But I couldn't. Couldn't say a word, because Jake had let me come along on the mission to infiltrate the Solid Citizen Awards and destroy William Roger Tennant's image.
We'd had to wait until Saturday evening for this mission. I'd spent a good part of the week practicing morphing in my bathroom. Gorilla. Os-prey. Seagull. Wolf. Even creepy morphs like fly and cockroach.
Nothing. No problems. Every morph under control. Every morph whole and complete.
77 I seemed to have my morphing under control. I demonstrated a few morphs to everyone to prove this.
Finally, Jake decided to give me a chance. Besides, he needed me.
Big favor.
Our mission was simple. We'd seen for ourselves that Tennant's Yeerk was not a shining example of mental stability. I mean, in the dictionary next to "wacko" they could have used his picture. What we needed was to show that to the world. If we could get him to go off, in public, well, bye-bye guru.
The banquet was taking place at a big hotel near the beach, not far from William Roger Tennant's mansion. We'd been on a mission there before, when we tried to stop the Yeerks from infesting several of the world's most powerful leaders.
Security wasn't anywhere near as tight as it had been when presidents and prime ministers were guests. In fact, it was pretty easy getting in.
We morphed seagulls. Flew to the hotel. Found an empty room with a balcony. Landed on the balcony, demorphed, and walked inside. You'd be surprised how many people leave their balcony doors unlocked. I guess they don't think anyone is going to climb twelve floors up.
Then we took a service staircase downstairs,
78 found a bathroom near the restaurant kitchen, and morphed cockroach. Fortunately, we knew this place pretty well. Knew our way around. Which was a good thing since what a cockroach can see isn't worth seeing.
«There 's too much foot traffic for us to crawl on the floors. We'd get squashed,» Cassie said.
«What's the alternative?» Tobias asked.
«The ceiling.»
«Say what?»
And that's when the mission became really interesting. Way too interesting.
«0kay,» Jake said, «this is easy: The big rectangle of light is the door of the bathroom. We'll see it, more or less, whenever someone opens the door. We head for that. Then across the hall, left, pass two doors, take the third door, and we're in the kitchen.»
«0n the ceiling.»
«Yep. On the ceiling.»
«l see. And this is what you call "easy."»
«l remind everyone that we have been in morph for thirty of your minutes,» Ax said. «Din-ner is scheduled to be served in twenty-five more of your minutes.»
«Ax?»
«Yes, Marco.»
«They're everyone's minutes, Ax. They're not our minutes. They're just minutes. Just minutes.
79 Okay? We're on Earth, you're on Earth, they are everyone's minutes. »
«Now we have been in morph for thirty-one of your minutes.»
«0kay, let's get this over with,» Rachel said. She was not showing her usual enthusiasm. Nothing scares me more than Rachel being scared.
We ran to the wall. Then we ran up the wall.
Here's what it's like being a roach. Imagine a car. Imagine one of those cool Jaguar convertibles. I mean, it's free in your imagination, right? Might as well have a cool car.
Imagine a red Jaguar convertible. Imagine yourself strapped to the underside, facedown, your nose about a millimeter from the road, and the idiot driving is going a hundred miles an hour.
A roach running across your floor looks pretty fast. But from down there, from the perspective of the roach, it's like someone strapped a thousand bottle rockets to your butt and fired them all at once.
I blazed across that dirty tile floor. And then screeched to a halt as my clever little roach antennae informed me that the world was going vertical. I crawled my two front feet up onto the wall, then my middle two, then my hind two feet, and up I went. Straight up. Straight up like someone had suspended the law of gravity.
80 Zooom!
Up the wall, tiny little claws snagging tiny little bumps in the paint. Up and up, wandering a little left, scaring myself by running into Ax, then straight back up.
I was a little brown robot. Up. Up. And then, a wall. Only it wasn't a wall, it was the ceiling.
«Are we sure we can do this?» Jake asked.
«Let me try,» some moron said. Wait, it was me! I had to. I was the weak link. I was the dubious morpher. I had to be cool.
I did as I'd done in going from floor to wall. Front two legs. Middle legs. Back legs.
«l'm on the ceiling,» I reported.
«Any problem?»
«Nope. No - aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!»
Falling!
Falling!
Falling forever and ever, twisting and turning and . . .
Tunk!
I hit the floor. I'd fallen a hundred times my own standing height. Like a human falling off the Empire State Building. I'd landed on my back.
I was fine.
I motored back to the wall, back up the wall, and rejoined the others.
«l'm thinking we hug the angle between the wall and the ceiling,» I said.
82 «l was sure roaches could do ceilings,» Cassie said. «Sorry. Are you hurt?»
«Hurt? No. Interested in trying that again? No.»
«Let's go,» Jake said. «We have some food to infest.»
«Jake, have I mentioned how grateful I am to you for letting me come along on this little pic-nic?»
«0kay, let's get to the kitchen, find Tennant's food, and see if we can't get Mr. Mellow to freak out,» Jake said.
Around the bathroom. To the doorway. Down, onto the top of the door, then up to the hallway ceiling. Along the angle to the end of the hallway, then back to find the kitchen door.
At last we were there. We were in the kitchen. Mission almost accomplished.
And then Cassie said, «Jake? Something just occurred to me. This is a banquet, right? Hundreds of people. So how do we find which salad or whatever is Tennant's?»
There followed a long period of silence.
And then, still being an idiot, I said, «l have an idea.»
81
X was not the ideal choice for the task, what with my recent morphing problem. But only Cassie, Ax, and I had the morph needed, and Ax couldn't be trusted in a kitchen in human morph. Far too much tempting salt and grease. And we needed Cassie with Jake and Rachel. So I got the job.
While the rest of the group stayed hidden under a large, unidentified appliance, I scurried to the employee locker room that adjoined the kitchen.
And how did I find the employee locker room, you ask? Smell, of course. There are no aromas quite so distinctive as human sweat and urine.
I found an empty toilet stall and demorphed.
83 "Another superhero adventure," I muttered to myself. "Does Batman go from bathroom to bathroom? No. Does the Silver Surfer surf the toilet stalls? No, he does not."
The locker room was empty. I dug through the lockers until I found a shirt and a pair of pants that didn't dwarf me. A bow tie that hooked together.
"Does Daredevil wear other people's dirty clothes? No. Spawn, maybe. Next time there's a superhero sign-up sheet I -"
I fell silent. A youngish man stepped into the room, ignored me completely, and quickly lit up a cigarette. I stepped past him, eyes down.
Noise. Lots of noise. Yelling, banging pots, roaring automatic dishwashers, knives chop-chop-chopping.
The kitchen was a swirling mass of activity. Half of the gymnasium-sized area consisted of several huge stoves, ovens, and slicing tables. Dozens of cooks were trimming steaks, slicing onions, mixing sauces.
Along one of the walls was the dishwashing area. On each side of it was a set of swinging double doors. These led to the banquet room.
The wall that separated the locker rooms from the kitchen was lined with several computer registers, an
industrial-size coffeemaker, an espresso machine, and several large refrigera-
84 tors. Jake and the others were most likely underneath one of the refrigerators.
Separating the cooks' area from the rest of the kitchen was a long row of stainless-steel shelves, stacked with plates. A bunch of guys were standing behind these shelves, mixing lettuce in huge bowls.
Waiters and waitresses scurried around. Stopped at the computers to punch in orders. Carried trays of drinks through the swinging doors, out to the banquet room.
Nobody noticed when I dropped to my knees in front of the refrigerator closest to the door.
"Guys?" I whispered.
«Marco? Is that you?» Jake said.
"It ain't Spider-Man." I laid my hand out on the floor. Five tiny cockroaches tickled their way onto my fingers, up my hand, and underneath my shirtsleeve.
I knew they weren't actual roaches. I knew they were my friends. I knew I'd been a cockroach myself. Didn't matter. They still gave me the creeps.
«Did you find the salads?» Jake asked.
"Uh-huh. I'm about to have a special one set aside for Tennant." I approached the salad station.
"Hey, dude, are you the salad guy?"
85 "The what!" he replied.
"The salad guy," I said. "The guy who makes salads?"
"You mean the garde-manger?" he hissed.
"Yes, that's exactly what I meant," I said. "Look, William Roger Tennant said he doesn't like tomatoes on his salad."
"Who's William Roger Tennant?" he sneered.
"Duh," I replied. He wanted snooty, he'd get snooty. "He's only the guest of honor at this banquet. He's the man. Well, him and Hanson. They're here, too."
"What is a Hanson?"
"Some blond kids who look like girls, who, for some reason, girls think are cuter than me," I said.
«Hey, Bob Dylan is cuter than you,» Rachel said from inside my sleeve. «Beethoven is cuter than you and he's been dead for a couple centuries^
"How about if I crush you between my fingers?" I said.
"What?!" the cook snapped.
"Not you. Some bug. A bug with no taste, but that's not what matters. Tennant doesn't like tomatoes. Could you set aside a salad without tomatoes for him?"
"Whatever."
86 I watched as the guy reluctantly removed one of the salads from the shelves and picked the slices of tomato out of it.
"Here," I said, grabbing the bowl from him. "I'll take it." Holding it in my right hand, I lowered it out of his sight.
«Troops deploying,» Jake said.
When everybody was aboard, I turned to the salad guy again.
"I'm going to leave this salad on the top shelf here, okay? That way it won't get mixed up with the others. Don't forget to tell the waiter this special salad is for William Roger Tennant, okay?"
"Go away, little person. I am busy."
I set the bowl on the top shelf.
Now I had to join the party. No problemo. Morph to wolf spider, run out to a spot directly above the salad, drop into said salad, bide my time and scare the pee out of Tennant. Roaches and a spider? No one can see all that in his salad and not become slightly disturbed.
«Twenty of your minutes until we are served,» Ax said.
I hustled back to the locker room. After returning the clothes I'd borrowed, I found a dark corner in which to morph.
As soon as I'd finished, I came scurrying back out. I was feeling strange, like maybe I was still
88 not done morphing, birt that was only jitters. I ran for the wall and started to climb.
With my furry black paws.
My what?
"Oh my God!" someone screamed. "What is that thing?"
87
No! Not again!
"It's like ... oh, oh! It's like a miniature eight-legged skunk!" someone screamed.
"It's a mutant freak!"
"Kill it!"
"You kill it! I'm not going anywhere near that thing!"
I bolted underneath one of the refrigerators, my eight tiny paws scrabbling on the tile floor. Two sets of gigantic feet rushed toward me. I backed up against the wall.
Half-spider, half-skunk. Eight legs, all of them tiny skunk legs, with skunk paws and skunk claws. A third the size of a regular skunk, maybe four or five inches long. The wolf spider's
89 pincerlike mouth. The skunk's long, white-striped tail.
And I still wasn't done changing. Eyes were popping in and out on my face. Open, closed, open, closed. Then, finally, I was looking at the world through a grand total of ten eyes: the spider's already bizarre combo of compound and simple eyes, plus two fully functional skunk eyes.
A lot of eyes. A lot of very twisted views of my environment.
«Marco. How's it going?» Jake said.
«Fine. Fine, everything fine,» I cried. A third pair of feet arrived. And the person attached to them had a broom.
«Did something go wrong with your morph?»
«No. Noooooo. No problem. Nope. But you know what? This is really not a good time to talk.» The third guy dropped to his knees and shoved the broom at me. It whacked me right in the face, crushing the spider's tiny mouthparts.
«Aaaaaahh!»
I bolted to my left. The broom followed.
"I got him!" Mr. Broom said. "He's coming out."
I ran out from under the refrigerator - right into a pair of waiting feet.
"Man, what the heck is that thing?"
"Oh, save us, it's the apocalypse upon us! The end of the world!"
90 "Don't let it get away!"
One of the feet swept across the floor and kicked me. I sailed against the wall. Being so small and light, the impact didn't hurt. Much.
Mr. Broom moved in. He flipped me away from the wall, toward the center of the room. I turned and scurried back into the locker room, six giant feet right behind me.
"Squash it! Squash it!"
A massive foot shot straight down at me! I dodged to the left. Another foot! I dodged to the right.
«Marco?» Cassie this time. «Are you okay?»
«Look, some people saw me, okay, I'm running, okay, I'm fine,» I lied, continuing my wild, zigzag pattern.
«Do you need help?» Jake demanded.
«Nope. All better now.»
I shot past a row of lockers. The showers were just ahead. A dead end. There was no way to escape.
Wait! I was half-skunk, wasn't I? I could try spraying. But could I do it before my pursuers crushed me?
I pulled a U-turn and sprinted for the toilet stalls. Again with the bathroom!
"Now we've got him!" Mr. Broom opened the stall door.
91 I raised my tail. Spray! Spray! Spray! I commanded the skunk.
Nothing happened! Nothing!
They surrounded me, cutting off any chance of escape.
"It doesn't stink like a skunk," the first pursuer said.
"Well, it ain't a skunk, you moron," Mr. Broom said. "It's too small. And look at all those legs."
"It's an omen, I tell you. It's a sign!"
"Yeah, but it's got a tail like a skunk."
"Whatever it is, squash it!"
Mr. Broom raised his bristled weapon. I cowered helplessly.
"Kinda feel sorry for it," the first guy said.
"What? I've never seen anything so ugly in my life!"
«Have you tried looking in the mirror?» I growled. I used private thought-speak. Jake and the others wouldn't hear.
The three of them froze. "Who said that?" Mr. Broom demanded.
«l did. Down here. Me. The creature you're trying to kill.»
"No way. I didn't know you were a ventriloquist, Charlie."
"I'm not."
"Maybe it is a sign."
92 «That's right, he's not a ventriloquist,» I said. «l am a talking half-skunk, half-spider. A skider. Or possibly a spunk.»
"Okay, this is too weird," the first guy said.
«Not as weird as it's going to get if you don't jus
t drop the broom, turn around, and walk away.»
"What?"
«You heard me. Do it. Now.»
Charlie the Broom Guy was not impressed. "Or what?" he challenged.
«0r I'm going to turn into a ten-foot monster and pop your heads off like dandelions.»
"Oh, yeah. Right."
«AII right, gentlemen. But don't say I didn't warn you.»
It was risky. Stupid even. But what else could I do?
I began to demorph. And grew. Fast. From six inches long to a foot to two feet to four -
"Aaaaaaaaaaaa!" Broom screamed.
His friends agreed.
"Let's get out of here!"
They ran out of the locker room.
Yes! I finished demorphing and snuck up to the doorway of the kitchen to see what was going on.
"I'm telling you, Marcel," Broom whined. "There's a monster in there! We all saw it!"
"It talked to us in our heads!"
93 "We live in the final days! Fire and brimstone will rain down upon us!"
A booming voice cut them off. "Idiots! Ah hev a room full of guests out zere! Do yew sink I am heving time for your stupide games?"
"But-"
"Look," Marcel continued, "I dun't care what yew are doing wis your free tem, but when yew are here, I expect yew to be working! Comprenez? Now get beck to work!"
«Marco?» Jake. «Can you hear me?»
I couldn't answer, of course. Instead, I put on the old busboy clothes again. No more morphing for Marco today.
«The salads are supposed to be served in ten of our minutes,» Jake went on. «l mean, ten minutes. Are you in place?»
I finished dressing and went back into the kitchen. I walked up to the salad station.
"I'm gonna make sure you guys reach your destination," I mumbled. Tennant's special salad was now surrounded by at least two dozen other salads. It would be easy for a careless waiter to give Tennant the wrong one.
"What?" My pal the garde-manger had heard me.
"Nothing."
He made a brushing-away gesture with his hands. "Shoo."
94 "YEW! What are yew doing standing around?"
Marcel. I recognized the voice.
"Get to work!"
"But-"
"No buts! Yew need somesing to do? Empty ze peeg bucket!"
"Ze what?"