White Dolphin (15 page)

‘Pfwhooosh!’ The mother dolphin surfaces and lifts her head above the water.

I cling on to a rock and listen in the silence.

Then I hear another, ‘Pfwhooosh,’ reply.

The mother dolphin slaps her tail, the sound echoing out across the water. She opens her beak and a stream of whistles and clicks call out into the night.

I hear voices from the pool too, human voices.

‘Hey, Greg.’ It’s Carl’s voice. He must be on a night shift. ‘Something’s out there.’

I back away into rock shadows. I don’t want Carl to see me here. He’s silhouetted on the poolside looking down into the water.

‘There’s another dolphin,’ calls Carl. ‘Get my torch. Let’s see if it’s the mother.’

A beam of torchlight scans the water and finds the dolphin. It follows the curve of her back to the deep notch in her dorsal fin.

‘It’s her all right,’ says Greg.

‘Kara was right.’ Carl’s voice is almost a whisper.

I strain my ears to hear the rest.

‘She knew the mother dolphin would never stop looking until she found her calf.’

‘
W
ake up, Kara! Wake up!’

I feel small fingers poking at my eyelids.

‘Wake up! You’ve missed breakfast. It’s time for school.’

I open my eyes and push the hands away. Daisy’s sitting on my camp bed staring at me.

‘You’ve been asleep for ages,’ she says.

I push myself up. My head is fogged with sleep and my legs ache with cold, deep into the bone. My mind swirls with last night’s dream.

Daisy reaches out her hand. ‘Why’s your hair wet?’

I run my hand across my hair and see the dark patch on my pillow. My clothes lie in a wet heap on the floor. I was really there last night. I really saw the dolphin. It wasn’t just a dream.

I swing my legs out of bed. ‘The mother dolphin is back. I saw her, last night.’

‘You
saw
her?’ Daisy’s eyes are open wide.

I hold both her hands in mine. ‘Don’t tell your mum, Daisy, please don’t tell.’

I pull my school clothes on and grab my bag and race down to the kitchen.

Aunt Bev is frying bacon on the stove. She tuts when she sees me. ‘You’ll have to take a bacon sarnie with you on the way to school.’

I take a slice of bread from the open packet on the table.

Uncle Tom is sitting at the table. He’s in his shirt and oilskin trousers, the braces straps hang loose around his waist. He’s unshaven and tired. He slumps forward and puts his head in his hands.

‘Put the kettle on, Kara,’ says Aunt Bev. ‘Make your uncle a coffee.’

I fill the kettle with cold water from the tap. Daisy tries to climb on Uncle Tom’s knee but he pulls her off. ‘Get ready for school, Daisy. Don’t be late.’

He says it roughly, not like Uncle Tom at all. I pour boiling water in the mug and watch the powdered coffee swirl around. Aunt Bev is watching him. This is when he brings the money home, his share from selling all the fish they’ve caught at sea.

Uncle Tom sits back and opens his hands. His palms are bare. ‘There’s nothing, Bev,’ he says. ‘French and Spanish boats were working the same area. We spent more on fuel than what we caught. Dougie Evans blames me. He says if I can’t find the fish for him, he’ll find another skipper for his boat.’

‘He can’t do that, Tom. We’ve got bills to pay, and the baby’s due soon.’ Aunt Bev glances in my direction. ‘We’ve extra mouths to feed too.’

‘I know that, Bev, I know.’

‘Tom, we
need
the money.’

Uncle Tom slams his hands on the table. ‘What d’you think I’m trying to do?’

Daisy grabs my arm and leans into me. Her eyes flit between her mum and dad.

Aunt Bev shoves a piece of bacon in my bread and pushes it in my hand. ‘Go on, both of you. It’s time you went to school.’

I take Daisy’s hand and we run along the seafront. Instead of heading up the hill, I lead her along the coast road.

Daisy grips my hand tightly in hers. ‘We’re not going to school, are we?’

I shake my head. ‘We’re going to see the dolphin.’

The vet’s car and Greg’s pickup are among the few cars in the headland car park. I’m relieved to see no one else on the path above the pool. Carl is sitting outside one of the tents, wrapped in a sleeping bag. He waves for us to come on down. Felix and his dad are down there too.

Daisy and I slip under the police tape and clamber down the steps.

The rocks are deep purple in early morning shadow. The sea is pale blue. A thin mist hangs above the water. It’s cool now but it’s going to be a hot day later, I can feel it. A notched dorsal fin slices through the water’s surface beyond the tidal pool.

Carl looks at us and grins. ‘We’ve got good news. The mother dolphin did come back.’

‘We know,’ beams Daisy.

I nudge her in the ribs. ‘We always thought she would.’

A mobile phone rings from inside the tent. ‘That’s mine,’ says Carl. He crawls in the tent to answer it.

Felix’s dad glances at his watch and frowns at us. ‘Shouldn’t you both be on your way to school?’

‘We just wanted to see the white dolphin,’ I say.

‘Me too,’ says Felix. ‘We can give you a lift in, can’t we, Dad?’

Felix’s dad nods. ‘Well, we’d better not be long. We’ll be late as it is.’

I turn to Daisy but she’s already walked away from us, across the rocks to the pool’s edge.

‘She’s still mad at me, isn’t she?’ says Felix.

I smile. ‘She hasn’t worn her fairy outfit since.’

I follow Felix. He walks slowly across the uneven surface, holding onto boulders with his good arm to stop himself from falling on the rocks.

‘Did you find anything on the memory stick?’ I ask.

Felix shakes his head. ‘It’s password locked. I’ve tried your name and “
Moana
”, and lots of others, but I haven’t cracked it yet. Is there anything you can think of that your mum would use?’

I shrug my shoulders. It could be anything from her favourite food to the Latin name for starfish.

I duck under the white cover and crouch down next to Daisy. Beside me in a bucket are the remains of a dark brown liquid. Straggly pieces of gut entrails stick like cooked spaghetti on the bucket’s sides. I wrinkle my nose. It stinks of fish. Greg is in the water supporting the flotation raft. In front of the dolphin stands a woman, holding up a funnel attached to a long tube that passes into the dolphin’s mouth.

The woman smiles at me. ‘So you must be Kara. I’ve heard all about you from Carl. I’m Sam, the vet, by the way.’

I smile back and look at the white dolphin. I lean forward so I can look into her eye. She blinks and looks back at me. I wonder if she recognizes me, if she remembers who I am. ‘Will she get better now?’ I ask.

Sam nods. ‘She’s got a fighting chance. Once she can balance in the water and feed herself, we can set her free.’

Daisy pushes back her curls of hair. ‘Can we help look after her?’

Sam laughs. ‘I don’t think you’d like this job.’ She points to the thick brown liquid in the funnel. ‘It’s dolphin baby food! Puréed fish and antibiotics! When the swelling in her mouth goes down, we try her with whole fish.’

Daisy takes her shoes and socks off and dangles her feet from the pool edge. ‘What’s her name?’

Sam shrugs her shoulders and smiles. ‘She hasn’t got a name.’

‘She has to have a name,’ says Daisy.

‘I’m sure she has a dolphin name,’ says Sam. ‘Every dolphin has its own signature whistle, a name they call themselves.’

‘We have to find her a name,’ says Daisy. She slides knee deep into the water and reaches out to stroke the dolphin.

Sam shakes her head. ‘We mustn’t get her used to human contact. It’s really hard, I know. But it’s best for her.’

I jump when a flurry of black wings rushes past me. A jackdaw tips the bucket and flaps off with a piece of fish tail in its mouth. I watch it fly up above the Blue Pool, and see a figure walking slowly along the clifftop path.

‘The Bird Lady,’ whispers Daisy.

Felix shades his eyes against the sun to look at her. ‘The Bird Lady? Who’s she?’

I glare at Daisy and nudge her in the ribs. I don’t want her to say anything about me going to see Miss Penluna.

‘I know her,’ says Sam. ‘She sometimes brings sick birds to the surgery.’

Daisy clings on to my sleeve. ‘She says dolphins are the angels of the seas.’

Sam smiles. ‘Angels?’ she says. ‘Yes, maybe they are.’

The white dolphin glows pearly pink in the early morning light.

‘Then that’s what we’ll call her,’ says Daisy, a big grin on her face. ‘We’ll call her Angel.’

‘
A
ngel?’ says Carl.

Daisy nods. ‘She’s got to have a name.’

Carl stares at his mobile phone in his hand. ‘That’s just what the man said to me. He said she had to have a name.’

‘What man?’ I say.

Carl frowns and puts his phone in his back pocket. ‘A journalist from the local paper. There’s been loads of interest in the dolphin, especially since we put her story on the Marine Life Rescue website,’ he says. ‘There are newspapers and TV and environmental groups who want to come and see her. I’ve got to find a venue for a press conference for Saturday. I’ve rung up the town hall but they say, “no”. They say it’s too short notice.’

‘No surprise there,’ says Greg. ‘Dougie Evans is on the committee.’

I fold my arms and lean back against the rocks. ‘We’ll soon have coach-loads of people coming here to our bay. Everyone will want to see her. She’ll become like a side show in a theme park.’

‘People love to see dolphins,’ says Carl. ‘It gives us a chance to tell them about what the Marine Life Rescue team do, and the dangers facing our sea life too.’

Felix slaps the water with his hand. ‘But that’s it,’ he shouts. ‘That’s exactly what we need her for. We need to use her to tell them about the reef.’

I shake my head. ‘And make her something for people to stare at? People should be interested in the reef without putting a dolphin on display.’

Felix rolls his eyes. ‘It’s not the same is it? I mean, what d’you think people want to read about, “Save the Sea Squirt” or “Save the Dolphin”?’

I scowl at him. ‘OK, so how do you suggest we do it?’

‘Use the internet,’ says Felix. He’s grinning from ear to ear. ‘Websites, social networking sites, blogs, and Twitter, get people involved.’

I shake my head. ‘It wouldn’t work.’

Felix throws his hand up. ‘
Why
not, Kara? I can’t believe you don’t want to give it a go. We could get an online petition for people to sign to stop the dredging of the reef.’

‘It’s no use,’ I say. ‘You can put up all the stupid blogs you like. You can get a million people to sign the petition, but nothing will work. Nothing will work unless we can convince the trawler owners to save the reef.’

I turn my back on Felix and flick small stones across the flat rocks.

‘Come on,’ says Felix’s dad. ‘It’s time I got you all to school.’

We sit in silence on the way to school. I hold my bag tightly against my chest and stare out of the car window. I can’t believe Felix and Carl want to use Angel like some circus act for the newspapers and TV to come and gawp at.

By the time we’ve dropped Daisy off, we’re late for lessons. I watch Felix walk along the corridor to his maths class. His steps are short and jerky. It’s all right for him; he could use it as an excuse for being late. I would if it were me. I know I’ll be told off for being late again. It’s almost the end of term. So instead of climbing the stairs, I walk out of the side door into the playground and sink down against the thick trunk of the horse-chestnut tree.

I curl up in the fork of tree roots, hidden from the school, and rest my head on my schoolbag. My eyes ache with lack of sleep and my thoughts spin out like threads of cloud across the blue, blue sky. The shade beneath this tree is cool and still. Somewhere above, a blackbird sings. A breeze sifts through the dense leaf cover, and draws me into sleep.

‘There you are,’ says Felix.

I open my eyes and sit up.

Felix is standing in front of me, frowning. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’