Maddy's Dolphin (9 page)

They were all huddled around the TV up in their flat and had been there for about half an hour. The news was all about Loutraki; but it was not only about Lucy. They were talking about the dolphins and whales just as much and this was happening on all the networks – CNN, BBC, all the Greek news channels. They were talking about how the American and British submarines which had moved into occupation around the seas of Greece, supposedly to provide security for the high-powered and important world leaders attending the NATO conference, had been the cause of many deaths within the cetacean species. ‘That's whales and dolphins,' CJ had said, when it was mentioned by the reporter.

There were discussions by scientists and people from organisations such as the Whale and Dolphin Society. One explained that the sonar the submarines were using was mostly mid-frequency, which emitted a terrible noise, sending a jolt through the whales and dolphins. As these animals use a kind of sonar themselves to see their world, these sonar waves are picked up by them and it causes them pain and disorientation.

She then went on, ‘But what is worse, the real killer for these lovely intelligent animals is the low-frequency wave sonar. These waves, when they are emitted, will send powerful waves of intense light and noise at a terrific speed through the water. These physically hurt the animals, knocking them for six and causing many deaths. The waters around Greece have been so noisy, confusing and dangerous since the arrival of the various navies.'

The reporter asked why so many whales and dolphins had turned up in the Gulf of Corinth. ‘None of the submarines are in the Gulf,' she said. ‘The entrance into it from the Ionian Sea is quite narrow, so the sonar waves aren't reaching far in. It has become a sanctuary for the whales and dolphins. But there is a lack of food. There are not enough fish to keep all of them sufficiently fed and healthy for much longer, and I am most concerned for the sperm whale I have seen there. Sperm whales need deeper water.'

The phone rang and Ishbel, having answered it, passed it to Maddy. It was her Auntie Imogen. ‘Maddy, this is great, the media are putting so much pressure on the governments and it's got to help. They are going to have to take some notice.' Before Maddy could reply, she went on, ‘And there were pictures of you and CJ swimming with Indigo. It was great to see. How is Indigo?' Maddy was just about to tell her that he was a bit sore but OK, but CJ grabbed the phone from her and started talking, filling in all the gaps. Maddy tried to get the phone off him a couple of times, but he was so excited she gave up.

After about ten minutes, CJ was all talked out and handed Maddy the phone. They discussed if there were anything else they could do to try to stop the sonar. Should they do some more swimming with Indigo for the TV cameras and do some stunts to keep the press interested? But they decided that they probably shouldn't. ‘Never trust the press, Maddy. Be very careful with them.'

They were back watching the TV again. There were interviews with other locals and then they showed the footage of them swimming with Indigo again. They had been very careful to play down quite how friendly they were with Indigo. Maddy and CJ would never say that Maddy could talk to Indigo. It was too frightening to think what people would do to them both if they did. ‘They might do experiments on you,' is what CJ would always say. And maybe they would. It was a secret that had to be kept secret.

Their nana phoned them now and spoke to them both. It had really been a very exciting day today; they both felt that they had done well and were hopeful that the sonar would be turned off. On their morning swim with Indigo, which the press had filmed, they had decided that it would probably be very busy all day and that they had better miss out on their evening talk. They had been right. All day there had been reporters and cameras everywhere, even at the football pitch where they played that evening.

‘I know it's good that the media are here and interested, Mum,' said Maddy, ‘but you can't do anything with them around. They film everything.'

‘Yeah, they even filmed us waterskiing,' said CJ.

Jorgos was pleased about this. He had insisted that they had skied that afternoon. He had hoped that the press would film them. He wanted to show off how good his children were. They were now all joking with him, every time the phone rang, that it was the coach of the Olympic team requesting his children to join the Greek team. The trouble was that Jorgos thought it could be!

Maddy and CJ had moved out onto the balcony and were leaning on the railing looking out to sea. ‘I had hoped that one of the dolphins would have seen something by now,' said Maddy.

They were both quiet for a few minutes until CJ said, ‘They will. The cave idea is the only logical explanation.'

Maddy laughed at her brother. He usually just played the fool, having a laugh and enjoying any type of sport, but sometimes he actually sounded very clever.

‘Come on, kids, you've had a long day. Time for bed,' shouted Ishbel.

Lucy was cold and scared. She had just been woken by a noise. She opened her eyes, but everything was dark. Her arms ached. They were tied together at the wrists by a rag looped though a rope which was attached to the boat she was in. She could stand up, sit and lie down, but she couldn't walk anywhere. That's what the rope was for, to keep her secure in the boat. It meant the men didn't have watch her all the time. The rag around her wrist didn't hurt, but her arms became very stiff and ached a lot, especially when she was still for a long time. They were hurting now, but she couldn't be bothered to move.

She didn't know how long she had been in the cave for. It felt like for ever. She had even stopped noticing the constant dripping of water from the roof above and the lapping of the sea against the rocks. She had spent most of the time sleeping. It was amazing that although she was doing nothing, she was tired all the time. At least when she was asleep she could dream, and when she dreamt she wasn't in the cave any more.

Having been grabbed by the men on the jet skis, she had been taken to this cave. As they approached the cliffs she thought that they were going to just drive into them without stopping, until she finally saw that there was an entrance to a cave. It was very well concealed and she knew no one could possibly find it unless they were very lucky.

There were two other men in the cave waiting. They had a couple of night lights and, although the light in the cave was poor, she could see them well enough. They were very pleased to see the men on the jet skis turn up with her and they started clapping their arms up above their heads and shouting out. She wasn't crying, but she was very frightened. The man who had been holding her handed her to one of the men in the cave, who said, ‘Welcome, young lady, nice of you to visit us!'

‘Don't tease her,' said the man on the jet ski who had hit into Indigo.

They tied up her hands with a rag and the man who had hit Indigo said to her, ‘We are not going to hurt you, Lucy, we are just using you to get your father to release our friends from prison. If you behave yourself and do what you are told, you will be well looked after.' It looked like he was the leader; he spoke good English, but he had a strange accent. He told one of the others to put her in a small wooden rowing boat which was tied up to the cave floor and looped a rope through her tied wrists.

Lucy had not said a word since she had shouted out ‘Indigo' after she saw him being hit by the jet ski. She was very worried about him. He had only been hurt because he was trying to save her.

The noise that had woken her was a jet ski coming back. She had been left there in the cave with two men. The others had left after dropping her off and hadn't been back. Nothing had happened since. She had been given food, nothing hot, and every now and again they had allowed her out of the boat to walk around the cave for a bit to stretch her legs and to go to the toilet. They had hardly said anything to her and they never used their names when talking. They had spoken on their phones a few times, but when they did it was in a foreign language which she didn't understand. She thought it sounded like Arabic, but she really didn't know.

The men were talking, but she could not make out what they were saying. They had their backs to her, but she could see them quite clearly now. Her eyes had got used to the dark. She had spent many hours watching the crabs playing. She fell asleep again and dreamed about swimming with Indigo and Lunar.

‘
Phut!
' She loved the sound Indigo made when he blew air out of his blowhole. Hang on a minute, she was awake now, but she had heard Indigo. How could that have been? ‘
Phut!
' It was very quiet, but it was definitely a dolphin. She could hear muffled talking coming from the back of the cave. There was a bump against the boat. She sat up and looked over the edge.

Yes, she wasn't dreaming, was she? There was a dolphin in the water, looking up at her in the boat. The dolphin moved his head over to the side and it seemed that it was smiling. It then nodded its head quickly and, turning, swam off silently. Lucy looked on after it and very quietly said, ‘Thank you.'

They were floating in the sea, breathing heavily. Indigo had just won the game of tag and Maddy and CJ were getting their breath back. They had had a great time during their morning swim. Indigo was practically fully fit now, following the collision with the jet ski. Maddy now took the opportunity to update Indigo on the last twenty-four hours – the way the press had taken on the story of the sonar and that it was running on the news channels along with the news on the search for Lucy.

She explained that her Auntie Imogen had said that if you're careful the press can be used to help, and it looked like, on this occasion, they had. The more people who knew about what was happening to the whales and dolphins, the more notice the politicians were going to take. Indigo said that the Keeper had told him pretty much the same thing. Maddy wondered how the Keeper could know how humans and their politics worked, but Indigo had said before that he had the experience of many of generations of dolphins and the remaining secrets of Atlantis, and that he used all this knowledge to guide the Chosen Ones in their tasks.

Suddenly Indigo spun around, followed by CJ and Maddy. A dolphin was heading for them at breakneck speed. Stone was swimming like a bullet, and then he slammed his breaks on at the very last minute, pulling up to a dramatic halt right in front of them. Well, he didn't really slam his brakes on, dolphins don't have brakes as such, but he slammed his fluke downwards and raised his back, coming to a halt with his body vertical, his head and pecs out of the water momentarily, before he sank down, keeping just his head above the surface. Stone let out a loud breath from his blowhole. He was clearly excited, but each time he tried to talk to Indigo he had to take another breath first.

When he finally managed to get a couple of words out, he said to Indigo, ‘I've found her! I have found Lucy!'

Indigo quickly told Maddy, who told CJ. All three then replied, asking, ‘Where? How? Is she OK?'

After the initial excitement, they all shut up and Stone was able to tell Indigo what had happened; the story was passed on quickly to all of them.

‘We were all watching that bit of the coast late last night when a jet ski came up and disappeared into the rocks. We waited about an hour, but nothing more happened. So we all had a discussion about what we should do next. We didn't want to alert them that we were on to them, if we were, but we needed to confirm that she was there.' Indigo told Maddy, Maddy told CJ and then Stone continued.

‘I was sent in to see. I quietly went up to the point in the rocks where the jet ski had vanished, and just as I was beginning to think that I must have been seeing things, as there were only rocks and the cliff there, I noticed that there was a hole. I went in it and found that a tunnel turned to the left and then turned again to the right. I was pretty scared by now, and then I started hearing some muffled voices and I noticed there was a dim light ahead, and then the tunnel opened out into a large area. The sea was about twenty feet deep in this pool of water, and there were two boats and two jet skis moored up to the side.'

‘Wow!' said CJ when Maddy told him. ‘What an adventure.'

‘I went to look in one of the boats, a wooden rowing boat, and then the girl's head popped over the side. We came face to face and we both gave each other a bit of a fright. She was tied to the boat. I tried to tell if she was OK. She smiled at me and seemed to be unharmed. Then I quietly turned and came back here straight away. I left the others keeping an eye on the cave.'

‘She's OK. That's great news,' said Maddy.

‘Well, tell me what happened next,' said CJ and Maddy quickly told him.

They spent the next fifteen minutes coming up with a plan of what they should do next. They could tell James now, but how could they explain how they knew? They couldn't say that the dolphins had told them. They had finally agreed on a plan, when Ishbel started shouting at them from the beach.

‘Maddy, CJ, come on; you can't stay there all day.' They all said their goodbyes and Maddy and CJ swam off towards the beach and breakfast before implementing their plan. Indigo and Stone swam off in the opposite direction.

‘Go on. Ask him!' whispered maddy as she kicked CJ under the table. They were eating breakfast and Jorgos was reading the newspaper at the table with them.

‘Why me? You ask,' was CJ's reply.

‘Because you're his favourite.'

‘No I'm not,' said CJ.

‘What are you two going on about?' said Jorgos, looking up from his paper and at his children.

CJ was kicked again by Maddy and so he said, ‘Dad, can you take us on the
Barefoot
around the coast for a picnic?'