They were happy to see Dr. Morales walk through the door. He’d been working on the mountain all day, and was heading back to his lab in Seattle.

  “I had to come by for another piece of that coconut cake,” he said.

  Mom and Jess and the twins joined him in a booth, and he explained that what they’d seen and heard from their classroom earlier was called a steam explosion.

  “And that’s all it was, steam, mixed with a little bit of ash.”

  In a true volcanic eruption, he went on, the smoke is steel gray or black. And it lasts for many hours or days.

  The smoke today had billowed up for just a few minutes, and then turned white and disappeared. The mountain had been peaceful ever since.

  “A steam eruption is like a volcano burp,” he said.

  They all laughed. But Dr. Morales wasn’t totally joking.

  “It’s another warning sign. Nobody should doubt that St. Helens is wide-awake and getting ready to erupt.”

  There were more steam explosions as the weeks passed. Some lasted for hours. St. Helens was front-page news every day. Some nights Dr. Morales was actually on the TV news, giving updates along with other scientists who were closely studying the mountain.

  The twins went bonkers every time Dr. Morales’s familiar face popped onto the screen.

  “There he is! There he is!” they’d shout.

  But for Jess it was better to see Dr. Morales in person, and her heart always leaped a little when he appeared at Clive’s. He came in once or twice a week, on his way to or from the mountain. Mom would pile a plate high with his favorite fried chicken or homemade noodles. And between bites of food and sips of coffee, he’d tell them about his work on the mountain.

  To Jess and the boys, his stories were like scenes out of a thrilling action movie. A helicopter pilot would fly him up to the top of the volcano — the summit. Those steam explosions had blasted through hundreds of feet of rock and ice. There was now a huge crater on the summit. It was thousands of feet wide and hundreds of feet deep. The helicopter would hover above the summit, and Dr. Morales would hop out. He’d scoop up ash from the crater and gather samples of the gas seeping out.

  “You actually go into the crater?” Eddie asked in astonishment.

  “I go to the edge,” Dr. Morales said. “I can only stay for a few seconds because it’s so hot. And I have to get away quickly because if a steam explosion happens while I’m there … well …”

  “You’d be toast,” Sam said.

  “Sammy!” Mom scolded.

  But Dr. Morales laughed. “Actually, I’d be boiled,” he said, picking up a floppy yellow noodle. “I’d end up looking something like this.”

  Of course the twins loved that. Sam told the kids at school all about it on the blacktop the next day.

  Missy looked like she might vomit.

  But as the weeks passed, Dr. Morales often seemed troubled when he came into the diner. He was still his warm and friendly self. But he looked weary. Studying an active volcano wasn’t all helicopter rides and daredevil stunts. There were endless hours of sitting around and watching for changes. There were nights trying to sleep in a freezing tent, with 30-mile-per-hour winds ripping at the sides.

  And there was the frustration of not having any clear answers.

  Dr. Morales and the other scientists knew that something was happening inside the volcano. There were many warning signs. That big crater on the summit was growing. There were massive cracks and bulges on the north side of the mountain. But none of the scientists knew for sure what exactly these clues meant.

  Was the volcano about to erupt?

  Would the eruption be violent?

  Would there be a warning?

  “We just don’t know for sure,” Dr. Morales said.

  Meanwhile, the mountain quieted down. And some folks in Cedar started to question whether the mountain was really going to erupt after all. Even some scientists admitted that it was possible that St. Helens could go back to sleep.

  At Clive’s, people grumbled. Loggers were impatient to get back to work. Cabin owners wanted to check their properties. Fishermen were itching to get back to their favorite streams.

  By the middle of May, the steam explosions had stopped. More and more people were becoming convinced that the danger had passed. On the blacktop, kids got tired of talking about the volcano. Missy even started up about Skeleton Woman again.

  One day Jess and the boys were tossing a ball around, when Missy came stamping up to Jess.

  “You know, I never saw the proof.”

  “Proof of what?” Jess asked.

  “Skeleton Woman’s shack,” she said, crossing her arms.

  Jess rolled her eyes, and the twins groaned.

  Not this again.

  Of course she and the twins had told all the kids about being in the cabin when the earthquake happened.

  “There was nothing there,” Eddie snapped.

  “But you promised you’d take a picture,” Missy said.

  “She tried,” Sam said.

  Eddie and Sam started bickering with Missy.

  But Jess was no longer listening.

  Because all she could think of now was Dad’s camera.

  With all of the excitement over the mountain, Jess had managed to keep her mind off the fact that she’d lost Dad’s prized possession. She hadn’t even told Mom yet.

  How could she have been so stupid? Why had she brought Dad’s camera into the forest? What would Mom say when she realized it was missing?

  Tears flooded Jess’s eyes.

  She turned and ran off the blacktop, to a quiet spot behind the jungle gym.

  Sam and Eddie came to find her.

  “What’s wrong?” Sam said.

  Jess kept her head down so her hair would hide her tears.

  “That Missy,” Eddie fumed.

  “No,” Jess choked, wiping her face. “It’s not her. It’s my dad’s camera. I just can’t believe I lost it. My mom is going to be so upset.”

  Dad’s camera wasn’t just an expensive piece of equipment. It was a part of Dad.

  And now it was lying in the dirt in that leaky cabin.

  “We’ll go find it,” Sam said.

  “We will,” Eddie said.

  “How?” Jess said.

  The twins looked thoughtful.

  “We’ll figure out a way,” Eddie said.

  Then he held out his hand.

  Sam put his on top.

  Jess hesitated. But then she put her hand on top of Sam’s.

  They leaned together so that their foreheads were touching.

  “All for one,” Eddie and Sam chorused.

  Jess took a breath.

  “And one for all,” she answered. And when she felt ready, they walked together back to the blacktop.

  Their chance to look for the camera came sooner than Jess expected.

  The very next day, the twins came to Clive’s as the Saturday breakfast rush was ending.

  “Hey, gents,” Mom called. “Your mom went out of town again?”

  “How’d you know?” Sam asked. “She just left.”

  Mom smirked. “Magic.”

  Jess laughed. “It’s because you always wear those same disgusting Mariners T-shirts when your mom isn’t here to stop you.”

  The boys looked down at their stained shirts and grinned.

  The second Mom went back into the kitchen, the boys pounced on Jess with their news: Their dad was heading up to his fishing cabin early tomorrow morning. He’d left his most expensive fishing rod there, and he wanted to bring it home.

  “But how’s he going to get there?” Jess asked.

  The cabin was eight miles from St. Helens. Jess didn’t think the police were letting anyone get that close to the mountain.

  “My dad talked to the police chief,” Eddie said. “The loggers are going back to work on Monday. And the police are even letting people with cabins on Spirit Lake go up there today.”

  Jess was shocked. Spirit Lake was right at the base of St. Helens, much closer than Loomis Lake.

  Jess paused for a minute, thinking about Dr. Morales. She was pretty positive he wouldn’t be in favor of people going close to the mountain. But even he admitted that nobody knew for sure that St. Helens was going to erupt any time soon. And wouldn’t there be some kind of warning before a big eruption?

  What Jess did know was that here was her chance to get Dad’s camera back. And she needed to take it.

  “Your dad will let us come?” she asked.

  The boys nodded.

  Mom would never approve. But Mom didn’t have to know because she wouldn’t be home tomorrow. She was leaving early in the morning for Vancouver. The twins’ grandma was getting out of the hospital, and Mom wanted to help Mrs. Rowan get her settled. Mom had invited Jess to come along. But Jess said she’d stay with the twins.

  Jess couldn’t believe her luck.

  Maybe she’d be able to get Dad’s camera and sneak it back into Mom’s trunk. And Mom would never have to find out that it had been missing.

  The next morning, Mom kissed Jess good-bye at six thirty.

  By seven, Jess and the twins were in the back of Mr. Rowan’s pickup, rumbling along Spirit Lake Memorial Highway.

  There were no police roadblocks, and they made it to Loomis Lake in under an hour.

  They got out of the truck, and they all stood in the parking lot for a moment, staring up at the mountain.

  “Looks the same as it always does,” Mr. Rowan said.

  It was true.

  They couldn’t see any of the cracks or bulges that Dr. Morales had told them about. The mountain’s peak sparkled as usual, and its reflection rippled on the surface of Loomis Lake.

  “I don’t want to stay long,” Mr. Rowan told them. “An hour tops. So don’t go far.”

  He’d barely started to walk away when Jess and the twins were sprinting toward the forest. Soon they lost sight of the mountain; the tall trees blocked their view. Not being able to see the mountain made Jess nervous.

  But what rattled her most was the quiet.

  She heard none of the usual forest sounds — the chirps of birds and skittering of squirrels and chipmunks. The air was strangely still, without even a breath of wind.

  The twins were strangely quiet, too. They walked along without their usual baseball chatter. The hike was taking longer than it had last time. The trail was littered with fallen branches and ripped apart by huge holes caused by the earthquake.

  With every step, Jess’s stomach twisted tighter. They should turn around, she thought. They needed to find Mr. Rowan and go home. This all felt wrong. She was ready to grab the twins and drag them back down the trail.

  But then she saw it, up ahead: the shack.

  Jess forgot her fear. All she could think of was Dad’s camera.

  She hurried ahead, leaping over branches and holes. She ran up to the shack and pushed the door open. She searched all around the floor, but the camera wasn’t there.

  Her heart sank. She’d been sure she would find it lying on the ground.

  And then she saw her backpack sitting on the table.

  Strange. She was sure she hadn’t left it there, all zipped up.

  Jess stepped over and unzipped it.

  And to her amazement, the camera was tucked inside, carefully wrapped in the plastic bag. She lifted it up and removed it from the plastic.

  It was perfect.

  The boys came through the door.

  “You found it!” Eddie said happily.

  But Jess’s relief was mixed with confusion.

  “How did it get into the backpack?” Jess wondered. “I know I dropped it.”

  “Someone must have found it,” Sam said. “Maybe a logger.”

  “But nobody has been allowed to come up here,” Jess said. “And Missy said the loggers were too scared to come to this part of the forest.”

  “Maybe she did it,” Eddie said.

  “Missy?” Jess said.

  “No,” Eddie said, raising his eyebrows.

  “You know …”

  “You dope,” Sam laughed. “Skeleton Woman didn’t find Jess’s camera and put it in the bag.” He grabbed Jess. “Come on. We need to go. Dad will be waiting for us.”

  Jess put the backpack on and followed the twins out of the cabin.

  They’d just stepped outside when Jess caught a whiff of a nasty smell.

  The boys smelled it, too.

  “Eddie!” Sam chided. “What did you do?”

  “It wasn’t me!” Eddie said, putting his hands over his face.

  They looked at Jess.

  “I didn’t do it!”

  “Ugh,” Eddie said. “It’s like rotten eggs.”

  Jess’s heart stopped.

  “Isn’t that what sulfur gas smells like?” she asked.

  Sulfur gas. Like on Mount Pelée.

  It was one of the warning signs, just before Pelée erupted.

  “Is it coming from the mountain?” Eddie asked.

  The horrifying answer came a second later.

  Kaboom!

  The blast seemed to shatter the sky.

  A huge black cloud shot up over the tree line.

  Jess’s legs turned to jelly.

  “That’s just a steam explosion, right?” Sam asked weakly.

  But they all knew it wasn’t.

  This angry black cloud looked nothing like the wispy gray plumes they’d seen from Cedar. It boiled wildly and spread out all around until it had painted the entire sky a furious black.

  There was a loud whoosh that shook the ground.

  A blast of searing hot wind knocked them off their feet. The air seemed to turn to fire. Jess had never felt such heat.

  It was hotter than the diner kitchen on a broiling August day. Hotter than Mom’s oven when she baked bread.

  The pyroclastic surge, Jess realized, the fiery hurricane wind packed with poisonous gas and ash.

  It was the killer wind that had destroyed Saint-Pierre.

  The heat blasted over them, and Jess felt as though she was being cooked from the inside out. Every breath was like inhaling fire.

  She looked around with desperation, knowing that they wouldn’t last more than a few seconds if they stood here. Just a few yards away was a huge hole, one of the grave-like pits caused by the earthquake. It was wide, and at least ten feet deep.

  Almost without thinking, Jess grabbed hold of the twins, gripping their arms with all her might.

  “There!” she cried, yanking them toward the huge pit.

  It was their only hope.

  They all jumped in. Jess came down hard on her shoulder. She bit her tongue and tasted blood.

  But she barely noticed.

  There was only heat. Terrible, blistering heat.

  “Get into the dirt!” Jess screamed.

  They all dug frantically into the sides of the hole, trying to tunnel in.

  Jess tore at the earth until her fingers were bleeding, until she’d created enough space for her head and shoulders. She jammed herself in, and then pulled her legs to her chest so she was a little ball pushed into the dirt.

  The air grew hotter, until she was sure the entire world had burst into flames.

  The volcano thundered and roared.

  Dirt and mud and bits of rock rained down.

  There were terrible moaning shrieks of trees falling above. Jess thought of her great-grandfather Clive. No wonder he’d hated that sound.

  Jess kept herself pushed into the dirt. But it was very hard to breathe. Finally the air started to cool down. Jess uncurled her body and stood in the hole. But she had barely taken a breath when a tree came crashing down over the hole.

  Bam!

  A branch smacked her in the head.

  And then there was no more heat, no more pain.

  Just darkness.

  Jess opened her eyes, but she couldn’t see.

  She brushed the dirt from her eyes and blinked, but there was still only darkness.

  Was it night?

  Had she gone blind?

  Jess sat up, gasping at the searing pain that raked across her back. She’d been badly burned, she could tell.

  It took a moment for her mind to clear. And slowly she grasped the full horror of what was happening.

  St. Helens was erupting.

  The smoke had turned the day black.

  The pyroclastic surge had exploded over them.

  Somehow they were still alive in this hole in the ground.

  “Sam?” she choked. “Eddie?”

  A voice rasped from somewhere close.

  “I’m here,” Sam said softly. “Eddie’s hurt.”

  Jess inched over, groping in the darkness until her fingers brushed their faces. She felt tears.

  Jess fought back her own tears and took a deep breath.

  She tried to stand, but the fallen tree imprisoned them in the hole. It would be impossible to try to climb out in the dark. They’d have to wait here until the sky lightened.

  But when would that be?

  The mountain roared. Every few minutes, there was a new explosion that rattled Jess’s bones. Jess couldn’t control her fear. She finally started to cry, but luckily the mountain drowned out the sound.

  Jess felt something falling on her head, warm flakes.

  Ash, she realized.

  It began as a few sprinkles, falling lightly like hot snow. And then, suddenly, they were in an ash blizzard. The warm flakes swirled up Jess’s nose and into her mouth. She covered her face, but it did no good. The flakes completely filled the air.

  The ash tasted disgusting, like dirt mixed with chalk. It clogged up her nose and blocked off her throat. She coughed hard and blew her nose and spit out mouthfuls. But it was coming down too quickly. She couldn’t clear her nose and mouth fast enough.

  The boys hacked and gagged, too.

  They would all suffocate if this kept up.

  Then Jess had an idea.

  “Pull your shirt over your face!” she cried.

  Jess reached below her red sweatshirt for her T-shirt. She pulled it up over her face. It worked! The shirt became a mask that filtered out the ash.