When Finn jumped off the boat into the water, he plunged down deep, further than he’d expected, and for a long scary moment he was filled with panic. But almost immediately, the change began. There was that kindly, embracing feeling of the sea again, the same glorious sense of power, and the amazing sights and sounds of the underwater world.
He had already picked up the whistles of distress from his dolphin friends further out to sea and was desperate to reach them.
Surfacing, he looked back and was relieved to see the Peggy Sue sailing after him, foam creaming along her bow wave. He had to go much more slowly than he wanted to. The wind wasn’t much more than a breeze, and the little boat could go at only half his speed. And all the time, way out ahead, the dolphins’ agitated whistles were calling to him.
After what seemed an age, he heard Jas’s excited shout, and he lifted his head out of the water.
‘Look! Over there! Balloons!’
‘I don’t believe this.’ That was Charlie’s voice. ‘Am I dreaming?’
‘This is really . . . It’s just all wrong. I’ve got goose bumps,’ Amir said.
Finn was suddenly afraid that the dolphins would panic if the Peggy Sue came right up on top of them. He let out a few experimental whistles, not sure if he was doing it right, and felt a jolt of relief when he heard the answering whistle of his first dolphin friend.
Then, suddenly, he was with them, right there inside the pod. The young female with the string caught round her flipper was writhing feebly. It was clear that she was exhausted, nearly ready to give up the struggle. On the surface there were fewer balloons now, and a couple of dolphins had strings hanging out of their mouths from the balloons they’d swallowed. It was too late to do anything about them. A couple were still playing with the few balloons that hadn’t deflated, tossing them up into the air with flicks of their beaks.
Finn turned back to the Peggy Sue, which was now only a few metres away from the dolphins.
‘Slow her down,’ he called out Charlie. ‘Don’t scare them.’
There were rattling, creaking sounds as Amir released the jib to let the wind out of the sail, and the Peggy Sue glided to a halt.
Finn darted back into the mass of dolphins. His first friend came up to him, with clicks of greeting. Finn briefly buzzed him in reply, then made straight for the female tangled in the string. He moved alongside her, stroked his hand along her flank, and buzzed in what he hoped was a friendly and reassuring way. Then, moving gently, he began to nudge her towards the boat.
She was so tired that she could barely swim, and had only enough energy to come to the surface and breathe. She let Finn push her the last few metres until the two of them were right alongside the dinghy.
Jas was watching for him. He heard her take in a sharp breath as she saw the state the dolphin was in.
‘Amir! Look at this!’ she called out.
‘I don’t believe it! Finn was right!’ he heard Amir say.
‘I’ll try to hold her,’ Finn called up to them. ‘Cut the string with your scissors.’
The dinghy rocked as Jas shifted her weight to pull out her bag from under the seat and fish out her scissors. She leaned as far as she could over the side to reach down to the tangled dolphin, with Amir beside her.
‘Amir!’ barked Charlie. ‘Don’t lean out like that, or we’ll capsize. What are you doing, Jas?’
‘I can’t . . . reach,’ panted Jas, straining forward with the scissors in her hand. ‘It won’t keep still. I’m scared of jabbing it with the scissors.’
‘Hold on,’ said Finn. ‘I’ll try to raise her up.’
He dived deeper, and, taking the young dolphin in his arms, he gently raised her whole body until she was half out of the water, treading water to keep himself afloat.
‘That’s it. Nearly! Yes, I’ve cut one bit. Tilt it over a bit, Finn. There – got it! That’s its flipper freed. Wait, there’s more string tying up its mouth.’
It was trickier cutting the string around the dolphin’s mouth. Finn whistled and buzzed, stroking her as gently as he could, but she kept jerking nervously away, and the dinghy lurched dangerously as Jas lunged after the dolphin.
‘You’ll have to help me, Charlie,’ Jas said. ‘It needs two of us.’
‘I told you, we can’t both hang over the side,’ said Charlie. ‘We’ll tip the boat over.’
‘Not if I lean right out over the other side,’ said Amir, ‘like they do in the sailing races.’
‘I don’t want to risk it,’ said Charlie. ‘This is my boat. I’m the skipper. I—’
‘Just shut up, Charlie, and look, can’t you?’ snarled Jas. ‘This is an emergency. Do you want this poor creature to die?’
The dinghy rocked violently as Amir and Charlie moved. Then Charlie’s head appeared alongside Jas’s.
‘That’s terrible,’ Charlie said, looking horrified. ‘The poor thing. Here, Jas, pass me the scissors. I’m nearer its head than you are. Shift it round a bit this way, Finn. Can you catch its flipper and hold it steady? Why don’t you sing a wee song? Aren’t you supposed to sing to dolphins? To calm them down?’
‘That’s seals,’ called out Amir, who was leaning so far out of the dinghy on the other side that he looked as if he was about to fall into the sea.
In spite of Finn’s sea-strength, it was all he could do to keep the slippery dolphin from panicking completely and wriggling out of his arms.
‘Hurry up, Charlie,’ he said. ‘I can’t hold her much longer.’
‘Nearly there,’ said Charlie. He had the dolphin’s head at the right angle now, and the scissors snipped away the string. ‘There you are. It’ll be all right now.’
As Jas and Charlie watched, with big grins on their faces, the dolphin shook herself, waggled her head, opened her beak experimentally, smacked her flippers down on the water, and with an energetic arching of her back, she was gone.
‘High five!’ yelled Charlie, slapping Jas’s upraised hand. ‘Life saved! That was great.’
‘Hey, watch out!’ shouted Amir. The dinghy had tipped alarmingly as Charlie and Jas stopped leaning over the side. ‘You could have warned me you were moving. I nearly fell in.’
‘What’s Finn doing now?’ said Jas. ‘Look, he’s grabbing the strings we cut. Wait, he’s bringing them here to us!’
Of course I am, you idiot, thought Finn, not bothering to answer. What do you want me to do? Leave all this junk in the sea so the others can get caught up in it too?
He swam back to the dinghy and handed the strings and the last few balloons up to Jas. She leaned over the side and took them.
‘I can’t see any more,’ he said. ‘Can you?’
‘No, but I’m sure we let loose a whole lot more.’
‘You did,’ Finn said grimly. ‘The other dolphins have eaten the rest. Wait, there are a couple more over there.’
He streaked away again. The pod of dolphins was a little way away now, as the Peggy Sue had started drifting. Finn grabbed the last two balloons, swam back to the dinghy and handed them to Charlie and Amir. Finn could see awe and astonishment in the two boys’ eyes as they took in the transformation that had come over him.
‘This can’t be happening,’ said Amir, taking off his glasses to wipe off the sea water that was smearing them with salt. ‘We’ve got to be in some kind of dream.’
‘No one’s ever going to believe us,’ said Jas. ‘Everyone’s going to think we’re crazy.’
‘Better not say anything then,’ retorted Charlie. ‘Anyway, what’s there to tell? Finn’s an amazing swimmer, and we never knew it? Been keeping it secret all these years? You’ve got to admit, it’s typical of him. All that selkie business, it’s a load of rubbish. Of course it is.’
‘Nobody can swim like that,’ said Amir. ‘Besides, how did he know about the balloons and where to find the dolphins?’
‘Must have heard it from the crew of one of those launches that’s been cruising around here.’
‘What launches? And since when does Finn hang around talking to sailors?’ said Amir.
Charlie didn’t answer. His practical brain was rebelling furiously against the idea of anything magical.
‘We’ll have to tell Kyla and Dougie,’ said Jas.
‘You can’t trust Dougie to keep a secret,’ Charlie scoffed. ‘He’ll blab it all out to his mum at once.’
‘Yes, but I can hear what she’d say, can’t you?’ said Amir. ‘ “What a sweet story, Dougie, darling. A boy who can swim like a fish? You’re so cute, with your lovely imagination. Come here and give Mummy a kiss—” ’
‘Hey, look!’ interrupted Charlie. ‘Finn’s in trouble now! One of the dolphins is attacking him!’
Finn heard.
‘Shut up, idiot,’ he called out. ‘He’s my friend. The first one I met. Watch this.’
He moved alongside his friend, buzzing. An answering buzz came. Then, just as they had done before, the pair of them dived a bit, and launched themselves upward, with perfect timing, in a glorious leap.
‘Wow! That’s amazing!’ Finn heard the children cry out, but he and his friend were off again, diving and leaping, as they circled round the dinghy in a brilliant display of dolphin and sea-boy acrobatics.
Then, suddenly, his friend was off, streaking away through the water in pursuit of his pod. Finn almost followed him, his whole body twitching with longing as he felt the call of the dolphins’ distant whistles and the pull of friendship and freedom in the deep ocean.
Then Jas called out, ‘Finn! That was awesome. You’re amazing!’
And Amir said, ‘You couldn’t teach me to do that, could you, Finn – that leaping thing?’
Then came Charlie’s voice, squeaky with anxiety. ‘Pull in the sail, Amir. The wind’s getting up. It’ll drive us out to sea. It’s going to be hard to get back to shore.’
Finn ducked his head under the water to listen longingly once more to the dolphins’ departing whistle. Then he surfaced again and called out, ‘Don’t worry, Charlie. Give me the rope. I’ll tow you.’
‘I’ve seen it all now,’ marvelled Charlie, throwing the bow rope overboard to Finn, who caught it expertly and tied it round his chest. ‘You’re right, Jas – we’ll never be able to tell anyone about this. They’d think we were daft. I don’t know what or who Finn thinks he is, but he can certainly swim like a dolphin, anyway. Let’s get going, Finn. This wind’s getting stronger.’
Neither Finn nor the three children in the Peggy Sue saw the small knot of adults who had gathered on the beach, anxiously watching the little dinghy come storming back to shore.
Mrs Faridah was wringing her hands fretfully.
‘You should not have given them permission, Professor,’ she was saying. ‘Children alone out at sea like that. It’s too dangerous.’
‘Mm, well, Jas is usually very reliable,’ Professor Jamieson said unhappily. ‘I do think it’s best to trust children if you can.’
Mr Munro had been staring out to sea, biting his lip as he watched the little boat, glancing up all the time at the sky where purple clouds were building up on the horizon. But as the Peggy Sue came scudding through the water, nearer and nearer to the beach, his face lightened and cracked into a broad grin.
‘Look at that! Keeping a steady course with that wind behind him? Neatest bit of sailing I ever saw. You’ve no need to worry, Mrs Faridah, and you did the right thing to let them go out, Professor. My Charlie’s a great little sailor, so he is. Nice one, son.’