A stinging anger went through Amy, making her throat tight and her fists clench. She’d gone out on a limb, had dedicated two weeks in the garage to getting Rover on camera—and now he was going to bail on the entire experiment because, what, he had cold feet?

“Too bad,” she snapped, a little harshly. “I will not lose this science fair because Rover is having stage fright. Tell him to get on that cushion and do his magic now.”

Katie flinched away, her lip quivering, and tottered back over to the dog. Mom and Dad looked at Amy with surprise on their faces, and Mom looked ready to say something to her, but Amy turned her back to them and got her presentation board up. She could feel her nostrils flare, she was so angry. Yes, she had probably been too harsh to Katie, but apologies could come after she’d snagged that blue ribbon.

She set up her presentation board, with The Wireless Dog in blue letters at the top and printouts lining the three panels—her thesis, experiment times and patterns, and some theories as to why Rover was able to control technology around them. (She’d decided to leave the exact why up to the viewer.) In the center, she set her iPad on its stand, with the video of Rover taking his own picture on a loop.

She turned around to face the science fair. Mom and Dad were looking at her presentation board; Mom looked confused, while Dad smirked in faint disbelief. She ignored them and scanned the crowd until she found what she was looking for—Mr. Heindecker walking down one aisle of tables, clipboard in hand, peering at the first of the sixth-grade experiments.

This was it. Time to shine.

“Rover,” she said, slapping her thigh.

Rover didn’t move. He didn’t even look up at her. He stared off into the gym, that distant expression on his face.

Amy got ready to call his name again—and then she heard the screams.

All heads turned to Jake and Valerie’s experiment, where the shrieks were backed by a rhythm of harsh banging noises. The rats inside the terrarium weren’t running anymore; they were slamming their bodies against the sides of their plastic cage, shrieking as they throttled themselves back and forth, back and forth. The walls of the tiny plastic box quickly smeared with blood, and parents began to cover their kids’ eyes at the sight.

“Ratsby, no!” cried Jake. He ripped the top off the terrarium and pulled the squirming, screaming rat out. The animal twisted and bit deeply into Jake’s hand, and then it was Jake’s turn to scream, waving his arm around with the rat dangling wildly from his fingers.