Jas was watching for him. He heard her take in a sharp breath as she saw the state the dolphin was in.
‘Amir! Look at this!’ she called out.
‘I don’t believe it! Finn was right!’ he heard Amir say.
‘I’ll try to hold her,’ Finn called up to them. ‘Cut the string with your scissors.’
The dinghy rocked as Jas shifted her weight to pull out her bag from under the seat and fish out her scissors. She leaned as far as she could over the side to reach down to the tangled dolphin, with Amir beside her.
‘Amir!’ barked Charlie. ‘Don’t lean out like that, or we’ll capsize. What are you doing, Jas?’
‘I can’t . . . reach,’ panted Jas, straining forward with the scissors in her hand. ‘It won’t keep still. I’m scared of jabbing it with the scissors.’
‘Hold on,’ said Finn. ‘I’ll try to raise her up.’
He dived deeper, and, taking the young dolphin in his arms, he gently raised her whole body until she was half out of the water, treading water to keep himself afloat.
‘That’s it. Nearly! Yes, I’ve cut one bit. Tilt it over a bit, Finn. There – got it! That’s its flipper freed. Wait, there’s more string tying up its mouth.’
It was trickier cutting the string around the dolphin’s mouth. Finn whistled and buzzed, stroking her as gently as he could, but she kept jerking nervously away, and the dinghy lurched dangerously as Jas lunged after the dolphin.
‘You’ll have to help me, Charlie,’ Jas said. ‘It needs two of us.’
‘I told you, we can’t both hang over the side,’ said Charlie. ‘We’ll tip the boat over.’
‘Not if I lean right out over the other side,’ said Amir, ‘like they do in the sailing races.’
‘I don’t want to risk it,’ said Charlie. ‘This is my boat. I’m the skipper. I—’
‘Just shut up, Charlie, and look, can’t you?’ snarled Jas. ‘This is an emergency. Do you want this poor creature to die?’
The dinghy rocked violently as Amir and Charlie moved. Then Charlie’s head appeared alongside Jas’s.
‘That’s terrible,’ Charlie said, looking horrified. ‘The poor thing. Here, Jas, pass me the scissors. I’m nearer its head than you are. Shift it round a bit this way, Finn. Can you catch its flipper and hold it steady? Why don’t you sing a wee song? Aren’t you supposed to sing to dolphins? To calm them down?’
‘That’s seals,’ called out Amir, who was leaning so far out of the dinghy on the other side that he looked as if he was about to fall into the sea.
In spite of Finn’s sea-strength, it was all he could do to keep the slippery dolphin from panicking completely and wriggling out of his arms.
‘Hurry up, Charlie,’ he said. ‘I can’t hold her much longer.’
‘Nearly there,’ said Charlie. He had the dolphin’s head at the right angle now, and the scissors snipped away the string. ‘There you are. It’ll be all right now.’
As Jas and Charlie watched, with big grins on their faces, the dolphin shook herself, waggled her head, opened her beak experimentally, smacked her flippers down on the water, and with an energetic arching of her back, she was gone.
‘High five!’ yelled Charlie, slapping Jas’s upraised hand. ‘Life saved! That was great.’
‘Hey, watch out!’ shouted Amir. The dinghy had tipped alarmingly as Charlie and Jas stopped leaning over the side. ‘You could have warned me you were moving. I nearly fell in.’
‘What’s Finn doing now?’ said Jas. ‘Look, he’s grabbing the strings we cut. Wait, he’s bringing them here to us!’
Of course I am, you idiot, thought Finn, not bothering to answer. What do you want me to do? Leave all this junk in the sea so the others can get caught up in it too?
He swam back to the dinghy and handed the strings and the last few balloons up to Jas. She leaned over the side and took them.
‘I can’t see any more,’ he said. ‘Can you?’
‘No, but I’m sure we let loose a whole lot more.’
‘You did,’ Finn said grimly. ‘The other dolphins have eaten the rest. Wait, there are a couple more over there.’
He streaked away again. The pod of dolphins was a little way away now, as the Peggy Sue had started drifting. Finn grabbed the last two balloons, swam back to the dinghy and handed them to Charlie and Amir. Finn could see awe and astonishment in the two boys’ eyes as they took in the transformation that had come over him.
‘This can’t be happening,’ said Amir, taking off his glasses to wipe off the sea water that was smearing them with salt. ‘We’ve got to be in some kind of dream.’
‘No one’s ever going to believe us,’ said Jas. ‘Everyone’s going to think we’re crazy.’
‘Better not say anything then,’ retorted Charlie. ‘Anyway, what’s there to tell? Finn’s an amazing swimmer, and we never knew it? Been keeping it secret all these years? You’ve got to admit, it’s typical of him. All that selkie business, it’s a load of rubbish. Of course it is.’
‘Nobody can swim like that,’ said Amir. ‘Besides, how did he know about the balloons and where to find the dolphins?’
‘Must have heard it from the crew of one of those launches that’s been cruising around here.’
‘What launches? And since when does Finn hang around talking to sailors?’ said Amir.
Charlie didn’t answer. His practical brain was rebelling furiously against the idea of anything magical.
‘We’ll have to tell Kyla and Dougie,’ said Jas.
‘You can’t trust Dougie to keep a secret,’ Charlie scoffed. ‘He’ll blab it all out to his mum at once.’
‘Yes, but I can hear what she’d say, can’t you?’ said Amir. ‘ “What a sweet story, Dougie, darling. A boy who can swim like a fish? You’re so cute, with your lovely imagination. Come here and give Mummy a kiss—” ’
‘Hey, look!’ interrupted Charlie. ‘Finn’s in trouble now! One of the dolphins is attacking him!’
Finn heard.
‘Shut up, idiot,’ he called out. ‘He’s my friend. The first one I met. Watch this.’
He moved alongside his friend, buzzing. An answering buzz came. Then, just as they had done before, the pair of them dived a bit, and launched themselves upward, with perfect timing, in a glorious leap.
‘Wow! That’s amazing!’ Finn heard the children cry out, but he and his friend were off again, diving and leaping, as they circled round the dinghy in a brilliant display of dolphin and sea-boy acrobatics.
Then, suddenly, his friend was off, streaking away through the water in pursuit of his pod. Finn almost followed him, his whole body twitching with longing as he felt the call of the dolphins’ distant whistles and the pull of friendship and freedom in the deep ocean.
Then Jas called out, ‘Finn! That was awesome. You’re amazing!’
And Amir said, ‘You couldn’t teach me to do that, could you, Finn – that leaping thing?’
Then came Charlie’s voice, squeaky with anxiety. ‘Pull in the sail, Amir. The wind’s getting up. It’ll drive us out to sea. It’s going to be hard to get back to shore.’
Finn ducked his head under the water to listen longingly once more to the dolphins’ departing whistle. Then he surfaced again and called out, ‘Don’t worry, Charlie. Give me the rope. I’ll tow you.’
‘I’ve seen it all now,’ marvelled Charlie, throwing the bow rope overboard to Finn, who caught it expertly and tied it round his chest. ‘You’re right, Jas – we’ll never be able to tell anyone about this. They’d think we were daft. I don’t know what or who Finn thinks he is, but he can certainly swim like a dolphin, anyway. Let’s get going, Finn. This wind’s getting stronger.’
Neither Finn nor the three children in the Peggy Sue saw the small knot of adults who had gathered on the beach, anxiously watching the little dinghy come storming back to shore.
Mrs Faridah was wringing her hands fretfully.
‘You should not have given them permission, Profes
sor,’ she was saying. ‘Children alone out at sea like that. It’s too dangerous.’
‘Mm, well, Jas is usually very reliable,’ Professor Jamieson said unhappily. ‘I do think it’s best to trust children if you can.’
Mr Munro had been staring out to sea, biting his lip as he watched the little boat, glancing up all the time at the sky where purple clouds were building up on the horizon. But as the Peggy Sue came scudding through the water, nearer and nearer to the beach, his face lightened and cracked into a broad grin.
‘Look at that! Keeping a steady course with that wind behind him? Neatest bit of sailing I ever saw. You’ve no need to worry, Mrs Faridah, and you did the right thing to let them go out, Professor. My Charlie’s a great little sailor, so he is. Nice one, son.’
Chapter Eight
Jas, Charlie and Amir were so busy fending off their parents that none of them had the chance to watch Finn. He managed to untie the rope as Charlie beached the dinghy, then he waded out of the sea after the others.
‘Poor boy. Fell in, did you?’ said Mrs Faridah. ‘And you’ve lost your shoes, too. You need Amir to teach you how to go about in the water. He’s a champion swimmer. Got a medal.’
Amir and Jas exchanged grins. Charlie turned and winked at Finn.
‘Finn doesn’t need swimming lessons,’ he said. ‘He’s really amaz—Ow!’
A sharp kick in the shin from Amir warned Charlie to stop talking.
‘I’ll give you a hand getting the oars and stuff back to the harbour,’ said Amir, changing the subject.
‘OK. Finn’ll help, won’t you, Finn?’ said Charlie, respect in his voice and friendship in his smile.
For a moment, Finn stared at him suspiciously. He’d been on the sharp end of Charlie’s tongue and the business end of Charlie’s fists all his life. But as he watched, Charlie’s smile faded, to be replaced by a look of anxiety.
‘Thanks for bringing the boat in,’ he said in a quiet voice, keeping an eye on his father. ‘You won’t tell my dad it was you who did it, will you? And Finn, you are . . . you really are the most amazing swimmer I’ve ever seen in my life. World class. Olympic.’
He means it, thought Finn.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, trying to suppress a grin of triumph. ‘I won’t say a word.’
He grabbed a pile of life jackets out of the dinghy while Charlie started unscrewing the rowlocks.
‘Watch out,’ muttered Jas. ‘Here comes trouble.’
Mrs Lamb was running down from the road above the beach towards them, waving her arms furiously.
‘Where is she?’ she was shouting. ‘Where’s my Kyla? What have you done to her?’
Jas started guiltily. It was obvious that she’d completely forgotten about Kyla.
‘She didn’t want to come out with us, Mrs Lamb,’ she said. ‘She wanted to stay up there, in the lantern room.’
Everyone turned to follow her pointing finger. Kyla could be seen standing up in the little glass room at the top of the lighthouse, her hands pressed against the glass, looking down at them. Behind her mother’s back, Jas beckoned urgently to her.
‘What’s she doing up there all on her own?’ asked Mrs Lamb furiously. Have you children been mean to her?’
‘No, honestly, Mrs Lamb,’ said Amir soothingly. ‘She was drawing a picture. She said she wanted to finish it.’
‘Look. She’s seen us. She’s coming down,’ said Jas.
Charlie had lost interest in Kyla. He’d started hauling the Peggy Sue further up the beach, out of reach of the waves, which were building up in the wind and crashing noisily on to the pebbles.
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said Finn.
It was strange to be talking to Charlie in a normal way. He half expected to be ignored, but Charlie said, ‘Great, thanks, Finn.’
Together, they pulled the Peggy Sue a few metres up the beach. Jas and Amir ran up to them, leaving the adults clustered in a group, watching Kyla who was running over the dunes towards them.
‘What’s really going on?’ Jas asked Finn quietly, when no one else was nearby. ‘What happened to you in the sea? How come you can swim like that? How did you know about the dolphins and the balloons in the first place? All that stuff about the selkie – you were joking, weren’t you? How did—’
‘You’ve been having secret lessons, haven’t you?’ butted in Amir, who had come up behind them. ‘I wish you’d tell me who your teacher is.’
Finn stopped their questions with a quick shake of his head.
‘I wasn’t joking. It’s like I told you. My mother was a dolphin person. It’s in the poem. Just read it again, and think about it. Look, I’ll come round and tell you everything tomorrow if you like.’
‘OK,’ said Jas. ‘In the lantern room, everyone. Straight after breakfast. Can you all do it?’
Charlie frowned. ‘I have to help my dad on Saturdays on the Janine.’
‘And I’m supposed to be clearing out my bedroom,’ said Amir.
‘Let’s tell them we’re doing a project,’ said Jas. ‘On – I don’t know – on rock pools or something. We want to make a start.’
‘On dolphins,’ said Finn with a grin. ‘Only I’m the only one who can research it.’
He saw the surprise on the others’ faces, and then he laughed to himself inside as they smiled back at him.
‘Here comes Kyla,’ said Jas. ‘I’ll tell her. And I suppose we’d better let her bring Dougie. See you in the morning, everyone!’
Chapter Nine
When Finn woke up the next morning in his little bedroom under the eaves in the old cottage, he lay for a while wondering why he felt so happy. A fluttering by the window caught his eye. A butterfly had got trapped and was trying to get out. Finn jumped out of bed and opened the window to let it out.
The early sun shining on the sea almost dazzled him, and with the light came the memory of everything that had happened the day before. He’d saved the dolphins from the balloons! And he’d got the others to help him too. He grinned, remembering the respect and friendliness in Charlie’s voice.
His heart sank a little as he remembered that he’d promised to go to the lantern room again today. Would the children still be friendly? He’d told them about his mum, but they hadn’t seemed to believe him. He couldn’t blame them. He could hardly believe it himself.
He turned back into his room and began to put on his clothes.
Meanwhile, over in the lighthouse and down in the cottages by the harbour, the other children were trying to persuade their parents to let them go to the lighthouse.
‘What do you mean, you “can’t” help me clean out the lobster pots?’ Mr Munro was barking at Charlie as he fetched his jacket off the hook behind the cottage’s front door. ‘There’s no can’t about it. You’re coming, and that’s that.’
‘It’s for school, Dad,’ said Charlie, trying not to let a tell-tale blush creep up his cheeks. He always went red when he told a lie. ‘Like I told you – it’s a project.’
‘What project, darlin’?’ said his mum.
‘It’s about rock pools,’ said Charlie carefully, trying to remember the story the children had cooked up between them the night before. ‘We’re going to get . . .’ He paused, fishing about in his memory for the right word.
‘Specimens?’ his mum said helpfully.
‘That’s it! Specimens!’ Charlie nodded gratefully.
‘No,’ said Mr Munro.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Munro. ‘Education’s important. Away you go, Charlie, but mind you’re back in good time for your dinner. Twelve o’clock. No later.’
His older sister watched him with narrowed eyes as he jumped up from the table.
‘You’re up to something, I know you are,’ she said.
‘Am not,’ said Charlie, and he dived out through the door as fast as he could to avoid further questioning.
‘Well, I don’t know, Kyla,’ Mrs Lamb was saying, as she tied a satin ribbon round her daughter’s ponytail. ‘Lo
ok what happened yesterday, when they left you on your own for all that time. I don’t think I trust those children. Are they being mean? Are you sure they’re not bullying Dougie?’
‘It’s not like that at all,’ said Kyla, pulling her head away from her mother’s hands. ‘We’re going to be doing a project. For school. Amir’ll be doing it too. And Jas. You like them. And I’ll keep an eye on Dougie, I promise.’
‘You don’t want to go too, Dougie, do you?’ Mrs Lamb had been spooning food into Buttons’s bowl. She stopped and looked up, the spoon in mid-air. ‘Not out there on the beach again on those nasty rocks? They’re terribly slippery. Your knee’s got a horrible graze from where you slipped on Thursday. Why don’t I come with you? Just let me fix my make-up, and I’ll—’
‘You don’t need to, Mum,’ said Dougie, who had expected this and had prepared a way out. ‘We’re not going to be down at the beach much. We’re going to be working at the lighthouse with Professor Jamieson. He’s going to show us his . . . his . . .’
‘Statistics?’ said Kyla, throwing an admiring look at her little brother.
‘Yes, statsitstics,’ said Dougie, pouncing on the word, although he had no idea what it meant.
Meanwhile, Amir, of course, had to concoct a different story for Mrs Faridah, who would know perfectly well that she hadn’t planned a school project on rock pools for her class.
‘Really? You’ve decided to study rock pools?’ she said suspiciously. ‘All of you? Including Charlie Munro?’
‘Yes, Mum,’ said Amir, trying to look grown-up and important. ‘Charlie was talking about the stuff his dad picks up in his lobster pots, and it started off the idea. It was Jas who suggested it.’
That bit’s true, anyway, he told himself, looking at his mother with big, round, innocent eyes.
‘Now that is very good,’ said Mrs Faridah, looking pleased but mildly astonished. ‘Jas is a very good student. You should get her father to help you. Professor Jamieson is a great expert, you know. He—’
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