The roads were wet and there were puddles and mud to show where the ocean had been. It might just as easily have been a heavy rain instead of a flood. Then I saw a couple of fish flapping on the ground. Only a flood could leave fish behind.

Lumbering up the road through the crowd was an elephant—the elephant from the beach. The mahout was at its side. I hadn’t even thought about what might have happened to them, but obviously they were fine. We walked up to meet them.

“I’m glad to see you’re both okay,” my father said.

“Because of my elephant,” he said. “She knew. That is why she would not stay on the beach…she knew.”

“I’ve heard about animals sensing things,” my father said.

“She felt it,” the mahout said. “In her feet, or maybe she heard it, but she knew. The girl…the one when she ran away…have you seen her and her mother?”

“I saw them in the lobby,” my father said. “They’re fine. And for that, they should be grateful to your elephant.”

The mahout looked confused.

“If your elephant hadn’t taken them away on that extra little ride, they would still have been down on the beach. They could have died. Your elephant might have saved their lives.”

“I had not thought of that. She saved my life, as well,” the mahout said.

“I guess she did,” my father agreed.

“And ours,” I said.

My father looked at me intently, as though he was trying to understand what I meant.

“We were on the beach too. We came up to help, and then Mom followed us. There’s no way we could have made it to the stairwell—for sure no way she could have made it—if we’d been right down on the beach when the wave came.”

Slowly my father nodded in agreement. He held out his hand and shook the mahout’s. “Thank you.”

“You are most welcome, sir.”

“And thank you,” my father said as he patted the elephant’s flank. He turned back to the mahout. “I want to give you something as thanks.” He dug into his pocket and turned it inside out. It was empty. “I’m sorry, my money is gone…it’s been washed away. Tomorrow I’ll give you something.”

“That is not necessary, sir.”

“But I want to do that. Tomorrow, promise you’ll come and see me. We’re in bungalow number…” He stopped. “The bungalow is right on the beach. I don’t know what happened to our things. We have to look.”

He rushed off and I stumbled after him. He turned back around. “Tomorrow, come and see me!” he yelled.

We hurried along the side of the hotel. The tree where the elephant had stopped was ripped almost out of the ground. Grass and trees and the ornamental rockery were all swept away.

By now the water level had dropped even more, so that we were just sloshing around in ankle-deep water as we crossed the pool deck. Some of the dunes on the beach had broken above the surface again. I looked down at the closest bungalow. The back window was blown out and there was some debris on the roof—the water had been that high. Our bungalow was no bigger or higher or farther from the ocean than that one. Whatever we had was going to be gone or ruined. I’d hardly gotten a chance to listen to my iPod, and that really didn’t seem fair…I stopped myself. I was worrying about my iPod and other people were looking for family members. Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could I even think about that when people had lost their lives?