So I swam out with my mask, and I floated in the water above the seagrasses. It was a hot afternoon, and the water was warm and the sun felt hot on my back. But I didn’t see anything, not for a long time, just the sandy bottom below me, and a kind of meadow of seagrass, that looked empty. But when my eyes acclimatized a bit better I started to see animals too – little flatfish, lots of mollusks and amphipods, and here and there a shoal of tiny silvery fish – too small for me to identify. But still I didn’t see any seahorses. And then I noticed a piece of weed that didn’t look quite right, and when I swam closer, I noticed it just very slightly dipped below another piece of weed – and there it was, a Lornea Island Sea-Dragon! It was only about three inches long, so it wasn’t the most scary dragon you could imagine, but it did look a bit like a dragon, with its long snout and wavy fins. I watched it for ages, but unfortunately my camera had run out of battery by then, so I didn’t manage to get any photographs or video.
Anyway. We didn’t make a fire that night, because we didn’t want to be seen. But when it got dark we packed everything up into the dinghy and paddled a little way out to sea without any lights on. When we were maybe a quarter mile off the beach, still on the legal side of the buoys, we checked with binoculars if we could see anyone moving inside the compound or on the beach. It looked quiet, so we started paddling like hell across the exclusion zone. It’s only about a mile across, and we had the tide with us, but paddling a sailing dinghy is pretty slow, and you get tired, so when we were about halfway across we saw lights appear on the beach, and we knew they’d seen us. If there had been any wind, we could have put the sails up at that point (we didn’t use them before because the sails are white, and would have made us easier to see), it didn’t matter now, but then there wasn’t any wind anyway. We paddled faster, but a few minutes later we saw they’d launched the gunboat. It could go about fifty times faster than we could, so there was no doubt it was going to catch us. But Dad had a clever idea. As soon as he saw the boat launch, he switched on his floating flashlight, and threw it as far as he could behind us. It was the only light around – except for the red flashing lights from the buoys – and the gunboat went straight towards it, while we both carried on paddling as fast as we could. By the time they realized what we’d done, and picked us out properly with their spotlight, we were almost at the buoys on the far side of the exclusion zone. We actually got out completely by the time they caught up with us.
And the security guard wasn’t too bad really. He told us we shouldn’t have done it, and it was dangerous and everything, but he seemed to understand that we couldn’t have gone around by sea. In fact, he said that if we sailed around Lornea again, we should just let him know and he’d escort us through the cordoned-off zone. He was so friendly I even told him about the sea-dragons.
My first lecture ends, and thoughtfully I gather up my papers – mostly full of doodles – and pack them into my backpack, then I walk out and to the next building along, where I have another class. I see Linda, that mature student, and I try to give her a sort of smile to say hello, but this time she’s talking to someone else, and she doesn’t see me.
So I sit, on my own again, and keep thinking about what happened next.
It was announced in the paper, I think that’s where I saw it first, or it might have been on TV, on the island’s own cable channel. Anyway, the point is, the chemical company in the north of Lornea Island, Fonchem, had announced it wanted to expand its manufacturing base, and build a much larger dock for exporting its products directly from the compound. It was spun like it was good news – because there would be more money and jobs for the island – but I knew right away that it wasn’t going to be good news for the sea-dragons. And I wasn’t the only one who was concerned. It developed into a kind of battle between Fonchem and various proper environmental groups. And the Lornea Island Council is going to decide it now. They’re going to give a final answer on whether the expansion is allowed or not. It’s why I’ve been asking Dad to keep putting up the posters.
Except, I realize with a bit of a guilty feeling, I haven’t asked Dad to put them up for a while. But then I’ve been busy, I’m doing a college course as well, and… And well, I’m also running around with the beautiful daughter of the CEO of Fonchem.
So I don’t listen much to this lecture either.
Chapter Twenty
I have
