Dolphin Child

by James Carmody

  ‘Well I didn’t know what to tell them. I didn’t think they’d understand if I told them what really happened and I thought you might not be so keen on getting an earful of their questions. So I’m afraid I told them a bit of a fib’ she confessed awkwardly. Lucy was grateful and relieved that she hadn’t been put on the spot and wondered what on earth Mary could have said.

  ‘So I told them that a friend of mine was walking down the coastal path to the beach and saw the girl and that she called me on her mobile so that I could ring the Coast Guard’ Mary continued. ‘Not sure if they completely believed me, but it kept them quiet though and off they went again.’

  ‘Trouble is’ said Darren coming through, ‘that my Mary always blushes scarlet red when she tells a lie. Known for it in these parts she is. So I’m guessing they didn’t believe her at all’ he laughed. Lucy smiled awkwardly.

  ‘I’m sorry you had to fib’ she said to Mary, ‘but thanks anyway.’

  Lucy went to the phone in the hall and called Dad. She told him all about the boat trip with Nate and Bob earlier and the strange boy she’d encountered in the town. She didn’t tell him what Paul’s mother had said about her, or helping to rescue the little girl, or her swims with Spirit. In fact she didn’t tell him any of the really interesting stuff at all. Towards the end of the call he cleared his throat and then asked the question that she knew he really wanted to ask all along.

  ‘So, err, how are things with your, err, dolphin friends?’

  ‘Oh, you know, fine’ she answered as uninformatively as possible, hoping that he wouldn’t ask anything else.

  ‘And are you swimming with them?’ he asked. Lucy knew he hated the idea of her doing so and could not bring himself to use Spirit or Dancer’s names. It was Lucy’s turn to fib now.

  ‘Oh you know, Bethany and I have gone down to the cove a couple of times and I, well, said hello to them.’ At least on the phone he couldn’t see her blush.

  ‘Good girl’ replied Dad. ‘At least you know better than to try and go down there on your own. Those coastal waters are incredibly dangerous. The undertow can pull you out a quarter of a mile before you know it, even a strong swimmer like you. At the end of the day Luce those dolphins are just animals. They may look smiley and nice but you can’t trust them to save you if you get into trouble. At least I’ll be down in a few days and then I can look after you properly.’

  ‘Yes Dad’ said Lucy obediently, her heart sinking.

  Lucy slept badly that night. At first she’d slept well enough and dreamt of Spirit, Dancer, Storm and the others, which made her feel happy and calm. Then towards the morning the image of the lone dolphin came into her mind once again, floating suspended in the murky waters a few metres away from her. She tried to swim towards the vague silhouette of the dolphin, but the more she strove to get closer to it, the further away it seemed to be.

  Then suddenly the calm waters turned choppy and she could see children above her on the surface, their arms flailing, gasping for air as the waves crashed over them and then floating down, still and lifeless into the inky depths.

  Lucy woke up with a start, anxious and sweaty. Though she had slept for nine hours, she felt as though she had barely slept for two. She felt drained and exhausted. Although she wanted to, she didn’t feel able to cycle up to Old Man’s Cove at first light in the hope of seeing Spirit and Dancer. Besides, she wasn’t sure if they’d be there that morning anyway.

  Lucy stretched out instead to Spirit with her mind. She had to focus her thoughts and then relax, so that she could find that elusive door between her conscious and unconscious that would allow her to slip through and tumble down into their world of water. She already felt tired from her disturbed night’s sleep, so the effort to maintain the vision was more difficult than usual.

  Lucy’s thoughts kept returning to Susan Penhaligon and her ill-fated attempt to take to the sea with a crowd of other children. Could humans really turn into dolphins? It seemed unlikely, but then her own ability to communicate with Spirit and Dancer defied understanding. She asked Spirit, but he hadn’t heard anything of the story. Of course it happened over two hundred years ago and maybe it was unlikely that such a tale would pass down through so many generations of dolphins. Spirit said that he would ask the others about it, but she doubted he would be able to find anything out.

  She didn’t like to tell Spirit about her dream of the lone dolphin in those murky waters, perpetually just out of reach. She thought it might disturb him. Eventually her energy gave out and she found herself sitting on a kitchen chair in Bethany’s studio, feeling tired and hungry.

  Bethany had also got up and had crept down the stairs from the sleeping platform so quietly that Lucy had not noticed. Now that Lucy had emerged from her reverie, she dared to make a noise.

  ‘Hey Kiddo, how about some chocolate milk?’ she said.

  Sunlight flooded in through the windows and after three slices of toast and a bowl full of cereal, she was beginning to feel more herself again. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like to live exclusively on a diet of fish and squid like Spirit had to and was quite glad she didn’t have to try.

  ‘So what do you fancy doing today?’ asked Bethany as she cleared away the breakfast things. ‘I’ve got stuff to do this morning but we could hang out together this afternoon. Maybe we could book ourselves a lesson with your friend Dan at the surf school? One day I’m determined that I’ll be able to stand up on that surf board without immediately falling off it again.’

  ‘That sounds good’ replied Lucy. ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘It’s a deal then. I’ll call Dan this morning and fix up a lesson for this afternoon. I’m pretty sure the tide will be coming then, so the waves should be a bit bigger.’ Four months ago Lucy had given Dan the fright of his life when she’d swum away from shore by the surf school to save Spirit.

  Lucy had the morning to herself and she decided to ask Mary if she could borrow her bicycle. She wanted to cycle into Merwater and buy a postcard to send to her friend Amy back home. Amy had demanded that Lucy send her regular updates over the summer. Lucy wondered whether she would see those kids when she went into town, or that boy Paul. She didn’t want to go up to the recreation ground as she was still worried about encountering his mother Mrs Treddinick again.

  She left the house, bumped over the cattle grid on Mary’s bike and started cycling up the lane. The verges were overgrown with weeds and flowers now and the hedges behind them were tall and unkempt. The occasional butterfly fluttered past and Lucy could hear the distant hum of bees as they flew from flower to flower. The first bit was uphill and Lucy soon broke out into a sweat in the warm sunshine. The lane levelled out where it joined the main road that followed the coast. It was busy with tourist traffic and Lucy cycled on the grassy verge to keep out of the way of cars. After a quarter of a mile or so another lane branched off again and Lucy knew that she could get into Merwater on this quieter road.

  Within another ten minutes she was free-wheeling down the steep hill towards the harbour and the High Street. Lucy chained her bike up to a railing and began to amble along, casually looking into the shop windows as she went. She had the whole morning to herself after all. She bought a postcard and a stamp in one of the gift shops and then sat on a wall in the sunshine to write it before dropping it into the post box outside the ‘Clotted Cream’ Tea Room.

  As Lucy walked along the road, she got to the point where the walled stream passed under the road and continued for a short distance before it came out at the sea wall and the muddy strip of beach beyond. She stopped and looked down to see how much water was in the stream. It was sluggish and green with algae and there seemed to be less in it than when Lucy had followed Paul up it only a couple of days before.

  Just as she was about to turn away, Lucy suddenly heard thudding noises echoing down the walled stream from up the hill and then she caught the sound of children’s voices yelling angrily. Lucy’s heart started to thud as Paul Treddin
ick came round the bend, running as fast as he could along the bed of the stream. He stumbled on the algae covered rocks and almost fell as he did so, righting himself just in time. The two bigger kids that had chased him the other day were almost on top of him, barely an arms length behind him and seemed intent on catching Paul and pulling him down. As quickly as they came into view, they disappeared out of sight under the road.

  Lucy felt a clutch of anxiety. She couldn’t just stand there. She had to do something. There was a pedestrian crossing across the road only twenty metres away and immediately beyond it a narrow side road that led to sea wall. Lucy walked briskly up to the crossing and then once she was on the other side, ran as fast as she could till she got to the wall. Looking down, she could see that the tide was out to its fullest extent and beyond the thin pebble beach there was thick sludge. The two older kids had caught up with Paul and it looked like one was holding him while the other had scooped up a handful of sea mud and was trying to stuff it down the back of the neck of Paul’s tee-shirt.

  ‘Hey, leave him alone!’ Lucy called angrily. The two boys either didn’t hear her or didn’t take any notice. Quickly she found the rusted iron ladder fixed to the side of the wall and climbed down onto the beach. She ran across to them.

  ‘I said leave him alone!’ she yelled, this time trying to pull one of the boys away, so that Paul could run away. The thick sludge squelched up over her sandals and onto her feet. It felt horrible. One of the boys turned to face Lucy.

  ‘Ooooh’ he taunted, ‘Paulie’s got a girlfriend!’ The other boy sniggered. Lucy’s heart was thudding in her chest now. She scooped up a handful of foul-smelling sludge herself now and made as if to fling it at them.

  ‘You want it too then?’ Lucy said, referring to the sludge. The boy leered at her, but started backing off.

  ‘Come on’ he said to the other boy, ‘let’s leave Paulie to his girlie. They’re mud for each other.’ They laughed again at their weak joke and swaggered off. Lucy dropped the sludge and looked at Paul. They’d managed to splatter sludge down the back of his tee-shirt, in his hair and over his face.

  ‘You look terrible’ Lucy told Paul as he straightened up. ‘Come on, let’s clean ourselves up. Paul didn’t say anything as they walked back to where the pebbles edged directly onto the sea. Lucy had muddy feet and one muddy hand. They could soon be washed clean in the sea though. For Paul it wasn’t so easy. He resolved the problem by dunking himself in the clean salt water so that the sludge washed off him.

  Lucy looked at him. He was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt and so although his clothes were now soaked in salt water and his hair was dripping wet, at least the worst of the stinking wet mud had washed off him. It was sunny and warm, thought Lucy. He’d dry out. Paul avoided her gaze though and seemed embarrassed and upset. She wanted to know why they’d picked on him, but in her heart she knew there was probably no reason at all. They didn’t need an excuse to make his life miserable. He was probably too easy and convenient a victim.

  Instead of approaching the subject directly, Lucy thought she’d find out if there was anyone who would stick up for Paul.

  ‘You got any brothers or sisters then?’ she asked.

  ‘I got a sister, but she’s only five’ he replied. So there was no older brother or sister to help him she thought.

  ‘What’s your dad like?’

  ‘Can’t remember. Haven’t seen him for a long time’ Paul replied.

  ‘Who’s your best friend?’ she asked.

  ‘He moved to Bristol at Easter.’

  ‘Who else then?’

  ‘No one. You know, they all have a go at me’ he said. If he was at school the teachers should stop the bullying Lucy thought. But it was the summer holidays now and maybe there was no one he could turn to. No wonder Paul preferred to go off on his bike into the countryside alone.

  ‘How come they’ve all got it in for you?’ asked Lucy. Paul shrugged.

  ‘Dunno’ he said.

  ‘Who are those kids anyway?’ she asked instead.

  ‘They’re Baz and Mike’ he replied. ‘They live round the corner from me. Think they own the place. They don’t know nothing though.’

  There was a big rock just under the sea wall. Lucy gestured towards it.

  ‘Let’s go sit over there till you dry out a bit’ she said. Paul was hardly chatty, but neither was he keen to get away from her. He followed her over to the rock and sat down. They perched there for a while in silence, looking out at the sea. A couple of gulls strutted stiff-legged across the rocks a few metres away. A bit further along a small wader bird was probing the sludge with its long slender beak.

  ‘You always lived here?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah. Us Treddinicks have lived round these parts for just about forever’ he replied with a hint of pride.

  ‘What does your mum do?’ Lucy asked as much for something to say as anything else.

  ‘She says it’s too hard to get a job, what with one thing and another. She’s not worked for a year or two. She gets down. That doesn’t help.’

  ‘What’s your mum got against me then?’ Lucy was afraid of the answer, but still needed to know. Paul shrugged.

  ‘She doesn’t like you coz you’re a Dolphin-Child. You know, like you’ve got a special thing with them. I told her about seeing you at Old Man’s Cove. She says that from way back the Treddinick’s don’t hold with dolphins and all that. She says we’ve been hurt once already and that it’s bad and dangerous. She says never again.’ Lucy could not understand how anyone could think that a dolphin could be dangerous, but then she remembered the story of Susan Penhaligon.

  ‘What do you think then?’ asked Lucy shyly. Paul paused.

  ‘I don’t know. You seem okay to me’ he replied eventually. He looked her in the eye. Like, I don’t think you’re bad. And…’ Paul broke off again. He seemed to want to say something more, but appeared to be battling with conflicting feelings which he could not put into words.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well. Like I said. I’ve seen one in that lake, all trapped and sad looking. It saw me. I… Well, I can’t get its eyes out of my head. No one believes me, but it’s true.’

  ‘I believe you’ replied Lucy. ‘You can take me there’ she exclaimed, the thought suddenly striking her. ‘We can do something together.’ Paul seemed to half shake his head and shrink back into himself.

  ‘I don’t know. You’ve got dolphins. You’ve got everything. Why do you want my one too?’

  ‘So we can help her of course!’ Lucy didn’t have any idea how they might help, or even why she thought the dolphin was a she. It just came out before she thought about it. Paul stared at the ground.

  ‘My Mum says we Treddinicks don’t hold with anything to do with dolphins and all that. Never have. But since I saw that dolphin, well I…’ Paul trailed off again. Lucy felt she knew what he meant though. He couldn’t turn his back on the dolphin, not now that he’d seen her.

  ‘Let me help you help that dolphin’ she urged him, trying to press home her point. Paul just gave another half shake of his head though. It seemed as though he wanted to confide in her, but was mistrustful at the same time.

  ‘You’ll take her away from me’ he replied. ‘You’ll go away and I’ll be on my own again with nothing.’ Lucy didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t say that she wouldn’t. If they could save that dolphin, it might swim off and away from Paul forever.

  ‘But you don’t want to leave that dolphin trapped in that lagoon do you?’ He shook his head more firmly now.

  ‘No, no I don’t’ he said. He looked out across the mud towards the sea, as though he was expecting to see a dolphin appear in front of him there and then. The tide was coming in now and the mud was quickly disappearing under the incoming sea. Paul’s clothes were still heavy with the salty water and he smelt slightly as the sun slowly dried him.

  ‘What if I did?’ he asked after a moment. Lucy didn’t quite understand.

  ‘
What if you did what?’

  ‘What if I showed you the lake with the dolphin in it?’ She still didn’t follow what he meant. ‘Well, could I meet your dolphin, like?’ Finally Lucy realised what he was getting at.

  ‘Oh, I see!’ she exclaimed. ‘You want to meet Spirit. Well, yes sure. Why not?’ she said hesitantly.

  ‘Let me see him first’ Paul said quietly. It was half a demand and half a plea. ‘Let me meet your dolphin first and then I’ll take you to the lagoon.’

  Chapter Eight:

  Spirit was troubled by what Sunlight had told him about her pod and the human children that had died in the sea so many years ago. What he still needed to know was; what was the point of his gift at all? He thought that maybe he had discovered the answer when he’d been able to reach out to Lucy and help the little girl that was stranded on the rock. Now he wasn’t so sure. Susan Penhaligon had led those other children out to their deaths. Her Child-Seer Midnight had not been able to save their lives.

  He wondered whether children really could turn into dolphins. A whole pod believed that it actually had happened. The dolphins of his pod and others in the area though did not. Spirit himself would ordinarily be equally sceptical. However it was already inexplicable and magical that he could communicate with Lucy, a human that lived far away on the land. How could that be? And if that was possible, why couldn’t children turn into dolphins? Spirit didn’t know what to believe.

  It had been fun to visit the pod near the islands. Dancer in particular had played with two other young dolphins there called Twister and Singer. When they left Twister said that he hoped that he would see Dancer again soon and Spirit had been amused to see how she was both pleased and embarrassed by the attention he gave her. He was happy for his friend and she chatted excitedly as they swam back to their own pod. Spirit only half paid attention to what Dancer was saying though and was lost in his own thoughts.

  What should he say to Lucy? She had asked him if he knew about any stories of human children turning into dolphins. Now he knew that there were indeed such stories, but would it disturb Lucy as it had done him if he told her? Then again, if he kept secrets from her, it would weaken the bond between them. He tried to imagine Lucy now, in a little box somewhere, looking out of one of those small translucent squares they called windows onto the greenness beyond. Or maybe all she could see were those grey little boxes? He thought about Susan Penhaligon again, leading those children out into the stormy sea. When he did so, Lucy’s face came irresistibly into his mind. Was that girl Susan all those years ago like Lucy? Yet he could not believe that Lucy would ever do such a thing. What was it that Storm sometimes said? ‘If we do not learn from the past, we never learn at all.’ It was far better that he share what Sunlight had told him so that they might both learn from it.