Legs And Tails

• Inara Ahmed, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2020

The waves crashed on the rocks as splashes of iridescent water travelled up and down like a glass elevator, Mister Wonka would be proud of. The fresh aroma of sea salt filled the air like the air freshener of the beach; it was so pungent you could almost taste it.

Standing on golden grains of sand, Anna was ready to meet her destiny, the ocean. "Would all this practice pay off? Will I be ready for the Surf Classic tomorrow?” she thought as she gazed off in the faint distance, wondering if she was practising her swimming for a reason.
Anna waded into the shallow water. It was crisp as always. She felt she would never get used to that. She allowed a few waves to break before taking her first dive like her hero, Emily Seebohm.

Anna slowly started swimming deeper and further into the ocean. Suddenly, a rip in the water took her even further out to sea.
Wind whipped up the waves with frenzied fury as treacherous water surrounded her. She knew that this meant that a tempestuous storm was coming. Despite all her training and experience, this storm was different. She panicked. All the dreadful things that could happen to her polluted her mind. “Where do I go now? How will I survive? How do I how-do-I…” … Anna gathered her thoughts and scrutinised her surroundings trying to see where the rip ended and finding a place that was safe to swim to. With nothing but luck, she found a miniscule island, it looked very safe to stay on while the storm passed she desperately swam to it.

Anna waited for the storm to pass. As it did, in the faint distance, she spied a playful animal jumping frantically. It was elegant and graceful.
As it came closer, she realised it was a dolphin. It was cloudy grey with a midnight black spot on its tail. It was only small and loved jumping in and out of the water and had a voracious appetite for fish. The dolphin and Anna interacted together by using signals with hands and tails. They shared emotions with their eyes, nose and their behaviour. “Swimming with a dolphin makes me feel equanimous and free, like nature itself.”

Anna had no idea that the dolphin saw what her reaction was when the tempest appeared, as she was then too overwhelmed. The dolphin decided to be her salvation. He taught her that in order to swim back to shore, she would have to ride the tide and catch the waves. Anna observed, concentrated and learnt quickly knowing her life depended on it.

When she was ready to make the journey home, Anna signalled thankyou to the dolphin and caught the waves back to the shore.
What Anna and the dolphin didn’t know is that the dolphin’s unique notches and scars on its dorsal fin and Anna’s fingerprint was very similar. That was a secret that would remain forever.