Dolphin Dreams, page 12
Will couldn’t swim—not very well, anyway. Whenever his head went underwater, even in the pool-calm water of our little cove, he panicked and started flailing around and eventually sank. Which was weird, since the whole rest of the family was practically part fish. I learned to swim before I could really even walk—we had home movies that proved it. And I’d made the varsity swim team at my middle school right away, even though most people stayed on JV for at least a year.
“Come on, let’s go in, too.” I poked Emma on the shoulder.
“Ow.” She swatted my finger away. “You go. It’s still too cold for me.”
“Fine.” Her eyes were closed now, so she didn’t see my frown. The old Emma loved to swim. I quickly wrapped my waist-length braid into a messy bun and secured it with an elastic. Then I headed for the water.
The younger boys were already splashing around in the shallows, throwing sand and trying to scare one another by pretending to see jellyfish and sharks every five seconds. It was a still day and the waves weren’t big enough for bodysurfing, so I waded to the drop-off thirty feet out, where the water suddenly gets deep.
I’d forgotten my snorkeling mask and didn’t feel like going back to get it. So I just dove down and skimmed along with my eyes closed, enjoying the feel of the cool water on my skin. When I came up for air, I heard splashing behind me and opened my eyes quickly, wondering if Emma had changed her mind about swimming.
It wasn’t Emma, though. Jacob was bobbing in the water, grinning at me. His hair, dark and curly like Dad’s, was plastered to his forehead.
“Want to race?” he asked. “Out to the spit and back.”
“You’re on.”
I let myself sink under and did a strong whip kick, gliding forward before he had a chance to get moving. Then I surfaced and went straight into a front crawl, my arms windmilling steadily as if I was in the finals at a swim meet.
Suddenly I felt a hand grab my ankle. A sharp yank pulled me under, and I came up sputtering. “Cheater!” I yelled as my brother swam past me with a laugh.
I was about to lunge forward and dunk him, but he’d paused and shaded his face to stare at something. “What’s that?” he said.
I followed his gaze and saw movement on the rocky spit at the edge of the cove. For a second, I panicked, thinking Will must have walked out there again. A lot of trash washed up on the spit, carried in from the harbor by the tides and trapped by the jagged rocks. One day last summer, Will had spotted a cool-looking bottle or something through Dad’s binoculars and decided he wanted to retrieve it. So he’d waited until Jacob wasn’t looking and sneaked off, picking his way along the precarious wall of stone and barnacles and algae. It was a miracle he hadn’t slipped and fallen in and been swept all the way out to Long Island Sound. He’d ended up with a big gash on his foot from a piece of broken glass, though, and Jacob had been in big trouble for not paying enough attention when he was supposed to be watching him.
But a quick glance over my shoulder told me that Will was still splashing around safely in the shallows. I swam past Jacob, squinting against the sunlight glinting off the water. Blinking moisture out of my eyes, I saw a silvery shape huddled against the rocks.
“I think—I think it’s a dolphin!” I exclaimed. “A bottlenose.”
I stared in wonder. The sleek gray creature was pressed up against the rocks, half-submerged in the frothy little waves breaking against the spit. He looked just like the dolphins I’d seen many times at the aquarium over in Mystic. Or from the boat, where we occasionally spotted them swimming along in the distance, especially out toward the eastern end of the Sound.
Except this one was right here, less than ten feet in front of me. “Careful.” Jacob was still treading water behind me. “It may look cute, but it’s a wild animal. Don’t get too close.”
“I won’t.” I kicked forward a little more. “Why isn’t he swimming away?”
“Annie, stop.” Jacob sounded worried.
I ignored him, my gaze fixed on the dolphin. He wiggled and his tail slapped against the rock, but he stayed where he was.
“Easy, buddy,” I said soothingly. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. I just want to see … ”
My voice trailed off as the dolphin thrashed again, giving me a better look at the rest of his body.
“Oh gosh!” I glanced back at Jacob. “He’s all tangled up in fishing line!” My heart pounded as I swam even closer, trying to get a better look. A tangle of what looked like heavy-duty braided line was wrapped around the dolphin’s midsection and part of his tail, pretty much lashing him to the rocks behind him.
The dolphin stopped struggling for a moment, staring at me with dark eyes that were wise, gentle, and curious. There was a large, half-healed wound zigzagging across his face, starting in front of one eye and ending just short of the blowhole atop his head.
“Easy, easy,” I murmured, using an eggbeater kick to steady myself as the current carried me toward the dolphin. “I’m your friend, okay?”
The dolphin let out a funny little chirping sound, but he stayed still as I tentatively reached toward him. I was vaguely aware of Jacob calling out to me again, but I barely heard him. I couldn’t take my eyes off the dolphin. I’d never seen one up so close like this, not without a thick pane of glass between us, anyway. The dolphin seemed bigger than I would have expected, and maybe a little wilder, too. Somehow, though, I didn’t really feel afraid, just weirdly shy. Holding my breath, I leaned forward and touched the dolphin’s side.
His skin felt rubbery and smooth. I stroked it gently, and the dolphin chirped again, his gaze never leaving my face. I couldn’t believe he was letting me pet him; it made me feel honored and sort of breathless, like the first time Emma’s mom asked my opinion on one of her paintings. As I ran my hand up toward his dorsal fin, an extra-large wave washed past me, splashing up and making the dolphin thrash once more. I winced as the line dug deeper into that smooth gray skin.
I turned to see Jacob still bobbing in the water twenty yards back. “He’s really stuck,” I called. “The tide’s coming in, and soon he won’t be able to keep his blowhole above the surface. He’ll die if we don’t help him!”
CATHERINE HAPKA has written many books for children and young adults. She lives in Pennsylvania and enjoys reading, horseback riding, music, gardening, and traveling.
ALSO BY CATHERINE HAPKA
Heart of a Dolphin
Copyright © 2017 by Catherine Hapka
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1-338-13642-5
First printing 2017
Cover art © 2017 by Michael Heath
Cover design by Mary Claire Cruz
e-ISBN 978-1-338-13643-2
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
Catherine Hapka, Dolphin Dreams
