Dolphin Child

by James Carmody

  ‘I’d love to see you for real’ he said. ‘Will you come to the sea tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Yes I can’ replied Lucy with an excited grin. ‘Down by Old Man’s Cove at first light. You know the place.’ When Lucy was with him for real, they could not talk together. It was only when Lucy came to him as a vision that they were able to communicate with each other, using neither human words nor dolphin clicks or whistles, but something different to pass thoughts between them.

  Lucy stretched out her hand towards him. She could not truly touch him when she came to him as an apparition. That would have to wait till the next morning. As she did so, Lucy faded and then disappeared into the water. Spirit was glad at the prospect of seeing Lucy for real again. He gave Dancer a gentle nudge and she woke up.

  ‘You’re coming with me to see Lucy tomorrow morning’ he said.

  Now that the pod stayed in the waters close to the mainland, it was much easier for Spirit to see Lucy. When he had stolen away for his coming of age journey, it had taken Spirit a whole day to swim from the waters near the islands to the mainland. It had been a long and arduous swim. Now, if he chose, Spirit could swim to the cliffs of the main body of land in less than an hour. The next morning the dawn broke red across the sky as the veil of darkness lifted. It used to be that Spirit would sleep through sunrise every day. Now it was his favourite time to be awake. He nudged Dancer until she opened her eyes and began to look around her.

  ‘Come on sleepy head’ he said to the groggy-headed Dancer. ‘Let’s go.’ Dolphins are never fully asleep as humans are. One part of their mind has to stay awake so that they can stay alert to danger, keep their blow holes clear and breathe. Dancer yawned.

  ‘I was having such a nice dream’ she said. ‘I was flying through the air with the gulls and swooping down over the heads of humans.’

  ‘Well I was having a dream that you’d caught me some mackerel to eat’ joked Spirit, ‘but dreams like that never come true.’

  ‘Cheeky!’ exclaimed Dancer. They told Summer where they were going and headed off.

  Spirit felt pleased at the thought of seeing Lucy again. A few months before when Lucy had saved him, an incredible energy had passed between them when she touched him. But three days afterwards, Lucy had had to return to her home far away from the sea. It was hard to imagine what the world above water must be like. Lucy had given him an idea, by using the power of her mind to project an image to him of what her home and school looked like. Spirit had been shocked at how small and cramped it had appeared. He was used to the wide open seas. The thought of walls horrified him.

  It was painful for Spirit to realise that Lucy had to go home. He had only seen her for real two more times before she did and even then she had been with a fully grown adult on a boat, while he had been in the water. It was not the same as swimming with her.

  Lucy had come to him using the power of her mind many times since, but to see her in real life still felt special, even though they could not speak when they did. Now she was back by the sea and he had seen her for real half a dozen times or more, carrying her on his back and feeling her warm skin against his own.

  The two dolphins broke the waves happily as they sped along.

  ‘I’m hungry’ complained Dancer.

  ‘We’ll eat soon enough’ replied Spirit. ‘You can wait a while yet for your breakfast’ he joked.

  They neared the high grey cliffs which sheered up above them. They were the tallest things that Spirit had ever seen. Gulls wheeled lazily above them in the updrafts from the sea. It was along this stretch that he had become disorientated and confused by a human on a jet ski machine and then he had been ensnared in a great loop of steel cord attached to a discarded buoy. The thought of it made him wince. He had learned since about how to deal with the jarring noise of jet skis and had encountered them several times since without problems, though the sound did still give him a terrible headache. He was glad when he had swum out of sight of that spot.

  ‘Can you see her yet?’ asked Dancer. Spirit took a low leap over the waves to look.

  ‘I think so’ he replied uncertainly. He could see a figure sitting on a rock by the water’s edge, knees tucked up under her chin, looking out to sea. They got closer. ‘Yes, it is her!’

  As they approached Lucy spotted them and stood up on the rock and waved in their direction. She called out making noises that they could not understand.

  ‘That’s her alright!’ exclaimed Dancer. She was pleased to see Lucy too. Dancer had only seen her once since Lucy had returned to the coast. It may be that Spirit had a special connection with Lucy but Dancer was very fond of her too.

  When they were a metre or two from the rock where Lucy was standing, she jumped into the sea next to him. Spirit could tell that for a human she was a good swimmer, but she was vulnerable in the sea with its strong currents and undertows and he had to take care of her.

  Lucy stretched out her hand and touched Spirits flank. Again he felt a current of energy pass between the two of them and a sense of understanding beyond anything that could be said in words. She said something and looked him in the eye. He could feel that she was happy to be with him, just as he was happy to be with her. Her eyes glowed warmly. They were both set in the front of her face whilst he had an eye on either side. This meant that he was much more aware of what was going on all around him. Humans couldn’t click like dolphins could and so he realised that she was unable to echo-locate in the water. This wasn’t surprising though; after all humans didn’t spend much time in the water at all.

  Dancer came up and greeted Lucy too, shyly at first until Lucy touched her gently with her hand. Then Spirit let Lucy pull herself up onto his back using his dorsal fin and they swam off through the low waves together, with Dancer swimming close along side. Spirit went as fast as he could and they started playing chase with Dancer, turning swiftly to try and outrun her. Soon Lucy fell off and rolled in the water, laughing as she did so.

  Then it was Dancer’s turn and she hoisted herself onto the older dolphin’s back and sped off, this time with Spirit in pursuit. After they’d played that game for twenty five minutes or so, Spirit could hear that Lucy was panting with exertion and he knew that she probably needed a rest. They floated in the water and she lay right down on his back and sort of hugged him, with her arms wrapped as far round his body as they could go.

  Eventually they came back close to the shore and Lucy slid off Spirit’s back again and sat on a half submerged rock. Spirit nuzzled into her and she gazed into his eyes. Dancer, not to be outdone, came back with a piece of seaweed and they played pass-the-seaweed for a few minutes, with Lucy smiling and laughing as they did so. It was a simple silly game that the dolphins had played together when they were much younger, but it was easy and fun to do and they all enjoyed it.

  It felt so natural and easy for Spirit to be close to Lucy, that he wished it could go on forever. Although she was a human, with strange gangly arms and legs and long soft fur on the top of her head, it felt almost as though she were part of him. Spirit knew that it may be a strange thought, but he couldn’t get it out of his head. He wished that she could swim back with them to the pod and stay with them forever, but that of course was impossible. He looked at her and saw that she was beginning to shiver, which he knew meant that she was cold. It was time for Spirit and Dancer to go.

  Lucy, sensing that their time was at an end, gave them both a big hug and then waded back to the lip of the beach. Spirit and Dancer dared not go too close in to the shoreline. The tide had turned and they could easily become grounded if they were not careful. The two dolphins hung in the water and Lucy turned back to look at them. She called out something and then gave a big wave of her arm. Spirit and Dancer reared up so that their head and top half of their body was out of the water and clicked their goodbyes, before turning towards the open sea. A short way out, Spirit turned and looked briefly back towards the cove where they had left Lucy. Spirit thought he could see another
small human at the top of the cliff looking down on her, but he could not be quite sure. It was early and the light might have played tricks on him.

  ‘That was fun’ said Dancer contentedly, as they swum lazily back towards the pod. ‘It reminds me of the time that we used to play with Star-Gazer when we were both much younger calves.’

  Spirit thought back to those days and the way his mother had played with them both, a look daring and fun in her dark eyes. Spirit realised with a jolt that he had never felt so close to another living being since his mother had disappeared, as he now felt about Lucy. He glanced at Dancer. Dolphins do not cry and Spirit said nothing, but Dancer could tell that he was feeling emotional and gave him a companionable nudge with her nose as they swam slowly along.

  ‘If only she hadn’t disappeared’ he said eventually in a quiet voice. ‘I just wish I knew what happened to her.’

  Chapter Three:

  Before Lucy could ask the boy any more, they heard voices echoing up the walls of the gulley they’d just come up. The boy frowned.

  ‘I’m off’ he said. He turned and ran up the grassy bank behind them and then disappeared through a gap in the broken fence. The two older kids who’d been chasing him suddenly appeared below Lucy. They were both much bigger than the boy they’d been chasing, and were wearing their Heavy Metal t-shirts and had thick unkempt hair and spotty complexions. Lucy didn’t like the look of them.

  ‘Where is he?’ the taller of the two asked Lucy with a menacing edge to his voice.

  ‘I don’t know who you mean’ replied Lucy with feigned nonchalance. The boy eyed Lucy suspiciously.

  ‘You’re not from round here are you?’ he said.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘And you didn’t see a scrawny kid with curly hair come through here?’

  ‘Nope’ said Lucy again.

  ‘You say anything else other than nope?’

  ‘Nope’.

  The boy turned to his friend.

  ‘That figures. He got away again’ he said to his companion. They turned to go back. ‘We’ll get him next time.’ Lucy’s curiosity got the better of her.

  ‘What did he do to you anyway? Do you always pick on kids smaller than yourself?’ she called out to them. The boy turned briefly to reply.

  ‘He’s always making up stories’ the taller boy replied. ‘Thinks he’s something special when he’s not. He needs to be taught a lesson.’ They clattered off back down the path of the stream, slipping on the slime-covered stones as they went.

  Lucy looked around her. The hill reared up behind. There was a grassy slope with what looked like a couple of apple trees, some nettles, then a fence and behind that some houses. Looking in the other direction, Lucy could see the roof tops and then the harbour and sea not so far away. The walled gulley where the stream trickled was like a secret street for kids. ‘Cool’ she thought to herself. There was nothing like this were she lived. It was all signposts and safety railings there. She half expected the boy with curly hair to reappear from behind the fence, but he didn’t. He must have been long gone.

  Lucy wondered how to get back down to the harbour. She glanced at her watch and realised that she was late for her rendezvous with Bethany. She guessed that there must be a road or a path or something, but the most direct route was back down the stream she’d just come up. She didn’t want to come across those older kids again, but the noise of them had receded and she hoped she would miss them. She made her way cautiously back down the walled gulley, holding on to the sides of the stone wall on either side to steady herself and then carefully stepping from one dry stone to the next when she was back on the main stream bed. She carefully picked her way along the stream, walked under the main road again and soon found herself back where the trickle of water came out onto the pebble beach. The children had gone, but the tide had come in during the short time she’d been away and there was almost no beach left under the harbour walls. It was that easy to get cut off by the tide.

  She found the cast-iron ladder again and climbed up over the wall onto street level. Bethany was there waiting for her, looking distractedly at her watch.

  ‘Whoa!’ Where did you pop up from?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh’ I’ve just been exploring’ replied Lucy.

  ‘Well another ten minutes and you’d have been swimming’ Bethany went on, peering down at the rising tide.

  ‘Find anything interesting?’

  ‘I was nosing around up that walled stream that runs from the beach under the High Street.’

  ‘Oh that? That’s a storm drain really. A town like this built on a hill is like a funnel in a storm and could easily flash-flood if they didn’t have that kind of thing. I hope you didn’t come across any rats or anything down there.’ They turned to walk back to the Land Rover.

  ‘Bethany, what are the local kids around here like?’ asked Lucy shyly. Bethany grinned. So that was why Lucy had been off exploring.

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘I’m not sure they’re that nice’ replied Lucy.

  ‘Well there’s good and bad anywhere you go Kiddo’ said Bethany, placing a companionable arm around Lucy’s shoulder as they walked. ‘But I’m sure you’ll find some good ones. I’m sorry I’ve not been able to fix you up with any play dates’ she continued, ‘but I just don’t know the kids your age round here. And I’m sorry that your friend Amy couldn’t come down to join us. Are you getting bored stuck down here with your old aunt?’

  ‘No way’ said Lucy resolutely. ‘I like it here.’

  ‘And I like having you here’ Bethany laughed, turning the key in the lock of the car. They got in. ‘Maybe we can ask Thelma tomorrow at tea’ she went on. ‘She seems to know everything about everything around here.’

  When Lucy had turned up in Merwater a fews months ago unannounced and without Bethany’s address, it was Thelma who’d helped Lucy get to Bethany’s studio. What’s more, if it wasn’t for Thelma and her husband Nate and his fishing boat the Lady Thelma, Lucy might never have been able to save Spirit that time. Lucy already felt as though Thelma was like another aunt to her. Thelma’s own children had already grown up and left home. Lucy wondered if Thelma would really know much about what the local kids were up to. Still, it was always nice to see her and she just loved having tea there.

  They drove back home to the studio. It was about lunchtime and they grabbed a quick sandwich and drink of squash. Lucy wondered what Spirit was doing. In fact her thoughts turned to what Spirit was up to several times a day. She’d reach out to him with her mind later on and see what he was up to.

  Bethany had to work on her painting that afternoon and told Lucy that she also had an important visitor. If all went well it might lead to another commission. She told Lucy that she was welcome to stay when the visitor showed up, but that she needed to be on her best behaviour.

  Lucy mooched out into the farmyard and wondered if she could hang out with Mary, but she could see that Mary was in her cramped office with the phone clamped firmly to the side of her head, so she guessed not.

  Lucy strolled over into one of the fields next to the farm. There was no livestock there at the moment and Lucy sat down on the grass and chewed a long stalk. The sun was warm and she lay back with her hands behind her head. She could hear the drone of insects in the distance and watched absent mindedly as a bumble bee made its erratic way from one buttercup to the next. Lucy thought she’d rest her eyes for a moment. After all she’d got up very early that morning.

  Lucy soon dozed off and dreamt of Spirit and the pod cruising lazily along through the waters off the coast. What seemed like freezing cold sea to her was warm to the dolphins and especially with the sun on their backs they were enjoying the summer temperatures too. They’d eaten earlier and were contented enough to play and talk without overly exerting themselves. Lucy had dreamt of dolphins for as long as she could remember but it was only earlier this year that she’d realised that they were more than simple dreams and that she was able to actuall
y stretch out with her mind and communicate with the dolphins and Spirit in particular.

  Lucy woke up again forty minutes later with a stiff neck but a happy feeling in her heart. Dreaming about dolphins almost always made her feel contented inside. The sun had passed behind the hedge and it was that which had saved her from getting sunburnt. The air was cooler out of the sunshine. The insects still buzzed in the grass and she heard the plaintiff baa of a sheep in a field nearby.

  She rolled over onto her tummy and stared at the tuft of grass in front of her. A small beetle with a brilliant iridescent green wing casing was crawling laboriously through the stems of grass. She wondered if it realised that a giant was watching its every movement, just centimetres away. What if people in turn were being observed by aliens from a far-away galaxy, as oblivious to the fact as the beetle was? The thought made her mind reel.

  She plucked a blade of grass from the tussock and held it out so that the beetle crawled up it and then down onto her hand. The beetle paused, sensing a change in the air, opened its wing casing and flew away on the breeze.

  Lucy got up and stretched, before ambling slowly back to the farmyard. A car had pulled up outside Bethany’s studio and she guessed that it must be the special visitor that Bethany had talked about. Lucy decided against barging in on their conversation and opted to stay outside instead. Just then she noticed Mary’s husband Darren sitting on the stone steps at the front door of the farmhouse drinking a mug of coffee in the sunshine. She walked over to him. He’d taken off his jacket and had loosened his tie.

  ‘You’re back home early’ she commented. Darren patted the stone slab next to him for her to sit down too.

  ‘I escaped from a meeting. There wasn’t time to go back to the office so I thought I’d just come on home. How are you Lucy? Having fun?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s great here. I wish I could stay forever.’