I let go of the boat and threw myself towards her. I managed to grab her life jacket and pull her around so I could make sure her head stayed out of the water. I knew to lie on my back with my feet up and to point them downstream—to avoid going head first into a rock! I held Layla on her back, too. Eventually, I got us into an area where we could get out of the water.

Layla was sputtering and coughing a little but totally fine. She gave me a huge smile and a hug when she realized that basically, I had saved her life.

Layla was just so tired and relieved to be okay that she didn’t seem to notice it was getting dark and that we were sopping wet. This time, finally, I was the first one to get worried. We had no food, no one was around and we had no tent. But we did have a waterproof map which we decided would be best used in daylight, since last time we went adventuring in the dark it didn’t go so well.

By mutual decision, we stayed where we were and worked on making a fire. In theory, we knew how to do it, but, in practice it took forever. Eventually though, we actually lit a little fire. We didn’t have tons of dry stuff to burn but had enough to get a little warm and to dry off a bit. Then we lay down to sleep curled up between some rocks.

Mother Nature cut us a break that night. The moon and the stars were out, but there was some cloud cover to keep us warm. And the wind died down, so that helped a lot.

I was counting the stars in the sky when Layla said, “Maybe Darmo wasn’t really a person’s name. Maybe it stands for Dang Apple Rind Mold.” “Or maybe it’s an abbreviation for DARn MOsquitoes.” I offered.

“Or possibly Dastardly, Absurd, Ridiculous Monster,” she giggled.