Manatee Rescue Read online

  “You see,” Gomez told Silvio, “this is what comes of teaching a girl to fish and hunt!”

  Into this angry space, Libia suddenly appeared with Tintico in her arms.

  “Come on, Frog,” she said gently. “Just give the cria to Mr. Gomez, eh?”

  Manuela glared at her, harsh words about betrayal springing to her lips, but there was a glint in Libia’s eyes that said, I’ve got a plan.

  “Well,” Manuela said, “only if you take really good care of it.”

  Silvio snatched off his cap in relief. “Good girl!” he said. “Thanks, Libia.”

  Reluctantly Manuela put Airuwe into Mr. Gomez’s arms. The calf wriggled and made a plaintive little sound that pinched her heart. She hoped Libia’s plan was a good one.

  Mr. Gomez wore a nasty, triumphant smile on his face as he carried the manatee away. Silvio glanced guiltily toward Manuela, but she was already halfway up the path toward Libia’s house, with Tintico dancing in front of them in the lamplight.

  1 farina: In the Amazon, farina refers to a coarse meal made from cooked and ground-up cassava, a starchy root. It is added to almost everything and also eaten alone.

  2 tintico: Colombian Spanish slang for a small cup of dark coffee

  Libia’s house was always full of people. That was why Manuela liked it so much; her own home had just herself and her father in it. Manuela’s mother, Fernanda, had died soon after she was born, and Silvio had never found another woman he loved as much as the beautiful girl he’d brought home from his wanderings in Brazil. He had concluded that he would never have another child, which was why he took Manuela out in his boat.

  “If I can’t teach a son to fish, then I’ll teach a daughter,” he always said.

  It made people tut and roll their eyes, but everyone knew that Silvio Castello was a bit loco.

  There was always someone fighting, cooking, sleeping, sewing, singing, or dancing — and very often all of those things together — at Libia’s house. Tonight, several big brothers were sitting outside fixing nets and exchanging jokes with Libia’s dad, Abel. There were medium-size sisters doing each other’s hair, while a gaggle of small children were playing a complicated game of chase. Libia’s mother, Angelina, was crooning a song to her newest baby and dancing around the room with him in her arms. Like her big brother Silvio, Angelina was considered a little eccentric by the village, but Manuela liked the way she sailed through the chaos of her home and the way she let Libia run as wild as she pleased.

  “Hola, Manuela!” Angelina called dreamily as the two girls came through the door.

  “Hola, Auntie Angelina!” Manuela called back.

  No one else took the slightest notice of them, so Libia, Manuela, and Tintico went through the house and out the other side to the quiet corner of the veranda where Libia slept.

  Libia lit a candle in a jar and sat cross-legged on the floor, with Tintico on her feet. She pointed to a thin pole, stuck in the water at the bottom of the veranda steps. Along its length were stripes of different colored material. There was something a bit offbeat about it that was typical of Libia.

  “That,” Libia said proudly, “is a color-coded flood map of San Larenzo!” She grinned. “It tells me exactly which parts of the village are flooded and which parts I can get to in a canoe, depending on which color stripe the water reaches. After the rain last night, it got to the red stripe.”

  Libia paused as if Manuela were supposed to know what that meant.

  “Which means,” Libia went on, “the water reaches all the way to Gomez’s place, so we can paddle a canoe from this veranda to the back of his house!”

  Manuela suddenly felt a lot more awake. “So when everyone’s asleep, we take your canoe and steal the manatee back!”

  “Exactly!”

  All over the village, the smell of cooking manatee began to rise into the evening air. Manuela hoped the little calf couldn’t smell it, too, or if he could, wouldn’t understand what it meant.

  Manuela often stayed over at Libia’s, so no one asked any questions about the two girls whispering together out on the veranda. When at last the net fixing, hair braiding, chasing, dancing, singing, and baby cooing had died down and the house fell silent, it was easy for Manuela and Libia to sneak down the veranda steps to Libia’s canoe, which floated on the floodwaters at the back of the house. Tintico came, too, tiptoeing down the wooden steps as if he understood the need for secrecy.

  The thick, rainy-season clouds had been gathering all day and now blocked out the stars. Manuela and Libia were used to paddling around the village in daylight, but finding their way in utter darkness was not so easy. Manuela was glad the constant plinking and churring of frogs and insects covered the sounds of the canoe bumping into submerged trees and other people’s boats. A trip that would have taken twenty minutes in daylight took them more than an hour. At last, a little break in the clouds gave them some light. The blazing tropical stars showed a plastic tank, the bottom half of a rainwater barrel, on the last patch of dry ground behind Gomez’s house.

  The canoe scraped against the shore. Manuela got out and scuttled to the tank. She could hear the little manatee buffeting itself against the walls of its plastic prison. At least he was still alive.

  She reached into the tank, but it wasn’t so easy to get hold of him. Airuwe wriggled and splashed, the noise reaching the ears of Gomez’s dogs. They began to bark, more and more loudly. Any second now, lights would flash on — Gomez had a generator and electric light for his house — and that would be that.

  With one last desperate effort, Manuela plunged her arms into the tank and managed to grab the manatee. She pulled him out and made for the canoe, half running, half stumbling. The baby was heavier than she remembered, and she was glad to lay him down on the two pillows they had put in the bottom of the dugout and cover him with a wet sheet to keep him comfortable.

  “Let’s go!” she hissed to Libia, and they pushed the canoe out into deeper water.

  Behind them, the dogs barked madly and Gomez shouted at them to shut up.

  For a few minutes the girls just paddled, relieved and delighted to have gotten away with the manatee. Then Manuela suddenly realized that this was as far as Libia’s plan had gone. Neither of them had thought of where they might take a kidnapped manatee calf in the dead of night.

  “We could run away to Peru,” said Libia.

  Manuela sighed. Sometimes Libia was just crazy. But there was one place they could go. “We’ll go to Granny Raffy’s,” she said. “Who else is going to help us?”

  Although Granny Raffy’s house, which everyone knew as Riverbend, was not really part of San Larenzo, it was downstream and easy to find. Even without paddling, the girls knew that they would probably get there, as the river always seemed to wash things up at the little inlet where Granny had made her home. All the same, it was scary. Neither of them had ever been out on the river without an adult, even in daylight. They clung to the bank, afraid of the power of the river farther out and watching fearfully for the glint of caiman1 eyes in the starlight. Then the clouds closed over and the fierce stars were gone. Rain pelted down, leaving them groping along in the dark, poked by overhanging branches, and afraid.

  Just when Manuela was sure they must have gone too far and were lost, the sound of music played on an old windup gramophone came to them through the falling rain. It sounded like an orchestra playing under the river. They were in the right place — and Granny Raffy was still up!

  1 caiman: a kind of crocodile

  Granny Raffy was Silvio’s mother. She had come to the Amazon to work in the hospital in Puerto Dorado for six months and fallen in love with Silvio’s father, Mauricio. He was a Ticuna, one of the tribe who had lived beside the Amazon forever, and she was a city girl.

  “It’ll never work,” people said. But Raffy and Mauricio got married, and Raffy never went home. She was the only trained nurse that San Larenzo had ever had, but she’d made Mauricio build them this house away from the
village so that only people who were really sick would make the effort to come to see her.

  “I’ve had enough of every kid running to me with a bruised knee,” she’d said.

  When Mauricio drowned, Silvio had tried to get her to move back into the village, but she wouldn’t. She loved the river and the jungle, she told him. She wasn’t so sure about people.

  Raffy was bossy and tough, but with her on your side, you could win almost any battle. Although she was old, she was still spry and feisty, and when she saw the little dugout draw up to her half-flooded jetty, she rushed down to meet her granddaughters, scolding them all the way up the steps to her house. What were they doing out on the river at night? Didn’t they know how dangerous it was? What would Silvio and Angelina have to say? Did they know just how much trouble they would be in? Whatever were they doing with a half-dead manatee calf?

  Since she’d moved out of San Larenzo, Raffy had started to heal animals as well as people. Right now, there was a baby sloth with a bandage around one leg hanging over her veranda and a couple of macaw chicks in a hat on a table. Silvio said she was nicer to her animal patients than she was to her human ones. So the girls weren’t surprised when she cradled the manatee in her arms, calling him a “poor little mite,” while growling at them and bossing them out of their wet clothes. She fired questions like bullets until they had told her the whole story of the capture and “kidnapping” of the calf.

  Then Raffy ordered Libia and Tintico straight to bed, as their skinny little bodies were shivering and they were both clearly exhausted. “At least you’re a bit bigger and stronger,” she told Manuela, “even if you are stupid enough to go out on the river in the dark. Now let’s see what we can do for this calf.”

  Raffy led Manuela into the room she used as a clinic and laid the manatee on the table there, cushioned by an old blanket.

  “You’ll have to hold him while I clean the cut,” she said.

  Manuela did her best, holding the manatee’s tail under one hand and its body under the other. She noticed the gentleness with which Raffy’s expert nurse’s fingers worked along the calf’s wound with a pad soaked in disinfectant. The calf wriggled and made a little peeping sound.

  “Keep him still,” Raffy barked.

  In the light, Manuela could see how bad the cut was. Even though it had happened hours ago, it still oozed blood.

  The calf squeaked again, and Manuela winced in sympathy.

  “Huh! It’s all very well feeling sorry for it now, Frog,” Raffy exclaimed. “I bet you and Silvio were glad enough to harpoon it.”

  Manuela said nothing. Raffy was right — she had wanted to hunt manatees all her life, but catching one had changed all that in a day. The calf’s little sounds of pain felt like words of reproach. “Will he live, Granny Raffy?” she asked at last.

  Raffy looked up at her granddaughter, suddenly less gruff. “Perhaps, china,”1 she said. “But then what, eh? I don’t think you know what you’ve started.”

  Raffy gave the cut one last wipe. “There, that’s the best I can do,” she said. “Let’s put him somewhere he’ll be more comfortable.”

  Together they dragged the lavadero — a plastic tank like a bath that Raffy washed clothes in — onto the far end of the veranda. They filled it from one of the water tanks that caught the rain from the roof. Raffy added hot water from the stove because, she said, rainwater was a lot colder than the river and the river was what the calf was used to.

  Held down on the table, the calf had seemed very like a rather tired caterpillar, but when Manuela slipped him into the water, he became a manatee again. His nostrils closed and he submerged, then popped his nose back up with a little puff of breath.

  “Hmm!” Raffy smiled. “Maybe his chances are better than I thought.”

  Raffy told Manuela that manatees, like many baby animals, could not drink cow’s milk. They needed special milk powder that you could only get in Puerto Dorado. She had a little that she’d used for other young orphaned animals that should work. She put some in a baby’s bottle and gave it to Manuela. “Try to make it eat,” she ordered. “I’m going up the hill to see if I can get a signal on the phone, so I can let Luis know you aren’t drowned.”

  Manuela nodded. Uncle Luis had a cell phone, and everyone in San Larenzo used him as the village messenger. He often fished at night and got a clear signal out on the water.

  When Raffy had gone, Manuela sat alone in the dark, leaning against the side of the bath. She was very tired, but she knew she shouldn’t fall asleep. Even if the baby recovered from the wound on his back, without food, he would die very soon.

  The night sounds of frogs and insects and the high hunting calls of bats were all around. Far off, the sky flashed pale with distant lightning, and rain pattered on the tin roof.

  Airuwe was investigating his new home. It was a cramped space, even for so small a calf. He could turn around, but only by scraping his tail on one side and his nose on the other. He did this twice and then came to a halt with his head near Manuela’s end. She could hear his bristly nose whispering against the plastic. She slipped her hand into the water and began to touch the manatee’s side with her fingers. At first he flinched a little, but he didn’t move away. Slowly, she began to rub Airuwe’s skin. She worked her hand along the folds of his chin and under his jaw. Gently, so gently, she eased his head upward and with her other hand lifted the bottle and pushed the teat toward his mouth. His upper lip — strong and mobile, like a hairy finger — felt the teat, investigating this new object. Manuela held her breath, hoping Airuwe would taste the milk and start to suck. But instead he spat out the unfamiliar teat and turned his head away.

  Over and over again, Manuela tried to persuade Airuwe to try the milk. But each time he pulled away, Manuela learned a little more about the geography of his face and mouth and how he moved. At last she was able to push the teat firmly into his mouth and hold his chin with the other hand. He tried to twist away, but Manuela kept the teat in place just long enough for him to taste the milk. To her delight, he began to suck.

  “It’s OK,” she told him. “Things won’t always be as bad as today. You won’t always live in a washbowl. Just get well, and one day I’ll put you back in the river.”

  By the time the bottle was empty, Manuela could feel sleep overtaking her. She lay down by the tank, too tired to find anywhere more comfortable. As her eyes closed, she wondered what Granny Raffy had meant when she’d said, “I don’t think you know what you’ve started.”

  1 china: Colombian Spanish for girl

  At first light the next morning, Manuela began to find out.

  She opened her eyes and saw Silvio at the other end of the house, pacing up and down like a jaguar stung by wasps, arguing with Raffy. Manuela decided to shut her eyes and stay still for a little longer. Silvio didn’t get angry very often, but when he did, it was scary.

  “The manatee has to go back to Gomez,” Silvio growled, banging his fist on the veranda rail and making it jump.

  Raffy didn’t flinch. She went on feeding the baby macaws with banana mush from a spoon. “Why?” she said calmly. “Since when did anyone in my family do what that creep Jose Gomez tells them?”

  “Mama, you’re impossible.” Silvio’s voice was white-hot with anger.

  Raffy calmly answered right back, “No, Silvio, you’re impossible!” she said. “Just look at that child. That’s where she fell asleep last night. That’s how much she cares about this creature. And you are going to reward her bravery and determination with betrayal? As if it’s not enough she’s growing up without a mother.”

  “Should I reward her for stealing?” Silvio was actually shouting now. “And is it my fault my wife died?”

  “Well, it certainly is your fault you didn’t marry again,” Raffy replied calmly.

  There was a crash, and Manuela half opened one eye. Silvio had kicked Raffy’s chair.

  “That’s it. That’s it,” he cried. “I’m leaving.”

&n
bsp; “Good!” said his mother sharply. “But you aren’t taking your daughter or the manatee with you.”

  “I don’t want my daughter,” Silvio snapped. “I just came for the manatee.”

  Manuela heard Silvio’s feet running down the steps with a sound like a whole row of faces being slapped. She kept her eyes shut until the growl of the outboard had faded.

  “You can stop pretending to be asleep now,” Raffy said, “and feed your manatee. They’re like human babies and need to be fed every few hours. You’ll need to change its water and clean the cut with disinfectant, too. Libia can help you. Come on, get to it.”

  Raffy stalked off to the kitchen, shaking her head. “That Silvio!” she said with a sigh. “Just as much of a hothead as he was at sixteen.”

  The manatee wouldn’t come near the bottle when Libia offered it, but she didn’t mind. “You’re the manatee mama,” she told Manuela, “not me.” So she and Tintico sat back and watched.

  Manuela held the calf’s chin in one hand and the bottle in the other, and on the fifth attempt, the teat went in and the calf began to suck. The level in the bottle fell, then stopped falling, and the calf’s charcoal-and-ash eyes closed.

  “He’s fallen asleep!” Libia said. “My baby brother does that. Mama has to wake him up to keep him feeding.”

  “How does she do it?” asked Manuela.

  Libia giggled. “She tickles his feet.”

  Airuwe didn’t have feet, only flippers. These felt too hard to tickle. Then Manuela remembered the softness of his “armpit.” Everyone was ticklish there. Manuela put her hand into the water and tickled under the calf’s right flipper. It worked at once, and the calf woke. She pushed the teat back into his mouth, and the milk soon disappeared.

  Then the water needed changing and Airuwe’s cut had to be cleaned. It took them a while to figure out how to do this. First they scooped out most of the water with a bucket, then Manuela held him still while Libia cleaned his cut. Then Manuela lifted Airuwe out of the tank so Libia could pour out the last of the water, her skinny limbs shaking with the effort.