I stopped struggling, and Marco let me up.
“You have to admit, Jake, it doesn’t look good.”
“Tom is not one of them, okay? That’s final,” I said.
“Whatever,” Marco said. “Just don’t punch me again, ‘cause I might have to hit you back.”
Just then I heard this fluttering noise at my window. Like someone beating on it very softly. I went to the window, followed by Marco.
There was a bird there. Some kind of huge bird, like an eagle or a hawk, beating its wings against the window.
Let me in, all right? I can’t hover here forever!
Marco’s eyes went wide. He’d heard it, too.
I opened the window and the bird flew straight in. It landed on my dresser. It was almost two feet long, mostly brown, with gnarled talons and a sharp, hooked beak.
“It’s some kind of eagle or something,” Marco said.
A red-tailed hawk, actually, Tobias said.
“Is that you, Tobias?” Marco demanded. “I thought we weren’t going to do any more of this morphing.”
I never agreed to that.
“Well, morph back, Tobias,” I said. “You know what the Andalite said — never stay in any form for more than two hours.”
Tobias hesitated. He tilted his hawk’s head and peered at me with an incredibly concentrated gaze. At last, he hopped over onto my bed.
Let me tell you something, it is beyond weird, watching feathers turn into skin. The brown feathers ran together and merged and turned pink. It was like the feathers were melting. Like they had turned into wax and were being heated up.
The beak disappeared quickly, and lips grew out of it. The talons split into five and became toes.
Halfway through the process of changing, Tobias was a lump, half-pink, half-brown, with featherlike patterns still visible on his back and chest. His face was small and mostly human, except that he still had those sharp, alert hawk’s eyes. Two tiny, shriveled arms protruded from the front of his chest with fingers like a baby’s.
All in all, it was a pretty disgusting sight.
But the human DNA asserted itself over the hawk’s and he became more normal. About three minutes after he’d started the change, there was a completely normal Tobias, sitting naked on the end of my bed.
“I haven’t figured out how to morph clothes yet, like Cassie,” he said sheepishly. “Can I borrow some?”
I loaned him a pair of pants and a shirt, but my shoes were all the wrong size.
“That was the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Tobias said. His whole face was glowing. “I was riding the thermals.”
“What’s a thermal?” I asked.
“That’s when there’s warm air rising up from the ground. It forms this cushion under your wings. You can just float up there. Like a mile up! You just surf the thermals. You guys have got to do it! It is the best thing ever.”
“Tobias, how on Earth did you do a hawk morph? “ I asked.
“There’s an injured hawk right there in Cassie’s barn,” he said. “There’s this cool osprey, too, but I decided on the hawk.”
“How did you fly if the hawk you morphed from was injured?” I wondered.
Marco shook his head pityingly. “Jake, do you pay any attention in biology class? DNA has nothing to do with some injury. The DNA wasn’t broken, just a wing.”
I ignored Marco. “You’re lucky Cassie’s dad didn’t catch you,” I said to Tobias.
“He’s so depressed,” Tobias commented.
“Who’s depressed? Cassie’s dad?”
“No, the hawk. I mean, I think he knows they aren’t trying to hurt him or anything, but he can’t stand being cooped up there while his wing heals.” Tobias’s eyes darkened. “It’s terrible when birds have to be locked up in cages. They should be free.”
“Yeah, free the birds,” Marco commented sarcastically. “I’ll get the bumper stickers printed up.”
“You wouldn’t have that attitude if you’d been up there with me,” Tobias said angrily. “It was cool being a cat and all. But a hawk! It’s just total, absolute freedom.”
I hadn’t ever seen Tobias so happy. I mean, Tobias has a pretty lousy home life. Thinking about it, I suddenly had this feeling….
I repeated the warning. “No more than two hours in any morph, right? You keep track of the time, right?”
Tobias smiled. “Yeah. I don’t have a watch or anything, but with hawk eyes you can actually see the hands of someone’s watch when they’re half a mile below you. It’s like being Superman. You can fly, plus you have super vision.”
“Now he’s Superman,” Marco muttered.
“I was looking around. I guess I thought I might be able to see something from the air,” Tobias said. “I was looking for something that might be a Yeerk pool.”
The phrase sounded vaguely familiar. I remembered Visser Three saying something about “Yeerk pools.” “What’s a Yeerk pool?” I asked Tobias.
“It’s where the Yeerks live in their natural state. Every three days a Yeerk has to leave his host body and go into the Yeerk pool to soak up nutrients. Especially Kandrona rays.”
Marco and I exchanged a suspicious look. Neither of us knew any of this.
“At the end,” Tobias explained, “when the Andalite told us all to run for it, I stayed behind for a few seconds. I guess maybe I was too scared even to run.”
I shook my head. I knew better. Tobias just hadn’t wanted to leave the Andalite alone. I think maybe the Andalite meant even more to Tobias than to the rest of us.
“Anyway, he gave me … visions, I guess you’d call them. Pictures. Information. A lot of it, all at once. All jumbled. I haven’t even started to sort it all out. But I do know about the Yeerk pools and the Kandrona.”
Marco held up his hand, silencing Tobias. “Let me check the door,” he said. He went to my door and peeked out into the hallway. “All clear,” he announced.
Tobias gave Marco a questioning look.
“Tom,” Marco said. “He’s one of them.”
“Don’t make me hurt you,” I warned him angrily. “Tom is not a Controller.”
“Either way, we should be careful,” Tobias said. He lowered his voice. “The Kandrona is a device that produces Kandrona particles. See, it’s like this little portable version of the Yeerk’s own home sun. The Yeerks need Kandrona particles to live, like a human needs vitamins or whatever. The Kandrona particles are beamed from wherever the Kandrona is and concentrated in the Yeerk pool. Once every three days, every Yeerk has to leave his host and go into the pool. They soak up the particles and then they reenter the host body.”
“What does this have to do with you flying around playing Superman?” I asked.
“Well, it seems dumb now, but I was thinking maybe I could see the Yeerk pool.” He made a rueful smile. “Saw a lot of swimming pools and some ponds. You get up there and you realize there are ponds and lakes and streams everywhere. But I didn’t see anything special.”
“And what if you found some Yeerk pool? Then what?” Marco demanded.
“Then we’d blow it up,” Tobias said.
“Wrong,” Marco said. “We decided not to get into this.”
“No, we decided not to decide yet,” I said.
“Well, I’ve decided,” Tobias said.
“Suddenly the wimp is a hero,” Marco sneered.
This time Tobias didn’t blush. “Maybe I just found something worth fighting for, Marco.”
“You don’t even fight for yourself,” Marco said.
“That was before,” Tobias said softly. “Before the Andalite. Before he died trying to save us. I can’t let that go. I can’t let him die for nothing. So whatever you guys decide, I’m going to fight.”
CHAPTER 13
We find the Yeerk pool,” Tobias said. “And when we do, we blow it up and kill every one of those evil slugs.”
I expected Marco to start yelling. But Marco is pretty smart. He could tell that T
obias had reached me with his talk about the Andalite. So he just smiled, a little sneakily.
“Remember that cop today, the one who is so interested in finding whoever was at the construction site? The cop who is probably a Controller?”
“What about him?” I said.
“Well, let’s see. He invites you to join The Sharing. And now along comes Tom. And suddenly he is very interested in whatever happened at the construction site. And guess what? Tom also invites you to join The Sharing.”
Tobias nodded in agreement. “Maybe this Sharing is an organization for Controllers.”
Marco smiled. He’s my best friend and all, but sometimes Marco really makes me mad.
“We’re pretty sure the cop is a Controller. And I don’t care what you say, Jake, I think Tom is, too. So, here’s the deal. You want to get into this fight against the Yeerks?” Marco asked me. “Fine. Let’s see how much you want to do it when it turns out it’s your own brother you have to destroy.”
That stopped me cold.
“It’s not exactly some video game, is it?” Marco said. “This is reality. You don’t know anything about reality, Jake. Nothing bad has ever really happened to you. You have this perfect family. Like I used to have.”
His voice cracked a little. He never talked about his mom’s death.
I realized he was right. I didn’t know about reality. Not the way reality had happened to Marco—and to Tobias.
“So maybe we just walk away from this,” Marco said. “Let someone else fight this fight. Sorry about the Andalite, but I’ve got enough death in my family.”
“No,” I said, surprising myself. “The Andalite gave us the morphing power for a reason. It wasn’t just for the fun of being a dog or a horse or a bird. He hoped we would fight.”
“Then maybe Tom is the enemy,” Marco said. “Maybe it’s your own brother you’ll end up destroying.”
“Yes,” I said. My throat felt all tight. “Maybe that’s what will happen. Maybe not. But the first step is to find out more. And I think maybe the way to do that is to check out this meeting of The Sharing. Tonight. I’ll call the others. Anyone wants to come, cool. You want to stay out of it, Marco, that’s cool, too.”
He hesitated. He sent Tobias an angry look. But he said, “Okay, it’s just a meeting, right? We go and see. I’m in for that.”
I called the others. Rachel agreed quickly. Cassie had to think about it for a little while, but she agreed, too.
I told Tom we were interested in attending the meeting. Me and Marco and Rachel and Cassie. We’d already decided Tobias would be there, too. Only in a different way.
“Tonight’s a great meeting to come to,” Tom said enthusiastically. “We’re having a bonfire on the beach. You know, hanging out, playing games and stuff. We play night volleyball, which is so funny because half the time guys can’t even see the ball. It’s great. It’s the best organization. You’ll love it.”
Listening to him, it sure didn’t sound like The Sharing was connected with the Yeerks. You couldn’t really picture Visser Three or a bunch of Taxxons playing volleyball.
I was thinking maybe we were all just nuts. The Sharing was probably just like some new kind of coed Boy Scouts or something.
It wasn’t that far to the beach, so we decided not to drive there with Tom. We walked. Tobias walked partway with us, then he stepped behind a dark dune as we got close to the shore. A few minutes later we saw a hawk take flight. There aren’t many thermals at night, so he had to work to get altitude. But then I guess he found a decent enough updraft, because he soared up and away till he disappeared.
“I have got to try that,” Cassie said. “It looks wonderful.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. Ahead, the bonfire burned bright on the dark beach. People were all around it, playing, talking, eating. Kids from school. Adults. People I didn’t know. Others I did.
Were they all Controllers? I wondered. How could I ever know? And was my own brother one of them?
After about an hour of hanging out there on the beach, I was sure I was nuts. There was no way these guys were aliens. We played some volleyball, me and Tom together on one team. We ate the barbecue ribs they had. I mean, it was just like this normal, good time.
The sand was still warm. The night air was chilly, but near the fire it was nice.
“Now you see why I enjoy this?” Tom asked me.
“It’s cool,” I said. I looked around at all the people having fun. “I didn’t realize it was so much fun.”
“Well, that’s not all it is,” Tom said. “I mean, it’s more than just fun. The Sharing can do all kinds of things for you. Once you’re a full member.”
“How do you get to be a full member?” I asked.
He smiled mysteriously. “Oh, that will come later. First you become an associate member. Later the leaders will decide whether to ask you to become a full member. Once you become a full member … the whole world changes.”
At that moment, something weird happened. I was looking at Tom, and he was smiling at me. But then his face kind of twitched. His head started to pull to one side, like he was trying to shake his head only he couldn’t quite do it. For just a split second there was a look in his eyes—scared or … or something. He was looking right at me, and it was like some different person, some scared person, was looking out of those same eyes.
Then he was back to normal. Or what looked like normal.
“I have to go for a while now,” he said. “The full members have a separate meeting. You guys stay here and have fun. Have some more of that barbecue. It’s great, isn’t it?”
With that, he was gone into the night.
I felt like I had swallowed barbed wire.
Marco and Cassie came over. They had just finished playing Frisbee in the surf with some other kids. Marco was laughing.
“Okay,” he said, “I admit it. I was wrong. These are just normal people having a good time. And Tom is not a Controller.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Marco was wrong.
I knew what I had seen in Tom’s eyes—he was trying to warn me. Somehow he had managed to gain control of his face for just a second before the Yeerk in his head had crushed him.
Tom — the real Tom, not the Yeerk slug in his brain — had tried to warn me.
CHAPTER 14
They’re all going off to a separate meeting,” I said. “All the full members. I’d sure like to know what goes on in that meeting.” I struggled to sound normal, but my insides were churning.
“I saw people heading that way.” Rachel pointed.
“Let’s see if we can get close,” I said.
“What’s going on?” Marco asked. “I thought we just decided everything was normal here.”
It was Cassie who answered him. “Nothing is normal here,” she said. “Can’t you feel it?” She shivered. “All these so-called full members, they’re all being so perfectly nice. So perfectly helpful. They’re so perfectly normal it’s abnormal. And all the time their eyes are following you, watching you. Watching you like … like a hungry dog watching a bone.”
“Creepy,” Rachel agreed. “Like if you took cheerleaders, combined them with gym teachers, and made them all drink ten cups of coffee.”
“They are all just a little too happy, aren’t they?” Marco admitted. “People keep telling me how all their problems disappeared once they became a full member of The Sharing. It’s like some cult or something.”
“I’m getting into that secret meeting,” I said. I had to know. I had to be dead sure. “Let’s get away from the fire. Over behind that lifeguard stand.”
“How are you going to get into the meeting?” Marco asked.
“They won’t worry about some stray dog that’s walking along the beach,” I said.
“Some stray … oh,” Marco said.
“Good idea,” Cassie said. “I’d do it, too, but the only morph I can do is a horse. They would notice a horse.”
I checked to see that
no one could see us. I waved over my head. A few seconds later, Tobias came swooping silently out of the starlit sky. He landed on the lifeguard stand.
What’s up?
“The full members are off in some private get-together,” I told him. “Do you know where they are?”
Of course. With these eyes I can see the mice scampering through the dune grass. Nice, plump, tasty-looking things.
“Tobias! Get a grip. Don’t start eating mice just because you’re in a hawk’s body. What’s next? Roadkill?”
He didn’t say anything. Maybe he was offended at my suggestion that he would ever eat roadkill. Or, worse, maybe he wasn’t offended.
“Where are the full members?” I asked.
About a hundred yards down the beach. There’s a little bowl-like area formed by the dunes. There are people posted all around, though, like guards.
I nodded. “Good job. Tobias, you’ve been in that body for more than an hour. You need to morph back.”
No, I’ll keep watch from above for a while longer, he said.
“No, Tobias,” I said sharply. “You need to morph back. You’ve done what we needed you to do.”
Um, there is that little problem … I don’t exactly have any clothes on.
“Marco has your clothes in a bag. Rachel and Cassie will turn away while you morph.”
Cassie grinned. “I am going to have to teach you boys how to morph clothing.”
Still Tobias hesitated. I hate changing back. It’s like going back into a prison or something. I hate it when I don’t have wings.
“Tobias, you can always return to your hawk morph later,” Rachel reassured him. “Now, come on, both of you. I’ll look the other way so your delicate boy modesty isn’t offended.”
I took a deep breath. It was only my second morph. It still seemed totally ridiculous that I was even thinking about becoming a dog. But as I concentrated, I could begin to feel the itchiness and the squirmy feeling as Homer’s DNA combined with the Andalite’s technology and began to change me.
At the same time, I could see fingers growing from the ends of Tobias’s wings.
“Keep a grip on your human side,” Cassie warned me. “We can’t have you off chasing cats or whatever. You need to focus hard on staying in control.”