Free White Dolphin by Gill Lewis Page A

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.’

C HAPTER 14
    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