Anna's mom glared at the traffic light so hard it was a miracle it didn't burst into flames. "I wish you didn't have to see this, but I have to get back to the bakery. Everyone should still be there." Her lizards puffed up their throats as she honked her horn at the car in front of them moments after the light turned green. "Come on, move!"

Anna winced as they took a sharp right turn that made her seatbelt dig into her chest. Her bees buzzed inside the mesh bag she kept them in whenever she had to ride in a car. "What happened?"

"I don't know. I left to come get you as soon as they took care of—" Tires shrieked as her mom slammed the brakes. "Another red light?!? Give me a break!"

Anna hugged herself tightly, staring out the window so she could look at something, anything other than her mom. She'd seen her upset plenty of times before, but she'd never seen her so tense. She gripped the steering wheel as if she wanted to strangle it, and her lizards kept glancing back at Anna from atop her shoulders. What could have gotten her so stressed?

That was when Anna heard the sirens.

The distant wail of the first grew louder as they neared Sweet Surprise, and another echoed behind them, shrieking in Anna's ears until she could barely hear herself think. Flashing lights announced the ambulances' approach. The first could have been for anyone, but the one behind it sent Anna's heart to her toes.

More than twice the size of an ordinary ambulance, the second one displayed a massive red paw on the side, the telltale symbol of an emergency response vehicle tailor-made to carry large companions. Equipped with a massive bed, plenty of food and water, and heavy-duty sedatives, that specialized ambulance could safely carry even the biggest bear to the hospital so they could accompany their owner without hurting anyone in their panic.

There was only one person Anna knew whose companion would need to ride in something like that.

Anna's ears rang with the sirens' echoes as her mom parked by a fire truck. Firefighters lingered outside, passing around bottles of water and making sure everyone was doing alright. Anna's dad glanced over from where he'd been talking with a woman in a black and yellow uniform and rushed to scoop Anna into a tight hug. "Thank goodness you're alright."

She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed back just as hard. "Did the smoke detector start acting up again?"

"I wish." Her dad sighed. None of his usual energy remained, and Skippy was snoozing on top of his head, occasionally twitching his paws as if he was having a bad dream. "Something went wrong with some old wiring in the kitchen. We called for help right away, but..." His shoulders slumped. "Dad was right by where the fire started."

Anna's eyes darted to the paramedics examining her grandparents. Despite her coyote pacing in front of her and the worry crinkling the wrinkles on her forehead, her grandma looked okay.

She wished she could say the same about her grandpa.

His whole body shook with the force of his coughing as a paramedic attached an oxygen mask to his face. Bertrand huffed and puffed beside him, pointedly ignoring the bowl of water that had been set out for him.

Anna moved to go check on him, but her mom held her back. "We need to make sure the paramedics have plenty of space to do their jobs."

"But—" Anna swallowed her protest as her mom gave her patented I'm-too-tired-to-deal-with-this look. "Is he going to be okay?"

"We don't know yet," her dad said quietly.

"Okay." That was all Anna could manage to say before the tears came. Her breath came in hiccupping gasps as she sobbed. She couldn't lose her grandpa.

Her parents wrapped her in a tight hug. The three of them clung to each other as if the fire could return and rip them apart at any moment.

One of the paramedics approached them with her St. Bernard trotting by her side. "His oxygen levels are low and he keeps coughing, so we're going to take him to the hospital to see how much the smoke damaged his lungs." She knelt in front of Anna and offered her a reassuring smile. "We'll need to give your grandpa some peace and quiet so we can run some tests without making that big ol' bear of his upset, but I promise you'll be able to visit him soon."

Her St. Bernard wagged its tail and let out a quiet woof. Anna stroked it behind the ears, managing a small smile as the dog's tongue lolled out of its mouth. "Thanks for taking care of him."

With the fire out and everyone safely out of the bakery, Anna's family drove right behind the ambulance the whole way to the hospital. The paramedics quickly got her grandpa into a wheelchair and wheeled him inside with Bertrand in tow, ushering her dad and grandma into separate examination rooms to make sure they were okay. That left Anna and her mom to sit in the waiting room with a pile of paperwork.

To keep everyone's companions safe, the hospital housed dozens of waiting rooms, with separate ones designated for carnivorous or especially large companions. Usually, different species mixed and mingled without too many issues as long as their owners kept them well-fed, but with so many hurt, sick, and scared people stuck in one room, accidents were much more likely as companions reflected their owners' distress.

Anna kept her bees securely contained in the mesh bag she used whenever she had to ride in a car as she watched patients and their companions wait to be examined. A bobcat licked its lips as it watched the clownfish documentary on TV, and a raccoon pawed at the cast on its owner's arm, baring its teeth as it failed to add its handprint to the many names scribbled across the plaster.

With nothing to do but sit and wait, Anna pulled out the latest sheet of baking-themed math problems she'd created. The best thing she could do to help her grandpa was to keep her promise and do everything she could to prepare for her math test.

"I thought you finished your homework before you went to study with your friends." Her mom's voice was more tired than mad, and her lizards didn't bother glancing at Anna as they stared at the nurse manning the front desk.

"I did. I've just been trying to get some extra practice." Anna fiddled with her pencil as she stared at the first of the equations. What was it she was supposed to remember? Parrots Ate My... no, that wasn't right.

"Let me see that." Her mom grabbed the sheets filled with practice problems, her lips moving silently as she read. Her scowl morphed into an expression Anna couldn't recognize. "Are all of these about the bakery?"

"Yeah. Mr. Woods thought I might have an easier time studying if the problems were about something I care about." Anna sighed. "I know we're probably gonna have to sell Sweet Surprise, but..."

Anna couldn't hold it in anymore. Not how much she'd miss the bakery, not how much it hurt that nobody cared about it as much as she did, and especially not how scared she was for her grandpa. All she could do was cry.

For a moment, Anna heard nothing but her own sobbing. Then, a faint sniffle broke through the noise. "Repairing the damage isn't going to be cheap," her mom said quietly, "but we're not giving up yet."

"You're not?" Anna hiccupped. "But I thought you didn't care if we had to shut Sweet Surprise down." It certainly felt that way, at least. While Anna had spent weeks studying so she could hopefully have a shot at winning Sliced and the prize money that came with it, all her mom had done was complain about how expensive the bakery was and how silly it was to keep putting so much effort into something that wasn't doing well.

"I didn't grow up with Sweet Surprise like you or your dad did, but I do care. I just have someone whose future I care about a whole lot more." Her mom pulled Anna into a hug. "I'm so sorry I ever made you feel like I don't care about what matters to you, sweetheart. As long as you care about Sweet Surprise, then I will, too."

Anna returned her hug, feeling as at home in her mom's arms as she did at Sweet Surprise. "I don't even know if I'll do well enough on that math test for you to let me bake," she said. "I keep trying to practice, but it's still so hard."

"Lucky for you, I know a thing or two about numbers," her mom said with a grin. "Compared to dealing with Sweet Surprise's finances, this will be a piece of cake. Now, show me how you'd approach this first one."

Anna worked through over a dozen problems with her mom. At first, her mom spent a lot of time correcting the order she did things in or tidying up how she translated the word problems into equations, but as they worked through the set her feedback turned into stories about the years she'd spent working at the bakery. Her mom rarely dealt with much besides finances and other businessy stuff while she was cooped up in her office, but even then, she'd still gone through her fair share of craziness.

Soon enough, the completed practice problems retreated to the back of Anna's mind as she listened to her mom ramble about misprinted ads and software glitches. She'd never heard her mom laugh as hard as she did when she recounted the time she'd accidentally ordered chocolate chunks instead of chocolate chips, leading to the creation of one of the bakery's most popular cookies. In fact, Anna couldn't remember the last time she'd heard her mom laugh at all. It was such a contagious sound, starting as a carefully controlled chuckle before exploding into full-on knee-slapping breathless baying that made it impossible not to join in.

It was in the middle of one of these bursts of laughter that their time in the waiting room came to an end. "Mrs. Bloom?" the nurse said as she stared at Anna's mom as if she was a cackling hyena.

Anna's mom cleared her throat as Anna struggled to get her own giggling under control. "Yes, that's me."

"You can go see Mr. Bloom now. He's going to need to stay here for a bit so we can have him on oxygen and make sure his symptoms improve, but if everything goes well, he should be able to go home in a day or two."

Anna released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Thank goodness her grandpa would be okay!

"Thank you." Anna's mom eased herself out of her chair with a groan. "Any longer in here, and I'd need to hook myself up to a coffee IV. We've got a lot of studying to do when we get home."

"We?"

"Of course," her mom said. "Can't keep letting you worry about everything by yourself, can I?"