THE FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL FELT LIKE A YEAR TO EMMET. The academic part was fine. And he actually liked Calvin’s friends. But Dr. Newton was making his life a little miserable. After their first encounter, he made a point of seeking Emmet out every day. He quizzed Emmet about his father and if he was working with Dr. Geaux on the strange migrations of the animals in the park. It was all over the news, he constantly reminded everyone in the class, and the media knew the government was behind it. The government kept secrets, blah, blah, blah. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he just kept piling on the homework and seemed to take exception to anyone who said anything even remotely controversial about the environment, spouting into a long lecture. Emmet thought he might be one of those people who would be happiest if everyone lived in huts and subsisted on a diet of twigs and bark. And wore Birkenstocks with wool socks. Emmet just couldn’t get past that.

The two of them rode the bus to Calvin’s house after school. They would wait there until their parents got home from work, and a couple of times they went out for dinner, or Calvin would heat up something in the microwave.

So far Calvin’s tree house had become Emmet’s favorite place. The two of them got into the habit of doing their homework up there, and the setting was very relaxing. The breezes up in the trees cut the heat and it was more comfortable there.

It was Thursday, nearly the end of Emmet’s first week at Tasker, and it was amazing how much homework he was given, especially in science class.

“What is the deal with this Dr. Newton guy?” Emmet asked Calvin.

“The Newt? I don’t know. He’s a bit odd, I guess,” Calvin said.

It took superhuman effort on Emmet’s part to not point out that Calvin spent most of his time in a tree house and carried the world’s biggest backpack, and yet he just described someone as “a bit odd.”

“Duh. He walks around all the time like his hair is on fire. Man, he hates the government. Gives me all kinds of grief about my dad, who just studies birds. And why is he a doctor?” Emmet said.

“I don’t know. He has a PhD in biology or something. The word is, he comes from a wealthy family that made all their money building hotels or something in Miami. There’re rumors he doesn’t have any other relatives and he didn’t want to do anything but teach science in middle school. He’s into all kinds of environmental causes around here. ‘Save the Manatees’ and ‘Save the Everglades’ and ‘Save the Snowbirds,’” Calvin said. “He gets into it with my mom sometimes. She just thinks he’s kind of a harmless crank. Feels guilty about his family tearing everything up, so now he wants to preserve everything.”

Emmet’s head snapped around. “Did you just make a joke?”

“I don’t think so,” Calvin said.

“Yeah, you did. Good job. You said ‘Save the Snowbirds’ and thought I wouldn’t catch it. Anyway, Dr. Greenpeace Newton seems to have it in for me.”

Calvin shook his head. “I don’t think so. He’s tough and can be opinionated, and gets a little soapboxy about the environment, but he’s actually a pretty great teacher. He’s on you a lot right now because you’re new and he’s challenging you. Seeing what you’re made of. You’ll learn a lot. I did last year.”

“How come you don’t have him this year?” Emmet asked.

“Like I said, he’s involved in a lot of environmental causes. He’s got money and that gets him on boards and committees, and he makes big donations and doesn’t see eye to eye with my mom very much. I can’t say he was ever unfair to me, and I got an A in the class, but he actually suggested I have Ms. Susskind this year to avoid any appearance that he might have a conflict of interest. The whole thing was his idea. Like I said, tough, but pretty fair.”

“Well, right now he’s making me feel like I’m personally responsible for the decline of the grizzly bear population in Montana because I went snowboarding every once in a while. Doesn’t even know the grizz are on the way back,” Emmet groused.

“That’s Dr. Newt. But you’ll like him by the end of the semester. Trust me,” Calvin said. Emmet was skeptical.

They were quiet a while as they worked. Emmet observed that just as in most everything else he did, Calvin was a serious student. But before long the conversation between them inevitably turned to Dr. Catalyst, who was all over the media in South Florida the last few days.

“Phony or real?” Emmet flipped on his back, tired of his science textbook.

“What?” Calvin asked.

“Dr. Catalyst. Do you think he’s real, or is he a fake?”

“He’s real. Somebody is sending those emails and videos.”

Emmet sighed. “Not what I meant. Do you think there is just this one guy behind making those freak-a-gators?”

“The what?”

“Calvin, I’ve only known you a short time, but sometimes I think you do this on purpose. You know very well what I’m talking about. Those things that tried to munch on us in the swamp. My dad says the avian DNA strain matches an owl from Asia. Or someplace that starts with an A, maybe Alabama, I don’t know. Anyway, it’s a really big, bad bird of prey. So somebody mixed up owl and alligator DNA into a hybrid species that would take a lot of money and knowledge to create. So my question is, Dr. Catalyst … is he behind it, or is he just the front man for a group of extremists who want to take back the Everglades?”

“Oh,” Calvin said. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No. I haven’t really thought about it.”

“Seriously? You haven’t thought about it? It’s all over the news. People are packing up and moving away until the police catch this guy. Regular alligators are practically riding bicycles down the street because something is driving them out of the swamp. Stuke says his dad is working overtime every day answering police calls from people who think they have a gator in their chimney or their glove compartment, and you ‘haven’t thought about it’?”

Calvin shrugged. “Not really. Down here in South Florida we’re used to eco-protestors. People make all kinds of demands when it comes to the environment. Some want to close the park completely. Others want to make everyone move out of South Florida so it can return to its natural state. This guy just seems like the next in a long line.”

“But what about the almost-ate-us-gators? Everybody is running around saying they’re not real. It’s all a computer-generated hoax to scare people. But they are real. We’ve seen them, so somebody definitely created those things. Don’t you think a person like that is dangerous?”

Calvin shrugged again. Emmet was starting to think a shrug was Calvin’s primary response to everything. Hey, Calvin, your hair’s on fire. Shrug. Hey, Calvin, look at the size of that cat! Shrug. Calvin, here you are … one million dollars, tax free. Shrug.

“Whoever he is, he’s right about the invasive species,” Calvin said. “The snakes have just about killed off most of the small mammals. You hardly see a swamp fox or opossum or even a raccoon when you’re out there these days.”

“Wait. Are you saying some guy inventing his own animals is okay? Animals with big scary teeth? Remember, that one time, WHEN THEY ALMOST ATE US?”

Calvin, no surprise, shrugged. “No, I’m not saying what he’s doing is right. My dad used to talk a lot about the balance of nature. And now that balance has been upset. My mom and other park officials have been trying to come up with a solution to save the mammals and birds being wiped out by pythons. It’s been nothing but frustrating for them. Restoring the balance is never easy once it’s been altered. People let these big snakes loose, or they escape and no one realizes the damage they can do. They don’t have any natural predators, and all the species they eat here haven’t adapted to their presence.”

“So it’s okay for Dr. Cataracts to make a monster in a lab to fix the problem? They wrote a famous book about that once. It was called Frankenstein. Didn’t work out so well,” Emmet said. “Plus, a couple of his ‘solutions’ tried to have us for brunch!”

“Well, I didn’t say that….” Calvin said.

Emmet saw that winning an argument with Calvin would be difficult at best. So he changed the subject.

“You know, Riley likes you,” he said. This time Calvin’s head snapped up from his homework, his dark eyes boring into Emmet.

“She … you … What did you say?” Calvin stammered. He didn’t shrug this time.

“Riley. She likes you,” Emmet said, pretending to be very interested in his homework.

“No she doesn’t,” Calvin insisted.

“Does too.”

“Does not.”

“Does too.”

“What are you, six? How long are you going to keep doing this?” Calvin asked.

It was the first time Emmet ever saw him so agitated.

“Does too!” Emmet said, smiling.

“She doesn’t know I like her,” Calvin said. “I mean — she doesn’t like me!”

“Aha!” Emmet said. “I knew you knew it. And you like her back.”

Calvin stood up and paced back and forth in the small space of the tree house.

“You can’t tell … you better … I don’t want her to …” Calvin was really flustered. Emmet was about to speak, when they heard the sound of a car in the driveway.

“As much as I’m enjoying this moment and would give almost anything to prolong it, that’s probably my dad. Time to go,” Emmet said. He gathered up his books and stuffed them into his book bag, then climbed down the tree with Calvin sputtering behind him.