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First published 2012
Text and illustrations copyright © Willard Price Literary Management Ltd, 2012
Map copyright © Puffin Books, 2012
Illustrations by Nelson Evergreen
Cover Illustration by Eamon O’Donoghue.
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
ISBN: 978-0-141-33946-7
Amazon and Frazer were supposed to be keeping an eye on the beach, alert to the first sign that the baby turtles were hatching, but the morning was simply too perfect to just sit and stare at the sand.
Frazer looked at Amazon, a bright light sparkling in his grey eyes.
‘Race you,’ he said, and sprinted away over the beach towards the glassy waters of the lagoon.
‘Cheat,’ yelled Amazon. She was right on his heels, but Frazer’s head start meant that he hit the sea a second or two before her. The beach shelved gently, and Frazer’s heels kicked up the spray into her face for ten strides before the water was deep enough for him to hurl himself into a flat dive.
The lagoon retained a little of its night-time coolness, but it was still the warmest seawater Amazon had ever set foot in. It didn’t stop her from gasping when Frazer came up and swept a great armful of spray into her face.
‘Look!’ yelled Frazer, pointing across the lagoon. ‘It’s a –’
‘Dolphin!’
A sleek, grey-green shape rose once, twice, and then disappeared again.
Like a lot of girls her age, Amazon had been obsessed with dolphins as long as she could remember. In her dreams sometimes she would become a dolphin, carving her way through the water, leaping into the air, effortlessly free and happy. It was the perfect way to forget the misery of the long journey here.
‘But what’s it doing here?’ Frazer asked. ‘I thought the lagoon was too shallow at low tide for anything that large?’
‘It must have become trapped,’ said Amazon. ‘It should be OK until the tide rises again, and it can get out over the reef, or through the gap we came through last night. In fact, I don’t understand why it hasn’t already found the gap. Perhaps it’s fishing.’
And then the dolphin breached again, this time leaping clear of the water. Now they could see that it was not alone. A miniature copy followed its every move, like a shadow on the sunlit water.
‘It’s a baby!’ sighed Amazon. ‘And it looks like a few more dolphins are in the lagoon as well,’ she said, spying more dark shapes just below the water, and the odd fin breaking the surface.
Then they were distracted by the sound of voices calling from the shore.
Frazer waved back at the women and children who had come down to the edge of the water.
‘What are they saying?’ asked Amazon.
‘I have no idea,’ replied Frazer. ‘My Polynesian is a little rusty. But it looks like we’ll soon find out.’ Two of the older children were pushing a small canoe over the sand.
A loud yackity, clicking noise drew their attention back to the dolphins. Up until now, Amazon had thought that the mother and baby dolphin had been simply playing in the lagoon, but now she noticed that there was something strange in their behaviour. They were darting back and forth in an agitated manner, as if they were frightened.
‘I think they’re getting a bit panicked by all this action,’ she said. ‘Maybe we should head back to the beach and check out the turtle eggs.’
Before Frazer had the chance to answer they heard excited shouting. It was the children in the canoe. There was a boy, who looked to be about the same age as them, and a younger child. They were pushing the canoe along, using stout bamboo poles.
‘You! Get out of water! Climb on boat!’ said the boy.
‘What? Why?’ said Frazer. ‘We mean the dolphins no harm.’
‘Not only dolphins in sea. Sharks! Many.’
Amazon felt a cold jab of fear surge through her spine. Just as she’d always loved dolphins, she’d always been terrified of sharks.
‘Where?’
‘They chase dolphins, see.’
And Amazon realized that she’d been wrong about the dark shapes under the water. Now she could see that they moved in a completely different way to the dolphins – a sinuous, snake-like back-and-forth motion, rather than the up and down of the sea mammals. And the tips of their vertical tails cut the surface of the lagoon in a way that the horizontal tails of the dolphins never did.
Amazon didn’t need another invitation, and in a few seconds she and Frazer were climbing into the narrow canoe. The two village children were standing, the boy at the front and the girl at the back, but Amazon and Frazer knelt in between them, and held on tight to the wooden sides. There was hardly enough room for the four of them: this wasn’t one of the big, ocean-going canoes the men of the village used for fishing expeditions out beyond the reef, but a frail and fragile craft designed to be used in the shelter of the lagoon. It had a small sail made from woven palm fronds on a bamboo frame, but it was useless without the wind, and was lying flat in the bottom of the vessel, which is why the two village children had used the bamboo poles to push the craft along.
Amazon found that she was trembling. ‘Are we safe here?’ she asked.
‘I guess so. The sharks don’t seem very interested in us – they just want that calf.’ Then Frazer turned to their rescuers. ‘Thanks, you guys. I’m Frazer Hunt, and this is my cousin, Amazon.’
‘I am Oti,’ said the boy. ‘This is sister. She called Mahina. You pretty stupid to swim with sharks.’
‘If we’d known there were sharks …’ began Amazon, but then she remembered the dolphins. ‘There must be something we could do to help them?’
Frazer thought for a moment. ‘I wonder what’s stopping them from going back out through the gap in the reef …’
‘Sharks don’t let,’ said Oti. ‘See, more of them swim in front of it.’
What had been a confused picture was becoming clearer to Amazon. The mother and baby would make sudden darting runs towards the gap, but the sharks would not let them pass. The mother would butt at any that came too close to her calf, but she could not force a way through to the open ocean, and safety.
‘Can you get the canoe over there, Oti? Maybe the sharks will clear off if we sit over the gap.’
The Polynesian boy looked doubtful. ‘This is not wise. There is some danger.’
‘Oh, please,’ Amazon implored. ‘I couldn’t bear it if that little dolphin …’
Oti shrugged. ‘OK. We try.’
There was still no wind for the canoe’s small sail, so Oti and Mahina used the bamboo poles to punt the canoe along.
When they reached the gap, the sharks, far from being scared off, seemed to become more excited and gathered around this new intruder, giving Amazon her first good look at them. Some were just a little longer than her outstretched arms; others were a couple of metres from tail to nose.
Amazon shuddered. She knew that it was silly to regard any animal as evil: she understood perfectly well that all creatures were engaged in the same struggle to survive, to get enough to eat and to reproduce. But there was just something unfathomably wicked about the sharp, pointed noses, the staring eyes with their black, slit-like pupils, the mouth, half hidden,
but full of pitiless teeth.
‘We’re lucky,’ said Frazer. ‘These are just reef sharks, by the look of them.’
‘So they don’t eat people, then?’
‘Nah. They might bite your foot off if you dangled it in front of them, but that’s about it.’
‘I’d quite like to keep my feet, actually,’ said Amazon, pulling her toes in from the edge of the canoe.
‘If there was a tiger shark here,’ Frazer continued, ‘things would be a lot less pleasant. Hey, I’ve had an idea. Maybe we can use the poles to drive them away from the gap, so the dolphins can escape. What do you say, Oti?’
‘Can try,’ said the Polynesian boy, without much confidence. ‘But we must have care. Small canoe not good out in big sea.’
The gap in the coral was about four metres wide. Beyond the shelter of the reef the water was choppier and, now that the canoe was in the gap, it rose and fell with the waves.
Mahina gave Frazer her pole, and he and Oti jabbed them down at the sharks. It was almost impossible to hit the creatures. The sharks slipped elegantly aside from the thrusts. Oti was used to spear fishing from the canoe, and easily kept his balance, but Frazer had more trouble. Once he jabbed his pole with such force that he almost fell in amongst the angry sharks. He instinctively grabbed hold of Amazon, and would have dragged her into the water with him if it had not been for the quickness and agility of little Mahina, who steadied them both.
However, despite their difficulties, they had some success in at least irritating the sharks enough for them to move away.
‘Come on now!’ Amazon cried out to the dolphins, who had been keeping well clear of the action. ‘Time to make a run for it.’
The dolphin mother seemed to be paying attention. When the last of the bigger sharks swam away, she made another of her rushes for the open sea, followed closely by the calf.
And this time it looked like they were going to make it. The sharks realized what was happening and raced back to try to catch the dolphins before they escaped, but they were too late. In a straight race, the mammals were much too quick. They were halfway through the reef opening, and Amazon had already begun to cheer.
But then something huge and ominous loomed from the seaward side of the reef. This was no foot-chewing shark. It was longer than the canoe, and dwarfed the mother dolphin.
Frazer recognized it immediately. It was a tiger shark, the most feared killer in these seas. Too big to risk swimming into the lagoon at low tide, it had, with the ancient cunning of its kind, been waiting patiently outside.
And now its time had come.
It was certainly powerful enough to tackle a fully grown bottle-nosed dolphin, but very few hunters will take the parent when the helpless child is up for grabs. And so the shark lunged with deadly intent towards the calf, its wide mouth gaping obscenely.
Superb swimmer though she was, the mother was moving too quickly to turn in time to protect her infant. Trapped between the wall of the reef and the jaws of the predator, the calf had nowhere left to swim. Or so Amazon thought, and her joyful shout turned into a cry of horror.
But a couple of strong beats from its tail sent the calf up and out of the water. The tiger shark’s jaws closed on nothing but the surging wake.
Amazon and Frazer gasped together as the dolphin flew through the air, and landed with a splash in the shallow water – no more than a hand’s width – washing over the reef itself. It flapped and flopped, but the sharp coral cut into its delicate skin, and soon it lay still.
The shark sensed that its victim was close. It tried to surge up on to the reef, the alternating light and dark stripes on its enormous back rippling in the light. But the calf was too far away, and the shark couldn’t reach it. For a moment it seemed that the predator would be stranded on top of the reef as well. But the shark managed to thrash itself down from the coral, and rolled away, beating its long tail.
The calf was making a desperate bleating noise, calling out hopelessly to its mother. The mother dolphin circled round, and made her own clicks and clacks in response. But she could not come too close as the tiger was back on patrol, seeking revenge.
The canoe had come to rest right up against the reef. The dolphin calf was tantalizingly close, but out of reach. Amazon could not stand its plaintive calling. She had to do something, but she knew that if she tried to walk on the reef her feet would be cut to shreds on the sharp coral.
‘I’m saving that dolphin,’ she said, and before the others could stop her she picked up the useless sail from the bottom of the canoe, and threw it on top of the reef. Then – accompanied by a cry of dismay from Frazer – she stepped from the flimsy canoe on to the sail. She felt her feet sink through the woven palm leaves and press on the coral, but the sail gave her just enough protection. In three quick steps she had reached the little calf.
It was so beautiful, so helpless. She knelt by its side and put her hand on its nose. It looked back at her, and seemed calmed, as if it knew that she meant it only well. Amazon would happily have spent an hour there, just gazing at this wondrous creature, but she knew that she had to work fast. Already the dolphin’s skin was cut and torn, and she could almost feel the agony of the hot sun on its back. She worked her hands and then arms under its body, and lifted it up from the reef. It was heavier than she’d imagined, and she almost slipped and fell.
But Amazon was strong and, even more than that, determined. Staggering under the weight, she made it to the edge of the reef. The mother came in close, followed not far behind by the tiger shark. It was now or never. Amazon dropped the baby into the sea, just clear of the reef, hoping it would know to swim away with all its might.
But the calf was still dazed and confused, and it hesitated for a fatal few seconds. The tiger was on it again. But this time the mother was ready. She propelled herself like a torpedo at the shark, ramming it with a crunching force that propelled the giant fish sideways against the reef.
And then mother and calf were away, flying joyfully though the gentle waves, and no shark was ever going to catch them.
‘Take that, you overgrown anchovy,’ yelled Amazon, pumping her fist in the air.
It was a mistake.
The woven leaves that made up the sail were slippery and coming apart in the thin layer of water that washed over the coral. Amazon stumbled backwards, half righted herself and then overcompensated, falling headlong into the sea, outside the reef, just metres from the waiting tiger shark.
Leopard Adventure Page 14
