I swim out to them on the murmuring sea. As I reach them, their circle opens to let me in, then re-forms. The dolphins rise and blow, floating, one eye open, the other shut in half sleep.

Joyful with the coming day, I splash and whistle at a milky sun. The dolphins wake and whistle too. They are suddenly and fully aware. The ocean fills with their sound. Flukes slapping. Quick calls rising and falling. We slide under and over each other, racing through the morning waves, riding the misty lid of the sea.

Three gulls sit on the soft shoulder of a swell. So quiet, I come with my dolphin cousins, up from below, and scare the bobbing birds. The gulls rise, screaming mad. We laugh and laugh, bright beads of dolphin noise, while above the birds dip and cry.

A cool wind tickles the swells and one free gull feather floats on the face of the sea. My dolphin cousin grabs it and darts below. Under she goes, then up again, faster, springing into the air. She passes the feather to the next cousin who takes her turn diving, running, playing with it. Their game spins me in the waves. The small hairs rise on my arms.

While we play, the old ones search for something to eat. They flash their blinding sound into a school of silver fish. As my dolphin family swims, mouths open, through the thick school, I climb out of the sea.

Standing on the small beach, the mangrove swamp at my back, I hear a sound over the rush and hiss of the tide, over the whistles and squeaks of my dolphin family feeding, over the splashing and tail slapping. I hear a sound pushing at the air. It beats like a giant heart. Airplane. I see it far-off, pressed against the roof of the sky. It growls a distant warning.

I turn away to feed on molting crab, juicy roots, ribbons of salt weeds.

The plane comes closer. The sound of it shakes my bones. My skin shivers, like an orca is coming.

My dolphin mother senses danger, my smooth, beautiful mother with her wise eyes and her spotted flukes. I hear her; she calls me back to sea. I want to go to her. I am afraid of the plane. But I must find water to drink first and give my mother more time to eat. She does not eat enough because of me.

I make my way through the wet and tangled roots of the mangrove, creeping toward the opposite side of the cay. I reach the long rocks where rain gathers in wide, deep pools. There is much water today. I cup my hands and drink. The water is cool with a hint of salt. When my hands can gather no more, I scoop the water into a shell, and when the shell brings nothing, I suck at what remains with my lips.

While I drink, the plane flies close again. No longer is it a distant gleaming. It comes too near. It is not like other planes, more like an ugly fish with spinning fins on its back.

Something drops from it. I try to hide. The wind from the plane makes my long hair fly. The mangrove pitches and roars. I am pounded by spinning air. The earth shakes and circles of sand rise around me. I sense the frantic whistle of my mother, but the sound is lost in the scream of the plane.

And then a man jumps out. He comes after me. I slip deeper into the mangroves. But the man is too big, too fast.

I cannot get away.