CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“¿Qué dicen?” Rosa exclaimed. “¿Mi amiga intentó comérselos?”

“Sí, Mamá. We’ve had quite an adventure already,” Yoenis told her. “Maybe we can get cleaned up, eat a little, and tell you what happened?”

“Absolutely not!” Rosa replied, to everyone’s surprise. Then she added. “You will eat a lot!”

A few minutes later, they were all sitting in Rosa’s kitchen. The furniture was very spare, but the yellow walls and the delicious smell made the kitchen cozy and welcoming. Rosa stood on a step stool and stirred something in a big black pot. She and Jersey had already become fast friends. He was perched on her shoulder, staring into the pot. Rosa didn’t seem to mind.

“It smells amazing,” said Uchenna. Her stomach gurgled.

“Ropa vieja,” Rosa replied, without turning around.

“Translates as ‘old clothes,’” Yoenis informed them.

Elliot said, “Really? Uh, I’m not that hungry. . . .” And then he added, under his breath, “I mean, I knew things under the embargo were tough, but old clothes?”

Yoenis threw his head back and laughed. “We just call it that. It’s strips of beef. Kinda looks like boiled shredded up old clothes, though. It’s a real specialty. These days, finding ropa vieja outside of a hotel is almost impossible. But my mother knew we were coming, and so she spent way too much money, and I’m sure she spent three hours on line at the store—”

“Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! No more of that,” Rosa scolded him. She put down a plate of ropa vieja in front of Elliot.

Soon, they were all digging into the most delicious old clothes Elliot and Uchenna had ever tasted. Rosa even made a bowl for Jersey and put it on the floor. He buried his little face in it. They heard noisy, wet slurping.

“Jersey!” said Uchenna. “Manners!”

But Elliot tapped her on the shoulder and pointed at Professor Fauna. Professor Fauna’s face was also buried in his ropa vieja. He was the one making the disgusting slurping sounds.

“Ahora,” said Rosa, after everyone had finished their second helpings. “Cuéntenme. You saw my friend?”

So Yoenis and the members of the URS told Rosa about their terrifying—and confusing—encounter with the Madre de aguas.

Rosa chuckled through the whole story. “Bueno,” she said when they’d finished. “She is feisty. Good you had your brave little defender here.” She rubbed Jersey’s furry blue head. He looked up at her from his bowl, which he’d just licked clean. Rosa took her plate, which still had some ropa vieja on it, and put it on the floor.

“But clearly,” Rosa went on, “something is wrong with the Madre de aguas. She was always feisty, but to charge across the bay to attack you? That is not right. And as long as something is wrong with her, the people of Cuba will continue suffering.”

“More than normal,” added Yoenis.

“As will the Madre de aguas!” Professor Fauna exclaimed. “Let us not always be valuing people over creatures!”

“Bien dicho, Mito,” Rosa said.

Elliot asked, “Can whatever is happening to the Madre de aguas really be causing this drought, though?” He gestured to the small window. “If those clouds just break, won’t the drought be over? And what does a water serpent—even one with amazing abilities of expansion and contraction—have to do with whether it rains?”

Rosa said, “I don’t pretend to understand it. But in Cuba there are many beliefs about water, and my friend the Madre de aguas—”

“For the record she’s the only one who calls her a ‘friend’—”

“Yoenis, shush,” Rosa said. “Just like the ceiba tree is revered by many different people in many different ways, so is the Madre de aguas. Some say she lives in salt water while others say in fresh water. In some countries she is like a mermaid, and in others she is a goddess. Some are afraid of her: There are stories of the Madre de aguas appearing as a ferocious sea monster as she did to you. But that is not the Madre de aguas I know. I believe if we are kind to our Madre de aguas, she is kind to us and brings us water.”

“What was that you said about a goddess?” Uchenna asked, interested.

Rosa turned to Uchenna. “Not all Cubans believe that a sea serpent controls the waters. Many associate salt water with a goddess called Yemayá, and fresh water with a goddess called Oshún. When the Yoruba people, from what we now call Nigeria, were enslaved and brought to Cuba by force, they brought Yemayá and Oshún with them.”

“Wait, isn’t your mom Nigerian?” Elliot asked Uchenna.

“Yeah, but we’re not Yoruba. We’re Igbo. Different peoples.”

Elliot nodded and turned back to Rosa.

“There is another story,” Rosa went on, “about María, the mother of Jesus, saving Cuban fishermen from drowning. When there is a drought, many Cubans pray to María, and she keeps them safe.”

“Okay, I’m confused,” Uchenna huffed. “Who should we be worrying about? The Madre de aguas? Or Oshún? Or Mary? Or Elliot’s statistics?”

Rosa shrugged. “Mary. Oshún. Yemayá. The Madre de aguas. To me? Many roots. One tree.”

“But can the Madre de aguas really control the water?” Elliot demanded, wanting to get back to the science of it all. “That seems really hard to believe.”

“Personally, I do not see how she could,” Professor Fauna said. “That seems an evolutionary mutation too far.”

Rosa said, “Well, there is one way to find out. Find her, help her, and let us see if this sequía ends.”

“That,” said Professor Fauna, “is a promise. But first, we have to make a quick stop at the Archives.”

“The Archives?” Rosa said, surprised. “¿Pero, por qué?”

“¡Busco un unicornio!”

“What?!” Rosa exclaimed. “You seek a unicorn? In a library?”

But Professor Fauna had already marched, head held high and shoulders thrown back, out of the kitchen and toward the front door.

“Does he have any idea where the Archives are?” Yoenis wondered aloud.

Then, from the garden, they heard Professor Fauna call, “I just realized: I have no idea where the Archives are!”

Yoenis laughed and rolled his eyes. “I’ll show him.”