When they landed on the beech they were met by a boy . "The school term has not started yet, " he said. " The Headmaster says he will be late getting here and he asked me to look after you. My name is Freddie Smith but I spend so much time swimming that everyone calls me 'Fish'.
Now I'll show you where your room is. It will be some time before tea so would you like to go for a swim or perhaps you would like to watch a video about the school ?"
"I would like to swim," said Mark. "What about you Michael?" "I am really very tired after this journey but I would really like to go tomorrow. You go, Mark and I will watch the video."
Picture of Dolphin
Freddie put on a snorkel and some fins on his feet. He handed a snorkel and fins to Mark and they went into the water. Mark was surprised to find that the water was warm because at home in Scotland the sea always seemed to be freezing cold. He noticed that there were people doing all kinds of things in the water: sailing, surfboarding and snorkelling.
After a minute or so a dolphin came over to have a look at them. At first Mark felt a little frightened but the dolphin seemed quite friendly and wanted to play.
It kept on diving down and disappearing and then popping up as if it wanted to say, "Hello."
picture of dolphins swimming around boys
After a while some more Dolphins appeared and they began to swim round and round the boys.
They became more and more excited and began hitting the water with their tails.
"I think we had better try and swim back to shore," said Mark.
But this was not easy because the dolphins got in the way. It seemed that they were trying to keep them in the circle and stop them from escaping. At last the boys did see a gap in the ring and swam as quickly as they could. They just thought that they had escaped when coming towards them was a great white shark!
Picture of great white shark
"So that's what the dolphins were doing," said Freddie. "They were trying to keep the shark away." We will be lucky to get to the shore in time. Perhaps we should swim back and hope that the dolphins are still around to protect us. What should we do Mark?"
What do you think the boys should do? Your votes will decide what happens in the story.
In the form below click to enter text and then give your vote. Write either "SWIM TO SHORE" or "SWIM TO DOLPHINS" and click on the SUBMIT button. This will send an e mail to me. Voting closes next Saturday.
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