* * *

Two mornings later, when Cora arrived at the lagoon, she noticed the water was higher again, almost lapping against the bottom of the dock. She was surprised and looked at the gate. It was all the way down, blocking the exit stream completely.

She swam over to look. Nothing appeared any different, except for the position of the gate. Perhaps Tibbet, rocking the gate in place, had actually jarred it loose by mistake. For once Mother wasn’t nearby. She was over at the other end of the lagoon, by the chute to the sea. Cora moved over to her.

All four dolphins were here. Mother had her head resting on the chute, listening to the surf. Because of the lagoon being backed up, the water in the chute was maybe 2 inches deeper. When she turned round to greet Cora, Cora saw her beak had a cut on it that hadn’t been there yesterday.

Mother turned back to the chute, studying the water flow, the water not yet deep enough.

Cora watched, waiting, not telling the men.

Throughout the day, the water rose ever so slowly.

* * *

Bored, Junior played with the punch ball for hours, bopping it hard with his beak, then racing to get it, like a boy left in a room with nothing else to do. Like Kat with the squid, he quickly became increasingly accurate with the ball. He could knock it right into her hands. At times he instead squeezed it in his beak so it popped out and flew high into the air.

Cora found he loved playing catch so much, she could use it to get him to practice vocalizing. She would hold up the ball and say—Talk.

As soon as he made a noise back, she’d throw him the ball. He needed extra practice, because he was not as verbal as Kat or Mother. It didn’t matter whether Cora threw the ball directly to him or in a long pass to the back corner of the lagoon. He jumped for it either way, with speed and pizzazz, so happy to play. She was beginning to think of him as a very smart dog who loved to chase balls.

One morning a few days ago, when she was snorkeling in the lagoon, he had swum up beside her clicking, corkscrewing lazily through the water. Without thinking, as she would with a dog, she had reached out to touch him, running her fingers along his neck and down his side.

She hadn’t thought it would be a bad thing to do. The dolphins were constantly touching, seemed to need the contact, rubbing their bodies against each other, twining around one another or sliding a flipper along another’s side. Being social creatures, the touch must give them comfort. Since they needed to be able to sense currents, it was possible their skin was very sensitive.

In this moment, Junior had felt for the first time the touch of an articulated hand, of the soft pads of fingers running over his side, the way they could conform to the contours of skin. He froze, his gaze inward, startled.