Dolphin Tale 5

Chapter [1]

"Hey, Winter, how are you doing?"

Winter whistled and swam over to join Sawyer on the platform. 

Sawyer smiled. "Attagirl." He reached out to stroke her, but was met by a sharp set of teeth. "Winter! What did you do that for?"

Winter didn't make any sound. She just kept one eye fixed on Sawyer as he glanced at his hand for any signs of damage.

"Are you all right, Sawyer?"

Sawyer gritted his teeth and nodded. "Yeah, Hazel. I'm fine. Winter only managed to nick me. It's only a scratch, nothing too serious."

"Are you sure? I could go and get some antiseptic and a bandaid, if you wanted me to," said Hazel, staring at the small wound on Sawyer's hand.

"I'm fine, Hazel, but thanks."

Hazel sighed. "Okay, then. It's weird, don't you think? Winter's never done anything like that before, and you'd be the last person I'd expect that to happen to. You and Winter are literally the best of friends. I don't understand. It's just...weird."

Sawyer scrutinized Winter, careful to keep his injured hand above the surface of the water. "I agree, it is really weird. Winter's never been like this before. But then again, even though she is in captivity, she is still a wild animal. I guess she just didn't want me to stroke her today..."

"Mm...maybe." Hazel sighed. "Anyway, I've got to go. My father wants me to do something for him. Be careful with Winter, I think she's feeling a little bit moody today."

Sawyer nodded grimly. "Yeah, okay, I'll be careful. See you later, Hazel."

"Bye, Sawyer." Hazel glanced between Winter and Sawyer and silently hoped that everything would be okay between the two of them. With a sigh, she turned and walked away, still hoping that nothing bad would happen to either Winter or Sawyer. Or both.

***

"Dr. Clay, can I speak with you for a moment?"

Dr. Clay Haskett looked up from his paperwork and sighed. "Sure, Sawyer. What would you like to talk about?"

"Winter. She's been acting...oddly, and it's seriously worrying me."

Dr. Clay frowned. "How so? What do you mean by acting oddly?"

"Well, I had my daily session with her this morning. That was when I first noticed that something was off—something didn't seem right to me. She was extremely well behaved. She is usually well behaved, but she also likes to have some fun and do some naughty things. Today, however, she listened to everything I wanted to do, and did just that. And, she was more aggressive than usual. She nicked me on the hand—but it's fine, now. I was just wondering if you'd seen Winter do something strange. Have you? Or perhaps, you might know why she's acting so strangely?"

Dr. Clay sighed and opened a filing cabinet beside him. He extracted a file and opened it, rifling through the contents, pausing to look at various sheets of paper. He pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Sawyer. "These are Winter's most recent medical records. You can take a look, but as far as I'm concerned, everything appears to be normal. Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. Perhaps this odd behaviour is just a once-in-a-while thing."

"Do you think so?" Sawyer scanned Winter's latest medical record and sighed. "Well, there's nothing out of the ordinary there." He handed the paper back to Dr. Clay who slipped it back into the file and returned the file back to the filing cabinet. "You haven't seen or heard anything unusual about Winter?"

Dr. Clay shook his head. "No, sorry, I haven't. Why don't you try Phoebe or Kat? They might know something, or they might be able to give you their opinion on the situation of Winter's behaviour. I'm sure they'd be willing to help you."

Sawyer sighed. "Okay, thanks, Dr. Clay. I'll see if I can find Phoebe or Kat."

Dr. Clay smiled. "Good luck, Sawyer. I'll see you later."

Sawyer walked out of the office. He saw Phoebe by Nicholas and Bondi's pool and went over to stand beside her. He watched as both dolphins greedily snapped up the fish that Phoebe offered them.

"Hello, Sawyer."

"Hey, Phoebe. I was wondering if I could ask you something."

Phoebe turned to face Sawyer. "Sure. What would you like to ask me?"

"Have you noticed anything odd about Winter lately? It's just, she was acting more aggressive than usual, today. I was wondering if you knew anything."

Phoebe frowned. "Yes, actually. Winter didn't eat her two P.M. bucket of fish. She didn't even touch it. In fact, she stayed as far away as she could. I had to stop Hope from eating all of Winter's fish, too.

Sawyer smiled at the thought of Hope stealing all the fish, then frowned at the thought of Winter refusing to eat. "You haven't told Dr. Clay yet, have you?"

Phoebe shook her head. "No, I'm going to go right now, actually. Would you like to come?"

Sawyer sighed. "I think I'll go check up on Winter. I'm really worried about her. You don't think that it's something serious, do you?"

Phoebe frowned. "It's too early to say, Sawyer. It could just be a once-in-a-while thing, or a serious problem. I need to go and talk to Clay and take a look at her medical records—"

"I already had a look at them. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong."

"The latest medical records?"

Sawyer nodded. "Yeah."

Phoebe continued to frown. "That's odd. Well, I'm going now. I'll see you later."

"Bye, Phoebe." Sawyer turned and continued on his way towards the main dolphin pool. He saw Hazel standing by the edge of the pool, staring into the crystalline water. "Hey."

Hazel looked up and offered him a tight smile. "Hi, Sawyer."

Sawyer glanced into the pool and was surprised to find it seemingly empty. "Where's Winter? Did something happen while I was gone?"

Hazel shook her head and sighed heavily. "She retreated underneath the platform a few moments ago. You can kind of see her silhouette, but that's it. She won't come out, either. I've tried fish, toys...everything I could think of. Sawyer, you don't think something's wrong with her, do you? I mean, she could be dying, and we wouldn't know it."

Sawyer shrugged. "I don't know, Hazel. Winter didn't touch her two P.M. bucket of fish—according to Phoebe. Phoebe's gone to tell your father."

Hazel swallowed. "This is starting to sound like Panama all over again... What if Winter ends up..."

Sawyer drew in a deep breath and gazed steadily into Hazel's eyes. "She won't."

"How do you know?"

"Because Winter is different. She's strong. She's avoided an imminent death before, so who's to say that she can't do it again? Besides, we don't even know if it's just something that happened today..."

"What if it's not something that just happened today? What if it keeps happening tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that...? What do we do then—panic?"

"No, we won't panic. We'll handle the situation calmly and methodically—"

"But, what if—"

Sawyer grabbed hold of Hazel's hands and continued to stare into her frightened eyes. "Calm down, Hazel. Everything will turn out to be okay, okay? "

"How do you know? How can you be so sure?"

"I'm not. I'm just being optimistic, okay? Glass half full, remember? Not half empty—half full."

Hazel drew in a deep breath and nodded. "Okay. The glass is half full."