Dolphin Child

by James Carmody

  ‘You’ll be needing a pair of these’ she repeated again, holding out something in her hand. Lucy couldn’t make out what it was at first in the deep gloom. ‘They’re wire-cutters’ she added, her voice choked with emotion. Lucy looked up into her eyes in wonder. Another flash of lightning illuminated the scene momentarily and Lucy wondered whether it was rain or tears streaming down the old lady’s face.

  ‘You were right’ she continued. ‘Flipper, Star-Gazer or whatever you call him needs to be free. I can see that now. I think Norman can too.’ She held out the wire cutters again in her hand. ‘Take them!’

  Lucy needed no further invitation. She scrambled up the slippery bank, took the wire-cutters from the old lady’s outstretched hand and slid back down into the water. She threw her penknife to one side and started clipping through the wire as quickly as she could. One by one she sheared through the links and after a couple of minutes the fence was sagging low.

  Star-Gazer circled again and as Lucy continued to clip, she sailed through the air over the sagging fence, so close to Lucy that she could almost feel it. Star-Gazer splashed into the channel on the other side next to Spirit and Dancer. She was free!

  A great feeling of joy surged through Lucy and she hugged Paul briefly. She turned and looked up at Mrs Penrose.

  ‘Thank you’ she said simply. Mrs Penrose smiled, wiping her eyes as she did so. Then Lucy waded back into the water to where the three dolphins were clicking excitedly in the small channel. Paul followed.

  Lucy hugged Star-Gazer and Dancer in turn and shyly, Paul followed suit. Then she stood for a moment and looked deeply into Spirit’s eyes, before climbing on to his back.

  ‘Children, come back out of the water, it’s not safe. You’ll drown!’ called Mrs Penrose behind them. Lucy was completely absorbed by the three dolphins. She pulled herself up onto Spirit’s back and the two of them started to make their way off down the channel towards the sea. Paul followed suit and mounted Dancer’s back, holding on fast to her dorsal fin.

  ‘What are you?’ called Mrs Penrose in exasperation and wonder. Paul looked back at her.

  ‘I told you, she’s a Dolphin-Child’ he replied. ‘I’m a Dolphin-Child too now’ he added, as if the thought had just come to him. He and Dancer started swimming behind the other two.

  Star-Gazer looked up out of the water at Mrs Penrose standing there on the muddy bank in the rain. She regarded the old lady with kindly eyes before swimming off behind the other two dolphins to freedom.

  It was exhilarating to hitch a ride on the backs of dolphins in the middle of a thunderstorm in the encroaching darkness. The rain still beat down and the occasional flashes of lightning revealed the stark silhouettes of trees on either side of them as they swum down the estuary towards the sea. Lucy began to feel really cold now and glancing at Paul, she could see that he was shivering convulsively in his sodden tee-shirt as he clung on to Dancer.

  As the estuary widened they could hear the creaking of the yachts and boats moored in the shallow water and the crack of wires against the aluminium boat masts. Beyond them was the dull roar of the stormy sea.

  At the mouth of the estuary, looking out to sea was a pub, the ‘Man Overboard’ built at the top of stone steps that led down to a short sandy beach. The bright lights from inside the pub shone out into the darkness of the stormy night.

  It was the lights of the Man Overboard that Lucy saw as the three dolphins swum towards the sea. Beyond the estuary Lucy could tell that the sea was rough and choppy. There was no way that the children could venture out on the dolphins backs into all that, especially not in the dark. Spirit, Dancer and Star-Gazer seemed to be aware of this too and they made for the small strip of beach just below the pub. They got as far into the shallows as they could without risking grounding themselves and Lucy climbed off. She leant over and hugged Spirit tightly before wading up out of the water. It was just a few short steps to get to the warmth and safety of the pub. It had been wonderful to stay with the dolphins after helping to liberate Star-Gazer, but Lucy knew that now was the time to leave them. She turned to wave them farewell.

  Following suit, Paul slid off Dancer’s back as well, but he stood there uncertainly up to his waist in the cold salt water.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, sounding confused.

  ‘We’ve got to leave them now Paul and come ashore’ Lucy replied.

  ‘Why can’t we just swim out to sea with them?’ he asked plaintively. ‘We can stay with them in the ocean.’

  ‘Don’t be daft Paul’ said Lucy. She was tired and cold and wanted to get on dry land as quickly as possible. ‘It’s freezing out here.’

  ‘But we’re Dolphin-Children now. We don’t have to come back to land anymore. We can just swim out to sea if we want to.’ Lucy didn’t know what to say to him. People had said that she was a Dolphin-Child but she still didn’t really know what that meant. She certainly didn’t think that Paul was one too. She wondered if the cold had made him delirious somehow.

  ‘Look we can’t stand here waist deep in the freezing water. Come ashore and we can talk about it then.’ Lucy could see Paul shiver again convulsively, but he still would not come onto dry land. Dancer started to move off and Paul turned round in a panic.

  If only Lucy had known everything that was going through Paul’s head she could have said something to reassure him, but she had no idea. In Paul’s mind though all he could see were the taunts and threats of Baz, Mike and the other kids. He thought of the mud that they had thrown at him and the feeling of loneliness now that his best friend had moved away. He thought of his mother, depressed and distant, and of his father who hadn’t even called him for months. Then he thought of the sense of belonging and intimacy he had felt in the presence of Spirit and Dancer, of how they had needed his help and how he needed theirs.

  He thought of the story of Susan Penhaligon and how many people in Merwater still believed that the children who had swum out to sea with her had really turned into dolphins. His mum was wrong about dolphins, he knew she was. It would be better to be a dolphin than to be a miserable and unhappy human he thought. He imagined his arms transforming into flippers, his legs turning into tail flukes. He would be free in the wide seas and every day would be happy. All he needed to do was to welcome the water and let it happen, he thought.

  ‘No’ he answered in a cracked and anguished voice. ‘I’m not going back. You can’t make me! I’m going with them.’ He turned and started swimming out to sea. Dancer had already disappeared into the black, choppy water but he was determined to catch up.

  ‘Paul, you’re crazy, come here now!’ Lucy cried in what she hoped was a commanding voice, but Paul took no notice and Lucy was overwhelmed by a sense of growing panic. ‘You’ll get yourself killed!’

  Lucy started swimming desperately after Paul, but it was dark now and she could hardly see where Paul was going. She couldn’t even hear him over the roar of the sea. She’d already seen that he was a weak swimmer and she knew that he wouldn’t last long in conditions like this. It was so dark now that he could slip under the water a metre from her and she wouldn’t even know it. Cramp and tiredness could easily overcome him. He’d go down like a stone.

  Even though Lucy was a strong swimmer, she wasn’t used to conditions like these either. She wished with all her heart that Spirit and Dancer would come back, but they would have no idea about what was going on now. There was no time to reach out to them with her mind. Everything was spiralling horribly out of control and Lucy knew that in as little as a minute Paul could die, his lungs choked with water, the life squeezed out of his slight body.

  Just as Lucy thought it was all going to be too late, a bright spotlight suddenly clicked on and illuminated the water in front of Lucy. There was Paul, clearly struggling in the water, but still with his head above the surface. Just in front of them was the familiar yellow of the Merwater Lifeboat. It was coming in from the direction of the sea and Lucy became aware of voices calling out t
o Paul and Lucy, though she couldn’t make out what any of them were saying. A figure in a yellow outfit jumped from the lifeboat into the water attached to a rope and struck out to where Paul was flailing. The experienced hands of the lifeboat-man quickly secured Paul and they pulled him in up onto the deck.

  Lucy trod water with difficulty and was dazzled when the light of the lifeboat picked her out. There were more cries from the deck and another figure plunged into the water. Even before they reached her, she felt a sense of relief that help was at hand roll over her. Lucy didn’t quite know how she found herself on the deck of the lifeboat. Then a familiar face appeared in front of her as other hands busied themselves to cover her up and restore some warmth to her chilled body.

  ‘Hullo there Lucy’ smiled Nate Merryweather. ‘Thought I’d hitch a ride on this tub for old time’s sake and who should they pull out of the water but young Paul Treddinick and young Lucy Parr. Now however did they come to be out here on a wet and stormy night I wonder?’ He smiled. ‘Well I’m right glad we found you both. And in the nick of time too I reckon.’

  The lifeboat came ashore on the beach under the Man Overboard, where the flashing light of an ambulance was waiting for them. Lucy leant back and gave a silent prayer of thanks that they were both alright.

  Chapter Twenty: Epilogue

  It was a hospital bed that Lucy woke up in the next morning. They’d been scared that she and Paul would suffer from hypothermia and the doctors had decided to keep them both in overnight under observation at the local cottage hospital. Lucy had felt utterly exhausted and had slept deeply through the long hours of darkness after the storm.

  When she awoke bleary eyed the next morning, Dad and Bethany were sitting by her bed. It looked as though they’d been dozing in their chairs and they both looked tired and drawn.

  ‘Hello Dad’, Lucy said in a small voice. She didn’t like to think what he might say to her.

  ‘Hey Luce’ he whispered, giving her hand a squeeze. She couldn’t tell if he was angry with her or just glad she was okay. He was about to say something when a male nurse appeared at her bedside. The nurse busied himself with taking Lucy’s temperature, checking her heart rate and updating the chart at the foot of her bed. He turned to Dad and Bethany and smiled brightly.

  ‘Well the doctor will have to come round later, but I think she’ll give Lucy the all clear. She’s been stable all night and there’s been no sign of exposure developing. Lucy had a very lucky escape.’

  ‘Please, what about Paul?’ asked Lucy, struggling to sit upright.

  ‘You lie down now Lucy’ replied the nurse.

  ‘He’s okay Kiddo’ Bethany broke in. ‘He’s just down the corridor. It looks like he’ll be fine too. I was chatting to his mother a bit earlier. They were a bit worried about his vital signs over night, but he stabilised an hour or two ago.’ The memory of last night came back vividly to Lucy.

  ‘I, I didn’t mean it to happen like this’ she stammered. ‘He got it into his head that he could actually turn into a dolphin or something. He started swimming out after Dancer. I tried to reach him, really I did. But if it hadn’t been for…..’ she trailed off as she thought of the lifeboat. Another minute and it might have been too late, she thought. Lucy could see Dad’s face clouding again but Bethany spoke before he could.

  ‘It’s alright, we know’ Bethany reassured her. ‘Nate went with Paul in the second ambulance. Paul was quite upset but he told Nate about the bullying and then wanting to turn into a dolphin like those children who swam out with that Susan Penhaligon all those years ago. You couldn’t have known Kiddo, really you couldn’t.’

  You should never have been there in the first place, neither of you’ muttered Dad darkly. Lucy didn’t seem to hear though.

  ‘What was Nate doing there anyway?’ she asked.

  ‘You know he used to be a lifeboat volunteer himself for many years’ Bethany continued. ‘Well he was having a chat with one of his life-boat pals when the call came through. He hitched a lift when he heard you and Paul mentioned. Paul’s Dad used to be a lifeboat volunteer too so he knows the Treddinick family quite well. It was Mrs Penrose who raised the alarm when you both disappeared down the estuary on the dolphin’s backs.’

  ‘Just as well too’ said Dad, frowning. ‘Your Aunt and I nearly went spare when we realised you’d given me the slip and ran off like that into the storm. You must have been mad. I must have been mad to ever think about letting you come down here in the first place’.

  ‘I’m so sorry Dad, really I am. I know what I did was wrong but….’

  ‘But nothing’ broke in Dad, his anger getting the better of him. ‘It’s not going to happen again. We’re going home tomorrow far from the sea where you’ll be safe. You’ll be waking up one morning soon and you’ll realise that you can’t communicate with your precious dolphins anymore. That’s what Thelma says. That’s what your Mrs Penhaligon from school says. That’s what happens with all these Dolphin-Children. It will all just fade away. Then I can have my daughter back again. It’s not going to be like it was with Megan. You’ll just grow out of it. It’ll be over at last.’

  Lucy looked from Dad to Bethany and back again.

  ‘That, that can’t be true!’ she exclaimed. Dad looked angry and Bethany had a pained sympathetic expression on her face. The thought of not having Spirit in her life felt like having her heart torn out.

  ‘That’s not what happened to Mum is it?’ she asked. Dad leant forward hotly and seized both her arms as though he was going to shake her. He looked passionately and angrily into her eyes.

  ‘Your Mum would be here today if it weren’t for all of this…...’ He gestured around him as though he meant Merwater, the sea, dolphins and everything else. Lucy knew what he meant. He expected her to just forget about dolphins and to live an empty grey life instead.

  ‘NO!’ cried Lucy full of anguish ‘I can’t lose Spirit. I won’t. I’m not going to let it happen!

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  ‘Midnight Dolphin’. What is the secret of Lucy’s mother’s death? What are ‘The Three Sisters’? What links three generations of children and their dolphins? Read the third book of the trilogy and find out the answers to these questions.