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of earnest ants making their
way across the grass, she looked forward to spending time with Jet,
even if it might only be for a few minutes.
    She started to
focus her mind in the way that she had taught herself. Megan let
the scene in front of her blur and imagined the sea washing in to
cover it. The scene remained speckled with patches of white though
and try as she might she could not make the background of dry land
dissolve away as she normally did. Megan tried again. This time the
sea washed around her and she felt the cold water on her skin. She
could see the pod not far away lounging just under the waves, but
as she started to approach them the scene dissolved before she
could get anywhere near them. Megan found herself lying on the
grass again, an ant running lightly over the back of her hand. She
flicked it off.
    Megan was
disappointed that she had not been able to reach Jet, but maybe it
was because her family were around her, or perhaps it was something
she’d eaten. She’d try again later.
    As she turned
to see what imaginary world Bethany had created with her toys, she
noticed that Dad had opened his eyes as he leant back in the
deckchair and was watching her intently. As she looked up he closed
his eyes quickly as if to pretend that he was sleeping
again.
     
    Later on, at
bedtime, Megan tried again. In the bathroom, toothbrush in hand she
looked through the small circular mirror on the wall as though it
was a porthole in the side of a submarine and the sea lay beyond.
Megan was able to conjure up the sea beyond the glass, but when she
tried to let her mind dissolve and re-form in the sea beyond the
glass, she was unable to do so. It was like watching a natural
history programme on the television. She felt a million miles away.
When Megan was younger she believed that the television was like an
actual window and that if you looked at it from one corner, you
would see more of the scene that would be hidden than if you looked
at it head on. The vision of sea disappeared again and all she
could see was her own unhappy face looking back at her. Megan
decided there and then that at least she would go down to the sea
at first light the next morning to swim with Jet. When she was with
him in real life like that, they could not speak to each other as
they did when she reached out to him with her mind. She would not
be able to explain to him that it suddenly felt hard to reach him.
Yet at least she would be able to look into his eyes and feel the
energy that passed from him to her and back again.
     
    The next
morning Megan was awake again at first light and crept out of the
room that she shared in the cottage with Bethany, this time making
sure that her younger sister did not follow her. She slipped her
swimsuit on quickly but did not bother putting clothes on top, so
eager was she to get to the sea. She ran quickly and lightly along
the board walk that rose and fell as it followed the path of the
dunes to the sea. There at last she saw the sea glittering in the
early morning light. Megan scanned the water for the tell-tale sign
of a dorsal fin, but there was none there.
    Rather than
wait and watch, Megan decided to plunge into the sea and swim out
from the shore into the deeper water where it would be easier for
Jet to approach her. She swam with the powerful confident strokes
of an accomplished swimmer, but even though she got as far out as
she dared on her own, Jet did not approach her. She stopped and
started to tread, looking around her anxiously for signs of the
friend who did not come.

Chapter
Four :
    Megan came
back on to the shore and stood on the sand, shivering as she
scanned the horizon one last time for any sign of Jet or the other
dolphins in his pod. She looked at the sun. It must have been after
half past seven by now and she knew she had to get back before
Bethany, Mum and Dad woke up. Her parents liked to sleep in when
they were on holiday, but Bethany always had been an early
riser.
    Megan