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  1. ALSO BY AUDREY SCHULMAN
  2. THE DOLPHIN HOUSE
  3. ONE Tampa, Florida Feb. 1965
  4. TWO Aug. 1957 Ogunquit, Maine
  5. THREE May 1965
  6. FOUR March 1958 Orlando, Florida
  7. ARRIVAL
  8. FIVE June 4, 1965
  9. SIX June 4, 1965
  10. SEVEN June 5, 1965
  11. EIGHT June 6–10, 1965
  12. NINE June 11–16, 1965
  13. TEN June 17–26, 1965
  14. ELEVEN June 27–30, 1965
  15. TWELVE July 1–8, 1965
  16. THIRTEEN July 9–13, 1965
  17. FOURTEEN July 14, 1965
  18. LANGUAGE LESSONS
  19. FIFTEEN July 15–17, 1965
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN July 18–25, 1965
  22. EIGHTEEN July 26–Aug. 1, 1965
  23. NINETEEN Aug. 2–7, 1965
  24. TWENTY Aug. 8–15, 1965
  25. TWENTY-ONE Aug. 16, 1965
  26. TWENTY-TWO Aug. 17–30, 1965
  27. HOMEARIUM
  28. TWENTY-THREE Homearium, Day 1
  29. TWENTY-FOUR Homearium, Day 3
  30. TWENTY-FIVE Homearium, Days 4–7
  31. TWENTY-SIX Homearium, Week 2
  32. TWENTY-SEVEN Homearium, Week 3
  33. TWENTY-EIGHT Homearium, Week 4
  34. TWENTY-NINE Homearium, Week 5
  35. THIRTY Homearium, Weeks 6–8
  36. THIRTY-ONE Homearium, Weeks 9–11
  37. THIRTY-TWO Homearium, Week 12
  38. THIRTY-THREE Homearium, Week 13
  39. THIRTY-FOUR Homearium, Week 14
  40. THIRTY-FIVE Homearium, Week 15
  41. THIRTY-SIX Homearium, Week 16
  42. THIRTY-SEVEN Homearium, Week 18
  43. THIRTY-EIGHT
  44. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  45. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

* * *

A few times a day, he’d sneak up behind her to try to rub his penis against the back of her calf. His first shove generally knocked her leg out from under her. If she managed to catch her balance, she’d turn and jab him hard with the bristled end of the broom. This hurt his delicate skin. He’d flee to the far end of the pool and sulk there for a while.

* * *

Occasionally now he opened his mouth and stretched his face toward her, squeaking. He seemed to want her to rub his gums, the same way Kat had wanted this.

Perhaps their gums hurt all the time and needed massage. Or maybe dolphins commonly sonared each other’s mouth as a way of showing affection, their version of a hug. Whatever the reason, Cora wouldn’t do it. She would not get her hands anywhere near his sharp young teeth.

Still he opened his mouth and stretched his face toward her, whistling. Yearning.

* * *

Each day, Cora stepped out onto the lawn to report on her progress to Blum. She would explain her current strategy, give stories of Junior’s progress and say what she would work on next.

Once a week Tibbet reported with her, summarizing any statistical improvement in the recordings of Junior’s responses. That first week that she had spent in the homearium with Junior, Tibbet arranged on the picnic table a few sample printouts of the spectrograms. At the top of each was the tracing of her spoken prompt; below that was Junior’s response. Tibbet brought the reel-to-reel recorder to play the accompanying audio and systematically discussed the differences between her prompt and Junior’s response: the amplitude, pitch and timing, as well as the number of sonic bursts. He’d circled with a red pen every way in which Junior was failing to imitate her. He tried to sound objective.

The second week of her living in the homearium, she had pointed out that Junior was doing better with the alphabet. He could repeat the number of sounds she made and was beginning to echo the vowels. Tibbet confirmed that Junior seemed to have memorized that set of sounds, but that accomplishment wasn’t much more impressive than a dog uttering a specific howl on command.

The third week, placing the spectrograms on the table, he admitted that, during the lessons, Junior was now narrowing his vocal range to be closer to that of a human. They could all see it in the spectrograms. Before the lesson started, Junior’s audio tracing flew from the top to the bottom of the paper, as complex as a symphony. However once she said talk, his voice paused and then responded in a more narrow range, closer to hers.

The fourth week, Tibbet struggled with what to say. When he spoke, he looked at the spectrograms rather than at Blum or her. He said that while he could not make statements about Junior’s intent, there was a statistically significant increase in the animal replicating the beat of her words, as well as at times some of the sounds themselves.