The Mystery of the Kidnapped Whale - Marc Brandel [9]
“Good baby, Fluke. Good boy.”
Constance Carmel was wearing scuba flippers, and diving goggles were hanging by the strap from her neck. She pushed them up over her eyes and slipped into the water.
Pete was a pretty good swimmer himself – he was on the school team – but he had never seen anyone swim the way Constance Carmel did. She hardly seemed to move her arms or legs at all. She swooped and glided through the water with the ease of a swallow gliding through the air.
She was halfway across the pool at once. The little whale met her there. It seemed to Pete that they met like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in far too long. The whale nuzzled gently against her side. She rubbed his round head and stroked his lips. They swooped together to the bottom of the pool. She swam beside him with her arm around him. She rode on his back.
Pete was so interested in watching the two of them play that he stretched out on the grass behind the palm tree and rested his chin on his hands. It was better than being at the movies. He was completely absorbed.
Constance Carmel had started a different game now. She and the whale were at the end of the pool closest to Pete. She patted the whale’s head, then with a quick, graceful twist swam away from him. The whale followed her. She patted him again, shaking her head. Once more she glided away from him. This time the whale stayed where he was, quite still, waiting.
She reached the other end of the pool, slipped out of the water, and sat on the concrete edge there.
The little whale still waited.
“Fluke. Fluke. Fluke,” she called.
The whale raised his head from the water. Pete saw the sudden alertness in his eyes. Then, in a single glide, he joined Constance Carmel.
“Good boy. Good Fluke.” She touched his lips with her fingers, then reached into the plastic container and popped a fish into his mouth.
“Good Fluke. Good Fluke.”
She patted him again, then picked up something that was lying in the grass behind her. For a moment Pete couldn’t see what it was. The underwater lights, though they illuminated the whole pool, left its surroundings in darkness.
The little whale – or Fluke, as she had named him – had raised the top of his body from the water.
He seemed to be standing on his tail. Constance Carmel’s arms went around him, doing something to his back. Lifting his head a little, Pete saw what she was doing.
She had slipped a canvas strap over Fluke’s head, just behind his eyes, where his neck would have been if whales had necks. She pulled it tight and fastened the buckle. She was putting a collar, a sort of harness, on him.
Pete ducked his head suddenly into the grass.
The latch had clicked as the little wooden gate was pushed open. Pete heard it close. Footsteps approached him. They came so close he tensed with fear that they were going to tread on him. They went on past. The sound of them moved away down the side of the pool.
“Hullo, Constance,” a man’s voice said.
“Good evening, Mr. Slater.”
Pete didn’t dare raise his head, but he tilted it a little so that his eyes were clear of the grass.
The man was standing beside Constance Carmel at the far end of the pool. He was rather short, at least six inches shorter than she was. His face was in the shadows and it was hard to make out his features. But there was one thing about him that stood out like a light. Although he looked quite young – in his mid-thirties, Pete guessed – he was completely bald. Even in the half-darkness his round head gleamed, pale and smooth and as hairless as a cue ball.
“How’s it coming?” the man asked. “When are you going to be ready to go?” He had a curious way of talking. There was a slowness in his speech that reminded Pete of something.
“Now listen, Mr. Slater.” Constance was looking down at the man. Pete could hear the cold anger in her voice. “I agreed to help you because of my father. But I’m going to do this my own way. In my