Dotty the Dolphin

DOTTY the dolphin knew she was destined to be a big star.

Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people watched her tricks every day.

As Dotty flew out of the water, they clapped with delight. And when she soaked them to the skin, while deftly flipping back in, they squealed and giggled, pretending to be outraged.

Dotty had no doubt she was the main attraction at Nature's Splendour. All the other animals at the park paled into comparison with her skill and grace, she often reflected.

“One day, I’m going to be in a film. I’m a natural,” she boasted to her friends, Delores and Derek.

“Pffft,” snorted Derek. Dolores hooted with laughter.

“You’ve got about as much chance of being in a film as I have of marrying that lovely Kylie one,” sighed Derek.

“Stop kidding yourself Dotty.”

“Whatever you say, Mr Minogue,” quipped Dotty and with a graceful whoooosh, followed by an impressive swiiiiiiiiiish, she was gone.

“Hey, whatever YOU say, superstar!” Dolores shouted after her, wearily.

“I’m fed up of Dotty being so big-headed, aren’t you Derek?” she asked.

“Yeah. Why do we have to do all the hard work for her to get the glory?” her friend agreed.

Both dolphins dreamed of the day when they could emerge from Dotty’s shadow. Each day, like clockwork, they swam niftily between their trainers, Marcos and Valerie, while Dotty bided her time at the edge of the pool.

They balanced rings on the tips of their noses, for a polite ripple of applause – it was the politeness that Dolores couldn’t bear – why should anyone's enjoyment be so restrained?.

The crowd went wild as Dotty nonchalantly somersaulted in and out of the ripples, showing her teeth in an arrogant grin and winking at Dolores and Derek. The more she smiled, the louder the cheers grew.

Derek wanted to pepper the cheers with a loud "booooo". Dolores wanted to cry. “I’ll wipe that smirk off her face,” she announced once.

But Marcos said they weren’t to worry.

“It’s teamwork, the audience is clapping you two as well, “ he reassured them.

Derek and Dolores knew Marcos was just being kind.

One day, when Valerie came with the first fish of the day, Derek noticed that Dotty was nowhere to be seen.

“This is a disaster. Help! Help!” Shouted Valerie.

“Where can she be?” Screeched Marcos.

“I hope she’s okay,” said Dolores sheepishly. “I know she can be a pain, and sometimes she’s mean to us, but she’s still our friend.”

“What’s this?” gasped Derek, grabbing hold of a soppy slip of paper pinned to the side of the pool.

“Have gone to find some bigger fish…” he started to read, nervously.

“Typical Dotty, we’re not fish, what can she mean?” cried Dolores, a tear forming in her eye and her lip starting to tremble. “I just hope she’s…she’s..okay.”

Then she looked up and saw the secure gate to the dolphins’ pool was flapping wide open in the early morning breeze.

“Oh no. She’s gone to the sea lions,” shouted Dolores.

"It's w-w-worse than that," stuttered Derek. "Look!"

Dolores squinted. Narrowing her eyes, she could see the sea lions, Sally, Sarah and Simon, were all sleeping.

Their gate was also open.

"But that leads to the..." began Delores.

"WHALES!" gulped Derek.

"Please, Dotty No!"

The dolphins didn't mix with the whales. These magnificent, haughty creatures seemed a world apart.

Walter, Wilomena and William even had a plasma screen above their grand arena.

It beamed close-up images to a capacity crowd, accompanied by subtitles in four different languages to translate a commentary.

Dolores and Derek knew that a visit to "Whale World" would put them completely out of their depth - and not just because of the size of the pool.

Now they feared that Dotty didn't share their sense of order.

And they already knew that aspiring celebrity Dotty was jealous of Wilomena.

Sensing panic, Valerie sprinted to the whale enclosure.

She could see Dotty in the corner, bobbing along with the waves.

"Hi Valerie," she said coolly.

"Don't you 'hi Valerie me,' come back this minute, we're all worried sick about you."

"But look at me, I'm a star, I can't come back."

"Hmmmph," Valerie sighed.

There was no time to say anything else.

The music was starting - Hero by Enrique Iglesias - Valerie marvelled at how even the Russian tourists were singing along.

Then the clapping in time to the music started.

Show me the way to Amarillo came next and pictures of smiling faces filled the plasma screen.

Children waved and laughed when they saw themselves magnified and mums looked embarrassed, straightening their backs for the camera.

Wow, what a build up! thought Valerie, I bet Dolores and Derek would love something like that. They'd heard the tunes in the distance of course, but seeing the excited crowd was something else.

Dotty was grinning broadly.

"Welcome to Whale World" boomed a recorded voice, before adding, "bienvenue", "bienvenidos", "wilkommen" and "privyet!"

"Wheeeeee, here we go," squealed Dotty.

Or should that be "on y va" ? Oh what a clever dolphin I am... She thought, summoning her energy to swim, as gracefully as she could to join Walter, William and Wilomena in their carefully choreographed entrance.

She looked tiny by comparison.

Wilomena snorted.

William grunted.

Walter sighed.

"Another wannabe", yawned Wilomena.

"Perhaps we should humour her," whispered Walter through pursed lips.

"Nah, let's not."

Walter propelled his bulk to what seemed like within inches of the gawping spectators, at what Dotty thought must have been almost 20 miles per hour.

"Wow-wee" bellowed boys and girls.

"Cor," echoed the mums.

"Amazing!" mouthed the dads as all three whales did a perfectly timed 360 degree turn, expertly turning their underbellies to the sky.

"My turn now," screeched Dotty, struggling to make herself heard above the roar of the crowd.

With all the speed and elegance she could manage, she whizzed along the surface of the water, tootling around the edge of the pool.

This is it, this is my moment, I've been waiting all my life, if this doesn't get me on the big screen, nothing will. Dotty's heart was racing faster than her flippers.

Then there was silence. The audience seemed shocked.

Why weren't they clapping? Applause broke out. A gentle rhythm of hands sounded through the stadium. A well-mannered appreciation. It wasn't even as loud as when Tony Christie had been belting out his hit moments earlier. What was the word Dotty was looking for?

Impatient perhaps? No, polite, that was it. The applause was polite.

"Where have the whales gone? Me want whales, me want whales!" insisted a little boy loudly to his dad.

"Yeah, dolphins can wait. Me seen dolphins," added his younger sister.

"Dolphins are BORING, more whales, more whales!" They began to chant together.

"Adam, don't be so spoiled," chided their mum. "Sophie, be quiet, not everyone is lucky enough to come to Nature's Splendour and see the whales. Some have to make do with the dolphins."

"Now be patient, the lovely big whales will be back in a minute."

Dotty began to cry, her tears eaten hungrily by crashing waves cascading around her as the trio of whales charged back to the centre of the arena. They didn't look at her, but she could see they were laughing.

And then Wilomena turned to meet her gaze. The more she laughed, the louder the cheers grew.

"Hey Gorgeous," someone was shouting at Dotty.

It was Valerie.

"Shall we go home?" she asked, smiling warmly and shrugging her shoulders.

"Yes please," mumbled Dotty.

"I'm so sorry I've been such an idiot. I promise that in future, Dolores and Derek can do some somersaults too."

"Okay sweetheart," said Valerie.

"Then you really can be a star."

Comments

[Jo Payton]

Bravo! I laughed out loud at the Enrique Inglesias bit!!

I think this should be for adults. Wasted on kids ;o)

[Linda]

Hehe - cheers Jo. You've got to love a bit of Enrique. And I know which bit of course.

[Sally]

We enjoyed it, and i particularly liked the bit about "typical.. we're not fish"

[Linda]

Thanks Sally - I wanted to call it 'A bigger fish' but thought people could be funny about it. 'A bigger mammal' didn't have the same ring. Now I sound filthy.

[Elaine]

Great story Linda, well done

[Alorac]

I loved the story, Linda. Congratulations.

[FW]

Linda, this is very good. Great work.

[Linda]

I read a book on writing children's stories from cover to cover last night and two big 'don'ts' were writing about animals and thinking anyone else would be interested in something you wrote for your own children. That's me told!

[G]

Just because a book says don't it doesn't mean you have to believe it. After all, many people derive great pleasure each day from breaking one or other of the Ten Commandments ;-) For every rule in writing there must be at least a dozen exceptions.

I accept that there is difference between live storytelling and writing, but a lot of the tales I told in schools were tried out first on my two girls. Children will be biased in favour of storiess told by their parents, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad story.

But there's a difference between bedtime stories told to your kids to settle them down and stories to get them excited and eager.

I rather liked Dotty and her wilingness to perform on a bigger stage and challenge the aloof whales. The way she also learns it is sometimes better to be a big 'fish' in a small pond than a smaller fish in a bigger pond is a useful lesson.

There is a potential problem when turning spoken bedtime tales into print. As a 'teller' a major part of the story will be the voices you use for the characters. If you're writing a book for parents to read to their kids most parents 'with any oil in their bottle' will put different voices in anyway. But if it's for kids to read to themselves you need to get your own idea of the voices across using just written words. A different skill. Not all that difficult, but it needs thinking about.

Apart from being in the physical shape of a Dolphin I pictured Dotty as a hyperactive child,constantly on the go ;-)

[Julia]

What a lovely story, Linda! And thanks a lot to the reference to the Russian tourists ;-) As a matter of fact, my early teenage years were spent in listening to Julio Iglesias songs, what an amazing talent he is! Thanks for bringing lovely memories, Julia.

With regards to the book you've read - take it to the bin! The Puss in the Boots - what a fantastic fairy-tale!!! And then think of C. S. Lewis or Astrid Lindgren: they all started writing for their children or for the children they looked after, and thankfully, we've got some really amazing fairy-tales out there.

[David H. Smith]

I loved this story, I'm going to try it out on my kids. I have a simliar cute cuddly animal story on my own blog.

http://bananathekitty.blogspot.com/

If you would give me permission, I can post your story on my blog if you would like to post mine on yours. I've been driving traffic to my site via various methods.

[David H. Smith]

I like it. I have a similar story on my website blog, http://bananathekitty.blogspot.com/

I have a few stories posted there that my children continue to ask for. They like the stories quite a bit. I also invite others to submit their own short stories. If you like, I can post your story (with your permission only) if you would like to post mine.

Hey, maybe we can create our own publishing company. I'm from the United States.

Regards....

Signed Mr. Illusions of Grandeur

[Linda]

Hi David - good luck and thanks for your kind words - though the effort of starting a publishing company for my part based on one kids' story would kill me I reckon. I'd love to do some more, it's just life gets in the way. :)