Manuela was amazed that Granny Raffy, who didn’t really like lots of people all together, was prepared to have the whole of San Larenzo tramping over her property. But she kept her astonishment politely to herself. The next day, Raffy gave the girls paper and crayons, and they set about making posters to advertise “Meet-the-Manatee Day,” which would happen on the following Sunday. They decided that Libia should catch a ride back to San Larenzo in Uncle Luis’s boat, so she could pin up the posters all over the village and tell everyone about it.

Luis came by in the afternoon and dropped off Raffy’s supplies. He was in a big hurry and ran up and down the steps with the bags and boxes.

“What’s the rush?” Raffy asked.

“Don’t you ever look at the sky, Mama?” Luis laughed and pointed at the black clouds. “I don’t want to be bailing rainwater all the way home!” He hustled Libia and the bag of posters into the boat.

After so long in Libia’s company, Manuela felt lost at the thought of being without her cousin. They waved and smiled at each other as the boat pulled away. Tintico ran to the stern to keep Manuela in sight for as long as possible.

As Manuela and Raffy walked back up to the house, giant raindrops began to fall.

“I think Luis is still going to be bailing, for all his hurrying!” Raffy said.

Rain in the Amazon is not like rain anywhere else on earth. Raindrops are fatter and wetter, they fall faster, and they are more tightly packed into the space between clouds and earth. By the time Raffy and Manuela reached the house, they were drenched and gasping for breath. Water had taken over the space where air normally was. They stood on the veranda, their voices drowned out by the deluge hammering on the roof, smacking into the ground, and slapping onto the millions of leaves in the forest.

Raffy had to put her mouth right next to Manuela’s ear in order to be heard. “Wait for the rain to ease off before you feed Airuwe.”

Manuela nodded and sat down under the cover of the veranda to wait, while Raffy went for a siesta.

But the rain did not ease off. After an hour, Manuela decided that she couldn’t make Airuwe wait any longer for his food. She made up a bottle and yelled to Raffy that she was going, forgetting that Raffy would not hear her above the noise of the rain.

The jungle, the river, everything, had disappeared in a sheet of gray, so it took Manuela a moment to see what had happened to the pool. The floodwaters, which had been thirteen feet or more away from Airuwe’s pond, had risen so suddenly that they had engulfed it. The pond was no longer an island of water in dry land, but simply another part of the river, only visible as a square of deeper water at the edge of the flood. And there was no sign of Airuwe.

Manuela immediately plunged into the flooded pool to look for him.

The rainwater was cold, and Manuela gasped as it hit her skin. She dived again and again, searching the pool by touch. But there was no rubbery skin, no bristly nose. If Airuwe had swum out to join the river, he could be swept away. Without a mother to feed and protect him, he would die.

Manuela struggled back to the shore, picked up Airuwe’s bottle, and waded back into the water, as deep as she could, while still keeping her feet on the bottom. Then she tapped the bottle with a stick — she did this every time she came to feed Airuwe, and he had learned to associate the sound with food. She tapped the bottle repeatedly, pushing back the tears that started to squeeze into her eyes.

The water was rising fast, and the current was beginning to pick up, tugging at her legs. The rain still lashed down, blurring the water and the forest into a smudge of gray. Seconds passed like hours, minutes like weeks, and still there was nothing.

Then — pppff — Airuwe’s nose popped through the surface right in front of Manuela! His solid, round body hung in the water next to hers. He was too big now for her to hook an arm over his back, so she held tightly to a flipper with one hand and put the teat into his mouth with the other.

The current was threatening to push them over. Using the bottle to tempt him, Manuela shuffled backward into shallower water, where she could get some anchorage to prevent them both from being swept away. But she had forgotten that the pool was just behind her, and she went in over her head. When she kicked back up to the surface, she found that she was still holding the bottle and that Airuwe was still hanging on to his dinner! She swam on her back, kicking hard with her feet and trying to pull them both closer to shore, but the current swirled them farther out, closer to where the river rushed as fast as a galloping horse.

Something banged against Manuela’s shoulder: a branch! She let go of the bottle and grasped the branch tightly, pulling herself and Airuwe toward it. Other branches caught at her legs and slapped her face, but they held Manuela and the manatee like rice in a sieve as the floodwater sluiced past.

As long as Manuela could hold on to Airuwe with one arm and the drowned tree with the other, they would not be lost. But they were not out of danger. The new floodwater was so very cold, and baby manatees could die in cold water. Manuela shouted a few times but soon gave up. Calling for help was useless — Raffy would never hear her above the storm. She would just have to hope that her granny would notice that she had gone and come to look for her.

Manuela stretched her arm as far around Airuwe as it would go. At least he didn’t wriggle. In fact, he seemed to want the comfort of her presence. She shut her eyes and felt the rain beat on her head.

“Frog! Frog!”

Silvio’s voice was calling her!

Manuela opened her eyes and there he was, leaning out of his boat and tying a rope around her. Raffy was at the stern, handling the outboard. Silvio’s thin face was full of worry and streaming with water.

“What are you doing here?” Manuela gasped.

“Rescuing you, what do you think?” he said.

It was almost dark. Manuela realized that she must have been here for hours. Her arm was still around Airuwe.

“We’ll tow you to shore,” Silvio said. “Hold on to Airuwe.”

Back in shallow water, Manuela’s legs were almost too chilled and weak to hold her up, but she kept her arms around the manatee.

“We’ll get him in the lavadero,” said Silvio. “Then we can drag him away from the water until the flood’s gone down.”

“We must warm him up,” added Raffy. “He’s too cold.”

“And so are you, Frog,” said Silvio. “Let go of the manatee and go inside.”

Manuela shook her head.

Silvio and Raffy exchanged a look.

“OK,” Silvio said. “Let’s get this done.”

Manuela wouldn’t leave Airuwe until he was safely in the tank. Then Raffy ordered Silvio to take her inside.

“Papa,” Manuela whispered as he scooped her into his arms, “did you mean it when you said that you didn’t want me?”

“No, Frog,” Silvio said softly. “Of course I didn’t.”