IN A STRANGE WAY, DR. NEWTON HAD A LOT TO DO WITH Emmet’s plan to find his father. Emmet started yelling at Dr. Newton the minute he walked into the school the next morning. Yelling so loud that Calvin felt the need to get between him and the teacher. Given Emmet’s feelings and the tension of the situation, Dr. Newton felt it would be best that Emmet be moved to another science class. Ms. Susskind became his science teacher.

She was teaching a unit on the circulatory system of the human body. They looked at slides and studies comparing cold-blooded and warm-blooded species. His schedule was rearranged when he was moved from Dr. Newton’s class, and science was his first class of the day. The lesson gave him an idea. He thought about it all through the day.

At lunch, he sat at the table with everyone as usual. While they carried on their normal conversations, Emmet stared off into space. His brain felt like a giant jigsaw puzzle that was missing the one final piece. It was like the idea he needed, the one thing that might help find his dad, was yet to slip into its proper place.

“Emmet, I know you’ve been asked this enough times you probably want to scream but … are you all right?” Raeburn asked.

“Huh … what?” Emmet snapped out of his reverie.

“She wanted to know if you are feeling okay,” Riley said.

“Yes, I feel fine. Why?”

“You just seem a little distracted, is all,” Raeburn said.

“Distracted? No. I don’t think so,” Emmet said.

“Really? Because you just ate Stuke’s sandwich,” Calvin said.

“I did no —” He looked down to see his sandwich still on his tray while Stuke’s tray was sandwich-free. Stuke was sitting there, too polite to mention anything, but looking hungry all the same.

“Oh. Dude, I am so sorry, I … Here, take mine,” Emmet offered.

“It’s really okay,” Stuke said.

“Please, Stuke. I guess I just wasn’t paying attention. Seriously, take it.”

Stuke gratefully took the sandwich. “I don’t suppose there’s any news,” he asked Emmet.

“No.”

“Well, my dad says they’re turning the swamp upside down,” Stuke said.

“I know,” Emmet said quietly. “Everybody is doing their best. Listen, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go.”

“Where?” Calvin asked.

“Just the library,” Emmet said. He excused himself from the table, and as he was leaving, heard Riley and Raeburn chastising Stuke. Stuke kept saying “What’d I do?” repeatedly. Emmet knew the poor guy didn’t mean any harm, but he still didn’t want to talk about it. He needed to do something about it. If he went another minute without somehow helping to find his dad, he might just go crazy.

He had told a white lie to his friends. Emmet didn’t go to the library but instead headed to the school office. At lunchtime he knew it would be mostly empty, except for Mrs. Connors, the office manager; and probably Double J, who had been sent for another visit with the principal, Mr. Wallace.

“Hi there, Emmet!” she said when he walked in. Mrs. Connors was always cheerful.

“Hey, Mrs. Connors,” Emmet said. He held up his phone. “It’s almost time for me to call Dr. Geaux. Is it okay if I use the conference room?”

“Of course,” she said. “You go right ahead and just holler if you need anything.”

He went inside the conference room and shut the door. The phones he and Calvin were given had web browsers. The media had finally stopped running Dr. Catalyst’s constant feed showing Dr. Doyle in the metal cage. A few rogue sites out there were showing it, but the authorities were making them take down the feeds whenever they popped up. Emmet didn’t understand why people would want to show something so horrible, and he resisted the urge to look for one. He didn’t want to see his dad like that. Once was enough.

Emmet was looking for information. The science class had gotten him thinking. About heat and cold and alligators and the swamp and the infrared detectors Dr. Geaux had said were being used to search for his dad. And how all the animals were migrating out of the park, so there should be no residual heat signatures from them. And how there might be one small chance that Dr. Catalyst overlooked something in his little plan.

One small chance.

All Emmet needed was a certain piece of information, but he wasn’t sure how he was going to get it. If he started asking strange questions, Dr. Geaux or Calvin were almost certain to pick up on it. In the end, he knew he was going to have to be sneaky. The thought of deceiving Dr. Geaux made him feel uncomfortable, but he couldn’t see any other way around it. It was his theory, and he wasn’t going to tell anyone who might not take it seriously. His dad was now missing for over twenty-four hours.

The previous night, Dr. Geaux had walked in with a briefcase full of reports and printouts. After she and Emmet talked in the yard, she’d sent them on to bed and went to her den to work. She was gone before they woke for school. The neighbor, Mrs. Clawson, came by to check on them and make sure they got on the bus. Mrs. Clawson was also going to check in on Apollo during the day.

After school, Emmet and Calvin came home and played with the pooch in the yard and took him for a walk before doing homework in the tree house. Emmet admitted he was growing very fond of Calvin’s tree house. It was a small thing, only a few feet up in a tree, but somehow the world looked different from up here. And with each step up the side of the tree, it was like his problems stayed below on the ground.

When Dr. Geaux came home that night, she was near complete exhaustion. The park remained closed to visitors, so it allowed her to deploy all of her personnel toward the search. But it was taking a toll on her, too.

“Good evening, boys,” she said. Apollo rushed to greet her, just like he did to anyone who came to the door. Any visitor was an explosion of barking and tail wagging. Dr. Geaux knelt down and let Apollo clean the worry off her face. It never failed to get a laugh out of her. Emmet’s feelings were all mixed up, and part of him was still mad at Dr. Geaux for getting his dad involved in this in the first place. But he had to admit she was a nice person.

Mrs. Clawson left them a Crock-Pot with beef stew and biscuits to warm up for dinner, and the three of them ate in relative silence. When they were finished, Calvin and Emmet did the dishes while Dr. Geaux went to her study. She came out a few minutes later. They avoided talking about the search for Emmet’s dad. It just hung there like a giant black cloud. So far, they weren’t able to find him.

“Guys,” she said. “I’m beat. I’m going to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

After that, Emmet waited. And waited. Every once in a while, up in Montana, the snowfall came softly … the snow falling out of the sky in big puffy flakes that seemed to take hours before they landed on the ground. For Emmet, the minutes went by like one of those snowflakes. Each one taking its own sweet time to pass. He was so tense it felt like whatever he did was giving away everything. Even when he tried to act as normal as possible, he worried that Calvin would think he was acting too normal and would sniff out his plan.

Finally, Calvin went to bed, and Emmet followed along. Just like the night before. He brushed his teeth and got ready to go to sleep. But he wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. From his spot in the guest room he stayed awake for a few more hours, reading, getting up and pacing the floor when he felt sleepy. All night long he kept it up, until it was almost four A.M.

He opened the guest-room door, checking to see that Calvin’s and Dr. Geaux’s doors were still shut. Apollo looked up at him from his bed on the floor, but it was his sleep time and he dropped his head back down, not at all interested in what Emmet was up to.

Still in his clothes, he crept downstairs to Dr. Geaux’s study. Her briefcase was open on the desk, a bunch of file folders inside it. Emmet flipped on the small desk lamp and looked through the files until he found the one he wanted. He pulled the map out of the file and spread it open on her desk, studying it carefully. Fifteen minutes later, he was pretty sure he found what he was looking for.

Emmet took the file with him and quietly and cautiously crept to the front door. Hoping for no squeak or whining hinges, he carefully opened it. Then he slipped away into the darkness.