Jess couldn’t sleep.

Every time she closed her eyes, she imagined St. Helens exploding, and then a flaming wind sweeping down the mountain.

Finally she took her quilt and went into Mom’s room.

Mom was awake, too, and moved over in bed to make space for Jess.

“Don’t be worried,” Mom said. “You heard what Dr. Morales said. We’re safe here in Cedar.”

“I know, but I just can’t stop thinking about it.”

“I can’t, either,” Mom said. “But I think we need to put it out of our minds. Maybe Dr. Morales has just watched too many disaster movies.”

Jess smiled. “That part about the snakes was a bit much.”

Mom giggled a little.

“But do you really think St. Helens is going to erupt?” Jess asked. “Could that actually happen?”

Mom turned toward Jess.

She moved closer, so their noses were almost touching.

“Whatever happens, you and I will make it through. Like we always have, and like we always will.”

Mom said the words without a shred of doubt.

Jess looked at Mom. She still needed to tell her about the camera.

But suddenly Jess was so tired.

She closed her eyes. And with Mom’s calming words whispering through her mind, Jess fell asleep.

The next morning, Jess and Mom had barely finished breakfast when the twins came barging through their door.

“We’re in the newspaper!” Sam cried.

“You are?” Jess said with surprise.

“Not us,” Eddie cried. “St. Helens!”

They held up the Seattle paper, with a headline screaming out from the front page.

MOUNT ST. HELENS AWAKES!

Jess couldn’t believe that their mountain was on the front page of an important newspaper like the Times.

At school that day, their teacher, Mr. Daley, canceled their fractions quiz. Instead, he gave them a lesson about volcanoes. He explained that the Earth was like a big ball of candy, with different layers. The outer shell was the crust, and it was about eighteen miles thick. Underneath was an ocean of fiery, molten rock. In some spots, there were cracks in the crust, and that’s where volcanoes formed.

Jess was shocked to learn that there were fifteen hundred volcanoes around the world that could be active. And fourteen of them were right in the Cascades.

How did she not know any of this? None of the kids in the class knew.

On the blacktop, nobody wanted to play kickball. They all nervously eyed the mountain, which rose up in the distance. Kids gathered around as Sam repeated Dr. Morales’s story of Mount Pelée. He explained about the warning signs — the rotten-egg stench of sulfur gas, the mudslides, and, of course, the pit vipers. He told them about the fiery hurricane wind that swept down the mountain.

The kids listened with wide eyes and slack jaws. This story was way better than the legend of Skeleton Woman.

On Tuesday, Missy saw a garter snake slithering through the grass behind the blacktop.

“It’s a pit viper!” she shrieked.

Other kids freaked out, too. It took Mr. Daley the rest of recess to calm them down and to convince them that there were no pit vipers in Washington State — or anywhere in the United States.

Over the next few days, the police set up roadblocks on Spirit Lake Memorial Highway. They wouldn’t let anyone within ten miles of the mountain, not even loggers.

The whole town seemed to be holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.

And then, on Friday, something did.

It was near the end of the school day, and Jess was gathering her notebooks for dismissal. Suddenly a loud boom rattled their desks and sent Mr. Daley’s coffee mug crashing to the floor.

Twenty-one heads turned and stared out the window.

They had a perfect view of St. Helens rising up over the ridge.

It didn’t look peaceful anymore.

Pale gray smoke was gushing out of the top.

“It’s erupting!” Sam cried.