CHAPTER NINE

They were all warm and getting drier now, wrapped in thick blankets that Yoenis’s cousin Maceo had given them. They stood on a barge called El Limpiador de la Bahía, the Bay Cleaner, as it steamed toward the malecón. Maceo had managed to fish the Phoenix out of the bay with a small crane that he used for salvaging junk. Usually, though, the junk that he saved didn’t have people hanging off of it.

Professor Fauna had managed to retrieve all the papers he’d brought from his office from the floor of the Phoenix. Maceo had given him a black trash bag and Professor Fauna hugged it to his chest.

Yoenis, with his one incredibly dense suitcase beside him, talked animatedly with Maceo, explaining what they had seen. Jersey shook himself and frolicked in the sunshine among the salvaged junk, jumping from a waterlogged sofa to an old crate to a black barrel. Maceo tried not to stare. Elliot was attempting to wring the bay water out of his grandmother’s sweater. “I am so amazingly dead.” He sniffed the sweater. “Ugh! My mom is definitely going to want to know why this smells like oil and dead fish!”

“Hey, Elliot,” said Uchenna. She was looking at the black barrel Jersey was now perched on. He was trying to clean his fur with his tongue, but kept having to stop to gag and spit out the filthy water.

“I’m not going near him,” said Elliot. “He will not throw up on me again.”

“No, not Jersey,” said Uchenna. “Look.”

She pointed to a silver snakelike S on the barrel.

“No,” Elliot moaned. “Nooo. Nooooooo.”

Professor Fauna heard Elliot’s moaning. He came over. Uchenna said, “Professor, look.” Her fingers traced small white letters that ran in along the curved edge of the barrel lid: SCHMOKE’S SURE-TO-CHOKE INSECTICIDE.

The professor sighed heavily. “So they are in Cuba, too? Hm. Well, if face them we must, then face them we will. But for now, we must gather information. Let us meet Rosa. And then, the library!”

“What?” said Uchenna. “The library?”

“The National Archives, to be exact!” Professor Fauna replied, cradling his black trash bag a little closer. “You see, this is the third reason we came to Cuba!”

“Because you wanted to go to the library?” Uchenna asked.

“I sympathize,” Elliot added. “But we do have libraries in New Jersey.”

“Ah, amiguitos, you do not understand. The third reason we came to Cuba is that . . . I am hot on the trail of . . . the world’s missing unicorns!”

“What?” said Elliot. “Seriously?”

And Uchenna said, “That. Is. Awesome.”