“Ben!” shouted Zoe, hearing the panic in her own voice. “Ben! Where are you?”
A jumble of thoughts went round her head. Had her brother been swept further out to sea by the current? Had he jumped clear of the boat? Was he caught inside it, unable to free himself?
Zoe had a moment of cold, paralyzing horror. Wherever he was in this terrible sea, she had little chance of rescuing him.
She shook those fears away. She knew she had to try and find him. She scanned the waves. It was a terrifying sight. Each swell looked bigger than the one before and the wind was blowing the rain hard into her face until her cheeks stung. The black clouds were still overhead, making it so dark it was impossible to see far.
And then a faint cry reached her. Zoe pushed herself round in the water to see a dark shape being thrown about in the waves. It must be Ben!
Zoe struggled to make her way to him, feeling herself being sucked back the whole time by the currents. She could see Ben’s arms thrashing through the water. At last, he was near enough for her to grab hold of his life jacket.
“You’re OK!” Zoe could scarcely get the words out in her relief.
“Just about,” shouted her brother over the roar of the storm. “Now what?”
“Find the boat!” yelled Zoe. “We need something to hold on to.”
“Won’t it have sunk?”
“Flotation tank. Keeps it on the surface. And with any luck the backpacks will still be attached.”
“So we just have to locate it then.”
“Easy!” shouted Zoe. “You tagged it, remember.”
“Brilliant!” Ben tried to punch the air and choked on a mouthful of water.
Zoe pulled her BUG out of the water, feeling a surge of relief that it was safely secured to her diving belt. She wiped her wet hair from her eyes and called up the tracking screen. “It’s a long way off!” she called, watching the orange light in the water that marked the dinghy’s position. “But we’ve got to try. This way.”
Fighting the storm currents, they tried to make headway through the dark water.
Finally, Zoe slowed and trod water. “We’re not getting very far,” she panted. “I need a rest.”
“Agreed,” gasped Ben. They lay their heads back on their life jackets, holding hands to keep together, riding each wave.
“Is it my imagination or are the waves getting calmer?” said Ben, at last.
“You’re right,” said Zoe. “Look over there, there’s a break in the cloud.”
Ben looked up. Thin beams of sunlight could be seen filtering through the clouds.
“You’ve still got your BUG, haven’t you?” asked Zoe.
“Safely tied to my belt,” answered Ben. “But the limpet’s with the boat – so there’s no point in sending out a call to Fingal.
He’d go there instead of coming to us.”
“He’s probably way off now,” said Zoe, “but we can still check his tracking signal.”
She had just got her hand round her BUG when the dark water swirled ahead and something heavy slammed into their legs. Ben and Zoe looked down in alarm.
A smiling dolphin face popped up from the waves in front of them, a scar running down from its right eye. It was Fingal. The young dolphin chirped loudly, walked backwards on his tail and then came swimming back to them.
Zoe stroked his side as he swam past.
“We’re so glad to see you,” she cried. “Now the hurricane’s moved on, you’ve come to find us!”
Suddenly, the water all around them began to seethe, and in an instant they were surrounded by sleek grey bodies, arcing and diving through the waves.
“It’s a pod of dolphins,” gasped Ben. “Fingal seems to have made friends with them.”
They could see Fingal leaping amongst the group.
“They’re getting a bit close for comfort,” shouted Zoe, above the cries and chirps. “They’re circling us. I expect they’re just playing, but we’ll have trouble getting past them.”
The dolphins were swimming right up to Ben and Zoe now, forming a tight band around them. They felt their arms and legs being buffeted by the strong flippers.
Ben held out his arms to fend them off.
“I don’t think they’re playing,” he said anxiously. “We should try and break through before we get hurt.”
As a tail passed him, he kicked hard, hoping to burst through the gap, but at once another dolphin was on him, pushing him back to Zoe with its nose.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he yelled. “Remember that programme about those dolphins that attacked seals and ate them?”
Zoe looked at him in horror. “We’re in big trouble!”
