Dolphin Girl
Based on The Music of Dolphins by Karen Hesse
A new sun rises. A new day begins. I swim to my family. They greet me with joy and squeals. My cousins and I swim and play, all around each other and through each other. It is morning and our bellies are empty, it is time for my family to search for food, but I must stay. If I go with them I will surely die. My mother tells me with her squeaks and squeals and body motions to stay. So I stay. I stay and I wait. I cannot go with because I am not like the others in my family. They have smooth skin that is blue as the sky, mine is odd, peachy flesh. They have beautiful fins, sprouting from their sides and on their backs. I have long, gangly, odd things coming from my warped and disfigured body. They have one long, slender tail; I have two ugly tails with lumps at the ends. Even though I am this way, my family still remains. Still takes care of me. I am one of them.
Just because I stay does not mean I cannot find my own water. This is what I do when my family searches for food. I search for my water. I use my two tails to stand on the land and look for water to drink. I swim to the closest cay and climb ashore. I search and search in the mangroves for a puddle of water to drink from. Finally my search is rewarded and I find what I am looking for. The water is plentiful. I drink and drink until the throbbing of my tongue stops and the thirst goes away. There is still water in the puddle. I decide I will come back, but for now I must go back to my family for I can hear them calling for me.
When I return to them, my mother has a fish in her mouth. She bites off the head and lets it sink in the water, the rest of the fish she tosses to me. I eat the good fish and thank my mother when I get back in the water by nuzzling her.
Suddenly one of my cousins dives under the water and surfaces under me. I grab onto the fin on her back and hold on. She swims and swims and swims, so fast. I make sounds of joy. We go very far out and keep going until we hear the squeaks of our mothers' calling us back. With our family once again, I look at two of my cousins, always together, a boy and a girl, mates. There is something in them, something good, very good. Never before have I wanted a mate, but now something inside me stirs. I cannot have a mate, because of my deformities. That had never bothered me as a young one, but now that my cousins are choosing their mates, I want one too.
My mother sees how I look at the young couple. She knows. She comforts me by nudging me. My mother's mate died long ago. I know that my mother will always be there, I will always have her company, but it is not the same. I love my family and they love me, but I will always be only.
My cousins invite me to play once again. We swim together, in harmony. My cousins jump and dive down deep, they stand on their tails, they toss a feather amongst each other. They squeal in delight. I watch and squeak. I swim with them as best I can, but they are very fast. I play too. I can toss the feather. We splash each other. We race. They jump up and dive. I stand on the land and dive off. Under the water is another world. I can see many things in the clear-blue water. I see schools of fish and my cousins. I see underwater plants. I see a world all and of itself. This world is so detailed and amazing, but I cannot hold my breath forever. Eventually I must go to the surface for air.
Above my cousins continue to play. They squeal for me to join them and I do. We play and play and play until the day is out and the old ones say enough. The others once again must search for food and I am struck by thirst. As the others look, I swim back to the cay. I look for the puddle of water I left. Soon I find it. I drink and drink. I hear a noise, over head. It is one of the strange birds that never fly too close. I turn back to the puddle to drink, but the bird stays overhead. It continues to fly closer and closer to the ground. My family has returned now, and I head back to them, but the bird comes closer. My mother is squealing for me to come back now, there is something in her. Something I do not understand. As the bird comes closer, she squeals and squeaks louder and faster for me to come back. The loud noise coming from the bird and the squeals of my mother frighten me. Suddenly, something drops from the bird. I start to run. The bird is very close now, practically on the ground. It is huge and has no feathers; instead it is made of a shiny rock. It does not look like a bird at all, more like a fish with spinning fins on the back.
Something jumps out of the flying, rock fish. It looks like me, a mutated dolphin, like me. For a second I have no fear, but then I hear the call of my mother and remember how scared I am. I try to escape, but cannot. It is too fast and too strong. Soon it has me. I cannot get free. I cry out for my mother, I cry out for help, but no help comes. How can they help me?
The thing takes me inside the flying fish. I cry out and cry out and cry out. There are more. They wrap something scratchy around my body. I try to get it free, but one of them holds me so I cannot. I pound against the walls with my head and try to break free, but it does not work. I cry out for my mother. I want my mother, but the fish has begun to fly. She cannot save me now. What are these things going to do to me? Why did they take me? I am scared. They look at me and make strange noises. I do not understand what they want. I continue to cry out.
One of them brings a strange object. It is circular with sides, and a bottom, but no top. Inside is a clear liquid. Water! I test first by putting my finger in the water then putting it to my tongue. It is water. I cup my fins so they can pour the water into them. They do this and I drink. I begin to think these things mean me no harm. I try to explain that I want to go back to my family and my mother, but they look at me strangely, like they do not understand. They look at each other. They do not know what I am saying. We speak different words. I did not understand them, and they did not understand me. We look the same, but we are different.