Dolphin Child Read Online Free PDF Page B

taller boy replied. ‘Thinks
he’s something special when he’s not. He needs to be taught a
lesson.’ They clattered off back down the path of the stream,
slipping on the slime-covered stones as they went.
    Lucy looked around her. The hill reared up behind. There was a
grassy slope with what looked like a couple of apple trees, some
nettles, then a fence and behind that some houses. Looking in the
other direction, Lucy could see the roof tops and then the harbour
and sea not so far away. The walled gulley where the stream
trickled was like a secret street for kids. ‘Cool’ she thought to
herself. There was nothing like this were she lived. It was all
signposts and safety railings there. She half expected the boy with
curly hair to reappear from behind the fence, but he didn’t. He
must have been long gone.
    Lucy wondered how to get back down to the harbour. She glanced
at her watch and realised that she was late for her rendezvous with
Bethany. She guessed that there must be a road or a path or
something, but the most direct route was back down the stream she’d
just come up. She didn’t want to come across those older kids
again, but the noise of them had receded and she hoped she would
miss them. She made her way cautiously back down the walled gulley,
holding on to the sides of the stone wall on either side to steady
herself and then carefully stepping from one dry stone to the next
when she was back on the main stream bed. She carefully picked her
way along the stream, walked under the main road again and soon
found herself back where the trickle of water came out onto the
pebble beach. The children had gone, but the tide had come in
during the short time she’d been away and there was almost no beach
left under the harbour walls. It was that easy to get cut off by
the tide.
    She found the cast-iron ladder again and climbed up over the
wall onto street level. Bethany was there waiting for her, looking
distractedly at her watch.
    ‘ Whoa!’ Where did you pop up from?’ she asked.
    ‘ Oh’ I’ve just been exploring’ replied Lucy.
    ‘ Well another ten minutes and you’d have been swimming’ Bethany
went on, peering down at the rising tide.
    ‘ Find anything interesting?’
    ‘ I was nosing around up that walled stream that runs from the
beach under the High Street.’
    ‘ Oh that? That’s a storm drain really. A town like this built
on a hill is like a funnel in a storm and could easily flash-flood
if they didn’t have that kind of thing. I hope you didn’t come
across any rats or anything down there.’ They turned to walk back
to the Land Rover.
    ‘ Bethany, what are the local kids around here like?’ asked Lucy
shyly. Bethany grinned. So that was why Lucy had been off
exploring.
    ‘ You tell me.’
    ‘ I’m not sure they’re that nice’ replied Lucy.
    ‘ Well there’s good and bad anywhere you go Kiddo’ said Bethany,
placing a companionable arm around Lucy’s shoulder as they walked.
‘But I’m sure you’ll find some good ones. I’m sorry I’ve not been
able to fix you up with any play dates’ she continued, ‘but I just
don’t know the kids your age round here. And I’m sorry that your
friend Amy couldn’t come down to join us. Are you getting bored
stuck down here with your old aunt?’
    ‘ No way’ said Lucy resolutely. ‘I like it here.’
    ‘ And I like having you here’ Bethany laughed, turning the key
in the lock of the car. They got in. ‘Maybe we can ask Thelma
tomorrow at tea’ she went on. ‘She seems to know everything about
everything around here.’
    When Lucy had turned up in Merwater a fews months ago
unannounced and without Bethany’s address, it was Thelma who’d
helped Lucy get to Bethany’s studio. What’s more, if it wasn’t for
Thelma and her husband Nate and his fishing boat the Lady Thelma,
Lucy might never have been able to save Spirit that time. Lucy
already felt as though Thelma was like another aunt to her.
Thelma’s own children