Grayson by Lynne Cox Page A

pattern on their sides and long, soft gray beaks. They also had dark lines that ran from behind their beaks to their heads and another black stripe that went from their jaws to their flippers. It was as if nature had outlined them to emphasize their beautifullyand elegantly streamlined shape. It took me a few minutes to realize that they were common dolphins.
    They were stunning swimmers: Graceful, powerful, explosive, they dolphined through the water with complete efficiency. And they were so agile. In a second they could cut sharply left or right with only the slightest shift in their body positions and a series of quick flicks with their flukes and fins. Like cyclists, they drafted off one another. The lead dolphin worked the hardest, having to push against the resistance of the water; the next dolphins drafted off the ones in front of them and got a chance to rest and recover before they took the lead.
    Loud and utterly animated, they whistled and squeaked directions. They swam beak to fluke, minimizing the drag, and when one dolphin cranked up the speed, the others followed. They were chattering in excited high pitches, and it sounded like they were laughing with glee. Their laughs came all the way up from their tails.
    I took a breath and put my head under the water.
    It sounded like a canary and it began the same way amale canary starts to sing: with a single tentative note, then a repeat of the note, then a movement up and down the scale and then all at once a burst into song, an aria filled with loud trills. And a second male joined in a duet duel, trying to out sing the first. Multiple voices joined in, adding whistles, squeaks, chatter, grunts, and clicks. It was a dolphin symphony. And it was in surround-sound, coming from all levels of the water column.
    The singing came to an end and I thought the performance was over, but it was just beginning.
    Two dolphins leaped two or three feet out of the water. They arced through the air. Suspended in the sky, they held their arc, and then they pointed their beaks and punched a hole in the water, entering it so cleanly they would have made an Olympic diver jealous.
    Five more dolphins followed, leaping in complete synchrony. Below the water, the song changed to chatter. More voices, excited, joined in. It looked like the dolphins were passing messages to one another like a sports or business team setting up a play.
    There was a long pause of nearly half a minutewhile everyone moved into position. A loud trill sounded and a group of twelve or thirteen dolphins leaped out of the water simultaneously; another group followed, larger than the first, then a third, overlapping the previous one. More dolphin groups joined in. It was like watching a series of exploding blue, white, and silver fireworks in the late morning sky.
    This, I thought, was the grand finale, but I was wrong. The dolphins were just doing their warm-ups, stretching out their fins and flukes.
    The dolphins became more creative, fun, expressive, and daring. They sprinted across the water, leaping higher, arcing across the air, diving and doing faster head-first half turns, pirouettes, and wild, out-of-control spins. They wiped out. They slammed down on their sides and backs, and their dolphin friends, watching from the sidelines, were laughing hysterically. I could hear them. Then they started clowning around.
    Two dolphins took off, racing against each other; then one leaped out of the water and tail-walked. He scooted across the water’s surface standing upright, and a split second later, the other dolphin followed.He couldn’t sustain the tail-walk as long as the first so he landed right on top of the other with a big splash, as if he was doing an intentional cannonball on top of his buddy.
    The first dolphin let out a series of clicks and cawing sounds. He nudged the other dolphin. The second dolphin pushed back. They bumped each other, they bumped again harder, they squeaked, chattered, and then sprinted