Ripple Read online

  Sister Sterne was ready and waiting, and the obvious solution was not too far off . . . if Whirly could just manage to hold on long enough.

  Whirly weakened as the minutes passed. His mother urged him to hold on, but he was sliding into unconsciousness. For Whirly the sunny day was growing dark and the dolphins surrounding him watched helplessly, as he faded before their eyes.

  ~~~

  Ripple and Echo, still swimming with Squelch, had no idea there were dolphins in distress nearby.

  But Squelch suddenly lost interest in the cloud-catching game.

  ‘Stop,’ he ordered.

  Echo braked with her flukes and swirled her flippers to hold position.

  Squelch sat motionless on her back. His eyes scanned the horizon; then fixed on a spot to the west.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ he said, ‘Swim to Akarana Island.’

  The island grew as they swam towards it.

  ‘Faster,’ said Squelch, ‘Go faster!’

  ‘Get hydro then,’ said Echo, ‘and hang on.’

  Squelch spread himself smoothly for better hydro-dynamics. Echo accelerated.

  ‘Why Akarana?’ she asked as she swam.

  ‘We’re needed there.’

  ‘Who needs us? I heard no call.’

  ‘Just shut up and swim.’

  Echo swam as fast as the load she carried would allow. She raced through the sea, smashing every wave in her path. When Ripple took her turn at leading, Squelch transferred himself to the leading dolphin as always.

  ~~~

  Whirly’s heartbeat was faltering and he was far beyond suffering. But every muscle in his mother’s body was tense as she raked his body with her teeth, scarring him in her efforts to stimulate him back to life. Since Whirly’s fate now seemed irrevocable, the other dolphins were as concerned for the mother now as they were for her son.

  ~~~

  Sterne and I could see Whirly’s spirit loosen itself from its Azuran bonds as it prepared for flight.

  ~~~

  Squelch arrived in a dazzle of flying spray. He was still aboard Ripple, and many seraphim followed in their wake. As they entered the bay, Echo took the lead and Squelch transferred himself to her. Fortunately, the problem was so clear in the minds of all dolphins in the bay, the new arrivals needed no explanations.

  ‘Take me to him!’ insisted Squelch.

  Echo swam alongside the group where Whirly lay unconscious. The octopus reached across them to Whirly’s back, inserted one whip-like tentacle into his blowhole, gripped the piece of bark, and tugged it out.

  ‘Easier than pulling a periwinkle!’ He waved the tentacle high in the air so that all could see the bark, still attached to a sucker near the tip.

  The dolphins glanced in amazement at the octopus and the bark, before returning their attention to Whirly. He convulsed once, then lay motionless for a seeming eternity, before his blowhole fluttered weakly.

  Had air gone in?

  Perhaps a little. They supported him, more firmly, keeping his blowhole always above the water.

  ‘Breathe Whirly, breathe Whirly, breathe . . . breathe . . . breathe.’ His mother’s thoughtstreams were arrows of energy plunging into the breathing zones of his brain. The others echoed her. Ripple and Echo added their strongest thoughtstreams to the team effort.

  Only we divine beings could see Whirly’s spirit hovering and dithering above him. The spiritual thread linking him to his body stretched, longer and thinner as Whirly’s spirit moved towards the Hereafter. To us, it seemed the connection must surely break. But slowly, slowly, the thread thickened and shortened again as the spirit drew back towards physical life. Hope grew.

  Jaws gaping, eyes still closed, Whirly’s blowhole pulsed again as he dragged in one huge draught of air. Then he seemed to give up, and lay as though dead against the bodies supporting him. His spirit drifted higher again. His mother continued scraping his skin with her teeth and pouring her energy into him.

  He lurched once more; lay unmoving again for another age . . . then convulsed again. It was hard to tell if he was struggling towards life or death. However, we saw his spirit drawing closer until it was almost inside him again.

  Echo maintained her position near Whirly, holding Squelch. Ripple swam round and round the outskirts of the group, peeking in from the edges to see if Whirly had woken, unable to keep still.

  More team thoughtstreams.

  Whirly took another agonised breath. Oxygen seeped into his blood from the shocked but recovering lungs. Gradually the blood enriched with oxygen. The heartbeat strengthened, pushing fresh blood into every corner of his flesh. His spirit re-entered his body and seated itself firmly in its usual place to the left of his spine. It glowed weakly. Within five minutes, he was conscious but groggy and had no idea what had happened.

  Meanwhile Squelch remained in the same pose, mounted on Echo, with the piece of bark still raised. A moment came when Squelch looked about and saw that the dolphins, having become confident of Whirly’s survival, were all now looking at him, providing an awed audience.

  Slowly he moved the raised tentacle tip backwards, stretching it further and further back until it almost touched the sea behind him. When the tentacle was at full stretch, he paused, holding that pose, enjoying his moment, watching the gaping dolphins before him. Then he lunged, flicking the tentacle forwards. The tip whipped through the air with the piece of bark still attached. He released the bark when it reached maximum velocity, so it curved through the air, with every dolphin eye following its path, straight towards Ripple on the far side of the group. She saw it coming and delivered it a perfectly timed whack with her tail, sending the bark on a second trajectory. This time it landed high on the nearby beach on Akarana Island, where it rattled on the pebbles.

  ‘Out’ called Squelch. There was a moments’ silence, then hysteria: jaw-clapping, tail slapping, squeaking, whistling, leaping, breaching, mega-splashing and corkscrew-spinning. Ripple raced up to Echo and Squelch. Squelch flowed on over from Echo to Ripple who carried him in a high-speed gyrating circle around the whole celebrating group before returning him to Echo. All around us in the Hereafter the seraphim applauded, spinning and flashing their electric particles.

  With fear fading from their minds, the dolphins thanked the octopus with grateful thoughtstreams and flipper-caresses. Echo too was a heroine for her part in the miracle.

  The younger dolphins picked up other pieces of bark from the flotsam in the bay. They whacked these from tail to tail to see how long they could keep them airborne.

  Whirly was himself again quite quickly, a little dazed but puzzled by the excitement. His mother didn’t try to explain, but caressed him and swam close to him. Her eyes switched back and forth from her son to the octopus who had saved him.

  Seeing them all staring at him, Squelch thought, Hmmm, Yes. I am alive right now. Might as well prove it to these dolphins. So he pirouetted, swirled his tentacles, formed himself into a big golden star, swiftly re-arranged into a pink and purple flower, dazzled them with rainbows of colour changes and swept himself smoothly from one delighted dolphin to the next. He could hear little of the dolphins’ applause, but their appreciation was obvious to his powerful eyes and mind. Finally, the entire group, carrying Squelch, moved off in procession towards the open sea. Their mood spread into the surrounding ocean attracting others who came in twos and threes and bigger groups until hundreds of dolphins from many groups and families had arrived to hear the story and join the procession.

  Rev arrived, bouncing up like a leg-fin frogfish. (Leg-fin frogfish are sometimes called ‘psychedelica’ Even Sterne finds them humorous.)

  ‘I hear you’ve brought a heroic octopus into the family,’ said Rev.

  As it happened, Squelch was back aboard Echo.

  ‘Go away!’ Ripple ordered, ‘This is none of your business. Squelch is our octopus!’

  ‘There goes the secret,’ muttered Echo.

  ‘Squelch eh!’ Rev said. ‘Cool name.
Hi Squelch!’

  He poked Squelch with his rostrum. Squelch squelched. He transplanted himself to Rev without a backwards glance at the girls.

  Rev swam in the leading wave as they rejoiced their way across the glittering blue. Every dolphin was eager for a turn to carry the octopus, who was fed like a king on morsels brought to him throughout the afternoon. Periwinkles were popular, giving Squelch plenty of opportunities to re-enact his life-saving skills, by displaying the clever use of his tentacles. Squelch could only remember the last five days of his life, but even if he could have remembered all of it, this would still have been its brightest moment.

  ‘I’m alive, I’m alive! I’m truly alive now,’ he said, over and over.

  The seraphim joined the procession, unseen by the mortal creatures. They trailed through the air and sea surrounding the Azurans and I noticed that one of them had made himself resemble a fragment of bark. He was allowing himself to be flicked from one temporarily tail-shaped seraph to another, in imitation of the new game.

  Ripple and Echo followed more sedately in the middle of the crowd.

  ‘Rev and Squelch are made for each other,’ Echo warned. ‘Those two will be insufferable now.’

  ~~~

  Over the next few weeks, Squelch’s tentacles were put to work on creative projects, like weaving nooses from seaweed, useful to drop over a passing sister’s tail at inconvenient moments, such as while hunting. Ripple found herself towing a very dead and smelly stingray attached to her by a rope and noose of Squelch construction. Ripple was a favourite victim because she reacted so perfectly, chasing and charging at the perpetrators in uncontrolled fury. The power of his little sister’s temper impressed Rev and he bragged about it to his classmates.

  ‘Goes as mad as a starving tiger-shark,’ he told them proudly.

  ~~~

  Read on, or if desired . . .

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  Chapter 6: Anger

  Cosmo and a dozen other young dolphins darted after a school of pilchards. Imitating adult hunting tricks, they formed a high-speed carousel enclosing the fish and herding them into a ball at the surface. Some dived under the fish to prevent them escaping downwards. Some ate a fish or two. Others played along for fun.

  Cosmo was the hungriest. He snapped at a pilchard and missed it. Enraged, he grabbed another, cracking its spine in one bite. He darted in and out of the fish-ball, crunching down fish after fish. Their oily flesh recharged him. He ate ravenously and satisfied his hunger.

  The other dolphins played around him, more intent on fun than food.

  One youngster called Storm soon tired of the fish-ball game. Hoping to invent a new one, he entertained himself by rocketing into the air straight through the middle of the fish. The fish-ball disintegrated.

  ‘What’d you do that for, Sponge-Brain?’

  ‘Who wrecked our fish-ball?’

  ‘Storm did!’

  ‘Chase him!’

  Storm darted off merrily but found himself pursued by friends pretending he was a predator and they were grown-up fighter dolphins. One of the bigger girls lightly walloped him with her tail in passing. Several ‘attacked’ at once from many directions. None of them hurt him. Storm was soon playing along.

  Maram, the oldest dolphin in the group, kept out of the play-fight. He was a trainee fighter, there mainly to guard the younger ones. He watched from the outskirts of the mêlée.

  Some of the others, including Cosmo came to Storm’s defence, creating two opposing teams who ‘scored’ against one another; the kind of game which prepared them for fights against real predators. Storm’s team played well, squawking loudly and often as though in distress, encouraging their ‘enemy’ to more displays of fake aggression.

  However, Cosmo had ceased breathing from the moment the game started. He flashed in and out between the others, happily enough to begin with. But as the game progressed, the jagged triple scar on his left side began to glow a strange dull red. The play-fighting continued around him, but a coloured mist drifted in from the edges of his consciousness, obscuring logic. Looking upwards through the clear water, he saw Storm’s older brother, Cirrus, prod Storm playfully in the belly with his beak. Storm squealed as though it had been a mortal hit.

  It ignited a flame in Cosmo. He shot upwards to attack Cirrus with a fury that shocked them all. He plunged his rostrum savagely into Cirrus’s belly. Cirrus gasped, stopped swimming and began to sink.

  Maram and two of the bigger girls swam quickly down and supported Cirrus back to the surface, where he lay against them whimpering in real agony. Maram left Cirrus in the care of the two females and returned to find Cosmo.

  Cosmo still had not breathed. His internal fires blazed, driving him to attack. He lunged, snapped and bit one young dolphin until he bled. He whacked another on the head with his tail, and drove his beak into two or three others hard enough to hurt. The young dolphins scattered in alarm. Cosmo raced after them at the surface, but Maram overtook him.

  ‘Stop!’

  Maram’s order smacked into Cosmo’s brain. At the same time, Maram’s much-heavier body shoved Cosmo physically off course. Cosmo whirled in a dazzle of spray and charged straight back, but Maram’s weight and superior skills easily deflected him.

  ‘Cosmo! Calm down! What’s the matter?’

  Cosmo stopped and stared around, blinking in confusion. He was dazed from lack of oxygen.

  ‘Breathe!’ ordered Maram.

  Cosmo breathed at last. The mist began to clear. Maram herded him forcefully away from the others while the fire within Cosmo cooled and the red glow on the external scars faded. Soon Cosmo was able to take in his surroundings more clearly. A short distance away, the two females still supported the injured Cirrus. A couple of others had gone to help them. The rest circled beyond watching Cosmo from a safe distance.

  ~~~

  The story of Cosmo’s frenzy spread quickly. Cirrus’s internal bruising took many days to heal. None of the others attacked by Cosmo were as seriously hurt as Cirrus, but from that day other youngsters were wary around him. Although Cosmo apologised to all the ones he’d hurt, he was never able to explain his behaviour.

  ~~~

  The school elders invited Maram to meet with them later, to share his view of the incident.

  He described it as accurately as he could and the elders recognised that the shadow of Cosmo’s violent beginnings must have triggered the attack.

  ‘But the behaviour is inexcusable whatever caused it,’ said one. ‘If it happens again, we may have to banish him from the school, for the safety of our other children, although it would be hard on an orphan to be isolated even further in this way.’

  ‘It shows that he has a powerful aggression,’ said another elder. ‘He could be a useful fighter some day.’

  ‘Perhaps, but the best fighters are those who temper their aggression with calm intellect. They’re never hotheads driven by rampant emotion. Attacking his own playmates? That’s bizarre. Does he have the mind of a shark?’

  ‘No, but we all know he carries the scars of one. Who knows how deep those scars may run? Careful training in the physical skills and psychology of fighting, with its emphasis on controlling and channelling anger, may be the very thing that could help him.’

  ‘Perhaps Alcyone could assist him.’

  The elders indicated agreement.

  Maram had already proven strong enough to control Cosmo when the need arose, so the elders requested him to watch and provide any training that seemed suitable. They asked him to assess the idea of steering Cosmo in the direction of a vocation as a fighter like himself, and consider using the services of Alcyone, the mind adept, should Cosmo’s emotional instability continue. Maram was happy to comply.

  I like the little rascal, he thought, and he’s more alone than ever now this has happened.

  ‘I’ll help the child in any way I can,’ he told the elders.

  ~~~

  Maram began by building Cosmo
’s physical endurance through long-distance journeys to strengthen his cardio-vascular system. Through time spent together in play and hunting, Maram noticed how quickly Cosmo’s natural co-ordination allowed him to pick up physical skills.

  As Cosmo began attending regular junior classes with other dolphins his age, Maram encouraged him towards the same areas of study he’d chosen at the same age, such as gymnastics, the theory of defence and attack, and mathematics. There were also classes in poetry, the sciences and those historical subjects that all young dolphins studied, whatever vocation they pursued.

  The Southern Islands School was famous for the quality of its fighters. Being a smaller school, they needed the highest level of protection for the fewest numbers of fighters. Fight training began at a younger age in this school than any other on Azure.

  Once Cosmo had mastered sufficient theory of the fighting arts it was time for him to move on to his first practical classes in defence and attack. Maram offered his services as an assistant to Cosmo’s teacher so that he could attend the classes and observe. His presence re-assured the other youngsters who remained uneasy about Cosmo.

  ~~~

  Maram watched closely as Cosmo took the defender’s role with a young classmate called Zoid as his attacker. Zoid approached him from below in slow-motion. Cosmo responded with the correct slow-motion avoidance moves. They practised the slow version a few more times. Each dolphin took turns at both attack and defence.

  So far there was nothing to alarm Maram in Cosmo’s responses. When the teacher required them to advance to the full-speed version Maram was happy enough for Cosmo to be included.

  The speed increased suddenly.

  Perhaps too suddenly, thought Maram.

  Spray flew, flukes thrashed and the water whitened with foam. Again Cosmo took the defender’s role first. Zoid moved away to make room for his first full-speed attack. He turned and hurtled towards Cosmo.

  Maram saw the shark scars on Cosmo’s left side suddenly glow red as Zoid charged. Maram tensed and switched his attention to Cosmo’s mind which lay unveiled.