Free Midnight Dolphin by James Carmody Page B

on the beach when they got there and Mum and Dad
staked out a spot not too far from the water, but near enough to
the dunes to have some protection from them. Dad put up the
windbreak and set up the camping chair to sit on. Mum spread out a
beach towel and sat down on the ground, her things around
her.
    ‘ Mum, are you
going to come swimming?’ called out Megan.
    ‘ Not quite yet
girls’ their mother replied, looking up from her book. Megan and
Bethany already had their swim suits on underneath and tugged off
their tee-shirts and shorts and raced down to the water’s edge.
Bethany splashed water at her older sister and Megan flicked spray
back in Bethany’s general direction.
    ‘ Ooh it’s
cold!’ exclaimed Bethany as she went up to her knees in the
sea.
    ‘ You wait till
later’ replied Megan. ‘Once the sun’s higher it’ll soon warm up.’
The two girls ran up and down and to some extent Megan’s troubles
didn’t seem quite as bad as before. Even so, when Bethany stopped
to pick up a shell, Megan found herself scanning the horizon for
anything that might be moving out there on the calm surface of the
sea.
    Eventually the
two girls went back to their parents and flopped down on the beach
towels their mother had laid out. There were quite a few families
on the beach now. Megan and Bethany were lucky that they’d
inherited their mother’s olive skin and they tanned easily. Their
dad though had caught the sun badly and had great red blotches on
his skin where he’d forgotten to apply sun cream evenly.
    ‘ Tell us a
story Daddy!’ demanded Bethany as she wriggled about on the beach
towel, digging her toes into the sand.
    ‘ Well let me
see’ said Dad thoughtfully. ‘There was once a whale called Boris
and he sailed the seven seas looking for an ice cream…’
    ‘ That’s silly,
whales don’t eat ice creams!’ giggled Bethany.
    ‘ Well this one
did’ Dad went on ‘and he didn’t find one anywhere till he came here
to Black Gull Sands. Then he saw a little girl called Bethany
eating a vanilla cone with ice cream all round her mouth and be
bellowed out ‘ I want ice
cream ’’ Bethany laughed and Megan
smiled.
    ‘ But the
little girl said she wouldn’t and Boris the whale was so annoyed
that he blew water all over that little girl from his blow hole!’
Dad surreptitiously unscrewed the top from his bottle of water and
splashed a few drops over the unsuspecting Bethany. The little girl
jumped in surprise and they all laughed. Megan looked up at her
dad’s face. It reminded her of the happy holidays they’d had when
she had been about six or seven.
    ‘ What about
that sandcastle that you were going to build girls?’ asked
Mum.
    ‘ Ooh yes!’
replied Bethany. ‘Can we make one now Megan?’ she asked, looking at
her sister.’
    ‘ Okay then’
said Megan smiling. ‘Let’s start over there where the sand isn’t so
dry.’ Bethany started digging and enthusiastically filling up her
bucket with sand. The first time she planted the bucket upside down
the contents just collapsed, but with Megan’s help they were able
to make a circle of eight or nine castles on the sand.
    ‘ The horses
live inside’ said Bethany excitedly, placing a couple of plastic
horses in the middle. ‘I know, let’s dig a moat.’ The two of them
started scooping out sand in a big circle. Bethany ran down to the
edge of the sea to scoop up more water in a bucket and poured it
ceremoniously into the moat, but the water just drained away into
the moist sand almost as soon as she poured it in.
    ‘ If you dig
deep enough the hole will fill up with water’ said Megan. Between
the two of them they soon dug a hole that went up to Bethany’s
knees when she jumped into it. Water seeped up through the sand but
before they could make a really decent hole, the sides began to
collapse inwards.
    Bethany
decided to decorate the sandcastles with shells and went down to
the waters’ edge to look for them. Megan went down