Maddy's Dolphin

by Imogen Tovey

  Lunar knew that things had gone badly wrong. The man was still just floating there, so she surfaced, coming up from underneath him and, with the man on her back, she lifted his face and whole body from the water. She knew that if he stayed in the water he would drown and she couldn’t let that happen.

  A group of about ten dolphins swam past Lunar then, heading towards Indigo, which made her feel much better. Indigo was still calling his name out over and over again.

  Indigo was in trouble. The second jet ski had hit into his side hard. The man on the jet ski had seen Indigo jump into his accomplice and had turned his ski to hit into Indigo as he landed. Indigo had seen the jet ski turn, but had been helpless to do anything. The blow had knocked all his breath from him and he was now having difficulty breathing and staying above the surface, his side was so painful. He was calling out his name; it was all he could do.

  Indigo was then joined by Stone, Star, Riddle and some of the other adults from their pod. They surrounded Indigo and held him up, supporting his body. ‘The girl, they have taken the girl,’ he told them and managed, through his laboured breathing, to explain that the two men on the jet skis had grabbed Lucy and sped off. Stone, Star and Riddle swam off at speed in the direction the men had gone. They would find out where they were taking Lucy. The others stayed with Indigo, who was slowly finding his breathing getting easier, but was still in a great deal of pain.

  Maddy pulled the boat up alongside Lunar. Jorgos, on the rope behind, was propelled forwards alongside the boat. He had stopped shouting at Maddy about what she was doing when he saw the man on the back of a whale. Although Jorgos was a bit worried about seeing a whale in the water, over the years he had got used to having a dolphin around in the water with him, so he guessed it was just a bigger animal and he would be fine.

  James had just come around and was spluttering water from his lungs. But where was he? He couldn’t quite work it out. The surface was rough in places, but in others warm and soft. He focused his eyes and lifted his head up slightly. He was looking into a huge eye; a very warm, sensitive-looking eye, which seemed to be full of concern for him. James closed his eyes and opened them again, while he tried to lift his upper body with his arms. There was a shooting pain from his right shoulder and he nearly passed out again.

  The next thing James knew, he was being pulled off a whale’s back into a boat, and he recognised Maddy, CJ and their dad. He had to keep looking around at the whale to believe that he had actually been lying on its back. Then his mind cleared and he remembered Lucy. There was no sign of her!

  Maddy, having helped James into the boat, manoeuvred it over to the group of dolphins and saw Indigo in the middle. He had stopped shouting his name now. Maddy jumped out of the boat and swam among the dolphins up to Indigo. She stroked his head and rostrum gently. ‘I’m OK, Maddy, just winded; I will be fine soon.’

  Maddy ran her eye down his side and saw a large raking wound on his right side. Dolphins’ skin marks easily and they always have a number of rake marks on their bodies. The surface had not been cut as such, there was no blood, but his side looked very sore and he could have broken his ribs.

  Indigo was more concerned about Lucy, though, and he quickly told Maddy what had happened and told her that Stone and his friends were trying to find the jet skis and follow them. Maddy shouted to CJ and told him what had happened.

  James asked Jorgos for his mobile phone. Jorgos was calling for an ambulance to meet them, but James needed the phone fast and Jorgos handed it to him. Jorgos was amazed when he heard James on the phone explaining that the daughter of the President of the United States had been kidnapped. Lucy, who had been playing with his kids, was the daughter of the US President!

  Within minutes of James’s phone call there were helicopters and speedboats all over the place. CJ had been pressing a cloth on James’s shoulder wound, trying to stop the bleeding. He was amazed by the helicopters and the amount of boats around.

  Maddy was pulled back into the boat by her dad. James had been transferred to another boat and was receiving treatment for his gunshot wound and debriefing security staff. Lunar had made herself scarce and the other dolphins were swimming off with Indigo. It had been decided that they would take him into the lake and look after him there, nursing his wound.

  Jorgos started his boat up and slowly headed back to shore. No one had found Lucy yet and everyone was very worried. Maddy sat on the back seat with a towel wrapped around her, staring out in front of her, but seeing nothing. Maddy could turn herself off to a degree and she had done so now. She did it less now than when she was younger; now she would only turn off if she were upset about something. When she turned off, she would just stare ahead, not saying or doing anything. She would not hear anything and would hardly even blink. When she was younger she had done this a lot and it was a bit of a family joke.

  CJ just sat beside her. He didn’t bother talking to her, he knew there was no point, but he took hold of her hand and held it. He was worried about Indigo and Lucy as well and hoped that they would both be OK. As they pulled up to the beach opposite their home, Ishbel was there and asked what had happened. CJ jumped out of the boat and gave her a big hug, while Jorgos lifted Maddy out of the boat on to the pebble beach.

  As Jorgos took the boat out to sea again to take it around to the dock, CJ and Maddy sat on the beach on either side of Ishbel. Maddy still wasn’t talking, so they sat there for a while until she started responding. They then made their way home in silence.

  The Search

  Ishbel drove Maddy and CJ to the lake; they were all worried about Indigo. Maddy’s bike hadn’t been repaired yet and Ishbel didn’t want them going off on their own anyway. Maddy was still quiet, although she had rejoined the world. Ishbel had packed some food and her book. They had left straight after breakfast, which was an early breakfast as Maddy and CJ hadn’t bothered with their morning swim. There was no point without Indigo.

  It was another lovely day. The sun was out and the day was hot already. They turned left on reaching the lake and drove around towards the sea entrance. Two dolphins jumped in unison as they came to a stop in the car and, on closer inspection, there were six dolphins in the water. Maddy raced out and straight into the water, closely followed by CJ.

  Ishbel stood and watched as her children swam up to the dolphins and then trod water, stroking one of them. It was Indigo; she could tell by his dorsal fin, he had a nick out of it right at the top. Indigo nuzzled in to both Maddy and CJ, then rolled onto his back, exposing his belly to them. All three then swam off, surface diving under the water. It never ceased to amaze her how well they could swim, it was beautiful to watch. She gave them ten minutes then, taking off her T-shirt, she went in to join them.

  Since Maddy had been a baby, Ishbel too had known Indigo, and she frequently had a swim with him. She swam up to Indigo, who greeted her with a nodding of his head and a snort.

  Indigo was feeling much better, but he was still sore and stiff and his movements were limited. Even moving his fluke, which most people refer to as a tail, though he prefers fluke, was painful. Since dolphins propel themselves through the water by moving their tails, he wasn’t moving very far or very fast. Had Indigo been out at sea on his own without the other dolphins to help him by catching him fish, then he would have been in real trouble.

  The other dolphins had backed off to a distance and watched Indigo swim with the humans. They were curious and would have joined in had the circumstances been different, but they felt that Indigo needed some time alone with his human pod. They were part of the pod that had come to help him yesterday. They had helped him through into the lake and stayed with him all night. He had needed help for the first few hours to keep afloat, and they had forced him to eat some fish so that he had kept up his strength. The rest of their pod had stayed outside in the sea and waited for Stone, Star and Riddle to get back. Lunar waited with them for news of Lucy.

  Ishbel got out of the water and started sunbathing
. Maddy and CJ got out too and sat on a rock, which was raised up just out of the water, as they discussed with Indigo what had happened since they had seen each other last.

  It had been a busy night for Maddy and CJ. No sooner had they got home than men from the American security service had turned up asking questions; then the Greek police, and then James had turned up. It was like a train station and everyone was asking the same questions over and over again.

  It had taken a while for Ishbel to understand exactly what had happened. She couldn’t believe that Lucy was the President’s daughter. No one had told her. What had her children been doing playing with the daughter of the President of the US and why hadn’t they told her? If she was his daughter, shouldn’t she have had a bodyguard when they went on the picnic to the castle? When she was told that she had, that James had been with them all the time, she realised that she was just like her own mum – not very observant.

  It wasn’t until James turned up that they started getting some answers themselves as to what had happened. James had a gunshot wound through his shoulder. It had been cleaned, stitched and strapped up. He was lucky the bullet had gone all the way through and had hit nothing of importance as it went. He assured Maddy that he was fine. He had had much worse wounds in the past.

  James started off by asking them both to thank the whale for him. He couldn’t believe that a whale had saved his life. He also thanked them and Jorgos. As well as going over what had happened from their side of the story, like everyone asking lots and lots of questions, James gave them some information too.

  Apparently the President had received a note at the hotel. It was a demand that he release twenty terrorist prisoners, who were currently in custody in both America and England. The note threatened that if he didn’t release them, he would never see his daughter again. There were hundreds of people out there looking for her now, but the kidnappers had slipped the net so far. James was hopeful that they would find Lucy. James left, asking that if they thought of anything that might help they were to let him know immediately. He gave them his mobile number.

  Indigo was glad that James was OK. He said that he would let Lunar know, as he knew she had been worried about him, and had been hoping she had done the right thing by holding him up and not going off after Lucy.

  The three dolphins – Stone, Star and Riddle – had got back long past midnight. They had been too far behind the jet skis when they started. They had swum long and hard, but unfortunately they never managed to pick up a trail. They had headed out again early this morning, though, and they were spreading the word to all the dolphins and whales that had moved into the Gulf – and there were a lot of them. If the kidnappers were around in the Gulf, they would be found out.

  They finished updating each other and sat around thinking what else they could do. If only they hadn’t thought up that stupid plan this might not have happened. CJ pointed out that if these men were planning to kidnap Lucy, they would have done it anyway. After a bit of thought on the matter, Maddy and Indigo conceded that he was right, but that they had probably made it a bit easier for them. They were all very worried about Lucy.

  ‘Maddy, CJ, come and have some food,’ shouted Ishbel and they dived off the rock into the water and swam to shore. They spent the rest of the day there with Indigo, swimming and talking, and were pleased to see him eating the fish that were brought to him. By the time it was time to head off home, Maddy was happy that Indigo was recovering well, but they had heard nothing more from Star and his friends. All they could do was wait and hope that they found something.

  News

  CJ was playing keepy-uppy with the football out the front of the flats, looking onto the sea. The football was going from his knee, to his left foot, to his right foot, back to his knee and on and on. He had lost count at one hundred and a group of kids were crowding around. Then he noticed, in the crowd, one of the most famous footballers around. It was Wayne Rooney. There was a clatter from behind and he lost his concentration; the ball went out of control, rolling from his foot right at Rooney. ‘CJ,’ Maddy whispered into his ear a second time, ‘wake up.’

  It was just getting light about 4 a.m. and she had been woken by Indigo calling. She had thrown some clothes on and come to wake CJ up, just as he was saying in his sleep, ‘Wayne Rooney’.

  It took CJ a good few seconds to realise that he hadn’t just kicked a football at Rooney, but had been woken from a great dream. He put on a sweatshirt over his swimsuit – yes, he was still wearing his swimming trunks to bed – and they both grabbed their trainers as they quietly sneaked out of the flat and down to the sea. They ran along to the jetty and found Indigo there, looking a lot better than he had yesterday.

  ‘I have news,’ said Indigo and quickly explained that word had reached him in the lake that, on the same day he had been hit, another dolphin had been hit by a jet ski and hurt. This dolphin, a young male called Loner, had been found drifting in a daze by his mum who had become worried about him when he hadn’t returned to her and his pod after a couple of hours. Loner had a habit of just swimming off on his own and exploring, as he was a very inquisitive dolphin, but he would always return to his mum after an hour. Loner was much disoriented and couldn’t explain what had happened to him until late last night. He was fine now, but his mum and everyone else had been very worried about him for a while. Jet skis and speedboats are really hazardous for dolphins. They go so fast that dolphins can’t always get out of their way in time.

  Anyway, his pod, along with every dolphin in the Gulf of Corinth, had heard about Lucy. When they heard Loner describe how he had been playing with a jellyfish when two jet skis had seemed to come right out of the rock and then hit him before he had a chance to dive out of the way, the pod knew that they had to send word to Indigo and had sent a dolphin to the lake to tell him.

  The surprising thing about this news was that where Loner had been hit was very close by, and not over towards Patrai and the Ionian Sea at all. In fact it was just around the corner from the entrance to the lake and a couple of miles along. It was overland form Petrakhora. The coast along there is very rocky and uninhabited. Now if Loner saw the jet skis coming from the rocks, then they must have been hidden in a cave.

  ‘Yes!’ shouted Maddy and quickly brought CJ up to speed.

  ‘You mean they were hiding in a cave?’ said CJ.

  ‘They could be hiding Lucy in the same cave still,’ said Maddy.

  They discussed it further and it made perfect sense. There were hundreds of police, army and FBI officers looking for her, with helicopters and everything. The land had been and was still being searched very well. And there were submarines out in the Ionian Sea with their sonar going, so if the kidnappers had left the Gulf going into the sea, then they would have been found. If they hid in a cave, no one would find them.

  Indigo said that he had moved two pods of dolphins out to the area where they thought the cave may be. They were going to monitor the sea for any comings and goings and would report back to him if anything was seen. He had told them not to search for a cave at this time, as he didn’t want to alert the kidnappers, but a few dolphins swimming around wouldn’t look out of place at the moment. He told Maddy and CJ that he would keep them updated and said they should get back to bed before it was noticed that they were gone.

  Maddy wanted to know how he was before she went, though, and he had to reassure her he was fine – a bit sore still, but he was OK. He then swam off saying, ‘See you later for our swim.’

  A few short hours later, they were all together again. They were happier than they had been for a couple of days now. They were hopeful that they would get some good news today. They dived down deep, splashed each other and played tag together and they had great fun and spent most of their time laughing. Ishbel came down to the stony beach to shout for them for breakfast and noticed that there was great interest on the beach in her two children and the dolphin.

  Since Lucy had been kidnapped there had been
lots of press around. They had been interviewing everyone. They were camping outside the hotel where the President was staying and their little town had not been off the news. As Ishbel shouted for her children, one of these reporters approached her, asking about her children and the dolphin. The children’s part in the kidnapping had not been disclosed to the press; otherwise, they would have had to go back to Athens or to their house in Paros, as the press would not have left them alone.

  The interest shown by this reporter, however, wasn’t about Lucy. He asked about Indigo, saying that he had been told that two local children swam with a dolphin here every day. He was very interested and wanted to do a story about it. Now, although Ishbel didn’t pick up on everything, and knew nothing of the fact that her children frequently escaped the house when they should be in bed, she had picked up on the fact that they were very worried about the sonar hurting the whales and dolphins. She also realised that speaking to this reporter might mean that her children could highlight the dangers of the sonar to the dolphins.

  As Maddy and CJ came running up to her on the beach, she invited the reporter to come up to the flat for breakfast. They walked up together, Ishbel explaining to Maddy and CJ that the man wanted to do a story about Indigo and that they could tell him about the problem with the submarines’ sonar. Maddy and CJ looked at each other and raced off ahead, whispering together while they had showers and got into dry clothes. Yes, this was a way of getting lots of people to hear about the problem.

  They joined the reporter, who was sitting at the table on the balcony looking out to sea. He was from England and explained that, although he was here covering the President’s daughter story, he thought his viewers would be interested in their story and how they swam with a dolphin every day.

  While they tucked into their Marmite on toast, they told him how they had made friends with Indigo, who was a solitary dolphin who lived there on his own. They mentioned nothing about talking to each other – they would never do that – but they did tell him about the sudden increase of dolphins in the Gulf and that there was a sperm whale in the Gulf, too. Then they explained that someone had told them it was because of the submarines which had turned up in the seas around Greece, and the sonar they were using to protect the important world leaders who had come for the NATO conference. They told him how the whale had looked very unwell when they first saw it and that there were many reports of whales and dolphins stranded on beaches out of the Gulf of Corinth.