Dad glanced between Amy and the doc, then shrugged. “Maybe it was just a scab or something?”

“Maybe,” mumbled Dr. Chevram. Amy watched her gingerly touch the lines of scratches Rover’s paws had left in the metal table.

Amy looked at Rover, to see it for herself. The patch of thinning fur was gone. Rover gave a soft woof and licked her face.

Rover’s fine, thought Amy blankly. He’s totally fine. Everything’s fine.

So why did it all feel so wrong?

Chapter 5: Feeding Time

A few days later, Amy was up in her room, trying to get some work done—with a hard emphasis on trying, she thought. After many attempts at sketching out some science fair ideas on her iPad, she froze midline, sighed, and hit the CLEAR SCREEN button. Everything she’d been working on disappeared from her iPad.

She leaned back into the pillow pile she’d assembled on her bed—her choice working environment—and grumbled. At her side, Coop and Hutch shifted in their sleep, then went back to being living space heaters. That uneasy feeling from the vet still dogged her, the sense that something was terribly wrong, and it was getting in the way of her process.

“C’mon, Amy,” she said to herself. “Why’s it so hard this year?”

Her brain felt sore. Over a dozen science fair ideas, and they were all wrong—too simple, too high-tech, too elaborate for the amount of time she had, or just not cool enough. Her past concepts had covered all the bases; last year, she’d used a food dehydrator as a way to explain how mummies were naturally formed in desert nations. She’d won second place only because Jake Diaz had grown some kind of rare fungus using his leftover lunch scraps, and Mr. Heindecker, the science teacher who judged the fair, was really into composting. Valerie Starr had come in fourth. But with Valerie and Jake teaming up this year, Amy had some serious competition on her hands.

She had told herself last year, looking at that red ribbon: In sixth grade, she was going to finally win it.

And here she was, with no idea what to do.

Amy reached down with one hand and scratched Coop’s head. The black cat purred and arched into her fingers gently. Hutch climbed over him and nudged Amy’s hand with his gray-and-black-striped noggin, trying to get her attention.

“I see you,” she mumbled, and rubbed Hutch’s chin, careful to keep her hand away from his one gross, runny eye.

Inspire me, cats, she thought, petting the sleepy animals. Give me an idea. An automatic feeder? No, stupid. Runny eye medicine? Too advanced. What else …