White Dolphin (9 page)

I sit back and watch the cove recede into the jumble of boulders along the coastline. An empty Coke can bobs in a slick of engine oil. I hate Jake Evans. I hate him for everything he is. My eyes burn hot with tears, and this time I can’t stop them fall.

I glance at Dad, but his eyes are focused out to sea, a deep frown line on his face. He’s sailing
Moana
roughly through the water. She jars against the waves, each one slamming into us as we roll and pitch.

Felix is staring at his feet, his face a deeper shade of green. Each wave thumps the boat against his back. I try and warn Dad, but it’s too late. Felix lurches forward, vomits, and whacks his head against the deck.

‘Felix!’ yells Mr Andersen.

Dad turns
Moana
into the wind and lets her sails flap loose.

‘Take the tiller, Kara,’ orders Dad. ‘Keep up into the wind.’

I sit at the stern and watch Mr Andersen wipe Felix’s face with a towel. Dad empties the bait bucket, fills it with seawater and helps clean up Felix too. Felix is a deathly shade of white. His whole body shakes and he looks like he’ll be sick again. Mr Andersen props him up and pulls a water bottle from his bag. Dad fetches the first aid kit from the locker and kneels down to clean a cut on Felix’s face.

‘I think we should head back,’ says Dad.

Mr Andersen rinses the towel in the sea and wrings it out. ‘You’re right.’ He hangs the towel across the seat beside him. ‘Sorry, Felix, Mum was right on this one. I shouldn’t have let you come today.’

Felix leans back against the seat and glares at me. ‘I’m fine,’ he says. ‘Let’s go on.’

Mr Andersen crouches next to him. ‘You don’t look great. I think it’s best if we go back.’

Felix takes a swig of water from his bottle. ‘I said I’m fine.’

Mr Andersen looks at Dad and shrugs his shoulders.

‘If you’re sure,’ says Dad. ‘We can stop off at Gull Rock and head back after that.’

Felix nods and fixes his eyes out to sea.

I watch a dark patch of wind-ruffled water sweep towards us.
Moana
’s sails flap in the passing gust.

‘The wind’s not so strong now,’ says Dad. ‘We’ll let
Moana
have full sails.’

I lean forward, in line with Felix, as Dad and Mr Andersen take the reefs out of the sails. ‘You don’t have to go on, you know. You’ve proved your point.’

Felix takes another swig from the water bottle and doesn’t even look at me.

Dad slides around to the back of
Moana
and gives me a gentle shove. ‘Go up the front, Kara. I thought Felix could have a go at sailing. Would you like that, Felix? It’ll take your mind off seasickness if you can concentrate on something else.’

Felix nods. He looks slightly better, a paler shade of green now.

I sit up at the front of the boat with Mr Andersen, but can’t help looking back at Dad and Felix. A pang of jealousy runs through me and I try to push it away. Dad taught me to sail like this, sitting with him by the tiller, allowing me to test the wind and feel it in the sails. Felix can’t control the mainsail and the tiller with only one good arm. It takes two hands for that. But I watch Dad show him how to adjust the mainsail, when to pull it in and how to spill air if we heel over too far.

Moana
slices through the water on a course set for Gull Rock. We’re running fast and smooth. Mr Andersen and I have to lean right out to balance her. I run my hands in the bow waves that furl along
Moana
’s sides. Her sails above us are curved and taut like birds’ wings. We’re racing through the water. It feels as if we’re flying, almost.

I look back again to see Dad and Felix, big grins stuck on both their faces. That pang of jealousy hasn’t gone away. It’s not because of Dad, this time. It’s because of Felix. For someone who’s never sailed before, he’s good at sailing.

He’s far too good.

I don’t want to admit it, but Felix Andersen is a born natural.

Dad takes over near Gull Rock and guides
Moana
into the crescent-shaped cove that faces the mainland shore. It’s sheltered here. The waves that heave against the seaward cliffs of Gull Rock swirl round here in foam-topped eddies. Mr Andersen drops the anchor and Dad lets down the sails.

Felix’s eyes are shining and the colour is back in his face. ‘That was
so
cool.’

Dad sits back and grins. ‘That was some sailing, Felix. Don’t you think so, Kara?’

I shrug my shoulders. ‘It was OK.’

Mr Andersen can’t take the smile off his face. He punches Felix on the shoulder. ‘I told you
you’d like it.’

Dad pulls the picnic bag out from the locker. ‘You could enter the regatta race with sailing like that.’

Felix just sits there with a massive grin.

‘What race is that?’ asks Mr Andersen.

‘It’s the one held every summer on the last day of August,’ says Dad. ‘Any sailing boat can enter. It’s a race from the harbour around Gull Rock and back.’

I pull my knees up to my chest. I don’t want Dad to be telling them any of this. It’s
our
boat,
our
race. I look out at the shelving pebble bay and the sheer cliffs of Gull Rock and feel an ache deep in my chest. This is our special place. It could be the last time we ever come out here.

‘Pasty, anyone?’ says Dad.

The smell of cooked meat and onions drifts across the boat.

He holds one of the squashed pasties out to Felix. ‘Are you up to this?’

Felix nods. ‘I’m starving.’

Dad pours out lemonade into plastic cups, balancing them on the wooden seats.

Mr Andersen takes a mouthful of pasty and leans back with his feet up on the seats. He pulls his hat over his eyes and smiles. ‘I have to say, this has to be the best meal I’ve had in years.’

I don’t touch my pasty. I can’t imagine watching someone else sail
Moana
in the regatta race. I want to forget about Felix and his dad. I want to forget about Jake Evans too. All I want is to escape.

‘Can I have a quick swim, Dad?’ I say.

Dad nods, and I reach into the locker for my mask and snorkel. I peel my shorts and T-shirt off to my swimming costume underneath.

Mr Andersen looks at Felix. ‘Why don’t you go too? You could do with cleaning yourself off a bit.’

Felix’s shorts are patterned with crusted sea salt and flecks of dried vomit. He looks down at them and shrugs his shoulders. ‘OK.’

I stare down at my feet. I want to swim by myself, not have Felix tagging along.

‘Is that OK, Kara?’ says Mr Andersen.

‘There can be strong currents out there,’ I say.

‘You’re only swimming to the rocks,’ says Dad.

‘Felix is a good swimmer,’ says Mr Andersen.

‘And it’s cold too,’ I say.

Dad finds a spare face-mask. ‘Here, Felix. You should see a lot today, the water’s crystal clear.’

I curl my toes over
Moana
’s side and look down. My reflection is rippled like the water. When I was small, I used to think it was a magic mirror, a secret entrance to another world below.

I take a deep breath of air.

And dive.

Cold water rushes through my hair and across my skin. I twist and look up to the surface, a dolphin’s eye view of
Moana
’s shadowed hull. Shafts of sunlight filter through the water, reaching into deep, deep blue. I swim towards the rocks that lie submerged beneath the cliffs. Purple jewel anemones line the narrow crevices. Small silver sand eels flit between the rippling strands of seaweed. I spread my arms and soar above this world, above a landscape of mountains, valleys and vast grasslands of green kelp.

When I come up for air, Felix is right behind me. I didn’t think he’d be able to swim so fast. I hadn’t really thought he could swim at all. I push my hair from my eyes and tread water beside him.

Felix lifts the corner of his face-mask to drain some water that’s leaked inside. ‘Can’t see a thing,’ he says.

His mask is steamed up and blurry. ‘Spit in it,’ I say.

Felix frowns at me. ‘What?’

‘Spit in it. It stops the mask from steaming up.’

Felix pulls his mask off and spits inside, rubbing the saliva with his thumb. He struggles to pull the strap over his head again. I almost help him, but see Dad and Mr Andersen watching, so I swim away, towards a submerged shelf of rock lined with fine white sand.

Felix joins me and we drift side by side, arms outstretched, our fingertips almost touching. I stare down, hypnotized. Nothing is still. The sea floor is a changing pattern of swaying seaweed and shifting sand. A silver river of tiny fish thread through the kelp, each fish no longer than my thumb. But there is something else moving through the water too, a creature I’ve heard about but never seen before.

It’s here now, right now.

I catch a fleeting glimpse of zebra stripe between the kelp and then it’s gone.

I nudge Felix in the side and point.

He bursts up to the surface and I take a gasp of breath too.

I shake the water from my hair. ‘Did you see it?’ I say.

Felix pushes his mask up from his face. ‘See what?’

‘Down there in the kelp, you must’ve seen it.’

‘What, Kara?’

‘Stealth Killers,’ I say and can’t help grinning. ‘Level ten.’

I
 float beside him, looking down. I see it again, this time a flash of dark against the pale sand, but it’s changing all the time.

Felix bursts up again from the water and I lift my head up too.

‘I still can’t see anything down there,’ he says.

I sweep my wet hair from my face and look at Felix. ‘That’s because you aren’t looking right,’ I say. ‘I’ll point. Just keep looking at the sand.’

I dive under to skim the pale sand floor. Scraps of seaweed and a crab shell-case rock back and forth. I can’t see the animal I’m looking for at first. Its camouflage is far too good. But then I see it watching me from the sand below me. Only the horseshoe-shaped black pupils of its eyes give it away. The speckled pattern of its body perfectly matches the sand beneath. I reach out to touch it, but it rises upwards, away from me, and stops mid-water, changing colour in an instant to bright red. It looks like a small deflated beach ball with long tentacles at one end. Its body is fringed by a rim of fins that ripple along each side. The tentacles stick straight out in front of it, like a sword.

I burst upwards to catch a breath of air.

Felix takes a breath too. ‘What
is
that?’

‘Cuttlefish,’ I say.

Felix frowns. ‘What old ladies feed to budgies?’

I roll my eyes. ‘That’s the cuttlebone, its skeleton inside.’

‘I want another look,’ says Felix.

We float on the surface, faces down, slowly spinning with the current. We are skydivers looking at a world far, far below.

The red cuttlefish is still there, watching us, watching it. It’s a strange feeling, being observed like this. Another cuttlefish swims into view, a pale brown one with a perfect white square patch on its back. I remember Mum telling me that males and females come to breed and lay their eggs on kelp in the spring and summer. The red cuttlefish is changing colour again. Its head and tentacles are still bright red, but its body now has zebra stripes of black and white. The stripes begin to ripple across its body in moving patterns. The brown cuttlefish is changing too. Bands of dark colour sweep across its body.

I see Felix beside me take a breath and dive down. He reaches out his hand. His fingers almost touch the tentacles of the red cuttlefish, but both cuttlefish propel backwards and he is left groping in a billowing black cloud of ink. Felix bursts upwards again for air. I keep looking under water, but when the ink clears both cuttlefish have disappeared. They could be anywhere by now, perfectly camouflaged against the pale sand or dark grey rock.

Mr Andersen helps to haul us out of the water. He wraps Felix in a big beach towel and Dad wraps my blanket round me too.

‘What did you two see over there?’ says Mr Andersen. ‘You were there for ages.’

‘Cuttlefish,’ I say.

Mr Andersen turns to Felix, ‘Cuttlefish?’

Felix nods. He can’t stop his teeth from chattering. ‘They were amazing, Dad. You’ve got to go and look. Just don’t try and touch one, like I did.’

‘I think we should take a look,’ says Dad. ‘I’ve not seen them before, myself.’

Dad and Mr Andersen strip off their T-shirts and jump into the water with the face-masks and snorkels.

I sink down out of the wind and take a bite of pasty.

Felix takes a bite from his pasty too and stares out to sea, his face lit up in golden light.

‘I’ve not seen anything like that before,’ he says.

I look at him and nod. ‘It’s not just there,’ I say. ‘It goes on and on. There’s a whole coral reef down there and I’m going to see all that someday.’ I finish my pasty and shake the crumbs from my blanket. ‘Mum said when I’m sixteen I can learn to scuba dive. She said she’d take me out to see the reef. If it’s still there, that is.’

Felix slides down beside me and leans against
Moana
’s curved hull. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’