Dolphin Song

by Lauren St. John

  Over the past few months, Martine and her grandmother’s relationship had improved about a thousand percent, but the White Giraffe tours were a bone of contention. Gwyn Thomas organized them very carefully so that Jemmy would not be stressed in the least, but Martine loathed the idea of camera-laden tourists gawking at him. She had made her feelings on the subject very clear. She’d begged and pleaded for the tours to stop, and gone on and on about how sensitive and special Jemmy was, but her grandmother was adamant that the best way to ensure that the white giraffe stayed special was to allow people access to him in a controlled environment. Added to which, the game reserve needed the money.

  “It’s simple arithmetic, Martine. The more money we can make, the more animals we can save.”

  And there was nothing Martine could say to that because times were tough at Sawubona and she too wanted to save as many animals as possible.

  A mitten-covered hand tugged at her sleeve. She realized that her grandmother was trying to get her attention.

  “Honestly, Martine, I sometimes think your hearing’s worse than mine. I haven’t got my glasses with me. What’s that on the beach up ahead? Is it a seal? Or is it just an oddly-shaped rock?”

  Martine blocked out the sun’s bright rays with her hand. She gasped. “I think . . . I think it’s a dolphin.”

  Martine reached the dolphin first. Gwyn Thomas later commented that she would never have believed her grand-daughter—hopeless at all sports bar giraffe-riding—was capable of moving at such a speed, had she not witnessed it herself. But Martine slowed for the last few steps so as not to alarm the dolphin if it was still alive.

  It was, but if appearances were anything to go by, not for much longer.

  Martine crouched by the edge of the water and two things happened at once. She looked into the dolphin’s dark blue irises and had the curious sensation she was falling into them, and not only that, but the dolphin wanted to communicate with her. Simultaneously, she put her hands on its shining gray body expecting it to have a cold, rubbery feel, and found instead that it was satin-smooth and muscular. When she stroked it, a bolt of electricity ran up her arms, just as it had when she’d first touched the white giraffe. She snatched her palms away as if she’d been scorched.

  “The poor thing has beached itself,” said her grandmother, hurrying up. “It’s a real mystery why they do that, but it’s happening more and more. Only the other week I was reading about three hundred dolphins stranded on the shore in Zanzibar. Martine? Martine, are you all right? You’re as white as snow. If this is too upsetting for you, you can wait in the car while I get help.”

  Martine found her voice. “What do we do? How do we save it? How will it breathe?”

  “Well, dolphins are mammals, not fish, so they breathe oxygen like us, but shock and being out of the water are what kills them. We need to keep its skin wet. There’s a bucket in the car. You’re a lot younger and fitter than I am. Would you run and get it, and find my cell phone too. I’ll call the marine rescue department. Isn’t it amazing how that wretched phone is never handy when you need it?”

  Martine stood up reluctantly. The dolphin was dying and it had as good as asked for her help. If she did as her grandmother requested it would take time—time that might mean the difference between life and death. If she attempted to save the dolphin herself she could start immediately, but there were two big hurdles. The first was that she’d never tried healing a dolphin before. What if she couldn’t do it and she wasted a crucial half hour that could be used to summon the marine rescue people? The second was that her grandmother didn’t know about her gift. She did know about the Zulu legend that said that the child who could ride a white giraffe would have power over all the animals, but she had never seen any evidence of it and she didn’t really know what it meant.

  “It’s a shame that any powers you’ve been given don’t extend to keeping your room tidy, Martine,” she liked to joke.

  Not even Martine knew what the legend meant. All she knew was that she had to find an excuse to get her grandmother out of the way.

  “Martine, this is an emergency!” Gwyn Thomas reminded her.

  A family of dog walkers spilled into view. They were moving down the creamy beach in the opposite direction, pulled by a trio of exuberant black Labradors.

  “Those people might have a phone,” Martine suggested. “It might be quicker if we ask them to call the marine rescue services.”

  “Good thinking, dear. Why don’t you run and ask them.”

  “I can’t,” Martine said. She hung her head in what she hoped was a bashful way. “I’m shy. Please can I stay here with the dolphin?”

  A germ of a suspicion crossed Gwyn Thomas’s face. “You’re shy?”

  “Yes.”

  “I would have thought that this was one time when . . . Oh, never mind. Well, try to keep it calm while I’m gone.”

  Martine waited until her grandmother was well on her way to the dog walkers before laying her hands on the dolphin’s silky-smooth body again. Its skin was dry and hot. Once again, the electric current zapped her, but this time she was ready for it. She kept her palms on the dolphin’s side, and in her head she apologized to it for knowing nothing whatsoever about healing dolphins. Nothing happened at first, but then her palms heated up to the point where they were almost sizzling, her heart felt full to bursting, and into her mind came a vision—not of tribesmen in animal masks and swirling smoke and great herds of buffalo and giraffe, as she’d experienced when she’d tried healing before, but of an island with white sand. And in the aquamarine waters that surrounded it, she saw herself quite clearly, swimming with dolphins.

  “Is it dead?”

  Martine jerked back to reality to find that her jeans were soaked through, as if she’d been waist-deep in water. The kite surfer was standing over her. “Excuse me?” she murmured vaguely.

  “Is it dead?” he repeated a little impatiently.

  Martine shook her head, as much to snap herself out of her trance as in reply. She heard herself say: “No, it was just resting. Would you mind helping me put it back into the sea?”

  The kite surfer was powerfully built and he used the lines from his kite to assist him, but it took every ounce of their combined strength to pull, push, and roll the dolphin into the ocean. Submerged in water, the dolphin made no attempt to swim. It sank slowly.

  Martine’s heart sank with it.

  “I thought you said it was just resting,” the kite surfer said.

  The dolphin gave an experimental twitch of its tail, then a more vigorous wiggle. It surfaced, tipped on its side, and regarded Martine with inquisitive eyes. It flapped a fin, sent some cheerful squeaks and clicks in her direction, and was gone in a shining streak. When next she saw it, it was performing acrobatics in the far breakers.

  The kite surfer chuckled. “Funny thing about dolphins,” he said. “Ever noticed that you can’t help smiling when you’re around them?”

  He picked up his board and departed with a friendly salute. Martine waded from the icy water and wrung out the bottoms of her wet jeans. Her hands still tingled. She felt elated. Her gift had allowed her to help a wild dolphin. What else would it allow her to do? It seemed to be a gift of healing and communication. She didn’t feel as if it belonged to her, though. She felt as if she was the care-taker of it. A sort of conductor. Otherwise, she reasoned, she’d be more in control of it. Instead, it seemed to flow through her.

  Watching the dolphin dive gleefully over a wave, Martine found that the kite surfer was right. She couldn’t keep from smiling. However, when her grandmother homed into sight, she hastily rearranged her expression.

  “Well, that was a waste of time,” Gwyn Thomas reported as she strode up, bucket swinging. “They had no phone, so I did have to go to the car after all. Really, Martine, I think it might have been kind if you’d volunteered to do it for me. I’m not as fit as I used to be. Good heavens, you’re soaking! What were you thinking of, going in the Atlantic
in mid-winter? You’ll end up with pneumonia.”

  She did a double take. “Where is the dolphin?”

  Martine pointed out into the bay. “There,” she said, unable to suppress a grin.

  “But how?” asked her grandmother. “I don’t understand.”

  Martine shrugged. “The kite surfer came by and he helped me put the dolphin back into the sea. Then it just swam away.”

  “Just like that, huh? It just swam away?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Gwyn Thomas stared at her with a mixture of puzzled admiration and something else that Martine couldn’t quite fathom, but which gave her a warm feeling inside. It was obvious that her grandmother wanted to probe further, but for some reason she resisted the urge. “Come on, you,” was all she said, “let’s get you out of those wet things.”

  They were almost at the car when Martine realized that, if she was soaked to the waist, she must have waded or swum in the sea during her trance. The odd thing was that she hadn’t been afraid. She hadn’t been afraid at all.

  3

  To Martine, almost the best part about the whole dolphin rescue was the drive home. Her grandmother knew that something had happened; she just wasn’t quite sure what. The invisible barrier between them, which had to do with the pain of past memories—mainly those concerning Martine’s mum—dropped away, and the bond they did have, which was about a shared love of animals, deepened. Every so often Gwyn Thomas would mimic Martine saying, “And then it just swam away!” and they’d both laugh.

  That feeling of closeness lasted until precisely 5:47 p.m., when Martine came down from her room wearing jeans and boots and announced she was going out riding on the white giraffe.

  “Not now, Martine,” her grandmother remarked casually, glancing up from her newspaper. “I think you’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

  “But I can’t possibly go without saying good-bye to Jemmy,” said Martine, unable to comprehend that her grandmother might be serious. “I have to see him, I just have to.”

  “Then you should have done it earlier.” Gwyn Thomas lifted her newspaper as if to continue reading.

  “But I didn’t realize how late it was,” Martine said beseechingly.

  Her grandmother was unsympathetic. “Martine, it’s already nearly dark and you know how I feel about you riding after sundown.”

  Martine’s blood began to boil. The ban on night riding was another big bone of contention between them. As far as Gwyn Thomas was concerned, the game reserve was simply too full of hunting predators after dark. She wasn’t interested in Martine’s explanation about how she was perfectly safe when she was on Jemmy’s back because the other animals thought she was an extension of him.

  “Besides,” continued her grandmother, “you haven’t even packed. No, don’t look at me like that. I know you’re disappointed, but I promise I’ll say good-bye to Jemmy for you. That’s my final word on the matter. You’re overtired and if you don’t get a decent night’s sleep, you won’t be in a fit state to enjoy the fantastic voyage Miss Volkner has planned for you. And that would be a real shame.”

  Martine knew from bitter experience that when her grandmother used that particular tone of voice, argument was futile. But the idea of going away for ten whole days without riding Jemmy, or even saying good-bye to him, was too hideous to contemplate. She stewed about it all through dinner, pushing her roast chicken around the plate. Gwyn Thomas finally told her off for sulking. After that, Martine made an effort to sit up straight and be outwardly charming. Inside, she was hatching a plan. It had been months since she’d sneaked out after midnight to ride Jemmy, and she missed the exhilaration of those moonlit rides. Most of all, she missed the connection with Africa. Alone with the giraffe and the other wildlife, she’d felt as if she had opened a door on a hidden Africa, the Africa only a handful of people ever got to see.

  Sitting at the table ladling gravy onto her crispy potatoes, Martine savored the thrill of disobedience. She had always avoided being caught before, even when she was totally unfamiliar with the workings of Sawubona and her grandmother’s routine. Now she was an expert on both. Now it should be simplicity itself.

  Martine was almost giddy with anticipation. To divert her grandmother’s attention, she turned the conversation back to the dolphin, asking her once more why a dolphin would drag itself ashore to certain death. Thankfully, Gwyn Thomas was more than willing to discuss the issue of dolphin beachings again, saying that she wasn’t sure why they did it and could only imagine it was because something in the sea had made their life unbearable. “It could be pollution or increased traffic in the oceans,” she said. “Some parts of the sea have become virtual cities of ships, fishing trawlers, and navy vessels, you know.”

  Martine listened and tried to remember all the stories she’d heard over the years about the intelligence of dolphins, and how their mere presence could sometimes heal people from illness and trauma. She recalled the electric current that had passed through her when she touched the beached dolphin. Somehow, without words, it had appealed to her to help it. And somehow, without words, she’d agreed.

  Upstairs after dinner Martine congratulated herself that she had never told her grandmother about the silent dog-whistle she used to call the white giraffe. Consequently, she could sit at her bedroom window blowing the whistle, while Gwyn Thomas unsuspectingly readied herself for bed until Jemmy appeared at the skeleton tree near the water hole.

  When her grandmother’s bedroom light went out, Martine took off her pajamas and put on her jeans, boots, sweatshirt, and Windbreaker. She removed her knife and flashlight from the survival kit she kept tucked behind the bookshelf and slipped downstairs. Jemmy was waiting for her at the game park gate, his white coat ghostly in the darkness. He lay down on the ground so she could climb onto his sloping, velvety back. “Go, Jemmy,” she urged when she was on safely, and then he was up and galloping.

  The winter wind blasted Martine’s face, but for once it didn’t bother her. The rush of the illicit ride was too intoxicating. Riding in the daylight had its advantages—she was in a lot less danger and didn’t have to sneak around for a start. But it did mean she had to ride more sedately. Her grandmother would have had a stroke if she saw how fast Jemmy went if he was allowed to. More importantly, it meant staying away from the Secret Valley, the sanctuary where the white giraffe had been taken as an orphan by the elephant who’d saved him from poachers.

  It was to the Secret Valley that Martine was going tonight. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she knew she had to see the cave, which held the keys to her destiny, before she left Sawubona. Unfortunately, it was not the easiest place to get to. The entrance was a crevice guarded by a twisted tree, draped with thorny creepers. The only way of negotiating the crevice was for Jemmy to gallop toward the tree at full speed and leap at exactly the right angle. She always found it difficult to stay on his back during the jump, and this time was no different. Vines and branches pricked, dragged, and raked at her, and Martine could do little but bury her face in Jemmy’s mane and cling on. She hoped the scratches weren’t so bad that she’d be unable to explain them away in the morning.

  Inside the valley, the fragrance of orchids still hung in the air, although they were no longer in bloom. A patch of star-scattered sky lent a blue sheen to the dark of the grassy space. Martine slid off Jemmy’s back and gave him a kiss of thanks. This was only the third time she’d been to the valley, and she felt as jittery as ever about entering the creepy tunnel. Jemmy watched her go, ears flickering.

  The narrow passage smelled musty and feral, as if a leopard had recently vacated it. Martine’s flashlight cast a slender, wavering beam along its rough-hewn walls. After a few minutes, the tunnel widened and turned back on itself, and she knew she was underneath the mountain once more. Clambering up the steep, mossy steps that led to the cave’s antechamber, Martine felt annoyed with herself for not coming up with a plan to keep her jeans clean by
, say, wrapping trash bags around them. She only had two pairs, and both would be coming on the school trip in the morning.

  Shortly before she reached the top, Martine turned off her flashlight. On her first visit, the bat colony that dangled with folded wings from the antechamber roof had gone berserk and got caught up in her hair. This time most of them were out and about, pursuing their own bat adventures. Those still dozing didn’t stir.

  The “Memory Room,” as the ancients had called it, was before her. Martine switched on her flashlight as she entered the cave and breathed in its weighty air. She loved the thickness of it. It was as if its very molecules were imprinted with the genetic codes of generations past. All around her were cave paintings capturing the lives and memories of a lost tribe of Bushmen, or San people as they were also known. Red, black, and ochre sketches of proud or aggressive wild animals, and men with bows and arrows, so vibrant that they could have been painted yesterday, seemed to spring to life as her flashlight danced over them. They galloped across the walls. Martine felt privileged to witness them. It was almost like visiting her own personal art gallery.

  She walked over to the paintings of the white giraffe. It was months since she’d last seen them, but she felt as if she carried them with her always, engraved on her heart. There were three pictures, but only one showed a child riding a white giraffe. The Bushmen artist had managed to capture Jemmy’s exquisite coat exactly. It even shimmered the way Jemmy’s did in real life.

  So often had she revisited the cave in her head that at first she didn’t register that there was something different about the lineup of images. She just stared at the wall in a daze. Then she saw them.

  Two new paintings had been added to the sequence!

  Martine tried to work out whether it was possible for her to have missed them on a previous visit. She decided that it wasn’t. They were slightly obscured by a pyramid-shaped rock, but she’d had the opportunity to study the other paintings twice, at length and at close range. On the second occasion Grace had been with her and she hadn’t spotted them either. Or had she?