Dolphin Song

  “Be careful,” Ben warned. “If there’s something going on here on the island, it might not be a rescue plane.”

  But the plane soared upward and the drone of its engine soon dissipated in the afternoon blue.

  “That’s it,” Lucy declared with a loud sniff. “I’m never going to see my twin again. We’re doomed to stay here for eternity.” She slumped to the ground and put her head in her hands.

  Jake raked his hands through his hair. “I don’t understand it. How could they miss our sign? It could practically be seen from Mars.” He walked to the edge of the dunes and shaded his eyes. “Hold on a minute. It’s gone. The SOS is gone!”

  “Don’t be a moron, Jake,” said Lucy, not bothering to raise her head. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re marooned on a desert island. Who do you think is going to steal your stupid sign?

  “I did,” Claudius said.

  Jake gave him a baffled look. “What are you talking about?”

  “I took the SOS away. I moved all the stones late last night when I went to Runway Beach to find my sweater.”

  Six appalled faces turned his way. “But why?” Nathan asked in bewilderment. “Why would you do that?”

  “It’s because his rich father hasn’t come to save him, and Claudius is afraid it’s because his dad doesn’t want his fat, lazy son anymore,” Jake said nastily. “He’s afraid to go home.”

  Sherilyn rounded on him. “Don’t be so spiteful, Jake. What’s wrong with you?”

  “It’s true, Sherilyn,” Claudius admitted. “I have been afraid that my dad doesn’t want his fat, lazy son back and that that’s the real reason he hasn’t come looking for me. I am afraid of going home. But that isn’t why I did it. I did it because if we’re rescued too soon, we won’t be able to save the dolphins. I mean, if that plane had found us and we’d told whoever was on board, ‘Oh, by the way, we think the dolphins are beaching themselves because of sonar testing, or some weird cables, or divers who plant undersea mines, and we need to stay longer to investigate,’ they wouldn’t have believed us. They would just think that we had overactive imaginations or had watched too much television. They’d say, ‘Don’t worry about the little dolphins. They’ll be fine. We’re taking you back to your families right now.’ ”

  He paused and stared hard at his fellow castaways—Jake in particular. “We’ve got a chance to make a real difference here. Don’t you want that? Isn’t that more important than whether or not you get to play center forward at some rugby match?”

  A tense silence greeted this speech. Martine was the first to move. She went over to Claudius and stood beside him. “What Claudius says makes sense,” she told the rest of the group. “There’s no way we’d be allowed to stay and help the dolphins if any adult found us now. I mean, my grandmother really cares about animals, but even she would say that we had to leave it to someone else—some wildlife charity or something—to save them.”

  “A few more days on the island is nothing compared to that,” agreed Ben.

  Lucy gave an exasperated sigh, which Martine took as a yes—albeit a very irritated one; and Sherilyn nodded, although her lower lip wobbled.

  “It’s not like we have loads of other options,” Nathan reminded Jake. “People don’t seem to be in too much of a hurry to rescue us.”

  Jake vented his annoyance on a piece of coconut husk that happened to find itself in front of his foot. “All right,” he said. “Two more days. Two more days and then the SOS is going back on the beach, and this time it’ll be twice the size!”

  24

  The plan they came up with was three-pronged. First they would attempt to trigger an explosion in order to try to lure the men on the dhow to the island; then Claudius would distract them while Ben and Martine, as the only pair willing to volunteer for the job, would sneak onto the boat, assuming that there was somewhere for them to hide. Once at the divers’ headquarters, they would . . . well, they weren’t exactly sure what they’d do when they got there, but their main aim was to find the cause of the dolphins’ suffering and to try to make contact with the outside world.

  That was the idea on paper—or at least on sand. Claudius sketched it out on Runway Beach with a stick. As they talked, the faces of the seven classmates were grave. There was no fooling around. Everyone knew they could be venturing into the human equivalent of a shark tank.

  They made, Martine thought, a motley crew. They’d had a much-needed bath in the lake, but without soap and shampoo there wasn’t much improvement. They were all sunburned or wind-blasted and much thinner, and their clothes were in a dreadful state. Sherilyn looked the most ridiculous in her faded pink pajamas with missing buttons, but Claudius was almost as bad in tattered jeans, which hung loose on his reduced frame, and a red sweater that was unraveling at one elbow. If he wasn’t still delicate following his man-o’-war encounter, Martine would have been sorely tempted to remind him how he’d taunted her for having holes in her jeans back in Cape Town. That said, anyone who saw Ben’s and Martine’s stained T-shirts and threadbare denim shorts would have assumed they’d been castaways for a year, not ten days, and Lucy’s white tracksuit was a sight.

  But none of them looked equipped to fight dolphin-killers.

  It was Phase I of the plan that bothered Martine most. As the best swimmer and the only person who knew anything at all about undersea explosives—and that was only secondhand from his dad—Ben had been nominated to swim out to the wreck and fix a string to a trip wire. He insisted to Martine that it was not as dangerous as it sounded. “If they made the trigger too sensitive, then any old fish that bumped into it would cause an explosion,” he said.

  She wasn’t convinced.

  Nevertheless, she helped Lucy collect bark from the trees near the lake. The string in the survival kit was not long enough for their purposes, and Sherilyn worked as quickly as she could to add to it by weaving thin strands of bark together. Length was more important than strength. Regardless of what Ben said, it wouldn’t take much to activate the trip wire.

  At four p.m., they all set off for Dolphin Bay, Ben with a fat coil of stringy bark wrapped around one wrist, Jake carrying a life jacket. Their strategy was simple. Ben would tie one end of the makeshift rope to the trip wire—assuming, of course, that he could actually find it—and the other end to the wreck. Then he’d return to the shore. When the sun began to set, Jake would swim out to the wreck, collect the rope, carry it as far as the line would allow, and then trigger the explosion. He’d return to the shore as fast as he could and hopefully be concealed by the time the boat men showed up. Then Claudius would go into action with Phase II.

  Martine wanted more than anyone to help the dolphins, but she was starting to think the plan was insane. These were not a couple of incompetent poachers they were up against. These were men with spearguns. The best possible outcome was that the dhow men would turn out to be heart-of-gold fishermen, or employees of the cable company, who, once they’d heard Martine and her fellow survivors’ story, would assist them in finding what was causing the dolphins to beach themselves, and afterward return them to their families. The worst-case scenario was that they really were pirates or treasure hunters from the mainland, who would not take kindly to having their plans disrupted. Who knew what would happen then.

  So lost was she in thought that it wasn’t until Ben was calf-deep in water and about to swim out to the wreck that she remembered what he was doing. She went tearingacross the white sand, splashed up behind him, and grabbed his arm. “Don’t go, Ben,” she said emotionally. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.”

  Ben looked at her in surprise. “I have to go.”

  There was something very still about him, almost as though he’d been meditating.

  Martine shook her head. “No, you don’t. It’s madness. You could be blown up. We’ll figure out some other way to help the dolphins.”

  He returned her gaze steadily. “You know what you said to me the other night . .
. ?”

  Martine was mortified. The guilt and shame of those excruciating hours came rushing back. She let go of his arm. “I’m so, so sorry, Ben. I didn’t mean it, I promise. I was just being—”

  But Ben cut her short. “You were right about one thing. Sometimes it is important to stand up for what you believe in.”

  He dived into the water and was gone.

  The first phase of the plan went very smoothly—almost too smoothly. Although Martine covered her eyes and kept reliving the moment when the manta ray blew up and rained down on the sea like lava, Ben accomplished his mission in record time, and Lucy prodded her so she could see him balanced on the edge of the galleon, giving them the thumbs-up.

  “Easy,” he said as he waded from the turquoise water, but when he went to pick up a gourd to have a drink, Martine noticed that his hands trembled so much he almost dropped it.

  Next they all sat down to crab soup, which was very watery because they’d only had time to find three undernourished crabs.

  “Nothing against your cooking, Sherilyn,” Lucy said, “but if we ever get off this stupid island, I’m never going to eat another fish, crab, or coconut meal in my life. And a herd of stampeding buffaloes couldn’t drag me camping. I wouldn’t sleep on the freezing, hard ground with bugs again if you paid me a million bucks.”

  The hardest part was the good-byes. They’d been through so much together and nobody knew if they’d be separated for a few hours, a few days, or forever. Martine was doubtful that the closeness that now existed between the seven of them would continue if they ever made it back to Caracal School, but she did know they would always share a bond. She would always be loyal to them and stand up for them because they had come through for her on the night of the dolphin beaching. Twenty lives would not have been saved without them.

  Martine felt in her pocket for the ivory dolphin Jake had given her. He’d carved it that afternoon from the kernel of a palm fruit. “For good luck,” he’d said. Martine couldn’t believe it. She’d been beginning to wonder if he had a rugby ball for a heart. To Ben, Jake had extended his hand and said gruffly, “You’re all right,” which was the closest he ever came to a compliment. Sherilyn had given them each a perfectcowry shell and a kiss on both cheeks, and Nathan had shaken their hands very formally and said, “See you later,” as if they were tourists going out for a scenic tour of the islands and would be back in time for dinner.

  Lucy had just given them a hug and said in a choked-up voice, “If you find a phone, tell Luke I miss him . . . Don’t forget about us, hey.”

  Claudius refused to say good-bye, because he said that implied he was never going to see them again. They had to think positively. They would see each other in days, if not hours. Even so, he punched Martine affectionately on the arm and said, “You’d better take care of yourself. You’re not bad for an orphan.”

  To which she retorted, “You’re not bad for a boy who dresses like an orphan!” And he burst out laughing.

  At sundown, Jake swam out to the wreck and set off the explosion. He raced back to the beach and joined Nathan, Lucy, and Sherilyn up on the ledges above Dolphin Bay. Ben and Martine concealed themselves among the rocks near the shore. They had bits of coconut in their pockets in case they had to go without food for a while, but Martine had left her survival kit with the others. If the plan worked they’d hopefully be reunited soon, but in the meantime the knife, flashlight, and other contents of the kit were essential for island living. All Martine had taken from it was the root ginger, in case of seasickness.

  For twenty minutes nothing happened. The horizon stayed empty. Martine grew anxious. She tried to remind herself that the risk they were taking might save their lives and hurry her home to Jemmy and her friends at Sawubona, but her doubts soon overwhelmed her. Her biggest terror was that there would be room on the dhow for only one of them, and that Ben would disappear into the blue and she’d have no way of knowing what had become of him.

  “If we can’t go together, I don’t think we should do it at all,” she said, standing up and shaking the pins and needles out of her legs. “It’s too dangerous. We should stay here and think of some other way to get rescued and help the dolphins.”

  Ben looked up at her. “What if no one ever comes?”

  High on the rocky ledge, Nathan made “get down” hand signals. Martine dropped to the sand. But it was not the dhow that appeared around the side of the island, it was a motorboat. This time there were only three Africans on board, one in a diving suit. They swooshed to a stop near the wreck.

  Phase II of the plan was about to go into operation.

  25

  Claudius had been vague about how exactly he was going to attract the attention of the boatmen, except to say that he’d confuse them with a combination of animal noises and Martine’s whistle. “They’ll think they’re hearing things,” he explained. “They’ll come to the island to look around but I’ll hide really well and be quiet as soon as I see Martine and Ben are safely on board. As long as they don’t go to Runway Beach and see our shelter, they won’t suspect a thing.”

  But that’s not what happened at all. Five minutes after the men on the motorboat appeared, Claudius strolled onto the beach and stood in the middle of it in plain view. He had put on his red sweater and rolled up the bottoms of his jeans.

  “What is he doing?” Martine whispered to Ben. “He’s going to get himself killed.”

  Nathan and the others emerged briefly from the shadows of the ledge and called down to him to stop being so crazy and get off the beach immediately, but Claudius pretended he didn’t hear them. He took out the whistle Martine had given him and blew three blasts on it. The silhouettes in the boat were thrown into a state of extreme agitation. Pulling the diver back on board, they zoomed to the shore. They gestured for Claudius to come over, but he remained anchored to the spot, waving his arms like a drowning swimmer, until they were forced to leave the boat and go to him.

  “Boy, am I glad to see you!” he cried as they approached. “I thought I was going to be stuck here until I starved to death or grew a long gray beard.”

  He thrust out a hand. “I’m Claudius. Pleased to meet you.”

  “What are you doing here?” barked the boat skipper, a gaunt man with bulging eyes and long, sinewy arms. He made no attempt to take Claudius’s outstretched hand. “How did you get here? Nobody is allowed on this island. Nobody. Every boat captain in Mozambique knows that. Every lodge and tour operator knows that.”

  “Well, to be honest that was mentioned to us . . .”

  “Us?” demanded the man. “Where are the others? How many of you are here?”

  “I was just getting to that,” said Claudius, as if he was oblivious to the threatening advance of the other men. “They abandoned me. Not on purpose, I’m sure—at least, I hope not, ha, ha—but you know what grown-ups are like when they’ve had a few beers. I went for a walk up to the lighthouse and returned to find them gone. I’m sure they’ll be back, but I’m getting very hungry, so I’m really glad you’ve come. Is there any chance you could give me a lift to the lodge at Benguerra?”

  “This is very bad news for you and very bad news for us,” the skipper said, ignoring the question. “No one comes near Dugong.”

  “Dugong?”

  “Dugong Island. This is where you are trespassing.”

  On hearing the name, Martine was reminded of the original, innocent purpose of the school trip: to help count the population of Mozambique’s endangered dugongs. They hadn’t seen one during their stay on the island. Alberto had told her that they were becoming rarer and rarer, probably because every time a head of state visited, a dugong turned up on a silver platter at the banquet.

  She and Ben didn’t wait to hear any more. They slipped like wraiths onto the motorboat. There was a storage locker under the wheel. They dived in and shut the doors behind them. The space was cramped, wet, and stunk of fish and gasoline fumes, but they’d done it and they were together.


  “Don’t worry,” Claudius was saying to the skipper in the same confident, lighthearted tone, “the people who brought me here will be hearing from my father. Anyway, what’s so special about this place? Why is no one allowed to come here? What were you looking for out by the wreck? Are you salvage experts, or from the army or something?”

  “There is a saying in English, no? Curiosity killed the pussycat.”

  “Fine,” said Claudius. “I’ll just wait here until my friends come back.”

  “You must hope that your friends don’t come back,” the skipper advised. “We have put . . . measures . . . around the island to keep people away. You are lucky that you and your tourist friends did not get a big surprise.” He mimicked the sound of a bomb blast and followed it with a gap-toothed grin. His companions laughed.

  The diver made a comment in Portuguese. The skipper’s retort brought more laughter.

  “Carlos thinks he has seen you somewhere before,” he told Claudius. “Maybe on TV. I told him that, with your long yellow hair, it must have been a story about a princess. One who didn’t like to take baths.”

  “That’s funny,” Claudius said amiably. “You’re funny. Anyway, it’s been nice talking to you. I’m sure someone will be along to collect me. Good-bye.”

  The skipper shot out a lanky arm and seized Claudius by the sleeve of his sweater. The smile left his face. “Not so fast, my friend,” he said.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Claudius, his voice rising. “Leave me alone.”

  But the man retained his grip on Claudius’s sleeve. He said something to his companions, and they moved in a bit closer. The diver seized his other arm.

  “It is not the island way to refuse hospitality to a stranger,” the skipper said coldly. “We must not leave you here. If you please, you will accompany us to Paradise.”