Текст книги "Animorphs - 12 - The Reaction"

Автор книги: Katherine Alice Applegate

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Animorphs The Reaction

Converted to E-Book by:

Kamal Raniga

My name is Rachel.

I won't tell you my last name or where I'm from. Here's what I can tell you about myself: I'm tall for my age. Maybe tall for any age. I have blond hair. I like gymnastics, shopping, and a good fight with bad guys.

Not necessarily in that order.

People say I'm pretty, and I guess I'm okay. People say I'm self-confident, and I know that's true.

My closest friends think I'm fearless. They're wrong about that. People without fear are just insane. I have plenty of fear in my life. Some days I feel afraid from the minute I wake up in the morning till my last nightmare at night.

But the thing about fear is you can't be afraid of it. I know that sounds confusing. I guess what I mean is, be afraid if you have to, right? Fear is like this vicious little worm that lives inside you and eats you alive. You have to fight it. You have to know it's there. You have to accept that you'll never get rid of it, but fight it just the same.

Brave isn't about not being afraid. It's about being scared to death and still not giving in.

That's all any of us do. Any of us Animorphs. We just try not to give in.

And in the middle of it all, in the middle of all the danger and betrayal and fear, we try to hold on to what's normal and good. Have to keep up with the homework. Have to be ready for that pop quiz. Have to still listen to music and watch TV and maybe go to a movie.

You know what I mean? When you live in an insane world, you have to hold on to the little things.

There are six of us. Five humans, one not-so-human. There's me; there's Jake, my more responsible cousin; Marco, my personal pain in the butt; Cassie, my best friend forever; Tobias, who was our first casualty, trapped forever in the body of a hawk; and Ax, the only Andalite to survive their mission to Earth.

It all began with an innocent walk through an

abandoned construction site at night. The five of us, minus Ax, were minding our own business, heading home from the mall. No one was thinking, Hey, let's get ourselves in the middle of an interstellar war.

I just wanted to get home, do all those normal things. Maybe watch TV.

Check out some Web sites. Listen to a favorite CD. Do my homework.

Whatever. Normal stuff.

But the damaged Andalite fighter landed right in front of us, and from that point on, nothing was normal again.

We are not alone in this universe. There are billions of stars and billions of planets. And on some of those planets, life arose like it did here on good old Earth.

On some of those planets, highly intelligent life evolved. Just like Homo sapiens – humans – evolved here. Out there in the stars, there are races like the Ellimists who are so advanced they make humans look as dumb as cows. Then there are races, like the Andalites, more advanced than us. You know: like a tenth-grader is more advanced than an eighth-grader. But still in the same zone of reality.

And there are races like the Hork-Bajir, razor-bladed killing machines that everyone says used to be rather sweet. And the Taxxons . . . well,

what can you say about the Taxxons? Huge cannibalistic centipedes. Not exactly the good guys of the galaxy. Not exactly nice.

And then there are the Yeerks.

The Yeerks, who enslaved the Hork-Bajir. The Yeerks, who made a devil's deal with the Taxxons. The Yeerks, who spread throughout the galaxy like a virus, attacking one race after another, enslaving, destroying.

They are parasites. Just gray slugs, really. In their natural state you could step on one and squash it like a snail without its shell.

But Yeerks have the ability to infest other species. To crawl and slither and squirm inside their heads. They flatten their bodies out and wrap themselves around the brain, sinking into every crevice.

They tie into the brain. They take over the brain and enslave the poor creature, making it a Controller. They did this to Hork-Bajir and Gedds and Taxxons. All Hork-Bajir and Taxxons and Gedds are Controllers.

They've even done it to one Andalite. But only one.

Luckily.

And they are doing it to humans. Hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of humans.

Some Controllers are taken against their will.

Others, believe it or not, become Controllers voluntarily.

That's always been the thing that made me maddest. Anyone can lose a battle. But to choose to surrender? To become a traitor? That's just sick.

The Yeerks have a front organization they call The Sharing. It's supposed to be like some kind of Boy Scouts or something, except that they take girls as well as boys, and adults as well as kids. Supposedly, it's this big family thing. You know: cookouts and rafting trips and everyone just one big, happy family.

Except that the reality is The Sharing is run by the Yeerks. They use it to learn about human society. They use it to disguise their meetings.

And they use it to recruit new members.

I always wondered what lies they told people to get them to agree to become Controllers. Now I know. At least I know what it took to get one person to betray his entire planet.

I guess he betrayed me personally, too. In a way. Not that he knew me.

There were probably a million girls like me with crushes on him.

I know what you're thinking. Rachel has a crush? Rachel? The person Marco calls Xena: Warrior Princess?

Well, what can I say? Cute is cute. And cute-

ness is a very powerful force. And he was the cutest of all cute guys that ever showed a dimple.

It was a shame I had to do what I did to him. It hurt me as much as it hurt him.

Well . . . maybe not quite as much.

But we'll get to all that grisly stuff later. I'll start at the beginning. Oddly enough, it all started at the zoo.

?Field trip." Two of the best words in the English language. Our class was going to the zoo at The Gardens.

Sure, I'd been there before. And yes, Cassie's mom was head veterinarian, so I could get in anytime I wanted. But who cared? Any field trip was better than sitting at a desk, zoning out at a blackboard. Right? I mean, when I was younger, we went on a field trip to a factory that made bread and Twinkies. They didn't even give us any Twinkles, but did I care? No. Because being out, moving around, seeing new stuff, is always better than hard desk chairs.

Cassie didn't agree.

"My mom's going to give a little presentation on endangered species,"

Cassie said as we sauntered along with the rest of the class. "A presentation. To us."

We were in a big enclosed exhibit area. It was like a huge glass dome over all these different habitats. We were walking along at a slight downhill angle on a winding pathway between leopards and tortoises and Komodo dragons and pythons – all the animals that couldn't be exposed to cold weather.

I was enjoying myself, sipping a Mountain Dew through a straw. And checking out the occasional good-looking guy.

"Why do they even have a python exhibit?" I asked Cassie. "All they ever do is lie there. That snake might as well be fake. He could be plastic.

Now, leopards, sure. They move around. They give you dirty looks. But pythons?"

"She thinks she has to be entertaining," Cassie said, still worried about her mother's presentation. "It's dangerous when Mom tries to be entertaining. See, she'll think she has to be cool and all. She'll start talking about The Fudgies,' or 'Snoopy Diggity Dog,' or 'Boys Eleven Men,' or 'Nice Is Neat.'"

I laughed out loud, practically spraying Mountain Dew from my nose.

"Okay, The Fugees,

Snoop Doggy Dogg and Boyz II Men I get. But what's Nice Is Neat?"

Cassie looked guilty. "NIN. You know, Nine Inch Nails? I wanted to get the new CD but I was broke, so I told my mom NIN stood for Nice Is Neat."

I grabbed Cassie's arm and turned her around. "No way. You? That sounds like something Marco would have thought up."

Cassie quickly looked down at the ground. Then she started laughing.

"Okay, it was Marco's idea. He said, 'What parent can possibly resist a rock group named Nice Is Neat?' See, Marco wanted me to get the CD so he could make a tape. . . . Anyway, it worked."

"Cassie, Cassie, Cassie. When you start taking advice from Marco, the end of civilization is very near. Besides, you and Nine Inch Nails? Do you even like the band?"

Cassie made a face. "Actually they're a little depressed and grim and harsh for me. Although it would be perfect for my mood today."

Cassie shook her head, worried again. "I know she's going to bring it up. She's going to say something like, 'Saving endangered species is cool – like listening to Nice Is Neat.' I'll have to change schools.

I'll have to move to another town."

She grabbed my Mountain Dew and took a swig. "Why, Rachel? Why, of all the places we could go on a field trip? Why do we have to come to my mom's work?"

We leaned against the railing above the crocodile pit. About half the class had wandered on ahead. About half were still behind us. And now we were mixed in with a class of yammering, noisy kindergartners, all wearing name tags.

"I don't know," I said to Cassie. "Just your bad luck, I -" Right in front of me, not ten feet away, some dumb little boy was climbing up on the railing. "Hey! Hey! Get down off there, you -"

Suddenly, he was gone.

Over the edge.

Into the crocodile pit.

?Aaaaahhhhh!"

The little boy screamed and suddenly everyone was silent.

Then, a split second later, everyone was yelling. Me, Cassie, adults, the teachers and parent volunteers with the kindergarten.

"Help! Help!"

"He just fell in!"

"I couldn't stop him!"

"I didn't even see!"

"Tyler! Tyler! Are you all right?"

Cassie grabbed my arm to get my attention. She stared into my eyes, making sure I heard her. "I'll get help. I'll be right back. Don't do anything dumb, Rachel. Don't!" She sprinted away.

I leaned far out over the railing. Everyone was pushing to get a view of the kid named Tyler. But no one could see him. He had fallen straight down and rolled into a shallow alcove at the base of the wall.

The way the habitat was set up, there was a sort of island in the middle. Around it was a moat or stream or whatever you want to call it.

Just below me, at the bottom of the wall, was a second dry area. I guess that's where the crocodiles went when they didn't want people staring at them.

There were six crocodiles in that pit. All six were lying peacefully on the center island, surrounded by the water. They had all been sleeping.

They'd been as still and boring as the sleeping python.

But now I saw one crocodile eye open. It was a large brown eye with a black slit for a pupil. It was a sly, ruthless eye.

If the crocodiles moved for the kid, it would all be over long before help could come.

Another croc opened his eye and turned his head toward the boy.

"Oh, man," I groaned. I took a deep breath. I didn't have any morph that could take on a fifteen-foot-long crocodile. Not my grizzly bear morph.

Not even my elephant morph, probably. And even to save a life, I couldn't morph in public.

Which just left two choices. Do nothing, and

let the crocodile hurt the kid. Or do something really dumb.

I chose dumb.

"Look! Over there!" I screamed as loud as I could, pointing wildly.

Every head turned to look. I jumped onto the railing, balanced myself like the amateur gymnast I am, then leaped for the branch of a fake, concrete tree overhanging the pit.

I grabbed the branch. Just like the uneven parallel bars, only it tore at my palms. I swung, then dropped to a lower branch.

I scraped my right forearm bloody, but I caught the branch, killed my speed, and dropped the last ten feet to the floor of the crocodile pit.

"Oh my God! That girl fell in, too!"

"No, she's trying to save the boy!"

"Don't be a fool!" someone yelled.

Too late, I thought grimly. I was standing on sand. The boy was behind me, sheltered from sight. Six feet of water separated me and the boy from the six crocodiles. They were all awake now. Interested. Not sure whether they should come on over and eat us or not.

And that's when I saw the reason they were unsure.

See, there weren't six crocs in the exhibit. There were seven. The seventh was lying just inches away. And he was large.

Large enough that if this big monster didn't want to share his prey, the other crocodiles were not going to make him mad by trying.

He was huge.

Oh, man, was he huge.

"Nice crocodile," I whispered.

He stared at me with brown-yellow eyes that almost seemed to be laughing. Of course he was laughing. He'd thought he only had one human to chomp. Now he had two.

Then he charged.

You wouldn't think something that big, with those stubby little legs, could move that fast. But he was on us like lightning! Straight at me!

I jumped in the air as that horrible snout snapped at the space where I'd been. I landed on the croc's back, fell, then scrambled wildly to get back atop him. His tail lashed like a bullwhip. He squirmed violently, trying to throw me off. His huge, gaping jaws reached back, daring me to come in range of his sharp, uneven, snaggly teeth.

I had one tiny hope. Just one. I hugged his horned, rough back, and pressed my palms against him and focused my mind with all my willpower.

I began to acquire the crocodile.

Before he could "acquire" me.

?Acquiring." That's what we call it when we absorb the DNA of a creature.

I acquired the crocodile, absorbing the animal's DNA into my own system, making it a part of me. And, as usually happens during the acquiring, the animal became calm and peaceful.

The crocodile's tail stopped lashing. It stopped trying to throw me off.

But it turned its head and glared at me with one mean eye. And I knew the peace would not last long.

But something else was happening at the same time. For the first time ever, I felt sick to my stomach while acquiring the crocodile. Sick, like I'd swallowed some spoiled milk or some-

thing. And at the same time, I felt a swarm of heat prickles all over my skin.

But a queasy stomach and nerves were the least of my problems.

I rolled off the croc into the alcove beside the boy. There was a bloody gash on his forehead. He was unconscious, but starting to stir and moan.

In seconds, the acquiring calm would wear off and the big crocodile would be back. His front teeth were within a foot of the boy.

From up above I could hear shouts and cries. People were rushing to help. But they wouldn't arrive in time. They couldn't even see us in the shelter of the alcove.

"Okay, Rachel," I whispered. "Focus. Do this fast!"

I felt the changes begin almost immediately. And I saw them happen. I saw the skin on my arms turn a yellowish green, then a darker, almost black-green. My skin began to crack. You know how the bottom of a dried-out lake looks? Where the mud cracks and forms big, irregular patches? That was my skin. Patterns of cracks raced across my arms and up and down my back.

I could feel the skin growing hard and crusty all along my back. It was softer, but still stiff all down my front. It didn't hurt – morphing never really hurts – but there were still things I could feel. The thickening, hardening, and cracking of

my skin. The way my spine stretched and stretched, longer and longer, making little strained-bungee-cord noises. The shortening of my arms and legs.

My legs quickly grew so short I couldn't stand any longer. I fell forward, facedown in the sand.

The big crocodile was staring. At me now, rather than the little boy.

The little boy was coming to. His eyes fluttered. He moved his hands and legs. And as he moved, I could see the big crocodile's eyes focus back on him. Back on his prey.

Then my face bulged out. Out and out and out, like some awful pimple. My teeth and gums itched incredibly as new teeth appeared and old teeth grew long.

Soon I could see my own green scaly snout pushing out ahead of me. It was unbelievably long, and already I could sense the incredible power of those jaws.

Okay, Rachel, get ready! I warned myself.

I knew what was coming next. As the physical changes were completed, the crocodile mind would appear.

It's part of morphing. The mind and instincts of the animal exist right along with your own mind and thoughts. And sometimes they can be terribly hard to control.

Sometimes, control is almost impossible.

The crocodile brain didn't rush at me. It didn't do anything quickly.

It was slow. So slow.

But it was slow the way a supertanker may be moving slowly, but still be impossible to stop. It rolled toward me: utter simplicity. No complex thoughts. No doubts. Just hunger. Only hunger.

I felt it bubbling up inside my own head, like a slow-motion volcano.

Resist!

But the crocodile mind had evolved millions of years before the first monkeys had swung in the trees. The crocodile mind had survived, unchanged, while dinosaurs went down to extinction and the first birds flew. It was old. Old and simple and clear, and it rolled across me, sweeping aside my fragile human thoughts.

The crocodile knew two things. There was prey – the little boy. And there was an enemy – the other big crocodile.

My eyes looked out of the sides of my head. It was good, clear vision, not much different than my own. I could see almost all around me at once. Just behind me, to my left, something struggled and moaned. I could practically taste the blood in its veins. I could sense its heat.

Just ahead of me was a big male crocodile. Just like me. He was stalking the same prey.

Simple equation: two crocodiles of equal size

stalking the same prey. I either had to fight the other croc, or lunge for the prey before the enemy could act, or back away.

I spun left, fast as a snake!

I opened my jaws so wide that my own snout hid part of the prey from view. In a second I would close my jaws on that squirming, moaning little boy and . . .

Sudden movement! I was being attacked!

The big crocodile rushed at me with amazing speed. I whipped my tail and turned to meet him. The momentum carried me off the sandbar into the water. Water! Now we could really move!

The other crocodile dived, trying to get below me to rip open my soft underbelly. I squirmed and rolled. A tail lashed through the murky water. I snapped.

Yes! My jaws closed on something and squeezed.

Then, pain! A sudden searing pain in my left hind leg. There was blood in the water. The other croc had my leg. I had his tail. We churned the water to foam, rolling and tightening our jaws.

Slowly, slowly, like I was climbing up out of a well, I felt my own mind, the mind of Rachel, start to emerge again.

I was too stunned and exhausted by the battle to resist the crocodile's cunning. It had the

power of total focus. It had the power of utter simplicity. It killed, it ate, and it didn't care about anything else.

We rolled insanely in the shallow water, two genetically identical crocodiles fighting a battle for dominance. Fighting to see whose mighty jaws would close on the human child.

I saw flashes of horrified onlookers up above. I saw flashes of the child starting to crawl away. I saw flashes of the other crocodiles, slithering toward the water. They hoped to take the child while the two bigger crocs were busy fighting.

I needed to win this fight to stay alive. And I needed to do it quickly to save the little boy.

I did the thing the crocodile couldn't do very well. I thought. I used my intelligence.

I let go of the tail at the same second I pulled my hind leg forward with all my strength. It was a slingshot effect. The enemy crocodile shot backward, I saw his pale belly go by, and I struck hard and fast.

He rolled away, defeated. I slewed to my right, cutting off the crocodiles who were heading for the boy. Then I raced for the sand and motored up into the alcove, out of sight of the crowd above. The boy backed away in terror.

I had no choice. I had to take a chance. I spoke to the little boy in thought-speak.

"Hey, kid! I'm the good crocodile, all right? Climb on my back!"

Fortunately, he was a cool little kid. Small enough not to question the fact that a crocodile was talking to him.

He climbed on my back like I was a pony. I slithered to the water and carried him across to the pile of fake rocks where he could climb to safety. Crocodiles can do lots of things, but they can't climb.

I raced back to the alcove and morphed back to human just as half a dozen zoo trainers armed with tranquilizer dart rifles and nets came rushing in.

The kid was safe. I was safe. Even the big croc was okay after some surgery.

So, all in all, it turned out to be a pretty cool field trip. And we never did have to hear Cassie's mom give her presentation.

?I see," Jake said. "So basically you're saying it was no big deal. You jump into an alligator pit, you -"

"Crocodile, not alligator," Cassie corrected him.

Jake cocked one eyebrow at Cassie and she fell silent.

"You jump into a crocodile pit, morph into a crocodile, engage in a battle to see who's going to eat the kid, end up carrying the kid on your back, and your feeling is this was all pretty cool?"

I shrugged and looked to Cassie for support.

"She d/c/save the kid," Cassie pointed out.

"She also came very, very close to showing the

entire world what she really is," Jake said, using the low, silky voice he uses when he's really upset.

After saving the kid, you'd think my friends would have welcomed me as a hero, right? Wrong.

Here's the scene. Me, Cassie, Jake, Marco, Tobias, and Ax were all in Cassie's barn, which is also the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. So picture cages everywhere, stuffed with every kind of injured, sick, messed-up raccoon, squirrel, duck, wild pig, bat, skunk, fox, eagle, and deer.

Jake was pacing back and forth, which he also does when he's upset. Jake isn't a yelling kind of person when he's mad. He's a grinding-his-teeth, pacing, and talking-in-a-low-silky-voice kind of person.

Jake is in charge, more or less. No one exactly elected him, but if we ever did vote on it he'd get all the votes – except his own. There was just never any question who was going to be the leader. Probably because we all know Jake isn't the kind of person who really wants to be a boss.

He does it because someone has to, not because it makes him feel important.

I would probably think Jake was good-looking. Except that he's my cousin. But of course Cassie thinks he's perfect. Cassie and Jake have a little thing going. Neither of them admits it, of course. And they never really say anything to each other

about it. They think no one else knows. But they have a definite thing. Trust me.

Anyway, lounging on a big bale of hay was Marco. Marco is Jake's best friend. Marco is not the leadership type. He's very smart but unfortunately, he uses all his brain to make stupid jokes.

Okay, maybe not all his brain. If he used all his brain to make jokes, the jokes would probably be better.

Marco is cute, although not as cute as he thinks he is. See, it would be impossible for anyone to be as cute as Marco thinks he is. Marco's ego is totally out of control.

Then, there is Tobias. He was up in the rafters overhead, carefully combing his feathers with his beak.

Tobias is what the Andalites call a nothlit. That means a person who is trapped in a morph. There's a two-hour time limit on morphing. Stay more than two hours and you stay forever.

Tobias used to be this kind of dweebish kid with crazed blond hair and a dreamy expression. But now he is a red-tailed hawk. The dreamy expression is long gone. It's been replaced by the laser-intensity stare of a raptor.

Tobias has had to accept the fact that he is not fully human anymore.

Inside, he's still Tobias. But he lives in the woods and hunts for his food, and that has changed him.

Then there is Cassie. Cassie is my best friend, although we're nothing alike. Cassie is probably the most capable, in-charge, amazing person I will ever meet. This is a girl who deals with school, has practically a full-time job helping her dad with the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic, and handles all the stuff we have to deal with as Animorphs. I mean, who else can keep up a B-plus average while she's saving wild animals and fighting a war with the Yeerk empire?

Last, and definitely weirdest, is Ax. His full name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-lsthill. Which is why we just call him "Ax." He doesn't usually come to meetings, because he has to travel in human morph. He doesn't like going into human morph because he thinks walking around on just two legs is dangerous.

Since we were safe inside the barn, Ax was back in his own body now. His body is a strange but cool-looking mix of bluish deer body, humanlike arms and shoulders, and definitely alien head. He has no mouth. He has two big, seminormal eyes on his face where eyes should be, and two extra eyes stuck on short stalks on top of his head.

And he has a tail. Like a scorpion's tail. Very fast, very dangerous in a fight.

Normally when we're in the barn, Cassie would be busily cleaning cages or giving medications

to skanky lizards or whatever. But I guess she felt like she had to help me defend myself. So she was standing there, looking guilty even though she hadn't done anything wrong.

"What was I supposed to do?" I asked Jake. "Let the little boy get chomped?"

"Yes!" Marco said, speaking up. "Yes. See, we're fighting to save the whole world, not one kid. And you endangered all that by trying to be the offspring of Xena: Warrior Princess and Superman."

"Xena and Superman have a child? I didn't even know they were dating," Tobias said in open thought-speak.

I smiled up at him. He couldn't smile back, of course.

Then, in a whisper that only I could hear, Tobias added, "Rachel. Ask Jake what he would have done. That'll get him off your back."

I carefully avoided nodding or giving any sign that Tobias had whispered to me. "Jake, if you think what I did was so wrong, what would you have done?"

Jake stopped pacing. "The point is, secrecy is absolutely important," he said.

"Jake," I repeated, "what would you have done in my place?"

Jake scratched his ear. He grinned sheepishly. "Just because I would have done the same thing doesn't make it right."

"I think Rachel was a real hero," Cassie said.

"Rachel was brave. Bravery is a great virtue."

Marco rolled his eyes at Ax. "Thank you, Obi-Wan Kenobi, for that wisdom. Of course she was a hero. She's always a hero. Rachel can't stop being heroic. Being stupidly brave is like some nervous tic she can't control. But what if someone had caught her morphing on videotape?"

That wiped the smile off my face. As much as Marco annoyed me, he was right. If someone had taped me ... the Yeerks are everywhere. If

they'd had evidence I'd morphed a crocodile they would know who and what I was.

The Yeerks believe we are a highly trained group of Andalite warriors.

If they ever found out we were just human kids . . . we'd be wiped out before we could blink twice.

"Okay, well, anyway, Rachel, you were very brave. You were also very lucky. The news reports say you 'fell into' the pit because you were trying to see the kid. Everyone is focused on how amazing it supposedly was that a kid could ride an alligator . . . crocodile. The kid's going to be on five different talk shows."

"Great. So I'm the idiot girl who 'fell' into the pit, and the kid is some big hero."

"Be glad it worked out that well," Jake said.

For a moment, I considered mentioning the way I'd felt sick while morphing the crocodile. But I decided against it. Why give Jake anything else to worry about?

Cassie raised her hand. "Are we done with yelling at Rachel? I have work to do."

Jake laughed. "I don't yell," he said. "I'm not anyone's parent."

"You tell 'em, Dad," Marco said.

We all laughed and the tension was broken. For about ten seconds – till Jake said, "Hey, by the way, Tom said something about how The

Sharing is going to hire that kid from Power House as a spokesman."

"That TV show?" Marco said. "Huh. That's strange. Well, anyway, I have homework piled up on my desk at home. Plus, I have the new Nintendo game. You know, the one where -"

He stopped talking and just stared at Cassie and me. Probably because Cassie and I were standing there with our mouths hanging open.

"What's with them?" Marco asked Jake.

Jake looked mystified. "What is with you two?"

"Jeremy Jason McCole is going to be endorsing The Sharing?" I asked in a wavering voice.

"Jeremy Jason McCole?" Cassie echoed in awestruck tones.

Jake shrugged. "Yeah, it's too bad, but it's not like anyone cares. He's just some wimpy little actor. I mean, it's not like he's Michael Jordan . . ."

"... or Brett Favre," Marco added.

" ... or Wayne Gretzky," Tobias offered.

"What is an actor?" Ax wondered.

". . . or anyone else important," Jake concluded. "He's just an actor. I mean, he's a dork."

"What is a dork?" Ax asked.

"That hair!" Tobias said derisively.

"I love his hair," Cassie said.

"Plus he's even shorter than I am," Marco said.

"The difference being that Jeremy Jason Mc-Cole is cute," I said.

"He's more than cute," Cassie said. "He is the single cutest boy on the planet."

"He's in every magazine," I said. "Teen, YM, Seventeen."

"Wussy Weekly, Midget Monthly, The New Dork Times..." Marco added.

He and Jake exchanged a high five.

I ignored Marco. I almost always do. Instead I made sure Jake was paying attention, and I said, "Jake, you're not getting it. About half the girls in our school have a poster of Jeremy Jason Mc-Cole in their bedrooms or in their lockers, or both. He is the number one cute guy in the country. He has like twenty Web sites just about him. If he endorses The Sharing, it would be as if . . ." I looked to Cassie for help.

"As if the entire female cast of Baywatch endorsed something," Cassie supplied.

"Yeah. Like that."

Jake's smile evaporated. "You're saying this actor kid has that kind of influence?"

"He has that much power?" Marco said. "He has Baywatch-eve power?"

"Yasmine Bleeth power?" Tobias echoed.

"Bleeth?" Ax echoed. "Is that a word?"

"If Jeremy Jason McCole becomes a spokes-

man for The Sharing, they'll be signing up girls like crazy," I said.

"Then this is serious," Jake said.

"Yeah, Jake, it is. We have to stop this from happening."