‘But you have no freedom at all’ Spirit said to her another time when they were discussing her life at school.
‘We go to school to learn the things that we need to know so that we can be free when we grow up’ she’d tried to explain.
‘Then you have to get one of those job things you told me about and you told me that in a job you have to work eight hours a day doing what someone else tells you. You have to pay to live in one of those tiny boxes. It seems to me that you’re not free at all’ Spirit went on, shaking his head in wonder.
It was very hard for Lucy to explain how human society worked. Despite what Spirit said though, she didn’t like to think about the alternative. She couldn’t sleep in a field in the way that Spirit could float on the surface of the wide open sea at night. He might call houses ‘tiny boxes’, but they were warm, safe and dry and she found them comforting.
‘You humans are all so frail!’ Spirit had exclaimed another time. ‘It’s amazing that any of you survive at all’.
Lucy didn’t have Eng Lit at all that day and had no reason to go and speak to Mrs Penhaligon. She felt awkward as she sidled round the door of the classroom as the remains of Mrs Penhaligon’s class streamed out at first break. Mrs Penhaligon was stacking books when she glanced round and saw Lucy standing there.
‘Ah Lucy. How are you today?’ Lucy tried to put on a brave face.
‘Alright I suppose’ Lucy replied.
‘In other words not really’ Mrs Penhaligon observed. ‘Have you been able to talk to your aunt or your dad yet?’ Lucy shook her head.
‘No, no I haven’t’ she replied, ‘but this came in the post.’ Lucy held out the copy of the ‘Flora and Fauna of the Cornish Coast.’
‘Whatever is this?’ asked Mrs Penhaligon, taking it from her hand curiously and examining the cover.
‘Like I said, it came in the post but I’ve no idea who sent it. It used to belong to my Mum though. Her handwriting is all over the margins where she’s made notes. There’s, there’s something I want to ask you. I don’t know what the notes mean. Do you for example know who Jeremiah Smith is? Look it says ‘Jeremiah Smith’. ‘Third journal.’ What do you think that might mean?’
‘Well as it happens’ replied Mrs Penhaligon, ‘you’re in luck. I do know who the Reverend Jeremiah Smith was.’
‘You do, who was he?’
‘He was the rector of the church at the end of Bussey Lane. You know where that is don’t you? Just on the edge of Merwater. He was quite a well known man in the area in the Eighteen Fifties. He recorded the folk tales and stories from all over Cornwall. He published several accounts of the folklore he came across. He was also a keen naturalist and corresponded with such luminaries as Charles Darwin. They talked about turning the rectory where he lived into a folk museum a few years ago. I think they tried to raise the money but it didn’t quite happen.’
‘Did he write about dolphins?’ Lucy asked enthusiastically.
‘Now that I don’t know’ replied Mrs Penhaligon
‘Do you have his book then? Is it in the school library?’ Mrs Penhaligon laughed.
‘No it’s not the kind of thing you’d find in our school library. Maybe in the local history section in the Merwater or Truro library or a university perhaps.
‘So I couldn’t order it online?’ Mrs Penhaligon chuckled again.
‘It’s not that kind of a book. It will have been out of print for decades and if you did find a copy, it would cost hundreds of pounds. Besides, your Mum is writing about his journal, not his published works.
‘What would his journal be then?’ Lucy asked.
‘Well I suppose it’s what he wrote his notes in as he went round the countryside. That seems to be what your Mum was on about. There must be something particularly significant in his third journal.’ Mrs Penhaligon glanced up at the clock. She handed back the book. Break will be finished soon. I’d better get ready for my next lesson.’ She looked back at Lucy. ‘Come back though and we’ll see what we can find out. I like a challenge.’
At lunch time Lucy had swimming practice. The public swimming pool was right next door to the school. Lucy’s sports teacher Miss Baldwin was committed to build up the swimming squad and thought that Lucy could win medals for the school if she put in the training. Lucy was a keen swimmer and loved ploughing up and down the pool whenever she could, working on her stroke. Dad had been set against her doing swimming practice last year, but since September he didn’t seem concerned about it all. If anything, he encouraged it now. ‘It’s because now he thinks I’ll lose my gift anyway, it doesn’t matter if I’m good at swimming’ she thought grimly as she walked over to the pool.
The swimming pool was a bit run down. The walls of the changing room were tiled but several had fallen off and the paint of the steel window frames was peeling. The occasional ant wandered along the grouting between the tiles in search of discarded sweets. Still, Lucy felt at home here. For her, it was a refuge from the worries of the day.
Just before the school had use of the pool at twelve thirty, there was a session for the over sixty-fives. It made Lucy smile to see the elderly ladies moving slowly and sedately through the water. The school children were so raucous and energetic in comparison. The elderly ladies reminded Lucy of the manatees, or sea cows she had seen in a programme about the wildlife of Florida on the TV. She was so lithe and supple in the water in comparison; well a little like a dolphin she supposed.
‘Good to see you Lucy’ Miss Baldwin said briskly. ‘Get changed quickly, we’re going to be working on diving today.’ Lucy was soon in her swimsuit and swimming cap and at the deep end of the pool. A group of younger kids were doing widths under the supervision of a couple of sixth formers at the other end of the pool. At the deep end though there were only five of the more advanced swimmers under Miss Baldwin’s tutelage. The pool echoed with the noise of the boisterous children at the other end.
Lucy was used to diving in to the pool to start swimming a length and felt that she was able to slice into the pool quite cleanly when she dived. That wasn’t what Ms Baldwin wanted to teach them today though.
‘Okay team’ said Miss Baldwin, clapping her hands to get their attention. She was wearing shorts and a polo shirt and she had a look in her eye that suggested that she was going to work them hard this lunchtime. ‘There are basically four positions in diving. There’s straight, which is when you keep your body in a fluid line. There’s pike, what’s that Mark?’ she asked, looking at the boy next to Lucy.
‘That’s when you bend your body at the hips Miss’ he replied.
‘Good. Yes, you bend at the hips but not at the knees. Then there’s tuck which is when you bunch your body up tightly with your hands on your lower legs and there’s free diving. Give me an example of free diving Lucy.’
‘That’s for twisting dives and combinations of positions Miss Baldwin’ replied Lucy promptly.
‘But we’re going to be practicing the backwards dive today. You stand at the edge looking away from the pool like so’ Miss Baldwin continued, demonstrating to the five children. ‘Keep your arms tight at your side while you bend your knees. Then you spring up and push off, so that when you strike the water you’re looking into the middle of the pool with your arms stretched in front of your head. Mark, I know you’re familiar with this already. Would you like to give us a demonstration?’
Mark was pleased to oblige and performed an elegant back-flip, slicing into the water before swimming to the edge again and pulling himself out.
‘Good Mark’ Miss Baldwin went on. ‘Of course you’ve got to be absolutely certain that there’s no one in your path and that you push yourself away from the edge of the pool. Right, lets all have a go shall we?’
The five children all took it in turns to flip backwards with varying degrees of success. When it was Lucy’s turn she was aware that she did not strike the pool very cleanly and that she twisted a little when she came down. As she plunged in backwards and the wa
ter boiled up into her eyes and face, she half expected Spirit to swim up to her, and instinctively looked around to see where he was. Instead all she could see was the light playing on the surface and all she could hear were the muffled yells of the children above. She swam over to the edge. Swimming practice just reminded her of Spirit and the thought that she might not see him again overwhelmed her.
‘That was a bit of a messy dive Lucy’ remarked Miss Baldwin as Lucy pulled herself out. ‘Let’s have another go shall we? Remember, you need to spring up and arc over without twisting. Lets have another look at Mark.’ Lucy was stronger than Mark on the front-crawl but he was an undeniably better diver than she was. Ordinarily Lucy would have watched with interest but today she just couldn’t seem to focus on what he was doing.
‘Right, your turn’ continued Miss Baldwin. ‘Off you go.’
Lucy took her position at the edge of the pool, looking back at the wall. With her arms straight at her side she bent at the knees ready to spring up and back. ‘Just spring up and get it over and done with’ she thought to herself. ‘The lesson will be over soon.’ Lucy sprang up but even as she did so, she imagined Spirit and Dancer and the perfect leaps they took from the water and wondered whether she would ever see them again.
Lucy leapt up but not back away from the edge and somehow forgot to put her arms up straight over her head. She turned in the air and crashed back down on the ledge just under the water-line. There was a sickening crack as her head struck the tiles and her world turned black as she crumpled into the water.
Chapter Six:
The sunshine crept round the curtains of the bedroom where Bethany and Megan lay sleeping. The light seemed particularly bright and Bethany tried to bury her face in her pillow. The light penetrated pinkly through her closed eyelids. She opened one eye briefly to the light before closing it again. Then she squinted with the other eye. It looked as though Megan was already awake. Her older sister was sitting cross-legged on her bed writing something in a book with a pencil. Then Bethany pulled the sheet over her head in the hope that that it would block out the rays of sunshine penetrating the room. Instead the thin cotton sheet seemed to make no difference.
‘Are you awake then Bethany?’ asked Megan.
‘It’s too bright!’ exclaimed Bethany. Megan gave a sympathetic chuckle.
‘If you open your eyes they’ll soon adjust, silly.’
‘What does adjust mean?’
‘Just open your eyes and you’ll see’ replied Megan. Bethany sat up in bed and squinted around her. Megan was reading.
‘Have you seen your dolphins?’
‘No…, no I haven’t.’ Megan closed her book and looked despondently down into her lap.
‘Why don’t you call them?’ asked Bethany.
‘It’s not like that’ replied Megan. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’ She sighed deeply.
‘You do like them don’t you?’ Bethany asked. Megan nodded. ‘And they like you?’ Megan nodded again. ‘Then you should all just be friends then.’
‘I wish we could be’ sighed Megan again, sniffing. ‘I’m going downstairs’ she said suddenly.
‘I’ll come too!’ piped Bethany, not understanding that Megan wanted to be alone. Her sister had already gone though and she heard Megan stomping down the cottage stairs and then banging the front door shut behind her.
‘Are you okay there Bethany?’ asked Mum, putting her head round the door to their bedroom.
‘I wanted to go with Megan but she just ran downstairs and left me’ replied Bethany sadly. Mum came down and sat next to her on the bed and put her arm round the shoulders of her youngest daughter.
‘You know Megan’s growing up’ she said sympathetically. ‘You will need your own space when you’re her age.’
‘Will I be thirteen one day too?’ asked Bethany.
‘Yes of course you will silly’ laughed Mum. ‘Come on. Let’s go downstairs and get breakfast.’
Megan came in about half an hour later just as Mum, Dad and Bethany were finishing breakfast.
‘And how are you this morning Megan?’ asked Dad brightly, leaning back from his plate of egg on toast, ignoring the fact that she’d disappeared off alone again that morning.
‘Alright I suppose’ answered Megan. Dad gave her an exasperated look as if to say ‘Do cheer up!’ but didn’t say anything. Megan sat down at the kitchen table and poured herself some cornflakes into a bowl.
‘Well, what shall we do today?’ he asked instead.
‘The beach, the beach!’ exclaimed Bethany. ‘Let’s go to the beach again!’
‘Well why not?’ said Dad. ‘It’s going to be a lovely sunny day. What do you say Megan, fancy topping up your sun tan?’ Megan frowned.
‘I want to go into town again Dad’ she replied in a low voice, as she stared down into her cereals.
‘Oh Megan you promised to build a sandcastle with me’ said Bethany in a disappointed voice. We’re going to build the biggest most enormous sandcastle ever!’
‘Go on’ said Dad, ‘make your sister happy.’ Megan sighed. She looked into Bethany’s eager face.
‘Well, I suppose we could build a small one’ she said, forcing herself to smile.
‘Atta girl’ said Dad, now eat up your cornflakes, and after we’ve washed up we’ll wander down to the beach.
The truth was that Megan was desperate to get back into Merwater and speak to Rachel again. There must be some way to find out more about the Reverend Jeremiah Smith and what he’d written in his third journal. The thought of wasting another day on the beach seemed like madness. Megan felt like she didn’t have any choice though. She sighed.
Not long after breakfast, the family made their way down the boardwalk that led across the dunes to the beach. Bethany wanted to play hide and seek with Megan and the ran off over the dunes to hide behind clumps of spiky grass and little hillocks. Dad and Mum made their way along the path, weighed down with a bucket, two spades, a bag stuffed full of beach towels, a camping chair and a wind break to plant into the sand. It was still early but it promised to be a hot day. The sky was clear and the sun was rising steadily.
Other families were already on the beach when they got there and Mum and Dad staked out a spot not too far from the water, but near enough to the dunes to have some protection from them. Dad put up the windbreak and set up the camping chair to sit on. Mum spread out a beach towel and sat down on the ground, her things around her.
‘Mum, are you going to come swimming?’ called out Megan.
‘Not quite yet girls’ their mother replied, looking up from her book. Megan and Bethany already had their swim suits on underneath and tugged off their tee-shirts and shorts and raced down to the water’s edge. Bethany splashed water at her older sister and Megan flicked spray back in Bethany’s general direction.
‘Ooh it’s cold!’ exclaimed Bethany as she went up to her knees in the sea.
‘You wait till later’ replied Megan. ‘Once the sun’s higher it’ll soon warm up.’ The two girls ran up and down and to some extent Megan’s troubles didn’t seem quite as bad as before. Even so, when Bethany stopped to pick up a shell, Megan found herself scanning the horizon for anything that might be moving out there on the calm surface of the sea.
Eventually the two girls went back to their parents and flopped down on the beach towels their mother had laid out. There were quite a few families on the beach now. Megan and Bethany were lucky that they’d inherited their mother’s olive skin and they tanned easily. Their dad though had caught the sun badly and had great red blotches on his skin where he’d forgotten to apply sun cream evenly.
‘Tell us a story Daddy!’ demanded Bethany as she wriggled about on the beach towel, digging her toes into the sand.
‘Well let me see’ said Dad thoughtfully. ‘There was once a whale called Boris and he sailed the seven seas looking for an ice cream…’
‘That’s silly, whales don’t eat ice creams!’ giggled Bethany.
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�Well this one did’ Dad went on ‘and he didn’t find one anywhere till he came here to Black Gull Sands. Then he saw a little girl called Bethany eating a vanilla cone with ice cream all round her mouth and be bellowed out ‘I want ice cream’’ Bethany laughed and Megan smiled.
‘But the little girl said she wouldn’t and Boris the whale was so annoyed that he blew water all over that little girl from his blow hole!’ Dad surreptitiously unscrewed the top from his bottle of water and splashed a few drops over the unsuspecting Bethany. The little girl jumped in surprise and they all laughed. Megan looked up at her dad’s face. It reminded her of the happy holidays they’d had when she had been about six or seven.
‘What about that sandcastle that you were going to build girls?’ asked Mum.
‘Ooh yes!’ replied Bethany. ‘Can we make one now Megan?’ she asked, looking at her sister.’
‘Okay then’ said Megan smiling. ‘Let’s start over there where the sand isn’t so dry.’ Bethany started digging and enthusiastically filling up her bucket with sand. The first time she planted the bucket upside down the contents just collapsed, but with Megan’s help they were able to make a circle of eight or nine castles on the sand.
‘The horses live inside’ said Bethany excitedly, placing a couple of plastic horses in the middle. ‘I know, let’s dig a moat.’ The two of them started scooping out sand in a big circle. Bethany ran down to the edge of the sea to scoop up more water in a bucket and poured it ceremoniously into the moat, but the water just drained away into the moist sand almost as soon as she poured it in.
Midnight Dolphin Page 6
