The Girl Who Dreamt of Dolphins

by James Carmody

  You’re mad!’ said Amy, marvelling at her friend’s audacity. ‘Wotcha want to do it for anyway?’ Lucy winced inwardly. She didn’t know how to explain to Amy. She could tell her about the fight that she and Dad had had about swimming practice and she could tell her friend about Dad not wanting her to visit Bethany at all. But that wasn’t the only reason. She couldn’t even really explain it to herself, but deep down, she had a sort of deep need, a yearning to go there and to be near not only Bethany, but to be near the sea. She just had this feeling that she had to go. She felt almost as if there was something bigger going on that she was caught up in.

  That morning Lucy had woken early with the dawn light. She’d been dreaming about her little dolphin Spirit, swimming and swimming through the endless seas. She knew that he wasn’t happy and that something was wrong, but also that he was determined to press on. Lucy had put herself in the mental state she needed to reach out to Spirit. She was getting better at it now. She focused her thoughts and then relaxed and by this method found the door in her mind that let her slip from her own world into Spirit’s.

  ‘I’m so glad you could come Lucy’ Spirit exclaimed, as she appeared suddenly by his side. ‘It makes me feel much better knowing that you’re watching over me!’ Lucy smiled, happy to see him again, but curious about what he was doing.

  ‘You’re all on your own. Where’s the rest of the pod Spirit?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m going on a journey’ replied Spirit. ‘It’s something that all young dolphins do to come of age. I have to do it now. There are, well, reasons….’ He trailed off.

  ‘Where will you go?’ asked Lucy, full of curiosity and admiration for her friend.

  ‘I’m heading for the coast. It’s safer than the open sea when you’re a dolphin on your own. You have to take care you see.’

  ‘Aren’t you scared?’ asked Lucy, floating beside him in the water. Lucy stretched out to touch his smooth flank, but although she could reach out with her fingertips to touch him, it felt as though she would pass right through him instead.

  ‘A little’ he replied. It was very dark when I set out and I couldn’t say goodbye to my friend Dancer.’ Spirit seemed to frown a little. It still felt strange to Lucy that they didn’t talk normally with words, or even clicks and whistles, but somehow directly from his mind to hers.

  ‘But I am less alone with you by my side, my friend Lucy. The morning just got better when you came’ he added. They chatted a little longer. Spirit wanted to know what it was like in her world on dry land. He wanted to know where she lived. Lucy didn’t even begin to know how to describe a house to him, a mammal that had always lived in the sea. Instead with all the brain power she could muster, she used her mind to send him an image of her house and then of her school. It was like sending him a mental snapshot from her brain to his. It tired her out though and she felt her energy levels plunging down. Spirit had drifted away from her and then she lost sight of him.

  ‘Goodbye Spirit’ she had called out as she drifted off. A moment later she had been sitting on the floor of her bedroom again, conscious all of a sudden that she was cold and hungry and needed the bathroom.

  Lucy didn’t know how to explain all that to Amy. Amy would never understand, even if she wanted to. Maybe she’d tell Amy some other time, but not now. The important thing, Lucy thought, was that both she and Spirit were going on a journey. He was brave and that made Lucy feel braver too. His determination strengthened her own resolve.

  Lucy looked back over at Amy.

  ‘It’s just something I’ve got to do’ she whispered. ‘I can’t explain really. I’ve just got to go there and see my Aunt. You won’t tell will you?’ Her friend paused a moment.

  ‘Don’t be silly, of course I won’t’ Amy reassured her. ‘But I’m just not sure it’s a good idea. What if something happened to you, how do you think I’d feel then?’

  ‘Don’t worry’ Lucy smiled ‘Nothing bad’s going to happen to me, especially not if you help me!’

  It always mystified Spirit how, just when he was getting used to her being there again, Lucy seemed to dissolve in front of him and then disappear. First she was there, then only a small shadow of her outline remained and then she was gone altogether. He felt sad when she left him and a little lonely too. He never quite knew when she would reappear and when she would go again. It made him feel better to think that she would return before long. ‘Come back soon’, he had whispered after she left him again.

  Spirit stopped swimming for a while and let himself float just under the surface of the water. He could feel the rays of the sun warming his back and fin. What most amazed him from Lucy’s last visit to him was the vision that she was able to send to him of the place where she lived. It looked like a discarded box he had found on the seabed once. And it looked so small! Spirit could have swum from one end to the other with a flick of his tail if it was under water. How could humans possibly bear to be confined in such small spaces? When he had swum into the wreck, Spirit had instantly felt overcome with a sense of claustrophobia. The thought of not being free in the open sea, to glide and float, leap and dive sent a shiver down his spine. He made a convulsive flick of his tail fin and started swimming again. He did not understand the image of the school that Lucy had sent him; it was of a series of larger boxes, with many small humans just like Lucy streaming into it. There were some larger humans in the image she had transmitted to him and he assumed that they were fully grown humans. He knew that Lucy was young like he was and had not yet come of age. The ‘school’ was somewhere that the humans sent their young he knew, but he could not think why. He learned everything he needed to learn from the pod that he swum with and from his mother, at least he had before she disappeared that day. Both images perplexed Spirit and he thought that he would never learn the mysteries of the human beings and their world without water on dry land.

  Spirit was getting hungry and knew he needed to eat soon. He set his mind to that urgent task. Luckily, before long he came across a shoal of a hundred or so sprats swimming just below the surface of the water. If he was with the pod, he knew they could surround the sprats in order that they pressed close in on one another, so the dolphins could dive through them and eat more in less time. On his own Spirit could only plunge in the centre of the shoal and hope to snatch one or maybe two sprats before they dispersed. He could then pursue two or three stragglers but the rest would escape unharmed. That would keep him going for now, but he’d have to feed again before long. He launched himself upon them with a keen appetite.

  After breakfasting, Spirit continued on his way. As he swum he though about some of the stories that Moonlight used to tell him when he was younger. He could almost hear Moonlight’s voice as he recalled the story.

  There was once a young dolphin alone in the seas when a great storm fell upon her in a crash of waves and a rumble of clouds above. The sea was so rough that the young dolphin did not know which way was up and which way was down. She came upon a great blue whale and said ‘Please help me great blue whale.’ The whale turned and saw the young dolphin being tossed this way and that by the waves. He rumbled ‘Swim into my mouth little cousin.’ The young dolphin gasped. Would he not just eat her? But she had learned that blue whales eat only krill and plankton and had no interest in eating a mammal such as her. She would only give him indigestion. The great whale slowly opened his mouth and though the currents were mighty strong and the storm thrashed furiously above her, she struggled through the turbulent water until she was able to enter the whale’s gaping mouth. Inside it was calm and the little dolphin immediately felt safe. Instead of being in the dark as she had expected, there was a flickering light. The young dolphin swum slowly towards the light, not knowing what to expect. As she grew close she could make out the shape of a small fishing boat and the face of a human child staring forlornly into the water, with only a torch to help him see. She greeted the human with her clicks and whistles and, although he could not understand her questions,
he was delighted to see her. He could not speak to the whale as the young dolphin was able to do and believed himself to be lost for ever. He did not know that the whale was merely sheltering him against the storm. When the storm had abated, the great whale rumbled ‘Little dolphin, you and the boy are free to leave now. It is safe outside.’ The young dolphin made to leave but looked back and saw the boy, confused and anxious in his creaking fishing boat. She clicked and whistled at him again but he still did not understand, so she seized a rope that was dangling from the front of the boat into the water and started to tug with all her might. The boy finally understood and took up his oars and started to row furiously as he could while the young dolphin tugged. The boy and dolphin found themselves back in the open sea. With a low sigh the great whale dived until the tip of his tail disappeared slowly under the water. The young dolphin stayed with the human child until a great wooden sailing ship came by and the child was saved.’

  At that moment in the story Moonlight would pause and the young dolphins listening would all clamour ‘And who was the young dolphin Moonlight?’ Laughing, Moonlight would always reply ‘Why it was me of course!’ and all the youngsters would laugh delightedly as well. Spirit never did know whether to believe her or not. Now he though maybe Moonlight was not just pulling their fins in fun. Perhaps she really had been saved by a great blue whale. Strange things could happen in the deep, as Spirit was beginning to find out. He swum on.

  After another hour or so of swimming, guided by the slow progression of the sun in the sky, Spirit paused awhile to rest just under the surface of the water. When he turned again he saw a silhouette in the distance.

  ‘Greetings young dolphin’ came a voice from the distant apparition.

  Chapter Twelve:

  When Lucy was younger, she and Mum used to walk down to the stream a mile or so from their house. There was an old stone bridge that wasn’t strong enough for cars to drive across and only pedestrians and horse-riders used it now. Water weeds swayed as the current rippled through the plants that hung onto the gravel at the bottom of the stream. Lucy would lean out over the edge of the bridge, peering down into the smooth surface of the water below, searching for the fish that would hang motionless in the current and wondering where all that water might end up. Mum showed her how to fold a small boat out of a piece of paper and Lucy would drop it into the stream below. The current would catch the boat and it would disappear under the bridge. Lucy would race to the other side in time to see it emerge, borne along by the current. Sometimes her boats would quickly get caught on the reeds, but other times they would flow along, missing the submerged rocks, whirlpools and over-hanging twigs and branches, until they disappeared round the bend in the stream.

  Mum said that the stream flowed into a bigger river and that the river went all the way down to the sea. Lucy would imagine her little paper boat bobbing along the mighty river passing ships and seagulls until the fresh waters merged with the salty sea and the tiny paper boat was caught by the waves and carried to a far off and fantastical land on the other side of the sky.

  ‘All rivers flow to the sea’, Lucy thought to herself as she walked to school on Thursday morning, ‘and so will I.’ Although the next day was Friday, the last day before half term, she would not be going in. She’d never skipped school before and the thought of bunking off made her feel immediately guilty, however it was the only way she could put her plans into effect. Lucy felt nervous, but excited.

  That lunchtime, Lucy would normally have done her swimming practice, but since her Dad had banned her from going, she had been avoiding Miss Baldwin, partly because she was annoyed at her sports teacher for having called her Dad and partly through her own embarrassment at trying to explain why on earth had he stopped her from swimming. She really missed it though; the sheer physical release she felt as she sliced cleanly through the water and the pleasant feeling of tiredness she felt when eventually she pulled herself up onto the side of the pool. She itched to be back in the water again, lost in a watery world once more.

  Lucy and Amy walked around the playground slowly, deep in discussion, talking through their plans and what they were going to do the next day. They were so engrossed that when the bell went for the end of lunchtime, they barely noticed and had to run to catch up with the other children going into class.

  As Lucy lay in bed that night, she wondered what the next day might bring. Eventually, she drifted off into a sleep in which she dreamt of trains full of water, with dolphins floating in their compartments, staring out in rapt fascination at the strange and inexplicable world of land and dryness on the other side of the thin glass window.

  Lucy awoke with a start. She glanced at her alarm clock; it was six forty five exactly. Normally she wouldn’t get up for another half hour, but she was wide awake and too alert to doze off again. She dressed quickly and quietly in her school uniform, taking particular care to look as neat and well-presented as she could. It was important that she looked smart for her journey ahead. Lucy padded down the hall to the bathroom.

  ‘You’re up early’ said Dad, emerging from his bedroom already dressed in his suit.

  ‘Yeah’ replied Lucy, trying not to get drawn into conversation.

  ‘Half term next week’ he continued, ‘Are you looking forward to it?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh yes’, she assured him.

  ‘I suppose you’ll be sleeping in and hanging out with your friends. I spoke to Amy’s Mum and she says you can spend Monday and Tuesday with Amy at their house, then you’ve got two days at the Stables riding and looking after the ponies and then, well, maybe I’ll be able to take the day off on Friday. I’m not promising anything though.’

  Lucy knew all this already. Normally hanging out with Amy and going to the stables would have been great, but she had other plans.

  Lucy washed her face and cleaned her teeth before coming down to breakfast. She got her cereals and sat down at the kitchen table. Dad joined her, coffee in hand.

  ‘So what time do you come out of school today then Luce?’ Dad asked. Lucy knew that he was hoping that it wouldn’t be three pm like the last time end of term and she didn’t disappoint him.

  ‘Oh, you know I’ve got French club after school and so I won’t be out till four thirty.’ Lucy was banking on already having got to Bethany’s house at Merwater by that time so that Bethany could call him on his mobile and break the news. The longer it took before Dad realised what she was up to the better. She was still worried that Dad would simply get in his car and drive down the same night to drag her back home again. ‘No way josé’ Lucy muttered to herself. She’d fight every step of the way if he tried that.

  ‘I’ll get a DVD for tonight, what do you fancy seeing?’ Dad asked.

  ‘Oh I don’t know, you choose’ said Lucy noncommittally, digging into her cereals with her spoon and knowing that she wouldn’t be there to watch it anyway.

  Lucy looked at her father curiously as she ate. He seemed tired and crumpled, even though he’d just got up, with bags under his eyes and grey round the temples that hadn’t been there before they’d lost Mum. Half of her felt sorry for him. The other half felt defiant and angry. He just made ridiculous and incomprehensible rules to stop her doing this, that and the other, but didn’t seem to want to be there for her when he could. The last time he’d suggested watching a DVD together, he’d started sending text messages half way through and then he’d disappeared upstairs to send an urgent email. Sometimes she missed Mum with a yearning that gnawed away at her heart. Tonight though, she thought, she’d be at Bethany’s house and she’d be happy there.

  Dad switched the radio on and they listened absently to the morning news whilst Dad busied himself for work. Because Lucy had got up early she had a little more time before she was supposed to leave, as Dad believed, for school. Although she knew that she would only be away a week or so, she looked around the familiar kitchen with new eyes. Everything looked the same, but ever so slightly different from normal, as
though the light had been turned up too bright and had bleached out some colour. She drained her glass of orange juice.

  ‘Better get going Luce’ said Dad, standing in front of her, coat on, ready to set off. ‘Don’t forget your raincoat, the weather forecast said it’s going to chuck it down later. Something about a storm coming in from the West.’ Lucy pulled on her raincoat, took her school bag and went outside. Dad banged the door closed behind her. He opened the car door.

  ‘See you later Luce’ called Dad. Lucy turned to look at him.

  ‘Dad?’ she said uncertainly, but he had already clunked the car door closed behind him. The engine burst into life and he backed down the drive. He gave her a brief wave, before turning the car and driving off. Lucy took a deep breath and walked up the road to Amy’s house.

  Amy was looking out of her bedroom window in expectation and ran down quickly appearing at the front door a moment later, yelling her goodbyes to her Mum as she ran down the front path to her friend.

  ‘Hey Lucy, you ready?’ Lucy smiled.

  ‘Sure am’ she replied.

  ‘Come round to the back’ Amy beckoned her and, glancing back to the front door to make sure Amy’s Mum wasn’t watching, they slipped round the side of the house to the garage. Amy lifted up the garage door. Inside, propped against the garage wall, was Amy’s backpack. Lucy had been smuggling her clothes for the week ahead to Amy in her school bag during the last few days. She had her toothbrush, toothpaste and lip salve in her school bag now and quickly transferred them into her backpack.

  ‘You sure you still want to do this?’ Amy asked. ‘It’s not too late to change your mind you know.’

  ‘Course I’m sure’ replied Lucy, though she didn’t feel it inside.

  ‘How about you? You won’t get into trouble?’