Although, when I thought about it, my look could use some freshening up. I mean, what was
38 with all the pants and jeans? Why shouldn't I wear dresses? I have great legs. I can wear dresses and look good. The shorter lengths, the longer lengths, like, you know, with a slit or whatever? Why shouldn't I try the waif look, I mean I can be a waif. I can do the slinky dresses with, like, the big -
"Ow!"
Someone was knocking on my head. It was her.
She rapped my skull with her knuckles. "Hey! Hey! You awake in there? I asked you a question. Who are you? And what are you doing with my body?"
Marco fidgeted. "Urn, I have a body joke here, but I can't tell it unless Ax promises to protect me."
"Shut up," Mean Rachel snapped. "Don't make me kill you. Now, you, little pansy girl, you have about three seconds to tell us -"
"Don't threaten," Jake said with unmistakable authority.
Mean Rachel forgot me in a flash. She rounded on Jake. "Don't get in my way, Jake."
"Don't push it, Rachel."
"Are you threatening me?" she nearly screamed. "Come on! You think you can tell me what to do? Let's go, right now. You and me. Just keep our pet Andalite here out of the fight. You
39 and me, we'll see who's giving orders around here after I give you the butt-kicking you're begging for."
The possible fight was interrupted at this point by the arrival of Erek King. He's a Chee. Meaning that he's, like, this Android? Only he uses holograms to look like this normal boy.
I don't think he's cute because, you know, it's bad enough being attracted to a guy who's a bird of prey, right? Getting into androids is maybe going a little far.
Although, when you realize Erek is really like thousands of years old, so he's totally mature and all -
Anyway.
Erek walked in. Looking like a boy. Looking like a boy with a very odd expression on his face.
"Urn . . ." he said. "Urn ... is it just me, or are there really two Rachels here?"
"We're filming a Doublemint gum commercial later," Marco said, then cringed lest Mean Rachel go all psycho-gymnast on him again.
"Yeah, we have two Rachels," Jake said.
"Okay. Any particular reason?" Erek asked.
"It wasn't exactly deliberate," Cassie explained.
«They appear to be identical,» Ax said. «Ex-cept that one is passive and easily frightened, and the other is -»
40 "Excitable?" Marco suggested.
«- violent and aggressive,» Ax concluded.
Erek nodded. "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?"
"Well, it's sure not Mary Kate and Ashley," Marco said.
«So it was you who went flying with me, today^ Tobias said.
"Who? Me?" I asked.
«No. The other one,» Tobias said.
"Mean Rachel," Marco suggested. "Mean Rachel and Nice Rachel?"
"Mighty Rachel, hah HAH!" Mean Rachel said. "Mighty Rachel, and . . . and . . . Wimp Rachel! Yeah, that's it, blondie."
I didn't exactly want to be known as "Wimp Rachel." But I didn't want Mean Rachel to try and pound my face in, either.
"This is nuts," Cassie said.
"I can't stay long," Erek said, unable to stop looking from me to Mean Rachel and back again. "I just came to update you guys on the mission."
"To the Yeerk pool!" Mean Rachel crowed. "Let's get some flamethrowers!"
"I gotta stop hanging around with you people," Erek said. "You people are just plain strange."
41
t's called the Buyers Research Institute. They test consumer products and have a magazine," Erek explained. "The Yeerks just recently bought it to use as a front. Also, they hope to use the BRI's consumer ratings to help some of their other companies. So we -"
"We go in, hard and fast," I said. "Forget subtlety and concealment, we go in, all guns blazing, battle morphs, maximum shock value. Anything gets in our way we kill it!"
"Rachel?" Jake said.
"What?"
"What?"
"Mean Rachel," he clarified.
"What?" I asked.
42 "Why don't we let Erek finish before we decide how to deal with this. Erek?"
The android nodded his human head. It was such a pity. The Chee were powerful beyond human imagining, but programmed for nonviolence. We'd freed Erek from that programing once and man, he had carried out gross and total mayhem! It was beautiful! Of course, now he was back in his old Gandhi-Martin-Luther-King-Give-Peace-a-Chance mode.
Pity.
"Well, as you know," Erek continued, "we believe the Anti-Morphing Ray is a real threat to all of you. If it works it would destroy the morphing field and cause a person in morph to demorph."
"If it works," Wuss Rachel said. "Probably it won't even work, so we have nothing to worry about."
"Shut up," I snapped.
"The problem you have is that preliminary testing is about to begin tonight," Erek said. "Just computer simulations and so on, but it may encourage the Yeerks. You should stop them before it gets that far. Which means moving right away. Tonight."
"Okay, Erek, thanks. We'll take it from here," Jake said.
Erek left. Gratefully, I think.
«l think we need to figure this situation out,»
43 Tobias said. «l mean, we need to go after this Anti-Morphing Ray but first we need to figure out what the deal is with two Rachels.»
I leered at him. "You're as bad as Marco. You want us both. Hah HAH! I'll be more than enough for you, Tobias; you won't be needing the wimp, here."
«That wasn't exactly what -»
"Okay, Rachel . . . both of you ... tell us what you did today," Jake said.
"School, field trip, here, big deal, let's go squash some slugs!" I said.
"Well, first I woke up, then I took a shower, then -"
"Field trip," Cassie interrupted. "What happened on the field trip?"
"You were there," I said. "Don't waste my time with stupid questions."
"I was there, but not with you," Cassie said.
"I remember it was chilly," my idiot twin said. "I had, like, goose bumps?"
"I used to read those books," Marco said.
«Rachel had books in response to cold?» Ax asked.
"Focus, can we please focus, here?" Jake said.
"I dropped my earring in a tidal pool!" Nitwit Rachel said suddenly, sounding as excited as if she'd just answered correctly to Final Jeopardy.
"Stupid earring," I said.
44 "My favorite earrings! My dad gave them to me."
"Guilt gift," I sneered.
"It was sweet."
"It was a payoff for missing our visit that weekend."
"He was busy!"
"Right."
"You are horrible!"
"And you're a pinhead."
"Dr. Jekyll? Ms. Hyde?" Cassie interrupted. "Can we move on?"
"I couldn't reach the earring, it fell down in this, like, crack?"
"In this, like, crack? Crack, question mark? Was it a crack or wasn't it? If it was a crack then say 'it fell in a crack!' No 'like.' No question mark. Crack, crack, CRACK!"
I couldn't believe this bimbo.
"I wanted it back because I thought my dad would be sad if he thought -"
"Oh, someone just gag me," I snapped. "The earring was in a crack. I morphed this starfish to go in after it."
«You morphed a starfish?» Tobias asked.
"Did you go deaf?" I asked him. Sweetly. "Pay attention, this is tough enough with her babbling."
"And then, oooh, it was horrible! Horrible!"
45 "Huh?" I asked.
"Someone, something . . . the pain! I was so scared! I was, like, cut in, like, half?"
"Some rotten little monster of a kid," I yelled, renewed in my rage at the memory. "I should have killed him! I should have morphed to grizzly and gone after him!"
"Back up," Cassie said. "You morphed to starfish and some kid chopped you in half."
I grabbed Cassie'
s arm. "Hey, why are you talking to the wimp? Talk to me. Talk to ME!"
"Nice Rachel? Did you demorph right away?" Cassie pressed.
"No, I was too scared! I mean, like -"
"Mean Rachel, how about you?"
"Of course I demorphed right away. What was I going to do, try and destroy Bailey as a freaking starfish?"
«Bailey?» Ax asked.
Jake shrugged. "Don't ask me."
"Oh, man," Cassie said.
«What?» Tobias asked her.
"Starfish. I mean, at one level it was lucky. She could have been killed."
"Cassie," Jake said in his I'm-losing-patience-but-still-trying-to-be-polite voice. "Tell us what you know."
"Starfish. They regenerate. You can chop off a leg and they can grow a new one. Somehow when
46 that starfish was chopped in half, the starfish's regenerative powers created the possibility of two separate Rachels. One in each half."
«But, somehow the two halves were unequal, subtly different,» Ax said. «This is a very interesting phenomenon.»
"Interesting?" Marco shrilled. "It's bizarre! It's weird. It's wacko, creepy, horrific, incredible, absurd, and totally, totally, I mean totally insane. But also, kind of cool."
"Wait a minute!" I cried. "The shrimp-boy is right! I should have seen the possibilities, but I'm getting confused. The wimp here can attend school and keep the 'rents happy and I can spend a hundred percent of my time in fierce battle against the Yeerks! I'll annihilate them! I'll crush them! They won't know what hit 'em. It will be full-time Rachel, on the loose!"
"Good grief," Jake muttered. "Okay, here's the deal: Nice Rachel, you sit this mission out. Go home. Stay home. And Mean Rachel?"
"Yes?" I asked, filled with excitement.
"You do the same. Home. Quiet. Don't hurt anyone. We'll handle BRI and the AMR without you. Either of you."
Naturally, I objected. But Jake wouldn't give.
"I'll kill you!" I screamed at him. "I'll kill you all!"
They left me anyway.
47
lean Rachel snuck in the house morphed as a cockroach, then demorphed right in front of me.
I couldn't watch. I pressed my hands over my eyes. It was so awful!
I mean, okay, I know that I have morphed roaches myself. It's not like I'm dumb or anything. I have the same memories as Mean Rachel. So, like, I know all the stuff I've done in the past, right?
But now it just seems so far away. Like some old nightmare. It's still scary, right, but it's like, far away.
Besides, that wasn't my real problem now.
48 "GET OFF MY BED!"
I jumped. I jumped and slipped off the edge of the bed and landed on my butt on the floor. I almost dropped Bobo Bear.
"But..." I said.
"Two of us and only one bed, you do the math," Mean Rachel said.
"W-w-we could sh-sh-share."
"We c-c-could sh-sha-share?" she mocked me. "You were never a part of me. Never! I can't believe you and I were ever inside the same person. You make me want to vomit! I should . . ."
She didn't say what she should do. I didn't want to think about it.
"Rachel?"
A voice through the door. My little sister, Jordan.
"What!?" Mean Rachel roared.
"What?" I asked.
"Are you ... are you talking to yourself in there?" Jordan asked.
"Yeah, you got a problem with that?" Mean Rachel yelled.
"No," came the muffled response. "I just like to keep track of your level of insanity."
Mean Rachel lay there quivering with suppressed energy. "I need to do something!"
"W-w-what?"
She shot a suspicious look at me. "Some-
49 thing. I'll think of something. Just have to focus."
"I ... I mean, I, you know, I'm kind of having a hard time focusing, too," I said.
"I'm not having trouble focusing, you moron. I can focus. I'm not like you. It's just ... I mean, you can't know the future, right? Put a Yeerk here, put a bunch of Hork-Bajir in front of me, I'll focus! I'll focus them to death!"
I started to say something to her, only, what was it? Something. Or not. Things just seemed to evaporate right out of my brain.
So I said, "The others are probably starting on the mission. I hope they're -"
"That's it!" Mean Rachel cried.
"What's it?"
"The mission! I'm going on the mission!" Mean Rachel glared at me with hatred in her eyes. "Don't look at me, I don't want you busting out in tears. I'm going to morph and then I'm outta here."
"But Jake said-"
"Hey, Jake isn't the boss of me," Mean Rachel snapped. "He may not be the boss of anything much longer. The powerful rule over the weak. The strong survive, honey pie. And I am the strong!"
I turned my back on her and hugged Bobo Bear. I heard the window slide up. Then, I put my
50 hands over my ears to block out the faint sounds of grinding bones and liquefying flesh.
«And don't get back up on that bed,» she said. «PII know! If you get back on that bed I'll put you in the hospital! I'll break both your arms. Then see how well you can hug B-B-Bobo B-B-Bear.»
I didn't look up until I was totally, totally sure she was gone.
I had a plan. I was going to call my dad. But when should I call him? Now? Later? Now?
What? What was I thinking about?
Dad! Call Dad! I had to write it down fast before I forgot again. "Call Daddy," I said as I carefully wrote it down.
I went to the phone. I picked it up, trembling, careful not to touch the bed.
I was trapped in a nightmare. And it wasn't just this being split-in-two thing. I had been trapped in a nightmare since that awful night when we first ran into Elfangor and he, like, messed up our lives and all.
Secrets! Nothing but secrets!
Nightmares and horrors!
And the worst horror of all was seeing what had grown inside of me like some kind of cancerous tumor. Mean Rachel was getting stronger with each passing month of my life as an Ani-
51 morph. Pretty soon she would have become all of me and there'd have been nothing left of me!
It had to end! I didn't care if the strong survived and the weak perished, I wanted to survive anyway!
I blinked away the tears. What was I doing? Something. I saw the note. Oh yeah.
I dialed my dad's phone number.
52
he night and owl morph.
It was like being some kind of a god!
I could see what no one else saw. I could hear what no one else heard. I flew, silent as the grave, through early night.
Over the rooftops! Skimming the chimney tops. Flitting through the highest branches of the highest trees. The bright, square windows below me, the pale streetlights, the searching headlights of the cars were all unnecessary. I needed nothing but the faintest glimmer of light to see clearly. I could read a book from a hundred feet away by the light of a single, flickering candle.
53 Great horned owl. The night killer of the skies.
I saw it all from up there. The worker-drones getting home late from their pathetic jobs; the mommies making din-din for their yowling, savage little children; the TV screens flickering with the news of the world.
Hah! News? I had news for the world: Rachel was on the loose! Rachel was unrestrained! Look out, world, Rachel was on the wing, talons ready!
Ah HAH!
Buyers Research Institute. Yeah. Had to go there, that's where the mission was. And when I got there? I'd ... I'd ... I'd figure something out. That's what I'd do. Just get there. That's all that mattered.
You don't need a plan, Rachel, I told myself. The Great and Powerful Rachel does not need a stupid plan. No, no. The Mighty Rachel would arrive and then, that would be it! Let the battle begin. Let those fools - my friends - see how weak they were without me.
Maybe if one of them were torn apart by Hork-Bajir that would teach them a lesson!
/> Then I spotted the cat. The silent predator was stalking a mouse in its own backyard.
Ah, yes, friend cat. A worthy adversary. He would give me a fight to tune me up and get my blood boiling for the wild massacre ahead!
54 I tilted my tail and reconfigured my wings.
Friend Tabby would not even hear my approach. Kitty Kitty wouldn't know what hit him!
Down, down, with talons spread wide. I would hit the cat in the neck from behind. One talon would close over his head and I would squeeze, squeeze till the talon broke through the skull and -
The cat jumped sideways, quick as lightning.
I saw my error too late! It was the mouse. He'd been facing me. He'd seen my shadow as I passed beneath the streetlight. His shocked, upward gaze had alerted the cat!
I swished helplessly by.
Oh! The unfairness of it! The cat was mine, mine. MINE!
Rage boiled up within me. I wanted that kill! 1 wanted that kill! I needed that kill! I needed to feel my talons breaking bone and squishing brain and . . .
I couldn't think. Couldn't focus. Madness. Like blood in my eyes. The rage, it was like someone had exploded a hand grenade in my stomach. Like the explosion couldn't get out but was all contained inside me.
My wings . . . they wouldn't work. I ... couldn't focus. . . . Mine, mine, MINE! My kill! My kill! My kill!
I landed hard on a patch of grass beside the
55 road. Cars zipped by, swirling me with their backwash.
I lay there, on my back, feathers dampened by the grass, and kicked my bird legs and flapped my bird wings and threw my head back and forth and screamed.
Screamed and screamed and screamed and still the volcano inside me would not die down.
It seemed like forever. It was a fever. An illness. A tidal wave of emotion that had rolled over me. How long it lasted, I don't know. A long time, it seemed to me. Then, at last, it ebbed.
It ebbed, leaving behind a shaky, uncertain feeling.
Fear?
Yes. Fear.
Fear of myself.
And yet, the hunger was not lessened in any way. I had missed this kill. I wouldn't miss the next.
I flew toward the Buyers Research Institute.
56
Buyers Research Institute. The people who tell you which vacuum cleaner to buy and which coffee tastes best.
You are one sad, tired, burned-out specimen of humanity if you need someone to tell you which vacuum to buy. I mean, buy the vacuum, if it doesn't work go back and get the salesman and kick his butt! Where's the big mystery there?