How to Speak Dolphin
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Chris watches him with sad eyes and says to me, “That makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? He is the one leaving.”
I nod and want to hug him.
We’re only ten minutes out when Zoe hears a blow and calls, “Dolphins at five o’clock.” In the same instant, Riley barks and scrambles from the bow to the stern, where Don is helping Adam climb onto the back bench to watch them. Riley jumps up to stand beside Adam.
Suzanne sits on the other rear bench, holding Baby Suz, who is startled by Riley and starts to cry. Don reaches and takes her from Suzanne. He jiggles her and points out the two dolphins that broke off from the group. I don’t think Don has held a baby since Adam was born. Suzanne and I look at each other and smile.
One of the dolphins races along in our stern wake, but the other, with Riley barking his approval, leaps into the air and spins before crashing back into the water. It does this four or five times. Adam squeals and giggles. When they break off and disappear, he strokes Riley’s head.
A few minutes later, another group of dolphins approaches from under the Jolley Bridge.
“Are those the same dolphins?” I ask.
Captain Chris shakes his head. “Different.” He has to shout over the roar of the two huge outboard engines.
I was sure I’d recognize Nori when I saw her, but if she’s among these, I can’t tell. I glance at Captain Chris and see him smile.
“Here come more.” Don picks Adam up, but this time when Adam sees them, he doesn’t laugh or giggle. He stares, and holds his arms out. When he can’t get away from Don, he starts to buck until he kicks him hard just below his kneecap. Don grunts and puts him down, but keeps a vicelike grip on his Kid Keeper leash.
The dolphins, six of them this time, surf our wake, porpoising in and out of the wave. My heart pounds. I want Nori to be with them, and Adam thinks she is, but I don’t believe for a minute that, if she is, she’ll recognize us. It’s been five months.
When the dolphins tire of chasing through the water after us, five zip away, but one stays, swimming alongside. Now there’s no doubt. It’s Nori. Kent flips through the notebook full of pictures until he comes to the pictures James took the day we set her free. The nick in her dorsal fin and the scar on her beak are the same.
Captain Chris pulls the power and puts the engine in neutral.
Adam has his fingers through the metal grillwork that caps the sides of the catamaran. He rocks back and forth, mumbling something.
Zoe touches my arm. “Lily, do you hear what Adam is saying?”
“I can’t tell.”
“The words aren’t clear, but from the rhythm, the cadence, I think it’s his Little Dolphin story.”
“His book?”
Zoe leans near Adam and says, “ ‘Someone must have heard his call!’ ”
“ ‘Here comes a friend,’ ” Adam says, clear as a bell.
“ ‘They’ll have a ball,’ ” Zoe and I answer.
Nori upends on the port side of the boat and lets out a high-pitched whistle.
“That’s one excited dolphin,” Chris says.
Nori dives. The water isn’t as clear as the tank in Miami, but it’s clear enough to see the bubble ring she’s blown and is pushing toward us. I pick Adam up and stand him on the railing.
“Is that Nori?” I ask him.
Zoe claps her hands. “Is it?”
“Yes, and she’s bringing Adam a bubble ring.”
Adam jumps, folding his legs up, only to dangle midair with my arms around him. He’s heavy. If Don hadn’t reached out and grabbed him, he would have been in the water.
Captain Chris opens the gate to the bow. “Go on. Let him pet his dolphin.”
Don puts Adam down. I hold on to him and the two of us lie on the decking and hang over the water between the two hulls. Adam clicks and squeaks and shrieks with laughter when Nori pops up in front of him. She presses her beak to his cheek, then whistles and makes popping sounds through her blowhole before opening her mouth to let Adam tickle her tongue.
We hang out over the water until Nori leaves to join a group of dolphins swimming by. Adam watches her go, and lets me pick him up and carry him back through the gate. Captain Chris starts the motor and steers us toward Keewaydin Island, where we’ll go ashore to look for shells, walk the beach, and let Adam burn off extra energy before we head home.
On the way, Adam stands on the bench at the stern and watches our wake. Riley joins him there—two dolphin lovers side by side.
On the island, Zoe sits waist deep in the water. She’s looking for shells, too. She digs them out of the sand, rinses what she finds, and inspects each one, inside and out, with her fingers.
I stand nearby with my toes digging in the warm sand, listening to the waves make little hissing sounds as they roll in, and watch Adam and Riley run up the beach and down the beach. Flocks of small shore birds feed at the water’s edge, following each receding wave to probe the sand quickly for what the wash has turned up, before dashing ashore ahead of the next little wave.
Suzanne and her family are down the beach and letting the baby splash in a puddle of warm water left by the outgoing tide.
Riley sees Nori first and barks. Adam turns, sees her, and dashes into the surf. Don and Kent run in after him to keep him from swimming out to meet her.
“That’s quite a bond those two have.” Captain Chris pushes his cap back on his head. “I suppose if your brother sat in the water, I couldn’t stop the dolphin from coming to him.”
“How can she? It’s so shallow.”
“She’ll manage. I’ve seen dolphins chase fish onto a beach, swim in, and pluck them off the sand.”
“Thank you.” I run to the water’s edge and wade out to where Don and Adam stand. I sit in the water and put Adam in my lap. Nori propels herself in beside us, and Adam puts his cheek against Nori’s forehead. I glance up at Don and smile, then splash water on Nori to keep her back wet.
We’re only there a few minutes before Captain Chris calls, “We got to get going, folks. Tide’s going out.”
“Adam, it’s time for Nori to join her new family.”
Adam studies my face, looks at Nori, and back at me. I’m not sure what to expect. Tears at least, or confusion, but he doesn’t react at all.
“Can you send her away?”
He turns, swings his arm like a dolphin trainer, and points to open water.
Nori arches her back and works her way into deeper water.
Adam waves his backward bye-bye.
Nori rolls on her side, waves a pectoral fin, and disappears. Adam and I wade ashore. We pick our way across the shells that line the water’s edge, join Don, and turn for a last look at Nori. Her head is out of the water. She bobs it, then dives. A moment later she sails out of the water. Adam laughs, grabs my hand and Don’s, then bends his knees and leaps into the air. Don and I together hold him aloft.
With gratitude to the teachers and therapists at the Redwood School: Jeannie Stickel, Amy Stephens, Melody Ulrich, Shea Elledge, and Lisa Comarsh; Texas A&M faculty: Josue Delgado and Dr. Joanne Mansell. Thanks to Mark Palmer at Dolphin Project / Earth Island Institute in Berkeley for taking my many calls. Thank you to Anne Eaton Kemp and Pat Dunbar for their keen-eyed reading. A special thanks to Christina Zecca, who generously shared her autistic son’s struggles. Peeing in a tuna can would never have occurred to me; thank you, Steve Sapontzis, who introduced me to JAWS and other aspects of his sightless world. Thanks to Spencer Williams, Jane Phinney, and Randy and Carolina Phinney for their guidance and hospitality on my research trips to Florida; as always, my writing group, the Mixed Pickles: Norma Watkins, Katherine Brown, Jill Myers, Patty Joslyn, and Kate Erickson. I’m grateful to Suzanne’s daughter, Elisa Hartman, who permitted me to share my grief over the loss of her mother while coping with her own. Thanks to Laurie Arnez for putting me in touch with Captain Chris Desmond, and his crew, Kent Morse, James, and Kristen. Thank you to Ellen Duda and Starr Baer at Scholastic. This book wouldn’t exist on any le
vel if not for Emily Seife’s dream, her perseverance, and her editing skills.
While the story here is invented, I did a lot of research to create Adam’s character and to inform Nori’s situation.
This is a partial list of the readings I did as I prepared to write this book:
“Dolphin-Assisted Therapy: Claims versus Evidence”
Britta L. Fiksdal, Daniel Houlihan, and Aaron C. Barnes
www.hindawi.com/journals/aurt/2012/839792/
A thorough study of the evidence behind dolphin-assisted therapy.
“Like a Bat, Blind Man Uses Sound to ‘See’ ”
Katie Moisse
abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/blind-man-echolocation/story?id=13684073
The story of a man who uses echolocation.
“Dolphins Suffering from Lung Disease Due to BP Gulf Oil Spill”
ecowatch.com/2013/12/18/dolphins-suffering-from-disease-bp-gulf-oil-spill/
A look at the effects of the oil spill on Gulf dolphins.
“Reaching My Autistic Son through Disney”
Ron Suskind
www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/magazine/reaching-my-autistic-son-through-disney.html?_r=0
An article adapted from Ron Suskind’s Life, Animated, about how he and his wife reached their autistic son through his fascination with Disney movies.
Save Lolita
www.savelolita.com
A website protesting the captivity of a killer whale.
—Ginny Rorby
Ginny Rorby is the Schneider Family Book Award-winning author of Hurt Go Happy, called “a real winner” by Publishers Weekly in a starred review. Her other novels include Lost in the River of Grass, The Outside of a Horse, and Dolphin Sky. Ginny lived in Miami for many years, but now resides on the coast of northern California with her thirty-five-year-old parrot and a few cats. Visit her at www.ginnyrorby.org.
Copyright © 2015 by Ginny Rorby
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
First edition, June 2015
Text from Little Dolphin © 2012 by ImageBooks Factory BV; translation by Chronicle Books. Used with permission of Chronicle Books LLC, San Francisco. Visit ChronicleBooks.com.
Cover art and design by Ellen Duda
Cover art created from photos by the following: David Olsen/Getty Images; Ruth Petzold/Getty Images; Tom Merton/Getty Images; Kristian Sekulic/Getty Images.
e-ISBN 978-0-545-67608-3
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