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2016
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112
pages
English
Ebook
2016
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Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus
Publié par
Date de parution
20 juillet 2016
Nombre de lectures
1
EAN13
9782924731024
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
2 Mo
Publié par
Date de parution
20 juillet 2016
Nombre de lectures
1
EAN13
9782924731024
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
2 Mo
Cover Title Page Editorial Page FAR FROM HOME A DOLPHIN? WHAT KIND OF CREATURE IS IT? FREE ELWAR! TAXONOMY THE LIFEGUARD VARIOUS SPECIES OF DOLPHIN EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK EVERGLADES SETTING SAIL DOLPHIN, ORDER CETACEA TREASURE HUNTERS THE DOLPHIN’S ANATOMY MY BROTHER DOLPHIN DETAILS OF DOLPHIN COURTING AND MATING
Cover design by
Barbara Dusk
Translated by
Adam Fisher
Edited by
John McCarthy
Proofread by
Benjamin Torrent
Typesetting by
Magda Lena Rook
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
© Copyright by Rose de la Fontaine
ISBN 978-2-924731-02-4
www.rosedelafontaine.fr
Monteral 2016
E-book by
Michał Nakoneczny, 88em.eu
FAR FROM HOME
W hen the plane landed and its doors opened wide to let the passengers out, Alex and Tom stepped onto the passenger stairs. They were greeted by a gust of tropical air. That was the first time the children had been so far away from home.
“Alex, I can’t believe we’re here!” exclaimed Tom excitedly.
“Yeah! Finally! America, here we come!” cried Alex, unable to control her emotions.
“Hey! Look! Is that uncle Stephen over there?! Hey! He’s not alone; there’s a bunch of kids with him… Maybe our cousins…?”
Alex and Tom ran up to a tallish young man in a red baseball cap and threw their arms around his neck. Stephen raised both children effortlessly and kissed them several times on their four slightly pale cheeks.
“It’s great to see you! Welcome to Florida!” he said, grinning from ear to ear.
“In the kingdom of dolphins!” shouted Tom.
“Okay, welcome to the magic realm of dolphins,” laughed Stephen, the youngest and favorite uncle in the family.
Apart from Stephen there were four children with suitcases waiting at the airport.
“Come over here and meet your cousins. This is Julian and that’s Matilda,” said Stephen, pointing to a boy and girl, both fair-haired. “They’ve just come down from the Great White North! They’re aunt Madilyn’s kids from Canada. If I’m not mistaken, Julian is exactly your age, Alex.
And now, meet… a pair of brazen brats. Just kidding… They’re little devils all right, but real darlings all the same: Jack and Violet from Chicago!
Now, Alex and Tom, as you all know, live in England.”
The children shook hands, looking curiously at each other. Julian was the first to break the silence:
“Uncle Stephen, I think I’m a bit older than Alex,” he said calmly.
“You were certainly born in the same year, and you’re both thirteen,” Stephen promptly added. “Now that you’re acquainted with one another, I’ll get the wheels and swing by the exit over there! Jack, Julian, why don’t you help with the luggage…”
Once outside, Tom took an instant interest in his uncle’s vehicle. It was a large pickup truck with a spacious cargo bed. What immediately caught the boy’s eye was an image of a dolphin on the side.
“Uncle, do dolphins travel in this car?” he asked, expecting the answer to be yes.
“Say what?!” exclaimed Violet. “Are you kidding me? This kid thinks dolphins can drive! Ha-ha!” Violet began to tease her younger cousin.
“Kid yourself, miss know-it-all!” retorted Tom, very annoyed.
“Easy, easy!” interrupted Stephen. “Violet, shame on you! You should know better than that. Tom’s question wasn’t silly at all. This truck’s been used many times for carrying dolphins. The back can easily hold two adult dolphins.”
“So you see, Violet, I was right! Dolphins do travel in this car!” cried Tom triumphantly.
Once the luggage was placed in the back of the truck, the children took their seats and off they drove, as the greatest adventure of their lives was about to begin.
They were driving along a wide tarmacked road, hugging the coast for many miles. Everybody stared at the crystal-blue surface of the ocean stretching far into the horizon, as its frothy waves reflected the glistening sunlight.
Occasionally, out of the water leapt elongated whitish shapes of giant fish-like creatures.
“Look!” exclaimed Alex. “These are dolphins. Isn’t that right, uncle? And so close to the shore! Unbelievable!”
But Matilda interjected:
“That’s right, Alex,” and then she added, “and at uncle Stephen’s institute we will be able to swim and play with them.”
“By the way, did you know that dolphins aren’t fish, but marine mammals?” asked Julian.
“Of course! That’s kindergarten trivia!” added Alex, eyeing the boy from head to toe, a frown wrinkling her forehead.
“Okay, okay, point taken,” continued Julian. “Even if you knew that, I bet you haven’t heard that dolphins have a sonar which helps them…”
“Oh, come off it! I know by heart all that school stuff. Can’t you come up with something really interesting?”
Precisely at that moment Stephen swerved to avoid a deer that happened to appear out of nowhere in front of the car. The sudden movement threw the passengers to one side, but Julian, who had forgotten to buckle up, was thrown from his seat. Despite escaping a serious accident only seconds ago, everybody burst out laughing. Needless to say, the loudest, high-pitched laugh belonged to Alex. Julian, sulking on all cylinders, chose to keep to himself for the rest of the trip.
Some twenty minutes later the pickup turned left towards the ocean, and they continued their journey down a narrow gravel road leading to the beach. After a quarter of an hour Stephen pulled up, and everybody got out of the vehicle.
“Here’s our bay,” he said. “It’s called Dolphin Bay.” Then, pointing to a handful of straggling houses, he added:
“Look, we’ll be living over there on the left, in the bungalow closest to the beach.”
Suddenly, with his keen sportsman’s eye, Stephen caught sight of something that immediately alarmed him.
“Sorry, I gotta leave you here to your own devices. Julian, you know the path leading to the main gate; I’ll meet you all over there in a moment!” he shouted, hurriedly climbing in back behind the wheel.
The children, goggle-eyed and their mouths agape, looked on as the pickup disappeared behind the roadside thickets.
“What happened?”
“Where’s he going?”
“What did he see over there?”
All those questions were directed to Julian, who had had a two-month holiday here last summer.
“I haven’t got a clue, but it must be something to do with his job. As you know, uncle Stephen is an expert on dolphins and other marine mammals. Ecology is his middle name and he fights for the well-being of these wonderful creatures. Sometimes it can be dangerous… But we won’t know until we meet him at the gate.”
The six children wove their way along a winding sandy path lined with exotic vegetation, quite unlike anything Tom and Alex had ever seen growing on the grassy sand dunes on the shores of the English Channel.
As they walked on, Tom imagined the venomous snakes and toothy alligators he had seen on one TV show or another, ready to lunge at them from the thickets. They nevertheless managed to reach their destination unharmed. As it turned out, Stephen had not turned up yet.
“I don’t understand,” said Julian. “He should already be here!”
The children were unsure what to do: keep on waiting outside? or go in by themselves?
While the kids were scanning the road for Stephen, Tom went unashamedly right in through the gate that had been left slightly ajar and disappeared behind the solid fence. Pretty soon, he saw two large fenced-in pools. Gingerly, perhaps a little bit scared, he walked up to one of them. And there, he saw an enormous dolphin. On the side of the pool lay a red rubber ball. He remembered seeing dolphins playing with balls like that one on television. Slowly and cautiously, the boy let himself in and began to inch his way towards the pool… He was just about to pick up the ball when the dolphin swam up to the poolside with its mouth open exposing it’s surprisingly large and sharp-looking teeth.
For a short moment Tom froze with fear, and unable to think clearly or run for his life, stood helplessly at the side of the pool. However, it was not long before he heard a hoarse voice coming from behind his back.
“Hey, son! What’re you doing here?”
Tom turned around and saw a tall man in his late thirties hurriedly walking towards him.
“Oh, hello,” said the boy. “My name is Tom,” he stammered, unsure of himself. “I flew from London this morning along with my sister Alex.”
“Oh, so you’re one of Steve’s younger cousins who came here on holiday, right? I’m Andrew Martin, a friend of Steve’s,” said the man, extending his hand to the boy. “Much as I like your cousin, I must say that hanging around a pool with a deadly animal is pretty risky business… All the more if it’s your first visit here!”
“I’m sorry. I can assure you it won’t happen again,” apologized Tom. “But how come this dolphin has such big teeth?” he demanded.
“Dolphin? That’s no average dolphin, young man! She could swallow you whole if she felt like it!”
Seeing Tom’s bewilderment, he decided to change gears:
“Okay, I see you’ve got an enquiring mind and you’d rather know than not, right? All right, then. She’s actually an orca whale, which is a kind of dolphin. A fierce predator. The one that bared her teeth at you is called Corky; she’s seven years old, and the small one is her son, Willie.”
Meanwhile the children waiting at the gate at long last spied their uncle’s pickup. He pulled up with a squeal of the brakes and jumped out of the cab.
“Sorry, guys, but we’re having problems with a certain gentleman who’s itching to steal one of our dolphins. We have to keep our eyes open!” Stephen explained his strange behavior. Then he told the children that at the marine biology institute they had a dolphin named Elwar, a truly special dolphin with special abilit