EMMET’S DAD, DR. GEAUX, AND CALVIN’S UNCLE YAHA all had to be airlifted to South Miami Hospital. It was the same hospital Stuke had been taken to after the Muraecuda bit him. Emmet and Calvin sat together in the OR waiting room. He thought it was the most appropriately named room ever. Waiting. Room. The minutes dragged. There was an old-fashioned clock hanging on the wall, right above a row of extremely uncomfortable chairs. He swore he could hear the seconds ticking, but the minute hand moved like a glacier.

When they’d first arrived, he and Calvin both paced back and forth. But they eventually paced themselves out, and now sat across from each other. The seats had stiff backs and thin cushions. They couldn’t be less inviting, but it didn’t really matter. There was no way Emmet could feel comfortable under the circumstances, anyway.

Stuke’s dad, a Florida City police lieutenant, was on the Dr. Catalyst task force. He and his wife notified the paramedics that they were bringing Stuke, Riley, and Raeburn to the hospital for moral support. Mrs. Clawson was watching Apollo. For now it was just the two of them. Waiting. In the waiting room. After he stopped pacing, Calvin sat in a chair, all stiff and rigid. Emmet knew he was worried about his mom. And while he never got a chance to hear the complete story about Dr. Catalyst being his grandfather, now was probably not the time to have it out with him. Now was the time to be a friend. Even if he was still a little ticked off.

“All right, I get it,” Emmet said. “I don’t agree with what you did. Holding back information like that. It could have saved us from almost getting eaten by that giant cat-dog creature. But now I understand why you had questions. I mean, how old were you the last time you saw your grandfather alive?”

“I never saw him,” Calvin said. His voice was tinged with sadness.

“So if you haven’t seen him in that long, then you … Wait, never?” Emmet suddenly processed what he’d heard. Calvin had never met his own grandfather. “I’m sorry, Calvin. I didn’t know that.” Now he felt even worse. Calvin was a smart, brave, honest kid. Emmet was starting to understand why he was reluctant to speak up. At least a part of him was.

Calvin shrugged. “My dad told me he died before I was born.”

“What made you recognize him in the hallway at school?” Emmet asked.

“I don’t know. That picture … the one from my dad’s journal … I’ve probably studied it a thousand times. I’ve always wanted to be like my dad, living in a camp in the swamp, catching fish and gators and stuff. And all the time we spent out there — flying around on his boat — he would tell me about how his dad taught him everything about the Everglades. Like he was going to teach me. Only my dad died before he could teach me everything he knew.

“Then I saw this guy for a brief second in the hallway, and it kind of jolted me. He looked just like the man in the photo.”

Calvin sighed and leaned back in the chair. “My dad showed me the picture a few times. It was the only one he had of his father. But I never knew where he kept it. After I found it in his journal I’d just look at it sometimes, you know? And wonder. I memorized the face. Wondered what he would be like if he were still alive. Then I saw him in the hallway…. Anyway, I had to be sure. Was I remembering the right person? Maybe I’d forgotten. I knew Mom would be hard to convince. So I took Dragonfly One and went to visit Uncle Yaha. I just asked if one of the men in the photo was my grandfather. He asked me why I wanted to know, but I wouldn’t tell him. Finally he told me yes, it was. I swear he never told me anything about Grand … about Dr. Catalyst coming to him. Honest, Emmet. He never did.”

“I believe you, Calvin,” Emmet said. And he did.

“I was on my way back home when I found you and Riley and Raeburn stranded in the swamp. I was going to tell my mom. But I thought about it. My grandfather was dead. How could he be Dr. Catalyst? With no proof of anything except my quick glance down a hallway? What if I was wrong? My mom … she tries so hard to get Yaha and the rest of my father’s family to accept her. She does it for my sake. What if I was wrong? They would never forgive her for dishonoring the family name. She’d already lost my dad. I couldn’t … After a while, I just stopped thinking I saw what I thought I saw,” he said.

“So how did your grandfather become Dr. Catalyst?” Emmet asked him.

Calvin shook his head. “I don’t know. I was counting on Uncle Yaha to fill in some of the details. My dad very rarely spoke about his father, except when we were on the River of Grass, when he would say his dad taught him this or that. I guess they had some kind of a falling-out. All I know is he was really smart. He studied microbiology somewhere and was a top student. I went to the library and looked up newspaper articles about him. He once tried to run for a seat on the tribal council but didn’t get elected. Before he died, he was always working with some group or another to save the Everglades. In all the articles about him he would rave on and on about the environment being destroyed. He hated the government, developers, even the tribe, for destroying the Everglades.”

“Sounds like our man,” Emmet said.

“But then he died.”

“Or not,” Emmet said.

“Or not,” Calvin echoed resignedly.

A woman in a white coat bustled into the waiting room. Nurse Hernandez had helped them when they arrived at the hospital.

“What’s happening? What’s going on?” Emmet asked, as both he and Calvin scrambled to their feet.

“Emmet, your dad is going to be okay. He has some deep lacerations on his chest, and one of the creature’s claws punctured a lung. That’s a pretty serious injury. He lost some blood, but he’ll recover. It’ll be a few days in the hospital. He’s on a heavy dose of antibiotics, as we need to guard against infection.” She turned to Calvin.

“Calvin, your mom is okay,” she said. “The bite broke her arm and cut some ligaments and tendons. She’s still in surgery, but we’ve got two great surgeons working on her right now. Dr. Geaux will probably need a lot of physical therapy, but the important thing is she’s going to be all right.”

“What about my uncle Yaha?” Calvin asked, a wave of relief washing over him that his mother was going to be okay.

Her faced changed. She got a lot more serious.

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “Your uncle took the worst of the attack. He lost a lot of blood, and he has bites and puncture wounds everywhere. He has an entire team of surgeons working on him right now, and his condition is still critical. He’s going to be in the OR for quite a while. I’m sorry to give you boys this news when you’re here all alone. Do you have anyone coming to stay with you? Any family? It will be some time before you can see your parents, I’m afraid.”

“We have friends coming,” Emmet said. “Including Lieutenant Stukaczowski from the Dr. Catalyst task force. They’re on the way from Florida City. They should be here anytime now. Will we be able to see our parents as soon as —”

He never got to finish. The earsplitting Klaxon sound of the hospital fire alarm interrupted him. Strobe lights flashed and the noise pounded the air like a hammer.

“What the …” Emmet said.

“I don’t know. But we’re going to have to evacuate,” Nurse Hernandez said.

“What!? But what about our parents? What about the operating rooms?” He was scared now.

“Don’t worry. It’s probably a false alarm. It happens all the time. But even if it isn’t, your parents and uncle will be okay. The operating rooms are sealed and heavily protected by fire-suppression systems. We’ll be able to stabilize them and evacuate them to a nearby OR in an adjacent building,” she said.

A voice came over the speaker system. “Attention. Attention. We have a fire emergency. This is not a drill. All personnel please execute patient-evacuation-plan Alpha. This is not a drill. Repeat. This is a fire emergency. Execute evacuation-plan Alpha.”

“Okay, boys, I need to start moving patients, and you need to leave the building. Use the stairs and go out the exit right away.” Nurse Hernandez sped away, her lab coat flapping behind her.

Calvin had a worried look on his face, but Emmet knew there was no way he would ignore a fire alarm. They hurried to the stairway door, pushed it open, and started their descent.

The farther down they went, the more something started tugging at a corner of Emmet’s brain. A crazy genetic freak attacks them and a few hours later, while they’re in the hospital waiting for their parents to get out of surgery, a fire alarm goes off?

What were the odds?

Something didn’t feel right.