Free Maddy's Dolphin by Imogen Tovey Page B

was still wearing his swimming trunks to bed – and they both grabbed their trainers as they quietly sneaked out of the flat and down to the sea. They ran along to the jetty and found Indigo there, looking a lot better than he had yesterday.
    â€˜I have news,’ said Indigo and quickly explained that word had reached him in the lake that, on the same day he had been hit, another dolphin had been hit by a jet ski and hurt. This dolphin, a young male called Loner, had been found drifting in a daze by his mum who had become worried about him when he hadn’t returned to her and his pod after a couple of hours. Loner had a habit of just swimming off on his own and exploring, as he was a very inquisitive dolphin, but he would always return to his mum after an hour. Loner was much disoriented and couldn’t explain what had happened to him until late last night. He was fine now, but his mum and everyone else had been very worried about him for a while. Jet skis and speedboats are really hazardous for dolphins. They go so fast that dolphins can’t always get out of their way in time.
    Anyway, his pod, along with every dolphin in the Gulf of Corinth, had heard about Lucy. When they heard Loner describe how he had been playing with a jellyfish when two jet skis had seemed to come right out of the rock and then hit him before he had a chance to dive out of the way, the pod knew that they had to send word to Indigo and had sent a dolphin to the lake to tell him.
    The surprising thing about this news was that where Loner had been hit was very close by, and not over towards Patrai and the Ionian Sea at all. In fact it was just around the corner from the entrance to the lake and a couple of miles along. It was overland form Petrakhora. The coast along there is very rocky and uninhabited. Now if Loner saw the jet skis coming from the rocks, then they must have been hidden in a cave.
    â€˜Yes!’ shouted Maddy and quickly brought CJ up to speed.
    â€˜You mean they were hiding in a cave?’ said CJ.
    â€˜They could be hiding Lucy in the same cave still,’ said Maddy.
    They discussed it further and it made perfect sense. There were hundreds of police, army and FBI officers looking for her, with helicopters and everything. The land had been and was still being searched very well. And there were submarines out in the Ionian Sea with their sonar going, so if the kidnappers had left the Gulf going into the sea, then they would have been found. If they hid in a cave, no one would find them.
    Indigo said that he had moved two pods of dolphins out to the area where they thought the cave may be. They were going to monitor the sea for any comings and goings and would report back to him if anything was seen. He had told them not to search for a cave at this time, as he didn’t want to alert the kidnappers, but a few dolphins swimming around wouldn’t look out of place at the moment. He told Maddy and CJ that he would keep them updated and said they should get back to bed before it was noticed that they were gone.
    Maddy wanted to know how he was before she went, though, and he had to reassure her he was fine – a bit sore still, but he was OK. He then swam off saying, ‘See you later for our swim.’
    A few short hours later, they were all together again. They were happier than they had been for a couple of days now. They were hopeful that they would get some good news today. They dived down deep, splashed each other and played tag together and they had great fun and spent most of their time laughing. Ishbel came down to the stony beach to shout for them for breakfast and noticed that there was great interest on the beach in her two children and the dolphin.
    Since Lucy had been kidnapped there had been lots of press around. They had been interviewing everyone. They were camping outside the hotel where the President was staying and their little town had not been off the news. As Ishbel shouted for her