Free The Girl Who Dreamt of Dolphins by James Carmody Page B

was a crack, a chink, a
door into another way of thinking, another state of mind that could
take her to the little dolphin and his pod in the deep sea far
away.
    Lucy concentrated hard for several minutes, trying to will
herself into a trance, but to no effect. All she heard was Dad
droning away on the phone in the next room. All she could see were
the clouds in the sky through her window, grey and sluggish and
wet.
    Lucy tried twice more, but it became no easier and she made no
progress at all. For all her imagining and force of will, she could
not do it. In defeat Lucy gave upconcentrating and let her mind
drift. Suddenly, she felt that she was entering a different state
and became aware of the doorway between consciousness and sleep
opening up before her. Her mind impelled her through the doorway
and as she did so, she realised that she was passing from the world
of air, to the world of water and she felt herself flowing through
salty cold sea again, floating effortlessly while the light dappled
and danced upon the gentle waves above her head.
    In the distance she could make out the silhouette of five or
so dolphins, riding in a care-free way just below the waves, lazing
away the afternoon after feeding. They broke the waves and
breathed, the sun warming their backs momentarily as they did so.
Lucy glanced down. The seabed, sandy and flat, was two or three
metres below her and as she looked she saw the little dolphin
cruising slowly past below her, unaware of her presence.
    Lucy gave a kick and dove down in a fluid movement that
brought her to the side of the small dolphin. In a way that she did
not understand, without speaking as a human would or clicking as a
dolphin might, Lucy said one word.
    ‘ Hello.’ The dolphin startled and glanced her way.
    ‘ Hello’ he said.



Chapter Six :
    The next morning, the sea was calm and placid. The sky was
clear apart from a few wisps of cloud high up in the atmosphere. In
the distance, a sailing boat sat becalmed in the water, its sails
empty, barely moving. Spirit lay at the surface of the water,
eyeing the world of air above him. What would it be like to be up
there, out of the water, in world of people? He could not dive into
the world of people as they could plunge into the sea where he
lived. He would never know what it was truly like to be up there.
Yet for Spirit, those two worlds had just moved closer. He thought
back over the last few days. He could not quite believe what had
happened.
    Dancer swam up to Spirit’s side.
    ‘ Hey Spirit, follow me, I’ve got something to show you.’ Spirit
followed Dancer as she led them down to the seabed. They were in a
shallow part of the sea and the seabed was only a few metres below.
The bottom was an expanse of sand, along which small fish darted
and the occasional crab scuttled along from crevice to crevice.
Brightly coloured shells were scattered here and there and then
they came to a big, red coloured sheet of metal lying on the sand.
On it were strange markings, which neither of them could
read.
    ‘ It wasn’t here yesterday’ said Dancer. ‘It’s just appeared
overnight’ she said.
    ‘ Is it from the humans?’ asked Spirit.
    ‘ I suppose it must be’ replied Dancer, but I cannot imagine
where it might have come from. No boats have been past here in the
last day or so.’
    ‘ Maybe it fell from the sky’ said Spirit, marvelling at the
shiny redness of the metal in the water. ‘You’ve seen those droning
things, high above the clouds?’ he asked Dancer. ‘Well they’re not
birds and they’re not insects. I think they’re something to do with
humans. Maybe it fell from a flying machine that the humans have
made.’
    ‘ I think you’re becoming a bit obsessed by humans’ laughed
Dancer, only half in jest. Spirit started awkwardly because Dancer
was not entirely wrong. Storm, he knew, had a very low opinion of
humans, but Spirit was beginning to think differently.
    ‘ So what is it that has come over you