Midnight Dolphin (3 page)

‘
Yes please
Megan’ Bethany replied. Megan started telling Bethany the story of
Goldilocks and the three bears for the hundredth time, and was
rewarded a minute or two later by the sound of rhythmic breathing.
Bethany had fallen back to sleep. Megan finished the story anyway
because somehow it didn’t seem right to stop a story before it got
to the end.

Megan was wide
awake now though. She thought about going downstairs to get herself
a glass of milk but lay on her back and stared at the ceiling
instead. She’d been dreaming about Jet. Jet was her dolphin. She
had dreamed about dolphins all her life and they’d always been
beautiful and relaxing dreams in which she could drift effortlessly
alongside a pod of dolphins. Then a couple of years ago she’d
realised that they weren’t just dreams and that she was able to
communicate with them, and Jet in particular. It was utterly
amazing.

Megan spent
all the time she could to stretch out with her mind to communicate
with dolphins. It used to be really hard to do it for more than a
couple of minutes, but as she became more accustomed to it, she’d
learnt how to keep it up for as much as twenty minutes or so,
although she always felt exhausted afterwards.

Her grannie
used to live in a small fishing village in Cornwall called Merwater
and the family had often gone down to visit her when Megan was
younger. Megan loved to hear Grannie’s stories about fishermen and
the sea. Now Grannie had passed away but the family still came down
to Cornwall on their summer holidays, staying in a holiday cottage
when they did. They were in one now, just a short walk from the sea
across the dunes. Megan was in her element here and she would sneak
off in the early morning to swim with Jet.

The trouble
was that her dreams weren’t as beautiful and reassuring as they
used to be. She couldn’t glide along next to Jet as she had before.
When she dreamt about the dolphins it felt as though the water
around her was getting thicker somehow and harder to swim through.
All too often when she dreamed about Jet, all she could see was his
tail as he swam off into the deep blue void.

When she
reached out to Jet with her mind, it was getting harder and harder
to do so. Megan didn’t know why. She didn’t really have anyone to
talk to about it and she didn’t think Mum and Dad would understand
either.

There was a
kind of invisible barrier between Megan and her parents since the
previous summer when they were holidaying in Cornwall. Megan had
gone out to play with the local friends that she had made as usual,
away from the cottage where they were staying half a mile or so in
from the sea. Megan hadn’t come home though and eventually her
parents had called the police who in turn had contacted the
coastguard.

By ten at
night, the long summer day had given way to darkness. Patrol cars
were checking the local roads and there was talk of organising a
search of the nearby woods and fields at first light. It was the
next morning that Megan had been found alive and well.

A young
policeman had been in his patrol car driving along the sea road
going west out of town. He’d seen Megan just sitting there, on a
rock a few metres off, staring out to sea. He called to her and
clambered over the rocks to get to her, but Megan hadn’t seemed to
hear. When he got close he could see that she was wet through, as
though she’d been in the sea, but she wasn’t shivering and didn’t
seem cold. He said that
he
was cold though and he was wearing a dry uniform.
He scooped her up off the rock where she was sitting and brought
her home to the cottage.

Megan’s
parents had been both furious and desperately concerned when Megan
reappeared. Try as they might though, they simply could not get
Megan to tell them what had happened. The more they pressed her,
the less inclined she felt to tell them anything at all. They’d
watched her like a hawk for the rest of the holiday to make sure
nothing else happened, yet here they were back in Cornwall barely a
year later. Maybe they thought she’d grow out of it or
something.

That morning
was overcast and damp and the family decided to squeeze into their
small car with its leaking windows and squeaky plastic seats and
head into the local town to wander around and do some
window-shopping. Megan looked in her purse and counted up her
money. She had seventy six pence in total. It wasn’t that much, but
maybe enough to get something nice if she was lucky.

The local town
was built around a small harbour that was packed full of fishing
boats and seemed to bustle with energy and life. Crates were piled
up to pack fish into and the strong fishy tang seemed to fill the
air wherever you went. Vans were ready to take the fish to the
nearest train station ten miles or so away and carry them off to
market in London and other big cities. When they got there, her dad
wanted to go into an angling shop, and her mum took Bethany to find
the sweet shop. Megan was left to her own devices and wandered off
up the backstreets that snaked up the hill.

Megan found
herself turning into a cobbled yard off a quiet street just where
the shops petered out. On the other side of the yard was a small
second-hand bookshop. A cat dozed contentedly in the window and a
bell clanged above the door when she pushed it open to enter. The
shop was packed with tall bookcases and more books were piled on
the floor where there was space. A smell of dust hung on the air
and it was so cramped that she almost felt as though she would have
to breath in to let anyone pass. There were a couple of other
people browsing the books and she joined them. Megan was eager to
find the natural history section. She was a keen ornithologist back
home, but here she was fascinated by the life that could be found,
in, under and on top of the sea.

There were
only a few books on wildlife on a shelf that was uncomfortably
close to the floor and Megan had to bend to see them, craning her
neck to read the titles on the spines. Some of the books were
cloth-covered hardbacks from the nineteen thirties and others were
more recent editions that had fallen out of favour with their
original owners. Megan leafed through several books and then one in
particular caught her eye. It was called ‘Flora and Fauna of the
Cornish Coast’ and inside the front cover, written in pencil she
could see that it had been put on sale at only fifteen pence. Even
Megan could afford that from the change that she had saved up. She
walked up to the counter by the window to pay.

Megan always
expected the people that worked in libraries and bookshops to be
tall, thin and grey but the young woman at the counter was petite,
with jet-black hair and an infectious smile. Megan said that she
wanted to pay.

‘
Yes, of
course. Let me see’ replied the girl, looking for the price. ‘Ah
yes, that’ll be fifteen pence.’ She smiled at Megan. ‘Are you
interested in natural history?’ she asked conversationally. Megan
said that she was.

‘
And local
wildlife at that’ the girl observed. ‘We’ve got a good section on
local books here actually’ she continued. ‘Local dialect, local
cooking, local history…’ She smiled at Megan again. ‘I guess you’re
just interested in local wildlife though. I hope that it helps you
with your studies.’ Megan mumbled shyly that she thought it
would.

‘
Do drop by
when you can’ added the girl cheerfully. ‘This is my mother’s shop.
I’m just helping out over the summer holidays.’ She leant forward
conspiratorially. ‘It’s nice to see someone in here who’s aged
under fifty for a change. All I’ve got to talk to all day is Bilbo
Baggins here!’ she added, nodding in the direction of the cat still
sleeping in the shop window. We call him that because of his big
hairy paws.’ Megan said that she would and left.

Last year when
she was in Cornwall, Megan had made friends with a couple of local
children, but one had moved away and the other girl seemed to be on
holiday herself at the moment. If she hadn’t had Jet to spend time
with, she’d have felt a bit lonely. It was fun to spend time with
Bethany, but her sister was almost half her age and couldn’t share
her own interests. The girl in the shop was years older than she
was and was even studying at university thought Megan, but it would
be nice to see her again. Megan walked happily back to the café up
the street where they’d all agreed to meet for a cup of tea and a
slice of cake.

Spirit fretted
restlessly. He simply couldn’t settle like the others and swam
backwards and forwards, round and round while the rest of the pod
settled down to sleep.

‘
What ever is
the matter Spirit?’ asked his mother Star-Gazer. ‘Come and relax
over here with the rest of us.’ As ever she had her eyes above the
water when ever she could, looking up at the stars. Now she was
looking down at Spirit.

‘
It’s Lucy’ he
replied. ‘She hasn’t come to me in the last three days. It feels
strange.’

‘
Maybe she’s
been busy’ replied Star-Gazer sympathetically.

‘
It’s not just
that’ replied Spirit. ‘I have this feeling inside me that things
aren’t right. Do you know what it could be?’

‘
I don’t know’
said Star-Gazer. ‘She might be unwell, or life might be stressful
for her. You’ve told me before that it’s difficult for her to
contact you if she’s not calm and relaxed.

‘
That’s true’
replied Spirit, pondering a moment. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to
wait a bit longer. Hopefully she will get through to me
eventually.’

‘
Don’t worry
Spirit’ said Star-Gazer, nudging Spirit’s face
affectionately.

Life was
getting back to normal now after Star-Gazer’s return to the pod a
few months before. Spirit had thought that she was dead; the whole
pod had. She’d disappeared twelve full moons before that and they
had no idea what had happened to her. It had been Lucy who had
discovered from her friend Paul that she was imprisoned in a lagoon
off the narrow estuary that came in from the sea. Spirit and Dancer
had swum up the estuary to try to free Star-Gazer themselves, but
there had been a closed-link fence that blocked their way and try
as they might they could not get through it or over it.

If it had not
been for Lucy and Paul, Star-Gazer would never have escaped. She
was being kept prisoner in that muddy lagoon by a woman called Mrs
Penrose who believed in some strange way that keeping Star-Gazer
there would help her husband get better after his stroke. Spirit
remembered the night of the summer storm. Lucy and Paul cut through
the wire of the fence which separated the lagoon from the rest of
the estuary and Star-Gazer was able to swim to freedom. Star-Gazer
was weak and unhappy from the time that she had spent there but her
strength and determination had returned to her in that swim down
the narrow channel full of storm water to the open sea and freedom.
Lucy and Paul had climbed onto Spirit and Dancer’s backs and they
had all swum down together. It had been exhilarating and strange
and Spirit had felt full of excitement and joy when they set Lucy
and Paul down next to a building before returning to the open
sea.

The whole pod
had celebrated Star-Gazer’s return and Chaser, Moonlight and Summer
had sung them the Welcome Song that was always sung to dolphins
returning from faraway places or dangerous waters. They all nuzzled
Star-Gazer in greeting. News of her return soon spread to all the
neighbouring pods and after that they had many visitors to greet
Star-Gazer and to congratulate Spirit and Dancer.

Star-Gazer had
been traumatised by her imprisonment though and for a long time
afterwards she had had bad dreams and flashbacks. She felt worried
about Mrs Penrose and her husband. Even though it was true they had
imprisoned her, they had also saved her life.

Spirit had his
own concerns in the days following Star-Gazer’s rescue. Spirit and
Dancer knew nothing of the peril that Paul put himself in
immediately after they left him and Lucy that night. Paul had
thought that if he swam out to sea, he would escape the bullying
and misery that he was experiencing on land and that somehow,
magically, he would become a dolphin like them. He could easily
have died and if it had not been for the lifeboat that Mrs Penrose
had called out, he probably would have.

What was
particularly bad was that Lucy’s Dad had decided that he was mad to
have let her spend so much time with dolphins and quickly took her
back home far away from the sea. Though he had seen her briefly a
couple of times before she left, and of course she had reached out
to him many times since then, he still missed her.

He’d seen Paul
again though. Somehow Lucy was able to speak to Paul over long
distances with something she called a telephone. He didn’t really
understand how it worked though and when he asked Lucy had found it
difficult to explain to him. It must be some sort of
magic.

The next
morning great surging waves were rolling in across the expanse of
ocean towards the coast. The waves became a curving wall of water
and foam before crashing onto the rocks of the granite
cliffs.

It was fun to
ride the waves and Spirit and Dancer loved to catch the crest and
be propelled along like surfers, before curling off down under the
water before the wave got to close to land.

‘
This is
incredible’ shouted Dancer as they caught another wave. ‘How far do
you think we can go this time?’