"Ow!"
"Looks okay," he muttered. "Superficial cut. Serious bruise, but I doubt there's a concussion.
18 Still, I'll take you by the hospital emergency room on the way home. Have the doctors there check you out."
Rachel winked. "Doctor Carter may be there. Noah Wyle. Oh, yeah."
"What happened?" I asked my dad.
"Well, honey-"
"It was the aliens," Crazy Helen interrupted. "They have these exploding rocks they spread around out there. BOOM!"
My father rolled his eyes. "We're on the edge of an Air Force facility. They have a base way back in the Dry Lands. You see the jets flying over all the time. I suspect they may have lost a bomb or a missile or something. That snake-bit horse must have set it off. The blast caught you."
"That sounds logical," I said.
"It was the aliens!" Crazy Helen screamed. "They keep the aliens out at Zone Ninety-one! That's why it's all so secret out there. That's why the Air Force won't talk about it. Zone Ninety-one is the secret base where the government keeps the aliens it has captured. They have 'em out there in cages. They get secrets of technology from them. You think computers just happened? All that stuff was from aliens. Here, have a souvenir mug. Normally ten-ninety-nine. But you can have it because you got hurt."
19 Helen grabbed a mug from the shelf, wiped it off on her sleeve, and handed it to me.
Rachel held up her stick. "I got a pecan log," she said.
"You want a mug?" Helen asked her.
"No, the pecan log is great. But I don't really believe in aliens." Rachel said this with a perfectly straight face.
Helen just smiled. "Lots of people do, young lady. Very smart people, too. Out at Zone Ninety-one they know. Oh, they know! The gov ernment doesn't want us telling. They watch me. They listen in through the microchip they implanted in my head. They're listening right now! One of those black helicopters of theirs is listening in and transmitting everything we say to the New World Order headquarters in the Azores, which is where Atlantis is, you know."
This tirade left us all temporarily without anything much to say. We just kind of stared.
"Well, we may as well get out of Helen's hair," my father said, breaking the spell. "Cassie, honey, do you feel okay? Can you focus your eyes?"
"Urn, yes," I said. "But how about that horse?"
My father shook his head, mystified. "Strangest thing. There isn't a trace left of her. Not a trace."
20 "Hah. It's the Martians," Crazy Helen said. "It's all the fault of those darned aliens."
Rachel and I exchanged a look. We were both having the same thought: It's a very strange world where a person called Crazy Helen is at least partly right.
21 You've never heard of Zone Ninety-one before?
It's the Holy Grail of conspiracy nuts," Marco said in between slurps of a Mountain Dew. "Man, don't you ever go on the Internet? The Internet is full of people who think there are aliens at Zone Ninety-one. It's called the Most Secret Place On Earth."
"I go on the Internet," Rachel said. "I just don't hang out in chat rooms, call myself 'Studboy,' and try to convince people I'm an incredibly handsome thirty-year-old millionaire."
"Excuse me," Marco said, "but I do not use 'Studboy' as my screen name. Give me some credit. I use Baldwin Boy Five. You know, the
22 missing fifth Baldwin brother. The really cool-looking one."
We were all at the mall food court, the day after the incident in the Dry Lands. I was clutching a shopping bag. Inside were several smaller bags from The Gap and J. Crew.
It was all Rachel's doing. Despite everything, she had actually remembered my stupid promise. Now I owned outfits. Not just clothing, mind you. Outfits.
"Even I've heard of Zone Ninety-one," Jake said. "And unlike Marco, I'm a fairly normal human being."
Marco threw a french fry at Jake. Jake ducked. And with a quick movement, Ax snagged the french fry out of midair, popped it in his mouth and said, "Mmmm. Grease. Greassss and salt!"
Just then a boy walked up to the table. He seemed nervous, edgy. Like he was a little scared by the experience of being in the mall. He looked over his shoulders a lot. And when he looked right at you he squinted, as if he was nearsighted.
"Hey, Tobias," Marco said. "We were thinking about ordering some pizza. You want mouse meat on yours?"
Maybe I should back up a little and explain
23 who all these people are. Because otherwise you'd never guess that this bunch was the Ani-morphs.
First, there's Jake. Jake is pretty much the leader. Not that anyone really treats him that way. And not that he'd want anyone to treat him that way. See, that's part of the reason Jake is our leader - because he's the kind of guy who doesn't need anyone sucking up to him.
Then there's Marco. What can I say about Marco? Not as much as he would say about himself, that's for sure.
Marco is our sense of humor in the group. But he is not the class clown. There's a seriousness to him, way down beneath all the glib jokes and teasing. Marco sees things other people sometimes miss. He is very smart and very wideawake, if you know what I mean.
Marco is Jake's best friend. They've been best friends forever. No one even remembers when it started. But ever since their friendship began, they've been arguing with each other about the most completely idiotic things in the universe: whether you should use more pedal or higher gears to win this dumb driving video game they love; whether Spiderman could beat Batman; whether basketball takes more teamwork than football; whether cheese tastes yellow.
24 I'm not kidding. They once spent an entire Saturday arguing whether something could taste like a color. I seem to remember that Marco thought cheese actually tasted green.
Despite this, Jake and Marco, along with Rachel and me, are the most normal members of the Animorphs. The other two are definitely weirder.
Take Tobias. Tobias is a kid trapped in the body of a red-tailed hawk. That happens if you stay more than two hours in a morph. You stay in that morph permanently. Tobias lives in the forest near a meadow. He still lives by hunting mice and rabbits.
But a vastly powerful creature called an El-limist just recently gave Tobias back his power to morph. So now Tobias can morph like any of us. Except that just as we each have to return to our human form before two hours, Tobias has to return to his hawk form.
So the human body Tobias was in at the mall was actually a morph of his old human body. That's why he seemed nearsighted: He was used to his laser-sharp hawk eyes.
He could stay forever in that human body, but then he'd be trapped as a human, unable to morph.
Confusing? It gets worse.
25 The last member of our group is not a human at all. His full name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-lsthill. We call him Ax.
Ax is an Andalite. But he also has a human morph he created out of bits of DNA from Jake, Marco, me, and Rachel.
Ax in his human morph is shockingly pretty for a boy. And extremely weird. See, Andalites have no mouths. No sense of taste. So when Ax is in human morph and has a mouth, he has no resistance whatsoever to flavors.
Ax is dangerous around cinnamon buns. And chocolate. And popcorn. And the paper boxes the popcorn comes in.
Basically, Ax in human morph should not go anywhere near anything that can be eaten. We've had to stop him from eating the butts out of ashtrays. Don't get me wrong. Ax is brilliant and decent and honorable and brave - when he's in his own body.
"So. What's up?" Tobias asked.
Six sets of eyes casually scanned the area around us. The mall was not busy, and it was too early for a big dinner crowd at the food court. But we had to be sure that no one was even slightly within range to overhear.
Our enemies could be anyone. Anywhere.
"Rachel and Cassie went out to Zone Ninety-
26 one and found horses making phone calls," Marco said.
Tobias's eyes darted to me, then to Rachel. He looked very serious. He had mostly forgotten how to make human exp
ressions with his face. But he was still Tobias. "Can someone interpret from Marco-babble to normal language?"
"I think I like you better as a chicken, Tobias," Marco said.
"Red-tailed hawk," Tobias said tolerantly.
Marco shrugged. "Chicken, pigeon, hawk, whatever."
"Urn, how about if we get down to business before someone interrupts us?" Jake suggested.
"Okay, Dad," Marco said. Then, becoming instantly serious, he quickly and efficiently summarized for Tobias what we knew.
"Yeerks in horses," Rachel said. "It makes zero sense. Why would Yeerks want to make Controllers out of horses?"
"Do horses have some special powers? Pow-werz-zuh?" Ax asked. In addition to enjoying taste, he finds speaking words out loud to be strange.
I shrugged. "They're herd animals. Not very smart. In fact, pretty dumb, really. They can run fast, but there are lots of faster animals. They're strong, but there are lots of other animals that
27 are stronger." I shrugged again. "I can't see why the Yeerks would be wanting to infest horses."
"Maybe they think they can win the Kentucky Derby," Rachel joked.
"Maybe it's some kind of strange Yeerk entertainment," Jake offered. "Maybe it's fun for them."
"I don't believe Yeerks do anything for fun, Prince Jake," Ax said. "They would have some reason."
"Ax, please don't call me 'Prince Jake.' Especially not in public."
"Yes, Prince Jake. Jay-kuh."
"Are you two sure about this?" Jake asked Rachel and me. "It was a Yeerk you saw? Not a snake or a snail or something?"
"And what if your dad is right, and it was an exploding artillery shell, not a Dracon flash?" Tobias suggested.
"We're not doubting you," Jake added quickly. "It's just that there's no good reason for Yeerks to infest horses."
I looked at Rachel. I was sure of what we'd seen. Mostly. "Well ... I guess I could be wrong. But I'm pretty sure."
"Yeah. Pretty sure," Rachel echoed.
"So? What do we do?" Jake asked. "Take a look around out in the Dry Lands? See if we can get some more proof?"
28 "Very good flying out there," Tobias said. "Lots of sweet thermals."
"And plenty of delicious snakes and toads?" Marco asked with mock innocence.
"I can't go tomorrow," Jake said. "It's my dad's birthday. We're all going out for dinner."
"Even Tom?" Rachel asked.
"Tom says he'll be there," Jake said darkly. "But who knows? He spends a lot of time at meetings of The Sharing lately. All the more reason why I have to be there. My dad is not going to celebrate his birthday without at least one of his sons there."
"What did you get your dad?" I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
Jake grinned. "Haven't done it yet, but I think I'm going to clean the roof gutters for him."
Marco shuddered. "Actual physical labor? Couldn't you just get him a nice Hallmark card?"
"I am kind of curious about this thing with the horses," I said. "But we could put it off till the weekend."
"It could be worth checking out," Jake said. "But we don't need everyone to go along. Who wants to go flying with Cassie tomorrow after school?"
In the end Tobias, Rachel, Marco, and I decided to go. Jake was busy, and I don't think Ax saw any point in it. We broke up and went our
29 separate ways. We try not to spend much time together in public. We don't want any inquisitive Controllers to start thinking of us as a "group." So Rachel and I left together.
"No one is taking this seriously, are they?" I asked her. "I get the impression Ax thinks we're nuts."
"Yeer ks in horses? Horse-Controllers? It is kind of hard to see where that's some big threat."
"Yeah. I guess that's true."
"But hey, any excuse to go flying, right?"
30 I he next day I wore my new outfit to school. I hooked up with Rachel before first period and we walked to class together. Down the main hall. Me and Rachel, the Goddess of Clothing and Good Grooming.
"You look great!" Rachel said.
"Hi, Rachel," a boy named Charles said, smiling awkwardly. "Oh, and hi, um . . . Carla."
"See? Charles smiled at you."
"He called me Carla."
"Has he ever even spoken to you before?" Rachel asked.
"I guess not."
"See? Progress."
31 Marco likes to tease Rachel, calling her Xena: Warrior Princess. And when I'm with her I guess I'm Gabrielle. The sidekick. Guys see Rachel first, second, and third. They see me fourth.
Personally, I don't care. Looks and clothing don't matter even slightly to me. And the people who matter are the ones who see past all that.
"Hey, Rachel. How's it going?" a boy named Jawan asked, smiling shyly.
"Fine," Rachel said coolly. "Cassie, you've met Jawan, haven't you?"
I shrugged. "Hi, Jawan."
"Hey, Kendra," he said. "See you later in English, Rachel."
"Kendrar I asked Rachel.
"He gave you a definite look," Rachel said. "So what if he isn't good at remembering names?"
"He remembers your name pretty well," I pointed out. Then I spotted a guy named Joe. Joe was a friend of mine from when we both took riding lessons together. He would remember my name.
"Hey, Cassie. Whoa! Whoa! Something different about you." He stepped back and stared at me.
"New outfit?" Rachel suggested.
Joe shook his head. "No, that's not it. Oh, I
32 know what it is!" He snapped his fingers. "You look like you've gained weight! Have you been trying to bulk up?"
Rachel reached with one elegant hand and pushed Joe disdainfully out of her way.
"That proves nothing," Rachel said.
"Uh-huh. I look fatter."
"Guys are idiots sometimes."
"Not Jake," I said.
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Jake is the exception that proves the rule," she said. "And there he is now."
Jake was cruising down the hall, joking and talking with some non-Animorph friends. Part of what we have to do is maintain normal lives as much as possible.
"Hi, Cassie," Jake said, peeling off from his buds. "Hey, Rachel."
Rachel stood back, and held her hands out toward me like a fashion designer showing off her latest supermodel. "So?"
"So what?" Jake asked blankly.
"So the outfit! The outfit!" Rachel exploded in frustration. "Doesn't Cassie look great in these new clothes? These clothes that actually fit, and have no raccoon poop stains? Doesn't she look fabulous?"
Jake smiled his slow smile. "Of course she looks great. She always does. You guys have fun
33 in the Dry Lands this afternoon. And try to be careful."
He walked off down the hall leaving me with a nice, warm glow.
Rachel stared at me. "Okay, he's an idiot, too."
"No, you were right the first time," I said smugly. "He's the exception."
We reached first period class. I sighed deeply, my usual reaction to first period. The classroom was stuffy and airless. The windows just looked out at the blank brick wall of the gym.
I went to my seat and tried to remind myself of what we were supposed to have studied the night before. Did I do my homework? Oh, yeah. I had. It was in my -
"No! No! It can't be!"
Marco's voice. He sits two rows over. But now he leaped clear over one row of seats and slithered into an empty desk next to mine. He stared at me, wide-eyed with wonder. Way too much wonder.
"Who is this vision of loveliness? Who is this fantasy come true? Excuse me, but are you Tyra Banks? No, no, you can't be any mortal girl. So much perfection could never be achieved by a mere human. You're an angel descended from heaven! I mean, they say clothes make the man, but these clothes make you an angel."
34 I took out my homework and placed it on my desk. "Are you done?" I asked Marco.
He thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah. That should be about enough."
"What did R
achel pay you?"
He grinned. "Two bucks. Girls are such idiots sometimes. I'd have done it for a dollar."
35 We met up at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic.
I quickly doled out the meds to the caged patients. It was a slow week. Half the cages were empty, which is totally unusual.
"You ready?" Rachel asked.
"Just have to check this opossum's bandage. Good. The stitches are holding. Good boy," I said to the opossum with the mangled paw. "Okay. Now I'm ready."
"Why do they have that extra o in opossum?" Marco wondered. "What's the point of it if it's silent?"
Tobias was up in the rafters. He was in his hawk body once more. A red-tailed hawk with a
36 brown back and tan front and reddish-brown tail. His eyes were gold and inhumanly intense.
Since he was in morph, he communicated in thought-speak. Everything's clear,» he said to me. «Your mom just went inside the house carrying groceries. Your dad's truck is just coming through the intersection by the Exxon station. It'll take him five minutes to get here.»
I didn't doubt Tobias. Hawks have amazing vision. From his position in the rafters of the barn, Tobias could see out through the open loft door. If he said my dad was five minutes away, my dad was five minutes away.
"Let's morph," Rachel said.
She removed her outer clothing and folded it neatly into her backpack. Beneath she wore her morphing suit. See, we haven't figured out how to morph bulky clothing. We can only morph something fairly skintight. Like Rachel's black leotard. Or my somewhat more colorful aerobics outfit. Or Marco's bike shorts.
I focused my mind on the morph I wanted to do. It was an osprey, a type of hawk that usually eats fish and lives by water. It would be good for distance flying.
Rachel was morphing her own big bird of prey, a bald eagle. Marco has an osprey morph, just like mine. In fact, identical to mine, since we acquired the same bird's DNA.
37 I began to focus on the osprey, and as I did, I felt the changes begin.
Morphing is still exciting to me. I've done it dozens and dozens of times, but each time I realize how lucky I am to have the power. I will never get tired of it. I'll never get bored with it. It is an experience of total, complete, utterly amazing change.