Dolphin Child

by James Carmody

  ‘I’ve spoken to Mary and she’s agreed that we can help her out on the farm this afternoon’ he said. It should be fun. We can pretend to be farmers. What do you say?’ Lucy smiled weakly.

  ‘Sounds good Dad’ she replied.

  By the end of the afternoon they had shifted hay about, filled water-troughs and mended holes in the hedges with bail wire. Normally it was fun to help out on the farm with Mary, but she was eaten up with worry about what to do to help Star-Gazer, her thoughts gnawing her inside.

  As soon as they finished and went back to the cottage to freshen up, Lucy went up to her room. She settled down cross-legged on the floor and the strained her thoughts before relaxing them again in the way that she had learnt to help her slip from the world above water and into the watery world below. Before long she found the gap between the two states of consciousness and tumbled through.

  The dolphins were all gathered in a loose circle, engrossed in conversation. It was Dancer who first noticed Lucy and called to Spirit. Lucy told Spirit and Dancer as quickly and concisely as she could what had happened that morning at the Penrose place. She was tired and knew she could not sustain the energy she needed to stay with Spirit for very long.

  ‘It’s okay!’ said Spirit excitedly. ‘We’re going to save Star-Gazer. There’s going to be a heavy storm tonight. Fresh water will flood down from the land. It will wash away all the silt from the inlet and around the fence. We’ll find a way through the fence, or we’ll get Star-Gazer to jump over it. She’ll follow us down to the sea and she’ll be free! It’s all been decided.’

  As Lucy’s tiredness overcame her and she was pulled back to the world of dry land, she knew that she was going to be there to help them.

  Chapter Nineteen:

  ‘Would you like a snack Luce?’ Dad called up the stairs of the cottage. Lucy became slowly aware of the room around her again.

  ‘Not at the moment’ she called back down the stairs. Lucy got up and looked out of the window. The air had become cloying and muggy, as though it were heavy with moisture and she could see that great black clouds had boiled across the sky. It looked like there was going to be a storm but Lucy didn’t care. She wanted, no she needed to be there with Spirit. She just had to get back to the lagoon.

  Lucy padded downstairs, unsure about what to do or say next. Dad was in the kitchen making himself a sandwich.

  ‘There’s going to be a good old thunderstorm’ said Dad from the other side of the doorway. ‘You can almost feel the electricity in the air. I’m just glad I’m not a sheep or a cow out there in the rain and wind, that’s all I can say’ he continued conversationally. Just then there was a spattering of light rain against the window, the precursor of worse weather to follow.

  Lucy stood there in the small dining area of the cottage, tense and uncertain. Dad was just through the doorway. She knew that she should walk through and tell him that she had to do something, something important and that he had to let her go to do alone. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it though.

  Lucy had already been amazed that Dad had let her go off on her own that morning. Six months ago he wouldn’t even have let her come down to the coast at all. He’d changed so much and she was beginning to feel so much closer to him and yet there were still things that she was simply unable to speak to him about. She was reluctant to tell him more than she needed to about the world of dolphins that was so important to her.

  If Lucy went through the door now to tell him what she wanted to do, she knew he’d forbid it. There was no way he’d allow her to walk out into that dark and brooding storm. Even Bethany would have said no, she realised.

  ‘I’m just popping over to the studio to talk to Bethany’ Lucy called back to Dad through the doorway. ‘I expect I’ll be a while’ she added.

  ‘No worries’ Dad answered trustingly. ‘I’ll have dinner on the table by about seven, so if you’re not back by then I’ll come over and get you. Take your coat now’ he added ‘We don’t want you getting a soaking now do we?’

  ‘See you later then Dad’ Lucy replied, slipping out of the cottage. She felt terrible about lying, but by the time Dad bothered walking down to the studio to find out where his daughter had got to, she’d be long gone. It was the only way she could think of to get away. Heaven knows what Dad would do or say when he caught up with her, but she’d worry about that later.

  Lucy slipped on her rain coat and ran down to the farmyard where the bikes were stored. Fortunately no one else was around so she pulled out the bike, jumped on it and started peddling off up the lane again.

  The blackness of the clouds made it much darker than it normally would be for that time of day. Despite the rain that had begun to fall, the air still felt sticky and close and Lucy quickly started to sweat as she pedalled up the lane. The weather had brought out the snails, that trailed up plant stems in search of dinner. Lucy couldn’t quite believe she was doing what she was doing and for the second time that day she half expected Dad to come chasing after her and tell her to come back to the cottage.

  Just as Lucy turned out from the end of the lane onto the main road, the rain that was falling from the slate-grey clouds became heavier and Lucy could feel the drops of rain from her hair trickle down her back. Lucy realised that she had a choice. Turning right would be the quicker route out to the Penrose place. On the other hand if she turned left and decided to go and try and find Paul, she’d be going in the opposite direction and it would take much longer.

  Lucy leant on the handle bars of the bike with one foot on the ground while she thought. Then impulsively she turned left in the direction of Merwater and Paul’s house. She didn’t know how Paul might help and in some ways she thought that she’d be better on her own. Paul was part of all of this now though. He had a right to be there with her.

  It was raining steadily by the time that Lucy got to Paul’s house and she was already wet through. Her rain coat was only designed for light showers and by now it was thoroughly waterlogged. Lucy glanced at her watch. It was already twenty past six and maybe Paul had given up waiting to see if she’d put a pebble on the gate post. Still, it was worth a try. She certainly didn’t want to risk knocking on the door and dealing with Mrs Treddinick again. She’d never let Paul go out in the rain. Besides, Dad may have realised she was gone and already spoken to Mrs Treddinick on the phone. She daren’t risk it.

  Lucy took the pebble out of her rain coat pocket that she’d picked up from the beach and placed it on the fence post. She went back across the road and into the recreation ground opposite, where she looked back at the house from the protection of the straggly hedge.

  The minutes ticked by. First Lucy promised herself that she would just wait five minutes and then go if Paul did not appear. Then she added another minute and then another but still he did not come. In the meantime Lucy was acutely aware that all the time she waited here was time she could be spending getting to the lagoon. More rain trickled down her neck as she stood there. It might not be cold rain, but it still felt uncomfortable.

  After nine minutes, Lucy decided that Paul either hadn’t seen the pebble, didn’t care, or wasn’t allowed to go out in the rain at this time. She sighed and pushed her bike back onto the street to leave, but just then Paul appeared pushing his own bike up the side of the house from the shed. He gave Lucy a shy grin.

  ‘Let’s get out of here’ she said, relieved that he was there. He mounted his bike and then both of them went off up the rain-swept and deserted street together. Soon they had left Merwater and the houses gave way to hedgerows on either side. The wind had picked up and the rain was falling as fat heavy drops, each smacking into them with what felt like the force of small canon fire.

  ‘What’s the plan then?’ Paul asked eventually. Neither of them had said much at all until they were clear of the town. Lucy glanced over at him. Paul was already almost as wet-through as she was.

  ‘The rain will wash away the silt round that fence barrier thing’ Lucy ans
wered between pants as they pedalled up an incline. ‘Star-Gazer will be able to jump over the fence or something. Then she’ll be free.’

  ‘Is that it?’ asked Paul sceptically.

  ‘That’s it’ replied Lucy. Something will happen. Something’s got to.’

  The sky was so dark that they could hardly see the hedgerows on each side of them as they pedalled along. The rain was coming down harder and it almost hurt the skin of Lucy’s legs under her sodden shorts. The feeling of oppression and closeness intensified.

  Suddenly there was a crackle of electricity in the air and in a blinding flash of lightning the whole countryside around them was briefly illuminated. The lightning struck a dead tree in the field to their left. Before they could adjust their eyes to the brightness it was gone again, but immediately the ear-splitting crack of thunder followed. The storm was immediately above them now. Lucy could hear the shattered tree topple over in the field.

  ‘Go faster!’ yelled Paul, putting on a spurt of speed on the pedals, desperate to get away.

  ‘No stop!’ Lucy hollered back at him urgently. ‘Get off your bike NOW! They’re metal and metal attracts lightning.’

  Paul did as he was told and they both threw down their bikes into the ditch and continued on foot. Thankfully they were not far from the old railway embankment and the path that took them to the wall of the Penrose estate.

  Just then another bolt of lightning hit the ground so close to them that Lucy almost felt that she could stretch out and touch it. The thunder struck in the same instant with a crash that left her ears ringing. The two children hurried on, fear crackling in their veins, not daring to turn and enjoy the strangeness of the scene around them. Lucy could hear a cow lowing in a nearby field and she wondered what it must be like to be a farm animal caught in an exposed field in a storm like this. Then she thought of Star-Gazer and pressed on again.

  At the foot of the railway embankment a torrent of water was pouring out onto the road from the slope. They made their way up and were soon running along the overgrown path of the abandoned railway track, gravel crunching underfoot as they went.

  They were both out of breath when they reached the base of the high stone wall separating them from the woods and the lagoon beyond. Paul started to climb the tree in order to scramble over the top of the wall and drop down on the other side.

  ‘Wait’ said Lucy, leaning against the wall. ‘I need to focus.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I need to reach out to Star-Gazer and tell her that we are coming.’ Another crack of lightning came down close by and moments later the thunder burst above them making them jump in alarm. Strangely the noise and the confusion of the storm around her made it easier to focus and before she knew it she was gliding through the dark waters of the lagoon to where Star-Gazer was circling nervously.

  ‘Star-Gazer!’ Lucy whispered so as not to alarm her by her arrival. ‘It’s me, Lucy, Spirit’s friend.’ Rain pounded the surface of the water just above their heads. The dolphin turned to face her. ‘It’s just like you told Spirit, the storm will wash away the silt. In a few minutes I’ll be there with my friend Paul. Somehow we will set you free’ Lucy continued.

  ‘That sounds great Lucy’ replied Star-Gazer, but in a way that made Lucy think that she didn’t quite believe her. Lucy could sense that the dolphin was so sad that her spirit was almost entirely crushed. Lucy guessed that she was near the end.

  ‘And Spirit’s coming up the estuary too’ she added. Immediately Lucy could see Star-Gazer’s eyes light up again. ‘Just hang on in there.’ Lucy was about to return to her physical self when she turned back.

  ‘You know the old man in the house, Norman Penrose. Is it true that you have some sort of a link with him?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘What, the man human pushed on wheels? We used to swim alongside their boat sometimes. Then the man and the woman saved me when I was in trouble. But now they just keep me here. I don’t know why. They throw dead fish to me every day but that’s no way to live. I want to look up at the stars again from the wide open sea, not here in this terrible place. No, there is no special link with him, not like you have with Spirit. None at all.’ Lucy’s mind came back to where she was standing with Paul.

  ‘We’re coming!’ she assured Star-Gazer, as her silhouette dissolved back into the dark water.

  Back under the wall, Lucy came to and looked up at Paul, half way up the small tree next to her.

  ‘Let’s get going again’ she told him. Paul quickly disappeared over the wall and she heard a wet thud as he landed on the other side. Lucy clambered up behind him. She leapt down from the wall but instead of landing on her feet, she slipped on the sodden muddy earth at the base of the wall on the other side, tumbling over. She was unhurt and stood up again quickly, but mud was streaked all the way up her legs, rain coat and one side of her face.

  Paul and Lucy ran on through the trees, muddy pools forming at their roots and then battled through the rhododendron bushes to get to the side of the lagoon. The eye of the storm had moved on a little now and although the rain was still intense, it did not feel as dark and oppressive as it did before.

  Both Lucy and Paul were completely bedraggled, their wet hair plastered down flat over their skulls, with mud splattered up all over them.

  ‘My mum would say we’ll catch our death of cold’ smiled Paul. They’d reachedthe edge of the lagoon. With a flash of lightning the scene was brightly illuminated again. Star-Gazer was racing agitatedly from one end of the inlet to the other. The water was too shallow to leap, but she was trying to do so anyway. With convulsive flicks of her tail flukes Star-Gazer repeatedly tried to jump. It was a desperate, heart-wrenching spectacle to watch.

  Lights flicked on in the big house at the end of the inlet as someone evidently had noticed Star-Gazer’s distress. A door clattered open at the side somewhere and then Mrs Penrose appeared, holding an umbrella ineffectually over her head. It promptly blew inside out and she let it drop to the ground.

  ‘What’s the matter Flipper? It’s only a storm’ Lucy could make out Mrs Penrose saying over the wind and driving rain. She could see that Star-Gazer was desperate to escape. Mrs Penrose’s voice became more plaintiff.

  ‘You can’t leave us Flipper. Norman needs you! Stay with us!’ she cried out as another flash of lightning illuminated the sky. Star-Gazer paid no heed though, as she continued her compulsive flailing to and fro in the water. Lucy could see Mrs Penrose go down onto the small landing stage and kneeling down, it seemed as though she were trying to offer Star-Gazer something, though Lucy could not make out what. Just then Paul nudged Lucy with his elbow.

  ‘This is weird’ he exclaimed.

  ‘You’re right’ replied Lucy, pulling herself together. ‘We’ve got work to do.’ They made their way along the bank towards the closed-link fence that separated Star-Gazer from Spirit and the wide open sea beyond the estuary. Lucy didn’t care about Mrs Penrose now. It was probably too dark for her to see them and even if she did, in the midst of the storm it felt as though different rules applied.

  The storm was so heavy and so much water had fallen so quickly that great rivulets of fresh water were running into the inlet now. It seemed as though half a dozen streams had appeared from nowhere. Lucy and Paul splashed through them as they made their way to the fence. It didn’t matter if their shoes got wet, they were soaked already.

  When they got to the fence Lucy could see that Star-Gazer had been right. The storm had succeeded in washing away much of the silt that had accumulated around it. The channel on the other side down to the sea was free now.

  ‘Spirit!’ she cried, splashing down into the water to greet him. Dancer was there again too. Paul followed her and they both embraced the two dolphins briefly. Spirit and Dancer started to let out a succession of clicking and whistling sounds to alert Star-Gazer to their arrival.

  Star-Gazer immediately gave up her flailing and approached the fence. Spirit was there on the other side, looki
ng through it at her. It was the first time that they had actually seen each over for other a year and for a few moments they seemed lost in each others gaze. Lucy could only guess at what was going through both of their minds at that moment.

  Despite being so close to Spirit on the other side of the fence, Star-Gazer was still not free. She swam around in a circle and then tried to jump again, but there was a wire submerged just below the surface of the water and there was still not enough depth to enable her to jump high enough to clear the fence. On the other side Spirit and Dancer started ramming the fence, trying to dislodge it at the bottom and make a gap big enough for a dolphin to swim through. It was no good though; the fence had been fixed in place well and though it bent when they rammed it, it did not break or dislodge. Lucy produced her penknife from her pocket.

  ‘Let’s help them’ she said to Paul, wading into the water. The penknife had a saw blade and after a couple of minutes she was able to cut through the submerged wire. It wasn’t enough to enable Star-Gazer to jump the fence though and she started hacking at the fence links. Paul tried pulling it up at the base while the dolphins continued to ram in. The worst of the storm had passed and though there was still thunder and lightning, it was not overhead now. The rain continued to sheer down and twilight was descending. It would soon be dark.

  ‘This is like, impossible’ panted Paul. ‘It’s going to take forever to cut through the wire with that penknife of yours and we’re not going to be able to open up a hole at the bottom, that’s for sure.’

  ‘You’ll be needing a pair of these’ a voice suddenly sounded behind them. Both children whipped round in surprise, Paul nearly slipping into the water as he did so. Mrs Penrose was standing behind them on the bank. She looked gaunt and severe and almost as soaked as they were. Lucy made an involuntary gasp. What did she want? Would she insist that they stopped, or would she even call the police?