I lifted one, tiny speckles of blood dotted my skin and the carpet. “No shoes. I can’t run as fast barefoot.”

  “Oh, Chris.” She knelt beside me and stared at the specks. “Honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were hurt.”

  “I know.” I took her apology with a grain of salt. She probably was sorry I’d hurt myself, but that didn’t mean she forgave me. “It’s no big deal. Probably not even enough to need bandages. Anyway, I tried to catch her. I chased her away from the steps, at least. She had to go sideways to escape from me, and one of the neighbors blocked her before she reached the mud.”

  “I wish there hadn’t been so many people there,” she mumbled. No matter how many times doctors and family members had told her that Cece wasn’t her fault, Mom always expected strangers to call her a bad mother when Cece had her moments. That was why we didn’t know any of our neighbors well. Mom didn’t want to take a chance on anyone judging her and Dad. Dad worked so much I didn’t think he cared if we talked to our neighbors or not. I wasn’t sure he realized how bad off Cece was, because he didn’t see her very much.

  “Most people didn’t even notice anything until you showed up.” I wanted to kick myself for saying it. I hadn’t meant to imply that Mom had caused a scene, but that was exactly what it sounded like I was saying.

  And probably at least some of the people by the edge of the mud wouldn’t have noticed a thing if Mom hadn’t run down there yelling.

  Sure enough, she got upset again. “I was worried about Cecelia. Of course I was going to go out there and make sure she was okay. That should never have happened. Who caught her, that boy you were talking to?”

  “Yeah.” I sat down on the floor and checked o
ut the bottoms of my feet. I had a few scratches and tiny cuts. Nothing too serious. I’d had worse. “He didn’t touch her, just blocked her until I caught up with her. He said he has a cousin with autism, and he kind of guessed that’s what Cece has, so he knew not to touch her.”

  “Hmm. At least someone understands.” She looked at Cece, who hadn’t moved from her spot on the couch. “She’s safe. That’s the important thing. We’ll just have to be more careful from now on.”

  “Yeah.” It was a good time to change the subject. “There’s a lot more people down there now. They said there are rescue crews coming from the aquarium and some other place to help. Cece’s going to have a lot to watch.”

  “Cecelia,” Mom corrected. “You need to use her whole name.”

  “She’ll have a lot to watch,” I repeated. “I just came back to warm up for a while and put on my shoes. Is it okay if I go back down there later? Maybe I can help or something.” Hopefully I’d be able to talk more with Noah. Maybe then he’d answer my questions.

  “I’ll think about it.” She sat on the couch beside Cece. “Right now I don’t want to make any decisions. This has been a heck of a day, and I’m exhausted.”

  Which meant Cece’s tantrum had probably been even worse than it seemed. I went into the bathroom and washed my feet, then went to my room and put on a pair of socks, which cushioned my feet enough that they didn’t sting while I walked around. Then I went back to the living room and started picking up the mess Cece had made. The fact that Mom hadn’t cleaned up yet meant Cece hadn’t calmed down all that long ago, and I figured, after all that, Mom needed a break.

  She didn’t say anything about the work I was doing until I went over to the utility closet to take out the vacuum. “Don’t vacuum right now,” she said. “You know. The noise.”

  “Right.” I closed the closet door. Cece hated the vacuum cleaner, and if I used it right then when she was still rocking, she probably would freak out again. I didn’t want that, and I knew Mom didn’t. The vacuuming would have to wait till later.

  Maybe I’d wait till Mom went out to run an errand and let Cece help me vacuum. I’d done that a few times. Even though the kid didn’t like the machine’s noise, pushing it herself seemed to make the noise easier for her to tolerate.

  I didn’t want Mom to know I let Cece use the vacuum. Mom didn’t think Cece could do anything on her own. If she found out about the vacuum, she would think Cece might vacuum up her own foot or something. Fortunately, Mom went out almost every afternoon, claiming she’d forgotten something at the grocery store or needed to drop off something at the dry cleaner. Those were the times when she couldn’t handle Cece anymore and needed to go out by herself.

  I doubted Dad knew she left when he wasn’t home. He probably wouldn’t have been too happy about her leaving me in charge of Cece. Mom had started the errand-running when I was about thirteen, and I’d never had any trouble with Cece. When she and I were alone, the kid was either perfectly quiet or followed me around like a little puppy, trying to talk to me.

  I picked up as many scraps of paper by hand as I could and went into the kitchen to throw them away and grab a soda. Glancing out the window, I saw another van had arrived. People were milling around in the mud, trying to roll one of the dolphins onto something that might have been a blanket. I didn’t see Noah in the crowd, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there. I wanted to go back out and find him, but I knew better than to push my luck with Mom.

  After a few swigs of soda and a couple minutes of watching the action in the cove, I went into my bedroom for my sneakers and another sweatshirt. I still didn’t know if Mom would let me go back outside, but I’d decided to act like I assumed she would.

  Back in the living room, Cece had finally stopped rocking and was chanting “Doph, doph, doph” under her breath. Mom sat beside her, facing away from the window with her eyes closed.

  “Why did the dolphins have to strand themselves here?” she muttered.

  “Because they knew Cece wanted to see them, I guess,” I replied, not sure whether she was asking me or some higher power.

  “Cecelia,” she corrected.

  “Doph,” Cece said firmly, turning to me.

  “Yep, they’re dolphins, all right.” I walked over to the sliding glass door that led onto our deck. Dad had nailed it shut the day we’d moved in, after Cece had figured out how to open it and nearly fallen off the deck. The cottage was built into the side of a hill, so the drop from that part of the deck to the ground was about ten or twelve feet. “Mom, can I go back down? I might be able to help or something.”

  “I don’t think they’d let a teenager help with wild animals.” She sighed. “Go ahead, I guess. Thanks for cleaning up. I just hadn’t had a chance yet.”

  “I know.” I grinned at Cece, who gave me a tight-lipped smile back and turned around again. “It’s almost the weekend. Dad will be home, and then you’ll have a break.”

  “Yeah. Go on out if you’re going.”

  She closed her eyes again, which didn’t do much to hide the dark circles under them. Cece had probably been up since four thirty or so, which was the time she usually woke on school days. Actually, the time she usually woke every day. Sleep and Cece didn’t get along too well. And once Cece woke up, Mom had to get out of bed too, or Cece would destroy something. My parents locked the outside doors of the cottage, but they refused to lock Cece in her room like one of the therapists in Dayfield had recommended.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to offer to watch Cece for a while to give Mom time for a nap. I headed out the door before the words left my mouth. I wasn’t Cece’s parent; I was her brother. I didn’t mind taking care of her once in a while, but I definitely wasn’t going to volunteer for the job.

  When I went outside, I realized it was a good thing Mom hadn’t let Cece stay out there. The noise level had risen like crazy since I’d gone in. More people had showed up, and a couple of the dolphins were making squeaks and whistles like Cece had been doing earlier, only the dolphins sounded more authentic.

  I walked over to a group of kids who stood a little ways up the slope from the cove. I knew a couple of them—a guy and a girl—from school. The rest were younger.

  “They won’t let us help,” one of the younger ones complained.

  “Hey, Chris,” the girl I knew, Sarah, said. “Your sister would love this, huh?”

  “She’s been watching them all morning,” I replied. Sarah’s family was one of the few who’d met Cece, because they’d come over to welcome us to the neighborhood when we moved in. Unfortunately, Cece had bitten Sarah’s little brother that day. “She escaped from the house to try to get closer to them. Freaked Mom right out.”

  “Lucky you caught her,” the guy, Brad, said.

  “I didn’t. Noah did.”

  “Noah Silver?” another of the younger kids asked. “He’s back?”

  “He was here earlier,” I said.

  “I’m surprised his parents let him out of the house,” Brad said. “They don’t usually let him associate with us peasants.”

  “Stop it.” Sarah shook her head. “Noah can’t help the way his family is. When he does hang out with us, he’s okay.”

  “Yeah, on the rare occasions.” Brad paused. “And when he does hang out with us, he always ends up arguing or acting all hyped up. He’s weird.”

  “He isn’t that bad,” Sarah said.

  A shout went up from the mud, and we all turned to see a group of people lifting a blanket that held one of the dolphins. The dolphin just lay there, totally still. For a second I wondered if it had died, but then I saw its eyes. There was still life there, even though I couldn’t have explained exactly what I saw. The people carried the animal to a pushcart on the strip of sand at the mud’s edge then pushed it on the cart over to a van.

  “That’s the first one they’ve pulled out since we’ve been here,” Sarah said. “Someone said they think one of the others is dead already.”

 
; “Why doesn’t Noah hang out with you guys?” I asked.

  “What difference does it make?” Brad said. “He’s only here like a month or two out of the year. It isn’t like we miss him or anything.”

  “He’s a nice guy,” Sarah said again. “His parents travel a lot, and I guess they take him with them. They come here to relax and spend time as a family, I guess.”

  “That’s a lot of guessing.” Apparently they didn’t know much more about Noah than I did.

  Her face reddened. “None of us know a lot about him. Just that when he’s here, he seems nice. Brad’s right, though. Sometimes he does get a little weird.”

  We stood around for quite a while watching as the rescuers managed to pull a couple more dolphins out of the muck. The tide had begun to come back in, which seemed to help a little.

  Noah didn’t come back. At one point, I debated going to his house, since he’d invited me. I decided not to. First of all, he and I hadn’t talked long enough for me to feel comfortable about the idea. Second, the others probably would have asked a lot of questions if they knew where I was going. From what they’d said, it didn’t sound like anyone ever visited Noah at his house, so I stayed where I was until I heard Mom shouting my name.

  The shout didn’t sound good. It was panicky and higher-pitched than Mom’s usual voice, which probably meant something else had happened with Cece. Back where we’d used to live, Dad had worked only a few blocks from the house, so when there had been problems Mom had called Dad to come home. Now, Dad worked almost two hours away from where we lived and sometimes didn’t get home till eight or nine at night.

  “See you guys later,” I said to the others. I hurried away before any of them answered. I didn’t want to explain why I had to run when Mom called.

  Before I even reached the cottage, I heard Cece screaming. Mom stood by the sliding glass door waving at me and pointing toward the door we used, which I interpreted to mean she’d unlocked the door. When I tried the knob, the door opened, and I went inside to find Cece on her knees in front of the couch, rocking and banging her head against the floor.