The Children's Hospital

43

“Did you find it?” Kidney asked the dolphin. She was in an empty classroom on the fourth floor, standing on a table and leaning out the window.

“No,” said Light On The Water.

“Did you look? Did you look hard?”

“I traveled North to the penguin-water and East to the pillars of the moon and South to the republic of squid and West to the kingdom of the sun. There is water everywhere, and no land. There are no waves for sport, and no beaches whereupon I might throw myself if my heart should break. The world is water, and you have no place but here to rest your round head.”

“But did you really look? I told you to look all over the world and you’re back already. Did you cheat? I think you cheated. I don’t think you did your homework!”

Light On The Water ducked her head and slapped the water with her mouth, the dolphin equivalent, Kidney knew, of a shrug. “I have traveled far; my brothers and sisters have traveled farther, and all together we have circumscribed this endless ocean. And Shafts of Moonlight, who is a sorcerer and can see through the eyes of little fish, has been in a trance this past week, searching from little mind to little mind, borrowing eyes all over the world and always only seeing the same thing. Nowhere even a speck of dry sand.”

“Well you had better get out there and look again. It’s out there somewhere, I can feel it.” Kidney struck her heart when she said this, something that her father always did when he said something he really meant. “I know it!”

“I am tired of swimming and seeking in vain,” said the dolphin.

“Well, I’m tired of being stuck in the hospital! Who’s the boss here, anyway?”

“You are,” said Light On The Water. Kidney had figured out pretty quickly that dolphins would do anything you told them to, and had spent a lot of time ordering them to do tricks before she realized she could send them on an important secret mission, one that she hadn’t even told her own brothers and sisters about. She hadn’t even told them, or anyone else, that the dolphins did more than just laugh and play when she talked to them.

“Cruel human child!” the dolphin said, but she rose up on her tail, swimming away backward and clapping her fins together in dismay before she turned and hurried away from the hospital.

“I’m not mean!” Kidney called out to her glistening back. “I just want to go home!”