by Sylvia Liu
I look at the council members. Some of them look interested, some take notes, but one or two don’t pay attention. I’m not reaching them. I’m not going to make a difference.
I start to tear up but push it down. I raise my voice, aware that it trembles slightly. “I’m here to speak up for the manatees, because they can’t speak for themselves.” I swivel around and look at the crowd and swing my arms to cover everyone. “We’re the species with the supposedly large brains, but all we’ve done is build stuff, ride fast boats, and look for the next meme. We only think about ourselves and what makes us happy. The dolphin was better than that. It didn’t think of itself when it risked everything to save its friends.
“Everybody loved the video of the dolphin and shared it over three million times. Let’s be better, like the dolphin.” I look over to my parents. Mom’s staring at me with wide eyes, and Dad shakes his head slightly. I glance back at Amelia with her parents. I don’t want to ruin things for her family or disappoint my parents, but Missy and Sunny need me.
I’ve got to believe I can protect Missy and Sunny without hurting the people I love.
Then a new idea comes to me. “Instead of doing the Winter Boat Extravaganza, could the city please do a manatee festival instead?”
A murmur fills the room. Dad tilts his head.
I continue before I lose my courage. “My friends, Amelia Carlson and Deion Williams, and I have researched manatees for school.” I glance back at them. Amelia smiles, and Deion pumps his fist.
“In the summer, the manatees are spread all over Florida, the Gulf, and the Atlantic, so don’t concentrate here until late fall. We can move the festival to early fall, and teach people about manatees and have booths, games, and music.”
Now all the council members are paying attention.
“Let’s bring this town together, but for the manatees.”
From the crowd, Deion shouts, “Yeah! For the manatees!”
Amelia’s voice joins in. “For the manatees!”
The other kids from our school in the audience take up the chant. “For the manatees! For the manatees!” Soon, the CCC girl and the scientists and more adults join in.
“For the manatees! For the manatees!” I break into a huge grin. It’s like my viral video has gone viral in real life. The energy of the room is a tidal wave.
The chairwoman scrambles around until she finds a gavel. She brings it down, just like in a courtroom drama. “Order! Everyone come to order!” It takes several minutes, but eventually people quiet down. “We’ll take a fifteen-minute break.”
“For the manatees!” Deion sneaks in one last rallying cry.
If I weren’t gripping the podium, I would probably collapse in a heap.
Everyone mills around during the break. Mom rushes over. “Becca, why didn’t you tell us you were planning to speak?”
I study her expression. Is she mad at me?
“You were so brave,” she says. “I’m proud of you.”
A rush of elation and relief fills me. “Thanks.” We hug and I look over her shoulder. “Where’s Dad?” He’s the one I’m worried about. I wonder how he took my public rebellion against his project.
Mom looks around. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s in the restroom?”
I can’t help feeling hurt he didn’t come over to me at the break. “I’d better go back to my seat.”
“See you after the hearing,” Mom says.
I join Deion and Amelia, a flurry of emotions inside, from elated to nervous and everything in between.
“High five!” Amelia and I exchange one. “You rocked.”
“Ms. Manatee!” Deion and I fist-bump.
Mr. Carlson gives me a bemused look. “Quite a show you put on there.”
“Um, thanks?”
Mr. Carlson turns to his wife. “You know, maybe we should rebrand our Airbnbs as an eco-destination. There seems to be a lot of manatee love here.”
Mrs. Carlson takes his hand. “What a great idea. We can provide canoes and kayaks instead of Jet Skis at our rentals.”
Amelia stares at her parents holding hands and smiles.
I glance at the door. Still no sign of Dad.
The meeting is called back to order. The chairwoman leans into the mike. “During the break, we received an unusual request. I’ll let Mr. Walker explain.”
Dad steps to the podium. I hadn’t noticed when he came back to the room. What is going on?
“Thank you, Ms. Leeds,” he says. “Given the recent proposal by Ms. Wong Walker”—he glances at me and shoots me a smile—“our consortium is withdrawing our proposal for the Winter Boat Festival.”
The room erupts in shouts, voices, and a general din. I’m not sure I heard correctly.
“We will be happy to work with any of the interested parties to retool our festival to focus on manatees and ecological awareness. I will work with boating operators to offer classes on safe boating practices and we’ll have kayak excursions. And we’ll consider other times of the year for the festival.”
Amelia and Deion are hugging and shaking me. I’m so elated, I can’t stop grinning. I made a difference. The rest of the meeting goes by quickly as many of the proposed comments are no longer relevant, though people do stand up to share their ideas for a manatee festival.
At the end of the meeting, I walk out, still dazed. Dad meets me in the hallway. “Becca, I knew you cared about the manatees and the dolphin, but it wasn’t until you got up that I saw how truly passionate you are.” He sits down on a bench, and I join him. “I see now how much pressure you’ve been under with the video going viral, and I’m sorry it went to my head, and I got carried away. I was so excited for my boat business I didn’t think about you.”
He takes my hands, and I pull them back. No way am I going to settle for holding hands when I can give him a huge bear hug instead. I move in for our hug, and he squeezes me back. After a good long time, we separate.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was going to speak against the boat festival,” I say. “Thank you for backing me up after all.”
“Of course, bug.” Dad shakes his head, but his smile betrays him. “You’re something else.”
“Looks like the two of you should’ve talked to each other before preparing rival presentations,” Mom says.
“I suppose so.” I grin.
Dad pulls me to my feet from the bench, and we walk down the hall with our arms around each other.
* * *
Amelia, Deion, and I bounce off one another as we make our way down the hall and out of city hall, the parents following behind. We run into Ms. Amato just outside at the top of the steps.
“Ms. Amato!” Deion says.
“Deion, Becca, Amelia.” Ms. Amato grins and we exchange fist bumps. “Y’all did great. Becca, I’m so proud of you. You did a great job speaking up for the manatees.”
My mouth hurts from smiling so widely.
“And Deion and Amelia, I can tell you two have worked really hard on this project too,” she says. Ms. Amato puts a hand on Deion’s shoulder. “I saw that meme you made to get people here to the meeting. Nice work.”
Deion beams. “Who knew science could be so fun?”
Ms. Amato laughs. “And that you can get serious when you put your mind to it.” She greets our parents and they chitchat. We reach the sidewalk, where a TV truck is parked outside. The reporter from WKPP, Pamela Marks, stands by the sidewalk with her microphone and camera crew.
“Ms. Wong Walker,” she calls out.
I look around. “Me?”
“Yes.” She gives me a confiding smile. “You’re the face of the new video that got everyone riled up to come to city hall. You’re the one who put our town on the map with the original video. May I ask you a few questions?”
My instinct is to shrink behind Dad or Mom, but I remember how I didn’t dissolve in the meeting. I straighten up. “Okay.” Then I pull my friends over. “It’s not just me. These are my friends, Deion William
s and Amelia Carlson. We’re a team, and we worked together on getting the word out.”
Ms. Marks smiles. “Wonderful. The university and state scientists all agree the dolphin should be sent back to the Gulf. What do you think of that?”
I’m taken aback. Up until now I haven’t had to take a stand on this. It seems to me the dolphin is just fine hanging out with Missy and Sunny. “I think …” I sigh. “I’m not a scientist. If they say the dolphin should return to salt water, then I believe them.”
“People are listening to you now. You’re known as Ms. Manatee. Will you post or say something to your followers about this?” the woman asks.
My eyes widen. I haven’t thought of myself as having followers. My secret dream is to be a famous marine biologist with her own show, and it seems like part of this dream has come true. I’m a famous somebody with her own show. It feels … wonderful. I smile. People are listening to me. It’s wild and unbelievable, yet true.
I smile. “Yes. My next episode will be a call to bring the dolphin back to the ocean.”
Amelia, Deion, and I perch over the railing of the wooden walkway in the state park overlooking Two Brothers Springs. We’re here with our families, though our parents and others have walked on ahead. In the coldest part of the winter, there were hundreds of manatees hanging around here waiting for the rest of Florida’s waters to warm up. Now at the end of March, there are only a few stragglers.
The water is clear to the bottom. The moss hanging from the old oaks sways with the breeze. Three large manatees barely move as they hang out under the shade of the trees near the bank. Another large one swims slowly across the water, its tail flapping up and down, doing its lawn mower thing.
“Ms. Manatee,” Deion says in his fake deep reporter voice, “tell us how it feels to be the world’s foremost authority on viral dolphin-manatee videos.”
I snicker and turn serious. “I’d rather be a manatee expert than a viral video one.”
“Yeah, but everyone pays attention to you now,” Amelia says. “Look how quickly everyone agreed to try to get the dolphin back to the Gulf once you said to do it on the video.”
I blush. It was strange when I put up a video interviewing the FWC scientist about the dolphin and how it should be returned to the Gulf, and immediately after, the FWC was inundated with emails and petitions to save the dolphin. “I think they were going to save the dolphin anyway and didn’t need my help.”
“They didn’t need it, but they got it,” Deion says.
I’m slowly getting used to the idea of being an internet personality. Dad is on board, helping me with my “branding” and coming up with ideas to spread my show. He’s spearheading the new manatee festival our town’s going to put on, and I’ll even have a booth where I’ll livestream Ms. Manatee.
As for our science project, Ms. Amato told us if we could put together a PSA that includes information about our whole experience with the viral video and the city council, that would count as our science project. We’ll even get extra credit in social studies. Deion, Amelia, and I will turn right to it, after this visit to the springs.
But coming into the refuge, we saw the same girl in the parking lot, still fighting the new connector toll roads that will open up this area to development and more boats, visitors, and people. I’m glad we are making a difference in our town with the PSA and the new festival, but there’s still a lot of work to do.
I scan the waters. The only thing that would make this the most perfect day ever is—
I see them. Coming into the cove are Missy, with her Y-shaped scar, and Sunny trailing close behind! I grip Deion’s and Amelia’s arms. “It’s Missy and Sunny!” It’s been so long since I’ve seen them.
“Hello, there, Missy and Sunny,” Amelia says.
“Missy and Sunny, the two coolest manatees on the planet,” Deion says.
I lean back, taking in the wonderful sight of my two best friends on land heaping love on my two best friends in the water.
The events, characters, and locations in this story are fictitious, but the dangers manatees face are real. In 2019, a record number of manatees were killed by boat strikes in Florida—136 manatees. Another 470 manatee deaths were recorded that year from natural causes, cold stress, and other reasons. In addition to boat strikes, manatees get tangled in fishing gear, fall ill from red tide algae blooms (exacerbated by warming waters, pollution, and runoff), become cold-stunned, and lose their habitats. All these dangers increase with growing numbers of people moving into areas where manatees live and roam.
While a friendship between a dolphin and a manatee like the one in this story would be very unusual, scientists have found these curious creatures do sometimes hang around each other. As noted in the story, saltwater dolphins can’t stay too long in fresh water because they get exhausted from being less buoyant and their skin can slough off without the protective salt water.
To learn more about manatees, visit the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s website (myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/wildlife/manatee), or the nonprofit group Save the Manatee Club (savethemanatee.org). In reality, a manatee festival does exist. For over thirty years, the town of Crystal River, Florida, has held an annual festival to celebrate manatees.
I am so thankful for the many people who helped create this book.
First, a huge thanks to my amazing agent, Jennifer March Soloway, for always believing in me. You knew this was the perfect story for me, and I couldn’t imagine a better advocate and professional partner.
Thank you to my wonderful editor, Maya Marlette. Your kindness and brilliance shone through in every edit. I’m grateful to the Scholastic team, including Stephanie Yang, Caroline Flanagan, David Levithan, Mallory Kass, Elizabeth Parisi, Victoria Velez, Jessica White, Priscilla Eakeley, Jody Corbett, and Leni Villarreal.
I’m so grateful to my critique partners and early readers. Thanks to Elaine Kiely Kearns, Jessica Grace Kelley, Kimberly Engebrigtsen, Megan E. McDonald, and Kim Tomsic for your insightful critiques; my Muse Writers workshop with Lydia Netzer, Mike Krentz, Jeanne Marie Liggio, John Cameron, Elaine Panneton, and Shannon Curtin; and early readers Hannah Capin, Teresa Robeson, Chris Braig, Bernadette Bartlett, and Katy Schuck.
Thank you, Kate Brauning, for your editorial advice and Breakthrough Writers’ Boot Camp. Thanks to my mentors and teachers throughout my writing journey: Lydia Netzer, Ellen Bryson, and Michael Khandelwal at The Muse Writers Center and Tae Keller from Author Mentor Match.
I couldn’t have written this book without expert advice. Thank you, Emily Davidson, former Batten Research Fellow and staff member of the Virginia Aquarium Stranding Response Program, for explaining manatee rescues and rehabilitation; Anne Harvey, staff attorney at Save the Manatee Club, for providing policy background; Ally Greco at Save the Manatee Club; Diane Ngai, formerly at Save the Manatee Club; Ennis Johnson, volunteer at Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center; and Brittany Kaitlyn Knowles, for sharing your 2015 Capstone research paper done at Nova Southeastern University, “Social Interactions Between Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncates) and Antillean Manatee (Trichechus manatus manatus) in Belize.” Any mistakes I made are my own.
I’m grateful for those who shared your knowledge during my research trip to Crystal River, Florida. Thank you, Matthew Clemons, board member of Save the Manatee Club and former kayak tour guide, and Sue Clemons, former kayak tour guide, for guiding me on a kayak trip on the Chassahowitzka River. Thanks to Crystal River Middle School, Tammy Rall, Eric Townsend, and Deborah and Randy Hodges for opening your classes and community to me. Thanks to the guides at River Ventures for the incredible experience of swimming with manatees.
Thank you to my friends who joined me on my trip, Samantha Wetzler; Anna Mahkorkina; and Anna’s daughter, Lili Couture. I’m grateful to you and the rest of my book club—Janet, Katy, Heather, Andrea, Lilly, Mia, Sally, Kelly, and Kendall—for enriching my life, reading and otherwise.
Thank you, Dorothy Shiloff Hu
ghes, for your viral video insights.
My thanks and love to the Penguin Posse, Victoria Warneck, Reneé LaTulippe, Yvonne Mes, Elaine Kiely Kearns, and Teresa Robeson, for your years of friendship and support.
A million thanks to my family, David, Sammi, and Sarah; my parents, Bernard and Terry Liu; my sister, Vivian; and my in-laws, Alan and Susan Jacobs, for your love and unconditional support over the years.
And finally, thank you, readers and animal lovers who will raise your voices to make the world a better place.
Sylvia Liu is a children’s author inspired by oceans, ghost crabs, and kraken. She grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, attended Yale College and Harvard Law School, and practiced environmental law for a decade at the U.S. Department of Justice and the nonprofit environmental group Oceana. Her picture book, A Morning with Grandpa, illustrated by Christina Forshay, was a New Voices Award winner. Sylvia lives in Virginia with her husband, two daughters, and cat.
Copyright © 2021 by Sylvia Liu
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First printing 2021
Cover art by Scott Dorman, © 2021 Scholastic Inc.
Cover design by Stephanie Yang
e-ISBN 978-1-338-66227-6
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.