Dolphin Child

by James Carmody

  ‘Do you think I can learn how to do it?’ Paul asked. Lucy shrugged.

  ‘I’m not sure if its one of those things that you can just learn’ she answered cautiously. ‘Maybe its just something that you are born with.’

  ‘I bet there’s some trick or other to it’ Paul replied, unconvinced.

  ‘No, no gimmicks. No tricks’ said Lucy. ‘I really wish I knew how it happened as well, but I just don’t. Paul paused a few moments in thought and Lucy could see he was reliving the experience in his minds eye.

  ‘When I touched Spirit, it was like there was electricity passing between us’ he said. ‘Then I felt so calm and peaceful. It was like I wasn’t scared at all then.’

  ‘Were you scared before?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘Well, a bit’ admitted Paul. ‘Just wait till I tell…’ he started, before trailing off. He thought of Baz and Mike and the other local kids and how he could impress them with stories of swimming with dolphins. ‘No…’ he said after a moment. Suddenly the idea of showing off to the other kids didn’t seem such a great idea after all.

  ‘Maybe best not to go round telling everyone about this’ said Lucy. ‘Anyway, your Mum’s already a bit weird about me. Who knows what she’d say if she found out.’

  ‘You’re right’ Paul replied decisively.

  ‘Anyway, you’ve got to keep your side of the deal’ Lucy went on. ‘I’ve let you meet Spirit. Now you’ve got to take me to meet the dolphin in the lake.’ Paul shifted uncomfortably on the rock where he was sitting.

  ‘Oh, yeah, sure’ he said. ‘We can bike out there tomorrow afternoon if you like’ he said uneasily.

  ‘I really look forward to it’ replied Lucy. The truth was that her dreams about the shadowy dolphin in the murky water exerted such a fascination upon her, that she just had to find out whether it was Paul’s dolphin that she had been dreaming about. She still had the suspicion that Paul wasn’t entirely telling the truth, but for the time being she simply had to take what he said on trust.

  After a while they got their things together. Lucy tried to cram the wetsuit back into her rucksack, but she just couldn’t manage it, so she slung it over her shoulder instead as they started to make their way up the path. A man in shorts and with binoculars round his neck started to make his way down the path as they went up it. He cheerily said ‘Good morning’ to them and they politely replied ‘Hello’.

  ‘Good thing he wasn’t here half an hour earlier’ Lucy muttered to Paul after they passed him. At the top, slightly out of breath, they turned and looked back down at the stretch of sea below them.

  ‘Do you think… Do you think that Spirit is like, well, like a person, I mean a person like us?’ Paul asked Lucy. ‘Do you think he’s smart like we are?’ She hadn’t thought about it before, but now Paul asked, the answer came to her instantaneously.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure he is’ she answered. ‘He’s just as much a person as you or I are.’

  ‘That’s what I thought’ said Paul. ‘I just had this….sort of idea that he must be. He looked so smart and understanding when I looked into his eyes.’ Paul seemed so positive about Spirit and the other dolphins, but she knew his Mum thought differently and hoped that Mrs Treddinick would not find out.

  ‘What about your Mum, what does she think?’ she asked. Paul shook his head, a frown passing across his face.

  ‘I don’t know’ he replied. ‘She says some strange things sometimes. I don’t think she understands what it’s like to meet a dolphin. If she did….’ Paul looked at his watch. It was later than he thought. ‘I suppose I’d better get back’ he said, changing the subject. ‘I’ll get my bike.’

  They walked across the field and hoisted their bikes over the stile onto the side of the road.

  ‘Where shall we meet tomorrow then?’ asked Lucy. Paul thought for a moment.

  ‘You know the church at the end of Bussey Lane?’ he asked. Lucy wasn’t sure, but she could find out from Bethany or Mary anyhow. ‘Meet me there at twelve. Then we’ll cycle down together.’ They parted, with Paul pedalling along the main road back into town and Lucy heading off down the lane back to the farm.

  Lucy felt happy as she free-wheeled along. Things seemed to be working out. By tomorrow she’d find out whether Paul was telling the truth about the dolphin in the lake and then maybe the strange dreams that she’d been having recently would make more sense to her. Maybe after tomorrow she’d have something to tell Spirit. She didn’t like not telling him everything. If she was right.… No. It was best to find out first.

  The verges of the lane seemed to buzz with insect life as she approached the farm. Swifts wheeled overhead, catching flies and midges on the wing. She saw a pile of earth shift slightly, as the mole below it pushed up the soil as he extended his tunnel. She could hardly imagine the dark subterranean world that the mole inhabited, deprived of sunshine and light. Lucy clattered over the cattle grid into the farm yard still full of all sorts of thoughts and then braked suddenly, overcome with surprise. There was their familiar car parked next to the studio and there was Dad standing next to the open boot, pulling out a suitcase.

  ‘Dad!’ she exclaimed in surprise. He looked up.

  ‘Hey Lucy!’ She jumped off her bike, let it drop and ran over to Dad and hugged him.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked. ‘You said you wouldn’t be coming down for another few days.’

  ‘My project finished early so I thought I’d drive down straight away. I managed to get the cottage a couple of days earlier. We can have a good old bucket and spade holiday together now Luce. You and me.’

  Chapter Ten:

  Spirit swam back to join Dancer and the rest of the pod.

  ‘Hey, it’s a good thing you’re back’ Dancer told him. ‘Chaser’s just been out and he’s told us about a shoal of squid in the deeper ocean west of here. We’re all going after them together.’

  ‘I hate squid’ said Spirit. ‘But I am starving.’

  ‘And did you have a nice time with Lucy?’ asked Dancer, almost shyly.

  ‘She came with a short male human’ replied Spirit, eager to tell his friend what had just happened. ‘He’s smaller than Lucy, which I suppose means he’s younger. You know the fur stuff on human’s heads called hair? Lucy has long straight hair, but his was all curly and in a big blob on his head. He seemed very uncertain of himself and almost vulnerable.’ Spirit hesitated.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You know how some fish can puff up to make you think they’re bigger than they really are? Or other fish shake their tale at you like they’re really fierce when you know that they aren’t?’ Dancer nodded. ‘Well I just had this strange feeling that boy was like that. I felt as though he’d just crumble if you touched him. Yet there was…. There was fear and wonder in his eyes and it made me feel very strange.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘I don’t know really’ said Spirit quietly. ‘I just think there’s something not quite right about him, like when you look at white clouds on the horizon but somehow know that a storm is just behind. You just know without understanding how.’

  ‘So did this little human swim with you too?’

  ‘Yes he did. When he got in the water I thought he was going to sink like a rotten lump of wood, he was so bad at swimming. I had to let him hold onto one of my fins and pull him through the water so I could be sure he’d be okay. I thought he’d want to get back out of the sea as soon as possible, but instead it seemed as though he wanted to stay there with me forever. I felt this strange kind of energy come off him. Lucy gives off energy too when she touches me in real life.

  ‘Yes I know’ replied Dancer, thinking back to the time that she had carried Lucy on her back, with the girl clinging on to her dorsal fin as they swam.

  ‘But Lucy’s energy is more calm and constant’ Spirit continued, ‘while this boy’s energy reminded me of one of those insects you see flying just above the surface of the water; all full of jerks and starts
and sudden turns.’

  ‘So why did Lucy bring this boy to you then?’ asked Dancer curiously.

  ‘I don’t know. She says she wants to tell me and that there’s some reason or other why she can’t just yet. I wish she would though.’

  ‘Hey you two!’ called Breeze. ‘Are you ready to hunt for squid or not?’ Spirit glanced around. Even Summer’s tiny calf seemed to be ready for the foray, though he still only drank his mother’s milk.

  ‘We certainly are’ Dancer called back. They set off, moving along as fast as they could without Summer’s calf falling behind. He’d quickly gained strength though and despite his size was much better able to keep up with the pod than he had been even just two weeks before.

  It was always exciting to be on the verge of a hunt and even though Spirit was not so keen on squid, his heart quickened as they approached the shoal and his stomach reminded him that it was hungry and needed feeding. They fell upon the squid and snatched hungrily at their white rubbery bodies and their tentacles. As was their way, they did not seek to eat all the squid that were there. Storm always said that it was better to take a few and leave the rest to live on. That way the dolphins could live and so could the squid and the delicate balance of life would be maintained. Storm said that that was a lesson that humans, with their big clanking ships and rapacious nets had yet to learn.

  Just then, the call of other creatures echoed across the seas.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Dancer. All the dolphins listened intently for a few moments.

  ‘They’re pilot whales’ replied Summer. ‘It seems to me like there’s a lot of them’. Spirit had never encountered pilot whales before. He gulped down the squid he had in his mouth. Summer’s calf instinctively sought the safety of his mother’s flank as while they watched, the pilot whales quietly appeared all around them, sighing languorously as they broke the surface for air.

  Spirit had imagined that they’d be as least as big as orcas, but instead they were little larger than the dolphins themselves. Their great bulbous foreheads glistened as they broke the surface of the water. Their eyes and mouth seemed dwarfed by their foreheads, which were their most prominent feature. They were such a dark bluey-black colour that it was hard to see them amongst the shadows of the waves and if it weren’t for his echo-location, Spirit would have had trouble at guessing how many there were around him. As it was, he could tell that there must be forty of them at least.

  ‘Do they talk?’ Spirit whispered to Dancer.

  ‘We talk’ replied a pilot whale surprisingly close to him in a slow lazy accent, before sighing again dreamily and rolling heavily onto one side. If the Pilot whales too had been intending to hunt, the squid had by now dispersed and the pilot’s seemed in no hurry to pursue them. Instead they appeared happy to rest and Spirit felt many sets of eyes trained on him and the others, calm and unhurried under their huge foreheads. Spirit heard Storm speak up.

  ‘Cousin Pilots, it is good to see you in these waters. What brings you here?’

  ‘We go’ said one of the pilots and then paused for a long moment before continuing, ‘We go towards the North islands. There is good fishing there’. ‘Yes, good fishing’ murmured others behind him. It was a wonder to Spirit that they had energy enough to do any fishing at all, they seemed so slow and lethargic.

  ‘And which waters have you come from?’ continued Storm in an effort to draw them into conversation.

  ‘We come from everywhere and nowhere, we are of all of the seas and none of them. We are at one with the tides’ replied another pilot enigmatically, but uninformatively. ‘We have come from the deep ocean where the days are long and the sea is wide.’

  One of the pilots brushed against Spirit’s side as it passed and Spirit jolted nervously in surprise.

  ‘Don’t worry little dolphin’ the Pilot said slowly, turning to fix Spirit with calm eyes. ‘We mean you no harm. You are safe with us.’ Spirit half expected the pilot to fall asleep in mid-sentence, it was so calm and somnolent. He was glad that they were benign though. Spirit glanced at Summer’s calf. He thought with a shudder of his own experience not so many months ago when orcas had tried to attack him as he and Storm swum alone. He was immensely glad that the pilots were so different from the great black and white orcas and that the pilots were no threat to Summer’s calf or any of the others in the pod. He was reminded almost of a great cloud of jellyfish, floating along where the current took them, blind to the seas around them.

  ‘And have you news?’ another pilot asked, as they drifted around the few dolphins. Breeze answered.

  ‘We have a Child See-er amongst us, though the reason for his gift is not yet apparent to us.’ A murmur of surprise rippled through the congregated pilots.

  ‘Who is this Child See-er’ asked the pilot which had just brushed against Spirit. Breeze nodded with his head in Spirit’s direction.

  ‘It’s this one’ he said, indicating towards Spirit. All of the eyes in the great pod of pilots now seemed to be focused on Spirit. He found their steady gaze unnerving.

  ‘You speak with…humans?’ asked the pilot.

  ‘Only one human’ mumbled Spirit shyly.

  ‘We do not like humans’ sighed another pilot. ‘In the past humans have herded us onto the rocks to kill us. They do not do so anymore, but still we do not trust them. They are dangerous. They still cause death. Another pilot added his voice.

  ‘This human. The one that you talk to. Has it pledged to safeguard the life of all living things in the ocean?’ Spirit was surprised by the question.

  ‘Err, I’m not sure’ replied Spirit uncertainly. ‘I know she would never do anything to harm us. I…’ The pilot whale seemed dissatisfied with Spirit’s answer.

  ‘Look at these calves’ he said, indicating with his great bulbous head toward a group of five pilot juveniles swimming in a group just to his left. ‘None of them now have mothers and for three of them, humans caused their mother’s deaths.’

  ‘But how?’ asked Spirit. The pilot whale continued to regard him seriously.

  ‘One was killed by a propeller, one was poisoned by rubbish and one was captured and taken alive by the humans. They lifted her out and took her away.’

  ‘I don’t understand why humans would do that’ said Dancer.

  ‘Neither do we’ replied the pilot, ‘they are a mystery to us too.’

  The dolphins looked at the orphaned pilot calves. They seemed so young and vulnerable. Spirit looked at Summer’s calf, nuzzling into her flank. Spirit knew that Lucy was absolutely committed to help all the dolphins in the pod. After all, she had risked her own life to help save Spirit himself. But what about the small human that he had met with Lucy only that morning? Who knew what he may do to threaten their safety.

  In the same way that they came, the pilot whales sighed again dreamily and turned to swim on.

  ‘Farewell dolphins, farewell!’ Slowly they eased away. The group melted into the background of the ocean and then they were gone. The dolphins had been overwhelmed by the pilots and now they had swum on, they felt a very small group in comparison.

  ‘What did you make of that then?’ exclaimed Chaser. ‘They’re a strange bunch. They all seem the same as the next one.’

  ‘Only to us’ said Storm. ‘Pilot whales have very strong bonds within the pod, stronger even than us. They will not leave a fellow pilot hurt or in danger, even if that means that they may die themselves. They value each member of the pod equally, large though it is.’

  ‘What do you think they meant about humans herding them to their death?’ asked Dancer.

  ‘It is true’ replied Summer. ‘Humans have hunted and killed whales and dolphins in years gone by. Once my own mother told me that she saw a great blue whale swimming in the ocean with not one but two harpoons stuck in its side.

  ‘And what about that calf’s mother being captured and taken away by the humans. Why would they do that?’ continued Dancer incredulously.

  ‘Who knows?’ said
Breeze in reply. ‘Maybe you can ask the human child’ he said to Spirit. Spirit had been equally affected by the story.

  ‘I will’ he murmured, ‘I will. Do you think…?’ he began to ask, before tailing off again, lost in thought.

  ‘What?’ asked Dancer.

  ‘Oh nothing’ replied Spirit awkwardly, turning and swimming off a short distance. His mind began to swirl with uncomfortable thoughts, but he did not want to share them with the others, not yet at least.

  The dolphins rested lazily amongst the gently lapping waves. Summer and her calf floated off a short distance from the others. Spirit turned to Dancer.

  ‘I need to speak to Summer about something. Come with me’ he said.

  ‘What about?’ Dancer asked.

  ‘You’ll see’ he replied. They swam up to her.

  ‘Summer, I need to ask you something’ Spirit said.

  ‘Of course, anything’ she replied.

  ‘It’s about my mother, Star-Gazer. All I know about the day that she disappeared is that you and Storm had swum out with Star-Gazer to feed. A squall blew up and then a ship crossed your path. The noise of the ship’s engines disorientated all three of you. After the ship had passed you and Storm found each other, but you could not find Star-Gazer. She had disappeared. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes that’s right Spirit’ Summer replied with a worried look in her eyes. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I can’t seem to get it out of my head and what the pilot whales were saying just made it all come back. Surely there must be something more, some detail that I don’t know about. Something that would help me make sense of her disappearance?’

  ‘Well you know all the important things’ said Summer uncertainly.

  ‘Where did it happen for example?’ asked Spirit. Summer brightened at the thought that she had something more to tell him.

  ‘Oh, in fact it wasn’t far from these waters. We were near the mainland at the time. You know the rock on the cliffs that looks a bit like a dolphin leaping, before you get to the mussels? Yes? Well it was along there.’