Free The Magic Charm by Summer Waters

back out to sea. Claudia and Antonia paddled the boat ashore and then jumping out they dragged it higher up the beach. Claudia glanced at the lightening sky.
    “There are a few things we need to sort out,” she said. “Then I’ll run you home in the car.”

Chapter Fifteen
    C laudia chivvied Antonia into her kitchen where she began to make hot chocolate. She poured some milk into the saucepan then pulled out a chair for Antonia to sit down.
    “I have always loved the sea and felt some kind of special bond with its creatures. Many years ago when I first realised how badly people were polluting the sea I was desperate to put thingsright. That’s when I discovered I was a Silver Dolphin. It has been hard and often dangerous, but the job is very rewarding. Regrettably it became too much for me: I’m not the swimmer I once was. I knew I must hand the role over to someone younger.
    Silver Dolphins are very rare and I’d been searching for a new one for ages when I decided to set up Sea Watch. Conservation groups can work miracles, but I knew I still had to find a Silver Dolphin. Then I had a brainwave: the poster competition. It was a way of promoting Sea Watch and there was a small chance it might lead me to a Silver Dolphin. When the entries came in I was very excited. Unbelievably, I had found what I was looking for, Antonia Lee was a Silver Dolphin.”
    Claudia smiled and Antonia felt as if a warm current had suddenly passed through her.
    “So, Antonia, welcome to the Silver Dolphins. I’m very happy to be handing over to you. You are a very special girl.”
    “Why me?” asked Antonia. “How could you tell from my poster that I was the one?”
    Claudia stretched out her long fingers.
    “Intuition,” she said. “Call it a sixth sense if you like. Your picture was full of facts and information that showed you knew about the marine environment. But I could also
feel
that you cared. When you write or draw on a page, you leave something of yourself behind. An essence. I also guessed that you have a special birthday. You were born on the twenty-first of June.”
    “How did you know that?”
    Claudia chuckled softly at Antonia’s puzzled face.
    “Ah!” she said. “I knew because we are two ofa kind. We were both born on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. It makes us even more special.”
    “Your birthday is the twenty-first of June too?”
    Antonia was about to ask how that made them both even more special, but Claudia smiled mysteriously, then said, “Is there anything else you need to know about being a Silver Dolphin?”
    “Yes, heaps!” said Antonia. “How does it work? Is it magic, that lets me swim like a real dolphin? Do I have to wear my necklace for the magic to work?”
    “The necklace is merely a receiver,” said Claudia. “Think of it like a mobile phone. It’s the way that Spirit communicates with you.”
    “So it
is
magic,” said Antonia, wide-eyed with amazement.
    “The world is a magical place. Science goessome way to explain the mysteries of life, but we can’t know everything. All humans have the ability to tune in to things around them, but only those with a truly open mind can hear what is being said. You are willing to believe that magical things can happen to you. Believing is a powerful force.”
    Antonia sipped her hot chocolate while she tried to make sense of what Claudia had said. At last she asked, “So by believing that I can swim and speak like a dolphin I make it happen?”
    “Yes,” said Claudia. “But only a few very special people truly believe.”
    Antonia sat in spellbound silence until Claudia glanced at her watch and said, “It’s time to take you home. Cai will be up soon.
    You know he’ll always be a true friend to you, even when others aren’t.”
    “How did you know…?” Antonia started to ask,but Claudia was busy rummaging in a drawer for her car keys and didn’t answer.
    “Here they are,” she said, holding them up. “I’ll run