Amir appeared, dripping and breathless, at the top of the steps.
‘I looked everywhere. All round the boats. He’s not there. But he must be all right. It’s so shallow that he wouldn’t have needed to swim at all. He must have hidden behind a boat while we were all looking down. I bet he slipped out and went round to the beach while we were all arguing.’
The children looked at each other, anxiously wondering what to do. They couldn’t see round the end of the harbour wall or over the far side of it on to the beach because of a rampart built up all along the length of the wall, which was made of rough-hewn stones with gaps in between them.
‘I’ll climb up and look,’ said Amir.
Charlie pushed him aside. Without a word, he began to climb the rampart, while Amir put his shoes on and tried to wring some of the water out of his clothes.
‘You’re not allowed up there,’ Dougie called up to Charlie. ‘You’ll get into trouble.’
Charlie was nearly at the top of the wall when a bellow came from the Janine. Mr Munro had seen him.
‘Get off that wall, you wee imp! Now!’
At the sound of his father’s furious voice, Charlie lost his foothold and fell hard on to the cobbles. Jas ran across to him, trying to help him struggle to his feet.
‘Are you all right, Charlie?’ asked Kyla. ‘I should think you’ve broken your leg.’
‘Shut up, Kyla. I’m fine,’ grunted Charlie, and he began to hobble after Jas and Dougie, who were already racing back along the cobbles to the tarmac road, with Amir squelching along behind them.
A few minutes later, the five of them were looking down the beach that ran behind the harbour wall, with its fringe of rocks beyond.
‘There’s no sign of him,’ Jas said. ‘It’s like he’s disappeared into thin air.’
‘He’s probably hiding over there in the rocks,’ said Amir. ‘There’s loads of places.’
‘Let’s go and look,’ said Jas. ‘We can’t just leave him. He might be hurt or – or anything.’
‘You’d better not come, Charlie,’ said Dougie. ‘I bet if he sees you again, he’ll think you still want to kill him.’
Kyla looked expectantly at Charlie, waiting for him to explode, but Charlie only glared at Dougie, then ran off to begin the search. Amir and Jas were already scrambling over the rocks, calling out, ‘Finn! Finn, are you all right? Come out, Finn!’
The tumble of rocks on either side of the beach stuck far out into the water, and they were wet and slippery with seaweed. There were plenty of places where a boy could hide, and the children worked hard, hunting in every crevice, calling out Finn’s name, but there was no sign of him.
Dougie had to give up first, when his mother, on her way home from work at the village shop, caught sight of him scrambling over the rocks. She hurried down to the beach, calling out, ‘Dougie, darling! Get down off those nasty rocks before you scratch yourselves to bits! Why aren’t you at home?’
She was waiting on the sand as he jumped down from the rocks, and took hold of his arm in a tight grip. Dougie tried to wriggle free.
‘No you don’t,’ she said firmly. ‘You’re coming home with me. Look at your feet! Soaking wet. You’ll catch your death. Kyla, sweetie! Come on home!’
‘Coming, Mum!’ Kyla called back obediently. ‘In a minute!’ Then she jumped over to the next rock and went on hunting for Finn.
Mrs Lamb hesitated, then shouted, ‘Well don’t be long, darling. Don’t be late for your tea!’
Kyla ignored her. Amir looked at her with grudging admiration. He wished he could get away with pretending to obey his mum, and then going on to do just what he liked, but Mrs Faridah was a lot tougher than Mrs Lamb. Anyway, it was Dougie that she really kept under her thumb. In a way, Amir felt a bit sorry for Dougie. He’d hate it if his mum treated him like a baby all the time.
It was obvious, when ten more minutes had passed, that Finn was nowhere in or on the rocks.
‘We’ve hunted everywhere,’ panted Jas, jumping down on to the sand. ‘He’s just not here.’
‘He must have got out of the sea and run up off the beach as fast as a – as a cheetah,’ said Amir, who liked watching wildlife films. ‘It’s weird. I don’t know how he could have had the time.’
‘Weird! Aye, that’s Finn,’ scoffed Charlie. ‘He’s weird all right.’ And then, remembering that it had all been his fault anyway, and that he’d made himself a promise not to be nasty to Finn any more, his face went a dull red colour up to the roots of his spiky fair hair, and he started scuffing up sprays of sand with the toe of his shoe.
‘We might as well give up and go home, I suppose,’ said Jas, throwing one last anxious look round the beach.
They began to walk silently up towards the narrow road that separated the shore from the little village above the harbour. When they reached it, Jas suddenly stopped.
‘We ought to do something about Finn,’ she said. ‘It’s not fair, the way we’ve treated him. Keeping him out of Dougie’s party and everything.’
‘I know, but . . .’ began Kyla.
‘I mean, how would you like it?’ said Jas.
‘It’s not as if . . .’ began Amir, but then his voice tailed away.
‘Jas is right,’ said Charlie unwillingly. ‘We – I mean I’ve got to stop being mean to him.’
A bellow from the harbour made his head whip round. Mr Munro was standing beside his pile of lobster pots, waving his arms furiously.
‘I’ve got to go,’ Charlie said hastily. ‘My dad’s going to do his nut. I was meant to be on the pots with him this afternoon.’
‘Tomorrow, then,’ said Jas hastily. ‘We’ve got the day off anyway. Let’s have a meeting. At the lighthouse. Ten o’clock. We’ll make a plan and decide what to do.’
‘Won’t you have to ask your dad first?’ asked Kyla curiously.
‘Dad’ll be working. He won’t even notice we’re there,’ said Jas with a grin.
Chapter Four
Finn had been scared many times in his life before, but he had never experienced the sheer terror that overcame him when Charlie began to chase him. His heart had pounded so hard that he could hear it like a drumbeat in his ears. He felt like a rabbit running from a fox.
As he stepped back into the air, away from Charlie’s snarling face, panic possessed him. He had time to think, I can’t swim! I’ll drown! And then he hit the water. He just missed hitting one of the small motor launches that were bobbing around at the bottom of the harbour steps. The wave he made swung the boat round so that he was behind it and hidden from the view of the children, who, seconds later, were looking down from the top.
In all his life, Finn had never been immersed in water. He’d never swum in a pool or wallowed in a bath or paddled in the sea. The shock took his breath away. The tide was so far out that although the water came up to his shoulders, his feet were still touching the bottom. He clutched at the bollard hanging off the side of the boat, and for a moment the cold seemed to paralyse him.
But the fear of Charlie was still on him.
He’s not scared of water. He’ll come down here and find me and . . . and . . . he told himself. I’ve got to get away.
He peered cautiously round the edge of the boat and looked up. He could hear Jas calling out to Mr Munro, and the muffled voices of the others, but their heads had disappeared. Then he waded in frantic haste to the steps that ran down from the harbour wall, making for a little wooden platform where no one would see him from above. He could hide there and wait until the other children had gone away, and then climb out and go home.
Feet thundered down the wooden steps overhead as Finn shrank back into the shadow under the platform. There was a loud splash as Amir jumped into the water, and Finn ducked right down until only his head was above the water. Holding his breath, he heard Amir calling up to the others, and their replies, and he only let it out when Amir hauled himself back on to the little wooden platform and ran back up the steps.
When he was quite sure that the coast was clear, he emerged shivering with cold and fright from underneath the wooden platform, took hold of the edge of it and tried to haul himself up. But the platform was slimy with seaweed. His hands slipped off it. He fell back into the water, which closed right over his head.
For a long, terrible moment, Finn thrashed with his arms and legs, trying to find solid ground to stand on, but then, almost at once, something changed. Something was happening to him – something strange and terrifying.
I must be drowning, he thought. This is what it’s like to drown.
Somehow, he didn’t mind.
I suppose my mum felt like this, he told himself. Maybe she’s doing this to me. Maybe she’s waiting for me on – on the other side.
He stopped struggling and felt peaceful and calm. He was floating, all of his body submerged in the water. It didn’t even feel cold any more. The swell washed round him softly as if it was welcoming him. It seemed almost to hold him in an embrace. Without even trying, he raised his face till it broke the surface and took a long, deep breath. Then he let himself sink again, feeling a strange, new kind of energy flowing in his veins.
If I’m still breathing, I suppose I can’t be dead, he thought dreamily. But it didn’t seem to matter. Nothing mattered, except for the wonderful sensation of the water.
Something brushed against his leg. He twisted his head down to look. It was a little fish, which had darted away already. But now he made another discovery. He could see a long way through the clear, green water. Seaweed waved gracefully against the harbour wall. Small fish darted past him. He could hear things too, as if his ears had never worked properly before. On the far side of the harbour, the rumble of the Janine’s engine as Mr Munro started it up was shockingly loud. It masked the rustling, swishing noise of ripples brushing against the stones of the harbour wall.
What’s happening to me? Finn thought. I feel different. This is – fantastic!
And then, with the greatest joy he had ever known, he stopped wondering about what was happening, and gave himself up to the sea. He felt as if he had come home. He began to twist about in the water, feeling it wash through his hair and along the length of his body. Then he began to move his arms and legs as he’d seen swimmers do on the TV. He could swim! He was swimming! It was as easy as breathing, easier even than walking on land!
There was only one thing that spoilt the loveliness of being in the water, and that was the growling, thrumming noise of the Janine’s engine. He wanted to get beyond it and listen to the sea.
He began to glide through the water, his arms and legs moving automatically, going fast and straight. His eyes drank in every new and wonderful sight: the play of sunlight through the current, the distant outline of a submerged rock, a slowly crawling starfish on the seabed below.
He had been underwater for a long while, holding his breath without thinking about it, but at last he felt the need to surface and suck in another lungful of air. Then he was down again, racing under the surface of the ocean, feeling as if he could swim on and on forever.
Now that the rumble of the boat’s engine had faded, he was in a whole new world of sounds. Below him he could hear the faint rattle of a pebble dislodged by a lobster as it climbed over a rock. Above, that muffled Whee! Whee! must be the call of a gull swooping low over the water. And the slow, rhythmic thud, scrape was the rumble of waves breaking on the beaches up the coast.
But now, through it all, came the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. It was faint, hardly audible above the sucking and rippling of the water, but it was getting louder.
Someone, or something, was whistling.
There was a familiar note to the sound, something that touched him and drew him on. Before he could think about it any more, a shape appeared ahead, long and grey with flippers and a tail. It was a young dolphin.
He was seized with sudden panic.
It’s as big as me, he thought. I don’t know about dolphins. What if it attacks me?
The dolphin swam up alongside Finn and brushed against his back. Finn swerved nervously away, but the dolphin tapped him playfully with his snout. He began to make a kind of vibrating sound that thrummed in Finn’s head.
I can understand you, he thought. You want to be my friend!
He needed to breathe again. He shot up to the surface and took a gulp of air. The dolphin surfaced too. With both their heads out of the water, they stared at each other.
He likes me! Finn thought with astonishment. He wants to play!
The dolphin dived down and began to swim away, but he was making the whistling sound again, as if he was inviting Finn to follow him. Finn was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to keep up, but he found that he could swim easily, and twist, plunge and roll every bit as well and as fast as his new friend.
What was the dolphin doing now? He was clicking his beak, sending a signal of some kind.
It means ‘leap’. He’s going to leap! thought Finn. Yes, there he goes!
The dolphin was shooting up through the water, breaking the surface, flying through the air and diving down again. He twisted round, coming back to Finn, making the vibrating sound again. Finn felt the same lovely soft feeling as the buzzing set up an answering echo in his head.
It’s what a kiss must feel like, he thought, and for a moment he felt an old pain. His mother must have kissed him when he was a baby, but he couldn’t remember her at all.
The dolphin seemed to be gathering himself for another leap. He was whistling and clicking to Finn.
He wants me to leap with him, thought Finn. I don’t think I – Oh – Yes, I can! Whoosh!
He’d done it! He landed back on the water too hard, making a bigger splash than his friend, but the leap had felt incredible, powerful and free.
He tried making the buzzing sound. It didn’t come out right, but it wasn’t a bad effort. The dolphin seemed to like it, anyway. He stroked Finn with his flipper, and bumped alongside him in a friendly way. Then, somehow, they both had the same idea at the same time. They dived a bit and powered up through the water, surfacing at the same time, soaring through the air, then plunging back into the water side by side.
It was the first time in his life that Finn had ever played with a friend.
He could have stayed forever leaping and splashing in the sea, but now the dolphin was off again, streaking through the water as if he was answering a call. Finn followed him for a few minutes, but the dolphin was going too fast. He was racing further and further out to sea.
I’ve come too far out, Finn thought, suddenly alarmed.
He wanted to go back to the land, to feel normal again, to make sure that he really wasn’t dead and drowned after all.
With one supple twist, he turned and swam effortlessly towards the sound of the breaking waves. A few minutes later, he was standing on the beach, wringing the water out of his T-shirt and shorts. It was strange to be on land again. The wonderful power that had driven him through the sea had gone, and he was just awkward, clumsy Finn again.
He looked round fearfully, panic twisting his stomach. Charlie was probably still around somewhere. He might still be on the warpath.
He began to run up the hard sand and across the dunes that separated the beach from the coast road. He was going so fast that he had to double over for a little while to get rid of the stitch in his side. Then, slipping through the back streets of the village, avoiding the row of cottages facing the sea where Charlie, Amir and the Lambs lived, he made his way home, his head full of questions and his heart full of wonder.
It was quite a long walk back to the cottage on the cliff top. Once he was sure that he was out of range of Charlie and the other children, Finn’s footsteps slowed to a crawl. There were so many thoughts buzzing around in his head that he hardly knew where to start.
‘I always knew I was different,’ he said out loud. ‘But why? It’s like I was two people: one in the sea, and one on land.’
A cow was loo
king at him over the gate leading into one of the fields that fanned out beyond the harbour and up into the hills beyond.
‘What are you staring at?’ he called out to her. ‘So I’m talking to myself? I’m not a nutter, you know.’
But then he thought, Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps I am a nutter. Maybe there’s something wrong in my head.
He picked up a small branch that had fallen from a tree, bent and twisted by the sea wind, and started swishing at the nettles that fringed the path.
I’ve got to tell Dad what’s happened. There’s a sort of secret about me and he’s got to know what it is. It must be why he’s never let me go near water.
But the thought of telling his father that he’d been in the sea was frightening. Staying away from deep water was the most important rule. It had been drummed into Finn ever since he could remember.
I’ve just got to do it, he told himself sternly. I’ve got to know what – who I am, and he’s the only one who can tell me. But how am I going to start?
He needn’t have bothered trying to work it out, because when he reached the gate leading up the weed-choked path to the cottage door, Mr McFee was waiting for him, his arms crossed and his forehead scored with a deep scowl. He caught Finn painfully by the arm and yanked him inside.
‘I saw you! I saw you! Down on the beach! I’ve told you a hundred times. What have I told you?’
‘Not to go near the sea. But Dad—’
‘And what did you do?’
‘I was on the beach, but listen, Dad—’
‘You disobeyed me. I’m not having it, Finn. I’m not. There’ll be no supper for you tonight. You’ll do what you’re told from now on. And – and I’ll take my slipper to you, so I will.’
‘Dad!’ said Finn desperately. ‘Listen! I’ve got to talk to you! Something’s happened to me. I didn’t disobey you, honestly I didn’t. I didn’t mean to fall into the sea. Charlie Munro chased me down to the harbour and off the wall. I went in by accident. But, Dad, it was so – so amazing! I could swim! I could hear things! I made a friend, a dolphin . . . What is it about me, Dad? I know I’m different. You’ve got to tell me, please!’
Song of the Dolphin Boy Page 3