The Promised One (5 page)

‘I won’t be needing that,’ said Lucy. Her voice suddenly
sounded more authoritative, and they all looked at her in surprise.

‘Clara,’
Lucy said to the dolphin,
‘please come to the edge.’
The animal swam obediently to the side.

‘Greetings, O Promised One,’
she said. Her voice was soft and languorous – it reminded Lucy of deep, tranquil waters, and exquisite fronds of seaweed waving over beautiful coral.

‘Do you know,’
Lucy continued,
‘that your beautiful skin has been damaged?’

‘I know all is not well with it. It feels as though tiny gillifins are nibbling at it but the others tell me that none can be seen.’

‘Why didn’t you eat the gillifin that was given to you just now?’

‘It smells not as a gillifin should and I wait for one that does.’

‘That smell does not mean the gillifin is bad,’
said Lucy.
‘The Tailless Ones who care for you here and feed you have put a tiny pebble into the gillifin which will make your skin whole once again. It is this pebble that you can smell. If you eat the pebble on its own I will then give you a gillifin that smells pure.’

‘It shall be as you command, O Promised One,’
said Clara. To the astonished onlookers Lucy appeared to be in a quiet trance, she and the dolphin looking at each other in complete silence.

Lucy held out her hand with the tablet in it and the dolphin leapt from the water and took it from her fingers so cleanly that Lucy just felt the slightest brush as the animal’s beak closed on the pill. The others gazed in stupefaction as Lucy then took the biggest fish remaining
in the bucket and threw it to Clara.

‘I think she’s earned a fat one for being so good, don’t you?’ she said, turning to them with a happy grin.

‘How on earth …’ Steve began to splutter out a question but didn’t really know what to say. Catherine took over.

‘Well, you’ve certainly got a way with dolphins, Lucy! You can give Clara her medicine every day; let’s just hope she continues to co-operate.’

‘She will,’ said Lucy, simply. Catherine and Steve glanced at each other; they were as amazed by the girl’s confidence as they were by the little drama they had just witnessed, but they had work to do so they left Lucy to finish the feed and went off about their other duties. When they had gone Grandpa looked at Lucy.

‘I’m puzzled and impressed,’ he said. ‘Is that the dolphin you spoke to –’ he stopped and corrected himself, ‘– you
saw
yesterday?’

‘No, that was Jonathan; see, he’s over there.’ She pointed to him, cavorting with one of his brothers. ‘This is the first time I have spoken to Clara. She has a lovely voice.’ She said it so naturally that Grandpa almost found himself believing that a conversation had really taken place between his granddaughter and a dolphin – and yet, how could it possibly be true?

‘As I was saying before those two arrived with breakfast,’ said Lucy brightly, ‘I really need you on my side, so tell me what must I do to convince you?’

Grandpa was somewhat taken aback. He thought for a few moments before speaking.

‘You must do something that couldn’t have been planned and practised in advance,’ he said eventually, ‘even though I know you haven’t really had time to plan anything anyway. And they shouldn’t be able to see you,’ he added, ‘in case they get clues from your expression or your gestures – oh, and you mustn’t make any sounds or vibrations. Can you think of something along those lines?’

‘Well, it’s best if it involves you, Grandpa,’ said Lucy, ‘then it certainly couldn’t have been planned.’ She lay down on the cold tiled floor of the little balcony they were standing on, put her cardigan behind her head for a pillow and looked up at her grandfather. She was completely concealed from the view of the dolphins by the balcony wall. ‘I’m going to tell them all to dive,’ she said, ‘and then you show me with your fingers how many you want to come up – and make sure you keep your hands below the wall, so only I can see.’

As she spoke the waters churned and all the animals disappeared.

‘I must be completely bonkers doing this,’ thought Grandpa to himself. He was glad that the members of his golf club couldn’t see him now, as he showed Lucy three fingers.

Three dolphins surfaced immediately. Grandpa folded one finger down, watching the dolphins intently, and suddenly there were only two. He closed his fist and they all disappeared again. A strange and spooky sensation began to creep through him. It was a thrill of excitement mixed with a tinge of fear. He felt as if the corner of an immense
and awesome mystery was being lifted so that he could peep into an unknown and unimaginable other reality. He bent down and whispered to Lucy.

‘If it’s the fingers on my right hand ask them to do something special; if it’s those on my left hand they can just come to the surface.’ Lucy nodded. He showed her one finger on his left hand and Jonathan appeared on the surface. He next showed her two fingers of his right hand; there was a short interval and then Grandpa jumped back in surprise as Tom and Harry barrelled out of the water at an amazing speed, somersaulted in the air and landed with a resounding smack, flat on their backs, sending up a splash that splattered the entire pool, and soaked Grandpa’s shirt.

‘Go to the edge of the pool and they’ll come and say sorry for splashing you,’ said Lucy, laughing. Grandpa left the little balcony and went down to the pool edge. The dolphins all swam up to him and then Tom and Harry, the splashing culprits, moved back from the others and supported themselves vertically in the water, the upper halves of their bodies sticking up in the air like mermaids. They nodded their heads mischievously at Grandpa before sinking back into the water.

Lucy came down to the edge of the pool and took Grandpa’s arm as she spoke to him.

‘I hate to use the animals like a circus, but Jonathan was keen that I talked to you and he said that they wouldn’t mind doing something to convince you. Do you believe me now?’

It was a big question and she looked straight up into his
eyes as she asked it. He did not hesitate.

‘Yes, I do, pet. It’s almost impossible to believe but you’ve completely convinced me. I need to go home and talk to Grandma now because she’s been very concerned and this will be wonderful news for her. Then, later, we need to have a long chat about what it all means for us. Now I’ll leave you to talk to your new friends.’ He kissed her and hugged her and left.

Lucy sat down, tears of relief streaming down her face. She had been terribly worried about telling her grandparents and when she had seen their initial reaction to her story, had begun to have second thoughts about whether she should ever have confided in them. She knew, though, that she needed the advice and support of a grown-up she trusted, and now she felt completely reassured. She looked at her watch. Grandma had given her a packed lunch and she decided that eleven o’clock was just about the right time to get started on it while she thought of what she wanted to say to Jonathan.

T
hat afternoon Lucy sat down with her grandparents while they had a cup of tea. She had just got back from the dolphinarium and was bursting with questions.

‘There’s so much I want to talk about,’ she said. ‘Clare’s been fantastic, but there are some things she couldn’t help me with and I’m sure you’ll both have some useful ideas; it’s so nice to be able to talk normally with you now that you really understand what’s happened to me.’ She was aware that her grandparents had spoken about her during the day and that they were both now completely convinced by her story. As it happened, they were both particularly interested in language. Her grandmother had been a classics teacher and her grandfather had been a doctor, specializing in speech disorders. They both now sat fascinated as Lucy described her conversations with Jonathan that day.

When she had finished Grandma got up.

‘I think I’ll make a start on getting dinner ready – even though it’s your grandpa’s turn to cook,’ she said, looking at Grandpa who gave a sheepish grin. ‘I can see you two are going to be at this for hours.’ When she had left,
Grandpa sat deep in thought for a few moments.

‘Grandma and I have some ideas about what might have happened to you,’ he eventually began, ‘but they are only guesswork on our part – which may be completely wrong.’ Lucy nodded.

‘I know,’ she said, ‘but I’d just like to hear what you think.’

‘We know from what the doctors told Clare,’ said Grandpa, ‘that the pineal gland in your brain is a little bit different to everyone else’s and it must have been like that when you were born. That could mean that you were
always
going to be the Promised One but you probably weren’t meant to know about it until you were grown-up. I think that when you had your accident the special bit of your brain that lets you speak to animals got jogged into action and it started to work a few years earlier than it was meant to. Sometimes, if a watch has stopped, you can get it to start by shaking it and I think something similar must have happened to your brain.’

‘That makes good sense,’ said Lucy, ‘but how can I do all the things the animals may want me to do while I’m still only eleven?’

‘I think the animals are as surprised as you are that you are just a child,’ replied Grandpa, ‘and I don’t think they are going to expect you to do much until you are grown-up. Maybe you can help them with one or two small things you feel capable of doing now and leave the bigger things until you’re an adult.’

Lucy’s face lit up. She was very relieved to hear this
suggestion because she had been worried about how to help the animals at the same time as trying to go to school and pass her exams.

‘That’s a great idea, Gramps! I can ask Jonathan tomorrow for some ideas and then pick something I feel I can cope with. After what you’ve said I can see that I wasn’t really meant to worry about this until I was grownup. That stupid accident has just made me know about it sooner than I should’ve done.’ She thought for a moment, then continued:

‘There are all kinds of other questions still, and one that has bothered me ever since Tibbles first spoke to me is how the animals can speak English and know so many special words.’

Grandpa chuckled. It was clearly a question he had been expecting.

‘The animals aren’t speaking English of course, but what are they speaking? Well, I think that, as a result of your accident, you can tell what animals are
thinking
. When you receive their thoughts your brain then turns them into English, using the words you already know that most closely match the ideas they are transmitting to you. Let me give you an example. Say there was a two-year-old child in this room who also had your special powers. Let’s imagine a cat came in from the garden and thought about what he had just seen. The small child might “hear” the cat say:
“There’s an animal with a fluffy tail in a tree.” You
might hear the cat say:
“There’s a squirrel in the apple tree.”
Even though the cat sent the same thought to both of you, you
translated it in a different way from the younger child because you know more words than she does. Does that make sense to you?’

‘Perfect sense,’ replied Lucy. ‘So if I were a German girl I would hear what the cat said in German, and if I were Korean I’d hear it in Korean?’

‘Exactly,’ said Grandpa, ‘and I’m sure I’m correct when I say that no animal has ever used a word you didn’t know. Tell me I’m wrong, and you will completely destroy my theory.’

Lucy thought hard for a moment.

‘No-oo,’ she said eventually, ‘they’ve never used a word I didn’t know, but they’ve used words I hardly ever say and once or twice they’ve used funny words that I thought I’d completely forgotten. Oh! And the other thing is that
I
sometimes use words when I’m speaking to them that I never use normally.’

‘Give me an example.’Grandpa was sitting forward in his seat, completely engrossed in what she had to say. Once again, Lucy had to think for a moment. She’d had so many different conversations that it was hard to remember specific examples.

‘Ah yes,’ she said, ‘Tibbles talked about “coneybanes” – stoats. The name came straight into my mind as she spoke. I only remembered later that coney is a very old word for a rabbit. It was in a passage we did at school from some famous book – I think it was
Lord of the Rings
– and then I remembered another story in which a wicked baron was called the bane of the countryside – Mum told me it
meant everyone was frightened of him because he was cruel and nasty. The animals think of stoats as animals that chase rabbits so my brain came up with the name coneybane without my even thinking about it! Another funny thing is that when I saw the owl I called it a
moonwraith
. I had no idea why – it just seemed more complimentary than nightbane and I didn’t want to upset him. Later I remembered that Miss Reedwright, our English teacher, had told us that wraith was an old word for ghost and the owl swooped in such a silent and shadowy way I suppose he reminded me of a ghost.’ She paused, then continued.

‘Your theory also explains something else, which is that animals name other animals by describing them – so a cat is a “furriclaws” and a bird is a “fledgiquill”. I must turn the animals’ thoughts about each other into my own descriptive words –’ she paused and thought for a moment, ‘– but they are usually
old-fashioned
words – and the animals say things like “
thee
” and “
thou
”. Why is that, do you think?’ Grandpa pondered briefly before replying.

‘I think it’s because they haven’t spoken to human beings for hundreds of thousands of years and they think in an old-fashioned way. Your brain tries to tell you this by using the oldest words that you have ever seen or learnt.’

‘I’m so pleased you’ve been able to explain all this,’ said Lucy; she looked relieved. ‘I couldn’t make head nor tail of it but now it’s beginning to make some sense. I just couldn’t understand how they knew all these words and spoke so perfectly, but –’ she paused ‘– if these words come
from
me
, how is it that the animals have different voices – like the lovely voice of Clara today?’

‘That’s even more interesting,’ said Grandpa. ‘I think that the thought waves from any individual animal must be distinctive in some way – just as distinctive as the normal sounds we detect with our ears. Those differences in thought waves are what distinguishes one animal from another when they can’t see or smell each other or when several are “speaking” at the same time. Let me give you an example of what I mean: do you think the
volume
of thought waves sent out from a tiny mouse brain would be different from the volume sent out by a lion?’

‘Of course,’ said Lucy.

‘That means that if you were to hear both mouse and lion “talking” using your new skill you might be able to guess which was which even if you couldn’t see them. Your brain would use the experience it has gained with
sound
images to help you analyse your new
thought
images.’

‘
Now
I see what you’re saying –’ Lucy’s face lit up, ‘– and it’s true. I knew the mice at home must be tiny creatures even before I saw them; when I was on Wimbledon Common I could hear dozens of voices and though I didn’t know which animals they came from I found I could roughly guess what the owner of any particular voice must be like.’

‘Now it’s my turn to ask a question,’ said Grandpa. ‘Can you talk equally well to all animals?’

‘No, they’re all different. The dolphins were easily the best, then Tibbles, then the mice. Birds are much more difficult – I spoke to some little birds in the garden and an
owl on the common. It was like speaking to a young child or a very stupid person. I haven’t really tried with any more basic animals – though I’ve just remembered about a spider in the bathroom last week. It was in the middle of the floor and I don’t really like them at all; I spoke to it but it didn’t reply. The funny thing is though, I asked it to go away and hide and that’s just what it did. I don’t really know if it was just a coincidence or whether it actually did what I said, but it certainly didn’t speak to me.’

‘I think that the animals you can talk to best are the ones closest to us in evolutionary terms,’ said Grandpa. ‘I’d love to know how you’d get on with chimpanzees or gorillas. Scientists would be fascinated by all this, but whether it would be wise ever to tell them …’

Lucy never found out what he was going to say, because at that moment a car screeched to an emergency stop outside in the street and they both rushed to the window. A sour-faced man was standing in the road shaking his fist at a car that was just starting again, after obviously having stopped for him.

‘Isn’t he that horrid Mr Whitehead?’ asked Lucy.

‘Yes,’ said Grandpa. ‘I’m afraid he always just walks out into the road and expects the cars to stop for him.’ Mr Whitehead was the neighbourhood nuisance. He lived opposite Grandma and Grandpa and made it his life’s work to complain about everyone and everything in the road. In the previous summer he had crossed the road to shout at poor Sarah for making too much noise in the front garden on her birthday. She had been terribly upset and
frightened and Lucy had never forgiven him for the incident.

‘Watch this, Gramps,’ she said, and he saw her looking at two seagulls sitting on the roof of the house opposite, Whitehead’s own house, in fact. Suddenly one of the gulls flew low across the road, and as it passed over Whitehead a white blob descended on to his head. It was a very large blob and it splashed all over his head and shoulders.

‘That’s from Sarah …’ Grandpa heard Lucy mutter under her breath. Whitehead, who was beside himself with rage, stamped his foot and looked up into the sky to give the bird a glare and a curse. This happened to be most unwise, for at that moment the second gull flew over and this time the droppings hit him full in the face.

‘… and that’s from me,’ Lucy added with great satisfaction. Grandpa had never seen the man looking so angry. The sash window was open a few inches, top and bottom, and they could clearly hear him shouting and swearing. His face was covered in white goo streaked with black and grey and he looked like a circus clown. He saw Grandpa and Lucy looking at him and Grandpa started back guiltily as though he had been found out. Then he remembered that what had happened couldn’t possibly be blamed on him or Lucy, and for the first time the truly awesome and anonymous nature of her power dawned on him.

Lucy laughed in glee and clapped her hands.

‘Serves you right, you horrid old creep,’ she said, then stopped and looked at her grandfather.

‘Oh gosh,’ she said, ‘that was a really wicked thing to do, wasn’t it?’ She didn’t look in the slightest bit sorry, however, and though at first Grandpa pretended to be stern, he suddenly pointed out of the window and started to giggle.

On their side of the road, to which Mr Whitehead was crossing, there was a drain with a damaged cover. The council had placed warning lanterns round it so that traffic would not drive over it until it had been repaired. Mr Whitehead had stumbled across the road, his face dripping, tripped over a lantern and got his foot stuck in the drain. He looked up again and, seeing Grandpa and Lucy still watching him, immediately stopped struggling to remove his foot and stood looking at his wrist watch, as though he regularly stood with one foot on the kerb and the other in a drain. At that moment a large grey rat appeared from the drain, jumped on to his trapped foot and started sniffing and nibbling at his shoe lace. Whitehead gave a cry of fear and disgust and tried to kick it off with his free foot, almost overbalancing as he did so. The rat then sprang on to his good foot and put its head under his trouser hem as if to run up inside his trouser leg. Whitehead shook his foot frantically to try to dislodge it. Then, just as quickly as it had arrived, the rat disappeared down the drain. Whitehead looked up to the window immediately and saw Grandpa and Lucy pretending to gaze up at the sky as though discussing the weather.

Soon an old lady crossed the street pulling a small poodle behind her on a very long lead. Mr Whitehead was
now pretending to read his newspaper, and she walked past him without taking any notice of him. When the dog came up to him, however, he sniffed eagerly at the drain and Whitehead’s feet – he could smell the rat. Having decided the rat had gone he then casually cocked his leg against Mr Whitehead’s trapped leg as though he routinely came across short, fat, trouser-covered lampposts on his evening walks. The old lady waited patiently for a while then tugged at the lead. Half-turning she called back over her shoulder:

‘Come along, Walter, it’s almost time for your tea. What a great big wee-wee for such a little doggy!’

Lucy looked at Grandpa whose face was contorted with laughter.

‘I didn’t do that dog, Grandpa, honestly! But it was a really cool finish, wasn’t it?’ They were both convulsed with laughter and had to crouch down behind the windowsill so Mr Whitehead couldn’t see them. He looked up to check and heard muffled hoots and shrieks floating through the window.