Dex sat up in bed, his heart pounding.

He’d heard a noise.

Was it the tornado siren?

He held his breath.

No.

It was just Dad’s phone alarm.

Zeke was sprawled out next to Dex. He stared up with worried eyes, his ears pressed back.

“We’re okay,” Dex whispered, kissing Zeke on the head.

And they were.

Still, it took a minute for Dex’s heart to stop pounding, for the nauseous swirl to clear from his stomach. Though he was sleeping better, the tornado howled through his dreams. And he always woke up in a sweaty panic, reliving the terror of the storm, the jumbled darkness of those first few days.

Joplin had been cut off from the world. Many of the roads were closed. Phones were dead and power blacked out. Every hour brought more terrible news. One hundred and fifty-eight were killed in the storm. They died in their homes, in stores, on the roads, in their cars. More than a thousand were wounded. So many families had lost everything they had.

Dex would never forget those terrifying minutes when he was sure Mom and Dad and Zeke were lost in the rubble. It turned out that Mom and Dad weren’t in the house at all. They’d been driving home from the graduation when the sirens went off. Luckily they’d had enough time to pull the car over and sprint into the basement of a restaurant. Their car had been sucked away; they still hadn’t been able to find it.

None of them wanted to think about what would have happened if anyone had been in the house when the tornado hit. What if Mom and Dad hadn’t stayed after the graduation to help take pictures? What if Dex hadn’t gone with Dr. Gage that day? What if they had been in the basement when the beams of their house cracked? A crushing mountain of wood and plaster and appliances and furniture had come crashing into the basement, filling every inch.

Nobody would have survived down there.

A big mystery was how Zeke made it through. None of them could figure out how he had suddenly just appeared when Dex was searching through the rubble.

It was Dr. Gage who had the best answer.

“I told you, your dog has superpowers,” he’d said.

Dex smiled to himself, thinking of Dr. Gage safe at his house in Tulsa.

For an agonizing week after the storm, Dex had no idea whether Dr. Gage was alive or dead. Joplin’s main hospital had been practically destroyed, and so Joplin’s wounded were taken to hospitals for miles around. With no phone service, they had no way of tracking him down. Finally the call came from Sara: Dr. Gage was in a hospital in Oklahoma. He was still weak, but getting better every day.

Now that Dr. Gage was back at home, he and Dex spoke almost every day. They’d made a plan for Dex and Mom and Dad to visit him in Tulsa in a few weeks. Dex already had the present he would bring.

He’d retrieved it from the wreckage of Dr. Gage’s SUV.

Dad had gone with him to the parking lot of Peter’s Garage, to see if there was anything in the SUV they could salvage for Dr. Gage.

They found some maps, and some important papers in the glove compartment. And Dex discovered something else: the small hail freezer wedged under the front seat. Dex yanked it free. The battery-operated motor was still humming. And inside, that huge piece of hail was still frozen solid.

Dex lifted the glistening ball out of the freezer. At first he wanted to smash it into millions of pieces. That hailstone was part of the storm system that had destroyed his city!

Yes it was. And that’s why Dex put it back in the little freezer, to save for Dr. Gage.

Who knew? Maybe there was some secret inside the icy ball, a clue that would help Dr. Gage unravel the mysteries of tornadoes.

Dex finally got out of bed. He got dressed, squeezing around the boxes and bins stacked everywhere in their tiny apartment.

Each one was filled up with books and dishes and photos and other treasures they’d managed to salvage from the soggy wreckage of their house. For days they had sifted through the pile, with the help of volunteers from around the country. Thousands had flocked to Joplin to help pick up the pieces.

And of course people from Joplin were helping one another, too.

A friend of Dad’s had found this apartment. Mike Sturm brought Dex a whole bag of clothes, some of them brand-new. Dylan and his family had donated a TV, some sheets and blankets, and this cot. Dylan had helped Dex get the bed set up, and of course they made it right, the SEAL way. They’d even smiled at each other, the kind of smiles they used to share back when they’d been best friends. It seemed the tornado had broken down that wall that had risen up between them.

And now Dex picked up the little box that was resting on the windowsill.

It had arrived in the mail yesterday, sent from a secret military base in some far-off country.

It was from Jeremy.

Dex’s brother had managed to finally get in touch with them, three days after the storm. He spoke to Mom and Dad and then Dex finally had his turn.

“Jeremy!” he’d cried, fighting back tears.

At first there was only silence.

“Jer?”

Dex was about to hang up, figuring they’d been cut off.

But then came a choked-up whisper. “Dex …”

And Dex understood. His brother, his brave warrior brother, was crying.

That got Dex blubbering, too, but he didn’t care. It was a while before either of them could get a word out.

But then they talked and talked and talked. And the call ended with the best news of all: that Jeremy’s mission was ending. He would be home for a visit within the month.

Dex opened the box Jeremy had sent.

He stared at the sparkling gold trident pin.

Jeremy’s SEAL pin.

“You earned this,” Jeremy had written.

At first Dex couldn’t believe Jeremy was giving it away. That trident was what made Jeremy a SEAL!

But no. It wasn’t a piece of gold-painted metal that made Jeremy strong and brave.

It was what was inside him.

And wasn’t the same true of Joplin?

What Dex loved about Joplin wasn’t the buildings and the houses.

It was the faith of the people, their strength. A tornado couldn’t break that.

Dex and Zeke stood at the window. Zeke’s ears perked up at the buzzing of chainsaws and the booming of dump trucks and back hoes, the sounds of Joplin being put back together. Dex thought about his busy day ahead. The Tuckers were finally coming back to Joplin, and Dex was helping them move into their temporary house. Later on, he and Dylan and Mike were going to volunteer in the shelter organized by their church.

There was so much to do.

Dex’s mission had just begun.