THE NEXT DAY, EMMET WAS IN A SOMBER MOOD. HE couldn’t concentrate on his classes. The thought that Dr. Catalyst outsmarted them was hard to accept. He even frowned through lunch, which was normally his favorite part of the day.

“Why are you frowning so much?” Stuke asked. Good old Stuke. Never afraid of asking the tough questions.

“I just can’t believe he beat us,” Emmet said.

Nobody said anything. Stuke was still limping around but had given up the walker. Emmet’s face had healed to the point where he at least no longer looked like an extra in a horror movie. At first he’d been worried kids would make fun of him, but the Blood Jackets were attacking people all over Florida City. The fact that he was the first — and survived — gave him a little street cred.

To make matters worse, Emmet’s dad and Calvin’s mom had teamed up on them, and “highly encouraged” they join the Tasker Middle School Service Club. It was something the new principal had started. They had to stay after school and take part in service projects, like helping out at concerts, basketball games, and other school events. Calvin agreed without protest. Emmet immediately understood it was an attempt to keep him from sticking his nose in Dr. Catalyst Business.

“Do we really have to do this Service Club thing tonight?” he asked Calvin.

“Yes,” Calvin said. “What choice do we have?”

“We don’t do it, go hide in the tree house, and tell our parents we did it anyway,” Emmet said.

“Dude!” Calvin said in alarm. “That would be lying.”

“Not if we told them something else came up,” Emmet said.

“Like what?” Calvin huffed.

“Finding you-know-who,” Emmet said.

“No. We have to do it,” Calvin said.

“But why?” Emmet whined.

“Because you’re in the club now,” Calvin said.

“Do I have to wear the outfit?” Emmet said. “A white shirt and black pants? Why don’t you just hang a Kick Me sign on my back?” The new principal had also decided that the Service Club members were required to wear dorky outfits.

“Don’t worry, Emmet,” Riley said. “Raeburn and I signed up, too. Misery loves company, or something like that.”

“Great …” Emmet stalled his rant, because Stuke was staring off at something at the far end of the cafeteria. “Stuke … what are you looking at?”

“Huh? Oh, nuthin’,” Stuke answered. “Just wonder what that gross stuff is, leaking out of the vent up there on the wall.”

“What gross stuff?” Emmet turned around and looked across the cafeteria. Sure enough, something icky was leaking out of it. A thin streak of grayish-white gunk was running down the wall beneath the vent.

“Okay, that is gross,” Emmet said. “Wonder what it is?”

“Don’t know,” Stuke said. “Never saw it before.”

“Maybe it’s where they keep the lasagna,” Emmet said. Riley and Raeburn chuckled. Calvin raised his eyebrows, which was the equivalent of a belly laugh for him.

Stuke shook his head. “I’m pretty sure they keep the lasagna in the freezer.” He was still on painkillers after his encounter with the Muraecuda.

“Riiighht,” Emmet said. The bell rang, and they all stood and emptied their trays as they headed off to classes. The mysterious stain was forgotten.

The rest of the day, Emmet paid very little attention to schoolwork. His mind wandered, thinking about the previous day’s events over and over. He wondered if they had given something away or tipped off Dr. Catalyst somehow. No matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn’t figure it out. He finally concluded that the crazy environmentalist had just been extremely cautious. And lucky.

Emmet and Calvin stayed after school, helping get everything set up for the concert. Their first job was pulling out a bunch of long carts with folding chairs stacked on them from beneath the bleachers in the gym.

Emmet was handing over the chairs while Calvin set them up, when a big glop of something white and gray splattered on the floor next to them. They looked up to find it had fallen from a vent in the ceiling.

And it smelled. It smelled really bad.

“Ugh. Could that be any grosser?” Emmet said, backing away from it. “What the heck is it?”

“I’m guessing bird poop,” Calvin said.

“It looks like the same stuff from the lunchroom. And it stinks! Ewww,” Emmet said, putting more distance between himself and the pile of glop.

“A bird is probably stuck in one of the vents. It happens sometimes,” Calvin said. “We should probably clean it up.”

“You should probably clean it up,” Emmet declared. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m still recovering from a horrible medical trauma. You wouldn’t want me to get an infection, would you?”

“You won’t … That’s not …” Calvin sighed, knowing he wasn’t going to win the argument, and left to get something to clean up the mess. Emmet resumed pulling chairs off the cart and setting them up in rows.

As he worked, he was unaware that in the ventilation system above him, the colony was coming awake.

Soon it would be time to feed.