bo truyen Animorphs English Full
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ep 1
CHAPTER 1
My name is Jake. That's my first name, obviously. I can't tell you my last name. It would be
too dangerous. The Controllers are everywhere. Everywhere. And if they knew my full name,
they could find me and my friends, and then . . . well, let's just say I don't want them to find
me. What they do to people who resist them is too horrible to think about.
I won't even tell you where I live. You'll just have to trust me that it is a real place, a real
town.
It may even be your town.
I'm writing this all down so that more people will learn the truth. Maybe then, somehow, the
human race can survive until the Andalites return and rescue us, as they promised they
would.
Maybe.
My life used to be pretty normal. Normal, that is, until one Friday night at the mall. I was
there with Marco, my best friend. We were playing video games and hanging out at this cool
store that sells comic books and stuff. The usual.
Marco and I had run out of quarters for the games, right when he was ahead by a lot of
points. Mostly, we're equally good at games. I have Sega at home so I get lots of practice
time in, but Marco has this amazing ability to analyze games and figure out all the little
tricks. So sometimes he beats me.
Or maybe I just wasn't concentrating very well. I'd had kind of a bad day at school. I'd tried
out for the basketball team and I didn't make the cut.
It was like no big deal, really. Except that Tom - he's my big brother - he was this total legend
on the junior high basketball team. Now he's the main scorer for the high school team. So
everyone expected me to make the team easy. Only I didn't.
Like I said, no big thing. But it was on my mind, just the same. Lately, Tom and I hadn't been
hanging out as much. Not like we used to. So I figured, you know, if I got his old position on
the team . . .
Well, anyway, we were out of money and getting ready to head home when we ran into
Tobias. Tobias was . . . I mean, I guess he still kind of a strange guy. He was new at school,
and he wasn't the toughest kid around, so he got picked on a lot.
I actually met Tobias when he had his head in a toilet. There were these two big guys holding
him down and laughing while they flushed, sending Tobias's straggly blond hair swirling
around the bowl. I told the two creeps to step off, and ever since then, Tobias figured I was
his friend.
"What's up?" Tobias asked.
I shrugged. "Not much. We're heading home."
3
"Out of quarters," Marco commented. "Certain people keep forgetting that the SleazeTroll
shows up right after you cross the Nether Fjord. So certain people keep losing the game - and
losing our quarter." Marco kept jerking his thumb at me, just in case Tobias couldn't figure
out who he meant by "certain people."
"So, like maybe I'll walk home with you guys," Tobias said.
I said sure. Why not?
We were heading for the exit when I spotted Rachel and Cassie. Rachel is kind of pretty, I
guess. I mean, okay, she's very pretty, although, since she is my cousin, I don't really think
about her that way. She has blond hair and blue eyes and that kind of very clean, very
wholesome look. She's one of those people who always know the right clothes to wear and
how to look like they just walked out of one of those fashion magazines girls like. She's also
very graceful because she takes gymnastics, even though she says she's too tall to ever be
really good at it.
Cassie is sort of the opposite. For one thing, she's usually wearing jeans and a plaid shirt, or
something else real casual. She's black and wears her hair very short most of the time. She
had it longer for a while, but then she went back to short, which I like. Cassie is quieter than
Rachel, more peaceful, like she always understands everything on some different, more
mystical level.
I guess you could say I kind of like Cassie. Sometimes we sit together on the bus, even
though I never know what to say to her.
"You guys going home?" I asked Rachel. "You shouldn't go through the construction site by
yourselves. I mean, being girls and all."
That was a mistake. I should never have suggested to Rachel that she's weak or helpless.
Rachel may look like Little Miss Teen Model or whatever, but she thinks she's Storm from
the X-Men.
"Are you going to come and protect us, you big, strong m-a-a-a-n?" she said. "You think
we're helpless just because - "
"I'd appreciate it if they did walk with us," Cassie interrupted. "I know you're not afraid of
anything, Rachel, but I guess I am."
Rachel couldn't say much about that. That's the way Cassie is - she always has the right
words to stop any argument without making anyone feel bad.
So, there we were. The five of us - Marco, Tobias, Rachel, Cassie, and me. Five normal mall
rats heading home.
Sometimes I think about that one, last moment when we were still just normal kids. It's like it
was a million years ago, like it was some totally different group of kids. You know what I
was afraid of right then? I was afraid of admitting to Tom that I hadn't made the team. That
was as scary as life got back then.
Five minutes later, life got a lot scarier.
4
To get home from the mall we could either go a long way around, which is the safe way, or
we could cut through this abandoned construction site and hope there weren't any ax
murderers hanging around there. My mom and dad have sworn to ground me until I'm twenty
if they ever find out I've cut through the construction site.
So anyway, we crossed the road and headed into the abandoned construction site. It was a big
area, surrounded on two sides by trees, with the highway separating it from the mall area.
There's a broad, open field between the construction site and the nearest houses. It's a very
isolated place.
Originally it was supposed to be this new shopping center. Now it was just all these halffinished
buildings looking like a ghost town. There were huge piles of rusted steel beams;
pyramids of giant concrete pipes; little mountains of dirt; deep pits that had filled up with
black, muddy water; and a creaking, rusted construction crane that I had climbed once while
Marco stayed below and told me I was being an idiot.
It was a totally deserted place, full of shadows and sounds that made the hair on the back of
your neck stand up. When Marco and I went there during the day, we always found all these
beer cans and liquor bottles. Sometimes we found the ashes of little campfires back in the
hidden nooks and crannies of the buildings. So we knew that people came there at night. All
that was on my mind as we crept through the site.
It was Tobias who saw it first. He had been walking along, gazing up at the sky. I guess he
was looking at the stars or something. That's the way Tobias is sometimes - off in his own
world.
Suddenly Tobias stopped. He was pointing. Pointing almost straight up. "Look," he said.
"What?" I didn't want to be distracted because I was pretty sure I'd heard the sound of a
chain-saw killer creeping up behind us.
"Just look," Tobias said. His voice was strange. Amazed-sounding, but serious at the same
time.
So I looked up. And there it was. A brilliant, blue-white light that scooted across the sky,
going fast at first, too fast for it to be an airplane, then slower and slower. "What is it?"
Tobias shook his head. "I don't know."
I looked at Tobias and he looked back at me. We both knew what we thought it was, but we
didn't want to say it. Marco and Rachel would have laughed, we figured.
But Cassie just blurted it right out. "It's a flying saucer!"
CHAPTER 1
My name is Jake. That's my first name, obviously. I can't tell you my last name. It would be
too dangerous. The Controllers are everywhere. Everywhere. And if they knew my full name,
they could find me and my friends, and then . . . well, let's just say I don't want them to find
me. What they do to people who resist them is too horrible to think about.
I won't even tell you where I live. You'll just have to trust me that it is a real place, a real
town.
It may even be your town.
I'm writing this all down so that more people will learn the truth. Maybe then, somehow, the
human race can survive until the Andalites return and rescue us, as they promised they
would.
Maybe.
My life used to be pretty normal. Normal, that is, until one Friday night at the mall. I was
there with Marco, my best friend. We were playing video games and hanging out at this cool
store that sells comic books and stuff. The usual.
Marco and I had run out of quarters for the games, right when he was ahead by a lot of
points. Mostly, we're equally good at games. I have Sega at home so I get lots of practice
time in, but Marco has this amazing ability to analyze games and figure out all the little
tricks. So sometimes he beats me.
Or maybe I just wasn't concentrating very well. I'd had kind of a bad day at school. I'd tried
out for the basketball team and I didn't make the cut.
It was like no big deal, really. Except that Tom - he's my big brother - he was this total legend
on the junior high basketball team. Now he's the main scorer for the high school team. So
everyone expected me to make the team easy. Only I didn't.
Like I said, no big thing. But it was on my mind, just the same. Lately, Tom and I hadn't been
hanging out as much. Not like we used to. So I figured, you know, if I got his old position on
the team . . .
Well, anyway, we were out of money and getting ready to head home when we ran into
Tobias. Tobias was . . . I mean, I guess he still kind of a strange guy. He was new at school,
and he wasn't the toughest kid around, so he got picked on a lot.
I actually met Tobias when he had his head in a toilet. There were these two big guys holding
him down and laughing while they flushed, sending Tobias's straggly blond hair swirling
around the bowl. I told the two creeps to step off, and ever since then, Tobias figured I was
his friend.
"What's up?" Tobias asked.
I shrugged. "Not much. We're heading home."
3
"Out of quarters," Marco commented. "Certain people keep forgetting that the SleazeTroll
shows up right after you cross the Nether Fjord. So certain people keep losing the game - and
losing our quarter." Marco kept jerking his thumb at me, just in case Tobias couldn't figure
out who he meant by "certain people."
"So, like maybe I'll walk home with you guys," Tobias said.
I said sure. Why not?
We were heading for the exit when I spotted Rachel and Cassie. Rachel is kind of pretty, I
guess. I mean, okay, she's very pretty, although, since she is my cousin, I don't really think
about her that way. She has blond hair and blue eyes and that kind of very clean, very
wholesome look. She's one of those people who always know the right clothes to wear and
how to look like they just walked out of one of those fashion magazines girls like. She's also
very graceful because she takes gymnastics, even though she says she's too tall to ever be
really good at it.
Cassie is sort of the opposite. For one thing, she's usually wearing jeans and a plaid shirt, or
something else real casual. She's black and wears her hair very short most of the time. She
had it longer for a while, but then she went back to short, which I like. Cassie is quieter than
Rachel, more peaceful, like she always understands everything on some different, more
mystical level.
I guess you could say I kind of like Cassie. Sometimes we sit together on the bus, even
though I never know what to say to her.
"You guys going home?" I asked Rachel. "You shouldn't go through the construction site by
yourselves. I mean, being girls and all."
That was a mistake. I should never have suggested to Rachel that she's weak or helpless.
Rachel may look like Little Miss Teen Model or whatever, but she thinks she's Storm from
the X-Men.
"Are you going to come and protect us, you big, strong m-a-a-a-n?" she said. "You think
we're helpless just because - "
"I'd appreciate it if they did walk with us," Cassie interrupted. "I know you're not afraid of
anything, Rachel, but I guess I am."
Rachel couldn't say much about that. That's the way Cassie is - she always has the right
words to stop any argument without making anyone feel bad.
So, there we were. The five of us - Marco, Tobias, Rachel, Cassie, and me. Five normal mall
rats heading home.
Sometimes I think about that one, last moment when we were still just normal kids. It's like it
was a million years ago, like it was some totally different group of kids. You know what I
was afraid of right then? I was afraid of admitting to Tom that I hadn't made the team. That
was as scary as life got back then.
Five minutes later, life got a lot scarier.
4
To get home from the mall we could either go a long way around, which is the safe way, or
we could cut through this abandoned construction site and hope there weren't any ax
murderers hanging around there. My mom and dad have sworn to ground me until I'm twenty
if they ever find out I've cut through the construction site.
So anyway, we crossed the road and headed into the abandoned construction site. It was a big
area, surrounded on two sides by trees, with the highway separating it from the mall area.
There's a broad, open field between the construction site and the nearest houses. It's a very
isolated place.
Originally it was supposed to be this new shopping center. Now it was just all these halffinished
buildings looking like a ghost town. There were huge piles of rusted steel beams;
pyramids of giant concrete pipes; little mountains of dirt; deep pits that had filled up with
black, muddy water; and a creaking, rusted construction crane that I had climbed once while
Marco stayed below and told me I was being an idiot.
It was a totally deserted place, full of shadows and sounds that made the hair on the back of
your neck stand up. When Marco and I went there during the day, we always found all these
beer cans and liquor bottles. Sometimes we found the ashes of little campfires back in the
hidden nooks and crannies of the buildings. So we knew that people came there at night. All
that was on my mind as we crept through the site.
It was Tobias who saw it first. He had been walking along, gazing up at the sky. I guess he
was looking at the stars or something. That's the way Tobias is sometimes - off in his own
world.
Suddenly Tobias stopped. He was pointing. Pointing almost straight up. "Look," he said.
"What?" I didn't want to be distracted because I was pretty sure I'd heard the sound of a
chain-saw killer creeping up behind us.
"Just look," Tobias said. His voice was strange. Amazed-sounding, but serious at the same
time.
So I looked up. And there it was. A brilliant, blue-white light that scooted across the sky,
going fast at first, too fast for it to be an airplane, then slower and slower. "What is it?"
Tobias shook his head. "I don't know."
I looked at Tobias and he looked back at me. We both knew what we thought it was, but we
didn't want to say it. Marco and Rachel would have laughed, we figured.
But Cassie just blurted it right out. "It's a flying saucer!"
CHAPTER 2
"A flying saucer?" Marco said. He'd laugh. That is, until he looked up.
I could feel my own heart pounding in my chest. I felt weird and excited and afraid, all at
once.
"It's coming this way," Rachel said.
"It's hard to be sure." I could barely whisper, my mouth was so dry.
"No, it's coming this way," Rachel said. She has a very definite way of talking. Like she's
totally sure of everything she says.
Rachel was right. Whatever it was, it was coming closer. And it was slowing down. Now I
could see pretty clearly what it looked like.
"It's not exactly a flying saucer," I said.
First of all, it wasn't all that big. It was about as long as a school bus. The front end was a
pod, shaped almost like an egg. Extending from the back of the pod was a long, narrow shaft.
There were two crooked, stubby winglike things, and on the end of each wing was a long
tube that glowed bright blue on the back end.
The little spaceship looked almost cute. You know, kind of harmless. Except that it had a sort
of tail - a mean-looking tail that curved up and forward, corning to a point that looked as
sharp as a needle.
"That tail thing," I said. "It looks like a weapon."
"Definitely," Marco agreed.
The little ship kept coming nearer, going slower all the time.
"It's stopping," Rachel said. She had the same strange, not-quite-real tone in her voice that I
had. Like we couldn't believe what we were seeing. Like maybe we didn't want to believe.
"I think it sees us," Marco said. "Should we run? Maybe we should run home and get a
camera. Do you know how much money we could get for a video of a real UFO?"
"If we run, they might . . . I don't know, zap us with phasers on full power," I said. I meant it
as a joke. Kind of.
"Phasers are only on Star Trek," Marco said, rolling his eyes the way he does when he thinks
I'm being a dweeb. Like he was some kind of expert on alien spaceships. Right.
The ship stopped and hovered almost directly over our heads, maybe a hundred feet in the air.
I could feel the hair on my head standing on end. When I glanced at Rachel it was almost
funny. She has this long blond hair and it was sticking straight out in every direction. Only
Cassie looked normal.
6
"What do you think it is?" Marco asked. He sounded a little shakier, not so laid-back now
that the thing was so close. To be honest, I was a little scared, too. A little scared, as in so
terrified I couldn't move. But at the same time, it was all cool beyond any coolness ever. I
mean, it was a spaceship! Right there over my head.
Tobias was actually grinning, but that's Tobias for you. He's never scared of weird stuff. It's
the normal stuff he can't stand. "I think it's going to land," he said, this huge smile on his
face. His eyes were bright and excited, and his blond hair was standing up in clumps.
The ship began to descend. "It's coming right at us!" I cried.
I had to fight an urge to run yammering across the field all the way home, where I could
crawl into my bed and pull the covers over my head. But I knew that this was an important,
amazing thing. I knew I had to stay and see it all.
I guess the others felt the same way, because we all just stood there, as the ship hummed and
glowed and slowly settled down in an open space between piles of junk and tumbled walls. I
noticed there were black burn marks along the top of the pod section. Some of the skin of the
pod had been melted. It touched the ground and instantly the blue lights went off. Rachel's
hair fell back down onto her neck.
"It isn't very big, is it?" Rachel whispered.
"It's about - " I tried to think, "about three or four times as big as our minivan."
"We should tell someone," Marco said. "I mean, this is kind of major, you know? Spaceships
don't just land in the construction site every day. We should call the cops or the army or the
president or something. We'd be totally famous. We'd get to be on Letterman for sure."
"Yeah, you're right," I agreed. "We should call someone." But none of us moved. None of us
was just going to walk away from a spaceship,
"I wonder if we should try and talk to it," Rachel suggested. She was standing there with her
hands on her hips looking at the spaceship like it was a puzzle she had to figure out. "I mean,
we should communicate. If that's even possible."
Tobias nodded. He stepped forward and held out his hands. I guess he was showing whoever
was in the ship that he wasn't carrying any kind of weapon or anything. "It's safe," he said in
a loud, clear voice. "We won't hurt you."
"Do you think they speak English?" I wondered.
"Well, everyone speaks English on Star Trek" Cassie said with a nervous laugh.
Tobias tried again. "Please, come out We won't hurt you."
<I know.>
I froze. Okay, I had definitely heard someone say "I know," only . . . there hadn't been any
sound. I mean, I heard it, but I didn't really hear it.
7
Maybe this was all a dream. I looked kind of sideways at Cassie. She looked back at me. Our
eyes met. She had heard it, too. I looked at Rachel. She was turning her head back and forth,
like she was looking for where that sound - that wasn't a sound - could have come from. I
started to get a sick, twisty feeling in my stomach.
"Did everyone hear that?" Tobias whispered.
We all nodded at once, very slowly.
"Can you come out?" Tobias asked in his loud, talking-to-aliens voice.
<Yes. Do not be frightened.>
"We won't be frightened," Tobias said.
"Speak for yourself," I muttered. The others giggled nervously.
A thin arc of light appeared, a doorway, opening slowly in the smooth side of the pod part of
the ship. I stood there, totally hypnotized. I just stared, waiting.
The opening grew, like a crescent moon at first, then a full, bright circle.
And then he appeared.
My first reaction was that someone had cloned a person and a deer together. The creature had
a head and shoulders and arms that were more or less where they should have been, though
the skin was a pale shade of blue. But below that he had fur, a mix of blue and tan, covering a
four-legged body that really did look like it belonged to a deer, or maybe a small horse.
He ducked his head out the doorway and I could see that even the fairly normal-looking parts
of him weren't all that normal. For a start, he had no mouth, just three vertical slits. And then
there were his eyes. Two of them were where they should have been, although they were a
glittery green color that was kind of shocking. But the real shock was the other eyes. He had
what seemed like horns, only on the top of each horn was an eye. The horns could move,
twisting to point the eyes front and back or up and down.
I thought the eyes were bad, until I saw the tail. It was like a scorpion's tail, thick and
powerful-looking. On the end was a wickedly curved, very sharp-looking horn or stinger. It
reminded me of the alien's spaceship. It had seemed kind of cute and harmless, till you
noticed the tail. The alien seemed kind of harmless at first glance, too. Then you saw that tail
of his and you thought, whoa, this guy could do some damage if he wanted.
"Hello," Tobias said. His voice was gentle, like he was talking to a baby. He was grinning.
I realized I was smiling, too. And at the same moment, I realized that there were tears in my
eyes, I can't really describe how it felt, except that it seemed like the alien was someone I'd
known forever. Like an old friend I hadn't seen in a long, longtime.
<Hello,> the alien said, in that silent way that you only heard inside your head.
"Hi," we all said back.
8
To my surprise, the alien staggered. He fell out of the ship to the ground. Tobias tried to grab
him and hold him up, but the alien slipped from his grasp and fell back to the dirt.
"Look!" Cassie cried. She pointed at a burn that covered half the alien's right side. "He's hurt.
"
<Yes. I am dying,> he said.
"Can we help you? We can call an ambulance or something," Marco said.
"We can bandage that wound," Cassie said. "Jake, give me your shirt. We can tear it up and
make bandages." Cassie's parents are both veterinarians and she's totally into animals. Not
that this was an animal. Not exactly, anyway.
<No. I will die. The wound is fatal.>
"NO!" I cried. "You can't die. You're the first alien ever to come to Earth. You can't die." I
don't know why I was so upset. I just knew that way down deep inside, it hurt me to think of
him dying.
<I am not the first. There are many, many others.>
"Other aliens? Like you?" Tobias demanded.
The alien shook his big head slowly, side to side. <Not like me.>
Then he cried out in pain, a silent sound that echoed horribly inside my mind. For a moment,
I had actually felt him dying.
<Not like me,> he repeated. <They are different.>
"Different? How?" I said.
I will remember his answer forever.
He said, <They have come to destroy you.>
"A flying saucer?" Marco said. He'd laugh. That is, until he looked up.
I could feel my own heart pounding in my chest. I felt weird and excited and afraid, all at
once.
"It's coming this way," Rachel said.
"It's hard to be sure." I could barely whisper, my mouth was so dry.
"No, it's coming this way," Rachel said. She has a very definite way of talking. Like she's
totally sure of everything she says.
Rachel was right. Whatever it was, it was coming closer. And it was slowing down. Now I
could see pretty clearly what it looked like.
"It's not exactly a flying saucer," I said.
First of all, it wasn't all that big. It was about as long as a school bus. The front end was a
pod, shaped almost like an egg. Extending from the back of the pod was a long, narrow shaft.
There were two crooked, stubby winglike things, and on the end of each wing was a long
tube that glowed bright blue on the back end.
The little spaceship looked almost cute. You know, kind of harmless. Except that it had a sort
of tail - a mean-looking tail that curved up and forward, corning to a point that looked as
sharp as a needle.
"That tail thing," I said. "It looks like a weapon."
"Definitely," Marco agreed.
The little ship kept coming nearer, going slower all the time.
"It's stopping," Rachel said. She had the same strange, not-quite-real tone in her voice that I
had. Like we couldn't believe what we were seeing. Like maybe we didn't want to believe.
"I think it sees us," Marco said. "Should we run? Maybe we should run home and get a
camera. Do you know how much money we could get for a video of a real UFO?"
"If we run, they might . . . I don't know, zap us with phasers on full power," I said. I meant it
as a joke. Kind of.
"Phasers are only on Star Trek," Marco said, rolling his eyes the way he does when he thinks
I'm being a dweeb. Like he was some kind of expert on alien spaceships. Right.
The ship stopped and hovered almost directly over our heads, maybe a hundred feet in the air.
I could feel the hair on my head standing on end. When I glanced at Rachel it was almost
funny. She has this long blond hair and it was sticking straight out in every direction. Only
Cassie looked normal.
6
"What do you think it is?" Marco asked. He sounded a little shakier, not so laid-back now
that the thing was so close. To be honest, I was a little scared, too. A little scared, as in so
terrified I couldn't move. But at the same time, it was all cool beyond any coolness ever. I
mean, it was a spaceship! Right there over my head.
Tobias was actually grinning, but that's Tobias for you. He's never scared of weird stuff. It's
the normal stuff he can't stand. "I think it's going to land," he said, this huge smile on his
face. His eyes were bright and excited, and his blond hair was standing up in clumps.
The ship began to descend. "It's coming right at us!" I cried.
I had to fight an urge to run yammering across the field all the way home, where I could
crawl into my bed and pull the covers over my head. But I knew that this was an important,
amazing thing. I knew I had to stay and see it all.
I guess the others felt the same way, because we all just stood there, as the ship hummed and
glowed and slowly settled down in an open space between piles of junk and tumbled walls. I
noticed there were black burn marks along the top of the pod section. Some of the skin of the
pod had been melted. It touched the ground and instantly the blue lights went off. Rachel's
hair fell back down onto her neck.
"It isn't very big, is it?" Rachel whispered.
"It's about - " I tried to think, "about three or four times as big as our minivan."
"We should tell someone," Marco said. "I mean, this is kind of major, you know? Spaceships
don't just land in the construction site every day. We should call the cops or the army or the
president or something. We'd be totally famous. We'd get to be on Letterman for sure."
"Yeah, you're right," I agreed. "We should call someone." But none of us moved. None of us
was just going to walk away from a spaceship,
"I wonder if we should try and talk to it," Rachel suggested. She was standing there with her
hands on her hips looking at the spaceship like it was a puzzle she had to figure out. "I mean,
we should communicate. If that's even possible."
Tobias nodded. He stepped forward and held out his hands. I guess he was showing whoever
was in the ship that he wasn't carrying any kind of weapon or anything. "It's safe," he said in
a loud, clear voice. "We won't hurt you."
"Do you think they speak English?" I wondered.
"Well, everyone speaks English on Star Trek" Cassie said with a nervous laugh.
Tobias tried again. "Please, come out We won't hurt you."
<I know.>
I froze. Okay, I had definitely heard someone say "I know," only . . . there hadn't been any
sound. I mean, I heard it, but I didn't really hear it.
7
Maybe this was all a dream. I looked kind of sideways at Cassie. She looked back at me. Our
eyes met. She had heard it, too. I looked at Rachel. She was turning her head back and forth,
like she was looking for where that sound - that wasn't a sound - could have come from. I
started to get a sick, twisty feeling in my stomach.
"Did everyone hear that?" Tobias whispered.
We all nodded at once, very slowly.
"Can you come out?" Tobias asked in his loud, talking-to-aliens voice.
<Yes. Do not be frightened.>
"We won't be frightened," Tobias said.
"Speak for yourself," I muttered. The others giggled nervously.
A thin arc of light appeared, a doorway, opening slowly in the smooth side of the pod part of
the ship. I stood there, totally hypnotized. I just stared, waiting.
The opening grew, like a crescent moon at first, then a full, bright circle.
And then he appeared.
My first reaction was that someone had cloned a person and a deer together. The creature had
a head and shoulders and arms that were more or less where they should have been, though
the skin was a pale shade of blue. But below that he had fur, a mix of blue and tan, covering a
four-legged body that really did look like it belonged to a deer, or maybe a small horse.
He ducked his head out the doorway and I could see that even the fairly normal-looking parts
of him weren't all that normal. For a start, he had no mouth, just three vertical slits. And then
there were his eyes. Two of them were where they should have been, although they were a
glittery green color that was kind of shocking. But the real shock was the other eyes. He had
what seemed like horns, only on the top of each horn was an eye. The horns could move,
twisting to point the eyes front and back or up and down.
I thought the eyes were bad, until I saw the tail. It was like a scorpion's tail, thick and
powerful-looking. On the end was a wickedly curved, very sharp-looking horn or stinger. It
reminded me of the alien's spaceship. It had seemed kind of cute and harmless, till you
noticed the tail. The alien seemed kind of harmless at first glance, too. Then you saw that tail
of his and you thought, whoa, this guy could do some damage if he wanted.
"Hello," Tobias said. His voice was gentle, like he was talking to a baby. He was grinning.
I realized I was smiling, too. And at the same moment, I realized that there were tears in my
eyes, I can't really describe how it felt, except that it seemed like the alien was someone I'd
known forever. Like an old friend I hadn't seen in a long, longtime.
<Hello,> the alien said, in that silent way that you only heard inside your head.
"Hi," we all said back.
8
To my surprise, the alien staggered. He fell out of the ship to the ground. Tobias tried to grab
him and hold him up, but the alien slipped from his grasp and fell back to the dirt.
"Look!" Cassie cried. She pointed at a burn that covered half the alien's right side. "He's hurt.
"
<Yes. I am dying,> he said.
"Can we help you? We can call an ambulance or something," Marco said.
"We can bandage that wound," Cassie said. "Jake, give me your shirt. We can tear it up and
make bandages." Cassie's parents are both veterinarians and she's totally into animals. Not
that this was an animal. Not exactly, anyway.
<No. I will die. The wound is fatal.>
"NO!" I cried. "You can't die. You're the first alien ever to come to Earth. You can't die." I
don't know why I was so upset. I just knew that way down deep inside, it hurt me to think of
him dying.
<I am not the first. There are many, many others.>
"Other aliens? Like you?" Tobias demanded.
The alien shook his big head slowly, side to side. <Not like me.>
Then he cried out in pain, a silent sound that echoed horribly inside my mind. For a moment,
I had actually felt him dying.
<Not like me,> he repeated. <They are different.>
"Different? How?" I said.
I will remember his answer forever.
He said, <They have come to destroy you.>
animorphs ep 2
Chapter One
My name is Rachel. I won't tell you my last name. None of us will ever tell you our last
names. Whenever I do use a last name, it's a fake. Sorry, but that's the way it has to be. And
we won't tell you the name of our town, or our school, or even what state we are in. If I told
you my last name, the Yeerks would be able to find my friends and me. And if they ever find
us, it will be the
end.
They might kill us. Or worse.
Yes, there really is something worse than death.
I've seen it. I've heard the cries of despair from those doomed to be slaves of the Yeerks.
I've watched as the evil gray slugs writhe and squeeze in through the ear and take over what
was a free human being.
There are five of us. Just five: Jake, Cassie, Marco, Tobias, and me. Marco came up with a
name for us, for what we are now. He called us Animorphs.
I guess that's as good a name as any for what we are. Mostly, I still just feel like a nor mal kid
you know? But I guess normal kids don't turn into elephants or bald eagles. And normal kids
don't spend their free time fighting to save the world from the nightmares called Yeerks.
That day, the sun was bright. It warmed the earth below us. Warm air rose in an invisible
bubble, a thermal. The thermal pushed up beneath our wings and we circled higher and
higher and higher, till it almost seemed we could touch space.
Somewhere up there in cold space, up in orbit, was the Yeerk mother ship. Perhaps right over
our heads.
The Yeerks were parasites. In their natural state they were just big slugs who lived in a
sludgy pond called a Yeerk pool. But the Yeerks have the power to take over other bodies.
They have enslaved many races throughout the galaxy -- the Taxxons, the Hork-Bajir, and
others. And now they had come to Earth, looking for more bodies to control.
Who was there to try and stop them? Well, off in space, there were the Andalites. But the
Andalites were far away, and it would take them a long time to come to rescue the people of
Earth.
On Earth, no one knew of the Yeerks. No one but five kids who were having fun being birds
and riding the thermals.
I looked over at my friends. Some were a little way below, some were higher up. Jake was
flapping his wings a little more than the rest of us. He had adopted a falcon morph. Falcons
don't soar quite as well as hawks or eagles.
Tobias was the smoothest flyer. That was partly because red-tailed hawks are natural
acrobats.
Partly it was because Tobias had much more practice flying than the rest of us.
3
Too much practice.
<Okay, Tobias, you were right. This is the coolest thing in the world,> I said.
<Want to try a dive? It's amazing,> he said.
I wasn't exactly sure that I wanted to dive, but what could I say? I don't usually turn down a
challenge. So I said, <Sure. >
<Follow me. >
Tobias bent his wings back and plummeted toward the ground like a bullet.
I tucked my wings back and went after him.
The ground came rushing up at me.
I was falling! Falling, with nothing at all to stop me from splatting right into the ground!
It was like a nightmare.
We were going like sixty miles an hour, as fast as a speeding car. Sixty miles an hour, aiming
right for the ground.
But even though it was scary, it was also way cool.
Forget surfing. Forget skateboarding. Forget snowboarding. You haven't had a thrill till
you've ridden the thermals a mile into the air and then gone hurtling straight down at
maximum speed.
Air streamed past, just like when you open the car window and you're going really fast. It
was like being in the middle of a hurricane. The leading edge of my wings was battered and
vibrating. I felt my tail making dozens of tiny adjustments, moving a single feather one way
or the other to keep me pointed straight.
But one wrong move and I could have tumbled end over end. At this speed, if I suddenly
tumbled I feared I could break a wing. A broken wing this high up was a death sentence.
<Tobias! I just realized something.>
<What?>
<This isn't like being an elephant. If I got in trouble as an elephant I could morph back to my
human body. But I'm a long way up. If I morphed back to my human body . . . > I didn't
finish the sentence. But I suddenly had this vision of me, real me, Rachel, dropping like a
stone toward the hard ground below.
I guess Tobias could sense the fear that was building in me.
4
<Let the eagle do the flying,> Tobias advised. <Relax and let the eagle's mind do the
thinking. She knows what she's doing. >
<I'm glad one of us does,> I said nervously. It's strange when you're in a morph. You have
the animal's brain in with your own. Usually you can control that animal intelligence. But not
always. And sometimes you have to learn to let go, to let the animal take charge.
I relaxed. Instantly the vibration lessened. I felt more stable. The eagle was in charge and
Tobias was right: The eagle knew how to fly.
Then, to my amazement, I saw something go zipping right past us, faster than either me or
Tobias. It was Jake. His peregrine falcon's smaller wings made it harder for him to float on
the thermals . But those same wings made him unbelievably fast in diving. It was almost like
Tobias and I were standing still.
<Yaaaaaah ha ha!!> Jake yelled in our heads.
I would have smiled, if I'd had a mouth. Jake is like me. He loves excitement and adventure
and being a little crazy. Maybe we're so alike because we're cousins.
Also, we're both a little competitive, I guess.
It bothered me that he was a faster diver than I was. Just like it bothered him that I could soar
better.
I guess that sounds ridiculous, huh?
Zzzziiinnnngggg!
Something went right by my head.
<You hear that?> Tobias asked.
<Yeah, I sure did,> I said. <What was it?>
<I don't know. >
Instinctively, I pulled up out of the dive, straining every muscle in my wings as I opened
them, and felt the shock of wind resistance. It was like opening a parachute.
The rest followed my lead. We were still a few thousand feet up, but much closer to the
ground than we had been.
Zziiiinnnnngggg!
I felt something go right through my tail feathers.
<Hey, someone down there is shooting at us!> I said.
<I can see them,> Cassie said. She and Marco had joined up with us. They had both morphed
the same osprey. It was hard to tell them apart because you can't really tell where thoughtspeech
comes from. <Two guys, over in the woods. They have a rifle.>
5
<I can't believe this!> I was really mad. <I'm an endangered species. I'm a bald eagle! What's
the matter with those creeps?>
<He's getting ready to shoot again,> Marco reported. <I can see him taking aim.>
<As soon as you see the flash of the rifle, dodge hard right!> I yelled.
A normal eagle or hawk or falcon would not have been able to figure that out. But we weren't
just raptors. We still had our human intelligence.
There are times to let the animal take over. There are other times when that superior human
intelligence comes in handy.
<There! They fired!> Jake yelled.
Instantly I turned a sharp right. The bullet went whizzing by harmlessly.
<You know what? I don't think I like those guys,> Tobias said.
Tobias has special reasons for disliking anyone who would shoot at a bird.
<Me neither,> I agreed.
<I have an idea. >
I explained what I wanted to do and the five of us flew off, out of range of the shooters.
When we were far enough away, we went into a steep dive, down, down, faster and faster
toward the trees.
I thought I was scared, diving from high up. Now I was diving at lower altitude, aiming
directly at the trees. This was a whole new level of terror. With my eagle's eyes I could see
the bark on the trees. I could see ants on the bark of the trees. It was like those trees were
right in front of us.
I hoped the eagle knew when to pull out of the dive. If I slammed into one of those trees at
sixty miles an hour, I was Spam.
Then, at just the right split second, like a perfectly trained squadron of fighter jets, we opened
our wings and swooshed into the trees.
Unbelievable!
<Ah haaaah!> I heard Marco yell. <I don't know if that was fun or just insane!>
It was like some video-game nightmare. We kept most of the speed from the dive and now
we were zooming through the trees so fast that tree trunks were just a brown blur all around
us.
Tree! Bank left.
6
Tree! Bank right.
Tree!
Dozens of feathers made the slightest individual adjustments. Muscles in my wings trimmed
the angle of attack a millimeter one way, a millimeter back.
Tree! Tree! Treetreetreetreetree!
<Yaaaaaaaaah!> I yelled, half from terror and half from the total, out-of-control thrill of it.
In and out. Around and through. Zoom.
ZOOM!
Suddenly, there they were, just ahead in a clearing. Two teenage creeps sitting in the back of
a pickup truck. One guy had a blond ponytail.
The other one wore a baseball cap. They were a hundred yards away, like being all the way
down a football field, but my eagle eyes were so good I could count their eyelashes.
The guy with the ponytail had the rifle. The other guy was drinking a beer. They were still
scanning the skies, looking for us.
Guess what, morons? I thought as we raced at them. We're not up there anymore. We're right
here . . .
In ...
Your. . .
FACE!
They didn't even have enough time to look surprised before we struck.
As a bald eagle, I was the biggest of the five of us. I could carry the heaviest load.
I raked my talons forward.
I opened them wide.
"Tsseeeeeer!"
Tobias's hawk let loose an intimidating shriek.
My talons hit the gun barrel and closed on it.
Tobias slashed the ponytail guy's head with his own talons. Ponytail shouted in pain and
surprise and loosened his grip on the rifle.
"Hey!" the second guy yelled.
Chapter One
My name is Rachel. I won't tell you my last name. None of us will ever tell you our last
names. Whenever I do use a last name, it's a fake. Sorry, but that's the way it has to be. And
we won't tell you the name of our town, or our school, or even what state we are in. If I told
you my last name, the Yeerks would be able to find my friends and me. And if they ever find
us, it will be the
end.
They might kill us. Or worse.
Yes, there really is something worse than death.
I've seen it. I've heard the cries of despair from those doomed to be slaves of the Yeerks.
I've watched as the evil gray slugs writhe and squeeze in through the ear and take over what
was a free human being.
There are five of us. Just five: Jake, Cassie, Marco, Tobias, and me. Marco came up with a
name for us, for what we are now. He called us Animorphs.
I guess that's as good a name as any for what we are. Mostly, I still just feel like a nor mal kid
you know? But I guess normal kids don't turn into elephants or bald eagles. And normal kids
don't spend their free time fighting to save the world from the nightmares called Yeerks.
That day, the sun was bright. It warmed the earth below us. Warm air rose in an invisible
bubble, a thermal. The thermal pushed up beneath our wings and we circled higher and
higher and higher, till it almost seemed we could touch space.
Somewhere up there in cold space, up in orbit, was the Yeerk mother ship. Perhaps right over
our heads.
The Yeerks were parasites. In their natural state they were just big slugs who lived in a
sludgy pond called a Yeerk pool. But the Yeerks have the power to take over other bodies.
They have enslaved many races throughout the galaxy -- the Taxxons, the Hork-Bajir, and
others. And now they had come to Earth, looking for more bodies to control.
Who was there to try and stop them? Well, off in space, there were the Andalites. But the
Andalites were far away, and it would take them a long time to come to rescue the people of
Earth.
On Earth, no one knew of the Yeerks. No one but five kids who were having fun being birds
and riding the thermals.
I looked over at my friends. Some were a little way below, some were higher up. Jake was
flapping his wings a little more than the rest of us. He had adopted a falcon morph. Falcons
don't soar quite as well as hawks or eagles.
Tobias was the smoothest flyer. That was partly because red-tailed hawks are natural
acrobats.
Partly it was because Tobias had much more practice flying than the rest of us.
3
Too much practice.
<Okay, Tobias, you were right. This is the coolest thing in the world,> I said.
<Want to try a dive? It's amazing,> he said.
I wasn't exactly sure that I wanted to dive, but what could I say? I don't usually turn down a
challenge. So I said, <Sure. >
<Follow me. >
Tobias bent his wings back and plummeted toward the ground like a bullet.
I tucked my wings back and went after him.
The ground came rushing up at me.
I was falling! Falling, with nothing at all to stop me from splatting right into the ground!
It was like a nightmare.
We were going like sixty miles an hour, as fast as a speeding car. Sixty miles an hour, aiming
right for the ground.
But even though it was scary, it was also way cool.
Forget surfing. Forget skateboarding. Forget snowboarding. You haven't had a thrill till
you've ridden the thermals a mile into the air and then gone hurtling straight down at
maximum speed.
Air streamed past, just like when you open the car window and you're going really fast. It
was like being in the middle of a hurricane. The leading edge of my wings was battered and
vibrating. I felt my tail making dozens of tiny adjustments, moving a single feather one way
or the other to keep me pointed straight.
But one wrong move and I could have tumbled end over end. At this speed, if I suddenly
tumbled I feared I could break a wing. A broken wing this high up was a death sentence.
<Tobias! I just realized something.>
<What?>
<This isn't like being an elephant. If I got in trouble as an elephant I could morph back to my
human body. But I'm a long way up. If I morphed back to my human body . . . > I didn't
finish the sentence. But I suddenly had this vision of me, real me, Rachel, dropping like a
stone toward the hard ground below.
I guess Tobias could sense the fear that was building in me.
4
<Let the eagle do the flying,> Tobias advised. <Relax and let the eagle's mind do the
thinking. She knows what she's doing. >
<I'm glad one of us does,> I said nervously. It's strange when you're in a morph. You have
the animal's brain in with your own. Usually you can control that animal intelligence. But not
always. And sometimes you have to learn to let go, to let the animal take charge.
I relaxed. Instantly the vibration lessened. I felt more stable. The eagle was in charge and
Tobias was right: The eagle knew how to fly.
Then, to my amazement, I saw something go zipping right past us, faster than either me or
Tobias. It was Jake. His peregrine falcon's smaller wings made it harder for him to float on
the thermals . But those same wings made him unbelievably fast in diving. It was almost like
Tobias and I were standing still.
<Yaaaaaah ha ha!!> Jake yelled in our heads.
I would have smiled, if I'd had a mouth. Jake is like me. He loves excitement and adventure
and being a little crazy. Maybe we're so alike because we're cousins.
Also, we're both a little competitive, I guess.
It bothered me that he was a faster diver than I was. Just like it bothered him that I could soar
better.
I guess that sounds ridiculous, huh?
Zzzziiinnnngggg!
Something went right by my head.
<You hear that?> Tobias asked.
<Yeah, I sure did,> I said. <What was it?>
<I don't know. >
Instinctively, I pulled up out of the dive, straining every muscle in my wings as I opened
them, and felt the shock of wind resistance. It was like opening a parachute.
The rest followed my lead. We were still a few thousand feet up, but much closer to the
ground than we had been.
Zziiiinnnnngggg!
I felt something go right through my tail feathers.
<Hey, someone down there is shooting at us!> I said.
<I can see them,> Cassie said. She and Marco had joined up with us. They had both morphed
the same osprey. It was hard to tell them apart because you can't really tell where thoughtspeech
comes from. <Two guys, over in the woods. They have a rifle.>
5
<I can't believe this!> I was really mad. <I'm an endangered species. I'm a bald eagle! What's
the matter with those creeps?>
<He's getting ready to shoot again,> Marco reported. <I can see him taking aim.>
<As soon as you see the flash of the rifle, dodge hard right!> I yelled.
A normal eagle or hawk or falcon would not have been able to figure that out. But we weren't
just raptors. We still had our human intelligence.
There are times to let the animal take over. There are other times when that superior human
intelligence comes in handy.
<There! They fired!> Jake yelled.
Instantly I turned a sharp right. The bullet went whizzing by harmlessly.
<You know what? I don't think I like those guys,> Tobias said.
Tobias has special reasons for disliking anyone who would shoot at a bird.
<Me neither,> I agreed.
<I have an idea. >
I explained what I wanted to do and the five of us flew off, out of range of the shooters.
When we were far enough away, we went into a steep dive, down, down, faster and faster
toward the trees.
I thought I was scared, diving from high up. Now I was diving at lower altitude, aiming
directly at the trees. This was a whole new level of terror. With my eagle's eyes I could see
the bark on the trees. I could see ants on the bark of the trees. It was like those trees were
right in front of us.
I hoped the eagle knew when to pull out of the dive. If I slammed into one of those trees at
sixty miles an hour, I was Spam.
Then, at just the right split second, like a perfectly trained squadron of fighter jets, we opened
our wings and swooshed into the trees.
Unbelievable!
<Ah haaaah!> I heard Marco yell. <I don't know if that was fun or just insane!>
It was like some video-game nightmare. We kept most of the speed from the dive and now
we were zooming through the trees so fast that tree trunks were just a brown blur all around
us.
Tree! Bank left.
6
Tree! Bank right.
Tree!
Dozens of feathers made the slightest individual adjustments. Muscles in my wings trimmed
the angle of attack a millimeter one way, a millimeter back.
Tree! Tree! Treetreetreetreetree!
<Yaaaaaaaaah!> I yelled, half from terror and half from the total, out-of-control thrill of it.
In and out. Around and through. Zoom.
ZOOM!
Suddenly, there they were, just ahead in a clearing. Two teenage creeps sitting in the back of
a pickup truck. One guy had a blond ponytail.
The other one wore a baseball cap. They were a hundred yards away, like being all the way
down a football field, but my eagle eyes were so good I could count their eyelashes.
The guy with the ponytail had the rifle. The other guy was drinking a beer. They were still
scanning the skies, looking for us.
Guess what, morons? I thought as we raced at them. We're not up there anymore. We're right
here . . .
In ...
Your. . .
FACE!
They didn't even have enough time to look surprised before we struck.
As a bald eagle, I was the biggest of the five of us. I could carry the heaviest load.
I raked my talons forward.
I opened them wide.
"Tsseeeeeer!"
Tobias's hawk let loose an intimidating shriek.
My talons hit the gun barrel and closed on it.
Tobias slashed the ponytail guy's head with his own talons. Ponytail shouted in pain and
surprise and loosened his grip on the rifle.
"Hey!" the second guy yelled.
7
Zoom!
I was out of there with the rifle in my talons.
With the additional weight of the rifle, it was a struggle getting any altitude.
"That bird has your gun, Chester! And that other one stole my beer!"
I glanced over and saw Marco. At least I think it was Marco. He had the beer can in his
talons, half-crumpled.
<They're way too young to be drinking,> Marco said in his most parent-like voice.
I heard the ponytail guy complaining down below.
"That ain't right. It ain't right that no bird should take my rifle like that."
I caught a little breeze and gained just enough altitude to get above the trees. But I was
having a hard time. My wings were beating the still, dead air of the woods and not getting
very much lift. I scraped the top of a tall pine tree and emerged from the woods, still flapping
hard to carry the weight of the rifle, I made it out toward the beach, over the low cliffs at the
water's edge.
The blessed thermals were there. They lifted me up, up and out over the water. I relaxed,
letting the warm wind carry me higher.
I dropped the rifle about a mile out in the ocean. I figured any jerk who would shoot at a bald
eagle didn't need a gun. Marco dropped the beer with amazing precision right into a trash
barrel. He looked as proud as he would have if he'd just thrown the winning basket in the
NBA championship.
<lt's been almost two hours,> Cassie warned us as we lazily drifted back toward shore.
Two hours is the time limit. If you stay in a morph for more than two hours, you're trapped.
Forever.
Zoom!
I was out of there with the rifle in my talons.
With the additional weight of the rifle, it was a struggle getting any altitude.
"That bird has your gun, Chester! And that other one stole my beer!"
I glanced over and saw Marco. At least I think it was Marco. He had the beer can in his
talons, half-crumpled.
<They're way too young to be drinking,> Marco said in his most parent-like voice.
I heard the ponytail guy complaining down below.
"That ain't right. It ain't right that no bird should take my rifle like that."
I caught a little breeze and gained just enough altitude to get above the trees. But I was
having a hard time. My wings were beating the still, dead air of the woods and not getting
very much lift. I scraped the top of a tall pine tree and emerged from the woods, still flapping
hard to carry the weight of the rifle, I made it out toward the beach, over the low cliffs at the
water's edge.
The blessed thermals were there. They lifted me up, up and out over the water. I relaxed,
letting the warm wind carry me higher.
I dropped the rifle about a mile out in the ocean. I figured any jerk who would shoot at a bald
eagle didn't need a gun. Marco dropped the beer with amazing precision right into a trash
barrel. He looked as proud as he would have if he'd just thrown the winning basket in the
NBA championship.
<lt's been almost two hours,> Cassie warned us as we lazily drifted back toward shore.
Two hours is the time limit. If you stay in a morph for more than two hours, you're trapped.
Forever.
Chapter Two
There's an old, run-down church no one uses anymore not far from the beach. It has a bell
tower, although the bell is gone. We flew there. That's where we had started from. Our
clothes and shoes were still piled there.
Four pairs of shoes for the five of us.
Cassie, still in her osprey body, peered down at her watch lying on the floor. <Good. An hour
and a half. We should try never to go over an hour and a half. >
We began to morph back into our human bodies.
Morphing takes concentration. When you're going from human to animal, it's harder. You
really have to focus. But going back to human is easier.
I focused on my human self. I formed a picture of myself in my mind -- tall, thin, with blonde
shoulder-length hair. I focused especially on the hair, because I didn't like my last haircut. It
was uneven at the bottom. Not that it mattered. I just wished I could do something about the
hair when I morphed. Unfortunately, morphing doesn't work that way.
The changes began quickly. The feathers that covered me began to melt. They ran together
like hot wax. In some places when my skin reappeared, it would have this beautiful feather
pattern for a few seconds.
My yellow bill sucked back into my mouth to become white teeth. That part sort of itched. It
made me want to grind my teeth a few times.
My lips grew out around my teeth. My eyes went from pale gold to my normal blue. My legs
grew quite a bit, from about three inches to normal size.
I looked over at Jake and saw the same things happening to him. Let me just tell you --
watching someone morph is not a pretty sight. It's the kind of thing that would give you
screaming nightmares if you didn't know it was going to be all right.
When Cassie morphs, she always does it kind of artistically. Like when she changes into a
horse, she does it so it doesn't look totally creepazoid -- she has a natural talent for morphing.
If there is such a thing. The rest of us just let it happen however it happens. The results can
be disturbing.
I happened to see Marco at the moment where his hairy boy legs came shooting out of this
little bird body and I yelped. "Yahh! Gross."
"Ay, nyew donk luk so good yourself, Rachel."
His mouth was morphing even as he spoke, so the first few words were garbled and the last
were normal.
I think what he said was "Hey, you don't look so good yourself, Rachel." He was probably
right. I was glad I didn't have a mirror.
9
My tongue grew fat in my mouth. My eyesight became faded and dim. The eagle's mind
evaporated, leaving me all alone in my head.
My wings became arms. My talons became toes. The scaly yellow eagle legs became my
own legs, only they were still all scaly at first.
"Nice look, chicken legs," Marco said. "Do those come in extra crispy, too?"
I smiled at him. "You're not one to talk, Marco." I pointed down at the floor. See, his legs had
changed back, but he still had huge osprey talons instead of feet.
As my skin began to appear, so did my morph ing outfit. Fortunately, after a few tries, we
had all learned to morph some very minimal clothing.
Usually nothing more than skintight workout clothes or leotards. Not enough to go walking
around in, but enough to keep us all from dying of embarrassment when we morphed in front
of each other.
I checked out my friends. They were mostly normal again, with just a few remaining hints
that they'd been birds a minute earlier.
Jake is kind of a big guy, strong-looking, with brown hair and serious, dark eyes -- although
at the moment, his eyes were shining with excitement. Sometimes being in a morph just
totally breaks you out. Jake was a lizard once, and he still hasn't gotten over the fact that he
ate a live spider. But I guess he enjoyed being a falcon, be cause he was babbling on and on
about how great it was.
"That was so absolute!" he said. "It's like now, being back in a human body, I feel like I'm
handicapped or something. I feel like I'm glued to the ground."
"And blind," Cassie agreed. "Human eyes are so lame for seeing things far away."
She grinned and spread her wings. She had managed to keep her wings till the very end. Now
she looked like some strange angel. Oddly, the look worked for her. The osprey's five-foot,
gray- and-white wings were incredibly cool.
"Do you think you could fly?" Jake asked her.
He looked a little awestruck.
Cassie laughed. "No, Jake. This body weighs about eighty pounds. These wings aren't built
for that kind of weight."
She morphed her wings into arms in about three seconds and laughed gaily.
Marco shook his head. "Great. When we morph we look like some mad scientist's genetic
experiment gone totally crazy. And Cassie gets to look like an angel."
Cassie and I have been friends for a long time, although to look at us, you wouldn't think
we'd hang out together. Cassie is casual to the extreme. The girl just doesn't care about
clothing or style. I swear she would wear overalls to a wedding if someone didn't stop her.
10
Cassie lives on a farm and her whole family is massively into animals. Her dad used the barn
to run the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic, which is a kind of hospital for injured animals. It's
always full of birds and skunks and opossums and coyotes and every other animal you can
think of.
Cassie's mom is a vet, too. She works at The Gardens, this huge zoo and amusement park. So
maybe Cassie was just born with an instinct for understanding animals. All I know is she's
always finished morphing while the rest of us are still looking like creepy half-human, halfanimal
monsters.
As for me, well, it's not that I'm Miss Fashion or whatever, but I do like nice clothes.I guess
that, plus the way I look, makes a lot of people think I'm stuck-up or something. People do
think I'm pretty. But to me that's just an accident, you know? Looks are not the important
thing. It's what's in your head that counts, and that's what I concentrate on.
Of course that's another area where Cassie and I are a little different. I guess she would say,
"No, it's what's in your heart that counts." She's a natural peacemaker. If there's ever a hassle
within the group, it's usually me and Marco that caused it, and Cassie who got us all calmed
down.
"Personally, I'm glad to be back to my regular body," Marco said. "The flying part is great,
but it's not a good idea to be able to see that well."
"Why?" Jake asked.
"Look, Jake, how many times have you been walking around the mall or whatever, and you'll
see a girl who seems good-looking from far off, but when you get closer it turns out she's a
skank? I mean, if you could see this well all the time -- "
"Excuse me?" I interrupted. "I'm sure I didn't hear you say what I thought you just said."
"I wasn't being sexist," Marco protested. "It goes both ways. See, from far off, I look taller
than I am."
Marco is a little self-conscious about being short. He has long brown hair and a dark
complexion, and most girls think he's really cute. But being small bothers him.
"Your problem isn't with people seeing you too well," I said. "It's with people hearing you
too well. You look like a fairly smart guy. Then you open your mouth. . ."
Marco just grinned. Marco lives to annoy people. He really is extremely smart and basically
nice, underneath it all. It's just that the boy loves to provoke people.
Marco and Jake are best friends, even though Jake is serious and thoughtful and always
trying to do what's right, while Marco is sarcastic and temperamental and is the most
reluctant of the Animorphs. Marco still thinks we should just give up the battle against the
Yeerks and try to stay alive.
But with Marco you never know if he really believes that, or is just saying it to be contrary.
11
"Well, let's get out of here," Jake suggested. "I have homework to do."
"Me too," I said. "And I have gymnastics class this afternoon and I'm totally unprepared."
Cassie sighed. "It's such a drag. The chores and the homework all come rushing back as soon
as we change back into our boring human selves."
As soon as she said it, Cassie bit her tongue. She cast a regretful look to Tobias.
See, while all of us had changed back, Tobias had not. Tobias was still a hawk. Tobias, who
had once had unruly blond hair and eyes that seemed hurt and tender and hopeful all at once.
Tobias had been trapped while trying to escape from the hellish nightmare of the Yeerk pool.
He had stayed more than two hours in that morph.
We had all returned to our human forms, but Tobias was still a hawk.
Tobias will always be a hawk.
There's an old, run-down church no one uses anymore not far from the beach. It has a bell
tower, although the bell is gone. We flew there. That's where we had started from. Our
clothes and shoes were still piled there.
Four pairs of shoes for the five of us.
Cassie, still in her osprey body, peered down at her watch lying on the floor. <Good. An hour
and a half. We should try never to go over an hour and a half. >
We began to morph back into our human bodies.
Morphing takes concentration. When you're going from human to animal, it's harder. You
really have to focus. But going back to human is easier.
I focused on my human self. I formed a picture of myself in my mind -- tall, thin, with blonde
shoulder-length hair. I focused especially on the hair, because I didn't like my last haircut. It
was uneven at the bottom. Not that it mattered. I just wished I could do something about the
hair when I morphed. Unfortunately, morphing doesn't work that way.
The changes began quickly. The feathers that covered me began to melt. They ran together
like hot wax. In some places when my skin reappeared, it would have this beautiful feather
pattern for a few seconds.
My yellow bill sucked back into my mouth to become white teeth. That part sort of itched. It
made me want to grind my teeth a few times.
My lips grew out around my teeth. My eyes went from pale gold to my normal blue. My legs
grew quite a bit, from about three inches to normal size.
I looked over at Jake and saw the same things happening to him. Let me just tell you --
watching someone morph is not a pretty sight. It's the kind of thing that would give you
screaming nightmares if you didn't know it was going to be all right.
When Cassie morphs, she always does it kind of artistically. Like when she changes into a
horse, she does it so it doesn't look totally creepazoid -- she has a natural talent for morphing.
If there is such a thing. The rest of us just let it happen however it happens. The results can
be disturbing.
I happened to see Marco at the moment where his hairy boy legs came shooting out of this
little bird body and I yelped. "Yahh! Gross."
"Ay, nyew donk luk so good yourself, Rachel."
His mouth was morphing even as he spoke, so the first few words were garbled and the last
were normal.
I think what he said was "Hey, you don't look so good yourself, Rachel." He was probably
right. I was glad I didn't have a mirror.
9
My tongue grew fat in my mouth. My eyesight became faded and dim. The eagle's mind
evaporated, leaving me all alone in my head.
My wings became arms. My talons became toes. The scaly yellow eagle legs became my
own legs, only they were still all scaly at first.
"Nice look, chicken legs," Marco said. "Do those come in extra crispy, too?"
I smiled at him. "You're not one to talk, Marco." I pointed down at the floor. See, his legs had
changed back, but he still had huge osprey talons instead of feet.
As my skin began to appear, so did my morph ing outfit. Fortunately, after a few tries, we
had all learned to morph some very minimal clothing.
Usually nothing more than skintight workout clothes or leotards. Not enough to go walking
around in, but enough to keep us all from dying of embarrassment when we morphed in front
of each other.
I checked out my friends. They were mostly normal again, with just a few remaining hints
that they'd been birds a minute earlier.
Jake is kind of a big guy, strong-looking, with brown hair and serious, dark eyes -- although
at the moment, his eyes were shining with excitement. Sometimes being in a morph just
totally breaks you out. Jake was a lizard once, and he still hasn't gotten over the fact that he
ate a live spider. But I guess he enjoyed being a falcon, be cause he was babbling on and on
about how great it was.
"That was so absolute!" he said. "It's like now, being back in a human body, I feel like I'm
handicapped or something. I feel like I'm glued to the ground."
"And blind," Cassie agreed. "Human eyes are so lame for seeing things far away."
She grinned and spread her wings. She had managed to keep her wings till the very end. Now
she looked like some strange angel. Oddly, the look worked for her. The osprey's five-foot,
gray- and-white wings were incredibly cool.
"Do you think you could fly?" Jake asked her.
He looked a little awestruck.
Cassie laughed. "No, Jake. This body weighs about eighty pounds. These wings aren't built
for that kind of weight."
She morphed her wings into arms in about three seconds and laughed gaily.
Marco shook his head. "Great. When we morph we look like some mad scientist's genetic
experiment gone totally crazy. And Cassie gets to look like an angel."
Cassie and I have been friends for a long time, although to look at us, you wouldn't think
we'd hang out together. Cassie is casual to the extreme. The girl just doesn't care about
clothing or style. I swear she would wear overalls to a wedding if someone didn't stop her.
10
Cassie lives on a farm and her whole family is massively into animals. Her dad used the barn
to run the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic, which is a kind of hospital for injured animals. It's
always full of birds and skunks and opossums and coyotes and every other animal you can
think of.
Cassie's mom is a vet, too. She works at The Gardens, this huge zoo and amusement park. So
maybe Cassie was just born with an instinct for understanding animals. All I know is she's
always finished morphing while the rest of us are still looking like creepy half-human, halfanimal
monsters.
As for me, well, it's not that I'm Miss Fashion or whatever, but I do like nice clothes.I guess
that, plus the way I look, makes a lot of people think I'm stuck-up or something. People do
think I'm pretty. But to me that's just an accident, you know? Looks are not the important
thing. It's what's in your head that counts, and that's what I concentrate on.
Of course that's another area where Cassie and I are a little different. I guess she would say,
"No, it's what's in your heart that counts." She's a natural peacemaker. If there's ever a hassle
within the group, it's usually me and Marco that caused it, and Cassie who got us all calmed
down.
"Personally, I'm glad to be back to my regular body," Marco said. "The flying part is great,
but it's not a good idea to be able to see that well."
"Why?" Jake asked.
"Look, Jake, how many times have you been walking around the mall or whatever, and you'll
see a girl who seems good-looking from far off, but when you get closer it turns out she's a
skank? I mean, if you could see this well all the time -- "
"Excuse me?" I interrupted. "I'm sure I didn't hear you say what I thought you just said."
"I wasn't being sexist," Marco protested. "It goes both ways. See, from far off, I look taller
than I am."
Marco is a little self-conscious about being short. He has long brown hair and a dark
complexion, and most girls think he's really cute. But being small bothers him.
"Your problem isn't with people seeing you too well," I said. "It's with people hearing you
too well. You look like a fairly smart guy. Then you open your mouth. . ."
Marco just grinned. Marco lives to annoy people. He really is extremely smart and basically
nice, underneath it all. It's just that the boy loves to provoke people.
Marco and Jake are best friends, even though Jake is serious and thoughtful and always
trying to do what's right, while Marco is sarcastic and temperamental and is the most
reluctant of the Animorphs. Marco still thinks we should just give up the battle against the
Yeerks and try to stay alive.
But with Marco you never know if he really believes that, or is just saying it to be contrary.
11
"Well, let's get out of here," Jake suggested. "I have homework to do."
"Me too," I said. "And I have gymnastics class this afternoon and I'm totally unprepared."
Cassie sighed. "It's such a drag. The chores and the homework all come rushing back as soon
as we change back into our boring human selves."
As soon as she said it, Cassie bit her tongue. She cast a regretful look to Tobias.
See, while all of us had changed back, Tobias had not. Tobias was still a hawk. Tobias, who
had once had unruly blond hair and eyes that seemed hurt and tender and hopeful all at once.
Tobias had been trapped while trying to escape from the hellish nightmare of the Yeerk pool.
He had stayed more than two hours in that morph.
We had all returned to our human forms, but Tobias was still a hawk.
Tobias will always be a hawk.
Chapter 3
We all walked most of the way home together, feeling worn out. The flying was a little tiring.
And morphing always takes a lot out of you.
Tobias flew high overhead. He didn't really participate in the conversation. It's hard for
him. See, he can think-speak to us and we can understand him, but when we're in human
shape we can only talk in the normal way. He can't hear us unless he's close by, and he can't
be close and still fly.
"This morphing thing would be so excellent if it weren't for the whole thing with the Yeerks,"
Marco was saying. "I mean, if it were just normal, we could really use these powers."
"To do what? Fight crime?" Jake asked.
Marco looked at him with a mixture of pity and amusement. "Fight crime? Who are you,
Spiderman? I'm talking show business. Movies! TV shows! I could go on Letterman. I could
be an entire episode of Stupid Pet Tricks all by myself."
"You're right," I said, batting my eyes so he would know I was kidding, "you already have
the stupid part down."
"We'd be hot in horror movies," Cassie said.
"Or how about as stuntmen?" Jake suggested. "One of us could jump off the tallest building
and it would be totally realistic. Then we just morph into a bird on the way down and fly
away."
"Now I'm really mad at the Yeerks," Marco said. "They're getting in the way of my showbiz
career. I could be a millionaire. I could be trading funny lines with Dave. I could have
beautiful Hollywood supermodels all over me."
"Uh-huh," I said, with a wink at Cassie. "Lots of women love animals. But sooner or later
you'd have to change back into your actual self, Marco. And then, boom, they'd be outta
there."
We walked along the boulevard that goes by the construction site. It's this huge area of halffinished
buildings with rusted earthmovers and cranes and backhoes scattered around. I guess
it was originally going to be a shopping center, but for some reason they never finished it.
We didn't take the shortcut through the construction site, like we would have in the old days,
though. See, it was at this construction site that we saw the Andalite prince's damaged fighter
land. It was here that the Andalite warned us of the Yeerk conspiracy and gave us our special
powers.
It was also here that we saw the Yeerk commander, Visser Three, murder the Andalite prince.
Visser Three is the only one of the Yeerks who has our same power to morph. Visser Three is
an Andalite-Controller, meaning he has an Andalite body. A human-Controller is a Yeerk
with a human body. A Taxxon-Controller is a Yeerk with a Taxxon body. You get the
idea.
13
Visser Three is the only Yeerk to ever capture an Andalite body. So he's also the only Yeerk
who can morph.
That night at the construction site, he morphed into some creature from a far-off planet, a
huge, horrible monster. And then he took the Andalite and . . .
You know what? I really don't want to talk about that. . . . You'll have to ask Jake.
We all fell silent as we passed by the site.
Then I noticed that Cassie had stopped walking and was just standing there. I went back to
her and realized that she was crying.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
She shook her head. "No. Are you?"
I sighed. Flying around in the sky had been a wonderful distraction. But my head was still
full of awful memories. "I guess not," I admitted.
"Last night I had a terrible nightmare about the Yeerk pool. I was back down there. Down
there in that vast open cave. And I was hearing the screams and cries of the people being
dragged to the pool."
Cassie nodded. "You know what's worse than the screams? The way they stop screaming
once the Yeerk is in their heads. Once they've become Controllers. Then you know they are
slaves again. Lost."
"Like Tom."
We both turned. It was Jake. He and Marco had seen us stop and had come back.
Tom is Jake's brother. Tom is a human-Controller -- a human being enslaved by a Yeerk in
his head. We'd found the Yeerk pool and gone down into that hell to get Tom. We'd failed.
We'd barely escaped with our lives.
Cassie put her arm around Jake's waist. "Someday we'll save Tom," she said.
Jake kind of stroked Cassie's head. I guess he got embarrassed, because he instantly pulled
away. Cassie didn't mind. She knows how guys are about showing their true feelings.
I looked across the construction site and saw Tobias come fluttering down out of the sky. I
couldn't see where he landed, because that part of the site is hidden from the road, but I knew
right where he was -- on the spot where the Andalite had died. Somehow, in those brief
moments when the Andalite had been with us, Tobias had formed some kind of special bond
with him.
We started walking again.
14
"We need to find another way to get at them," I said angrily. It bothered me, imagining
Tobias back in that maze of never-finished buildings mourning for the Andalite.
"Get at who?" Marco asked suspiciously.
"The French, Marco," I said sarcastically.
"Who do you think? The Yeerks, duh."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Marco said. "We tried that, remember? We went down into the Yeerk
pool after them and got our butts kicked. Yeerks ten, humans zero."
"So you figure you should just give up?" I demanded.
"We lost one game," Jake said. "You don't quit the sport just because you lose one game."
"Some game," Marco said bitterly. "Some sport."
"We didn't lose, anyway," I said. The others looked at me like I was crazy. "Look," I
explained, "I know we didn't save Tom, and we sure didn't stop the Yeerks. But we gave
them a reason to be afraid, at least."
"Yeah, they're terrified of us. Visser Three probably can't sleep at night, he's so worried about
five kids," Marco said sarcastically. "Look, Visser Three doesn't think we're a threat. He
thinks we're lunch."
"He doesn't know who -- or what -- we are," I pointed out. "The Yeerks are convinced that
we're Andalite warriors because they know that we can morph. And they know that we found
the Yeerk pool, and infiltrated it, and took out a few of their Taxxons and Hork-Bajir while
we were at it.
I think they're probably a little nervous, at least."
Jake nodded. "Rachel's right. But just the same, I don't think we want to try to go back to the
Yeerk pool. Besides . . . the door is gone."
We all stopped and stared at him.
He shrugged. "Look, I just wanted to see if the door still worked, okay? Just in case. But it's
not there anymore."
The door leading down to the Yeerk pool had been hidden in the janitor's closet of our
school.
There were dozens of doors to the underground Yeerk pool, spread all over the city, but this
was the only one we knew about.
"So we find another way to get at them," I said. "We can follow Tom again, when it's time
for his Yeerk to return to the Yeerk pool." Yeerks have to go to the pool every three days.
They drain out of their hosts" heads and soak up Kandrona rays.
15
"No. We leave Tom out of it," Jake said firmly. "If we call attention to him in any way, the
Yeerks may decide he's trouble for them. They may decide to kill him."
Marco gave me a sour look. "This is what you want to keep doing? Risking our lives and the
lives of everyone we know? For what?"
"For freedom," Cassie said simply.
Marco didn't have a smart answer to that.
"There's still Chapman," Jake said.
Chapman is our assistant principal. He's also one of the most important human-Controllers.
He runs The Sharing, the club that helps recruit unsuspecting kids into being hosts for the
Yeerks.
"If there were some way for us to get close to Chapman . . ." Jake let the words hang in the
air. He carefully didn't look at me. But I knew what he meant. He'd obviously been thinking
about this for a while.
"Melissa?" I asked.
He nodded. "It's a possibility."
See, Melissa Chapman, Assistant Principal Chapman's daughter, is one of my closest friends.
Or at least she used to be. The last few months, she'd been acting very strange toward me.
Like she didn't care anymore. We take gymnastics together. Actually, we got into it at the
same time. You know -- something to do together.
"I don't like using a friend that way," I said.
"Oh, suddenly the mighty Rachel is weaseling," Marco crowed. "You don't like using your
friends? You're pretty willing to risk my life."
"Sure, Marco, but who said you were my friend?"
"Very funny," Marco said. But at the same time he looked a little hurt.
"Kidding, Marco," I said. "Just kidding. Of course you're my friend. But you're an Animorph.
Melissa is just an innocent bystander."
"I wish I had never come up with that word," Marco said. "Animorph. Gimme a break."
"Rachel, Melissa's father is one of the main Controllers," Jake said gently, ignoring Marco.
"She's in this whether she likes it or not."
I felt a bitter taste in my mouth. Jake was right, of course. Chapman was the logical lead to
follow. And Melissa was our way to get close.
It made sense. It made sense for me to betray an old friend.
16
It also made me feel like dirt.
We all walked most of the way home together, feeling worn out. The flying was a little tiring.
And morphing always takes a lot out of you.
Tobias flew high overhead. He didn't really participate in the conversation. It's hard for
him. See, he can think-speak to us and we can understand him, but when we're in human
shape we can only talk in the normal way. He can't hear us unless he's close by, and he can't
be close and still fly.
"This morphing thing would be so excellent if it weren't for the whole thing with the Yeerks,"
Marco was saying. "I mean, if it were just normal, we could really use these powers."
"To do what? Fight crime?" Jake asked.
Marco looked at him with a mixture of pity and amusement. "Fight crime? Who are you,
Spiderman? I'm talking show business. Movies! TV shows! I could go on Letterman. I could
be an entire episode of Stupid Pet Tricks all by myself."
"You're right," I said, batting my eyes so he would know I was kidding, "you already have
the stupid part down."
"We'd be hot in horror movies," Cassie said.
"Or how about as stuntmen?" Jake suggested. "One of us could jump off the tallest building
and it would be totally realistic. Then we just morph into a bird on the way down and fly
away."
"Now I'm really mad at the Yeerks," Marco said. "They're getting in the way of my showbiz
career. I could be a millionaire. I could be trading funny lines with Dave. I could have
beautiful Hollywood supermodels all over me."
"Uh-huh," I said, with a wink at Cassie. "Lots of women love animals. But sooner or later
you'd have to change back into your actual self, Marco. And then, boom, they'd be outta
there."
We walked along the boulevard that goes by the construction site. It's this huge area of halffinished
buildings with rusted earthmovers and cranes and backhoes scattered around. I guess
it was originally going to be a shopping center, but for some reason they never finished it.
We didn't take the shortcut through the construction site, like we would have in the old days,
though. See, it was at this construction site that we saw the Andalite prince's damaged fighter
land. It was here that the Andalite warned us of the Yeerk conspiracy and gave us our special
powers.
It was also here that we saw the Yeerk commander, Visser Three, murder the Andalite prince.
Visser Three is the only one of the Yeerks who has our same power to morph. Visser Three is
an Andalite-Controller, meaning he has an Andalite body. A human-Controller is a Yeerk
with a human body. A Taxxon-Controller is a Yeerk with a Taxxon body. You get the
idea.
13
Visser Three is the only Yeerk to ever capture an Andalite body. So he's also the only Yeerk
who can morph.
That night at the construction site, he morphed into some creature from a far-off planet, a
huge, horrible monster. And then he took the Andalite and . . .
You know what? I really don't want to talk about that. . . . You'll have to ask Jake.
We all fell silent as we passed by the site.
Then I noticed that Cassie had stopped walking and was just standing there. I went back to
her and realized that she was crying.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
She shook her head. "No. Are you?"
I sighed. Flying around in the sky had been a wonderful distraction. But my head was still
full of awful memories. "I guess not," I admitted.
"Last night I had a terrible nightmare about the Yeerk pool. I was back down there. Down
there in that vast open cave. And I was hearing the screams and cries of the people being
dragged to the pool."
Cassie nodded. "You know what's worse than the screams? The way they stop screaming
once the Yeerk is in their heads. Once they've become Controllers. Then you know they are
slaves again. Lost."
"Like Tom."
We both turned. It was Jake. He and Marco had seen us stop and had come back.
Tom is Jake's brother. Tom is a human-Controller -- a human being enslaved by a Yeerk in
his head. We'd found the Yeerk pool and gone down into that hell to get Tom. We'd failed.
We'd barely escaped with our lives.
Cassie put her arm around Jake's waist. "Someday we'll save Tom," she said.
Jake kind of stroked Cassie's head. I guess he got embarrassed, because he instantly pulled
away. Cassie didn't mind. She knows how guys are about showing their true feelings.
I looked across the construction site and saw Tobias come fluttering down out of the sky. I
couldn't see where he landed, because that part of the site is hidden from the road, but I knew
right where he was -- on the spot where the Andalite had died. Somehow, in those brief
moments when the Andalite had been with us, Tobias had formed some kind of special bond
with him.
We started walking again.
14
"We need to find another way to get at them," I said angrily. It bothered me, imagining
Tobias back in that maze of never-finished buildings mourning for the Andalite.
"Get at who?" Marco asked suspiciously.
"The French, Marco," I said sarcastically.
"Who do you think? The Yeerks, duh."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Marco said. "We tried that, remember? We went down into the Yeerk
pool after them and got our butts kicked. Yeerks ten, humans zero."
"So you figure you should just give up?" I demanded.
"We lost one game," Jake said. "You don't quit the sport just because you lose one game."
"Some game," Marco said bitterly. "Some sport."
"We didn't lose, anyway," I said. The others looked at me like I was crazy. "Look," I
explained, "I know we didn't save Tom, and we sure didn't stop the Yeerks. But we gave
them a reason to be afraid, at least."
"Yeah, they're terrified of us. Visser Three probably can't sleep at night, he's so worried about
five kids," Marco said sarcastically. "Look, Visser Three doesn't think we're a threat. He
thinks we're lunch."
"He doesn't know who -- or what -- we are," I pointed out. "The Yeerks are convinced that
we're Andalite warriors because they know that we can morph. And they know that we found
the Yeerk pool, and infiltrated it, and took out a few of their Taxxons and Hork-Bajir while
we were at it.
I think they're probably a little nervous, at least."
Jake nodded. "Rachel's right. But just the same, I don't think we want to try to go back to the
Yeerk pool. Besides . . . the door is gone."
We all stopped and stared at him.
He shrugged. "Look, I just wanted to see if the door still worked, okay? Just in case. But it's
not there anymore."
The door leading down to the Yeerk pool had been hidden in the janitor's closet of our
school.
There were dozens of doors to the underground Yeerk pool, spread all over the city, but this
was the only one we knew about.
"So we find another way to get at them," I said. "We can follow Tom again, when it's time
for his Yeerk to return to the Yeerk pool." Yeerks have to go to the pool every three days.
They drain out of their hosts" heads and soak up Kandrona rays.
15
"No. We leave Tom out of it," Jake said firmly. "If we call attention to him in any way, the
Yeerks may decide he's trouble for them. They may decide to kill him."
Marco gave me a sour look. "This is what you want to keep doing? Risking our lives and the
lives of everyone we know? For what?"
"For freedom," Cassie said simply.
Marco didn't have a smart answer to that.
"There's still Chapman," Jake said.
Chapman is our assistant principal. He's also one of the most important human-Controllers.
He runs The Sharing, the club that helps recruit unsuspecting kids into being hosts for the
Yeerks.
"If there were some way for us to get close to Chapman . . ." Jake let the words hang in the
air. He carefully didn't look at me. But I knew what he meant. He'd obviously been thinking
about this for a while.
"Melissa?" I asked.
He nodded. "It's a possibility."
See, Melissa Chapman, Assistant Principal Chapman's daughter, is one of my closest friends.
Or at least she used to be. The last few months, she'd been acting very strange toward me.
Like she didn't care anymore. We take gymnastics together. Actually, we got into it at the
same time. You know -- something to do together.
"I don't like using a friend that way," I said.
"Oh, suddenly the mighty Rachel is weaseling," Marco crowed. "You don't like using your
friends? You're pretty willing to risk my life."
"Sure, Marco, but who said you were my friend?"
"Very funny," Marco said. But at the same time he looked a little hurt.
"Kidding, Marco," I said. "Just kidding. Of course you're my friend. But you're an Animorph.
Melissa is just an innocent bystander."
"I wish I had never come up with that word," Marco said. "Animorph. Gimme a break."
"Rachel, Melissa's father is one of the main Controllers," Jake said gently, ignoring Marco.
"She's in this whether she likes it or not."
I felt a bitter taste in my mouth. Jake was right, of course. Chapman was the logical lead to
follow. And Melissa was our way to get close.
It made sense. It made sense for me to betray an old friend.
16
It also made me feel like dirt.
Chapter 4
The next day after school I headed for my gymnastics class at the YMCA, which is just
across from the mall. They have a big indoor pool, so the entire building always smells of
chlorine. Except for the weight room, which just smells like sweat.
My class is taught in a smaller room, with blue mats covering the floor. We have balance
beams and uneven parallel bars and a vaulting horse with a springboard.
I'm okay at vaulting and the parallel bars, but I'm pretty lame at the balance beam. To be
honest with you, it kind of scares me. It takes such total concentration.
It's not one of those real serious gymnastics classes. I mean, none of us is going to be going
to the Olympics. When I started out, I had dreams of being the next Shannon Miller. But then
I started to grow. I'm pretty tall now, for my age. People look at me now and say, "Oh, you're
going to be a model," not "Oh, you could be a gym nast."
Most of us in the class are too tall or too heavy to ever be serious gymnasts. We do it for fun
and for exercise. I do it because I've always thought of myself as kind of clumsy. My mom
says I'm not, but that's how I feel anyway.
Besides, it's just cool, hitting the little spring board and flipping through the air to bounce off
the vaulting horse and stick the landing. Not as cool as flying, maybe, but fun just the same.
Melissa Chapman was in the locker room changing into her leotard when I came in. She's the
exception to the rule in our class. She does look like a gymnast. She's small and thin, even
though she doesn't starve herself like some fools who want to get into gymnastics. She has
pale gray eyes and pale blonde hair and pale skin. She looks like one of those solemn elves in
a Tolkien book. At first glance she looks delicate, but when you look a little closer, you see
strength there, too.
Melissa gave me the kind of not-very-warm smile she always gives me lately. Like she was
distracted, or thinking about something more important.
"Hey, Melissa," I said. "How's it going?"
"Fine. How about you?"
"Oh, pretty much the same old thing." That was a lie, of course. But what was I going to say?
Yeah, Melissa, same old same old. Been turning into animals and fighting aliens. You know,
the usual.
Melissa didn't say anything else. She just adjusted her leotard and started to do a few little
stretches. That's the way it was. We said hi, but not much more. It used to be we were very
close. She was my second best friend, after Cassie.
"Melissa, I was thinking . . . maybe you'd like to walk over to the mall with me after class? I
have to buy a new pair of sneakers."
"The mall?" She stammered a little, and then started blushing. "You mean, go shopping?"
18
"Yeah. You know -- walk around and look at stuff and check out the cute guys and diss the
snotty women at the perfume counters."
I tried to sound casual, like it was no big deal. In the old days, it would have been totally
nothing. But now Melissa looked like a trapped animal.
When had Melissa and I gotten to be such strangers?
"I'm, um, kind of busy," Melissa said.
"Oh. That's cool. I understand."
But I didn't understand. Not at all. She started to walk away. I was going to let it go, but then
I remembered: This wasn't just about a friend who had drifted away. This was about her
father, one of the leaders of the Controllers. One of our most dangerous enemies.
I grabbed her arm. "Melissa, look . . . I feel like we've kind of gone in different ways, you
know? And I miss you."
She shrugged. "Okay, well, maybe we could get together sometime."
"Not sometime, Melissa, that's just you blowing me off. What's going on with you?"
"What's going on with me?" she echoed. For a moment a look of extraordinary sadness
darkened her eyes and tugged downward at the corners of her mouth. "Nothing is going on
with me," she said. "We'd better get out there or Coach Ellway will have a fit."
She pulled her arm away.
I just watched her go. I felt like a complete and total jerk. Something had happened to
Melissa. And I hadn't even noticed. She was my friend and something had changed in her,
and I hadn't seen it. I'd just gone my own way.
And now I was only acting like a concerned friend. The truth was, I was only paying
attention for my own reasons.
I wasn't able to concentrate on the lesson. Not concentrating when you're doing gymnastics
can be painful. I slipped on the balance beam and banged my knee so badly I cried.
Melissa was the first one to rush over. And for about ten seconds she was the old Melissa.
But by the time I'd gotten back up, she was off across the room in her own little world again.
It was right then that the terrible suspicion started.
Melissa had been acting very strangely. Her father was a Controller.
I looked at her from across the room and felt a chill.
Was she one, too? Was my old friend Melissa a Controller?
19
I didn't go shopping after my lesson. I didn't really feel like it. Melissa's eyes, the way she
had looked at me, kind of killed my urge to shop.
I was supposed to head over to the mall, then call my mom when I was done to come pick me
up. That was the plan. But since I didn't feel like mall-crawling I just headed home. Alone.
With the sky growing dark as rain clouds moved in.
It was stupid and careless of me. But I guess I was preoccupied with other things. Although
at least I had the sense to stay out of the construc tion site.
I was walking down the sidewalk that runs along the boulevard when suddenly I realized that
a car had pulled up just a little way down the sidewalk from me.
A guy got out. He looked like he was in high school or even college. He also looked like
trouble.
I should have turned around and run back to ward the mall. But sometimes I don't always do
the sensible thing. Sometimes I regret not doing the sensible thing. This was one of those
times.
"Hey, baby," he said. "Want to go for a little ride?"
I shook my head and clutched my gym bag close. What an idiot I was to be so careless!
"Now, don't be stuck-up, sweet thing," he said. "I think you'd better get in the car."
The way he said it didn't sound like an invitation. It sounded like an order. Now I was really
afraid.
I clutched my gym bag close as I passed him.
"Don't ignore me," he hissed.
He reached for me and missed. I walked faster.
He was behind me.
I broke into a run.
He ran after me.
"Hey. Hey, there! Come back here."
I had been stupid going out alone. But fortunately, unlike most people, I wasn't helpless.
As I ran, I focused on something completely different. I concentrated on an image in my
mind.
Then I felt the change begin. My legs grew thick. My arms grew big, bigger. I could feel
myself growing large. Large and solid. I felt the squirmy sensation of my ears becoming thin
and leathery.
20
But it wasn't enough to just look creepy. This guy had made me mad. I wanted to scare him
half to death.
My nose suddenly began to sprout. Then, from my mouth, like two huge spears, the tusks
began to appear.
I figured that was about enough. I broke my concentration, which stopped the morph.
I stopped suddenly. The creep barreled right into me.
He was not going to like what he was about to see.
The next day after school I headed for my gymnastics class at the YMCA, which is just
across from the mall. They have a big indoor pool, so the entire building always smells of
chlorine. Except for the weight room, which just smells like sweat.
My class is taught in a smaller room, with blue mats covering the floor. We have balance
beams and uneven parallel bars and a vaulting horse with a springboard.
I'm okay at vaulting and the parallel bars, but I'm pretty lame at the balance beam. To be
honest with you, it kind of scares me. It takes such total concentration.
It's not one of those real serious gymnastics classes. I mean, none of us is going to be going
to the Olympics. When I started out, I had dreams of being the next Shannon Miller. But then
I started to grow. I'm pretty tall now, for my age. People look at me now and say, "Oh, you're
going to be a model," not "Oh, you could be a gym nast."
Most of us in the class are too tall or too heavy to ever be serious gymnasts. We do it for fun
and for exercise. I do it because I've always thought of myself as kind of clumsy. My mom
says I'm not, but that's how I feel anyway.
Besides, it's just cool, hitting the little spring board and flipping through the air to bounce off
the vaulting horse and stick the landing. Not as cool as flying, maybe, but fun just the same.
Melissa Chapman was in the locker room changing into her leotard when I came in. She's the
exception to the rule in our class. She does look like a gymnast. She's small and thin, even
though she doesn't starve herself like some fools who want to get into gymnastics. She has
pale gray eyes and pale blonde hair and pale skin. She looks like one of those solemn elves in
a Tolkien book. At first glance she looks delicate, but when you look a little closer, you see
strength there, too.
Melissa gave me the kind of not-very-warm smile she always gives me lately. Like she was
distracted, or thinking about something more important.
"Hey, Melissa," I said. "How's it going?"
"Fine. How about you?"
"Oh, pretty much the same old thing." That was a lie, of course. But what was I going to say?
Yeah, Melissa, same old same old. Been turning into animals and fighting aliens. You know,
the usual.
Melissa didn't say anything else. She just adjusted her leotard and started to do a few little
stretches. That's the way it was. We said hi, but not much more. It used to be we were very
close. She was my second best friend, after Cassie.
"Melissa, I was thinking . . . maybe you'd like to walk over to the mall with me after class? I
have to buy a new pair of sneakers."
"The mall?" She stammered a little, and then started blushing. "You mean, go shopping?"
18
"Yeah. You know -- walk around and look at stuff and check out the cute guys and diss the
snotty women at the perfume counters."
I tried to sound casual, like it was no big deal. In the old days, it would have been totally
nothing. But now Melissa looked like a trapped animal.
When had Melissa and I gotten to be such strangers?
"I'm, um, kind of busy," Melissa said.
"Oh. That's cool. I understand."
But I didn't understand. Not at all. She started to walk away. I was going to let it go, but then
I remembered: This wasn't just about a friend who had drifted away. This was about her
father, one of the leaders of the Controllers. One of our most dangerous enemies.
I grabbed her arm. "Melissa, look . . . I feel like we've kind of gone in different ways, you
know? And I miss you."
She shrugged. "Okay, well, maybe we could get together sometime."
"Not sometime, Melissa, that's just you blowing me off. What's going on with you?"
"What's going on with me?" she echoed. For a moment a look of extraordinary sadness
darkened her eyes and tugged downward at the corners of her mouth. "Nothing is going on
with me," she said. "We'd better get out there or Coach Ellway will have a fit."
She pulled her arm away.
I just watched her go. I felt like a complete and total jerk. Something had happened to
Melissa. And I hadn't even noticed. She was my friend and something had changed in her,
and I hadn't seen it. I'd just gone my own way.
And now I was only acting like a concerned friend. The truth was, I was only paying
attention for my own reasons.
I wasn't able to concentrate on the lesson. Not concentrating when you're doing gymnastics
can be painful. I slipped on the balance beam and banged my knee so badly I cried.
Melissa was the first one to rush over. And for about ten seconds she was the old Melissa.
But by the time I'd gotten back up, she was off across the room in her own little world again.
It was right then that the terrible suspicion started.
Melissa had been acting very strangely. Her father was a Controller.
I looked at her from across the room and felt a chill.
Was she one, too? Was my old friend Melissa a Controller?
19
I didn't go shopping after my lesson. I didn't really feel like it. Melissa's eyes, the way she
had looked at me, kind of killed my urge to shop.
I was supposed to head over to the mall, then call my mom when I was done to come pick me
up. That was the plan. But since I didn't feel like mall-crawling I just headed home. Alone.
With the sky growing dark as rain clouds moved in.
It was stupid and careless of me. But I guess I was preoccupied with other things. Although
at least I had the sense to stay out of the construc tion site.
I was walking down the sidewalk that runs along the boulevard when suddenly I realized that
a car had pulled up just a little way down the sidewalk from me.
A guy got out. He looked like he was in high school or even college. He also looked like
trouble.
I should have turned around and run back to ward the mall. But sometimes I don't always do
the sensible thing. Sometimes I regret not doing the sensible thing. This was one of those
times.
"Hey, baby," he said. "Want to go for a little ride?"
I shook my head and clutched my gym bag close. What an idiot I was to be so careless!
"Now, don't be stuck-up, sweet thing," he said. "I think you'd better get in the car."
The way he said it didn't sound like an invitation. It sounded like an order. Now I was really
afraid.
I clutched my gym bag close as I passed him.
"Don't ignore me," he hissed.
He reached for me and missed. I walked faster.
He was behind me.
I broke into a run.
He ran after me.
"Hey. Hey, there! Come back here."
I had been stupid going out alone. But fortunately, unlike most people, I wasn't helpless.
As I ran, I focused on something completely different. I concentrated on an image in my
mind.
Then I felt the change begin. My legs grew thick. My arms grew big, bigger. I could feel
myself growing large. Large and solid. I felt the squirmy sensation of my ears becoming thin
and leathery.
20
But it wasn't enough to just look creepy. This guy had made me mad. I wanted to scare him
half to death.
My nose suddenly began to sprout. Then, from my mouth, like two huge spears, the tusks
began to appear.
I figured that was about enough. I broke my concentration, which stopped the morph.
I stopped suddenly. The creep barreled right into me.
He was not going to like what he was about to see.
Chapter Five
I wanted to tell the jerk to step off. What I wanted to say to him was, "So, you still want to go
for that ride?"
What I really said was "HhhohhHEEEEERRR."
The guy stopped dead. He just stared.
What he saw was me, halfway through morphing into an African elephant. I had about a third
of a trunk and most of my huge fanlike elephant ears. My legs were like stumps. My arms
looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger's, only gray. And my tusks stuck about a foot out of my
mouth. Just to make things extra weird, I still had my normal hair and my normal eyes.
Suddenly, the guy wasn't interested in hassling me.
"AAAAAHHHH!"
He turned. He ran. For a minute he forgot he even had a car. Then he turned around and
jumped in through an open window.
He started the car and took off.
He was definitely breaking the speed limit as he tore out of there.
I concentrated again and began to reverse the morphing process, going back to human shape.
I had been wearing a loose sweater and leggings, which was good. They had both stretched.
But my shoes had been split open by the sudden growth of my elephant feet.
It had started raining, so the trip home was going to be very unpleasant. "Oh, great!" I
muttered.
"I have got to remember to kick off my shoes before I morph into an elephant."
Just then, a second car pulled up and came to a stop. The window rolled down.
"Hey, Rachel." It was Melissa. I recognized the voice. "Do you want a ride home?" She didn't
sound very excited by the idea.
I looked through the car window, past her. Chapman was behind the wheel.
A wave of sick fear swept over me. Had he seen what I'd just done? If he had, then I was
dead. My friends were dead.
"I'm ... I'm fine," I said. "I could use the exercise."
"Nonsense, young lady," Chapman said, sounding like his usual assistant-principal self. "It's
beginning to rain. Get in."
What was I supposed to do? I forced a smile. It wasn't easy. "Thanks," I said.
Melissa was in the front with her father. I sat in the back. I tried not to shiver. I tried not to
stare at the back of Chapman's head. That's how it is when you're around a Controller. You
22
know that evil slug is right there in the Controller's head, attached to all his nerve endings.
Controlling the human brain. Dominating it.
It's hard not to stare when you think of what is squeezed inside that skull.
"When we were stuck back at the red light it looked like some guy was bothering you,"
Melissa said. "Then he ran off. Was he bothering you?"
"Um . . . no," I lied. "He was . . . he was just picking up something he dropped by the side
of the road."
Pathetic! I was such a lame liar.
I saw Chapman's eyes watching me in the rearview mirror. He looked like normal old
Chapman. That's the problem with Controllers. There is no outward clue. They look so
normal.
"He went running off like the hounds of Hades were after him," Chapman said.
"Did he?" I said in a squeaky voice. "I wasn't looking. I guess it was the rain. That's probably
why he was running. There. You can turn left there."
"I know where you live," Chapman said.
I almost swallowed my tongue. Was that a threat? Did he suspect? Did he guess? Was he
looking at me strangely?
Or was I just being paranoid?
He pulled up in front of my house. My heart was hammering, but I was determined to act
casual. "Thanks for the ride, Mr. Chapman," I said. "Hey, Melissa, I was totally serious about
us getting together, okay?"
She nodded. "Sure, Rachel. Absolutely."
I closed the car door behind me. I had escaped. I was alive. I'd probably just been imagining
things.
Then I heard Melissa call out to me. "Hey. What happened to your shoes?"
I looked down. My shoes were in tatters, the result of my feet growing from a size six to a
size three hundred in about five seconds flat.
"See?" I said, as lightly as I could. "I told you I needed to go shopping."
Melissa just looked puzzled. Her father stared at me with an expression I could not read.
I was shaking like a leaf when I walked into my house. I headed upstairs to my room and
stuffed my ripped shoes into the trash. Only then did I go back downstairs and say hi to my
mom.
23
She was at the kitchen table, half hidden by a pile of buff-colored books. My mother's a
lawyer, and she brings work home a lot so she can be around me and my two little sisters.
She and my dad are divorced. I only get to see my dad a few days a month, so mom feels
guilty when she isn't there for us.
"Hi, honey," she said. Then she got her "suspicious mother" look. "How did you get home?
You didn't walk, did you? You were supposed to call me."
"Melissa and her dad gave me a ride," I said. Well, it was the truth. Sort of.
She relaxed and made a point of closing her book. "Sorry. You know I worry about you."
"Where are Jordan and Sara?"
"They're in the family room watching another one of those scary shows. Of course, tonight
Jordan will be sleeping with her night-light on and Sara will end up in my bed, no doubt. I
don't know why they like things that frighten them. You were never that way."
It almost made me laugh. I felt like saying, well, Mom, I don't have to watch things that are
scary, I am scary. Should have seen me a little while ago with tusks sticking out of my mouth
and a three-foot-long nose.
What I really said was, "So, what's for dinner?"
My mother winced. "Pizza? Chinese? Any thing else you can order over the phone? I'm
sorry, but I have this brief and I have court in the morning."
"Mom," I told her for maybe the thousandth time, "I don't mind pizza. Sorry, but your
cooking isn't all that great, so it's no big deal ordering pizza."
"Well, at least get some veggies on it," she said.
After dinner I called Jake.
"Do you want to come over?" I said. "I got that new CD, if you want to listen to it."
There was no CD, of course. It's just that we always have to be careful. Like I said, Jake's
brother, Tom, is a Controller. He could be listening on the extension. Then I called Cassie
and Marco and told them the same cover story.
When they arrived I told them about Melissa, and then I told them about my little run-in with
the creep. I did not tell them about Chapman driving me home. I don't know why. But when I
saw the way Marco exploded, I was glad I hadn't told them the whole story.
"Oh, that was dumb! Dumb! DUMB!" Marco said. "What if that guy is a Controller?"
"He wasn't a Controller," I said\ scornfully. "Why would the Yeerks want to make a
Controller out of a punk? They want people in positions of power."
"We don't know that for sure," Jake said. "Tom isn't in a position of power."
24
I wanted to tell the jerk to step off. What I wanted to say to him was, "So, you still want to go
for that ride?"
What I really said was "HhhohhHEEEEERRR."
The guy stopped dead. He just stared.
What he saw was me, halfway through morphing into an African elephant. I had about a third
of a trunk and most of my huge fanlike elephant ears. My legs were like stumps. My arms
looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger's, only gray. And my tusks stuck about a foot out of my
mouth. Just to make things extra weird, I still had my normal hair and my normal eyes.
Suddenly, the guy wasn't interested in hassling me.
"AAAAAHHHH!"
He turned. He ran. For a minute he forgot he even had a car. Then he turned around and
jumped in through an open window.
He started the car and took off.
He was definitely breaking the speed limit as he tore out of there.
I concentrated again and began to reverse the morphing process, going back to human shape.
I had been wearing a loose sweater and leggings, which was good. They had both stretched.
But my shoes had been split open by the sudden growth of my elephant feet.
It had started raining, so the trip home was going to be very unpleasant. "Oh, great!" I
muttered.
"I have got to remember to kick off my shoes before I morph into an elephant."
Just then, a second car pulled up and came to a stop. The window rolled down.
"Hey, Rachel." It was Melissa. I recognized the voice. "Do you want a ride home?" She didn't
sound very excited by the idea.
I looked through the car window, past her. Chapman was behind the wheel.
A wave of sick fear swept over me. Had he seen what I'd just done? If he had, then I was
dead. My friends were dead.
"I'm ... I'm fine," I said. "I could use the exercise."
"Nonsense, young lady," Chapman said, sounding like his usual assistant-principal self. "It's
beginning to rain. Get in."
What was I supposed to do? I forced a smile. It wasn't easy. "Thanks," I said.
Melissa was in the front with her father. I sat in the back. I tried not to shiver. I tried not to
stare at the back of Chapman's head. That's how it is when you're around a Controller. You
22
know that evil slug is right there in the Controller's head, attached to all his nerve endings.
Controlling the human brain. Dominating it.
It's hard not to stare when you think of what is squeezed inside that skull.
"When we were stuck back at the red light it looked like some guy was bothering you,"
Melissa said. "Then he ran off. Was he bothering you?"
"Um . . . no," I lied. "He was . . . he was just picking up something he dropped by the side
of the road."
Pathetic! I was such a lame liar.
I saw Chapman's eyes watching me in the rearview mirror. He looked like normal old
Chapman. That's the problem with Controllers. There is no outward clue. They look so
normal.
"He went running off like the hounds of Hades were after him," Chapman said.
"Did he?" I said in a squeaky voice. "I wasn't looking. I guess it was the rain. That's probably
why he was running. There. You can turn left there."
"I know where you live," Chapman said.
I almost swallowed my tongue. Was that a threat? Did he suspect? Did he guess? Was he
looking at me strangely?
Or was I just being paranoid?
He pulled up in front of my house. My heart was hammering, but I was determined to act
casual. "Thanks for the ride, Mr. Chapman," I said. "Hey, Melissa, I was totally serious about
us getting together, okay?"
She nodded. "Sure, Rachel. Absolutely."
I closed the car door behind me. I had escaped. I was alive. I'd probably just been imagining
things.
Then I heard Melissa call out to me. "Hey. What happened to your shoes?"
I looked down. My shoes were in tatters, the result of my feet growing from a size six to a
size three hundred in about five seconds flat.
"See?" I said, as lightly as I could. "I told you I needed to go shopping."
Melissa just looked puzzled. Her father stared at me with an expression I could not read.
I was shaking like a leaf when I walked into my house. I headed upstairs to my room and
stuffed my ripped shoes into the trash. Only then did I go back downstairs and say hi to my
mom.
23
She was at the kitchen table, half hidden by a pile of buff-colored books. My mother's a
lawyer, and she brings work home a lot so she can be around me and my two little sisters.
She and my dad are divorced. I only get to see my dad a few days a month, so mom feels
guilty when she isn't there for us.
"Hi, honey," she said. Then she got her "suspicious mother" look. "How did you get home?
You didn't walk, did you? You were supposed to call me."
"Melissa and her dad gave me a ride," I said. Well, it was the truth. Sort of.
She relaxed and made a point of closing her book. "Sorry. You know I worry about you."
"Where are Jordan and Sara?"
"They're in the family room watching another one of those scary shows. Of course, tonight
Jordan will be sleeping with her night-light on and Sara will end up in my bed, no doubt. I
don't know why they like things that frighten them. You were never that way."
It almost made me laugh. I felt like saying, well, Mom, I don't have to watch things that are
scary, I am scary. Should have seen me a little while ago with tusks sticking out of my mouth
and a three-foot-long nose.
What I really said was, "So, what's for dinner?"
My mother winced. "Pizza? Chinese? Any thing else you can order over the phone? I'm
sorry, but I have this brief and I have court in the morning."
"Mom," I told her for maybe the thousandth time, "I don't mind pizza. Sorry, but your
cooking isn't all that great, so it's no big deal ordering pizza."
"Well, at least get some veggies on it," she said.
After dinner I called Jake.
"Do you want to come over?" I said. "I got that new CD, if you want to listen to it."
There was no CD, of course. It's just that we always have to be careful. Like I said, Jake's
brother, Tom, is a Controller. He could be listening on the extension. Then I called Cassie
and Marco and told them the same cover story.
When they arrived I told them about Melissa, and then I told them about my little run-in with
the creep. I did not tell them about Chapman driving me home. I don't know why. But when I
saw the way Marco exploded, I was glad I hadn't told them the whole story.
"Oh, that was dumb! Dumb! DUMB!" Marco said. "What if that guy is a Controller?"
"He wasn't a Controller," I said\ scornfully. "Why would the Yeerks want to make a
Controller out of a punk? They want people in positions of power."
"We don't know that for sure," Jake said. "Tom isn't in a position of power."
24
"And how about people driving by in their cars, or looking out of the windows of their
homes?" Marco asked. "And what if he runs and tells someone about this girl who suddenly
sprouted a trunk and tusks?"
"No one is going to believe a lowlife like that," I said.
"His friends won't believe him," Marco said poisonously, "but a Controller would believe
him. A Controller would know what it meant."
Yes. A Controller would know what it meant. A Controller like Chapman. Or even Melissa,
if she was one of them.
I felt sick. It was like my whole life was nothing but lies. Lies to Melissa. Lies to my mother.
Now I was lying by not telling the others the whole truth.
"Okay, I screwed up," I muttered.
"You sure did!" Marco crowed. "You screwed up so --"
"Marco, let it drop," Jake said. "Rachel knows she made a mistake. We all make mistakes."
Marco rolled his eyes.
Cassie gave me an encouraging smile. "It was dumb putting yourself in that position, Rachel.
You need to be more careful. But still, I'd have paid my next ten allowances to see the look
on that guy's face."
"The important thing is that it doesn't sound like Rachel can use Melissa to get close to
Chapman," Jake said. "Not if she's a Controller herself. And not if she's going to continue
being weird to Rachel."
"I guess we'll have to find another way," I said quickly. "I mean, we know where Chapman's
office is. We know where his house is. Maybe we could just morph into some small animals
and hide out."
"Small animals like what?" Marco asked. "When Jake turned into a lizard he got stepped on.
He lost his tail. Besides, what are you going to morph into? A cockroach?"
We all shuddered at the thought. The smallest, strangest thing anyone had morphed so far
was when Jake had done the lizard. It creeped him out big time. A roach would be even
worse.
"The problem with being a cockroach," I said, "aside from the fact that it is too gross to
believe, is that roach senses might not even be useful to us. Can a roach "hear" in a way that
would make it possible for us to understand what we're hearing?"
We all looked at Cassie. She's sort of our expert on animals.
Cassie held up her hands. "Oh, come on. Like I know how a cockroach sees and hears? We
don't take care of roaches at the rehab clinic."
25
We all sat there feeling glum for a few minutes. But I wasn't going to let it drop. This was
about more than just striking a blow at the Yeerks. I had to find out if Chapman suspected
me. If he did, we were all in terrible danger.
I happened to glance over at my desk. There was my math homework, still not done. That
didn't make me feel any better. But then I looked at the photos I had mounted in one of those
big frames with six different holes. One was of me with my mom and dad on a whitewater
rafting trip we took. One was of me visiting my dad at his job -- he's a weatherman on TV.
We were grinning in front of a map of storms. Another picture was of Cassie and me riding
horses side by side, with Cassie, as usual, looking like she'd spent her entire life in the saddle,
and me looking like a total dweeb.
But the picture that got my attention was one taken a couple of years ago of Melissa and
me.
I got up and went over to take the frame down.
I stared hard at the picture.
"What?" Jake asked. "What is it?"
"It's me and Melissa," I said. "It was like her twelfth birthday, or some birthday, anyway, and
we were out on her lawn playing with the present her dad gave her."
"So what?" Marco asked.
"So ..." I passed him the photograph. It showed me and Melissa in shorts. And between us a
small black-and-white kitten. "So her present was a cat."
homes?" Marco asked. "And what if he runs and tells someone about this girl who suddenly
sprouted a trunk and tusks?"
"No one is going to believe a lowlife like that," I said.
"His friends won't believe him," Marco said poisonously, "but a Controller would believe
him. A Controller would know what it meant."
Yes. A Controller would know what it meant. A Controller like Chapman. Or even Melissa,
if she was one of them.
I felt sick. It was like my whole life was nothing but lies. Lies to Melissa. Lies to my mother.
Now I was lying by not telling the others the whole truth.
"Okay, I screwed up," I muttered.
"You sure did!" Marco crowed. "You screwed up so --"
"Marco, let it drop," Jake said. "Rachel knows she made a mistake. We all make mistakes."
Marco rolled his eyes.
Cassie gave me an encouraging smile. "It was dumb putting yourself in that position, Rachel.
You need to be more careful. But still, I'd have paid my next ten allowances to see the look
on that guy's face."
"The important thing is that it doesn't sound like Rachel can use Melissa to get close to
Chapman," Jake said. "Not if she's a Controller herself. And not if she's going to continue
being weird to Rachel."
"I guess we'll have to find another way," I said quickly. "I mean, we know where Chapman's
office is. We know where his house is. Maybe we could just morph into some small animals
and hide out."
"Small animals like what?" Marco asked. "When Jake turned into a lizard he got stepped on.
He lost his tail. Besides, what are you going to morph into? A cockroach?"
We all shuddered at the thought. The smallest, strangest thing anyone had morphed so far
was when Jake had done the lizard. It creeped him out big time. A roach would be even
worse.
"The problem with being a cockroach," I said, "aside from the fact that it is too gross to
believe, is that roach senses might not even be useful to us. Can a roach "hear" in a way that
would make it possible for us to understand what we're hearing?"
We all looked at Cassie. She's sort of our expert on animals.
Cassie held up her hands. "Oh, come on. Like I know how a cockroach sees and hears? We
don't take care of roaches at the rehab clinic."
25
We all sat there feeling glum for a few minutes. But I wasn't going to let it drop. This was
about more than just striking a blow at the Yeerks. I had to find out if Chapman suspected
me. If he did, we were all in terrible danger.
I happened to glance over at my desk. There was my math homework, still not done. That
didn't make me feel any better. But then I looked at the photos I had mounted in one of those
big frames with six different holes. One was of me with my mom and dad on a whitewater
rafting trip we took. One was of me visiting my dad at his job -- he's a weatherman on TV.
We were grinning in front of a map of storms. Another picture was of Cassie and me riding
horses side by side, with Cassie, as usual, looking like she'd spent her entire life in the saddle,
and me looking like a total dweeb.
But the picture that got my attention was one taken a couple of years ago of Melissa and
me.
I got up and went over to take the frame down.
I stared hard at the picture.
"What?" Jake asked. "What is it?"
"It's me and Melissa," I said. "It was like her twelfth birthday, or some birthday, anyway, and
we were out on her lawn playing with the present her dad gave her."
"So what?" Marco asked.
"So ..." I passed him the photograph. It showed me and Melissa in shorts. And between us a
small black-and-white kitten. "So her present was a cat."
Chapter Six
"Look! A kitty door!" Jake pointed.
"Where?" Marco asked.
"See the lines of light? At the bottom of the regular door?"
"Oh, yeah," Marco said. "I wish the moon were out. I can't see a thing."
The four of us were cowering behind a hedge that bordered the Chapmans' lawn. They lived
in a pretty normal-looking suburban home. You know: two stories, a garage, a lawn. Nothing
to make you think that the person who lived there was part of a huge alien conspiracy to take
over the world.
"Let me just ask you this," Marco whispered. "Why did it have to be Chapman? I was afraid
of Chapman even before we found out he was a Controller."
"You're not still upset over that detention he gave you?" I asked. "Look, if you're going to
listen to your CD player in math class with an earphone hidden under your hair, you have to
remember not to start singing along."
"Yeah, that was only slightly stupid, Marco," Jake agreed.
"I still say Chapman never would have given me a whole week's detention if he was totally
human."
"I have a question," Cassie said. "How do we get Melissa's cat to come outside?"
We all looked at her.
"Good question," I admitted.
"I mean, we could hide here in the bushes for a long time. But sooner or later the neighbors
are going to notice."
<What does the cat look like?>
Tobias was sitting perched on a nearby tree branch. He was close enough to hear us.
I tried to remember. "It's name is Fluffer, I remember that much. Fluffer McKitty."
"You've got to be kidding." Marco, of course.
I tried to remember back to when I used to hang out with Melissa. "It's black and white. You
know, in patches."
<l'll look around. Maybe it's already outside. >
Tobias spread his wings, swooped silently down over our heads, and flapped away into the
night.
27
"Look! A kitty door!" Jake pointed.
"Where?" Marco asked.
"See the lines of light? At the bottom of the regular door?"
"Oh, yeah," Marco said. "I wish the moon were out. I can't see a thing."
The four of us were cowering behind a hedge that bordered the Chapmans' lawn. They lived
in a pretty normal-looking suburban home. You know: two stories, a garage, a lawn. Nothing
to make you think that the person who lived there was part of a huge alien conspiracy to take
over the world.
"Let me just ask you this," Marco whispered. "Why did it have to be Chapman? I was afraid
of Chapman even before we found out he was a Controller."
"You're not still upset over that detention he gave you?" I asked. "Look, if you're going to
listen to your CD player in math class with an earphone hidden under your hair, you have to
remember not to start singing along."
"Yeah, that was only slightly stupid, Marco," Jake agreed.
"I still say Chapman never would have given me a whole week's detention if he was totally
human."
"I have a question," Cassie said. "How do we get Melissa's cat to come outside?"
We all looked at her.
"Good question," I admitted.
"I mean, we could hide here in the bushes for a long time. But sooner or later the neighbors
are going to notice."
<What does the cat look like?>
Tobias was sitting perched on a nearby tree branch. He was close enough to hear us.
I tried to remember. "It's name is Fluffer, I remember that much. Fluffer McKitty."
"You've got to be kidding." Marco, of course.
I tried to remember back to when I used to hang out with Melissa. "It's black and white. You
know, in patches."
<l'll look around. Maybe it's already outside. >
Tobias spread his wings, swooped silently down over our heads, and flapped away into the
night.
27
You know what we need?" I said. "We need another kitty. We should have thought of that.
Then we could have the second cat call out to Fluffer."
Marco turned to stare at me. "Meowfluffer, comeoutmeow, meow come and play meow?"
"Tobias morphed a cat very early on, didn't he?" I asked.
"Yeah," Jake said. "His first morph. The first morph any of us did."
"Rachel, you need to remember if you go in there tonight that you have to stay in cat
character," Cassie said.
"Most people would just think it was weird if a cat acted strangely. But Chapman may be
able to guess what's going on if Fluffer suddenly starts acting un-catlike."
"So you're saying I shouldn't try eating with a fork or changing the channels on the TV?"
Everyone laughed -- quietly and nervously, but it was laughter just the same.
Suddenly Tobias dropped out of the sky, then drifted over us in a lazy circle and called
down, <Got him. >
He settled back on the branch. He was really an amazing animal, when you just looked at him
as a bird and didn't think about him being a boy trapped in there. I mean, the gaze of a hawk
when it is looking right at you is incredibly intimidating.
Gentle Tobias now had an expression that looked totally ferocious.
"You're kidding. You found Fluffer?" I asked.
<Hey, it's easy. Spotting prey is what I do. Or what a hawk does, anyway. Actually, there are
maybe six or eight cats running around the neighborhood. Also, three dogs and an amazing
amount of rats and mice.>
"Rats?" That got Marco's attention. "Rats? Here? This is suburbia. I mean, it's a lot better
than where I live. They have rats?"
<There are rats everywhere,> Tobias said. <Rats and mice and all kinds of plump, juicy . . .>
He fell silent, embarrassed.
"Get a grip, Tobias," Marco said. "Don't start eating rats, all right? I don't know if I can have
someone who eats rats for a friend."
Sometimes Marco is funny. Sometimes he goes too far. This was one of those times. "Shut
up, Marco," I growled.
"I ate a live spider," Jake pointed out. "Does that mean you and I can't be friends?" From his
tone of voice I could tell he was angry, too.
None of us knew what Tobias was going through.
28
None of us had ever been in morph for more than two hours. Tobias had been a hawk for
more than a week.
Marco realized he'd been a jerk. "Well, yeah, I guess you're right," he muttered. "Besides, I've
been known to eat eggplant. So I guess I can't criticize."
That was an apology, or as close as Marco could get to an actual apology.
<The cat we're looking for is just a half block away,> Tobias said. <Follow me. >
He flew off, but kept low. We took off after him. Even flying at minimum speed, Tobias was
too fast for us to keep up with, so he had to circle back again and again. We had a hard time
keeping him in sight.
"This doesn't look too strange," Cassie joked. "The four of us running down the street looking
up in the sky."
<There,> Tobias called down. <See that yard with the two trees?>
"Yeah. Just to our left?"
<That's the one. The cat you're looking for is stalking a mouse, right behind the trunk of the
nearest tree. >
"Okay, we can't all go traipsing over some stranger's yard," I pointed out. "I'll go with Cassie.
"
Marco held up the kitty carrier we had brought along. "Don't you need this?"
"Not yet. I'll grab Flutter and bring him back over here. You two guys just stand here,
looking casual."
Cassie and I stepped onto the lawn. The house was dark. Maybe no one was home. That
would be good.
"Go left," I suggested to Cassie. We circled the tree.
"Hey, Flutter," I said in a high, talking-to- animals voice. "Here, kitty kitty. Remember me?"
"There he is."
"I see him." I squatted down and held my hand out toward the cat. "Hey, Fluffer Fluffer. It's
me, Rachel."
Flutter flattened his ears back along his skull. He looked from me to Cassie and back again.
"Come on, Flutter, it's me. Come on, boy."
"He's a male? He's a tomcat?" Cassie asked.
"Yeah, I think so."
29
"Oh, wonderful," Cassie moaned. "Please tell me he's been fixed, at least."
"Have you been fixed, Flutter McKitty?" I cooed. "Why do we care?" I asked Cassie.
"Because pound for pound, a tomcat is like one of the toughest, most dangerous little things
around."
"Who, Flutter? My little kitty friend Flutter?"
"Even if he is fixed, a male cat, out at night in hunting mode?" Cassie shook her head. "We
should have worn gloves."
"Oh, come on. He's a sweet kitty cat." To demonstrate just how sweet Flutter was, I reached a
hand for him.
"Hhhhhhssssss!"
In a movement too fast for my human eyes to see, Fluffer swiped out with one paw. Three
bloody scratches appeared on the back of my hand and Fluffer shot straight up the tree.
"Owww!" I stuck my injured hand to my mouth.
"Gloves would definitely have been a good idea," Cassie said.
"How are you guys doing?" Jake whispered, just loudly enough for me to hear him.
"Wonderful," I said through gritted teeth. "I'm bleeding and Fluffer is up the tree."
I heard Marco giggle. I expected that. But then I heard Jake giggling, too.
I looked up and saw two glittering yellow- green eyes glaring down from the dark tree.
"This was supposed to be the easy part," I said. "I figured, okay, we go and acquire
Flutter's DNA, and then the hard stuff begins."
"We have a cat up a tree," Cassie said dolefully. "You know how hard it is to get a cat
down out of a tree?"
"I have a plan," I said. "Tobias, are you up there?"
<Right above you. But I'm not going to try and snatch an angry tomcat down out of a tree. >
"That's not what I was going to ask," I said. I took a deep breath. This night was turning
weird real fast. "What I need is a mouse."
30
Then we could have the second cat call out to Fluffer."
Marco turned to stare at me. "Meowfluffer, comeoutmeow, meow come and play meow?"
"Tobias morphed a cat very early on, didn't he?" I asked.
"Yeah," Jake said. "His first morph. The first morph any of us did."
"Rachel, you need to remember if you go in there tonight that you have to stay in cat
character," Cassie said.
"Most people would just think it was weird if a cat acted strangely. But Chapman may be
able to guess what's going on if Fluffer suddenly starts acting un-catlike."
"So you're saying I shouldn't try eating with a fork or changing the channels on the TV?"
Everyone laughed -- quietly and nervously, but it was laughter just the same.
Suddenly Tobias dropped out of the sky, then drifted over us in a lazy circle and called
down, <Got him. >
He settled back on the branch. He was really an amazing animal, when you just looked at him
as a bird and didn't think about him being a boy trapped in there. I mean, the gaze of a hawk
when it is looking right at you is incredibly intimidating.
Gentle Tobias now had an expression that looked totally ferocious.
"You're kidding. You found Fluffer?" I asked.
<Hey, it's easy. Spotting prey is what I do. Or what a hawk does, anyway. Actually, there are
maybe six or eight cats running around the neighborhood. Also, three dogs and an amazing
amount of rats and mice.>
"Rats?" That got Marco's attention. "Rats? Here? This is suburbia. I mean, it's a lot better
than where I live. They have rats?"
<There are rats everywhere,> Tobias said. <Rats and mice and all kinds of plump, juicy . . .>
He fell silent, embarrassed.
"Get a grip, Tobias," Marco said. "Don't start eating rats, all right? I don't know if I can have
someone who eats rats for a friend."
Sometimes Marco is funny. Sometimes he goes too far. This was one of those times. "Shut
up, Marco," I growled.
"I ate a live spider," Jake pointed out. "Does that mean you and I can't be friends?" From his
tone of voice I could tell he was angry, too.
None of us knew what Tobias was going through.
28
None of us had ever been in morph for more than two hours. Tobias had been a hawk for
more than a week.
Marco realized he'd been a jerk. "Well, yeah, I guess you're right," he muttered. "Besides, I've
been known to eat eggplant. So I guess I can't criticize."
That was an apology, or as close as Marco could get to an actual apology.
<The cat we're looking for is just a half block away,> Tobias said. <Follow me. >
He flew off, but kept low. We took off after him. Even flying at minimum speed, Tobias was
too fast for us to keep up with, so he had to circle back again and again. We had a hard time
keeping him in sight.
"This doesn't look too strange," Cassie joked. "The four of us running down the street looking
up in the sky."
<There,> Tobias called down. <See that yard with the two trees?>
"Yeah. Just to our left?"
<That's the one. The cat you're looking for is stalking a mouse, right behind the trunk of the
nearest tree. >
"Okay, we can't all go traipsing over some stranger's yard," I pointed out. "I'll go with Cassie.
"
Marco held up the kitty carrier we had brought along. "Don't you need this?"
"Not yet. I'll grab Flutter and bring him back over here. You two guys just stand here,
looking casual."
Cassie and I stepped onto the lawn. The house was dark. Maybe no one was home. That
would be good.
"Go left," I suggested to Cassie. We circled the tree.
"Hey, Flutter," I said in a high, talking-to- animals voice. "Here, kitty kitty. Remember me?"
"There he is."
"I see him." I squatted down and held my hand out toward the cat. "Hey, Fluffer Fluffer. It's
me, Rachel."
Flutter flattened his ears back along his skull. He looked from me to Cassie and back again.
"Come on, Flutter, it's me. Come on, boy."
"He's a male? He's a tomcat?" Cassie asked.
"Yeah, I think so."
29
"Oh, wonderful," Cassie moaned. "Please tell me he's been fixed, at least."
"Have you been fixed, Flutter McKitty?" I cooed. "Why do we care?" I asked Cassie.
"Because pound for pound, a tomcat is like one of the toughest, most dangerous little things
around."
"Who, Flutter? My little kitty friend Flutter?"
"Even if he is fixed, a male cat, out at night in hunting mode?" Cassie shook her head. "We
should have worn gloves."
"Oh, come on. He's a sweet kitty cat." To demonstrate just how sweet Flutter was, I reached a
hand for him.
"Hhhhhhssssss!"
In a movement too fast for my human eyes to see, Fluffer swiped out with one paw. Three
bloody scratches appeared on the back of my hand and Fluffer shot straight up the tree.
"Owww!" I stuck my injured hand to my mouth.
"Gloves would definitely have been a good idea," Cassie said.
"How are you guys doing?" Jake whispered, just loudly enough for me to hear him.
"Wonderful," I said through gritted teeth. "I'm bleeding and Fluffer is up the tree."
I heard Marco giggle. I expected that. But then I heard Jake giggling, too.
I looked up and saw two glittering yellow- green eyes glaring down from the dark tree.
"This was supposed to be the easy part," I said. "I figured, okay, we go and acquire
Flutter's DNA, and then the hard stuff begins."
"We have a cat up a tree," Cassie said dolefully. "You know how hard it is to get a cat
down out of a tree?"
"I have a plan," I said. "Tobias, are you up there?"
<Right above you. But I'm not going to try and snatch an angry tomcat down out of a tree. >
"That's not what I was going to ask," I said. I took a deep breath. This night was turning
weird real fast. "What I need is a mouse."
30
Chapter Seven
<Got something for you. A baby mouse. A mean baby mouse. It keeps trying to bite me.>
Tobias flew in a low, tight circle overhead, disappearing behind the tree branches, then
reappearing. <Are you ready?>
I took a deep breath. I gave him a wave. Sure, I was ready. Why wouldn't I be ready to have a
hawk hand me a mouse? Just your normal kind of thing to deal with.
Tobias flew low and slow. I held out my hands, cupped together. With amazing precision and
perfect timing, he deposited the mouse in my hands.
"Don't let it bite you!" Cassie warned. "Rabies."
"Wonderful," I muttered. "Just one more fun aspect of this night." Actually, I was glad for the
warning. The mouse was squirming in terror, trying to get away. I could feel its tiny little
mouse legs scrabbling against my palms.
"You should all get rabies shots," Cassie said. "Seriously. I already have mine. But if we're
going to be handling wild animals ... In the mean time, be careful to keep his teeth away from
you."
"I wasn't planning on feeding him my finger," I said.
"Hey, wait." Cassie pried open my hands to get a better look. "That's not a mouse. That's a
shrew. See the eyes? They're too small. And the tail is wrong. That's not a baby mouse,
Tobias, it's a full-grown shrew."
<Sorry. Is that bad?>
Cassie shrugged. "I don't know. I just know it isn't a mouse."
"Wait a minute," Marco said, beginning to grin. "Rachel is going to become a shrew?
How will we know when she's changed? How do you become what you already are?"
Everyone was too nervous to find the joke very funny. We felt kind of stupid, standing
around on some stranger's lawn playing with rodents. I mean, there are times when the whole
thing just seems so utterly insane, you know?
"Okay, I have to concentrate on acquiring, so everyone shut up," I said.
Acquiring is what we call it when we absorb a sample of the animal's DNA. The DNA is the
stuff inside the cells that sort of serves like a how-to manual for making the animal.
When you acquire, you have to think hard about the animal, focusing on it and blocking
everything else out. Then the animal kind of goes limp, like it's in a trance. It takes just about
a minute.
It was easy to focus on the shrew, what with it squealing in terror and squirming to get out of
my hand.
31
But it was gross, definitely gross. I know there's nothing really wrong with shrews, but still.
They freak me out a little.
When I was done, I opened my eyes. "Okay, little shrew, thanks for your help. You can go
now."
"I'm not sure this is a good idea," Jake said doubtfully.
"Really?" Marco was sarcastic. "You're not sure it's a good idea for Rachel to turn into a
shrew in order to lure a vicious cat down from a tree so she can morph into that cat and sneak
into the assistant principal's house? What worries you about that plan?"
Cassie looked worried, too. "You know, Rachel, usually a cat will play with a mouse a little
bit.
But sometimes they don't. Sometimes they go right for the neck bite. The mouse -- or the
shrew -- dies instantly."
<Be careful, Rachel,> Tobias said. <I'll be watching, but be careful. I don't want anything to
happen to you.>
He "said" it so only I could hear. I could tell, because nobody else reacted.
I looked up at Tobias and winked. I knew he would see it. I rubbed my hands together.
"Okay,
let's do this."
I concentrated once more on the shrew. The shrew was now a part of me. I don't know how it
works, but it does. Somehow, thanks to the Andalite technology, the DNA of that shrew was
stored away inside me. It was like having a map to guide me as I transformed. Not that I had
a clue how I was able to do it.
The first sensation was of shrinking. It's a long, long trip down from being five feet tall to
being less than an inch tall. It's like falling. Except that you can feel the ground under your
feet the whole time.
One minute I was looking Jake and Marco and Cassie in the face. The next minute their faces
seemed to be zooming high up above me. I was falling down the length of their bodies. It was
like they were huge skyscrapers and I had jumped off the roof or something.
My outer clothing fell around me like a big, collapsing circus tent.
It made a slight grinding noise as my backbone collapsed into a size smaller than my little
finger. There was the disturbing, not-quite-pain sensation that goes along with some morphs.
Like you knew it should hurt, but it didn't quite.
I could feel the tail sprout from my tailbone. A long, hairless tail. Not at all attractive.
My legs practically disappeared, they were so small. I was a chubby little ball of fur no more
than two inches long, with four tiny feet.
32
Then the fear kicked in. The shrew's fear.
It hit me so hard I began to shake. I rattled with terror. I quaked with terror.
I was surrounded! Predators everywhere! I could smell them. I could see them -- huge,
looming, slow-moving creatures standing over me.
"Rachel? You okay down there?" It was Cassie . She lifted the folds of my clothing off of
me.
I heard the voice and sort of understood it, but it was more like distant thunder. It didn't really
mean anything. At least not to the shrew.
It was looking for a way out. Its brain might have been terrified, but it was also amazingly
smart. It was evaluating every possible escape route. It was measuring the distance between
the three sets of legs. One set of legs moved slightly. I was off like a shot.
Running! Running!
Blades of grass seemed six feet tall. Twigs were like fallen trees that I had to scramble over.
My little feet moved with incredible speed. I scooted past a beetle that seemed to me to be as
big as a dog.
"Rachel, you have to get control!"
I knew they were right. I even sort of understood what they meant. But the terror was so
strong. The urge to survive was so powerful.
And at the same time there were other feelings. Hunger. I smelled nuts. I smelled dead flesh.
I even smelled the maggots squirming on the dead flesh.
And I wanted them. I know it's too gross, but I wanted to eat those maggots.
Heavy pounding footsteps behind me! I turned sharply and ducked under a bush. The steps
went barreling by before stopping and turning back toward me.
They were faster than I was, but not as agile. I could get away. I could get away and find that
dead smell and gorge!
<Rachel, it's Tobias. The shrew is in control. You have to assert yourself! Tell it
to stop running.>
Fear! Hunger!
<Rachel, listen to me. You're getting away from us. You have to take charge. >
Fear! Hunger! Run!
Grass and twigs and dirt. Low scratchy branches over my head. The smell of food. The smell
of a dog that had urinated on this bush.
33
More loud footsteps and far-off rumbling voices yelling. They were trying to catch me. But I
was fast!
I was clever!
But not clever enough. I ran out from under the bush.
Like a shadow inside of a shadow, I felt it descend on me. Terror like nothing I'd felt before
swept over me. Something deep, deep inside my shrew brain cried out.
It was the ultimate fear! The ultimate horror! It was the enemy I could not defeat!
And it was coming for me!
<Got something for you. A baby mouse. A mean baby mouse. It keeps trying to bite me.>
Tobias flew in a low, tight circle overhead, disappearing behind the tree branches, then
reappearing. <Are you ready?>
I took a deep breath. I gave him a wave. Sure, I was ready. Why wouldn't I be ready to have a
hawk hand me a mouse? Just your normal kind of thing to deal with.
Tobias flew low and slow. I held out my hands, cupped together. With amazing precision and
perfect timing, he deposited the mouse in my hands.
"Don't let it bite you!" Cassie warned. "Rabies."
"Wonderful," I muttered. "Just one more fun aspect of this night." Actually, I was glad for the
warning. The mouse was squirming in terror, trying to get away. I could feel its tiny little
mouse legs scrabbling against my palms.
"You should all get rabies shots," Cassie said. "Seriously. I already have mine. But if we're
going to be handling wild animals ... In the mean time, be careful to keep his teeth away from
you."
"I wasn't planning on feeding him my finger," I said.
"Hey, wait." Cassie pried open my hands to get a better look. "That's not a mouse. That's a
shrew. See the eyes? They're too small. And the tail is wrong. That's not a baby mouse,
Tobias, it's a full-grown shrew."
<Sorry. Is that bad?>
Cassie shrugged. "I don't know. I just know it isn't a mouse."
"Wait a minute," Marco said, beginning to grin. "Rachel is going to become a shrew?
How will we know when she's changed? How do you become what you already are?"
Everyone was too nervous to find the joke very funny. We felt kind of stupid, standing
around on some stranger's lawn playing with rodents. I mean, there are times when the whole
thing just seems so utterly insane, you know?
"Okay, I have to concentrate on acquiring, so everyone shut up," I said.
Acquiring is what we call it when we absorb a sample of the animal's DNA. The DNA is the
stuff inside the cells that sort of serves like a how-to manual for making the animal.
When you acquire, you have to think hard about the animal, focusing on it and blocking
everything else out. Then the animal kind of goes limp, like it's in a trance. It takes just about
a minute.
It was easy to focus on the shrew, what with it squealing in terror and squirming to get out of
my hand.
31
But it was gross, definitely gross. I know there's nothing really wrong with shrews, but still.
They freak me out a little.
When I was done, I opened my eyes. "Okay, little shrew, thanks for your help. You can go
now."
"I'm not sure this is a good idea," Jake said doubtfully.
"Really?" Marco was sarcastic. "You're not sure it's a good idea for Rachel to turn into a
shrew in order to lure a vicious cat down from a tree so she can morph into that cat and sneak
into the assistant principal's house? What worries you about that plan?"
Cassie looked worried, too. "You know, Rachel, usually a cat will play with a mouse a little
bit.
But sometimes they don't. Sometimes they go right for the neck bite. The mouse -- or the
shrew -- dies instantly."
<Be careful, Rachel,> Tobias said. <I'll be watching, but be careful. I don't want anything to
happen to you.>
He "said" it so only I could hear. I could tell, because nobody else reacted.
I looked up at Tobias and winked. I knew he would see it. I rubbed my hands together.
"Okay,
let's do this."
I concentrated once more on the shrew. The shrew was now a part of me. I don't know how it
works, but it does. Somehow, thanks to the Andalite technology, the DNA of that shrew was
stored away inside me. It was like having a map to guide me as I transformed. Not that I had
a clue how I was able to do it.
The first sensation was of shrinking. It's a long, long trip down from being five feet tall to
being less than an inch tall. It's like falling. Except that you can feel the ground under your
feet the whole time.
One minute I was looking Jake and Marco and Cassie in the face. The next minute their faces
seemed to be zooming high up above me. I was falling down the length of their bodies. It was
like they were huge skyscrapers and I had jumped off the roof or something.
My outer clothing fell around me like a big, collapsing circus tent.
It made a slight grinding noise as my backbone collapsed into a size smaller than my little
finger. There was the disturbing, not-quite-pain sensation that goes along with some morphs.
Like you knew it should hurt, but it didn't quite.
I could feel the tail sprout from my tailbone. A long, hairless tail. Not at all attractive.
My legs practically disappeared, they were so small. I was a chubby little ball of fur no more
than two inches long, with four tiny feet.
32
Then the fear kicked in. The shrew's fear.
It hit me so hard I began to shake. I rattled with terror. I quaked with terror.
I was surrounded! Predators everywhere! I could smell them. I could see them -- huge,
looming, slow-moving creatures standing over me.
"Rachel? You okay down there?" It was Cassie . She lifted the folds of my clothing off of
me.
I heard the voice and sort of understood it, but it was more like distant thunder. It didn't really
mean anything. At least not to the shrew.
It was looking for a way out. Its brain might have been terrified, but it was also amazingly
smart. It was evaluating every possible escape route. It was measuring the distance between
the three sets of legs. One set of legs moved slightly. I was off like a shot.
Running! Running!
Blades of grass seemed six feet tall. Twigs were like fallen trees that I had to scramble over.
My little feet moved with incredible speed. I scooted past a beetle that seemed to me to be as
big as a dog.
"Rachel, you have to get control!"
I knew they were right. I even sort of understood what they meant. But the terror was so
strong. The urge to survive was so powerful.
And at the same time there were other feelings. Hunger. I smelled nuts. I smelled dead flesh.
I even smelled the maggots squirming on the dead flesh.
And I wanted them. I know it's too gross, but I wanted to eat those maggots.
Heavy pounding footsteps behind me! I turned sharply and ducked under a bush. The steps
went barreling by before stopping and turning back toward me.
They were faster than I was, but not as agile. I could get away. I could get away and find that
dead smell and gorge!
<Rachel, it's Tobias. The shrew is in control. You have to assert yourself! Tell it
to stop running.>
Fear! Hunger!
<Rachel, listen to me. You're getting away from us. You have to take charge. >
Fear! Hunger! Run!
Grass and twigs and dirt. Low scratchy branches over my head. The smell of food. The smell
of a dog that had urinated on this bush.
33
More loud footsteps and far-off rumbling voices yelling. They were trying to catch me. But I
was fast!
I was clever!
But not clever enough. I ran out from under the bush.
Like a shadow inside of a shadow, I felt it descend on me. Terror like nothing I'd felt before
swept over me. Something deep, deep inside my shrew brain cried out.
It was the ultimate fear! The ultimate horror! It was the enemy I could not defeat!
And it was coming for me!
Chapter Eight
I dodged, but too slowly. Huge talons closed around me and suddenly my little feet were
running in air.
<Okay, Rachel. It's okay. It's just me. I have you. >
The voice was in my head. I understood the words. It cut through the terror at last. I held onto
that voice.
<Relax, Rachel. >
I looked down and with my dim shrew eyesight saw the shadows shooting past down below.
<I have you, Rachel. Try to be calm. Think about something human. Think about school.
Remember school?>
School? Yes. I remembered school.
Quite suddenly the shrew mind lost the battle for control. It was like a switch had been
flipped. I was in charge. I knew what I was. I knew who I was.
<I'm okay, Tobias,> I said. <You can set me down.>
He circled around and landed with perfect gentleness on the ground.
<Did my talons hurt you?>
<No. I don't think so. I'm fine. >
"You okay, Rachel?" Jake's voice.
<Yes. Boy, that was totally different than the elephant brain. Or the eagle. They're both so
calm and mellow compared to this mind. >
"It's like Jake's lizard," Cassie suggested. "He had a panic reaction, too. The other animals we
morphed were all kind of big, dominant animals -- gorilla, tiger. My horse was skittish,
though."
<Look, let's just do this and get it over with, okay?> I said. <I'm not enjoying the shrew
experience.> That was the understatement of all time. I could still smell death and hear the
thousands of feasting maggots. And to me those things still meant dinner. I was horribly
hungry.
"Are you sure you're going to be able to maintain down there?" Marco asked. I saw him
peering down at me from a million miles up. "You still look a little nervous. Your tail is
twitching and your little nose is sniffing like crazy."
<Yeah, I know. I'm still nervous. Let's just do this. You'll have to take me back to the tree
where Fluffer is. I don't know what direction it is. >
35
Before I could object, Marco reached down and scooped me into his hands. He held me up
and looked into my eyes. "I've never seen you look lovelier, Rachel. Very cover girl."
We walked down the block. Marco set me down at the bottom of the tree where Fluffer was
still hiding out on a high branch.
<You guys had better back off a little.> I said.
"Not too far," Jake said. "We have to be able to get between you and Fluffer fast."
<Oh, I can kick Fluffer's butt,> I said, joking. I guess I felt a little embarrassed about having
let the shrew take control of me.
"Uh-huh," Marco said dryly. "Cat versus mouse. Who would you bet on?"
"Haven't you ever seen Itchy and Scratchy?" Cassie asked. "Mouse, definitely. Besides, she's
not a mouse."
Let me tell you something: It is no fun sitting around in a shrew's tiny body, waiting to see
whether a huge cat is going to decide to climb down and kill you. It is one of the least fun
things I've ever done. I had the shrew brain under control, but that didn't change the fact that
the shrew was about as scared as a shrew can be. Between being snatched up by a hawk and
now waiting to see if the shrew's other deadly enemy was going to attack ... I mean, the shrew
was definitely in a state of panic.
She was not a happy shrew.
I was so preoccupied thinking about the shrew's hunger that I missed what happened next. I
didn't even notice until I heard the sound of scraping tree bark just an inch over my head.
Fluffer was dropping through the air right on top of me!
I froze!
Jake and Marco did not freeze.
Marco grabbed Fluffer in mid-pounce. Fluffer rewarded him with a nasty slash of his claws.
Marco yelled and almost dropped the cat. Jake grabbed Fluffer by the nape of the neck and
Cassie ran up with the animal carrier.
The three of them managed to stuff the squalling, hissing, slashing Fluffer into the carrier and
close the door.
I was already morphing out of the shrew body as fast as I could.
"I'm bleeding!" Marco cried.
"We're all bleeding," Cassie said matter-of-factly. "I told you guys: Kitties can be nasty when
you get on their nerves."
I was shooting up from the ground, regaining my normal body.
36
"Ugh! Ugh! I'm never doing that morph again," I said, as soon as I had a normal tongue and
lips. I looked over my shoulder to make sure I didn't still have that creepy tail. Nothing. I was
me again. I was in my morphing outfit and with no shoes on, but I was human again.
I shuddered. The memory of the shrew's brain and its fear and hunger made my flesh creep. I
was fighting a powerful urge to throw up. I felt sick in a way that is mostly in your head.
Jake looked at me and shook his head. "I should have done it. I should have used my lizard
morph to lure the cat down from the tree."
I shook my head. "No. That freaked you out."
"And now you're the one who's freaked out," Jake said. "But don't worry, you'll get over it.
Mostly. At least you didn't eat a spider."
"Yeah. Look, I'm just tired, okay? Let me acquire this pain-in-the-butt cat and get on with
this."
"Are you still up for it?" Cassie asked. "Acquiring two new morphs in one night?"
"I shouldn't have let you do the mouse. Shrew. Whatever," Jake said. He was still looking
guilty.
"Look, it was my idea, right? Besides, since when do you let me do things? What are you, my
master? I don't think so. Come on." I squared my shoulders and put on a brave smile. "Let me
see how Fluffer likes me, now that I'm bigger than he is."
I guess Fluffer was tired of causing trouble. He was actually asleep in the cat carrier.
Sleeping like nothing at all was going on.
A typical cat. He even purred as I acquired him.
When I was done, I noticed Cassie smiling at me.
"What?" I asked her.
"I was just thinking how you look like the same old Rachel, but now you also have an
elephant, a shrew, an eagle, and a cat inside you. That's four morphs. That's more than any of
us." She looked thoughtful. "We don't really know very much about this morphing thing still.
I wonder if there is a limit to how many morphs you can do."
"I guess we'll find out," Marco said darkly. "Probably at the worst possible time."
I wondered if they were right. It was definitely a strange, powerful feeling, knowing that I
could become four very different animals. Strange and powerful and disturbing. Inside of me
I had animals that ate each other. It wasn't a good image.
Suddenly I felt exhausted. "Look, guys. . . I've acquired Flutter now. But maybe we should do
the rest of this tomorrow night. I'm ... I don't know if I'm at my best right now."
37
"Another night," Jake agreed. He looked relieved. I think he was worried about me. That's the
way Jake is.
"I guess we can let Fluffer go now," Cassie said. She opened the carrier and the cat
climbed out cautiously.
I watched him run off into the night.
"Probably going off to kill your shrew," Marco speculated.
The idea made me shudder all over again.
I dodged, but too slowly. Huge talons closed around me and suddenly my little feet were
running in air.
<Okay, Rachel. It's okay. It's just me. I have you. >
The voice was in my head. I understood the words. It cut through the terror at last. I held onto
that voice.
<Relax, Rachel. >
I looked down and with my dim shrew eyesight saw the shadows shooting past down below.
<I have you, Rachel. Try to be calm. Think about something human. Think about school.
Remember school?>
School? Yes. I remembered school.
Quite suddenly the shrew mind lost the battle for control. It was like a switch had been
flipped. I was in charge. I knew what I was. I knew who I was.
<I'm okay, Tobias,> I said. <You can set me down.>
He circled around and landed with perfect gentleness on the ground.
<Did my talons hurt you?>
<No. I don't think so. I'm fine. >
"You okay, Rachel?" Jake's voice.
<Yes. Boy, that was totally different than the elephant brain. Or the eagle. They're both so
calm and mellow compared to this mind. >
"It's like Jake's lizard," Cassie suggested. "He had a panic reaction, too. The other animals we
morphed were all kind of big, dominant animals -- gorilla, tiger. My horse was skittish,
though."
<Look, let's just do this and get it over with, okay?> I said. <I'm not enjoying the shrew
experience.> That was the understatement of all time. I could still smell death and hear the
thousands of feasting maggots. And to me those things still meant dinner. I was horribly
hungry.
"Are you sure you're going to be able to maintain down there?" Marco asked. I saw him
peering down at me from a million miles up. "You still look a little nervous. Your tail is
twitching and your little nose is sniffing like crazy."
<Yeah, I know. I'm still nervous. Let's just do this. You'll have to take me back to the tree
where Fluffer is. I don't know what direction it is. >
35
Before I could object, Marco reached down and scooped me into his hands. He held me up
and looked into my eyes. "I've never seen you look lovelier, Rachel. Very cover girl."
We walked down the block. Marco set me down at the bottom of the tree where Fluffer was
still hiding out on a high branch.
<You guys had better back off a little.> I said.
"Not too far," Jake said. "We have to be able to get between you and Fluffer fast."
<Oh, I can kick Fluffer's butt,> I said, joking. I guess I felt a little embarrassed about having
let the shrew take control of me.
"Uh-huh," Marco said dryly. "Cat versus mouse. Who would you bet on?"
"Haven't you ever seen Itchy and Scratchy?" Cassie asked. "Mouse, definitely. Besides, she's
not a mouse."
Let me tell you something: It is no fun sitting around in a shrew's tiny body, waiting to see
whether a huge cat is going to decide to climb down and kill you. It is one of the least fun
things I've ever done. I had the shrew brain under control, but that didn't change the fact that
the shrew was about as scared as a shrew can be. Between being snatched up by a hawk and
now waiting to see if the shrew's other deadly enemy was going to attack ... I mean, the shrew
was definitely in a state of panic.
She was not a happy shrew.
I was so preoccupied thinking about the shrew's hunger that I missed what happened next. I
didn't even notice until I heard the sound of scraping tree bark just an inch over my head.
Fluffer was dropping through the air right on top of me!
I froze!
Jake and Marco did not freeze.
Marco grabbed Fluffer in mid-pounce. Fluffer rewarded him with a nasty slash of his claws.
Marco yelled and almost dropped the cat. Jake grabbed Fluffer by the nape of the neck and
Cassie ran up with the animal carrier.
The three of them managed to stuff the squalling, hissing, slashing Fluffer into the carrier and
close the door.
I was already morphing out of the shrew body as fast as I could.
"I'm bleeding!" Marco cried.
"We're all bleeding," Cassie said matter-of-factly. "I told you guys: Kitties can be nasty when
you get on their nerves."
I was shooting up from the ground, regaining my normal body.
36
"Ugh! Ugh! I'm never doing that morph again," I said, as soon as I had a normal tongue and
lips. I looked over my shoulder to make sure I didn't still have that creepy tail. Nothing. I was
me again. I was in my morphing outfit and with no shoes on, but I was human again.
I shuddered. The memory of the shrew's brain and its fear and hunger made my flesh creep. I
was fighting a powerful urge to throw up. I felt sick in a way that is mostly in your head.
Jake looked at me and shook his head. "I should have done it. I should have used my lizard
morph to lure the cat down from the tree."
I shook my head. "No. That freaked you out."
"And now you're the one who's freaked out," Jake said. "But don't worry, you'll get over it.
Mostly. At least you didn't eat a spider."
"Yeah. Look, I'm just tired, okay? Let me acquire this pain-in-the-butt cat and get on with
this."
"Are you still up for it?" Cassie asked. "Acquiring two new morphs in one night?"
"I shouldn't have let you do the mouse. Shrew. Whatever," Jake said. He was still looking
guilty.
"Look, it was my idea, right? Besides, since when do you let me do things? What are you, my
master? I don't think so. Come on." I squared my shoulders and put on a brave smile. "Let me
see how Fluffer likes me, now that I'm bigger than he is."
I guess Fluffer was tired of causing trouble. He was actually asleep in the cat carrier.
Sleeping like nothing at all was going on.
A typical cat. He even purred as I acquired him.
When I was done, I noticed Cassie smiling at me.
"What?" I asked her.
"I was just thinking how you look like the same old Rachel, but now you also have an
elephant, a shrew, an eagle, and a cat inside you. That's four morphs. That's more than any of
us." She looked thoughtful. "We don't really know very much about this morphing thing still.
I wonder if there is a limit to how many morphs you can do."
"I guess we'll find out," Marco said darkly. "Probably at the worst possible time."
I wondered if they were right. It was definitely a strange, powerful feeling, knowing that I
could become four very different animals. Strange and powerful and disturbing. Inside of me
I had animals that ate each other. It wasn't a good image.
Suddenly I felt exhausted. "Look, guys. . . I've acquired Flutter now. But maybe we should do
the rest of this tomorrow night. I'm ... I don't know if I'm at my best right now."
37
"Another night," Jake agreed. He looked relieved. I think he was worried about me. That's the
way Jake is.
"I guess we can let Fluffer go now," Cassie said. She opened the carrier and the cat
climbed out cautiously.
I watched him run off into the night.
"Probably going off to kill your shrew," Marco speculated.
The idea made me shudder all over again.
Chapter Nine
"Aaaaaaaahhh! Aaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaah!"
"Wake up. Rachel, wake up!"
"Aaah!" "Oh. Oh. Oh." I sat up. I was gasping for air. It was dark, but I could just make out
Jordan's face. She was shaking me awake.
I felt my face. Lips. Eyes. Nose.
I patted myself down frantically. Human. I was human. No fur. No tail. Human.
The details of the dream came rushing up to my consciousness.
"Oh, no," I moaned. I threw back the covers and stumbled to my feet. I staggered toward the
bathroom door. The bathroom connects my room and the room Jordan and Sara share. I tried
to turn on the light but missed the switch. I dropped to my knees in front of the toilet and
threw up.
Jordan kept saying, "Are you all right, Rachel? Are you all right? I better get Mom."
"No," I said, as soon as I could talk.
"No, I'm fine. Don't wake Mom up."
Fortunately, little Sara can sleep through anything.
I brushed my teeth and drank some water. I looked sheepishly at Jordan. She looks nothing
like me. I guess I look more like my dad, and Jordan is like this smaller version of my mom,
dark hair and dark eyes. She looked pretty scared.
"I'm okay," I said again. "Just a bad dream. I guess it made me kind of sick, is all. But I'm
fine now."
Jordan relaxed a little. "Must have been some dream."
"I guess so. I can't even remember it now. You know how it is. Dreams fade away so you
can't even remember them."
"I can't believe you would just forget a dream that made you scream and hurl."
I shrugged. "I've never been very good at remembering dreams. You better get back to bed."
She looked at me solemnly. "I know I'm just your little sister by two years, but you would tell
me if something bad was happening to you, right? I mean, I wouldn't tell Mom or anyone.
You could trust me."
I smiled and drew her into a hug. "I know I can trust you. If anything bad was going on, I'd
tell you." It was a lie, of course, and the lie made me feel even worse. I trusted Jordan. I knew
in my heart that she was not a Controller.
39
Of course, that's just what Jake had said about Tom.
I hugged my sister a little closer. I hated the way suspicion had crept into every part of my
mind. I hated the way I wasn't sure, not really, to tally sure, that I could trust her.
"Good night," I said. "Thanks for rescuing me from that nightmare. Whatever it was."
She started to walk away. Then she turned, lit from behind by the garish bathroom light.
"Before you started screaming, you were yelling something."
"What?" I asked, afraid of the answer.
She looked puzzled. "I think it was "maggots." Something like that."
I forced a shaky smile. "Good night, Jordan."
I crawled back into my bed. The pillow was soaked with sweat. The sheets were clammy.
Maggots. Squirming, crawling, busy little white maggots. They were all over a piece of
rotting meat and fur. In my dream it was a dead cat. A dead cat covered with vermin eating
the decayed flesh.
A shrew was getting in on the feast, eating the dead flesh and the living maggots with equal
enjoyment.
In my dream I knew: I was that shrew.
"Aaaaaaaahhh! Aaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaah!"
"Wake up. Rachel, wake up!"
"Aaah!" "Oh. Oh. Oh." I sat up. I was gasping for air. It was dark, but I could just make out
Jordan's face. She was shaking me awake.
I felt my face. Lips. Eyes. Nose.
I patted myself down frantically. Human. I was human. No fur. No tail. Human.
The details of the dream came rushing up to my consciousness.
"Oh, no," I moaned. I threw back the covers and stumbled to my feet. I staggered toward the
bathroom door. The bathroom connects my room and the room Jordan and Sara share. I tried
to turn on the light but missed the switch. I dropped to my knees in front of the toilet and
threw up.
Jordan kept saying, "Are you all right, Rachel? Are you all right? I better get Mom."
"No," I said, as soon as I could talk.
"No, I'm fine. Don't wake Mom up."
Fortunately, little Sara can sleep through anything.
I brushed my teeth and drank some water. I looked sheepishly at Jordan. She looks nothing
like me. I guess I look more like my dad, and Jordan is like this smaller version of my mom,
dark hair and dark eyes. She looked pretty scared.
"I'm okay," I said again. "Just a bad dream. I guess it made me kind of sick, is all. But I'm
fine now."
Jordan relaxed a little. "Must have been some dream."
"I guess so. I can't even remember it now. You know how it is. Dreams fade away so you
can't even remember them."
"I can't believe you would just forget a dream that made you scream and hurl."
I shrugged. "I've never been very good at remembering dreams. You better get back to bed."
She looked at me solemnly. "I know I'm just your little sister by two years, but you would tell
me if something bad was happening to you, right? I mean, I wouldn't tell Mom or anyone.
You could trust me."
I smiled and drew her into a hug. "I know I can trust you. If anything bad was going on, I'd
tell you." It was a lie, of course, and the lie made me feel even worse. I trusted Jordan. I knew
in my heart that she was not a Controller.
39
Of course, that's just what Jake had said about Tom.
I hugged my sister a little closer. I hated the way suspicion had crept into every part of my
mind. I hated the way I wasn't sure, not really, to tally sure, that I could trust her.
"Good night," I said. "Thanks for rescuing me from that nightmare. Whatever it was."
She started to walk away. Then she turned, lit from behind by the garish bathroom light.
"Before you started screaming, you were yelling something."
"What?" I asked, afraid of the answer.
She looked puzzled. "I think it was "maggots." Something like that."
I forced a shaky smile. "Good night, Jordan."
I crawled back into my bed. The pillow was soaked with sweat. The sheets were clammy.
Maggots. Squirming, crawling, busy little white maggots. They were all over a piece of
rotting meat and fur. In my dream it was a dead cat. A dead cat covered with vermin eating
the decayed flesh.
A shrew was getting in on the feast, eating the dead flesh and the living maggots with equal
enjoyment.
In my dream I knew: I was that shrew.
Chapter Ten
"You look tired," Jake said the next morning. We took the same bus to school.
"Thanks," I said grumpily.
"Didn't get enough sleep last night?"
"I guess not, if I look as bad as you say."
"I didn't say you looked bad, I just said you looked tired." He hesitated. He glanced over his
shoulder, checking to see whether anyone was listening. Fortunately, the noise level was
pretty high in the bus. Jake lowered his voice and leaned close to my ear. "You didn't get
creeped out by the shrew, did you?"
"Why? Just because I'm a girl, you think the shrew bothered me more than it would have
bothered you or Marco?"
"No, that's not it at all," he said earnestly. "It's just . . . see, when I did the lizard
morph, that bothered me. I had nightmares -- "
"Nightmares?" I said it too loudly. Then I lowered my voice back to a whisper. "Nightmares?
"
"Oh, yeah. Definitely. When I morphed the tiger I had dreams, too, but not nightmares."
"What kind of dreams?"
He smiled. "Kind of cool, really. Stalking through a dark forest at night. I was hunting
something. It was like I wanted to catch it, but at the same time it was like if I didn't catch it
that would be okay, too. Because just running and creeping and then running some more
through the woods was the best thing in the world."
I nodded. "I felt like that after the elephant morph. It was this incredible feeling of being huge
and invincible. Like I could never even possibly be afraid of anything."
"But the shrew was different, wasn't it? Same with the lizard."
"I guess it's the different characters of the animals. Maybe some are good matches for our
human brains. Maybe others aren't." I looked out the window for a while. Then I said, "You
know what scares me?"
To my surprise, Jake nodded. "Yeah. You're afraid that someday we might have to morph
into bugs."
I shuddered. "I don't think I'll be willing to do that. I think that may be too much."
"Well, your next assignment is a cat. Tobias was a cat. He said it was amazingly cool. He
liked it. Just like I really enjoy being a dog. Sometimes when I'm feeling depressed, I really
wish I could just morph. Dogs know how to have fun."
41
The bus pulled up in front of the school. "An other day of school. Normal life." I looked over
the crowd of kids milling around on the lawn and on the steps. I spotted Melissa.
"See you later, Jake," I said. "Thanks."
"No problem. We're all in this together."
I made my way down the bus aisle and ran to catch up to Melissa. But when I got close
I saw that her eyes were red and swollen. She'd been crying.
I didn't know what to do. In the old days I would have just run right up to her and asked what
was the matter.
"Hey, Melissa, how's it going?"
She looked at me, confused. "What?"
"I said, how's it going?"
She shook her head slowly, like she couldn't believe I was even talking to her. "What do you
care?"
"Melissa. Of course I care. What's wrong?" Her eyes went kind of blank. She seemed to be
looking at nothing but the air right in front of her face.
"What's wrong? Everything is wrong. And nothing is wrong. But just the same, every thing is
wrong."
"Melissa, what are you talking about?" "Forget it," she said. She started to walk away.
I grabbed her arm. "Look, you can talk to me. I'm still your friend. Nothing has changed."
"Leave me alone," she said grimly. "Everything has changed. Everyone has changed. You
stopped being my friend. And my mom and dad ... "
"What?" I pressed her.
The bell rang loud and shrill.
"I have to go." She pulled her arm away.
What could I do? I let her go. I wondered what she had started to say about her father. Had
she discovered what her father was? What her father had become?
I walked up the steps of the school with my head lowered in thought. As I opened the school
door, I ran right into someone.
"Hey, hey, watch where you're going, young lady."
"Mr. Chapman!" I recoiled in fear.
42
See, you have to realize that this was the man who had once directed a Hork-Bajir soldier to
kill us all if he caught us. Kill us and only save our heads for identification.
That kind of thing sticks in your mind.
He peered at me. "What's the matter with you, Rachel? A little jumpy this morning?"
I nodded. "Yes, sir. I guess I didn't sleep too well."
"Bad dreams?" he asked.
My mouth was dry. "I guess so, Mr. Chapman.
He smiled. A normal, human smile. His eyes even crinkled up a little as he grinned down at
me. "Well, shake it off. Nightmares aren't real, you know."
"At least not most of the time," I said to myself.
"You look tired," Jake said the next morning. We took the same bus to school.
"Thanks," I said grumpily.
"Didn't get enough sleep last night?"
"I guess not, if I look as bad as you say."
"I didn't say you looked bad, I just said you looked tired." He hesitated. He glanced over his
shoulder, checking to see whether anyone was listening. Fortunately, the noise level was
pretty high in the bus. Jake lowered his voice and leaned close to my ear. "You didn't get
creeped out by the shrew, did you?"
"Why? Just because I'm a girl, you think the shrew bothered me more than it would have
bothered you or Marco?"
"No, that's not it at all," he said earnestly. "It's just . . . see, when I did the lizard
morph, that bothered me. I had nightmares -- "
"Nightmares?" I said it too loudly. Then I lowered my voice back to a whisper. "Nightmares?
"
"Oh, yeah. Definitely. When I morphed the tiger I had dreams, too, but not nightmares."
"What kind of dreams?"
He smiled. "Kind of cool, really. Stalking through a dark forest at night. I was hunting
something. It was like I wanted to catch it, but at the same time it was like if I didn't catch it
that would be okay, too. Because just running and creeping and then running some more
through the woods was the best thing in the world."
I nodded. "I felt like that after the elephant morph. It was this incredible feeling of being huge
and invincible. Like I could never even possibly be afraid of anything."
"But the shrew was different, wasn't it? Same with the lizard."
"I guess it's the different characters of the animals. Maybe some are good matches for our
human brains. Maybe others aren't." I looked out the window for a while. Then I said, "You
know what scares me?"
To my surprise, Jake nodded. "Yeah. You're afraid that someday we might have to morph
into bugs."
I shuddered. "I don't think I'll be willing to do that. I think that may be too much."
"Well, your next assignment is a cat. Tobias was a cat. He said it was amazingly cool. He
liked it. Just like I really enjoy being a dog. Sometimes when I'm feeling depressed, I really
wish I could just morph. Dogs know how to have fun."
41
The bus pulled up in front of the school. "An other day of school. Normal life." I looked over
the crowd of kids milling around on the lawn and on the steps. I spotted Melissa.
"See you later, Jake," I said. "Thanks."
"No problem. We're all in this together."
I made my way down the bus aisle and ran to catch up to Melissa. But when I got close
I saw that her eyes were red and swollen. She'd been crying.
I didn't know what to do. In the old days I would have just run right up to her and asked what
was the matter.
"Hey, Melissa, how's it going?"
She looked at me, confused. "What?"
"I said, how's it going?"
She shook her head slowly, like she couldn't believe I was even talking to her. "What do you
care?"
"Melissa. Of course I care. What's wrong?" Her eyes went kind of blank. She seemed to be
looking at nothing but the air right in front of her face.
"What's wrong? Everything is wrong. And nothing is wrong. But just the same, every thing is
wrong."
"Melissa, what are you talking about?" "Forget it," she said. She started to walk away.
I grabbed her arm. "Look, you can talk to me. I'm still your friend. Nothing has changed."
"Leave me alone," she said grimly. "Everything has changed. Everyone has changed. You
stopped being my friend. And my mom and dad ... "
"What?" I pressed her.
The bell rang loud and shrill.
"I have to go." She pulled her arm away.
What could I do? I let her go. I wondered what she had started to say about her father. Had
she discovered what her father was? What her father had become?
I walked up the steps of the school with my head lowered in thought. As I opened the school
door, I ran right into someone.
"Hey, hey, watch where you're going, young lady."
"Mr. Chapman!" I recoiled in fear.
42
See, you have to realize that this was the man who had once directed a Hork-Bajir soldier to
kill us all if he caught us. Kill us and only save our heads for identification.
That kind of thing sticks in your mind.
He peered at me. "What's the matter with you, Rachel? A little jumpy this morning?"
I nodded. "Yes, sir. I guess I didn't sleep too well."
"Bad dreams?" he asked.
My mouth was dry. "I guess so, Mr. Chapman.
He smiled. A normal, human smile. His eyes even crinkled up a little as he grinned down at
me. "Well, shake it off. Nightmares aren't real, you know."
"At least not most of the time," I said to myself.
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