Dolphin Child by James Carmody Page B

and get the girl’ said Spirit. ‘You stay here and keep an eye
on her.’
    Spirit swam quickly back towards the beach. It was the kind of
beach that shelved away fairly rapidly and so it was possible for
him to get reasonably near to land without fear of grounding
himself. As Spirit swam in close to the beach, his dorsal fin
showed above the surface. Although a dolphins dorsal fin is
completely different to that of a shark and despite the fact that
pretty much only harmless basking sharks patrol the coast round
Britain, someone shouted ‘shark!’ loudly in alarm. Suddenly there
was a clamour of cries and stampede of children as they all tried
to get out of the water as quickly as possible.
    Spirit put his face above the surface of the water and reared
up as much as he could to try to click and whistle that a girl was
in danger and needed their help. As soon as people saw the friendly
face of a dolphin, realising that there was no shark in the water,
people turned and stormed back towards him.
    ‘ Look Mummy a dolphin!’ yelled a hundred children, as they all
rushed towards him, eager to pet him and stroke his side. ‘Isn’t he
adorable!’ replied their parents as they converged on
him.
    Spirit was alarmed at all of the humans coming towards him,
each with their hands outstretched to pat and caress him. The noise
and the clamour made him nervous and he retreated to slightly
deeper waters. He put his head up again above the surface and tried
to click and whistle his warning about the girl stuck on the rocks
just out of sight, but none of the humans on the beach knew what he
was trying to say, or cared. The adult humans started to hold
little black boxes up their face, which made clicking sounds. The
youngsters on the beach strained to touch Spirit, but he was
worried that they’d cover his blow-hole and kept just out of their
reach.
    Spirit swam a short distance along the edge of the beach, in
the direction of the rocks where the girl lay caught and then
turned again, in the hope that they would follow him. Spirit
realised though that it was no good. He may as well try to
communicate with a shoal of mackerel. He simply could not think of
how to tell them that a girl was in trouble and needed help. He
swam back to where Dancer was waiting in the hope that at least one
or two humans would come off up the beach and round the headland to
try to find him again, but it seemed that none of them did. All he
could hear was shouting and splashing behind him.
    ‘ It’s not good’ warned Dancer as he approached her again. ‘The
tide’s coming in fast now and that girl is going to get swept off
the rock soon. She’s scared of us. We can’t carry her to safety and
I’m worried that if she falls off that rock, she’ll drown. What can
we do?’ called Dancer in increasing agitation.
    ‘ Lucy!’ thought Spirit in desperation. ‘Lucy, Lucy,
LUCY!!’
     
    Lucy suddenly sat up with a jolt. She’d been lying in the
grass of the field just behind the studio, looking at a brilliant
green beetle climbing a grass stem and listening to the buzz of
grasshoppers and insects around her. She suddenly felt a sense of
great urgency, but she didn’t understand from where. Then she
thought, ‘Spirit’. There was something to do with Spirit that was
not right. She realised that she needed to reach out and contact
him straight away.
    Lucy composed herself and then focused her mind to concentrate
before relaxing, letting her thoughts wander to the corners of her
conscious mind. It was still hard to do and she was never sure when
it would work, but she was in luck and suddenly she found herself
floating in the salty waters next to the two dolphins.
    ‘ Spirit, what’s the matter?’ she asked.
    ‘ Lucy!’ he replied. ‘You came! I called out for you and you
came!’ Lucy looked around her, surprised to hear the sounds
emanating from the beach nearby.
    ‘ But what’s the matter?’ she asked again and then she saw the
scared