Midnight Dolphin (8 page)

‘
What’s up
Lucy?’ asked Amy, appearing by her side.

‘
Oh hi Amy’
she replied, ‘I didn’t see you there’.

‘
My dad would
say you were in a world of your own’ Amy replied. ‘You seem so sad.
I wish there was something I could do to help.’ Lucy tried to
smile.

‘
I think I’ve
lost Spirit’ replied Lucy simply. ‘And the others.’

‘
Oh no that’s
terrible’ replied Amy, sounding shocked.

‘
So what are
you going to do then?’ Amy asked her. Lucy shrugged.

‘
I don’t know.
I don’t know what I can do’ Lucy replied. ‘The only thing is…, well
you know that book, the ‘
Flora and Fauna
of the Cornish Coast
’ that someone sent me
in the post. I just can’t help thinking that it’s a clue somehow,
and if only I could figure it out, it’d help me with
Spirit.’

‘
Well you’ve
got to tell Mrs Penhaligon’ said Amy firmly. ‘She’s from Cornwall,
and she knows that you’re a Dolphin-Child doesn’t she?’ Lucy
nodded. ‘If anyone can help you figure out the clues, she
can.’

‘
I’ve got the
book in my bag’ said Lucy. ‘I’ll try and speak to her after English
at the first break.’

When Lucy and
Amy had both started Secondary School, it had seemed so massive and
unwelcoming with hordes of children streaming about in all
directions. Now that Lucy knew where everything was and who all the
teachers were, it didn’t seem so bad. In September she’d had to
help the new kids wandering around who looked so lost. It was funny
to think that she’d been just like that the year before. Now the
school looked much smaller. Lucy thought about what Spirit had said
recently. Lucy had been able to project into his mind what school
looked like. He had been horrified by the smallness of it
all.

‘
There’s
barely enough space to turn!’ he exclaimed. ‘One flick of my tail
flukes and I’d hit my beak on the wall’ he continued. ‘I don’t know
how humans manage to live in such miniscule boxes. I’d go mad if I
was stuck in such a tiny space.’ Lucy thought about Star-Gazer
being trapped in the muddy lagoon by Mr and Mrs Penrose. They
thought that they were protecting her while she was getting better.
Instead Star-Gazer had become desperately lonely and unwell. Lucy
liked to view her life as a school girl through the eyes of a
dolphin and imagine her classroom filling up with sea water and a
dolphin swimming in through the window.

‘
But you have
no freedom at all’ Spirit said to her another time when they were
discussing her life at school.

‘
We go to
school to learn the things that we need to know so that we can be
free when we grow up’ she’d tried to explain.

‘
Then you have
to get one of those
job
things you told me about and you told me that in
a job you have to work eight hours a day doing what someone else
tells you. You have to pay to live in one of those tiny boxes. It
seems to me that you’re not free at all’ Spirit went on, shaking
his head in wonder.

It was very
hard for Lucy to explain how human society worked. Despite what
Spirit said though, she didn’t like to think about the alternative.
She couldn’t sleep in a field in the way that Spirit could float on
the surface of the wide open sea at night. He might call houses
‘tiny boxes’, but they were warm, safe and dry and she found them
comforting.

‘
You humans
are all so frail!’ Spirit had exclaimed another time. ‘It’s amazing
that any of you survive at all’.

Lucy didn’t
have Eng Lit at all that day and had no reason to go and speak to
Mrs Penhaligon. She felt awkward as she sidled round the door of
the classroom as the remains of Mrs Penhaligon’s class streamed out
at first break. Mrs Penhaligon was stacking books when she glanced
round and saw Lucy standing there.

‘
Ah Lucy. How
are you today?’ Lucy tried to put on a brave face.

‘
Alright I
suppose’ Lucy replied.

‘
In other
words not really’ Mrs Penhaligon observed. ‘Have you been able to
talk to your aunt or your dad yet?’ Lucy shook her head.

‘
No, no I
haven’t’ she replied, ‘but this came in the post.’ Lucy held out
the copy of the ‘Flora and Fauna of the Cornish Coast.’

‘
Whatever is
this?’ asked Mrs Penhaligon, taking it from her hand curiously and
examining the cover.

‘
Like I said,
it came in the post but I’ve no idea who sent it. It used to belong
to my Mum though. Her handwriting is all over the margins where
she’s made notes. There’s, there’s something I want to ask you. I
don’t know what the notes mean. Do you for example know who
Jeremiah Smith is? Look it says ‘Jeremiah Smith’. ‘Third journal.’
What do you think that might mean?’

‘
Well as it
happens’ replied Mrs Penhaligon, ‘you’re in luck. I do know who the
Reverend Jeremiah Smith was.’

‘
You do, who
was he?’

‘
He was the
rector of the church at the end of Bussey Lane. You know where that
is don’t you? Just on the edge of Merwater. He was quite a well
known man in the area in the Eighteen Fifties. He recorded the folk
tales and stories from all over Cornwall. He published several
accounts of the folklore he came across. He was also a keen
naturalist and corresponded with such luminaries as Charles Darwin.
They talked about turning the rectory where he lived into a folk
museum a few years ago. I think they tried to raise the money but
it didn’t quite happen.’

‘
Did he write
about dolphins?’ Lucy asked enthusiastically.

‘
Now
that
I don’t know’
replied Mrs Penhaligon

‘
Do you have
his book then? Is it in the school library?’ Mrs Penhaligon
laughed.

‘
No it’s not
the kind of thing you’d find in our school library. Maybe in the
local history section in the Merwater or Truro library or a
university perhaps.

‘
So I couldn’t
order it online?’ Mrs Penhaligon chuckled again.

‘
It’s not that
kind of a book. It will have been out of print for decades and if
you did find a copy, it would cost hundreds of pounds. Besides,
your Mum is writing about his journal, not his published
works.

‘
What would
his journal be then?’ Lucy asked.

‘
Well I
suppose it’s what he wrote his notes in as he went round the
countryside. That seems to be what your Mum was on about. There
must be something particularly significant in his third journal.’
Mrs Penhaligon glanced up at the clock. She handed back the book.
Break will be finished soon. I’d better get ready for my next
lesson.’ She looked back at Lucy. ‘Come back though and we’ll see
what we can find out. I like a challenge.’

At lunch time
Lucy had swimming practice. The public swimming pool was right next
door to the school. Lucy’s sports teacher Miss Baldwin was
committed to build up the swimming squad and thought that Lucy
could win medals for the school if she put in the training. Lucy
was a keen swimmer and loved ploughing up and down the pool
whenever she could, working on her stroke. Dad had been set against
her doing swimming practice last year, but since September he
didn’t seem concerned about it all. If anything, he encouraged it
now. ‘
It’s because now he thinks I’ll lose
my gift anyway, it doesn’t matter if I’m good at
swimming
’ she thought grimly as she walked
over to the pool.

The swimming
pool was a bit run down. The walls of the changing room were tiled
but several had fallen off and the paint of the steel window frames
was peeling. The occasional ant wandered along the grouting between
the tiles in search of discarded sweets. Still, Lucy felt at home
here. For her, it was a refuge from the worries of the
day.

Just before
the school had use of the pool at twelve thirty, there was a
session for the over sixty-fives. It made Lucy smile to see the
elderly ladies moving slowly and sedately through the water. The
school children were so raucous and energetic in comparison. The
elderly ladies reminded Lucy of the manatees, or sea cows she had
seen in a programme about the wildlife of Florida on the TV. She
was so lithe and supple in the water in comparison; well a little
like a dolphin she supposed.

‘
Good to see
you Lucy’ Miss Baldwin said briskly. ‘Get changed quickly, we’re
going to be working on diving today.’ Lucy was soon in her swimsuit
and swimming cap and at the deep end of the pool. A group of
younger kids were doing widths under the supervision of a couple of
sixth formers at the other end of the pool. At the deep end though
there were only five of the more advanced swimmers under Miss
Baldwin’s tutelage. The pool echoed with the noise of the
boisterous children at the other end.

Lucy was used
to diving in to the pool to start swimming a length and felt that
she was able to slice into the pool quite cleanly when she dived.
That wasn’t what Ms Baldwin wanted to teach them today
though.

‘
Okay team’
said Miss Baldwin, clapping her hands to get their attention. She
was wearing shorts and a polo shirt and she had a look in her eye
that suggested that she was going to work them hard this lunchtime.
‘There are basically four positions in diving. There’s
straight
, which is when
you keep your body in a fluid line. There’s
pike
, what’s that Mark?’ she asked,
looking at the boy next to Lucy.

‘
That’s when
you bend your body at the hips Miss’ he replied.

‘
Good. Yes,
you bend at the hips but not at the knees. Then there’s
tuck
which is when you
bunch your body up tightly with your hands on your lower legs and
there’s
free
diving. Give me an example of free diving Lucy.’

‘
That’s for
twisting dives and combinations of positions Miss Baldwin’ replied
Lucy promptly.

‘
But we’re
going to be practicing the backwards dive today. You stand at the
edge looking away from the pool like so’ Miss Baldwin continued,
demonstrating to the five children. ‘Keep your arms tight at your
side while you bend your knees. Then you spring up and push off, so
that when you strike the water you’re looking into the middle of
the pool with your arms stretched in front of your head. Mark, I
know you’re familiar with this already. Would you like to give us a
demonstration?’

Mark was
pleased to oblige and performed an elegant back-flip, slicing into
the water before swimming to the edge again and pulling himself
out.

‘
Good Mark’
Miss Baldwin went on. ‘Of course you’ve got to be absolutely
certain that there’s no one in your path and that you push yourself
away from the edge of the pool. Right, lets all have a go shall
we?’

The five
children all took it in turns to flip backwards with varying
degrees of success. When it was Lucy’s turn she was aware that she
did not strike the pool very cleanly and that she twisted a little
when she came down. As she plunged in backwards and the water
boiled up into her eyes and face, she half expected Spirit to swim
up to her, and instinctively looked around to see where he was.
Instead all she could see was the light playing on the surface and
all she could hear were the muffled yells of the children above.
She swam over to the edge. Swimming practice just reminded her of
Spirit and the thought that she might not see him again overwhelmed
her.

‘
That was a
bit of a messy dive Lucy’ remarked Miss Baldwin as Lucy pulled
herself out. ‘Let’s have another go shall we? Remember, you need to
spring up and arc over without twisting. Lets have another look at
Mark.’ Lucy was stronger than Mark on the front-crawl but he was an
undeniably better diver than she was. Ordinarily Lucy would have
watched with interest but today she just couldn’t seem to focus on
what he was doing.

‘
Right, your
turn’ continued Miss Baldwin. ‘Off you go.’

Lucy took her
position at the edge of the pool, looking back at the wall. With
her arms straight at her side she bent at the knees ready to spring
up and back. ‘
Just spring up and get it
over and done with
’ she thought to
herself. ‘
The lesson will be over
soon
.’ Lucy sprang up but even as she did
so, she imagined Spirit and Dancer and the perfect leaps they took
from the water and wondered whether she would ever see them
again.

Lucy leapt up
but not back away from the edge and somehow forgot to put her arms
up straight over her head. She turned in the air and crashed back
down on the ledge just under the water-line. There was a sickening
crack as her head struck the tiles and her world turned black as
she crumpled into the water.

Chapter
Six
:

The sunshine
crept round the curtains of the bedroom where Bethany and Megan lay
sleeping. The light seemed particularly bright and Bethany tried to
bury her face in her pillow. The light penetrated pinkly through
her closed eyelids. She opened one eye briefly to the light before
closing it again. Then she squinted with the other eye. It looked
as though Megan was already awake. Her older sister was sitting
cross-legged on her bed writing something in a book with a pencil.
Then Bethany pulled the sheet over her head in the hope that that
it would block out the rays of sunshine penetrating the room.
Instead the thin cotton sheet seemed to make no
difference.