# The Conspiracy

1 The author wishes to thank

Laura Battyanyi-Wiess for her help in preparing this manuscript.

For Bill Battyanyi And for Michael and Jake

My name is Jake.

Just Jake.

My last name doesn't matter.

Where I live and go to school don't matter, either.

What matters is that we're in a war, fighting for the survival of the

human race.

You're thinking Yeah, right. That's okay. I know-I probably would have

said the same thing once.

No way. Not a chance. If it's true, then where are the troops storming

the beaches? Where are the bombs? Where's the battlefield? The RPVs and

cruise missiles?

Well, it's not that kind of a war.

2 The battlefield is wherever we are, we being my friends and I. We are

animal-morphers, given the ability to absorb DNA by touch and then morph

into that animal. It's an incredible weapon, the kind that both dreams

and nightmares are made of.

Ask Tobias, who stayed in his red-tailed hawk morph longer than the

two-hour limit and now spends his days catching and eating small mammals.

Or check in with any one of us in the small hours between night and

morning, when the nightmares come, the nightmares of twisting bodies and

mutating minds.

Like I said, this is not your standard-type war.

We're the whole army, the six of us. We get some help from the Chee, but

they are incapable of violence, so when it comes to the down and dirty,

we're it. Us, alone, against an alien empire that has already terrorized

the galaxy.

Yeah, I know. Nice odds.

Most of us learned to fight the hard way in a deadly,

on-the-job-training-type deal.

But some of us had a head start, like my cousin Rachel, who loves it

all. And Ax, whose full name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-lsthill,

warrior-cadet and younger brother to Elfangor, the An-dalite who gave us

the power to morph before he was murdered by Visser Three.

3 I know, sounds like bull, right? Sounds like maybe I need to spend

some time in a rubber room.

But it's true. Every now and then the crazy becomes real.

And this is not a clean war, if there is such a thing. I mean a war like

World War II, where thousands saw the wrongs being committed and stood

up to correct them. Where you attacked an enemy you could see, an enemy

who wore a uniform and came right back at you, guns blazing.

This isn't that kind of war at all.

The Yeerks are more subtle than that. They aren't predators, they're

parasites. They don't want to destroy humanity, they don't want to make

big piles of bodies, they need our bodies in one piece to continue their

invasion.

See, they're basically slugs. Parasites. No arms, no legs, no face. Blind.

That's why they need host bodies.

They slither into your ear, seep into the crevices of your brain, open

your memories.

And you're still inside yourself while it's happening, trapped,

helpless, begging for the nightmare to end.

Only it's real. And it doesn't end.

You want to warn people and you can't make the words come out. But the

Yeerk in your head can hear them. It can hear your pitiful cries, your

4 impotent threats. It can hear you beg, Please, please leave me, please

get out of my head, please. . . . And it can feel you slowly

surrendering even the pretense of resistance.

The Yeerks are everywhere, using their involuntary human hosts to move

freely, to recruit new members into their cover organization called The

Sharing with promises of good, clean, wholesome family fun.

They're the ultimate enemy.

We've identified a few of them, though.

Our assistant principal, Mr. Chapman.

My best friend Marco's mother.

My big brother, Tom.

I know how the guys fighting in the Civil War felt, North against South,

brother against brother.

Living with the dark, ugly fact that if you met your brother on the

battlefield, he would kill you.

Unless you killed him first.

I know the real Tom is still inside himself somewhere, raging against

the Yeerk holding him hostage, begging for someone to save him.

I know because I was infested once by the same Yeerk who'd first

infested Tom before his body had been turned over to a new Yeerk. I had

access to its memories, so I saw how Tom had been dragged, screaming,

fighting, and finally pleading to the Yeerk pool to receive his slug.

5 I was saved. Tom was not.

But it stays with me, that memory. It always will.

So will the battles. Win, lose, or draw, they're chaotic clashes full of

pain and rage. And when the fighting's over and the adrenaline drains

away, you're left exhausted and sick, with way too many memories.

My grandpa G - "G" for great-grandpa - told me something once, way

before I ever could have understood what he'd meant.

My family had driven eight hours to visit him in his cabin in the woods.

He and I were sitting on the dock at the lake, watching the fish snatch

mosquitoes off the water's glassy, mirrored surface.

And it was so quiet.

Quiet enough to make me wish I was home with the TV blasting and my dog

Homer gnawing on a rawhide chew.

I was about to leave when Grandpa G said, "You know, I see myself in

you, Jake. You've got an old soul."

An old soul? Was that supposed to be good or bad?

He never said. Just gave me a small, kind of sad smile, and looked back

out over the lake.

I hadn't known what he'd meant then, or why he'd said it. I don't know,

maybe he saw my fu-

6 ture, somehow. Because now I was old. You see too much pain and

destruction, you get old inside. It's one of the by-products of war.

I'm the unofficial leader of the Animorphs. I send us into battle. When

things go wrong, when we get hurt or have to run for our lives, that's

on me, too.

I'm not complaining. Has to be done. You know? Someone has to make the

calls. A good leader has to make tough, informed decisions. Recognize

his soldiers' special strengths and use them accordingly. Fight to win

with the knowledge that he may die trying.

But most important, a leader won't ask anyone to do anything he wouldn't

do himself.

That one came home to haunt me.

Because in three days, my brother Tom was either going to kill or be killed.

And it was up to me to decide.

7 L came around the corner after school and saw a taxi parked out in

front of my house.

My mother shot across the porch, suitcase banging against her knees, and

hurried down the sidewalk to the cab.

What the . . . ?

My mom didn't take cabs. Nobody around here did.

Everybody had cars.

"Mom!" I yelled, jogging over. "What happened?"

Because something had definitely happened.

I mean, I've seen my mom sniffle at Save the Children infomercials and

Hallmark cards, but I

8 can't remember the last time I ever saw her really cry.

But she was crying now.

Something must have happened to Tom.

Or to my dad.

My knees went weak and wobbly.

Funny, how even when your whole life has shifted into a daily Twilight

Zone episode, there are still some things that can make you panic.

"I left you a note on the fridge, Jake," she said, hefting her suitcase

into the trunk and slamming it shut. "My flight leaves in an hour and

the traffic -"

"Mom, what happened?" I blurted.

My voice was high and shrill, not exactly the voice of a fearless

leader, as Marco would have pointed out, had he been there.

"Oh." She blinked away fresh tears. "Grandpa G died. His housekeeper,

Mrs. Molloy, found him this morning. I'm meeting your grandparents and

we're driving out to Grandpa G's cabin to make the funeral arrangements."

"Grandpa G's dead?" I echoed, trying to wade through the emotions

whirling around in my head.

Grandpa G. Not Tom. Not my father.

"Yes. His poor heart just gave out," she said.

"You're going to the cabin?" I said. "What about us?"

"You'll be coming out as soon as your father

9 clears his work schedule," she said, touching my shoulder, forcing a

brief smile, and sliding into the backseat. "He'll tell you about it.

Everything will be fine. Make sure your suit is clean. I'll call when I

get to Grandma's. I gotta go, honey."

She slammed the door and waved.

I watched as the cab disappeared around the corner.

Now what?

I headed into the house. Checked the scrawled note stuck under an apple

magnet on the fridge.

Yeah. Grandpa G was dead.

According to Mrs. Molloy, who'd talked to the doctor, his heart had

stopped while he was putting jelly on a slice of toast. He'd never even

gotten a chance to eat it.

I shivered.

I'd cared about Grandpa G and now he was gone, and my family was smaller.

I didn't like that.

The kitchen door burst open. Tom stormed into the room.

"And I'm telling you, Dad, I can't go!" he snapped, tossing his books

onto the table and scowling at me. "What're you looking at?"

"You're home early," I said, surprised.

My father plodded in, weary, harassed, and closed the door behind him.

10 "So are you," I said, glancing from him to Tom. "Did Mom tell you

guys about Grandpa G?"

"Yes," my father said. "I was hoping to get here in time to take her to

the airport but the traffic was terrible. I saw Tom walking home and

picked him up."

"Did you know we're supposed to go out to the cabin?" Tom demanded,

glaring at me like it was somehow my fault.

"Uh, yeah," I said cautiously, trying to figure out what his problem

was. "So?"

"So, Tom's already informed me that he doesn't want to leave his friends

to attend his great-grandfather's funeral," my father said, looking at

Tom, not me. "However, he doesn't have a choice. We're going. All of us."

"When?" I said, feeling like I was missing something important. It was

there but I just couldn't grab it.

"We're driving up Saturday morning," my father said.

"Dad, I can't," Tom insisted. "The Sharing's expecting me to help out

this weekend. I gave them my word!"

"Well, you'll just have to explain that something more important came

up," my father said. "I thought The Sharing was about promoting family

values, right? Well, we're going to pay our respects to Grandpa G as a

family."

11 "Dad, you don't understand!" Tom argued desperately.

Why was Tom so dead set against going out to the lake?

Okay, so it was boring. Grandpa G's cabin was the only house on the

lake. His closest neighbor had been Mrs. Molloy and she lived seven

miles away, halfway to town.

The only other house around was an old, abandoned hunting lodge across

the lake.

No cable. No Taco Bell. No streetlights or crowds.

No movies. No malls. . . .

No Sharing. No Yeerks. . . .

"Uh, Dad?" I said. "How long are we staying?"

"It depends on the funeral. I'll write notes so you'll be excused from

school through Tuesday of next week -"

"What?" Tom's eyes bulged in shock. "Tuesday? Dad, no way! Four days? I

can't stay away for four days!"

"You can and you will," my father said, losing his patience. "We're

going as a family and that's final."

Tom's throat worked. His hands clenched into fists.

And for one brief second I had the crazy thought that he was going to

attack my father.

12 And oh, man, even though I couldn't morph in front of them, I could

feel the surge of adrenaline that comes right before a fight.

Three, maybe four days. The maximum time a Yeerk can last without a trip

to a Yeerk pool is three days. Four days without Kandrona rays and the

Yeerk in Tom's head would starve.

Starve, Yeerk. Starve!

"It won't be that bad, Tom," I heard myself pipe up. "The lake's nice,

remember?"

It broke the stalemate.

Tom looked at me. "You're an idiot, you know that?"

He was playing his role as condescending big brother. I was playing my

role, too.

Starve, Yeerk. Die in agony, die screaming, Yeerk!

"Shut up," I said. "I'm not the one who's being a big baby about leaving."

I said it to annoy him and to bring us back to the rhythm we knew, the

kind of normal sniping I could handle.

Because the hatred in Tom's eyes when he'd looked at my father had

scared me.

And the hatred that had flared up in me, the hatred of the Yeerk, the

sick thrill of anticipating its pain, had scared me, too.

"That's because you have no life," Tom sneered.

13 "Oh, right, and you do?" I shot back.

"More than you'll ever know," he said darkly, distracted now.

"Enough," my father said. "I'm going to change. When I get back we'll

order pizza. How does that sound?"

"I'm not hungry," Tom muttered, staring at the floor.

I wasn't either but my father was looking at me expectantly, so I said,

"Pizza. I'm there."

My father nodded, satisfied, and left.

I gave my brother a look of sympathy, making peace. "Maybe you can get

out of it, some way."

I had to fight to keep the sneer off my face. Or maybe, Yeerk, your

cover is falling apart, maybe you'll have to choose between keeping Tom

and keeping your filthy life.

"Shut up," Tom said absentmindedly. The Yeerk had no use for me, no

interest in me. I was dismissed. Irrelevant.

I turned and blasted out into the backyard, my mind already buzzing with

the possibilities.

Tom's Yeerk was trapped. Under pressure. Squeezed. It wasn't ready for

this turn of events. Didn't know how to play it out. Didn't know what to do.

An opportunity? Maybe. Yeah, maybe.

Die, Yeerk!

14 Supper was awful.

Tom tried everything to get out of going.

He begged. Pleaded. Complained. Sulked.

He even tried reasoning.

My father didn't budge.

I finished supper and bolted. I needed to think about what was gonna

happen and I couldn't do it with Tom around.

I hit the sidewalk, automatically heading for Marco's, but I really

didn't know where I was going.

I wanted to talk to Cassie, but she and her parents, both vets, were at

some animal rescue seminar until later.

15 Too bad, too, because she was the one I really wanted to talk to.

Out of all of us, Cassie's the one who really understands the more

complicated things: motives, emotions, right and wrong.

Marco's my best friend, and if I wanted to talk about what works, about

how to get from point A to point B and forget the consequences, I'd talk

to Marco.

But Cassie sees beneath the surface. I'm no genius, but I knew I was too

close to this to see clearly.

"Yo, Jake man! I was just on my way over to your house." Marco. Jogging

toward me. "I need your English notes."

I looked up, startled. "Oh. Uh, hi."

"What'd I do, wake you up?" he said, body-checking me.

I shoved him back. "Since when did you start saying To'?"

"I was going to yell 'Hey, handsome,' but I thought you might prefer 'Yo.'"

"Uh-huh."

"So, yo-yo, what's up?"

"I was just thinking about something," I said, shrugging. Then I decided

what the heck. Marco's been my friend since we were in the sandbox.

Plus, he'd lost his mom - complicated

16 story - so I figured he'd know how I felt. "My Grandpa G died today."

"Man. Too bad," he said, falling in beside me as we headed back to my

house. "He was old, though, right? I mean he was in World War III."

"World War II, Marco. Two."

"No, duh," he said. "We spent a really unpleasant afternoon in the

middle of World War II, you may recall. Or at least some time-distorted

version of World War II."

Long story there, too.

"Yeah, he was in the war. The real war," I said as we rounded the corner

to my house. "My mother flew out to help with the funeral arrangements.

We're supposed to -"

My father's car wasn't in the driveway.

Odd.

"When's the funeral?" Marco said.

"I'm not sure. Probably Monday," I said, walking a little faster. The

deep, dark part of my brain, the part that sensed danger, was already

dumping adrenaline into my blood.

Something wasn't right.

"What?" Marco asked, instantly catching my mood.

"Don't know. A feeling."

A feeling like there was something important I'd forgotten. And because

I had forgotten it...

I tried to shake it off. I walked faster. "I'll be

17 out of school Monday. Maybe Tuesday," I said absently, crossing the

front lawn. "Me, my dad, and Tom are driving out on Saturday morning."

"That's what, four days?" Marco said, then grabbed my arm. "Four days

without Kandrona rays?" he said in a low, tense voice. "Does Tom know

how long you're gonna be gone?"

"Yeah, he and my dad had a big fight about it," I said, tugging free.

"My dad said he had to go."

And then Tom had looked at my father with black hatred.

No, not Tom. The Yeerk inside of him.

Controlling him.

Tom's hands, doubled into fists.

Poised to leap at my father.

"You left them alone," Marco said. Not an accusation. No blame. Just fact.

Like I said, Marco sees the line that goes from A to B. He'd already

seen Tom's dilemma. And he'd seen Tom's ruthless solution.

I followed Marco's narrowed gaze.

My house was still.

Too still.

I bolted, stumbled up the steps, and threw the door open with a slam

that echoed down the street.

18 Silence.

The empty kind, when you know nobody's there but you.

"Dad?" I yelled anyway, running into the hallway. "Dad? Tom?"

No answer.

Heart pounding, I took the stairs two at a time.

"Dad?"

Looked in my parents' bedroom. In Tom's. In mine.

Neat - except for my room. Empty.

Which made me feel a little better, but not much.

"Jake," Marco said from right behind me.

19 "Yaaahh!" I yelped, going airborne.

"Sorry."

"Don't do that!" I said harshly, pushing past him and heading back down

the stairs to the kitchen.

I swung around, searching the kitchen for something, anything that would

tell me where they'd gone.

Cabinets. Sink. Glass jars full of cookies and pasta and coffee, lined

up on the counter. Coffee machine. Refrigerator. Toaster.

Orderly. Nothing out of place.

I exploded.

Slammed against the side of the refrigerator.

BAM!

One of the magnets fell off. The apple, which had been holding my

mother's note about Grandpa G.

Only the second note, the one that had been tacked beneath it, was gone.

Had someone taken it? Why, when it had the flight number and details

about what to bring when we drove out?

The garbage.

Frantically, I grabbed the plastic can and flipped open the lid. Knelt

and peered inside.

Lying crumpled atop the banana skins and the coffee grounds and the

empty yogurt container was a wad of pink paper. Crumpled. I rose and

smoothed it out on the counter.

20 The top of the note was the one from my mother with the flight

information. At the bottom of that note was my father's handwriting.

Jake: Went to a Sharing meeting with Tom to explain why he can't help

them out this weekend. Be back soon. Love, Dad.

"Oh, God," I whispered.

My father hadn't thrown away the note. Tom had. He'd been covering his

tracks.

Tom was taking my father to The Sharing.

But not so he could be excused from his obligations.

He was going to make our father a Controller. He would watch as they

forced him to his knees and pushed his head down into the thick, sludgy

Yeerk pool. He would listen to his pleas. Listen to his cries. His

screams of horror and disbelief and panic. Listen and laugh.

No.

I started to shake.

I should have known. Should have seen it sooner. Marco had seen it, why

hadn't I?

"We have to find them," I said, searching my mind frantically for a way

to do it.

"How?" Marco said. "We don't even know where they are."

21 "Marco, this is my father !" I shouted, losing it. "I'm not letting

them take him."

"Even if we find him, you may not have anything to say about it," he

said quietly. "It might already be too late."

No, it couldn't be too late. Couldn't. . .

No. They wouldn't have my father. I was going to stop them. Even if it

meant stopping my brother.

Any way I had to.

Marco re-crumpled the note and put it back in the trash.

Placed the apple magnet back on the fridge.

I stood there, frantic, vibrating with impatience, wanting to go, go, GO

somewhere, anywhere, just get going and find my father.

"We have to cover our tracks, Jake," he explained. "We can't let Tom

know that we know."

"Right, whatever," I said, hurrying toward the door.

I didn't tell Marco, but at that moment I just didn't care about keeping

our secrets. I didn't care about saving the world. I was saving one man.

The rest of the world could take care of itself.

There were some losses I wasn't willing to take, no matter what. I'd

lost my brother. That was it. I wasn't losing anyone else.

"The Chee," I said suddenly.

I reached for the phone. Marco pushed the re-

22 ceiver back down. "Not from the house, man. Look. Jake. Jake, listen

to me."

"What? WHAT?"

"You're the boss, Jake. You're the fearless leader. But not right now,

okay? You're too messed up over this. Let me call the plays."

I knew he was right. I said nothing. I hated Marco right then. Hated him

because he wouldn't have made the mistake I'd made. He would have seen . . .

Hated him because he'd already lost his mother and he knew what the

inside of my head was like, because he knew I was scared and just wanted

to cry.

"Come on, man," Marco said.

We went down the block to a pay phone to call Erek King. He's a Chee.

The Chee are a race of androids. Pacifist by design. But definitely

anti-Yeerk. The ultimate spies. Our friends. At least as much as a

nearly eternal machine can ever be a friend to a weak, short-lived human.

The Chee would know of any Sharing meetings scheduled.

"There's nothing scheduled," the human-sounding voice said.

"But there has to be," I said desperately, pacing the length of the

stupidly short phone cord.

23 "Tom's taking my father to it! C'mon, Erek, please!"

"Jake, you know I would tell you if I knew," Erek said with calm regret.

"Perhaps Tom asked for an emergency meeting to deal with this problem."

"Then how are we ever gonna find out where they are?" I said, glancing

at Marco to see if he had any suggestions.

He shrugged, looking miserable.

I turned away, wanting to cry.

Fighting to get hold of myself.

Think, Jake.

If the Chee didn't know where the Yeerks were gathering, how were we

supposed to know?

"Wait," I blurted. "Stupid! I don't have to find the Yeerks to find my

father. All I have to do is find my father and we'll find the meeting.

Should have thought of it."

"All right," Erek said cautiously.

"No, it's easy. He always carries a cell phone. I'll just call and ask

him -"

"You can't," Marco and Erek both said at the same time.

"Why not?" I said.

"Jake, if you call and ask your dad where he is, and then the meeting

gets broken up by us, don't you think the Yeerks'll put two and two

together?"

24 "I don't care," I said, before I could stop myself.

The sympathy on Marco's face evaporated. "You're not getting me killed

to save your father!" he snapped.

"There may be another way," Erek said, interrupting. "Give me the cell

phone number. You hang up, dial the cell phone, and I'll tap into the

frequency. You call but don't speak. If your father picks up, I'll

analyze the auditory data and we may be able to determine his location."

I didn't look at Marco. Couldn't. "Good. Great." I gave Erek the number,

hung up, and dialed my father's cell phone number.

It rang once.

Twice.

My hands were shaking.

Marco was staring at me, eyes narrowed. His body was tense, ready to

snatch the receiver if I as much as opened my mouth.

I closed my eyes, willing my father to answer.

Praying it wasn't too late.

25 Hello?"

Tom.

Tom had answered my father's cell phone.

My mouth opened automatically to respond.

Marco lunged, twisting the phone out of my hand.

Put it to his ear.

Watched me with dark, unreadable eyes.

I didn't move. I couldn't.

Because I couldn't believe what I had almost done.

If I'd said one word, just one, then I'd either have condemned my father

to the Yeerk pool or I would have condemned my friends to death.

I couldn't stop shaking.

26 Couldn't 't get control.

Marco listened, then hung up the receiver.

"You'd better call Erek back," he said coolly, stepping away from the phone.

I nodded, too embarrassed to even look at him, too worried about my

father to say something that would close the distance between us.

"I've analyzed the incoming data from the call and have narrowed it down

to four possible locations," Erek said when I called.

"Four!" I blurted. We didn't have time to search four different places!

"Where are they?"

"Well, factoring in the frequency strength, the cell phone towers that

were activated, and background noise such as the sound of jet engines

overhead, car engines moving slowly, human footsteps, and various other

sounds, our analysis suggests they're in the northern section of town,

roughly between the eight thousand and the fourteen thousand blocks

north-south, and the six hundred and twelve hundred block east-west. An

area six blocks by six blocks."

"What's in that area that could hold a meeting, even a small one?" I was

grateful. I was also impatient. Frantic.

"Senior Citizen Center, a small strip mall with four stores, a small

hardware store, and an auto-body shop. Plus, about seventy-five private

homes."

27 I let out a curse. "Homes! We can't search seventy-five homes! Erek,

I need more."

"There was a snatch of conversation. Just two words."

"What words?"

"'Normal hours.'"

"What?"

'"Normal hours.' Like the last two words of a sentence. Blah, blah,

blah, 'normal hours,'" Erek said.

I had a sudden flash of him on the other end of the line. Would he be in

his true android form, or wreathed in the perfect hologram that let him

pass as a normal human kid?

"Eliminate the auto-body shop," Marco said. "That'd be noisy. Real

noisy. If they're open, that is. Same with the hardware. Nails dropping,

paint cans being shaken . . . It's the old folks' home or the mini-mall."

"Or one of seventy-five private homes," I said. "Erek? We need your best

guess."

"I don't have-"

"Take a shot!" I yelled.

"The mini-mall. Four stores. Play the odds," Erek said.

"Get hold of Rachel. Get her and the others up there to the other

locations."

I slammed down the phone. No time for thank-yous. There'd be thank-yous

if we won this race.

28 "Mini-mall," I told Marco.

"What about the old folks? They'd have a main room. Stores wouldn't."

"'Normal hours.' Sounds like a store."

"Unless it's about mealtime, or visiting time at the old folks' home,"

Marco said.

"Let's go," I said.

We jogged back to my house. It was the closest, safest place with no one

home.

I stripped off my outer clothing - getting down to bike shorts and a

T-shirt. The kind of tight, minimal clothing we can morph in.

I focused my mind on one of the double-helix strands of DNA that swim in

my blood.

When I opened my eyes, I was falling. Shrinking. And no matter how many

times it had happened before, it still made my stomach lurch.

Smaller and smaller, with the floor racing up to slap me, falling like

I'd jumped off a skyscraper.

My skin turned gray and white, mottled. Across the dead gray flesh the

Etch-A-Sketch lines of feathers were drawn. An eerie design that

suddenly was no drawing but three-dimensional reality.

My eyes slid apart, around my head. Eyes that could read a dictionary

from a block away. Raptor eyes. Falcon eyes.

My legs shriveled, becoming mere sticks. My

29 fingers extended out, bare hollow bone that was quickly covered by

feathers. Tail feathers erupted from my behind, down my chest, down my

back and stomach.

Marco was undergoing a similar mutation. Morphing. It's what we do. It's

our weapon.

He was becoming an osprey, I, a peregrine falcon.

Marco began to say something, but his words were cut short as his mouth

and nose melted and stiffened and extended into the wicked, curved beak

of an osprey.

My talons sprouted, grew curved and sharp.

<l'll meet you there,> I said.

<No, wait.>

<Marco, I'm faster than you are.>

He hesitated. <Yeah. Okay. But Jake?>

<What?!> I snapped.

I expected him to say, "Don't do anything stupid."

<You're not alone, man,> Marco said.

30 "Peregrine falcon. The fastest animal on Earth. In a dive I could hit

two hundred miles an hour.

But I was a sprinter, not a marathoner. To get to the north end of town

I had to soar. Not easy in the evening when the sun has cooled and the

concrete no longer steams the air to provide lift for a raptor's wings.

I flew hard, circling for altitude. Marco kept pace at first, but then

he fell behind and below.

When you're flying, altitude equals speed. Tobias taught me that. Spend

the energy to gain altitude, then you can turn a long trip into a single

glide.

I rose and rose, milking every breeze to give

31 lift to my swept-back wings. Up I went. And at last, boiling with

impatience, I made gravity my friend.

I could not see my specific target but I could see the area, the

neighborhood. I took aim, whipped my wings, and went into a power glide.

Faster, faster!

The wind tore across my feathers. Around my face. Blearing my eyes.

Straining my muscles. One wrong move, one sudden flare of my wings and

the speed could snap my shoulders, cripple me, leave me falling,

helpless to Earth.

I was a race car driver. One wrong twitch of the wheel and I would spin

out of control.

No way to measure my speed, but I was flying faster than I'd ever flown

before. The ground raced by. Porch lights and streetlights and bright

red taillights were long neon trails.

I was outpacing the cars on the highway below. But I was too low. I'd

misjudged the angle. In my haste I'd not gone high enough, and now I was

too low, skimming the treetops and peaked roofs and telephone wires,

blazing, a rocket!

My muscles burned, my heart was a jackham-mer, my lungs burned.

I blew across the mini-mall before I even realized I was there. I braked

carefully, took a wide turn, and circled back.

A Starbucks. No. Too public.

32 A knife shop. Closed. Dark.

Computer Renaissance. Open. Bright. A possibility.

An antique store. Lights on. Half shades drawn up. Two men walking in

past a sign that said closed.

I used the last of my speed to buzz the cars in the lot. The lot was

full. My dad's car was there.

I landed in the shadows behind the mini-mall. I began to demorph. How to

do it? How to attack and get my dad out? What morph, what creature?

My feet sprouted first, pink and bare and huge.

My eyes straddled my bulging, human nose, which had split away from my

shrinking beak.

I shot upward as my legs thickened and grew.

Hair. Fingers.

My insides gurgled and sloshed sickeningly.

An osprey landed on an overturned crate.

I was fully human. Standing with bare feet on gravel and crumpled cans

and scruffy weeds.

I glanced at Marco. He was beginning to demorph.

I began to morph. I felt the powerful, tiger DNA stir in my pulsing blood.

Sharp, gleaming fangs sprouted in my mouth. Claws that could disembowel

a bull grew from my fingertips.

33 it-

<No,> Marco said. <We can't go storming in like the marines, Jake! It's

too obvious.>

I was still more human than tiger. The yellow teeth, saber sharp, made

speech clumsy. "I'm koink in!"

<Jake, I will have to try and stop you,> Marco said.

We stared at each other for a long, tense moment. A half tiger and a

half osprey.

Marco became fully human. I stopped my morph.

"Look," Marco said finally, quietly. "I know you're freaked but if we

make this a rescue mission, we're all dead. All of us. Everyone. The

Yeerks aren't idiots. They go after your dad and suddenly the Animorphs

attack a minor meeting? They can add two plus two, Jake. You let the

Yeerks know who you are, Jake, how is that gonna help your father?"

He was right. I knew it but I didn't want to hear it.

"We have to create a distraction. Mess up the meeting but not let them

know why," Marco said, as thick, coarse hair began sprouting from his

bulging, growing body. "We're gonna buy some time and I've got it all

planned. Do your falcon morph again. Your eyes will be better than mine."

"But-" I said.

34 "No buts, Jake," he said. "You know me. You know I've worked it out."

I hesitated, frustrated and not used to being the one taking orders, but

I couldn't deny that he was right.

I was losing my clear thinking and that was dangerous.

Surrendering, I concentrated on the falcon morph.

Marco finished his massive, muscled gorilla morph and waited, standing

guard until I was done.

<0kay,> I said. <Ticktock, Marco. >

<Well, Rachel's not here so I guess it's up to me,> Marco said,

knuckle-galloping his way around to the front of the mini-mall. <Let's do

He stepped out into the parking lot. I flew, watching from above.

My father and my brother were close by. One predator, the other prey.

Both, in different ways, in mortal danger.

And if they were to be saved, it was up to Marco. Not me.

35 it's funny about gorillas. They're gentle creatures by nature. They

don't give you the fear chills you get from the big cats or the bears.

Mostly when you see them they're zoned out in some zoo cage.

But they are a whole different animal when they're moving. You see a big

gorilla moving fast and you get a sense of just how much power you're

looking at.

Humanlike? Yes. But like a human who's been built at the Mack truck factory.

Marco walked over to a car.

Grunting, he lifted it up by the rear bumper. Lifted it clear off the

ground, back wheels not touching.

36 And dropped it.

WOOOEEEE! WOOOEEE! WOOOEEE!

I almost laughed. Car alarm!

Marco went to another car. He lifted it. Dropped it. And another. Lift.

Drop.

WEEEEYOOOOP! WEEEEYOOOOP! WEEEEY-OOOOP!

HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK!

WaaaaAAAAAAaaaaaAAAAAAaaaaaAAAAA!

The night was filled with clanging, screaming, whooping car alarms.

And then a very familiar car. One we both knew.

Chapman's car. Chapman, our assistant principal. A leader of The

Sharing. A Controller.

An enemy.

Marco didn't lift Chapman's car. He punched it. He punched the driver's

door with a fist the size of a gallon milk jug.

SHHHLUUUUUEEE! SHHHLUUUUUEEEE!

Then he crashed a huge, hairy gorilla fist down on the hood of my

father's new car.

SPREEET! SPREEET! SPREEET!

<Hey!> I hollered, horrified. <That's our car! My dad's going to have a

cow.>

<l hope so,> Marco said. Then with barely suppressed glee, <l believe my

work here is done.>

He ran back into the shadows. In five minutes he'd be in the air.

37 It took approximately eight seconds for the doors of the computer

store, Starbucks, and the antique store to begin spewing out very angry

men and woman.

Chapman came running from the antique store.

So did my father, with Tom close behind.

"What the heck happened?"

"Vandals!"

"Lousy kids!"

"This neighborhood has totally gone to -"

"Call the cops!"

"I'm suing this shopping center!"

"Look at my door!"

That last was Chapman.

The rest of the Controllers from the antique store looked uneasy.

I waited, holding my breath, counting the seconds until my father,

followed by a furious, scowling Tom wove through the crowd.

"My car!" my father cried. He practically fell to his knees. "Someone

hurt my baby!"

"Mine, too," Chapman said, gazing angrily at the fist-sized dent in his

car door. He looked around the street, then nodded at the two big, bulky

men who were flanking him.

They split up and started searching the street.

<Chapman's got guys looking for us,> I called to Marco. <Better get out

of here.>

38 <Well, come on, dude,> Marco replied. <l'm in a tree down the street.

What're you waiting for?>

<l can't go yet, Marco,> I said. <l have to make sure my father's all

right. I have to make sure he's still . . . You know.>

I scanned my father's face. Had he become a Controller yet? Stupid. I

didn't know. Couldn't know. It's not as if Controllers go around

twitching or exchanging Yeerk high fives or playing with their ears. A

Controller looks, acts, seems exactly normal.

My father could be my father.

Or he could be screaming, helpless, just beginning to realize that his

eyes and ears and mouth no longer belonged to him.

I waited.

And then Tom gave me the clue I was hoping for.

"C'mon, Dad, calm down," he said, going over to him. "We can call and

report it when we get home if you want to. Let's go back inside, okay?

The meeting just started and a lot of important things are gonna happen

tonight. You don't want to miss it. Trust me."

"'Go back inside'?" my father echoed, looking at him like he was insane.

"I'm not going back inside! Somebody just tried to break into every

39 car on this street! I'm going home right now and call Joe Johnson!"

"Who?"

"He's our insurance agent, you really should know that, Tom. Come on."

"But, Dad," Tom pleaded, shooting a furious, agitated look back at

Chapman, who stood on the curb watching them.

The high wail of distant police sirens split the night.

Chapman shook his head slightly.

"I'm staying till the end of the meeting," Tom said sullenly.

"Then I'll expect you home by ten." My father unlocked the car and got in.

Face tight and twisted with ill-concealed rage, Tom stalked over and

stood on the curb next to Chapman, watching as my father drove away.

<He's clean,> I said as an owl landed silently on a nearby ledge. <He's

clean. He's okay.>

<Yeah,> Marco said. <Let's get going.>

<Deal,> I said, letting the falcon's keen senses carry me swiftly home.

<Jake? That's round one. You know that,> Marco said, after a moment.

<Yeah,> I said. <l know.>

The fight to save my father had only begun.

40 I

can't believe you took that kind of chance," Rachel said, scowling. "You

should have waited for the rest of us!"

It was late that night and we'd all snuck out to meet in Cassie's barn

to figure out what to do next.

It wasn't going well.

I was distracted, nervous leaving my father alone in the house with Tom.

Tobias was perched high in the rafters.

Marco was strangely quiet.

Cassie was listening, her face filled with distress.

Ax was watching me with all four eyes.

And Rachel . . .

41 Well, she was just plain mad.

Apparently Erek had gotten word about our search for my father to

Rachel, who'd been shopping at the mall.

She'd rushed to back us up, stowing her packages in a rented locker. In

her hurry, she'd forgotten to lock it.

By the time she'd morphed, found Tobias, and flown north, The Sharing

meeting had completely closed down. They'd found nothing but cops

writing vandalism reports.

When she'd gone back to the locker for her packages, someone had stolen

them.

A mad Rachel is a scary thing, and I didn't envy the thief if she ever

caught him.

"We weren't looking at a battle, we were just creating a diversion," I

said. "Otherwise we'd have waited for you."

I didn't look at Marco as I said it.

<lt was an urgent situation Ax said calmly.

"Exactly."

Tobias was in the rafters. He ruffled his wings. <A temporary victory.

As long as your dad is trying to force Tom to go with you guys, your

dad's in danger.>

"I know," I said wearily. "I've thought of trying to convince my dad to

lighten up, but there's no way. He's not going to let Tom show

disrespect for Grandpa G."

42 "This is so stupid," Rachel said. "I mean, we're suddenly in a

knockdown, drag-out fight behind some funeral? This is idiotic! This is

a nothing fight. No possible gain for us. All we can do is get hammered."

I nodded. "Believe me, I know, Rachel. It's out of nowhere."

"Had to be four days," Marco complained. "Couldn't be two days, which

would be no biggie to the Yeerk."

<You will not attend this burial ceremony, Rachel?> Ax asked.

"No, I'm not really related," Rachel said. "Grandpa G was Jake's

great-grandfather on his mother's side. We're related on his father's side."

<Ah. And that is important?>

<You know, maybe I'm not getting it, but why didn't Tom just tell your

father he's not going and that's the end of it?> Tobias interrupted.

I looked at him.

So did the rest of us.

<What?> he asked, sounding defensive. <l used to do that whenever one of

my aunts or uncles wanted me to go somewhere I didn't want to. They

never made me go.> He was quiet a moment. Then, abashed, he said, <0h.

Duh. They didn't care what I did.>

"Your relatives are jerks and they didn't deserve you," Rachel snapped.

44 "My father said we're going as a family," I said. "And knowing my

father, Tom would stir up more trouble than he could handle by directly

defying him, you know?"

"Sure," Marco agreed. "It's hard to get to those Kandrona rays when

you're grounded for life."

"Plus, if he acted really badly, then I'm sure your parents would start

looking at him differently," Cassie added. "They might even decide The

Sharing is a bad influence and try to make him quit."

I nodded. "Tom's Yeerk is passing as a normal, high-school kid. Bottom

line, he can either follow family rules or he loses his cover. The

Yeerks have a choice-. Keep Tom in place by infesting my father. Or

withdraw Tom's Yeerk, put him into a new host, and kill Tom to keep him

from talking."

"There's another choice," Rachel said.

"Yeah," I said. I knew. I just couldn't make myself say it out loud.

"What choice?" Cassie asked.

"If the Yeerks can't make his father into a Controller soon enough, they

could just kill him. As an orphan Tom's cover isn't affected. Might even

be enhanced," Rachel said. And then, looking me straight in the eye, she

said, "And Tom would probably be the one to do it."

43

There was only one way to protect my father.

Surveillance.

From the moment he left the house for work in the morning until we left

for the cabin on Saturday.

Twenty-four-hour surveillance.

I could do most of it. He was my father and although I didn't say it

because I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, I really didn't think

anybody would watch him as carefully as I would.

I did agree to some backup. I knew I couldn't be everywhere at once.

The next morning Tom was all sweet reason and compromise. He went out

early, claiming he'd talk to some of the kids from The Sharing

45

before school. See if they'd cover for the commitments he'd made.

Right.

I waited until my father was in the shower, then called myself out of

school due to a death in the family.

Luckily, I sound enough like my father.

I went down and lurked in the living room outside the kitchen. I heard

the sounds of my father getting ready to leave: slurped coffee, the

ritual checking of his beeper, the "Ow!" as he burned his fingers

getting an English muffin out of the toaster.

Stupid to morph in the dining room. Idiotic. But I was going to roach

morph and I couldn't travel far on those six little legs. Besides, Tom

was gone. And my dad wouldn't come this way.

I focused on the roach.

Not my favorite morph. Not anyone's favorite morph. But I needed to be

small, fast, and sur-vivable. Maybe a fly would have been better but I'd

had a close call as a fly once: Someone swatted me and smeared me all

over the storage rack on a plane.

Roaches are harder to kill.

I felt the changes begin. So creepy at the best of times. But standing

there in my dining room, shrinking as the chairs grew, shriveling down

toward the wood floor you'd gouged with a rake

46 when you were four, falling into the shadow of the table where you

ate your Thanksgiving meal . . . that added a level of weird.

I caught unexpected sight of myself in the dining room sideboard mirror.

The skin of my face was turning brown, glossy, hard.

I looked away. You don't want to see yourself turning into a cockroach.

You don't want to see the way your mouth divides into insect

mouth-parts. You don't want to watch your skin melt like wax under a

blowtorch and then re-form into a hard, stiff armor. You don't want to

be making eye contact with yourself when your eyes stop being eyes and

become expressionless black pin-heads.

Maybe you'd think we'd all be used to it. Speaking for myself, at least,

no. I'll never be used to it.

Morphing may be a great weapon. It is also a horror beyond imagining.

My bones dissolved. There was a liquid, squishing sound.

A pair of twitching, hairy, jointed roach legs exploded from my swollen

insect body like a scene out of an Alien movie. I was expecting that.

They matched what my arms and legs had become.

Long, feathery antennae sprouted from my forehead.

47 Crisp, glossy wings cupped my back.

My vision was extremely limited. But my antennae made up for some of

that loss. You couldn't call what they did hearing or smell, exactly,

more like some weird melding of the two. And yet, not like either.

The plan was for me to hitch a ride with my dad. Tobias would be gaining

altitude, looking to hitch an elevator ride on a thermal. From high up

he'd be able to watch almost all of my dad's drive from home to his

office. Two miles, give or take.

But his reaction time would necessarily be slow. He'd be backup, but if

there was an attack it'd be up to me.

I was a roach. I turned like a tiny tank and motored beneath the door.

Whoooom. Whoooom.

My dad's footsteps. Vibration and breeze. My antennae fixed his

location. I fought down the roach brain's desire to run.

Whoooom. Whooooom.

Feet the size of an aircraft carrier floated past in the dim distance.

No problem. I had roach senses and roach speed married to human

intelligence. I was safe.

Safe until I got ready to hitch a ride. My dad wore cuffed pants. The

cuff. That would be the place to ride safe and secure.

48 Just a question of getting there. Up onto the shoe. Up the sock.

Should be no problem. Right.

Light change! Movement! Above me! I dodged. BAMMMMM!

49 It was the size of one of those big oil storage tanks you see on the

outskirts of the city. It was ten times my height. A million times my

negligible weight. It hit the linoleum floor like a bomb.

Smucker's raspberry preserves.

The jar slammed into the ground an inch from me.

CRASH! The glass shattered.

Huge globs of jam erupted. A glass shard swathed in goo landed like some

kind of Nerf meteor beside me. The preserves, a wad twice my own size,

hit me in the back as I scurried madly away.

My feet scrabbled insanely. Out of control!

50 The roach brain screaming Run! Run! RunRun-Run! in my head.

The goo fouled my back legs. I couldn't move!

I fought it, but that just made things worse. I lost my balance and

rolled over onto my back, all six legs pushing frantically at the

raspberry glue. Seeds like footballs jammed the chinks in my armor.

From far, far up in the stratosphere I heard my dad yell a word he's not

supposed to use in front of the kids.

Then I guess he saw me. Because he said a worse word.

And I knew right then: He was going to kill me.

The glass shard! It stuck like a boat prow from the goo. I caught the

edge with one leg and pushed. Leverage. Something a roach wouldn't

understand. But I did.

A second leg grabbed the glass. It would have sliced human flesh, but my

hard twig legs weren't hurt.

I pushed and scrambled, shoved, twisted, fighting my way out of the red

goo -

WHAM!

The USS Nimitz landed on the floor a millimeter from me as I hauled with

all my might.

I was on all sixes again, but the goo was all over me, slowing me,

dragging at me as -

WHAM!

51 The USS Elsenhower dropped a millimeter ahead of me.

"---roach!" a booming voice bellowed. "Now I've got jam all over my shoes!"

You're about to have Jake all over your shoes, I thought. I was getting

clear of the jam, but it still clung to my spiky legs. I couldn't get

traction. I couldn't get up any speed.

WHAM! The Elsenhower again.

The wall of shoe sole, twice my own height, appeared in front of me with

horrifying suddenness.

I powered my legs and lunged.

I grabbed the sole. I pulled, I powered, I used all the energy that a

combination of roach fear and human terror could provide.

Up! I was on the shoe!

"Where'd it go, the lousy . . ."

I tried to get out of sight. I ran for the shadow of the pant leg cuff.

"Aaarrrgghh!" he bellowed in a voice that vibrated every molecule of air

in the room.

Now came the dancing portion. My father hopped on one foot, the foot I

was on, while attempting to crush me with the other foot.

Not happening. Not now. I had my speed back now. I had the curves and

swoops of polished leather, the same color as my own body, to race on.

52 Running toward the heel, perpendicular to the ground, I hauled. The

other shoe poked at me, kicked at me, missed!

At the heel I turned a sharp left and headed vertical. Up the shoe. Over

the top onto a soft cotton sock, a sort of gray lawn of scruffy, weirdly

twisted grass.

I was in the dark now. Invisible to my father.

"Where'd you go?" he demanded.

Freeze. Just freeze, Jake. Don't move. Don't. . . The preserves were

very sweet. Very, very sweet, and my roach brain craved sweetness.

Sugar. The ultimate lure. And it was still on me. On my legs. On my face.

My mouthparts moved.

I could eat the sugar sweetness off my own leg ...

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" my dad yelled.

He'd felt me. I'd moved. Now I was in trouble.

WHOMPF!

The dark folds of the sky dropped with sickening suddenness as my dad

slapped his leg.

WHOMPF!

WHOMPF!

Don't touch the skin! I ordered myself. If I touched the skin he'd know

for sure. He wouldn't stop then.

Had to tough it out. Had to hide. Make him think he was wrong, that he

hadn't felt me.

53 The pants! The gray wool blend that made up the vertical sky. That

was the trick.

WHOMPF!

Down it came. I reached, grabbed, and suddenly was lifted away from the

sock. I clung to the pants.

The banging stopped. Slowly the pant leg was drawn up. But I was in a

fold, invisible.

The pant leg dropped. My dad wiped up the preserves and the broken jar,

and drove to work.

54 he drive was uneventful. I was glad. I couldn't really have taken

much more excitement.

Somewhere far above the car Tobias watched. I didn't care. I crept down

and out and settled comfortably in the cuff. I was on the left leg so

there wasn't much movement.

Ax was waiting at the parking garage by my dad's building. I could feel

the car taking tight turns, going up the ramp.

<l believe I see your father, Prince Jake. Are you with him?>

Ax calls me his prince. It's an Andalite respect thing.

<Yeah, Ax. Barely.>

55 <You have completed two circuits of the open spiral and have ascended.>

That took a couple of seconds. <0h. Yeah, it's a ramp. The cars use it

to get to higher levels.>

<Yes, Prince Jake, it was not overly difficult for me to deduce the

purpose of the open spiral structure^ Ax sniffed.

I'm Ax's "prince." But I guess the whole respect thing only goes so far.

We parked. I tensed. Things could get hairy again.

The leg swung out into chillier air and brighter light.

My dad stood up. Stretched. Pulled his medical bag out of the backseat.

And we were off to the office.

Swing forward . . . Crunch! . . . Swing back. Swing forward . . .

Crunch! . . . Swing back.

<Jake, I'm here,> Tobias reported in. <No sign that anyone followed you.>

<That was quick travel!> I said.

<Soon as I saw you guys leave I headed here. And I was already more than

half the way here.>

Somewhere above me, invisible to my roach senses, were a red-tailed hawk

and, if Ax had followed the plan, a seagull.

<There is a human watching Jake's father closely,> Ax reported. <He is a

large human with more than the typical amount of facial fur. He

56 appears to be forming facial expressions associated with anger.>

<A ticked-off bearded guy?> Tobias translated. <Can't see him. Must

still be under the ... Okay, I got him. Yeah. He does look ticked off

about something. But he's not making any kind of move.>

My dad stopped walking. Wooosh. A door opening. We moved. Closing behind us.

We were in.

As soon as my father stepped into his own office I shot down his leg and

hid under the garbage can near his desk.

Waited.

No frantic swiping disturbed the air currents.

Good. Then he hadn't even known I'd hitched a ride.

The floor trembled.

Someone was walking toward my father's office.

"Good morning, Doc. We have a full schedule today. It's ear-infection

central out there."

Ten minutes later the first kid came in with his mom.

I spent the day zigging and zagging, zipping along the walls and

squeezing into crevices to avoid being seen and squashed.

Every two hours I demorphed and remorphed in the bathroom. The first

time it was nerve-wracking. I scrawled a hasty note on a piece of

57 paper towel and stuck it onto the last stall with some used gum.

The note said out of order.

After that I felt a little safer in the out-of-order stall.

It was boring beyond belief. But it gave me a lot of time to think. Too

much time.

I'd started out hoping this crisis would give me a way to destroy Tom's

Yeerk. Now I was down to hoping I could save my dad from Tom's fate.

I was playing a defensive game. It's easier to attack. On the attack you

can pick the time and place. On the defense all you can do is wait. Wait

for the enemy to pick his time and his place. And wear out your

resources and your people waiting, waiting, knowing all it takes is for

the enemy to get lucky and all your tense, cramped-up waiting wil l be

for nothing.

My dad's never been my doctor. I go to one of his partners. You know,

it'd be creepy otherwise.

I'd always thought it was pretty cool that he was a doctor. But I guess

I hadn't really thought much about it.

On this day, though, there wasn't much else to focus on. So I focused on

my dad. Always nice. Always gentle. Joking with the kids and reassuring

the moms and dads. Staying calm while the littler kids screamed bloody

murder and vibrated the very walls.

58 He was a good guy, my dad. Not just because he was my dad. Because he

was a good person. Because he did his work as well as he knew how and

wasn't a jerk to the people around him. That doesn't make you a saint or

anything, but I guess when I think about it, that's what I hope I'll do

when I'm older: treat my family right, do my job well, not be a jerk to

the people I meet. Maybe that's not a huge, ambitious goal, but it would

be enough for me. I've done the hero thing. You can have the hero thing.

Me, I wanted a day when all I'd have to do was be a decent human being.

It was a long day.

"Good night, everyone," my dad called, finally. "I'll be back Wednesday

at the latest. Have a good weekend, Jeannie. You, too, Mary Anne. Stay

out of trouble."

A laugh followed us out the door. Now we were moving.

My father was heading out of the office. Back into possible danger.

<0kay, guys, we're moving toward you. We'll be back in the parking deck

in a couple of minutes^ I called.

<Hey, Jake?> Tobias said worriedly. <Uh, I don't know if this means

anything but the bearded guy is back, hanging around near the elevator.>

<Which floor?> I asked, although I already knew.

59 The one my father was parked on, of course.

Tobias confirmed it. Ax confirmed it, too.

Hesitate at the door. Then we were outside.

My antennae quivered at the change in the air.

No time to demorph and remorph. If the bearded guy was part of an

attack, I was useless.

Nothing but a roach in a cuff.

<Ax?>

<Yes,> Ax said. <l am by your father's vehicles

<ls there any place you can morph without being seen?> I asked.

<l have been demorphing behind a large trash receptacle in the alley

behind this structure; however, I cannot get back from there to my

present position without being seen,> Ax replied. <Should I proceed?>

I didn't know.

If an Andalite suddenly arrived on the scene to save my father, the

Yeerks would put two and two together, realize someone close to Tom -

like his little brother - knew about his plan, and the Animorphs would

be dead.

But in our present morphs, we'd be helpless.

What should I do?

Lose everyone?

Or just my father?

if-

60 <Trince Jake, do you have any instructions for me?>

<Jake. Make the call, man.>

My family or my friends.

Save one man or save the world.

I was a bug! I couldn't save anyone.

An overt rescue would save my dad and doom us all. Including him.

<What's happening now?> I asked.

<Your father is walking toward his car,> Ax said. <The man with the

facial fur is following him.>

<How close?>

<He's about four feet behind your dad,> Tobias said. He was tense. <And

closing fast.>

I scampered up and out of the cuff. Onto the

61 pant leg. Around to the back of the knee. The fabric crinkled with

each step. I was horizontal, with the ground on my right. I couldn't see

far enough to be sure, but there seemed to be a large, dark wall moving

in behind my father. <Am I looking at him?>

<Yes,> Ax said.

Okay. Fine. I might be in a bug's body but I still had a human brain.

I hauled a left and went vertical. Up the pants. Onto the jacket. Up the

jacket. Zooming at roach speed along a vertical plane of dry wool fibers.

I came to a stop on the slope of a shoulder. An ear the size of

Nantucket loomed above me.

Closer. The dark wall was coming closer. I could almost see a face, a

blur, a bristling mass bigger than a rain cloud.

<Jake, what're you doing?> Tobias asked sharply.

<l'm doing what a roach does best,> I said.

<What?>

<Grossing people out and making them say . . .>

I motored. I cranked open the roach's almost useless wings. I flew

straight for that beard.

"Aaaahhhhh!" the man yelled.

I landed on his lower lip. The tiny hairs on my legs caught and clung.

62 He spit. A hurricane explosion of wind!

But I was down on his chin hairs now, walking gingerly from split hair

to split hair, like I was tiptoeing across treetops.

"Ugh! Ugh! A beetle!" the man shouted. We began to spin and whirl. He

slapped his own face. "Get it off me!"

I zigged left. Then right.

Motored toward his ear. Little roach feet tickled waxy ear skin.

He went wild.

I kept going, on up to his head. Onto thick, matted hair.

"What the heck ..." I heard my father say in astonishment. "Excuse me,

sir, but are you all right?"

Go! I wanted to tell him. Run, Dad! Run for your life!

<0n our way, Jake!> Tobias yelled.

<NO!> I yelled. <Back off! Back off!>

Suddenly, the air rushed and shimmered with the swoosh of wings.

"Tseeeeeer!" Tobias swooped down, talons extended. I caught an

indistinct but terrifying flash of ripping talons.

"Aaaahhh! Aaaahhh!" the man yelled. He was literally beating at his face

with one hand to kill me and waving the other in the air to fight off

the lunatic hawk and the insane seagull.

63 Quite suddenly I realized I was no longer on the man. I was on his

hair. But I was not on the man anymore.

The hair... the toupee . . . was in Tobias's talons being carried off

like a doomed mouse.

<l'm going to circle back for-> Tobias began.

<No! No!> I yelled, angry. <We might as well tattoo "The Animorphs were

here" on the guy's head! Stay back. Don't attack unless you see the

beard move to attack.>

<0h. Yeah.>

<This is not an attack,> Ax said. <Your father and the man with the

facial fur are making mouth-sounds. If this were a Yeerk attack they

would not be making rnouth-sounds together.>

<Drop the rug,> I instructed Tobias.

He did. The toupee hit the concrete and the man snatched it up and

slapped it back on his head. I dropped out before he did and, with

Tobias's help, headed in the direction of my dad.

"The bird's gone, the roach is gone, you're okay," my father said

soothingly.

"Forget the stupid bug! Forget the stupid, stupid bird!" the man yelled.

He was clearly upset. A hawk had seemingly attempted to grab a cockroach

off his head and ended up flying off with his toupee. That's the kind of

thing that will put you in a bad mood.

64 "Is that your car?" the bald man demanded.

"Huh?"

"I said, IS THAT YOUR CAR?!" the man roared.

Like I said, upset.

"Yes," my father said, sounding puzzled. "Why?"

"Because it's parked in my spot! MY spot! Mine! I've been waiting to see

who keeps taking my spot!"

"How can this be your spot?" my father asked. "There aren't any spots

marked 'reserved' here."

"I've been parking in this spot for two years and four months! It's my

spot! I don't care how many birds or... or my toupee ... or bugs . . .

it's mine!"

<l do not believe this man is a Controller^ Ax said.

<What was your first clue, Ax-man?> Tobias said.

<My first clue is the fact that this human is not ->

<lt was a rhetorical question,> Tobias said.

<Ah.>

No attack. An argument over a parking space. Funny, really.

Except that I was still left fighting the losing, defensive battle.

65 Worse, I had frozen. Tobias and Ax had asked for orders and I had

frozen. Because I had frozen they'd made the wrong move.

My fault, not theirs. I was in charge, they'd asked me what to do.

I'd hesitated. I'd had no answer. No harm, this time. But if the attack

had been real?

I was tired. Ax and Tobias were tired. We were measurably diminished,

and the enemy had lost nothing.

The attack was still to come.

f-

66 J. cut Tobias and Ax loose. Told them to get some rest. Tobias

objected. He said he'd get the others, they'd mount a surveillance on my

house.

I blew him off. Told him to let everyone rest.

Why? I don't know. Maybe I wanted to handle it myself. That way there

would be no orders to give. And no second-guessing.

My dad pulled into the garage and I scampered away. I demorphed behind

the garage and raced up to my room.

I beat my dad inside. See, I knew his routine. When he comes home he

walks down to the curb to check the mail and stands there going through

it muttering, "Junk . . . junk . . . okay, magazine . . . junk."

67 I was in my bed in seconds. Covers up to my chin. Playing sick.

"Jake?"

My door opened. Tom stuck his head into the room.

"What?" I croaked, having a heart failure. I hadn't realized he was

home. Had he been home while I'd been demorphing? "When did you get home?"

"What are you doing? Faking sick?"

The Yeerk in his head played the role. Said the words Tom would have said.

I played my role, too. "Yeah. Wanted to stay home and watch Jerry Springer."

"Uh-huh."

"I'm feeling better now, though. I think I'll get up."

He gave me a disgusted look and left. I climbed out of bed and got dressed.

Dinner was chicken soup for me. To "soothe" my upset stomach. My father

and brother wolfed down Chinese food.

"What time are we leaving tomorrow?" I asked.

"About nine, so you boys pack tonight and don't forget your suits," my

father said, missing Tom's sudden, black scowl. "I talked to your mom.

The funeral's on Monday and we'll be leaving for home Tuesday morning."

68 Tom shoved back his chair. "I'm done," he said, rising and stalking off.

My dad studiously ignored him. "Well, I'm gonna go out and water the

lawn one last time before we leave."

"I'll load the dishwasher," I offered, rising.

I rinsed the plates, watching through the window as my father dragged

the hose from the backyard to the front.

The house was so quiet. The air so still.

Tom had disappeared into his room.

I pressed my face to the window, leaving a nose smear, and searched the

sky until I spotted Tobias gliding high above.

Keeping watch, though I hadn't asked him to.

He looked so free out there.

So calm and confident.

I straightened. Looked around.

And made my decision.

Five minutes, I thought, hurrying up to my room and locking the door

behind me. I'll do a five-minute, aerial surveillance. Just enough

flying to get hold of myself again. Reassure myself. I'm no good to

anybody if I can't think straight.

I stripped down to my bike shorts, opened the window, and concentrated

on my peregrine falcon morph.

A lacy pattern rose and spread across my skin, softening into feathers.

My fingers melted

69 f-

together to form wing tips as my guts gurgled, slithered, and shifted.

My skull ground and shrunk. My vision sharpened. I zoomed downward,

falling, shrinking, wobbling on suddenly skinny, stick legs.

The breeze drifted in the window.

I flapped my wings and hopped up to the sill. Weird. After all this time

the idea of jumping out of the second-floor window still bothered me. I

was still human, still scared of heights, still not sure my wings would

work. I wondered if Tobias ever felt that way.

I spread my wings and took off, swooping down across the backyard,

taking care to stay away from Tom's bedroom window.

I caught a slight headwind, just enough to fill my wings, and began to

work for altitude.

<ls that you, Jake?> Tobias called cautiously.

<Yeah, I figured I'd join you for a couple of minutes,> I said, leveling

off and drifting along on an air current. My falcon eyes could see

everything, including a mouse scurrying along the neighbor's fence.

And my dad watering the lawn.

<How's it going?> I asked Tobias.

<l'm getting very little lift in this air,> he complained.

I smiled to myself. A typical Tobias answer.

<How's it going with you?> he asked.

70 <Tense,> I admitted. <lt's very tense down there. My dad, Tom, armed

camps, man. And me in the middle.>

Tobias didn't say anything. I looked at him. He was higher than me,

maybe two hundred yards off.

<Tobias?>

No answer.

<Tobias! What's ->

<Chapman! It is him. I couldn't be sure in this light. Six blocks from

your house. Him driving, some other guy in the passenger seat.>

I followed the direction of his gaze. A dark car, large, four-door. I

focused my gaze. Was the passenger holding something?

<l don't like the feel of this,> I said.

<No,> Tobias agreed.

<My dad ->

<Gun!> Tobias yelled. <The passenger. He's got a gun!>

71 L was in a stoop before Tobias had finished the sentence.

They were going to pull a drive-by. It was insane. A shooting in broad

daylight? Just how important was Tom to the Yeerks? This was reckless!

I was falling ... no, not falling. I was a rocket on a collision course

with Earth. Aimed like a cruise missile for my own house.

The car turned one street closer to mine.

I flared my wings to brake. The hurricane of wind nearly broke them. I

strained every muscle, spread every feather. I landed, skidding on the

back side of the roof.

No time to demorph inside.

72 I'd just have to take my chances out here, tucked into the shadowy

corner. I began to de-morph.

<Jake, what are you doing?> Tobias cried.

I could have answered. I didn't. Tobias knew what I was doing.

<This is stupid, Jake, but I'll cover your butt anyway,> Tobias said.

<Don't see anyone watching you. Possible line of sight to the house

behind and to the left. There's a little girl near her window.>

My feathers melted. My arms fattened. My beak softened like it was

melting. I had to scramble to hold on with talons that were becoming

stubby human toes.

<Here comes Chapman,> Tobias reported grimly.

NO!

Demorph! Demorph! Demorph!

Toes. . . hands . . .face. . .

"Aaahhh!" I yelled in surprise.

Suddenly, I was sliding down the steep roof toward the edge.

<Jake! Your brother's right there in the kitchen on the phone!> Tobias

shouted. <lf you come down on that side, he's gonna see you!>

My fingers scrabbled across the rough shingles for a handhold but it was

no use. My fingernails were practically liquid.

73 I was falling.

Over the edge!

Desperate, I grabbed the sharp, metal gutter.

Dangled. Arms stretched. I tried to haul my legs up, out of view.

<Tom hasn't seen you yet,> Tobias said. <He's got his back to the

window. But Chapman is twenty seconds away. It's now or never.>

Tom's voice drifted out through the window.

"Perfect timing," he said coldly. "He's out front alone. Go for it."

I dropped, hit the grass with a dull thud, and gritted my teeth to stay

quiet. I crawled past the window, then shot to my feet and tore around

the house.

A dark car was turning onto my block. A hundred yards away. Fifty.

"Hey, Dad." I limped over to him, sweating, heart thundering. "Let me do

that."

I took the hose.

My dad smiled. "Volunteering, huh? So. What is it you want?"

Twenty yards!

"Just wanted to get outside. Fresh air," I said.

"Unh. Well, thanks, then. I'll go do some packing."

He turned. Too slowly! He walked. Too slowly!

The car was there.

The window was down.

74 The gunman was staring at my father's back.

I jerked the hose. Water hit the side of the car.

The gunman yanked back in surprise; my father opened the door.

I waved at the car and said, "Sorry!"

The car passed by.

I breathed. My hands were shaking. My heart was a jackhammer.

I pretended to suddenly recognize Mr. Chapman as the car pulled away.

"Hey, Mr. Chapman!" I waved.

I felt someone watching me. I spared a quick glance. Tom.

He was framed in our living room window. His eyes burned with rage.

He'd have killed me, too. He would have had my dad gunned down and if

I'd gotten in the way . . .

And that wasn't the worst of it. Worse was knowing that my brother Tom,

my true brother, had been trapped inside his own mind, trapped watching

as the killers prepared to murder his family. Helpless, watching, unable

to open his own mouth to shout a warning.

I was clenching the hose so tightly the water was petering out. But I

couldn't relax the muscles. Could not.

I don't know how this war will turn out. Don't

75 know if we'll win or lose or even, somehow, compromise and make

peace. But I know one thing: I will kill the Yeerk who has done this to

my brother.

I will kill him.

76 We met in Cassie's barn. All of us but Ax and Rachel. They were

watching my house. My dad would be safe with those two.

Tobias calmly, without blame, related what had happened that day and

afternoon.

"Stupid," Marco said.

"I can't believe you took a chance like that, Jake!" Cassie said

angrily. Cassie doesn't get mad, but she was mad. "Were you looking to

get shot?!"

"Obviously not," I said, meeting her gaze. "But what else was I supposed

to do? Let them kill my father?"

"That's not the point," Marco said, as angry as Cassie, but colder about

it. "You demorphed

77 r-

in plain view. And Tobias says it was a matter of a split second whether

you ended up machine-gunned on your own lawn."

"The alternative was letting them gun down my father."

"So you figured to let them kill you, too?"

"It worked!" I raged.

Marco threw up his hands in disgust. "Why didn't you have backup? Tobias

says you told him and Ax to get lost. And not to get any of us," Marco

said. He was leaning back on a bale of hay. Leaning back, but not at all

relaxed. "We're supposed to be in this together. If you needed help, you

were supposed to ask for it."

"Yeah, I know," I said. "But you guys were in school during the

surveillance and tonight, well, I didn't exactly expect Chapman to do a

drive-by shooting, you know."

"A mistake on your part," Marco said.

"Yeah. A mistake."

"And today, earlier? Tobias says you froze up when he asked for an order."

"I didn't freeze up, I-"

"We can't afford you freezing up," Marco said.

I glared at him. "You're enjoying this, aren't you? This is payback for

when I doubted you over your mother."

"I was ready to do what had to be done," Marco said.

78 "So am I!"

"No. You're not. You endangered all of us. You demorphed on your roof!

On your roof! In daylight. With your brother in the house! If Tom had

seen you do that you'd be head down in the Yeerk pool right now, and the

rest of us would be standing in line behind you!"

"What's the matter with you all?!" I cried. "That was my father! My

father! I'm supposed to just stand by and do nothing?"

Tobias answered before Marco could. <ls it worth exposing ourselves and

risking everything, all of mankind . . . literally all the human race .

. . just to save one person?> he said quietly. <l'm sorry, Jake. I know

he's your father. I know what you're feeling. But it's something we have

to think about.>

I looked away. My face was burning. "You know, we talked about this and

we decided on surveillance. We watched my father in case he needed

protection. Well, he did and I reacted. What did you guys really think I

was gonna do?"

"Just what you did," Marco said. "You're too close to this. You can't

make this call."

I barked out a laugh. "What, you're going to decide whether my dad lives

or dies?" I looked at Cassie.

"Jake . . ." she said.

"You need to back off on this," Marco said

79 quietly. "You can't make this call. Not about your dad and your brother."

"You made it when it was your mom," I said.

Marco shrugged. "Yeah, well, that's me. If it's any comfort to you, I'd

like myself more if I was like you. But the question here is, how far do

we go to protect your father?" Marco said. "And who is going to make

that decision?"

"I'm the leader of this group," I said.

Marco hesitated. He bit his lip. Then, drawing a deep breath, he said,

"We need a vote."

"Rachel and Ax aren't here," I said.

<Ax will refuse to vote,> Tobias said. <He'll say it's a human question.

He'll say Jake is his prince and he'll do what his prince says. But he

won't cast a vote either way.>

"Rachel will back me," I said.

Marco nodded. "Yeah. She will. That leaves it up to Cassie and Tobias."

I didn't look at either of them. I expected to hear Cassie speak up. But

she didn't. Silence.

I felt like the ground was falling away beneath me. Cassie doubted me,

too? Cassie didn't think I could handle this?

I heard a ruffling of feathers up in the rafters and looked up. Tobias

cocked his head, his fierce, hawk's gaze meeting my angry, human one.

I was the first to look away.

Tobias had been there twice when I'd risked

80 my life - and his - to save my father. He knew how important it was

to me and he knew how far I'd go to do it.

<You guys are missing a couple of important points,> Tobias said

quietly. <First of all, writing off a human life is something the Yeerks

would do, not us.>

Cassie nodded. She looked troubled. Like she should have thought of that.

<Second, what if the Yeerks don't kill Jake's father? What if they

succeed instead in making him a Controller?> Tobias continued. <Jake's

already got one Controller in his family; if they make his father one,

too, then there's gonna be a couple of very suspicious people watching

Jake coming and going all the time, especially when there's Animorph

activity. So I don't think it's a question of should we save him, but

how we do it.>

Thank you, Tobias, I thought silently, staring down at the ground.

<But there's one more thing that nobody's talking about,> Tobias

continued, stretching and refolding his wings. <l think we've been on

the wrong path all this time. Sitting around waiting for the Yeerks to

attack, then saving Jake's father again and again is no plan. The Yeerks

may think it was a coincidence at the mini-mall, maybe a coincidence on

the lawn, but they can count, you

81 know? Sooner or later they'll think, "That's too many coincidences.">

"Exactly," Marco said.

<So, why don't we get off the defensive? Do something. Something big

that'll distract their attention away from Jake's father until he and

Tom and Jake can leave for the cabin tomorrow morning?>

Marco hesitated. He knew the vote had gone against him. At worst he had

Cassie on his side. That was two against three, leaving Ax out.

Finally Marco nodded. "Okay, we go on the offensive." He tried a

semblance of his usual humor. "I always wanted to die kicking and

screaming."

He stepped toward me. He held out his hand. "Nothing personal, Jake. I

was just looking out for the group."

I left his hand hanging in midair.

After a while he withdrew it.

"So, what's the plan?" Cassie said, trying to break the hostility of

that moment.

"Maybe we could think about-" Marco began.

"I have a plan," I said.

82 lid I have a plan? Not till that split second. Not till I was

face-to-face with Marco and realizing I had to come up with something.

Had to.

Sometimes emotion works for you.

We needed a distraction. The distraction I had in mind was big. And

would hopefully last until I could get my father out of town.

"Kidnap Chapman," I said.

That made Marco stare. It drew a gasp from Cassie. Tobias laughed like I

might be joking. Then he sort of moaned.

Then he laughed again and said, <Well, I'll say one thing: This is going

to make Rachel happy.>

A daring plan? Yes.

83 Crazy? Suicidal? Stupid?

I hoped not.

"Forces the Yeerks to decide their priorities," Marco said. "Do they

save Tom or Chapman? Who's more important to them? Chapman. They'll

still try and help Tom with his situation, but Chapman disappearing will

be a total Red Ball, Maximum Panic situation. It works."

Give Marco credit for one thing: No one is faster or better at seeing

the ruthless solution. And Marco is honest.

It wasn't going to be a pretty mission. We didn't have time for subtle.

We hooked up with Rachel and Ax and explained the plan.

Rachel said, "Cool!"

I left Cassie and Tobias to guard my house. I'd have left Marco, too,

but he would have taken it as me being afraid to have him around. I

wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

Rachel, Ax, Marco, and I flew to a house across the street and down from

Chapman's home on a quiet, suburban street. It was dark. Not late, but

dark. I was twenty minutes away from my dad wondering why I wasn't home.

Same with the others.

The house was for sale. Vacant. The bushes were overgrown and untended.

Perfect for us. Almost roomy at first. Less so as we morphed.

84 "Move over, Marco," Rachel grumbled as his shoulders bulged and

muscled up into a gorilla's massive form.

"Oh, come on, you love being close to me," he leered, just before his

jaw swung out and his lips became a puffy, black rubber Halloween mask.

I shut my eyes and concentrated on my own morph.

Rhinoceros. For this job we needed blunt, brute force. And nothing is

blunter than a rhino.

I heard the thin bone of my human skull crunch and split apart. Heard a

sound like grinding teeth as new bone, layers and layers of new bone,

filled in the gaps and made an almost impenetrable armor.

My body thickened. My legs, arms, hands, feet, stomach, back, shoulders,

all thickened. My skin thickened from human flesh to something

resembling a car's leather seat to something as tough and dense and

stiff as a saddle.

My ears crawled up the sides of my head.

My eyesight dimmed and blurred.

My neck lost all definition, sucking back into my expanding, blimp like

body. Bigger. Bigger.

Huge.

And then, at last, the horn. It grew from my face, down where my nose

had once been. Long,

85 curved, dangerous. A primitive, blunt weapon. A horn that could have

impaled an armored knight.

But despite the formidable body, the terrifying horn, the power of the

rhino, its mind was peaceful, placid. Basically, it just wanted to eat

and to be left alone. It was watchful but not scared or angry.

That was okay. I had enough fear and anger for both of us.

"Prince Jake, I am ready. Red-eeee. Eeeee," Ax said. He'd morphed to

human, using the DNA combination he'd long ago absorbed from all of us.

But he'd stopped the morph partway, distorting his features so Chapman

wouldn't be able to recognize him later on.

In his standard human morph, Ax is a strange and beautiful kid. Now,

with his eyes a little beadier, his nose stubby and squashed, and his

hair darker and shaggier, he bore a startling resemblance to Quasimodo.

Minus the hump, of course.

<Well, Ax, I'll never again think of you as just another pretty face,>

Marco said.

<Do you guys see anything suspicious?> I interrupted, twisting my ears

around at each new sound and sniffing the air. <l'm half blind with

these eyes.>

<Suspicious? Well, I see a bear, a gorilla, a

86 rhino, and some weird kid standing in the bushes, but aside from

that, no,> Marco said.

I didn't laugh. I didn't find Marco funny right then. I missed Tobias.

We had no one in the air, and we had to cross the street.

<Come on, let's do this,> Rachel said impatiently.

<Ax, move out,> I ordered. <Marco, you, too.>

Ax began to cross the street. It was quiet. I heard bare human feet and

bare gorilla feet. I saw shapes, shadows, little else. But I had

excellent hearing. I did not hear any approaching cars.

Marco walked as much like a human as he could. A four-hundred-pound

human. Once across the street he sidled into the bushes beside the

porch. Ax walked up Chapman's porch and knocked on the door.

A wait of several seconds.

The door swung open.

Chapman stood there, holding a newspaper and looking irritated at being

interrupted.

"Hello, is Melissa here? Hee-yer? I am a friend of Melissa? I have come

here to speak to her regarding a class assignment. Class-uh," Ax said

brightly, more or less following the script we'd worked out.

Chapman peered out at Ax and frowned. Sighed. "Wait here. I'll get her."

87 "Good," Ax said. "She is my close friend and also classmate and thus

this is a perfectly normal thing for me to do."

Chapman gave him another look and went to get her.

<Ax,> I whispered. <What do you see?>

<lt is as you suspected, Prince Jake,> Ax said. <This Controller has

added security devices since our last infiltration. There are motion

sensors camouflaged as a mirror frame in the front hallway. And I

suspect Dracon beams concealed in the eyes of a statuette facing the

doorway.>

<0kay then,> I said as my adrenaline started pumping. <Everyone be ready.>

<l've been ready,> Rachel said grimly.

The front door opened and Melissa stepped out. The door closed behind her.

She looked puzzledly at Ax.

Before she could say anything, two thick, hairy gorilla arms reached up

over the railing and lifted her off the steps and down into the bushes.

"Aaahh!" she yelped before a massive hand clapped over her mouth.

Melissa was an innocent. She didn't need to see what was going to happen

next.

<Got her tied up!> Marco yelled.

<Go! Go! Go!> I yelled.

88 <Go ! Go! Go!>

\ burst from the bushes. Rachel was right beside me, moving in the

deceptively fast, rolling gait of the grizzly bear.

Ax leaped from the porch and rolled under cover to demorph.

I crossed the untended lawn, focusing my dim sight on the porch light

across the street. But as my massive head swung left and right I lost

sight of it. Lights. Everywhere! Which was . . .

<Jake! You're drifting left!> Marco yelled.

I veered. Across the hard concrete of the street. A car! Twin lights

raced toward me from my left.

Screeeeeeech!

89 The driver slammed the brakes. I ignored him. Too late to worry.

Smash and grab and forget subtlety, I reminded myself.

I stumbled as my thick, tree-trunk legs connected with the porch steps.

<That's it!> Marco yelled.

I barreled, full speed, heedless, horn down for the door.

WHAM-CRUNCH!

The door exploded inward. The frame ripped. Plaster and molding showered.

"HHROOO-UH!" Rachel bellowed, right behind me.

TSEEEEW! TSEEEEW!

Hot, screaming pain. The stench of sizzling hair and flesh.

The Dracon beam in the statuette fired again, burning another black,

smoking hole in my armored hide.

It hurt just enough to make me even madder. Now the rhino brain was

enraged, too.

I drove forward, through the doorway, slammed into the far wall and

knocked the Dracon-concealing statuette over.

Crash!

TSEEEW!

It fired one last, scorching, agonizing beam up into my belly before I

crushed it beneath my feet.

90 Mrs. Chapman ran out from the kitchen.

"Andalites!" she yelled and leveled a handheld Dracon beam right at my face.

TSEEEEEW!

Searing heat sizzled my forehead, my ear, drilled a burning hole into my

very brain, and I staggered, bellowing as the sledgehammer pain rocked me.

The rhino was hurt. Badly.

"GRRROOOWWRRR!" Rachel roared. With a paw the size of a man's head she

smacked Mrs. Chapman and sent her flying into the wall. The woman hit,

groaned, and slid to the ground, out of the fight.

A flash of blue fur and Ax was with us. Chapman is escaping up the stairs!>

<Let him go,> I snapped. <We'll even give him a minute to sound the alarm.>

I was reeling. The rhino had taken a head shot. It was dying. The

connection between brain and body were fraying.

I counted to ten. <Long enough. Let's go!>

<He's coming out the back window, upstairs^ Marco reported from outside.

<Ax, up the stairs. Rachel, with me.> I crashed toward the living room.

The doorway was too narrow. I widened it.

I trampled over the couch and crushed the coffee table like it was made

out of toothpicks.

91 Through the living room. Through the French doors. Literally through.

Chapman dropped from down to my right. Marco was there. Reached for

Chapman with -

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

Chapman fired a handgun. Primitive human technology. Point-blank.

Marco dropped straight back. He hit the ground. Chapman jumped over him.

<Marco!> Rachel yelled.

An Andalite form soared over my head and landed heavily on the grass. Ax

had jumped from the second-floor window.

<Rachel, take care of Marco!> I ordered. <Ax! With me!>

Chapman was climbing his back fence. I hit the wood slats and sent him

flying. He rolled onto his back and fired.

BLAM! BLAM!

Hammer blows that connected with my throat.

I staggered, plowed into Ax, and knocked him off his feet.

Chapman was up and running through the busted fence.

I was hurt, bleeding, reeling, clinging to consciousness.

And clinging, most of all, to rage. This creep had tried to gun down my

father.

92 I hit him.

He flew, hit the ground, and rolled, groaning. The gun was five feet away.

I backed up a step. Tossed my head. Scented the air and targeted his

moaning, prone form.

Die, Yeerk.

I charged.

<No, Jake!> Rachel yelled. <We need him alive! Ax! Stop him!>

I was going to scrape Chapman across the ground. Stomp him, crush him,

dig my horn into him.

I saw the horror in his eyes as he realized what I meant to do.

<Prince Jake!> Ax yelled.

I charged. Then, at last, the injuries were too much. As if someone has

sliced my legs off, I fell. My momentum carried me, skidding into Chapman.

Chapman tried to rise. Ax nailed him with the side of his tail blade.

Chapman went down, unconscious.

I was swirling, swirling down into a black pit. Had to demorph. Demorph.

It was dark . . . dark enough that Marco couldn't say ...

Marco. Had I gotten him killed?

Melissa must have worked the gag out of her mouth. "Mommy? Daddy, where

are you?!" Melissa Chapman wailed.

93 J. demorphed to the sound of Melissa's terrified cries and the wail

of approaching police sirens.

I stood up, frazzled, confused. Rachel was there, human. Ax was gone.

Marco . . .

Marco reached down and lifted Chapman easily up onto his shoulder.

"You okay?" I asked him.

<Demorphed, remorphed, good as new,> he said tersely. <Let's move out.

With your permission, mighty leader.>

We moved. Rachel and me providing what limited visual cover we could for

Marco. We ran across the street and down. Back to the vacant "For Sale"

house.

94 We were going to keep Chapman a prisoner right where no one would

ever suspect: Within two hundred yards of his own home.

Ax had disconnected the burglar alarm when we got there. The back door

was open.

We hustled inside. Marco dropped Chapman unceremoniously in the empty,

wood-floored living room. Then he popped his fist through the glass of a

door connecting dining room and living room. The glass fell toward Chapman.

With his weak but nimble Andalite fingers Ax tied a rag over Chapman's

eyes. Ropes went around his wrists and ankles.

We stood there, looking down at him. He was in our power. For now.

"I wonder -" Rachel started to say.

I shook my head and put my finger to my lips. He couldn't be allowed to

hear human voices.

<He is still unconscious,> Ax said.

Marco reached down and poked Chapman in the ribs with a finger like a

bratwurst. The Controller did not react.

I went to the kitchen. I found an empty coffee can someone had used to

store nuts and bolts. I filled it with cold water, returned to the

living room, and poured it on Chapman's face.

He sputtered and cursed.

Then he tried to move his hands.

95 <0kay, Ax, it's all yours,> Marco said, stepping back.

Rachel and I remained silent.

Ax moved forward, hooves clopping on the bare, wooden floors, circling

Chapman on purpose, letting him hear that his interrogator was an Andalite.

<So, Yeerk,> he sneered imperiously. <Now you are mine.>

Chapman started to tremble.

He whimpered, soft and low.

I didn't look at Rachel; she didn't look at me. Neither of us was

thrilled about this. We had to make Chapman think he was being

interrogated by an Andalite warrior.

We had to make him think he would be tortured. Moments earlier I would

have killed him. Even now, I felt no pity for him. But that didn't

change the fact that we were trying to terrify another living, sentient

creature.

If you're the kind of person who gets off on that, you need help. I was

asking a lot of Ax. Too much.

But he was determined to play the role.

<lf you want to live - and I need not remind you that is in my power to

end your life right now - you will answer my questions,> Ax said with

exaggerated Andalite arrogance. <What is the extent of the Yeerk

penetration of Earth?>

96 Chapman shuddered but stayed silent.

<Do not defy me, Yeerk filth!> Ax roared. <Name all the Yeerks in

positions of power!!>

No answer.

<l will keep you here, you know,> Ax said, changing tactics and using a

silken, deadly thought-speak voice. <Kandrona starvation, Yeerk. It is a

terrible way to die. How long since you visited the Yeerk pool? How many

days, how many hours do you have before the terrible need begins to ->

I'd seen and heard enough. I jerked my head toward the door. Rachel and

Marco followed me. Marco demorphed as he went.

Ax's words had conjured up a dark, miserable picture in my mind.

The death he had falsely promised Chapman was the one my brother Tom was

going to suffer, because the Yeerk in his head would be cut off from

Kandrona rays.

"Jake?" Rachel whispered, once we were outside.

I shook my head. Couldn't answer.

I headed for home past the crowd of neighbors and cops and emergency

vehicles that had clustered around the Chapman home.

So far, the plan had worked.

Ax would continue to interrogate Chapman.

Maybe get rough with him.

97 This was what I'd led us to. Marco nearly killed. Melissa Chapman

terrorized. And Ax left to spin tales of horror for a helpless captive.

Marco wouldn't need to take another vote: I was done being the leader.

98 J. lay awake all night.

Tense.

Listening.

Listening to the sounds coming out of the darkness.

Waiting for Tobias, who had settled down two hours ago in the tree

outside my window, to suddenly shout, <The Yeerks are coming, Jake!>

It didn't happen.

At 3:30, I slid out of bed, careful not to step on the creaky part of

the floor, and tiptoed into the hallway.

My father's door was half-closed.

I peeked in.

99 He was sleeping, the moonlight shining on his face.

I inched further down the hall.

Tom's door was closed.

I held my breath and pressed my ear to the door.

Nothing.

Palms sweating, I gripped the knob and without wiggling it, sloooooowly

cracked open the door.

Tom's bed was empty.

I shivered.

Closed the door and hurried back to my own room.

My brother was gone.

Probably out with the rest of the Controllers, searching frantically for

Chapman. Tobias must have seen him go but didn't want to wake me up.

I climbed back into bed and lay there, wide-eyed and listening to the

house settling.

Wondering what my brother was doing. How he was feeling.

And imagining how frantically the Yeerks were searching for Chapman.

How scared and desperate Tom's Yeerk must be by now, knowing he was

suddenly just priority number two.

100 "Are you scared, Yeerk?" I whispered into the darkness.

I thought about how I'd feel if my friends left me to the Yeerks to save

someone more important.

Not a good feeling.

And what about the real Tom inside?

What was he thinking?

I didn't know and I couldn't stand the thought, but I couldn't stop

thinking about it.

Couldn't let it go.

I was the leader.

I should have been able to come up with a better, surer plan.

If I couldn't figure out a way to save my own family, then how could the

other Animorphs rely on me, anyway?

How could I rely on myself?

My numb, foggy brain begged for sleep but it wasn't happening.

The hours crept by.

<Hey, Jake, are you up? Are you awake? If not, wake up. Your brother

just snuck in through the back door,> Tobias said as the sun rose and my

bedroom was filled with brilliant, golden sunlight.

I couldn't answer. Wasn't anything to say anyway.

101 I heard Tom creep past my room. Heard him open, then close his

bedroom door.

I swung wearily out of bed and opened my window.

Time to go check on Chapman.

102 J. used my peregrine falcon morph and flew to the empty house where

Chapman was being held hostage.

I was tempted to continue holding Chapman and starve his Yeerk to death.

Let the Yeerk Empire know that they were vulnerable, too. That we could

be cruel enough to kill, when pushed far enough.

The sick, dark anger inside of me wanted to. And had nearly tried, last

night in rhino morph.

I landed in a tree near the window.

Ax was still inside.

<Everything going okay, Ax?> I asked from outside the house.

<Yes, Prince Jake,> Ax replied. <l was careful

103 to walk directly over the glass from the broken window, making it

crunch very loudly. I believe this Controller will use the glass to

sever his bonds once I have left.>

<Good,> I said.

<No, Prince Jake, nothing about this is good,> Ax snapped. <This is not

behavior suitable to a warrior. I will not do this again.>

<Understood, Ax,> I said.

<The human daughter of this Controller has walked through the

neighborhood crying for her father. I have heard her. As I have heard

the terror of this Controller. I will gladly fight this Controller and

even, in fair battle, kill him, but I am not a torturer.>

I'd never heard Ax this mad. Never even close.

<lt's my fault, Ax. My responsibility. You only did what I asked you to

do, as your prince. This is on me.>

<No. My actions are my actions and are my responsibility^ he said, but

his anger had softened a little. <l am sorry to have expressed anger.>

<Ax-man, you are entitled,> I said wearily.

He didn't say anything for a while, and I sat, miserable and ashamed, in

the tree.

<l must play out the charade,> Ax said wearily.

104 <Yeah.>

I sat there, fluffing my feathers against the morning chill, watching as

the first early commuters headed for their cars, slung their briefcases

and laptops in the backseat, and headed off for work. Normal. A normal

day in a normal American suburb.

Except that across the street a girl cried for a father she'd long ago

lost without knowing it, and here, a creature part man and part Yeerk

was threatened with painful death.

<Kandrona starvation, Yeerk. That is what awaits you. The slow weakening

... the growing madness . . . the terror as you begin to realize that

nothing, nothing can save you. Is that what you want? Help me, Yeerk.

Help me help you.> Ax could have used private thought-speak,

thought-speak only Chapman would hear. But he wanted me to hear.

<Your last chance. I will leave you here, bound, helpless, the thirst

and hunger of your human host body adding to your own desperate need.>

If Chapman answered I didn't hear him. I guess he did answer, though,

because Ax said, <Your choice, Yeerk.>

Moments later Ax was morphed to osprey and soaring away from the house.

Chapman would escape. We had left the bro-

105 ken glass there deliberately. Chapman believed we were all

Andalites. He would think we were too unfamiliar with the human world to

know that glass can cut.

<And he will return to his people a hero,> Ax said. <This will become an

oft-repeated and much celebrated chapter in Yeerk history. My name wil l

become legend, synonymous with ineptitude. A brutal fool of an Andalite.>

<Ax, I wouldn't have asked you to do it if it wasn't so important.>

Ax looked at me, fierce hawk eyes glittering. ^Important to you, Jake,

or to the war effort?>

I didn't answer him.

I wanted to believe it was important to both, but my weary brain

couldn't even form the words to convince myself, much less him.

Ax flew back to his woods, muttering something about cleansing rituals.

I flew home and relieved Tobias.

<Everything looks cool, Big Jake,> Tobias said. <So, what's the plan?

How do we follow you guys up to the mountains?>

<We leave at noon. We were supposed to leave earlier, but my dad has

some stuff to do this morning. I'll meet you all at Cassie's barn at

nine to set the plans.>

<0kay. Later.>

Tobias flew off.

106 We were leaving for Grandpa G's cabin in two hours. By the time the

others realized I wasn't going to meet them at the barn we'd be long gone.

I was done using my friends on this mission. I was tired of Marco's

doubts and Ax's honor and even Cassie's wary sympathy.

This was my family. My brother, the killer. My father, the target. And

me, the fool in the middle.

Just the three of us.

If my brother Tom, in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to save himself,

tried to kill my father, then I would morph.

And the last thing my brother would see was me, his brother, his unknown

enemy, rear up and destroy him with all the ruthless, savage power that

was mine to command.

I had told myself that I would do whatever had to be done, and I would.

Suddenly, I needed to talk to Cassie. And maybe, when it was all over, I

would.

107 Homer had already been taken to Rachel's, where he'd spend the next

four days being petted and pampered and played with.

Too bad he and I couldn't have changed places.

And now my father, Tom, and I had eight hours of boring, highway driving

ahead of us.

Tom sat in the front with my father, sulking and giving monosyllabic

answers to my father's forcedly cheerful questions.

I answered a few, but my heart wasn't in it either, and after about ten

miles, my father just stopped trying.

I sat tensely in the back, watching Tom, searching for any signs of

Kandrona withdrawal.

108 Nothing.

Maybe he'd fed last night, in between searching for Chapman.

It wouldn't matter though, because we still wouldn't be home before the

three-day limit.

I tried to imagine life without Tom. Without my older brother. I'd be an

only child. Marco was an only child. So were Cassie and Tobias.

But I wasn't and I didn't want to be. Saving Tom was the reason I'd

agreed to be an Ani-morph. I hadn't wanted it, any of it. But then I'd

learned the Yeerks had taken Tom and made him one of their own.

It was for him that I had endured that first horrifying morph. It was to

save him that I had gone down into the Yeerk pool, that unsuspected

house of horrors.

I wasn't going to lose Tom to the Yeerks. I had to keep that hope alive.

But I had to keep my father alive, too. The Yeerk in Tom's head was

locked in battle with me, though he didn't know it. We were deadly

enemies on a field of battle where two innocent people, my brother and

my father, stood directly in our line of fire.

After an hour or two, I fell asleep.

Woke up four hours later as we pulled into a rest stop.

109 We used the bathroom. Wolfed down lukewarm hamburgers and stiff,

cardboard fries.

Headed back out on the road.

Finally, when I was numb with nerves and cramped from sitting, my father

turned the car down a hidden, gravel road.

"We're almost there," he said tiredly.

I sat up.

So did Tom.

Thick forest lined the road, the tree branches seeming to reach for the

car. The air was cooler, cleaner, and smelled of dark, moist dirt.

A mouse scurried out onto the road in front of us. Sat up, unafraid, and

watched as we slowly approached.

"Tseeeer!" A hawk swept down out of nowhere and seized it. Carried it off.

"Survival of the fittest," Tom murmured, his mouth curving into a small,

secret smile.

I looked at the side of his head. I looked at his ear, wanting to

picture the foul, gray slug that was inside his brain.

Do you have a plan, Yeerk? Are the woods full of your allies? Do the

Hork-Bajir lie in wait? Do the Bug fighters hover above us, waiting for

the signal?

Or, like me, are you planning on handling this by yourself?

110 Don't take me on by yourself, Yeerk. You won't win.

Survival of the fittest, Yeerk.

"Finally," my father said, sighing and parking the car. "Everybody out."

My boots crunched noisily on gravel and pine needles. The sound of car

doors slamming was both loud and insignificant in the quiet of the woods.

Grandpa G's cabin sat in the middle of a small, grassy clearing

surrounded by dark, towering pine trees. There was a well-worn path

leading from the front door straight down to the dock at the lake.

Silence. Then, my mother and my grandparents spilled out of the cabin.

We were hugged and fussed over, fed and herded back out to the porch to

relax.

"It makes me sad to think that Grandpa G isn't here anymore," my mother

said quietly, watching as the sun set over the lake. "He really loved

this place."

"I remember when he came home from the war," my grandfather mused. "He

was a different man. He said he wanted nothing but peace after seeing so

much."

"Some people just can't deal with the reality of war, I guess," Tom said

offhandedly, earning shocked looks from my parents and grandparents.

111 "And what would you know about war, Tom?" my grandfather said

levelly, like he was trying not to sound as angry as he felt. "I don't

recall hearing about your enlistment."

"You're right," Tom said quickly. "That was a stupid thing to say. I

guess I was just thinking about Grandpa G spending all his time out

here, alone."

Everybody relaxed and went on reminiscing.

But I didn't. I just sat and watched and listened.

I had no plan. No plan but to react when Tom struck. I was waiting,

playing defense again.

Your move, Yeerk.

Ill

112 Why couldn't they have the funeral tomorrow?" Tom said later that

night, once we were in the attic bedroom. "I mean, Sunday or Monday,

what's the difference?"

"Grandpa G wanted it that way," I answered, looking around the small,

dark room. "And besides, Mom said they never bury people on Sunday

around here. Sunday is for the wake, Monday for the burial."

"Yeah, well, it's stupid," Tom said, watching me crouch in front of an

old chest. "What're you doing?"

"Nothing," I said, lifting a stack of old, dusty books off a small, dark

gray leather trunk. "Don't

113 you remember this, Tom? This is Grandpa G's old footlocker."

Tom glanced at it. Then he looked past it, around the room, searching

for something to do.

I opened the footlocker, filled with sudden urgency. "Remember back,

like, I don't know, when I was ten or so? He showed us his canteen and

these pictures of his outfit from the Battle of the Bulge?"

"Maybe," Tom muttered.

"They didn't know whether they were gonna freeze or starve or get shot.

That's what he said."

Tom rolled his eyes. Indifferent. Perfectly Tom, I thought, almost

admiring. The Yeerk was keeping up the illusion. Playing the part to

perfection.

"Christmas, when they were all homesick in their foxholes, they sang

'Silent Night.' The enemy sang it, too, in German. Far off they heard

it. Both sides lonely for their homes. Both sides wishing the war was over."

"Uh-huh."

"Don't you remember how he told us all this, Tom?" I pressed, wanting

him to admit he remembered. Wanting, ridiculously, the real Tom inside

to push hard enough to break through, just for a minute, and be my

totally human brother again.

114 Tom sighed. "Vaguely. I'm not real big on old war stories."

I lifted out the small box that held Grandpa G's Silver Star and his

Purple Heart. "He was a brave guy. He believed in honor. All that stuff

out of old movies. Honor and courage and all."

"Yeah, well, that was all a million years ago," Tom said. "Honor and

courage aren't what matters, not in the real world. What matters is

whether you win. After you win then you start talking about honor and

courage. When you're in battle you do whatever you have to do. Honor and

courage and all that? Those are the words you say after you've destroyed

all your enemies and anyone else who gets in the way."

"You're wrong," I said flatly.

He rolled his eyes, bored now. "You're a kid." I saw Tom's eyes narrow.

"What's this?" He reached into the footlocker and lifted out a cracked

leather scabbard. From the sheath he drew a dagger. The blade glittered

dully in the dim lamplight. It was a long blade, maybe eight inches or so.

Suddenly, the attic was close and airless.

"SS," Tom mused, examining it. "It's an old Nazi dagger. Grandpa G must

have taken it off a dead soldier as a souvenir. Cool."

"What're you gonna do with it?" I asked.

115 Tom cocked his head and looked at me.

"I mean, you can't take it," I added hurriedly. "It isn't yours."

"Hey, you get the medals, I get the dagger, right?" he said. "It's

perfect. You can sit around thinking about honor and bravery and all,

and I get the weapon that gets the job done. Sounds fair to me."

I kept my expression as blank as I could. I, too, was playing a part.

"I'm not taking anything until I talk to Mom and Grandma," I said,

carefully putting the medals back in the velvet case and waiting for Tom

to do the same with the dagger.

"Well?" I said. "Come on, man, put it back."

"Mom and Grandma," he mocked. "You're still such a kid. You think

everything is so simple, don't you? That it's all either right or wrong,

black or white. A good guy, a bad guy, and nothing in between."

No, Yeerk, I don't. Not anymore. I used to. But I've been across the

line; I've done things I can't let myself think about. I know all about

the shades of gray.

I said, "Sometimes even the good guys do bad things. Doesn't mean

there's no difference between good and evil."

"Good and evil," he said with a tired smile.

116 "Strong and weak. That's the reality. Winners and losers."

"The knife, Tom," I said.

He laid it back in the footlocker.

He turned out the light. We crawled into our respective bunks. Our

separate foxholes.

117 L was cold.

Freezing.

Night.

My feet were solid blocks of ice despite the filthy rags I'd wrapped

around my torn boots. My fingers were numb, stiffly clutching my M-l rifle.

I had a clip and a half of ammo. One grenade. If the Germans came it

would be over fast.

I hadn't had a warm meal since . . . Had I ever had a warm meal? Had I

ever, ever been warm? Hadn't I always been in this freezing foxhole,

this black hole punched in the snow? Hadn't I lived my entire life right

here at the edge of the dark forest, shivering, shaking, waiting to

118 hear the scream of incoming shells, waiting to hear the

clank-clank-clank of the tanks?

Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas.

I heard a racking cough from the next foxhole. Matthews. He was from

Arkansas. Alabama. One of those places. A southern boy. A kid, one of

the last replacements to make it to our unit.

"Hey, kid," I said in a hoarse whisper. "Goose or ham?"

"What?" he gasped between coughs.

"Back home, what does your mom cook for Christmas dinner? Goose or ham?"

For a while he didn't answer. Then, "Ham."

"Yeah? We always have a goose. My mother cooks up a goose."

From a second foxhole, to my right, a voice said, "Don't listen to him,

kid. Sarge ain't got no mother."

I think the kid laughed. Hard to tell with the coughing. Pneumonia, most

likely. He should be evacuated. But no one was being evacuated. The joke

was that even getting yourself killed only got you a three-day pass and

then it was back to the line.

"Sarge," he called when the coughing subsided. "Sarge."

"Yeah."

"You write the letter, okay? I know it's the

119 captain's job, but he don't know me. You write the letter."

There was only one letter. The one that would inform Private Matthews's

family that he was among the honored dead.

I said something rude and obscene. Couldn't have him thinking that way.

You start thinking you'll die, maybe you do.

"Tell my mom I did okay," he said.

"Tell her yourself, I'm not the U.S. Mail," I said. "You tell her when

you get home."

"Merry Christmas," a bitter voice on my right said.

For a while no one spoke. We listened for the incoming shells. We

listened for the tanks. We waited for the crack of a sniper's rifle and

the cry of a man dying.

But then the thin, biting air was filled with the sound of voices,

ragged at first and then soaring into a harmony that sweetened the

night, bringing me home to my family, filling my empty, aching belly and

soothing my torn, battered heart.

"'Silent Night.'"

'"Hol y night,'" Private Matthews whispered, smiling.

"I think I hear the Germans singing, too," I said.

"Yeerks don't sing," Matthews said. Suddenly, he was beside me.

120 He opened his eyes. Bared his teeth.

And rammed the Nazi dagger straight into my heart.

My eyes snapped open.

Darkness.

I sat up, heart pounding.

Glanced sideways.

The other bed was empty.

I was at Grandpa G's cabin.

Sharing the attic bedroom with my brother.

And it was late. Too late for Tom to be up.

My breath froze in my throat. I rolled over and opened the footlocker.

The dagger was gone.

121 J. shot out of bed.

Pulled on sweats and padded out of the bedroom.

Down the stairs.

The night-light cast a thin, golden glow.

Snoring. Murmuring.

Everyone was still sleeping.

I paused in the main room and looked at the pull-out couch.

My mother was in it.

My father was gone.

Oh, no! Was I too late? Had I given Tom the exact and perfect chance

he'd been waiting for?

I eased open the front door.

Creeee . . .

I went still.

122 Held my breath.

Nothing.

Squeezed out through the gap and waited in the shadows on the porch.

Listened.

The breeze carried the sound of voices.

There!

My father and Tom were sitting down at the end of the dock, talking and

dangling their feet in the water.

My father laughed and gave Tom's shoulders a quick, spontaneous hug.

Tom's sweatshirt bunched up in the back.

Revealing, for a moment, the gleaming dagger wedged in his pocket.

My father didn't notice it. He laughed again and removed his arm.

Tom and my father, sharing a private conversation in the middle of the

night.

Tom, the betrayer.

My father, the betrayed.

I had no doubt who'd instigated it.

Tom, apologizing for his bad behavior. Wanting to talk to my father, man

to man.

Lying.

He'd lured my father outside, where no one would hear.

Tom slipped his hand behind him and closed his fingers over the dagger.

123 Tightened his grip on the handle.

I had to do something.

Fast!

I edged off the porch and took off running, keeping to the deep, dark

tree line and morphing as I went.

I didn't care that once I did, Tom would realize I was the enemy.

And that once he knew, I couldn't let him live.

His action, my reaction.

Adrenaline pulsed through my veins.

Drowned out the fluttering panic.

Thick, orange-and-black fur sprouted, rippling over my body. My nose

flattened, widened. My senses lit up. Smell! Hearing! Night vision

almost as good as an owl's.

I could smell my brother's exultation.

He was excited, anticipating the kill.

Tiger senses. Tiger strength. Tom would be helpless. A boy with a knife

against a tiger? Like going up against a tank with a Nerf gun.

I fell forward as my bones ground and remolded into four strong,

muscular legs.

Hurry! I shouted silently, stumbling as my feet widened and my toenails

curved into deadly claws.

But I was still only halfway to the dock when Tom withdrew the

glittering dagger.

124

LCCRRRRAAAACCCKKKK!

The sharp sound split the night.

My father and Tom looked up in shock as the wooden dock tilted and

collapsed with a screech.

They scrabbled to hold on, but the planks were an accordion being

squeezed. The entire dock was being folded back on itself by some

massive force.

Tom and my father both slipped into the water.

"Hey!" my father shouted, going under.

He bobbed back up, gasped, thrashed, and went down again.

I stopped dead in the shadows, surprised, amazed, waiting to see what

was happening.

125 My dad could swim like a fish. Why was he surfacing and going back

under?

"Glug," he croaked, surfacing several yards away from the ruined dock

and almost immediately disappearing again.

It was almost as if something was pulling him down and towing him away

from Tom. . . .

Tom was frantic, splashing and swinging around in the water, not trying

to save my father, just trying to keep him in sight. Why? So he could

watch him die? So he could catch up with him and use the dagger?

Silent anger roared in my ears.

My fur rippled and stood on end.

My still-human mouth tightened into a snarl.

I moved forward again.

"Gak," my father burbled, surfacing another ten yards away from the dock.

Tom swung around in the water, searching for him.

Suddenly, a fin broke the lake's surface behind Tom.

Shark? I thought blankly. Shark in a mountain lake?

No, not a shark.

A dolphin!

Before I could move, the fin sliced through the water and something

slammed straight into Tom's back.

126 "Oof!" Tom arched, eyes wide with surprise, and shot forward,

plowing facedown in the rippling lake.

He didn't move after that.

The fin - no, there were more than one - the fins slipped soundlessly

below the surface.

"Tom! Tom, are you all right?!" my father yelled, clambering up onto

shore. He'd been dragged some twenty yards down the lake and was

staggering back through the thick, vine-covered underbrush.

Tom was floating facedown, motionless in the water.

My father would never get there in time to save him.

I could. The tiger can swim. I could save him.

But I didn't move. Frozen. Brain locked around the simple fact that if

Tom died he would, at last, be free. That if the Yeerk died I would have

had my revenge. That we would be safer, stronger, freer with the

Controller named Tom dead and gone.

Didn't know what to do.

<Jake! Demorph!> a voice ordered. <You're in the open. Demorph!>

I obeyed, glad for once to take orders rather than give them. Relieved

to have the decision made for me.

The others had followed me to the cabin.

127 They'd backed me up even though I'd said not to. They'd taken the

decision out of my hands.

I stepped forward. My feet had remolded to human.

I stood up. My fur had disappeared.

Tom would drown unless I saved him.

Saving him might still mean my father's death.

Help me! I wanted to scream. Tell me what to do!

The lake water rippled. Surged.

And suddenly Tom's limp, unconscious body was skimming across the water

like a surfboard, being pushed rapidly toward shore.

I ran to the water's edge. My reflection in the moonlit ripples was human.

Panting, I dragged Tom's body up onto the land.

Flipped him over.

Water streamed from his still face.

His right leg flopped and twisted at a crazy, sickening, unnatural angle.

"Help," I croaked, leaping to my feet. "Help!"

Tom groaned. Coughed.

He gagged and barfed up buckets of smelly lake water.

"Don't move," I babbled, trying to hold him still as he thrashed.

Something was wrong with

129 his leg. There was a hinge where there shouldn't be one. "I think

your leg is broken."

"Jake!" my father shouted, staggering up. His clothes were sagging,

sopping, and ripped, and he was covered with dark, slimy mud. "Is Tom

all right?"

"No," I said, shaking my head. "Someone better call an ambulance. Dad,

hurry!"

My father ran to the cabin.

I looked down at Tom. Inside his head was a killer. He'd almost killed

my father.

But what I saw, the eyes I looked into, those belonged to my big brother.

I settled into the mud next to him.

His face was white and tight with shock, his eyes filled with dark

agony. His teeth were chattering and tears leaked down into his hair.

"Get out of here, midget," he gasped, writhing. "Get out of here and

leave me alone!"

"No," I said, moving closer. "I ... don't think so."

And I didn't until I heard a deep, pulsing THWOK THWOK THWOK and a

medevac helicopter dropped out of the starry sky and swept Tom away.

128

Ukay, honey. You, too."

My father hung up the phone and sighed. He ran a hand through his

rumpled hair, then turned to face the sea of anxious faces.

"Well?" I asked.

"Your mom says they medevaced Tom all the way back to the hospital back

home," my father said, plopping down in a chair. "It seems he has a

complex break and our hospital's the only one in the area equipped to

deal with it."

"No kidding," I said, not at all surprised.

Of course: back home. Back where there were plenty of Controllers around

to make absolutely certain Tom would have access to the Yeerk pool's

lifesaving Kandrona rays.

130 "He's in some pain and he'll be laid up for a while, but at least

he's gonna be okay," my father said thickly. He reached over and hugged

me. "Thank God you got there in time to save him, Jake."

"I didn't save him," I said. "He drifted into shore. I just grabbed him

and hauled him out of the water."

"And saved him," my father insisted, releasing me. "I was really scared

tonight, Jake. I don't ever want to lose either one of you."

"Me, either," I said.

And we had come so close. A dagger half-drawn. A tiger running.

"Well, I need a cup of coffee," my father said.

"I'll make it," my grandmother said.

"Make one for me, too, please," my grandfather called after her.

"First thing tomorrow morning, I'm gonna call whoever built that dock

and read them the riot act," my father said. "And then I want to talk to

somebody about the undertow or the current or whatever it was that

dragged me down that lake. It's dangerous!"

"Yeah. Um, look, I'll be right back, okay?" I said. "Need some fresh

air." I slipped out of the door and into the fading darkness.

I stood for a moment listening, but it was no use.

131 Human hearing is so limited.

I spread my hands like, Well?

<0ver here, Jake,> Tobias called from a thick stand of pine trees.

I walked over and met them in the shadows.

Without my asking, they told me how they'd done it.

How Tobias had kept endless watch and sounded the alarm when Tom and my

father exited the cabin.

How Cassie had quickly morphed to whale and struggled through a shallow,

nerve-wracking twenty feet of water to ram the dock, praying she

wouldn't be beached before she got there.

How Rachel and Ax had morphed into dolphins, rammed Tom, broken his leg,

and dragged my father to safety.

I wanted to say a lot.

Like how they'd saved my family.

My sanity.

"Thanks," I said.

"Hey, don't mention it," Rachel said fliply. "We needed a vacation, anyway."

<We have spent time exploring that decrepit, architectural structure

riddled with rodents and assorted wildlife,> Ax said, turning an eye

stalk toward the abandoned hunting lodge across the lake. <We discovered

several extremely large spiders^

132 "And rats. Don't leave out the rats," Cassie said with a laugh.

<Personally, I had fun,> Tobias offered.

"That's because you got to eat like a pig," Rachel said.

They were trying too hard.

"Where's Marco?" I said.

Cassie shrugged. "He didn't know if you'd want to see him right away.

Thought you might need some time to calm down or whatever."

"Come on out, Marco."

He stepped into view from behind a tree. He looked a little leery.

Which, given the way I'd treated him was not surprising.

"Hey, Big Jake."

"Marco. This had to be your plan."

"Pretty much."

"Yeah. Well. Good plan."

"Thanks. Couldn't have done it without the Chee," Marco said, shrugging

like it was nothing. "They're the ones who piloted the medevac

helicopter and insisted on taking Tom back home. Without them, all we

would have had was a kid with a busted leg out in the middle of the woods."

"Tom's back home. Alive. My dad's alive. Crisis past. I should have

thought of it myself. Tom, injured, had the perfect excuse for not

coming on this trip. I should have seen that."

133 Marco shrugged. "Yeah, well . . ."

"I was too close to it," I said. "You were right. I was too close to see

things clearly."

Marco didn't argue. He didn't gloat, either. I guess we each have our

strengths and weaknesses. Marco's strength is the ability to see the way

to the goal, even when it means disregarding consequences and feelings

and basic right and wrong.

He'd seen this solution when I missed it.

I took Marco's arm and drew him away from the others. To where they

wouldn't hear.

"You're my best friend, Marco. If you ever again tell me I'm losing it,

getting too involved, can't lead -"

"You'll kick my butt?" he interrupted with a grin.

"No. I'll listen. I'll listen. Then I'll kick your butt."

He laughed. I laughed. What can I say? Marco and I have been friends

forever.

We started to rejoin the others. I stopped him. "Marco?"

"What?"

"This whole plan worked because Tom came outside and made himself

vulnerable. What would have happened if he hadn't?"

Marco didn't look at me.

"You had to keep me from blowing it at all

134 costs," I pressed. "You had to preserve the security of the group

and keep me alive. Those were your top priorities."

He nodded.

"So, what if you hadn't been in time? What if Tom had managed to kill my

father?"

"It was pretty clear, after I thought about it, that if Tom killed your

father you'd lose it," Marco said coolly. "Like a chess game: Tom takes

your father, you take Tom. You'd have gone after Tom, exposing yourself

and us. Game over. So we couldn't let that happen. Your dad had to

survive for you to survive. The one expendable piece was Tom. But if

anything was going to happen to Tom it would have to look natural, not

like an Ani-morph had been involved, and not like you had been involved.

It would have to be done very carefully. So, if it came down to that -"

"No," I said softly. I shook my head. I didn't want to know.

For a while neither of us said anything. I just let it sink in.

You know what Marco and I used to talk about? Whether Batman could beat

Spiderman. Whether Sega was better than Nintendo. Whether some girl

would rather go out with him or me.

And now . . .

136 "What are we, anymore, Marco? What has happened to us?"

He didn't answer. I didn't expect him to. We both knew what had happened.

"I better get back inside," I said.

"Yeah. And we need to head home. We hitched a ride on a cattle car

getting here. We're hoping for something less fragrant for the return trip."

I went back toward the cabin.

135

My mom was back the next day. It was Sunday, the day for Grandpa G's

wake and then we had his funeral on Monday.

The local VFW chapter came and brought a bugler, who played a slow,

mournful taps.

The other old soldiers took the folded American flag off the casket and

gave it to my grandmother, Grandpa G's daughter.

She and the worn, grizzled men looked at each other for a long, quiet

moment as if sharing a memory, a lifetime of experiences only they could

understand.

I understood it, though.

Maybe not their war, but ours. Because now we're the ones out on the

battle lines. The ones

137 who fight and bleed, succeed and fail, win and lose.

We're the ones with the nightmares and the old souls.

I know what Grandpa G meant now.

He only talked about the war twice, at least to me. Once, when he opened

his footlocker. And the other, that day, long ago, when we'd sat on the

dock.

When my war ends, if I survive, I probably won't talk about it much, either.

As far as experiences go, once will be enough.

We each laid a rose on the casket as we left.

It wasn't a big funeral, but everyone there cried. Anyway, I did.

When we got back to the cabin we called the hospital and talked to Tom.

He was doing fine.

Everything was back the way it had been. My brother still lived. So did

the enemy inside him. It had all been a pointless battle. No one had

wanted it, no one had profited. Everyone had suffered: Chapman, Ax, Tom,

Marco, and some guy who just wanted his parking space back. And me.

But we'd all survived, and in war any time you wake up to see the

sunrise it's a victory.

My folks and I drove home together on Tuesday.

I sat in the front seat with my dad whil e my mom dozed in the back.

138 Dad let me choose the radio station and told me for only about the

ten millionth time how much better the music was "in his day." We had

burgers for lunch and my mom told us both for only about the ten

millionth time that we ate too much saturated fat. We pulled off to

witness the "World's Largest Ball of Twine!" You know, except for all

the other "World's Largest" twine balls.

Small, simple things, but good ones.

We talked about Grandpa G and then about other stuff.

Normal stuff.

The ride always seems shorter on the way home.

Tom had dropped the Nazi dagger in the water when he'd been knocked off

the pier. I guess it had sank to the bottom of the lake.

I could have retrieved it, probably. I didn't.

But I had Grandpa G's medals in my pocket. My grandmother had given them

to me. She said Grandpa G wanted me to have them.

I always knew he'd been a hero in the war. That he had medals and all.

And I'd wondered why he didn't put them up in a display case, show them

off for all the world to see.

But I was a little wiser, now.

Medals aren't so simple for the people who earn them. Every time Grandpa

G had looked at

139 those medals he'd thought about the things that had happened, the

things he'd seen others do, the things he'd done himself.

I know he was proud of being brave, proud of doing his best for his

country. But I also know why the medals were in a pouch, in a

footlocker, in an attic, kept far out of sight.

Someday maybe there'll be medals for those who fought the war against

the Yeerks.

I'll need to buy a footlocker.

Don't miss

I. stood up. Looked around. Not ten feet away was this guy named Bailey.

I don't know if that's his first name or last name.

"What do you want?" I demanded.

"Nothing." He shrugged.

I glared.

He blushed.

"Looking good, Rachel."

"What?"

"That leotard and all. You're looking good."

I was wearing my morphing outfit. It seemed okay for a trip around the

rocks.

"Of course I look good," I snapped. "I almost always do. You have

something else to say?"

I guess that threw him. He shrugged.

"Looking good," he repeated. "Looking real good."

"I think we've been over that," I said. "Yes, I

141 am good-looking. Yes, I have great hair. Yes, I have a great body.

Now go away."

"You are so stuck-up!"

"That's right, I am. Now you know the difference between good looks and

a good personality."

He left. I waited till he was back to a group of his friends. I scanned

the other direction along the shoreline. A family with two kids, two

little boys. They were coming my way but I'd have time to morph before

they got close.

I began to morph.

First I shrank. Smaller and smaller. Puddles and pools rushed up toward

me. A shower of spray hit me and all of a sudden it wasn't refreshing,

it was scary. The force of the water nearly knocked me off my feet.

Which was easier to do since my feet were disappearing. My thighs grew

thick. My arms thickened as well, forming chubby cones.

Arm, arm, leg, leg. And here was the gross part: My head was morphing to

become the fifth leg. It turns out starfish don't exactly have heads.

They have a mouth more or less in the middle, a bunch of wiggly little

feet that look like suckers, and the five big cone legs.

That's about it for a starfish. A cockroach, by comparison, is a model

of sophisticated design.

I went blind. Totally. No eyes at all.

142 It occurred to me to wonder how exactly I expected to find an

earring when I couldn't see, but I assumed the starfish would have other

compensating senses.

Nope. Not really.

It could feel. It could sort of smell. It could scoot around on its many

tiny little feet. If it happened, mostly by accident, to crawl onto

something tasty I guess it could eat it. But that was pretty much it for

the starfish.

Well, I told myself, I might be able to feel the earring.

I motored my many little feet. Down, down, slithering down wet rock.

<0kay, this is stupid. An unfamiliar morph in a hole in the rock. Not

your brightest move, Rachel.>

Then my foot - one of them, anyway - touched something thin and hard and

round.

Amazing! I had stumbled onto the earring. It took me another ten minutes

to get my useless little mouth to grab the earring. I headed back up. At

least I hoped it was up.

I climbed up over the lip of the pool, out into relative dryness. I

focused my mind on morphing and began to -

WHAM!

Something hit me. Hit me hard.

The starfish didn't have much in the way of

143 pain sensors but I still knew, the starfish knew, deep down, that it

was very, very badly hurt.

I tried to make sense of it all. But all I knew for sure was this: I had

been able to count to five on my starfish legs.

Now I could only count to two.

I was cut in half!