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She
preferred to scan the horizon with the naked eye. They certainly
wouldn’t see any dolphins that afternoon. There was a fishing boat
in the middle distance though and they watched for a while as it
made its slow progress across the calm sea.
    Megan would
enjoy telling Jet about what Bethany had said later though. Somehow
she felt that she could trust her sister, even though Bethany was
half her age. The sun baked down on them from above.
    ‘ We’d better
get back’ she said to Bethany.
     
    Back at the
holiday cottage, after dinner, the family sat outside in the garden
enjoying the late afternoon sun. It didn’t get dark till ten
o’clock in August and although the sun was no longer warming their
skin, the air was still pleasant and balmy. High up in the sky the
swifts were still swooping and circling in their hunt for insects
on the wing and Megan saw a bat flit by, flying from the house
towards the trees. Bethany was playing in the grass, Mum was doing
the crossword at the back of the newspaper and Dad was leaning back
with his eyes closed.
    Megan was
lying on her stomach on the grass studying a column of small brown
ants that emerged from a hole by the path and which marched
determinedly out into the thicket of grass stems. She wondered if
they’d located Bethany’s secret horde of sweets.
    Normally Megan
would only reach out to Jet with her mind if she was entirely
alone, but everyone seemed so absorbed in their own activities and
there was no particular reason why they should notice if she did.
At worst they would simply think that she had dropped off to
sleep.
    Megan started
to focus her mind. She would do this by looking into the middle
distance and then letting her focus dissolve. Then she would
imagine water rushing into the scene and let her mind concentrate
on the water and not the surroundings behind it. Then she would be
there and feel the cold tang of salty water on her skin and she
would be swimming along free and easily, liberated from the gravity
of life on dry land.
     
    Often Megan
would see the tails of Jet’s pod receding away from her and she
would glide along faster to catch up with them. She could easily
make out Jet because he was slightly smaller and darker than the
others and she recognised the way he swam. Often Jet would know
that she was approaching him and would glance back before she
reached him. He would whistle a message to the others and would
peel off from the others to come back and join her.
    At first Megan
had found it difficult to stay with Jet for more than a few
minutes. Her energy would deplete too quickly and she would
dissolve back into the briny currents again. As time went by
though, Megan became stronger and she frequently stayed with Jet
for forty five minutes or more, swimming along with him and even
breaking the surface of the water to leap high into the air. At
first Megan had been worried that someone would see her if she
followed Jet when he took a leap and would think she was a mermaid.
After a while though Megan realised that when she came to Jet like
this she was not physically there.
    One time they
both chased along at the bow of a sailing yacht as it sliced along
through gentle waves. A man and a small boy stood at the bow
looking down in excited admiration at the dolphin barely two meters
away from them.
    ‘ What a
beautiful dolphin!’ exclaimed the man admiringly. The boy looked on
the other side of the bow where Megan was gliding effortlessly
along through the water.
    ‘ Look Daddy!’
he exclaimed. ‘a mermaid!’ The man looked over to where the boy was
pointing.
    ‘ Don’t be
silly’ he replied unseeingly. ‘The dolphins’ on this
side!’
    ‘ So I’m not
always completely invisible to people like this’ Megan said to Jet
afterwards.
    ‘ Maybe that
boy’s a Dolphin-Child too, but doesn’t realise it yet’ Jet replied
as they relaxed together in the surge and swell of deep green
sea.
    As Megan lay
in the garden watching the procession