Read Online Midnight Dolphin by James Carmody - Free Book Online Page A

started Secondary School, it had seemed so massive and
unwelcoming with hordes of children streaming about in all
directions. Now that Lucy knew where everything was and who all the
teachers were, it didn’t seem so bad. In September she’d had to
help the new kids wandering around who looked so lost. It was funny
to think that she’d been just like that the year before. Now the
school looked much smaller. Lucy thought about what Spirit had said
recently. Lucy had been able to project into his mind what school
looked like. He had been horrified by the smallness of it
all.
    ‘ There’s
barely enough space to turn!’ he exclaimed. ‘One flick of my tail
flukes and I’d hit my beak on the wall’ he continued. ‘I don’t know
how humans manage to live in such miniscule boxes. I’d go mad if I
was stuck in such a tiny space.’ Lucy thought about Star-Gazer
being trapped in the muddy lagoon by Mr and Mrs Penrose. They
thought that they were protecting her while she was getting better.
Instead Star-Gazer had become desperately lonely and unwell. Lucy
liked to view her life as a school girl through the eyes of a
dolphin and imagine her classroom filling up with sea water and a
dolphin swimming in through the window.
    ‘ But you have
no freedom at all’ Spirit said to her another time when they were
discussing her life at school.
    ‘ We go to
school to learn the things that we need to know so that we can be
free when we grow up’ she’d tried to explain.
    ‘ Then you have
to get one of those job things you told me about and you told me that in
a job you have to work eight hours a day doing what someone else
tells you. You have to pay to live in one of those tiny boxes. It
seems to me that you’re not free at all’ Spirit went on, shaking
his head in wonder.
    It was very
hard for Lucy to explain how human society worked. Despite what
Spirit said though, she didn’t like to think about the alternative.
She couldn’t sleep in a field in the way that Spirit could float on
the surface of the wide open sea at night. He might call houses
‘tiny boxes’, but they were warm, safe and dry and she found them
comforting.
    ‘ You humans
are all so frail!’ Spirit had exclaimed another time. ‘It’s amazing
that any of you survive at all’.
     
    Lucy didn’t
have Eng Lit at all that day and had no reason to go and speak to
Mrs Penhaligon. She felt awkward as she sidled round the door of
the classroom as the remains of Mrs Penhaligon’s class streamed out
at first break. Mrs Penhaligon was stacking books when she glanced
round and saw Lucy standing there.
    ‘ Ah Lucy. How
are you today?’ Lucy tried to put on a brave face.
    ‘ Alright I
suppose’ Lucy replied.
    ‘ In other
words not really’ Mrs Penhaligon observed. ‘Have you been able to
talk to your aunt or your dad yet?’ Lucy shook her head.
    ‘ No, no I
haven’t’ she replied, ‘but this came in the post.’ Lucy held out
the copy of the ‘Flora and Fauna of the Cornish Coast.’
    ‘ Whatever is
this?’ asked Mrs Penhaligon, taking it from her hand curiously and
examining the cover.
    ‘ Like I said,
it came in the post but I’ve no idea who sent it. It used to belong
to my Mum though. Her handwriting is all over the margins where
she’s made notes. There’s, there’s something I want to ask you. I
don’t know what the notes mean. Do you for example know who
Jeremiah Smith is? Look it says ‘Jeremiah Smith’. ‘Third journal.’
What do you think that might mean?’
    ‘ Well as it
happens’ replied Mrs Penhaligon, ‘you’re in luck. I do know who the
Reverend Jeremiah Smith was.’
    ‘ You do, who
was he?’
    ‘ He was the
rector of the church at the end of Bussey Lane. You know where that
is don’t you? Just on the edge of Merwater. He was quite a well
known man in the area in the Eighteen Fifties. He recorded the folk
tales and stories from all over Cornwall. He published several
accounts of the folklore he came across. He was also