Oh! An Andalite would never understand. This was what being human was all about. Taste! The glory of it. The incredible wonder of it.
“This is a wonderful food!” I cried.
“Excuse me?” Cassie’s mother said.
“Ah HAH! At last. Someone who understands the joy of hot food!” Cassie’s father cried.
I realized I had eaten my entire bowl of that marvelous chili. I wanted more. That taste! That feeling! I wanted more!
“There’s plenty more,” Cassie’s father said. He filled my bowl again.
“Um, Jake?” Cassie said. “You really don’t have to eat that much.”
“I’ll eat yours!” I cried.
My eyes were bulging from my head. My skin was tingling. My stomach was making sounds. But still, I wanted more.
“I love this kid,” Cassie’s father said. “I wonder if his parents would let us adopt him. Jake, you are a very discerning, intelligent young man.”
“He’s insane,” Cassie’s mother said. “There’s no other explanation.”
Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my leg. I suspected that Cassie had kicked me under the table. I looked at her. She smiled sweetly, and then kicked me again.
“That’s probably enough chili,” she said. She was staring at me in a very direct way.
“Yes. That is enough chili,” I agreed. I pushed the bowl away. “Chili. Illi. Chee-lee.”
“I used habanero chilies,” Cassie’s father said. “The hottest substance known to man.”
“Not as hot as the temperature created during nuclear fusion,” I pointed out.
“So how is school, Jake?” Cassie’s mother asked.
I knew what this activity was. This was called “making conversation.” The rules were that each person would ask the other person a question.
“It is fine. And how is your work caring for animals?”
“Same old, same old,” Cassie’s mother said. “Although we are about to have some new camel babies.”
Cassie’s mother is a veterinarian at the zoo, a place where nonhuman animals are kept.
“So, Jake, you think the Bulls are going all the way again this year?” Cassie’s father asked.
I could tell that Cassie was growing tense. She was afraid that I would not understand the question. But thanks to my reading of the World Almanac, I knew the “Bulls” were a sports team.
“Yes,” I answered. “They can go all the way.”
Then, it was my turn to ask a question. That is how “making conversation” works. “So, did you know that the cream separator was invented in 1878?”
Apparently, they did not know. Cassie, her mother, and her father all stared at me in surprise.
After that, we watched television for a while. It was a fictional depiction of a family. I watched it, and watched Cassie and her parents.
A human family was a good thing to learn about. I had seen Prince Jake’s family. And now I was seeing Cassie’s family. They are different in some ways. For example, Prince Jake’s family performs a brief religious ritual before they eat. Cassie’s family does not. And in Prince Jake’s family, the father falls asleep while watching television. In Cassie’s family, it was her mother who began to fall asleep.
“I must go,” I told Cassie. “It has been almost two of your hours.” Cassie’s mother revived long enough to say that I was crazy, but I was “still so cute.”
Her father winked his left eye at me and waved as I left. Then he laughed at something from the television.
Outside in the cool evening air, Cassie sighed heavily. “Well, we got through that without it being too much of a disaster. Come on. I’ll walk you out a ways, till you can morph back without being seen. By the way, here’s a book for you, since you’re done with the World Almanac. It’s a book of quotes. Stuff that famous people said.” She held it out for me to take.
“Thank you,” I said.
I felt strange walking into the dark. Walking away from Cassie’s house. Strange. As if it were cold out, although it wasn’t.
“So what did you think of my parents?” Cassie asked.
“I liked them,” I said. “But why has your father removed the hair from his head? Hair. Hay-yer. I meant to ask him, but forgot.”
“He’s going bald,” Cassie said. “It’s probably better not to mention it. It’s a normal thing for humans. But some people get sensitive about it.”
“Ah, yes. My father’s hooves are getting dull. It’s normal as well, but he doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“What’s your father like? And your mother?”
“They are . . . just normal parents. They are very nice. They are . . .”
“Go on.”
“My throat feels strange,” I said. “Like there is an obstruction. I am having difficulty speaking. Ing. Is this normal?”
Cassie put her arm beneath mine. “You miss them. That’s normal.”
“An Andalite warrior may spend many years in space, far from his home and family. That’s normal.”
“Ax. You said it yourself. You may be an Andalite warrior, but you’re still a kid, too.”
I stopped walking. I was far from the light of the house. I could change back into my own shape without being seen. I realized I was looking up at the stars.
“Where are they?” Cassie asked, following the direction of my gaze. “If you’re allowed to tell me that.”
I pointed with my human fingers at the quadrant of space where my home star twinkled. “There.”
I watched that star as I melted out of my human form and returned to my true Andalite body.
“Ax, you know that Jake and Tobias and me, and even Rachel and Marco, we all care about you. You know that, right? You’re not just some alien to us.”
I said. Once more an Andalite, I ran for the forest.
I spent part of the night reading the book of quotes. I should have been resting, but I felt disturbed.
More and more I thought of how easily I could turn the radio telescope at the observatory into a Z-Space transmitter. The idea of contacting my parents filled me with sadness and longing.
They could tell me what to do, I thought. They could give me instructions.
And in another part of my mind I thought, Wouldn’t they be proud that I was fighting on against the Yeerks? They would all say, “He’s another Elfangor. A hero.”
I’m not proud that I was thinking that. But I have to tell the truth. And the truth was, I wanted everyone back home to think I was being very brave, all alone on Earth.
Already in my mind a plan was taking shape.
I found a quiet place and prepared to sleep. I closed my main eyes, leaving only my stalk eyes open to look for danger. I relaxed my tail until it touched the ground.
Lonely.
Yes, it was lonely to sleep in a forest on a planet far from home. It was lonely to be the only one of my kind.
It was lonely knowing that Cassie was asleep in her home, and Marco in his, and Rachel and Jake. All had homes.
All but me. And Tobias.
Tobias. He would understand. But would he help me? If I did what I was planning, would he help? And could I trust him?
I raised my tail and opened my main eyes. I knew the place where Tobias slept. I found him easily. He stood with his sharp talons wrapped around a branch.
I called.
He opened his wings and seemed to be stretching. his planet: a freaky, four-eyed, half deer, half scorpion, centaur-looking alien, and a bird with the mind of a person. We’ve fought side by side. We’ve been nearly killed several times. Of course I’m your friend.>
It surprised me that he would answer so quickly. As if there was never any doubt what the answer would be. I said.
Tobias was silent for a while.
Tobias said.
Tobias said,
I said softly. Even here, among aliens, Elfangor was the hero.
And so, I told Tobias of my plan.
“E.T. phone home.” When I found that sentence in Cassie’s book of human quotes, it surprised me. To be honest, it almost scared me. It was as if it were written just for me. I thought maybe, somehow, my human friends had discovered my plan and written it there.
— From the Earth Diary of Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill
The sun was just coming up over planet Earth.
I performed the morning ritual, as I always did. But I was especially impatient this morning. I knew Tobias was hunting a morning meal and would be back as soon as he had finished eating some unfortunate mouse or shrew.
When Tobias returned from the hunt, we would go. He would lead me to the observatory, to the great radio telescope. And, with luck, I would be able to call my home.
With my stalk eyes I saw a hawk swoop low overhead. Tobias rested on a branch. He focused his fierce hawk’s eyes on me.
I said.
I often go flying with Tobias. The bird morph I have is called a northern harrier. It is a type of hawk, about the same size as Tobias’s redtail. Tobias’s feathers are mostly brown and light tan, while the harrier’s are mostly gray and white.
I controlled my excitement and worry, and focused on making the change.
The harrier morph is always strange. For one thing, there is a great difference in size between an Andalite and a bird, even a large bird.
The first sensation was one of falling, as I shrank rapidly.
My stalk eyes went blind, and wings grew out of my front legs, which is very awkward. It causes me to fall forward onto the ground, since I cannot stand on my hind legs alone.
Besides, my hind legs were busy shriveling down into the tiny, yellow, scaly bird legs. And my tail was shrinking and splitting into dozens of long tail feathers.
Harriers also have mouths, like humans. Only, these mouths are useless for speech, and have very little ability to taste. On the other hand, they are wonderful natural weapons. They are razor-sharp, and curved down into a ripping, tearing hook.
And the talons are excellent. I had long admired Tobias’s use of his talons. He can swoop fast and low, just a few feet above the ground, and snatch up a mouse or small rabbit with those talons.
As I watched, the blue and tan fur of my own body was replaced by silvery gray feathers. The fur melted away to show the underlying flesh, and then the flesh became patterned with the millions of individual ribs of feathers.
I was used to the mind of the harrier, so I had learned to control its instincts. Its instincts were more forceful than those in the brains of humans.
Tobias said.
I said a little grumpily.
I checked. I opened my wings to their full three-and-a-half-foot spread. I flicked my tail feathers. I focused my laserlike hawk’s eyes on a far distant tree and was able to see individual ants crawling up its trunk.
I listened to the forest with the harrier’s superior hearing. I could hear the insects beneath the pine needles. I could hear a squirrel chewing open a nut. I could hear Tobias’s heart beating.
I turned into the breeze and opened my wings. I flapped several times and lifted my legs clear of the ground. The breeze caught me and I was off.
Even with the breeze, I had to flap hard to get as high as the treetops. Tobias was already several dozen feet above me. But then, Tobias has had a great deal of practice.
I swept just above the treetops, flapping and soaring. The sun was beating down on the treetops and heat waves were rising. I caught the updraft and shot higher. I was two hundred feet up in just seconds.
I could see Cassie’s farm now. And as I circled to use the updraft for more altitude, I could see all the familiar landmarks: the homes of the others. The mall. The school.
Tobias said.
We reached the ocean. There were cliffs along the shore, and here the real thermals rose up. A thermal is an updraft of heated air. Flying into one is like flying into an elevator or dropshaft. The updraft catches your wings and lifts you up and up and up.
It is a fantastic, giddy, wild feeling.
I wheeled and turned to stay within the thermal, following Tobias higher and higher.
Tobias instructed.
It was exhilarating. We were thousands of feet above the ground. Down below, humans lay on the beach wearing less clothing than usual. Clothing is a strange human habit. They must wear it all the time. Except at the beach, when they may wear less.
I don’t understand this. The World Almanac had no explanation. Although I did know that the United States imported 93.3 billion dollars worth of textiles.
Tobias said.
I asked, shaken out of my dreamy thoughts.
I decided to keep an eye on the falcon. Earth is a dangerous, wild place. At least, if you’re a bird.
I thought it must be terrible sometimes for Tobias. He lives in fear of things that no human would need to fear. He has lost his position at the top of the food chain of Earth. Hawks are predators, but they are also prey. Yet he seemed to have accepted his fate. Was it possible he even preferred being a hawk? Was that why he never asked me what I might know about him being a nothlit?
Or did he think I would refuse to answer, or worse yet, lie?
Fortunately, the falcon ignored us and we
flew on, following the coastline. Soon we had left the city behind. The beaches were gone, too. The coastline grew more rugged, with waves that crashed in explosions of foam against jagged broken rocks.
A single road wound along the coast below us. There were cars on it, but few buildings. Then, in the distance, I saw a large white structure.
Actually, several structures. There was a tall building with a dome top. And arrayed around it in various positions were several large white flattened bowls. It took me several seconds to figure out their purpose.
I laughed.
Tobias asked.
I said.
The large building with the dome?> I asked Tobias as I swept above the observatory.
I looked with my incredible hawk vision. There was a huge, rectangular opening in the top of the dome. Inside I could see a vast circle of glass. I laughed in recognition.
Tobias said.
I asked.