CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Elliot and Uchenna hugged Yoenis a thousand times, and then they hugged Rosa a thousand times, and then they hugged Yoenis again.
They were all standing at the edge of the malecón, beside where Maceo’s garbage barge was docked. And sitting on the broad sidewalk, obstructing all pedestrian traffic, was the Phoenix. It gleamed. Maceo was shining the nose of the plane.
“I don’t think the Phoenix looked this nice when she was new,” Professor Fauna marveled.
“That plane was new once?” Rosa asked. They all laughed.
“Well,” said Elliot. “Shall we head home?”
“Indeed, my friends,” the professor agreed. “I think it is—”
BOOM!
Everyone fell silent.
“What was that?” Uchenna asked.
Elliot looked up.
BOOM!
Elliot closed his eyes. “Thunder,” he said.
And at that moment, the clouds opened and rain began to pour out of the sky.
“The sequía is over! It’s over!” Rosa cried. Yoenis grabbed her, and they began to dance in the heavy rain. Jersey flapped around them, flying curlicues in time to their steps. “Do you doubt now?” Rosa called to Professor Fauna. “The Schmokes are leaving, the Madre de aguas is free, and look! She is happy again, and the rain falls!”
Uchenna glanced at Elliot. Elliot said, “This proves nothing. There’s been a twenty-five percent chance all day.”
Uchenna said, “There’s been a twenty-five percent chance for months. This seems like a coincidence to you?”
Elliot opened his mouth, but then he closed it again. He smiled, and shrugged.
Rosa crowed as she danced, “Like two roots of the ceiba! You two don’t have to agree to be one tree! Now,” she said, “before you get in that plane, you better dance with us! ¡Vengan! ¡Bailen!”
Professor Fauna leaned into the Phoenix and turned on the radio as loud as it could go. A hypnotic, irresistible song arose from the tinny speakers: a guitar, a conga drum, and a güiro played together, twining and twisting around one another. And the members of the Unicorn Rescue Society joined Yoenis, Rosa, and Jersey, as they danced on the malecón in the sweet, sweet rain.
