Blood in the Water by C. Alexander London

Author:C. Alexander London
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2014-06-27T16:00:00+00:00

THE boat drifted among the pod of wild dolphins. Their dark gray backs glistened beneath the surface. Some sank low while others rose up to blast air from their blowholes and take a fresh breath. Then they sank down again, making room on the surface for others, taking turns, clicking and whistling at one another. There were at least a hundred dolphins all around the little boat, a large pod, but not unheard of.

Cory suddenly grew nervous that he’d startle them and they’d go crazy, jumping and ramming the little rubber boat. A pod of dolphins this size could easily sink them. Dolphins had a reputation for being kind and friendly creatures, but they had a dark side, too. They were strong, they were fast, and they could be violent. There was a reason sharks were afraid of them. Dolphins had even been known to attack smaller dolphins just for fun, for practice at killing. Cory wondered if he was about to make a huge mistake waking them up and sending them after Kaj.

But he had no choice.

He leaned over the side of the boat and waited for a dolphin to rise up next to them for a breath. When it did, he patted it just in front of the blowhole, right where Kaj enjoyed being touched, and the dolphin woke. It twirled around in the water and shot its head up, looking Cory right in the eyes, clicking at him, sizing him up. The dolphin had a lot of scars and scratches across its head, far more wounds than a captive dolphin like Kaj would ever have. There was one deep scar that ran from its blowhole forward between its eyes and along the tip of its snout. It didn’t look like another animal could have done that. Cory was sad to think that a human fisherman was probably responsible. The thought that any person could try to murder an animal as thoughtful as a dolphin made him shudder.

The dolphin with the scar poked itself higher out of the water, resting its large head on the edge of the boat and then opening its mouth wide to show all its glistening sharp teeth.

Cory recoiled away at first, then caught himself and looked at the dolphin again, clicking in its direction. Cory had the urge to toss the dolphin a fish as a reward, like he would’ve tossed to Kaj, but wild dolphins don’t eat frozen fish like captive dolphins do. They’re hunters. They use their teeth to kill what they catch.

And anyway, all Kaj’s supplies had gone down with the other boat.

All Cory had to offer this dolphin was his trust.

He took a deep breath and stuck out his hand, shoving it right into the wild dolphin’s mouth to scratch the dolphin’s tongue.

“Hooyah,” Alvaraez said. “McNab’s crazy.”

“Shh,” Landon urged. “Let him work.”

Cory smiled his appreciation at Landon and kept tickling the creature’s tongue. Others had woken up now and come alongside the boat to investigate, sticking their heads up and eyeing the strange person in the boat with his hand in the mouth of their friend.

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