Blackwater Voices

Stacey Belbin

Description

Stacey Belbin shares four heartwarming and compelling short stories of exciting creatures whose experiences are sometimes hilarious, sometimes frightening, often heart-wrenching.Readers meet Poppy and Paddy, spirited pilot whale twins with a thirst for knowledge and mischief. They'll hear the chronicles of Barnacle Buzz whose accounts of sea life never fail to draw a crowd of listeners on the ocean floor. And they'll follow Ronnie and Rosalina, red-breasted mergansers whose love story rivals any bestselling novel.Through these characters' eyes, readers learn how the actions of humans directly affect animal families, altering their lives both in positive and negative ways and how they struggle to survive the forces of nature.

Sujets

• Children's
• Essex

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 10 décembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781838597795
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2020 Stacey Belbin

The moral right of the author has been asserted.


Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.


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ISBN 978 1838597 795

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.


Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

Sam, our smiling angel in heaven.

I grieve that a full stop was placed where a comma was intended. Your life was too short but memories will live on forever. If the past could be rewritten it would be, but I hope you will sail with us in spirit forever.

These stories are written from the heart of the River Blackwater; a river along the East Coast unlike any other you’ll meander along.



Contents
Final Farewells
River Rivals
Lost and Found
Rekindled Spirits

Final Farewells
With his eyes shut, his snout rose and sniffed the air, picking up scents as they drifted past. His face absorbed the rays of sun beating down on him. Slowly, his brain began to relax. The squinting wrinkles round his eyes dissolved, leaving an unblemished, smooth layer of skin, and the tension drained from his body. A smile spread across his face as he reflected upon his successful shallow water shoal chases of the morning.
His hunt was over, and after a good mudbath, he was ready for a snooze on the rocks. He sat contentedly while a gentle breeze blew through his whiskers, tickling his face. The hours passed him by; the flow of the ebb and flood tide rocked him gently.
The tide trickled out around him, exposing the mud, and the air filled with a potent, salty smell of seaweed – that comforting, familiar smell of sea. The breeze dropped away and the heat of the sun strengthened. The tide went slack and everything was still; not a breath of wind, not a ripple on the water, not a single movement or sound – ultimate serenity and detachment.
The internal heat of his body, along with the external radiating sunrays, dried the mud covering him. The crusty sludge crumbled as his blubber-filled body moved to a more comfortable position. He resumed his dozing on the rocks and returned to the fish-catching adventures of his dreams.
It wasn’t long before there was movement in the water again; the tide turned, the flow of the current started to flood in and the wind gradually increased. As the wind drifted over the sun-warmed mudflats, the hot and cold air met. The mix created a scene like that of a ghost story as an eerie mist formed and rolled along the brow of the flats, past the derelict, rusty old barges and uninhabited marshes. The atmosphere changed, and the air turned cold with occasional warm pockets blowing past on a now-chilly afternoon.
In the distance, an underwater disturbance stirred. An unidentified energy beneath the water’s surface started to send out waves that travelled from left to right. The water molecules which made up the waves moved in a clockwise direction, creating giant orbits. As the waves progressed, the wind took hold of the water and created massive, churning peaks. As particles moved up the waves, across their crests and down into their troughs, they formed white caps on the water’s surface, like galloping horses across the ocean. The white horses were chaotic, choppily forcing the water about in random directions. Sammy the seal could hear the tumbling white tops crash towards him, building in speed and height. The white horses engulfed him and cast enormous shadows over his body. He tensed and shot into alertness. He could sense danger, but before he could react, he was washed from the rock beneath him and toppled into the water with a great big splash. The impact of the 880-pound blubber-filled hulk created tidal waves to add to the already erratic surfs that swamped him. His body plunged into the cold water, and he was drawn under the surface. He hit the seabed as the tide churned him around like a huge whirlpool. Sand, sediment and mud swirled around him, clouding the water as he thrashed about in the choppy sea. Starfish and crabs whooshed past him. He had no idea what had hit him, only that the waves had seemingly come out of nowhere.




Slowly, he regained his composure. The waves continued to crash onto the beach, dissolving on their outbound retreat, and the sea reclaimed its natural equilibrium. As the water cleared, it revealed the culprits behind this sudden attack of energy. The black torpedoes, ranging between sixteen and twenty-five feet in length, looked back on a rather sea-swept seal. Fifty faces of pure innocence stared at him; they could hold their composure no longer. Chuckles of mischief and amusement spread across their faces as their pilot swam forward.




‘Good day to you, Sammy,’ said the pilot whale, revealing himself.
‘Peter! Long time no see,’ replied Sammy. His frown curled up into a grin.
‘Told ya next time I saw you, I’d catch you by surprise. And if I’m not mistaken, I’m sure we placed a bet on it too. You bet me that my big mass of a body couldn’t outsmart and sneak up on you and your alert, quick-reacting, clever seal brain. Half of it sleeps while the other half remains vigilant for predators; it appears I caught both halves of your brain sleeping on the job. Looks like you owe me a fish supper. That small tidal wave from my pod here certainly took you by surprise; you should’ve seen your face.’
‘It certainly did! I wondered what on earth was happening. Wow, so good to see you again. What are you doing around these parts? Last time I saw you, you were but a mere youngster. You’re looking well. I didn’t expect to see you around this shallow coastline again,’ quizzed Sammy.
‘Well, neither did I,’ said Peter, with concern spreading across his face as he pondered the situation.
‘You look troubled, Peter. And judging by the fact that you’re back in my neck of the river, I’d say you’re in a serious predicament. What’s up? What’s distressing you?’
‘Let’s take a swim, shall we?’ suggested Peter, breaking away from the pod, while they dispersed to deeper waters to occupy themselves by feeding on the herrings.




‘It all started earlier this year,’ began Peter. ‘We were on our spring migration path when we found ourselves in the middle of a shipping lane. This wouldn’t normally be a problem for us, but Poppy and Paddy were only six months old at the time. Due to their inexperience, they were distracted by the bow waves of an incoming ship and tried to ride them. The ship almost hit them, and it was only their mother pushing them out of the way in time that saved them both. This unfortunately cost Pearl – their mother – her life.
‘Our oldest member of the pod, Patricia, who is no longer able to bear young of her own, came to the rescue of Poppy and Paddy. Since Pearl’s tragic death, Patricia has been lactating and nursing the two young ones. Pearl was pilot of the pod. She was of significant value to us. Her experience built up over the years allowed us to navigate through dangerous coastlines, busy shipping lanes and shallow waters, and follow plentiful shoals of squid and fish. That was her forte. That’s why we nominated her as our pilot. On her death, instinct took over, and I led the pod back to safety, taking charge of the situation for a short while. I was not expecting to later be honoured with the role as the new pilot of the pod. Truly, I am honoured, but it is such a responsibility to keep each and every one of the pod safe from harm; and with two little ’uns, there is an even greater duty placed on my fins. This role is still new to me; they told me I am a natural and that if I am half as good as my grandfather, I will do them proud.
‘So, when autumn came, they were all waiting eagerly for the gales to help us on our migration, and again looking to me for guidance as to when we should set off. Keen not to leave our feeding grounds too early, I waited patiently for the asperitas clouds to appear in the sky – a trick my grandfather taught me. “Always look out for those rippling ocean waves in the skies before you set off,” he’d say. “Asperitas” originates from the Latin verb aspero , meaning “to make rough”. The clouds were named for their rough, choppy, sea-like appearance in the sky. Grandfather told me that these clouds meant there was an unstable atmosphere above us and, with it, the most amazing thunderstorms would follow. Not only would there be acoustic thunder and electric bolts lighting up the sky, but strong winds and heavy rain would accompany the thunderstorms.




‘I waited and waited until mid September when, there in the sky, while I was spyhopping, was my sign. The asperitas clouds started to form, and the pod could contain their excitement no longe