Dolphin Child (6 page)

Lucy wondered what Mum would say if she was there drinking tea
and eating cake with them. She often liked to imagine Mum there
next to her, doing or saying something familiar as she used to
before she died. She pictured Mum now, sitting on the fourth chair
of Thelma’s table, leaning forward on her elbows and smiling as
they chatted. Lucy took another bite of cake and then glanced back,
but the vision had gone. It was just an empty chair.

Eventually the conversation came round to the children that
Lucy had encountered in town the previous day. Bethany mentioned
that she’d been slightly alarmed when she found out that Lucy had
disappeared up the walled stream and hoped that there were no rats
about down there.

‘
Oh the children love running up and down those gullies’ said
Thelma. ‘My own lot were always mucking around down there when they
were growing up. How did you get on with our local kids
then?’

‘
I don’t really know’ replied Lucy. ‘The other children seemed
to be picking on this one boy and then two of the older kids chased
him up the stream. I went after them to make sure he was okay. I
got to speak to him a little bit, but then he
disappeared.’

‘
And who was that then dear?’ asked Thelma.

‘
He was a couple of years younger than me, a bit small, but
with lots of curly hair. Do you know him?’ asked Lucy. She really
hoped that Bethany might. Bethany seemed to know everyone in town
and Lucy was not disappointed.

‘
Yes I know him, or I’m pretty sure I do’ replied Thelma. That
would be Mrs Treddinick’s son. Paul his name is. Paul Treddinick.
You’re right Lucy. He’s a couple of years younger than you, about
ten I’d say, but very thin.’

‘
How do you know him?’ asked Lucy.

‘
You know I work in reception at the doctor’s surgery?’ replied
Thelma, ‘Well his mum Rachael Treddinick comes in to the surgery
all the time. She’s a troubled lady.’ Thelma seemed to suddenly
realise that she’d said a little more than she should do and
stopped.

‘
You mean she’s receiving treatment for depression or something
like that?’ asked Bethany.

‘
Something like that’ replied Thelma. ‘She’s alone with two
kids, got no job and can’t pay the bills. It’s enough to get anyone
down.’

‘
Where do they live?’ asked Lucy curiously. She wanted to speak
to that Paul Treddinick again and find out why he said she was a
Dolphin-Child. Bethany, Thelma and her husband Nate knew that Lucy
had a special relationship with dolphins, but she hadn’t realised
that there might be other children out there with the same gift.
What Darren at the farm had said worried her a little, but she
thought that the boy might tell her something that the grown-ups
wouldn’t.

‘
Oh they don’t live far from here’ replied Thelma. ‘You know
the recreation ground on the Truro Road, they live in the
end-of-terrace house there. Can’t miss it. Needs a lick of paint
mind, that house and the front garden is a mass of
weeds’.

Bethany and Thelma started talking about country doctors and
Lucy began to lose interest in the conversation. She’d eaten and
drunk as much as she wanted and had nothing in particular to keep
her at the table. It had stopped raining now and Lucy thought that
she could do with some fresh air. When Thelma poured another cup of
tea, she took her opportunity.

‘
Can I go up to the swings for a while? I’ll be back in half an
hour.’ Bethany agreed and five minutes later Lucy was walking up
the Truro Road to the recreation ground. She wouldn’t be brave
enough to knock on the door of Mrs Treddinick’s house, but she
thought that she might just bump into Paul if she went past where
he lived.

Lucy got to the recreation ground and walked in. The grass was
sodden and rain still clung to the swings and the slide. Because it
had been raining so much, it seemed like everyone was indoors. Lucy
could see the Treddinick’s house at the end of the terrace. It did
look a bit run down she thought. It didn’t look very
inviting.

Lucy glanced around her. A hedge ran round three sides of the
recreation ground and five or six chestnut trees grew up out of the
hedge. Glancing up, she suddenly realised that there was someone
sitting in one of the trees, on a low branch not far from the
ground. Lucy walked over. She recognised the curly hair. It was
Paul Treddinick. As Lucy approached she could see that he seemed to
be whittling a stick with a penknife and was quite absorbed in what
he was doing.

Someone had hammered some six inch nails into the tree to act
as steps and Lucy was halfway up before Paul realised that someone
was joining him. This time he couldn’t just run away.

‘
Hi’ said Lucy, as she sat down on the branch next to
him.

‘
Oh it’s you’ said Paul gruffly. Lucy got the feeling that he
was trying to be tough, but wasn’t really. ‘What do you want?’ He
stopped whittling and looked across at her. If he thought she was a
Dolphin-Child, then he must be curious about her too.

‘
Are you a liar like those big kids said you were?’ Lucy asked,
hoping to throw him off guard.

‘
I am NOT!’ he replied defiantly.

‘
When I saw you yesterday you told me that you dream about
dolphins. What do you dream about when you do?’

‘
I dream about what I saw’ Paul answered.

‘
And what’s that?’ asked Lucy simply.

‘
Who wants to know?

‘
I’m Lucy, Lucy Parr. I’m twelve years old and staying with my
aunt over the holidays. You said you thought I was a Dolphin-Child,
but I don’t even really know what that means. Tell me what you
dream about dolphins.’ Paul thought. He didn’t seem to know whether
to tell her or not. Then, as if he could not keep a secret, he went
on.

‘
I often go out cycling on my bike out of town. I like to get
out of the house and away from Baz, Mike and the rest of their
gang. I hate them. I like to go all over the place on my own and
often I’m out all afternoon. There’s this inlet off the estuary
where the river comes out at the sea. It’s part of the grounds of
this big house and you have to shinny over this old wall to get to
it. Then you have to creep through the wood and watch out for the
guards. The last bit is a rhododendron thicket, then you come out
at the inlet, which is a bit like a lagoon coz there’s a fence
across the end blocking it off from the estuary. In this lagoon
there’s this dolphin. I think they keep it as a prisoner there, but
it should be free. That’s what I dream about. In my dream I
remember that dolphin looking out of the water at me all
sad-like’.

Chapter Four:

As the light crept over the horizon the next morning, Spirit
swam alone towards the mainland a couple of miles away. He felt
more confident to swim out on his own now and happily looked
forward to seeing Lucy again. The seas had been rough the day
before and he’d not been able to see her. Every day that they could
meet felt precious and he knew that these days of being together in
real life may not last long. Her father would be coming soon and
then he would take her back far from the sea again. It was a
pleasure to swim together though while they could.

As he neared the cove, Spirit could see the silhouette of Lucy
standing on the shore line in her black wet-suit, up to her shins
in the sea. Humans had very thin skin and even in the summer they
could get very cold very quickly in the sea. Lucy waved as he got
near and then waded into the water and started to swim. She swam up
close to him and stretched out her hand, holding it lightly to his
flank and looking into his eyes. As she did so, Spirit could feel
the tingling energy passing through her hand into his skin. After a
while Lucy pulled herself up onto his back, using his dorsal fin to
hold on with and he swam off with powerful strokes away from the
shore.

Spirit would have loved to have been able to dive with her now
and show her the landscape at the bottom of the sea, but he knew
that she couldn’t breathe down there and wasn’t able to hold her
breath very long either. Anyway, he could still show her the depths
when she stretched out to him with her mind. He wished that he
could do the same and visit her world above water, but he just did
not know how to. It was frustrating having to wait for her to come
to him every time.

He knew that like him, Lucy loved to swim along the coast line
and see the rocky inlets and caves that they passed as they swam
along. Spirit wanted to show Lucy a particular formation of rock
along the coast that looked like a dolphin. It made him smile to
see it and he thought Lucy would enjoy it too. It wasn’t too far to
get to and when Lucy saw it, he felt her laugh in
recognition.

Laughter was a strange thing that humans did when they enjoyed
themselves. Their chests convulsed and the noise that came out of
their mouths did not mean anything. Spirit thought that Lucy’s
laughter sounded like music. They explored the coast together for
an hour or so, but eventually he had to bring her back to the cove
they had met at. He was supposed the join the others to fish
together and knew that Lucy would get tired and could not hang on
to his dorsal fin forever. Humans seemed so weak and vulnerable, he
wondered how they managed to survive at all.

Spirit got as close in to the shore as he dared, before Lucy
slid off his back. Standing with her feet on the pebbles, but still
up to her shoulders in the water, she turned and looked deep into
his eyes again, before saying something he could not understand and
then turned to wade out of the sea again.

He left Lucy as he had found her that morning, standing on the
shoreline, waving to him. Spirit swam off back to the rest of the
pod. He was hungry and wanted to hunt for fish.

Breeze led Chaser, Storm, Moonlight and Dancer in a wild hunt
for squid which they all loved to eat. Spirit hung back. He hated
squid and could not understand how any dolphin could eat them; they
were so rubbery and flavourless. Summer swam alongside him with her
calf. No-Name was not ready to join in the chase and the others
would bring her a squid or two which she could then eat while she
looked after him.

‘
I see you still haven’t developed a taste for squid!’ joked
Summer gently. Spirit looked at her calf.

‘
It looks like your little one hasn’t either’ he replied with a
smile. The calf had chewed a spare tentacle cautiously, but then
spat it out in disgust. Milk was evidently much better.

Spirit hoped that the pod would move on and find a shoal of
fish that he might actually like to eat, but they didn’t. He was
hungry but he didn’t mind. He thought he might go off again later
when they were resting in the afternoon and find something by
himself. It didn’t seem fair to drag Dancer out with him. She liked
squid after all.

He hung peacefully in the water whilst the others hunted.
Dancer peeled away from the rest of the pod and swam up to
him.

‘
Let’s go out again later and find you a tasty bite’ she said
playfully.

‘
That sounds good’ he replied. He knew he could rely on Dancer.
It would be much more fun to go out with her than to go
alone.

It often surprised Spirit where the day went. After the hunt,
Chaser had recited one or two of the old stories as they relaxed
and before Spirit knew it, midday had passed and the sun had
started its slow descent back to the horizon. By this time though
Spirit was even hungrier than he had been when he left Lucy that
morning.

‘
Come on then’, he whispered to Dancer as the others started to
doze off. ‘Let’s go.’ They made their excuses again and swam off
together companionably.

‘
Let’s head for the coast.’

Soon they were swimming within a short distance of the shore.
It was a hot sunny day and as they passed by a beach, they could
hear the sound of humans nearby, splashing and shouting as they
played in the water. The two dolphins were too far out to be
spotted and it was funny for them to think that even though they
were so close, the humans were oblivious to them.

‘
Those humans couldn’t see a squid if it squirted them in the
eye’ joked Dancer as they swam along.

Though Dancer wanted to swim on, Spirit was curious about the
humans on the beach and they lingered at the edges, just out of
sight. Spirit was intrigued by the noises that they were
making.

‘
What do you think makes them come to the water?’ he
asked.

‘
I don’t know. Do you think they’re looking for fish?’ replied
Dancer.

‘
But all that noise would frighten any fish away.’

‘
Maybe they just swim in the sea for fun?’ continued
Dancer.

‘
There’s just so many of them’ said Spirit, glancing over the
surface of the water towards the beach. ‘Why would they want to
cram themselves up so close to one another like that?’

‘
Well I suppose they just live in one big heap all the time.
They don’t need open space around them like we do’ replied
Dancer.

Spirit thought that even though he was so close to Lucy, he
would never understand the ways of humans. They were such strange
creatures and much of what they did seemed completely nonsensical.
When they went somewhere, they didn’t just want to visit it, they
wanted to change it out of all recognition or destroy it
altogether. They were almost never alone and always seemed to want
to be in a big group. Humans could barely keep themselves afloat in
the water and yet they seemed to be irresistibly drawn to
it.