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Contents ( 45)
  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

Mother, Bernie and Kat bobbed there, confused, waiting for Tibbet to show them a shape. After a minute Tibbet recorded the result, then blew the whistle to signal a new attempt and Cora showed Junior a different shape. If the dolphins could communicate, it would take them a while to figure out what it was the humans wanted. Tibbet planned to run this experiment every day for three months so they would have time to figure it out. This way, he could amass enough proof.

The first day, they tried for half an hour, at times switching out which dolphin was in the pen. Still, none of the dolphins seemed to understand yet. As usual, Kat was the one to try hardest. She tried answering by tapping an answer-shape at random in hopes of getting a reward. Whenever she tapped one of the wrong shapes, Cora could see Tibbet’s cheeks puff out as he coughed air from his mouth, dismissive. However, the few times Kat happened to tap the correct shape, he’d straighten up and look at Kat before he’d throw the fish to her. Then he’d blow the whistle to signal the start of a new round.

That first day, Kat got the answer right about a third of the time. This was to be expected since, with three possible answers, being correct a third of the time was at the level of random chance. The next day, when they ran the experiment again, all of the dolphins began tapping different answer shapes, trying to figure out what the humans wanted. Again, they managed to answer correctly about a third of the time.

On the third morning, Tibbet began to scoff at their ability. At this point, Bernie was the one in the pen with Cora. She was holding out the white square for him to see. Tibbet and Cora were waiting for the other dolphins to tap a shape, to see if it would be the matching white square.

Tibbet was 40 feet away, standing on the dock, and the wind was blowing. Whatever he was saying, she could hear only occasional words, never and can’t and animal. Still, the intent of his words was clear. He didn’t seem upset at the possible failure of his experiment. There was instead a certain exhilaration in his voice. In this moment, she understood his secret intention: to prove methodically and with numbers that dolphins could not communicate, that despite the physical size of their brains, they were not all that smart. He wanted to prove Blum wrong.

The dolphins bobbed in the water, listening.

* * *

Blum picked Leary up at the airport and brought him back. Leary was a handsome man, rugged jaw, solid body. Wearing a suit, he could have played the part of any executive of a large corporation. However instead he dressed as though he were a Mexican peasant: an embroidered shirt, loose white pants and a necklace of large wooden beads. This was clothing different from what Cora had seen any adult male ever wear.