Free Dolphin Child by James Carmody

called him scrawny; he
really was very thin and his mass of curly hair merely accentuated
the slightness of the rest of his body.
    Lucy wondered whether Paul might be a liar like those big kids
had claimed, yet when he described the grounds of the house where
he said a dolphin was kept in a saltwater lake, she wasn’t so sure.
He seemed to tell her with utter sincerity and a kind of shyness
that made her realise he wasn’t just saying it to show
off.
    ‘ Where is this place?’ asked Lucy curiously. ‘Can you take me
there?’
    ‘ I go cycling on my own’ replied Paul. ‘I don’t take no one
with me.’
    ‘ Oh go on, you could take me’ Lucy urged him. ‘You told me all
about it the other day.’
    ‘ No’ said Paul defiantly. Now he wished he hadn’t said what he
told her the other day, even if she was supposed to be a Dolphin
Child. With a fluid and practised twist of his hips, he half jumped
and half slid from the low branch that they were both sitting on,
landing on the wet grass of the recreation field with a
thud.
    ‘ Hey, come back!’ Lucy called, too nervous to jump down herself
and looking around for the nails driven into the tree trunk which
she had used to climb up in the first place. Paul started walking
away from her towards the swings. Lucy hastily clambered back down
the tree, ripping the sleeve of her t-shirt on one of the nails in
her anxiety to get down and go after him. She jumped the last bit
and ran to catch up with him.
    ‘ What’s with you then?’ she asked.
    ‘ You’ve got your dolphins in the sea’ he said, turning to look
at her. ‘You get to swim around with them. You’re a Dolphin-Child.
You come from a big town and your aunt’s a well-known artist.
Everything’s easy for you.’ Lucy wanted to say that things
certainly weren’t easy for her, but she knew her words would sound
hollow and insincere if she said so.
    ‘ I just thought I could….help’ Lucy replied simply.
    ‘ Well I don’t need your help’ he answered sharply. ‘I shouldn’t
have told you what I did. I can sort things out on my own. My Mum
said…., well...’ He trailed off and then turned to walk towards the
gate to Truro Road. Lucy remembered that Thelma said he lived just
next to the park in the end-of-terrace house with peeling paint and
weeds in the garden. Lucy followed Paul. She wanted to say
something more to him, but she wasn’t sure what.
    ‘ I don’t even know what a Dolphin-Child is’ she said eventually
as he neared the road. ‘Why can’t you help me?’
    ‘ Go look in the museum’ he replied, without looking back at
her. Lucy just could not understand why he should suddenly switch
like this. Just then Mrs Treddinick emerged from the house. She
wore a shapeless cardigan and looked tired beyond her
years.
    ‘ Paul, who is that?’ she shouted across the road at her
son.
    ‘ It’s, well…..’
    ‘ It’s not that girl you told me about is it?’ Paul didn’t deny
it. ‘Come over here this instant’ she called to Paul, anger
catching in her voice. Lucy stopped where she was, while Paul
crossed the road over to where his mother stood at their front
gate.
    ‘ You stay away from my boy, you hear!’ Mrs Treddinick shouted
back across at Lucy. ‘You and your kind are dangerous. You stop
following him around. You’ll be the death of all of us!’ She
marched her son into the house and banged her door shut behind
her.
    Lucy stood there, shocked and disbelieving, unable to
comprehend what had prompted the outburst from Paul’s mother. She
had no friends of her own here in Merwater and even Paul, who was
picked on by other kids, had turned his back on her. Now his mother
was shouting at her and she didn’t understand why. Lucy burst out
into bitter tears. She turned to walk back down the road to
Thelma’s house where she and Bethany were still chatting over the
tea things.
    ‘ Lucy, whatever is the matter?’ exclaimed Bethany as she walked
back into Thelma’s kitchen.