The Girl Who Dreamt of Dolphins (3 page)

‘
I’m never going to fall asleep’ she thought to herself ‘after
all that…’

Chapter Two
:

Spirit was asleep. The waves were gentle and to a dolphin like
him, warm. The sea was his lullaby and the familiar sounds of the
waves enveloped him. He rolled languidly on the surface of the
water, his blow-hole free to the air. Though asleep, as with all
dolphins, half his brain was still alert to what was going on
around him. He could swim, surface, breath and stay close to his
pod, even though the other half of his brain was dreaming. Spirit
dreamt of things he did not understand, far, far away.

Light came slowly in the early dawn. It was a clear day and
the grey clouds had rolled away in the night. The water sparkled
and the dolphins in the pod stirred slowly. Spirit was allowed to
sleep in a little longer because he was a youngster in the pod and
he needed extra rest. Restless, Dancer whistled Spirit’s
name.

‘
Hey, Spirit. Wake up lazy bones!’

All dolphin’s names were given by the pod, carefully chosen to
reflect their true nature once three springs had passed since their
birth. As his name suggested, Spirit was a dreamy, thoughtful young
dolphin, but with a strong sense of justice and a will of his own.
He was also a nimble and a deft swimmer. He could lift his body out
of the water by the force of his tail and look around. He loved to
dive deep and swim long and elegant shapes in the water. He could
leap high and then slice back into the water leaving barely a
ripple. He swam for the joy of it and was almost as fast as any
other dolphin in the pod.

Dancer was Spirit’s special friend and she was two years older
than Spirit. They often played together, exploring the seas around
them. Dancer loved to day-dream and could tell mesmerising stories
to the rest of the pod as they lazed around after hunting
fish.

Spirit woke up slowly. Although to humans, all dolphins look
like they are smiling, Spirit and Dancer and the others in the pod
showed how they felt with sound. Their clicks, whistles and the way
they moved were how they expressed themselves. Spirit smiled with a
whistle. He rolled over lazily, exposing his smooth belly to the
surface of the water.

‘
Oh, it’s too early!’ he yawned. He turned and swam back to
where the rest of the pod were circling slowly, with Dancer at his
tail. Summer, Moonlight and Storm whistled their greeting. Chaser
and Breeze had already slipped away in search of
breakfast.

‘
The sea is calm today’ said Storm ‘and I sense a current from
the east. We will eat well from mackerel today. There are shoals on
their way.’ Storm always had a feeling for these things and, though
the pod had no official leader, the other dolphins knew that as the
oldest one among them his words were often wise.

‘
And I hear no engines’ he continued, ‘that is
good.’

‘
But men have sailing boats as well Storm’ said Summer. ‘It is
harder to hear them coming.’

‘
It is true that the slapping of sails in the wind is quieter
than the clangour of engines in the water’ replied Storm, ‘but we
have little to fear from sailing boats and the men upon
them.’

‘
I have been close to many boats with engines’ said Moonlight,
‘and I have never felt fear near them.’

‘
But I say beware.’ Storm clicked his warning. The men that
come in powered boats are not always good and they can harm us.
Their propellers can cut us, their nets can trap us. Their rubbish
can poison us. Keep your distance.’

Spirit looked warily on. He knew well that Moonlight liked the
men on boats and people in general. But Moonlight was younger than
Storm and was less experienced in the ways of man. Storm’s words
may be wise, but they were not welcome. Moonlight said that men
were safe now, that they were harmless. Spirit had never got close
to man, but he was intensely curious. They could not swim he’d
heard, but found their way across the waves on boats. He felt as
though he already knew them, though how that might be he could not
say.

‘
Well I am hungry’ said Dancer. ‘Come!’ she said to Spirit,
‘let us eat flounder this morning.’ The two younger dolphins sped
off. Spirit took a great leap through the air and then the two
dived down several metres to the sea bed. After seven or eight
minutes or so they had eaten, though not as much as they would like
and they rose to the surface again to breathe.

Spirit and Dancer looked at each other across the surface of
the water. It always seemed so strange to do so, so different from
the glorious hues of the water.

Let’s explore again today’ said Spirit with a sense of
mischief in his voice. ‘I saw some very strange shapes on the other
side of the island. Big things they were, on the sea bed. I want to
find out what they are. I bet there’s good fishing to be had there
too.’

‘
Maybe they are the sunken vessels of man’ Dancer clicked. ‘And
maybe men float down there still, living off the mussels at the
bottom.’ Her eyes glowed with imagination.

‘
Don’t be silly’ retorted Spirit, blowing his air-hole free of
water.

‘
Is it safe?’ asked Dancer, a note of worry in her clicks. ‘You
know what Storm always says.’

‘
Well I think that Storm’s too careful and Moonlight’s too
careless. But if we take care of ourselves we’ll be just fine’ said
Spirit emphatically. ‘After all, these are our islands, it’s about
time we got to know them.’

After they found a reason to get away from the others, Spirit
and Dancer slipped away, breaking the water in graceful arcs as
they sped over the light frothy waves on the surface. The sun was
still bright and the water unusually clear. It was going to be a
good day thought Spirit as they raced along, clicking to each other
as they went. They passed close to a basking shark, its mouth open
wide, feeding on tiny krill.

‘
That thing’s big enough to eat us both’ joked Spirit as they
sped along.

‘
Lucky they’re not interested’ replied Dancer.

They came close to the rocky coast of the island. The sea grew
shallower here and the waves rougher, beating the rocks and
shoreline rhythmically. A dozen or so metres away from the shore,
there was a rock shelf as deep as a blue whale, with caves and
chasms and dark, intriguing corners.

Spirit and Dancer dipped down from the surface excitedly and
soon found themselves in a kelp weed forest. The long strands of
the seaweed waved slowly in the eddies and currents of the water.
They slowed down and pushed cautiously through the long, undulating
strands, growing so thickly that, before they knew it, they were
surrounded by kelp on all sides.

‘
I hope you know where you’re going’ commented Dancer
cautiously, but really she was full of excitement for the day
ahead. Small fry, their fish scales trembling, darted away quickly
in the gloomy depths as the two dolphins moved slowly
forward.

Eventually, they broke through into clear water again. They
took a gulp of clean air before diving again and doing so spied the
strange shapes ahead of them in the gloom of the water. Somehow,
the sea seemed to become quiet as they focused on the dark shapes,
silhouetted against the larger expanse of water. They slowly
approached, feeling nervous now at the strangeness of what they
were looking at.

‘
It’s an old ship’ whispered Dancer, ‘just like I said’. She
turned and gave Spirit a companionable nudge with her nose. They
could make out a huge hull, rusting and covered in limpets, with
two funnels drooping perilously above. In between were what once
must have been the decks, with gaping holes where doors had been
and a row of neat circles where brass portholes once glistened. A
moray eel slithered in through one of them and disappeared into the
murk. A shoal of small fish skittered away at their approach. The
two dolphins approached with a sense of excited anticipation
between them.

A big hole in the rusting hulk loomed in front of them. Dancer
and Spirit hesitated outside.

‘
Lets go in’ Dancer dared Spirit. They swam cautiously forward.
The dark engulfed them as they swam through the rusty, barnacle
encrusted hole. The space inside was tight. Knowing no better, they
could not make out what they were looking at and what humans did
when they were not in water. They looked at the scattered metal
tables and chairs and broken crockery with incomprehension.
Something sparkled in the murk and Spirit swam up curiously to it,
prodding it with his nose. The wine glass he had nosed rolled
slowly in a half circle. Dancer seemed fascinated by the hulk they
had swum into, but Spirit began to feel claustrophobic and longed
to be back outside in the wide unrestrained sea again. He turned
towards the entrance where they had swum in from.

Just as he did so, a shape loomed into the gap, partly
blocking the light from the outside. Spirit let out an involuntary
gasp, and panicking, whistled to Dancer to look.

‘
What’s that strange thing Dancer? It’s moving in towards
us!’

The shape had four limbs, was clad in black and had a mask
over its face. Bubbles chased up from the mask towards the surface.
Trapped and anxious, Spirit contemplated dashing for the hole, past
the figure and up to the surface for a fresh lung-full of air. The
black clad figure though did not seem aggressive.

‘
It’s not going to do us any harm. I think it’s a human’ Dancer
whispered.

‘
I thought they were mostly pink all over’ replied Spirit
anxiously.

‘
That’s not true, they’re not always pink. Breeze told me that
humans can change colour too or put on different
things.’

‘
But why would they do that?’ asked Spirit, backing away in the
confined space from the human shape in the entrance.

‘
Well, they’re not really supposed to be so deep down in the
water are they?’ responded Dancer. ‘Maybe they have to do that to
come down here.’

The human figure, apparently realising that he was blocking
the dolphins exit, swam back a metre or two so that the hole was
clear for them to leave through. Spirit shot through in a flash,
leaving a trail of bubbles in his wake. Dancer was not far behind.
They raced to the surface and another lung full of air. After the
initial panic passed, Spirit was overcome with a sense of
curiosity.

‘
I’m going back’ he said. ‘I want to take a better look at that
human.’ He swam back down. The human was moving slowly, at least
slowly compared to them and seemed to being doing something with a
tool at the rusting hole they had just swum through. The human
looked up. Spirit swum forward again, this time very slowly, his
eyes alive with interest. He could just make out the humans eyes
behind the mask.

‘
I think the human’s friendly’ he said. Dancer, hanging back,
was not so sure.

‘
Come away’ she said. But Spirit did not move.

The human turned slightly in the water and Spirit saw that he
had a sort of metal cylinder on his back, with thin black tubes
running to the mask. Bubbles continued to escape up to the surface
as the human breathed.

‘
So that’s how they do it!’ Spirit thought to
himself.

He looked at the human and the human looked back at him. The
man stretched out a limb.

‘
That must be what they call a hand’ thought Spirit.

Spirit sidled forward, with a mixture of tension and shy
friendliness in his thudding heart. As he approached he could see
the human’s eyes more clearly. There was something warm and
inviting about them. Something about the human made him think back
to his dreams. Yes, he had dreamt of a human before, although he’d
never seen one till today. It wasn’t the same as the human that he
had dreamed of, but now the memory of his dream made it come back
vividly into his mind’s eye. It was a younger human he’d dreamt of,
with long dark stuff (hair?) on its head and warm open
eyes.

Spirit swam a little further forward and the diver’s
outstretched hand gently brushed Spirit’s smooth flank. A tingle
went through Spirit’s body, unlike anything he had ever felt
before. They had made a connection.

Spirit saw the diver breathing heavily inside his mask.
Dolphins can go for a long time without breathing compared to
humans and the cumbersome divers suit seemed so awkward in
comparison. They regarded each other for a minute or so, but Dancer
was whistling at his back.