Текст книги "Animorphs - 04 - The Message"

Автор книги: Katherine Alice Applegate

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" It's them," he said. He came to rest on a piece of driftwood. " It's a group from The Sharing. Chapman is with them." He turned his head to look at Jake. "Tom is with them, too."

The Sharing is a front organization for the Yeerks. Supposedly it's this group for all ages, like Girl Scouts or whatever. In reality it's a way for the Controllers to try and recruit new voluntary hosts. As impossible as it may seem, some humans actually decide to become hosts for the Yeerks. The Yeerks like it that way. It's easier for them to have a voluntary host instead of a host that resists their control.

17 The Sharing is very subtle, of course. People are brought along very slowly, over time. New members have no idea what it's all about at first. They think it's just fun and games.

I don't know when they tell the members what's really happening. By then I guess it's too late.

They either become hosts voluntarily, or, like Jake's brother Tom, they are taken, anyway.

"Tom is with them?" Jake asked.

" I'm pretty sure," Tobias said. "Some of the senior members – Chapman and Tom – are following behind the others. I could hear some of what they were saying. They're very worried about that fragment of Andalite ship."

"So it is Andalite?" Rachel asked, excited.

"l guess so," Tobias said. "l heard something else, too." The way he hesitated made me tense up. "What?"

"Something about Visser Three having visions. That's what they said. Visions. I guess the visions made the Visser cranky. He was on the mother ship at the time and decided to shove a Hork-Bajir out of an airlock because he broke the Visser's concentration."

"It's because of Visser Three's Andalite body," Marco said.

"That's the connection. These dreams or visions or whatever they are must be some kind of communication that's only supposed to be heard by Andalites."

Suddenly I saw the line of flashlights swing into view. There must have been twenty people strung across the beach, all looking down at the sand, moving forward slowly.

"They're searching for any other fragments," I whispered.

A part of the line stopped moving. I heard someone yelling. Others came running up, ex cited.

"What did they find?" Jake wondered.

"I don't. . ." Then, in a flash, it came to me. "Our footprints! Four sets of fresh footprints that suddenly turn off into the dunes!"

"Let's get out of here," Jake hissed. "Now!"

Too late!

The flashlight beams raced across the rippling sand and up the side of the dune. In an instant a dozen flashlight beams focused on the notch where we crouched.

We slithered back, down and out of sight. Then we jumped up and ran.

"We should morph!" Rachel gasped as we stumbled over the sinking sand.

18 "No!" Marco said. "Tracks. We would leave tracks that went from human to animal."

"Get them!" someone yelled. Chapman, I think. He's our assistant principal at school. I knew his voice from hearing him yell in the hall ways.

Jerky, wild beams of light danced all around us. We ducked and ran as fast as we could. But running across the sand was like running through quicksand.

Jake was gasping out whispered instructions. "Double around ... if they follow us deeper into ... the dunes ... we can double around . . . get to the water. . . then morph ..."

"There! There! I see them!"

A beam of light swept over me. I could see my shadow, long and twisted, projected on the sand. I dodged left, out of the light. Just in time.

BAM! BAM!

Gunfire!

Someone was shooting at me.

19 Chapter 6

It seemed totally crazy.

I mean, I've been in one-on-one combat to the death with seven-foot-tall Hork-Bajir war riors, and I've been shot at by Dracon beams that sort of disintegrate you slowly. But I'd never been shot at with plain old everyday guns.

It seemed nuts after all we'd been through.

BAM!BAM!BAM!

Phit! I heard something hit the sand just inches from my foot.

"Aaaahhh!" I cried in surprise.

This was real. Real! This was really happen ing.

A rough hand grabbed me and dragged me forward. Jake. I had frozen when I'd heard the bullet so close.

"They're all in the dunes!" Tobias cried. "Now's the time."

"Come on!" Jake snapped. He half dragged me up the side of the nearest dune, but by then I was moving fine all on my own. I was scurrying up the side of that hill, snatching at handholds of scrub grass, pistoning my feet into the sand.

Over the top. We slid and rolled and ran down the far side.

We were back on the beach. I stole a quick glance to the right. No lights on the beach. They were all in the dunes. Looking for us.

"Head to the water," Jake said. "Morph to fish."

"Jake," I panted. "Trout. . . they're freshwater fish . . . this is saltwater."

"You have a better idea?" he asked.

BAM!BAM!

"No," I said. We splashed into the boiling surf. As I ran I pictured the fish. I remembered being the fish. I focused as much as anyone can focus with a dozen or so Controllers chasing her and shooting.

My feet went out from under me. They had shriveled and begun to disappear. I hit the water and got a mouthful of salty foam.

I tried to keep my head above water, but my arms were rapidly disappearing. The waves were high around me as I became smaller and smaller. My clothing billowed.

20 The people from The Sharing, the Controllers, raced to the water's edge. I could see their lights, weirdly distorted as my eyes went from the air– adapted eyes of a human to the eyes of a fish.

With what was left of my ears I heard, "The tracks lead right to the water."

Tom's voice. Then Chapman's. "I don't see them. They can't swim far. The current is too strong. Fan out up and down the beach."

"Do you think these are the Andalite guerillas?"

"No. The tracks are human. Just some kids, probably. I doubt they saw anything. That fool should not have been shooting."

"Sir," a new voice said. "We found a pair of jeans in the surf. Look like they could be for a kid."

"Any identification in them?"

"No. Nothing."

"Coincidence," Chapman said. "Probably."

"If they're human, why don't we see them out there?" Tom asked. "Four sets of human tracks.

No humans in the water. Is it possible... is Visser Three wrong? What if they're not Andalites at all?"

I sank beneath the water. The morph was almost complete. But as I went under I heard Chapman laugh cruelly. "Visser Three wrong? Maybe. But I'm not the fool who's going to try and tell him."

The morph was complete. I was a fish, less than a foot long. A trout, to be exact. Excellent broiled, fried, or grilled.

The saltwater was harsh on my scales, and my gills were barely able to breathe.

"Everyone okay?" It was Jake. Now that we had morphed we had the same thought-speech ability as Tobias.

" I'm okay," I assured him. "But I can barely breathe. I think we'd better be quick."

" I'm with Cassie," Rachel said. "l feel like my scales are burning up. And my gills are on fire."

"Keep the shore on your left and go full speed as long as you can stand it," Jake advised.

"Marco? Are you with us?" I asked.

" Oh , sure. Where else would I be? What could possibly be more fun than running around the sand dunes getting shot at and then jumping into the ocean and turning into a trout, who, 21 incidentally, can't live in saltwater? I wouldn't miss it for anything. Now can we go home and watch TV?"

22 Chapter 7

The next couple of days we didn't get together, except for passing each other in the hall ways at school. We do have lives beyond being Animorphs, after all.

Rachel was busy with her gymnastics class. Plus she got to go to this ceremony where her mom received some award for being Lawyer of the Year. (And since this is Rachel we're talking about, going to an awards dinner meant major shopping for new everything.) Jake had totally blown a test because he hadn't studied, so he had to do a paper as makeup work. And I was busy helping my dad out in the barn with the golden eagle who had almost been electrocuted. He was at a difficult stage of his recovery.

Tobias dropped by one evening and acted kind of snippy about me trying to save a golden eagle. Golden eagles and hawks don't get along. Probably because golden eagles are known to kill and eat hawks.

It was a couple of days later that Jake rode his bike over to my house. I didn't expect him, so I was dressed like even more of a slob than usual. Plus I reeked of various horrible things because I was mucking out the stables and cleaning the birdcages.

Typical guy. He had the totally bad timing to show up when I looked like Ms. Manure.

"Hey, Cassie," he said in his usual casual way, like nothing was going on.

"Hi, Jake. Did you come by to help me shovel manure?"

He grinned. He has a great smile. It appears kind of slowly, like it doesn't quite belong on his serious face. "I don't know. Did I?"

"Yes, you did," I told him. I handed him a shovel. "If I have to smell, so do you."

We worked a little bit, with no sound but the steel shovel blades scraping the concrete. I knew he had something to tell me. I can always tell. But I figured I'd let him get around to it whenever he was ready.

"So," he said at last.

"So?" I echoed.

"Look, um, I guess everyone is kind of waiting to see what you decide to do."

This surprised me. I stopped shoveling. "What? What do you mean?"

"I mean, we're waiting to see what you decide to do about this dream of yours."

I shrugged. "I don't know. Besides, it's not just my dream. Tobias has it, too. And all of you guys felt it a little, at least."

"Yeah, but Tobias figures he isn't going to be much help when ... I mean, if we decide to do something. We're talking water, and Tobias can't morph. As for the rest of us, I don't know.

23 Rachel and Marco were talking about whether it might have just been something they imagined, you know? Because you made it seem so real and all."

"What do you think, Jake?"

Jake stopped working and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked straight into my eyes. "Cassie, if you tell me it's real, it's real. I think you and Tobias are right. But Marco is having second thoughts." He raised one eyebrow, as if to say "You know Marco."

I felt a queasy, sick feeling. "You mean, I'm supposed to make some kind of a decision? Like I'm supposed to say what we do?"

"Cassie, you're the one with the dream. Only you can decide if it's real, and if it's real enough for us to try and do something about it."

"I don't know if it's real," I said. What was he asking me to do? Every time we had tried to get into it with the Yeerks, we had ended up barely escaping with our lives. Just two days had passed since I'd heard bullets whizzing past me.

Jake waited until I met his gaze again. "Cassie, you know we all trust your instincts. You're the best at understanding animals. You're the best morpher. You know everyone in the group respects you."

I made a face. "Give me a break."

"If you think we should pursue this, you know Rachel will be right behind you. Me, too."

"And Marco?"

Jake grinned again. "Marco won't be right behind you. He'll be several feet back."

We both laughed.

"I don't know, Jake. It's a dream. It's like a vision or something. How do I know if it's real?"

He shook his head. "I don't know, Cassie. I guess you just have to take your best shot and hope you're right."

I cringed at that. I'm not Rachel. I'm not a risk-taker. "Can't you decide for me?" I asked, joking.

He nodded solemnly. "If you want me to, sure."

"And then if it's a disaster, it will all be on your head," I said. "You'll be the one who feels bad. You'll be the one to blame." I reached out and touched his cheek. "That's incredibly sweet of you. But you're right. I guess it's my decision this time."

I sighed and looked around at the barn. It smelled pretty bad, and sometimes it was a nuthouse of yammering birds and howling wolves and whinnying horses, all needing care, and all scared of the care we gave them. But it was the place I felt most at home in the whole world.

24 Out through the door of the barn, the fields of corn and open meadow stretched off into the distance, till they pressed up against the dark trees of the forest.

"I know this is crazy," I said, "but the ocean scares me a little. I understand the land. I under stand soil and things that grow out of it." I laughed. "I guess I'm just an old farm girl. You know this farm has been in my family since the Civil War?"

Jake winked. "Do I know that? Puh-leeze. I had Thanksgiving with your family last year, you may remember. Your great-grandmother gave me the complete history."

"Going all the way back to when dinosaurs ruled the earth," I said. "Grammy does tend to go on about our history, doesn't she?"

He looked serious again, almost hard. "It's your call, Cassie. It will be really dangerous and we probably won't do much good. I mean, it's a big ocean out there. But it's your decision."

"Yep," I agreed. I shook my head slowly, sadly. "I believe these dreams are real. I believe there's an Andalite out there, somewhere . . . somehow . . . trapped. Calling for help."

"Good enough," he said. "Now. How do we get out there?"

I frowned, thinking of the possibilities. "Some kind of fish? It would have to be some thing fast. Something that isn't prey. You know, not some fish that's going to get snapped up by a hungry tuna or whatever."

Jake nodded. "And it has to be something we can acquire. Which means, probably, something at The Gardens."

"They have sea lions. And dolphins. But we can't morph them, can we?"

"Why not?"

"I ... I don't know. It's just that, I mean, dolphins? They're highly intelligent. It seems kind of, I don't know, kind of wrong."

"Well, you decide," he said, leaning his shovel against a wall. "I have to go. I can't blow another test, and I have to study."

He climbed back on his bike.

"You're just saying that to get out of shoveling manure," I said.

"Cassie," he said, "I would rather shovel manure with you than do homework without you, any day."

I think it was a compliment. Sort of.

He rode off, leaving me much less at ease than I had been before he'd come.

25 Chapter 8

The next day after school, the four of us headed toward The Gardens on a city bus. Tobias flew. He said he'd be there before we were, but he wasn't sure how close to us he actually could get.

The Gardens is this big amusement park that also includes a zoo. Only they don't call it a zoo, they call it a "wildlife park." My mom works there. Actually, she's the head of medical services, the head vet.

I have a pass to get in anytime I want, but the others all have to pay, which is kind of a drag be cause Marco never has any money. Ever since Marco's mom died, his dad has been kind of messed up. He just takes temporary jobs, and they're always broke.

I guess I kind of think it's romantic, the way Marco's dad has never gotten over his wife dying. But on the other hand, it's like I had to learn when I started helping my dad with the animals – sometimes death just happens, and all you can do is get over it the best you can.

It's tough for Marco because he feels like he has to take care of his dad – instead of having his dad taking care of him.

On the bus, I glanced over at Marco. He was looking out of the window, being kind of quiet.

"Hey, Marco," I said.

"What?"

"Is that a new haircut? It looks good."

"Yeah?" He looked surprised. He ran his fingers back through his long brown hair and kind of smiled.

I did some homework on the bus (math, gag, yuck!) and listened to my Walkman.

When we got there, it turned out there was a special on tickets – buy two and get the third ticket for a dollar. Marco had a dollar, fortunately, so we didn't have to go through any big scenes.

We cruised through the area where all the rides were, heading toward the wildlife park.

Jake shook his head sadly, looking up at the monster roller coaster. "That used to be the coolest thing in the world to me," he said. "But ever since I morphed a falcon, it just hasn't seemed like any big deal. I mean, you're going maybe eighty miles per hour on a steel track.

When I was a falcon I did like two hundred miles an hour in midair."

"This morphing stuff does kind of change things," Marco agreed. "I used to want to get all pumped up. Then I morphed into a gorilla, and it was like, why bother lifting weights? I can just become a gorilla and bench press a truck."

"I don't feel that way," Rachel said. "Being a cat made me more interested in gymnastics. I mean, as a cat I was just so totally, totally in con trol and graceful. Ever since then I've been 26 trying to use that feeling. When I'm on the balance beam I try and remember that cat confidence."

"And then you fall off just the same as always?" I teased.

"Oh, yeah," Rachel said with a laugh. She made little walking fingers in the air that then fell over. "Boom. I slip right off. But I feel confident while I'm falling off."

We reached the wildlife park entrance. The marine mammals are one of the first exhibits.

There's a main building, then there are several outdoor tanks.

We went straight for the largest outdoor tank. There were bleachers all around it on three sides where people sat for performances. A show had just ended, and hundreds of people were leaving. The next show would be in a couple of hours.

"Good timing," Jake said. "Not too big a crowd."

"It's a weekday afternoon," I said. "It's never all that crowded on school days."

We forced our way upstream against the rush of people, and reached the side of the tank.

It's pretty big. Like four or five big swimming pools. It's very blue, very clean-looking.

There's a low platform on one side where the trainers stand to communicate with the dolphins.

"So what's the difference between porpoises and dolphins?" Marco asked. "Both just fish, right?"

SPLOOSH!

The placid surface of the water exploded a few feet from us. Water sprayed across me.

"Oooooh!" we all said as one.

He flew straight up out of the water, like a sleek, pale gray torpedo. Eleven feet long from nose to tail. Four hundred pounds. He simply flew into the air, seemed to hang there, ten feet above the surface of the water, took a skeptical look at us, gave us his permanent wise-guy grin, and slid back beneath the water so smoothly that there was barely a ripple.

"That is a dolphin," I said to Marco.

"Okay, I like that. That is excellent," Marco said. "Did you see what he did?"

You know how really great athletes never look like they're even trying? Like Michael Jordan? How everything they do is perfect, and you know they must have practiced for a million hours, but they always look like, "Oh. No big deal. Of course I can fly through the air. Nothing to it."

That's a dolphin in the water. Effortless. Per fect. Utterly in control.

27 Fish swim through the water. Sharks swim, tuna swim, trout swim, even people swim.

Dolphins don't just swim through the water. They own the water. The water is their toy. The water is one big trampoline and the dolphins bounce around like kids having a good time.

Just watching them makes you happy. It also makes you feel like you're just this clunky, awkward windup toy, jerky and stumbling and clumsy. Human beings may be the smartest creatures on Earth, but we sure are dorky compared to a lot of other species.

"He's trying to get me to give him some more fish."

We all spun around. It was one of the dolphin trainers, a woman named Eileen.

"Oh, hi, Eileen," I said.

She nodded toward the dolphin, who was just exploding out of the water again. This time he turned a neat little somersault. "Joey is the biggest con artist. He's always trying to get extra fish."

"He's amazing," I said.

"Yes, he is," Eileen agreed, with a look of pride.

I introduced Jake, Marco, and Rachel. "We were looking at some dolphin information on the Internet," I lied, "so we thought we'd come out and see the real thing."

"Well, as you know, we have six dolphins here. Joey, whom you've met, Ross, Monica, Chandler, Phoebe, and Rachel. Hey, you guys want to feed them a little? You start throwing fish in the water and they'll all come over."

"It won't upset their schedule?"

"Nah. Just don't let Joey get it all. He's kind of pushy."

Eileen left us with a nice big bucket of fish.

"That is some nasty-looking fish," Marco commented.

"Once you morph into one of these dolphins, you won't think that," Rachel pointed out.

Marco gave her a skeptical look. "Do you realize that just a couple days ago we were fish?

Not that much different than these fish ?"

He was right. But it wasn't something I wanted to think about. I've always been very in volved with animals. But it is a whole different thing when you can become different animals.

I took a fish by the tail and tossed it into the water. Just as Eileen suggested, the rest of the dolphins showed up very quickly.

"Wow. Think these guys like to eat?" Rachel asked.

28 The dolphins put on quite a show. They obviously knew how to impress humans.

"It's just weird the way they grin at you," Marco commented. "I mean, it's like they actually think something's funny."

"And they make eye contact," Jake pointed out. "They look right at you, right in the eye.

Most animals seem like they're looking past you, or just looking to see what you are. These guys look at you like maybe they recognize you from somewhere."

Jake leaned over the edge of the tank to stroke one of the dolphins. "Hi there. Do I know you from somewhere? Jake's my name."

The dolphin tossed his head back and forth like he was nodding "yes," chattering in his high-pitched dolphin voice.

"Okay, now that was weird," Rachel said. "It was like he was answering Jake."

"Are you so sure he wasn't?" I asked. "Dolphins are very intelligent. Not our kind of intelligence, but still, I guess they're one of the two or three smartest animals around."

"It will be strange morphing something so intelligent," Rachel said.

"Yes," I agreed. Strange, and . . . wrong, somehow. I felt a twisting in my stomach. "How is doing this any different than what the Yeerks do?"

Rachel looked surprised. "Yeerks take over humans," she said. "Besides, they don't morph, they infest. We don't take over the actual animal, we just copy his DNA pattern, create a totally new animal, and then – "

"And then control the new animal," I said.

"It's not the same," Rachel insisted. But she looked troubled.

"It's something I'll have to think about," I said. "It's kind of been bothering me."

Jake joined Rachel and me. "We'd better do it."

I nodded. "Yes, we should, before we run out of fish to feed these guys." I leaned over the side of the tank and patted the head of the nearest dolphin. Her skin was rubbery, but not at all slimy. Just like a wet rubber ball.

She grinned up at me, fixing me with one eye as she cocked her head to see me.

I pushed away my doubts, closed my eyes, and concentrated on the dolphin. She became peaceful and calm, as animals always do during the acquiring process.

May I? I asked her silently. But of course she couldn't answer. . . .

29 Chapter 9

That night I dreamed again of the voice under the sea, calling for help. Only this time it sounded faint. Like a radio with the batteries growing weak. I wasn't sure if it was just a regular dream this time. A dream of a memory that might or might not be real.

And I dreamed of the dolphin in her tank at the wildlife park. The one they called Monica, although who knew if she had a true name of her own? How long had she been in that tank?

How long since she had been free in the open sea?

The next day was Friday. There was no school because of some teacher conference, so we had a three-day weekend ahead of us.

I called Jake. "Hi, Jake. Are we going to the beach today like we planned?"

We were always very careful about anything we said over the telephone. Phone lines can be tapped. Besides, Tom, Jake's brother, could listen in on an extension and overhear something we didn't want him to hear.

"Actually, I was thinking the beach will be really crowded today," Jake said, sounding very casual. "I was talking to Marco and he said maybe we should go down to the river instead."

It was a good suggestion. We couldn't exactly morph on a beach full of people.

"I'll be there in two hours, okay? I have some chores to do."

I ended up being a little late. They were all waiting for me.

It was an area I had been to before with my dad. It's a little park near a bridge. A good place for fishing. About half a mile away, the river empties into the ocean. The river is lined with trees along most of its length. Here and there are homes and private docks, but the spot we'd chosen was hidden from the bridge and from any houses.

"Hi, Cassie," Jake said, smiling at me.

"Hi, everyone," I said. I spotted a movement in one of the tree branches. "Hey up there, To bias. How's it going?"

"The same old thing. You know how it is. It's a hawk-eat-mouse world out there." I laughed, pleased to hear that Tobias was learning to be at peace with the fact that, at least for a while, he was as much a hawk as he was a boy.

" I'm going to be the timekeeper, watching the deadly two-hour limit," Tobias said. " I'm the only bird in the world with his own watch."

I looked closer and saw a very small digital timer strapped to one of his legs.

"Rachel put it on for me," he explained. " I'll be over water the whole time, so I figured it was fairly safe. No bird watchers around to see me and wonder 'Hmmm, when did red-tails start wearing Timexes?'"

30 Jake said, "I figured we'd hide our clothes, then wade into the river a little way, then start morphing."

"Sounds good," Rachel said.

"Cassie? Will you go first?" Jake asked.

I nodded. "Sure." For some reason everyone has decided that I am the best morpher. I think it's mostly silly. We can all morph fine.

But the first time we morph a new animal it's always kind of tense. You never know what it's going to be like. You never know how much the animal's instincts and mind will resist you.

And this time there was a new fear, at least for me. What sort of mind would I find? Would it be just the dolphin instincts, or would I encounter a true dolphin mind, with thoughts and ideas of its own?

I shed my overalls and kicked off my shoes, leaving just the leotard that I thought of as my morphing outfit. See, it's possible to morph some clothing along with you, but only something skintight. Anything bulky you try to morph just ends up as rags. And shoes?

Forget shoes. We've all tried morphing shoes and it never works.

I stepped into the water. "Cold," I reported. The current tugged at my ankles.

I waded in a little farther, up to my waist.

Then I focused on the dolphin that was now a part of me.

The first change was my skin. It lightened from brown to pale gray. It was like rubber, tough but springy.

That was good. I wanted to hang on to my legs as long as I could. I wanted to change as many other aspects as I could before I had to drop down into the water.

I felt the odd crunching sound you get sometimes when bones are stretched or compressed.

And right before my eyes – literally – my face bulged out and out and out still farther.

"Oh, man, that's definitely not attractive,"

Marco groaned from the shore. "Not a good look for you, Cassie."

Morphing isn't usually very pretty. In fact, it's the kind of thing that, if you didn't know it was going to be all right, would freak you out. I mean, I've watched while Rachel does her elephant morph, and I can tell you, it is the creepiest, scariest, most disgusting thing you'll ever want to see. Let alone watching people go from human to fish. Truly gross.

I didn't have a mirror, but I could guess how gross I looked. I had this huge, long bottlenose sticking out of my otherwise normal face. My skin was gray rubber. And when I felt behind me with my rapidly shriveling hands, I could feel the triangular blade of a dorsal fin rising out of my spine.

31 My arms were gone, replaced by two flat flippers, and I was now standing about ten feet tall, wobbling on my puny human-sized legs.

It was time to let the rest of the morph proceed. I surrendered my human legs. Instantly I fell face forward into the water.

I looked down and saw my tail. I was cornplete. The water was too shallow, though, and I was barely afloat. I kicked my tail, scraped across the sandy bottom, and finally surged out into deeper water.

I waited for the moment when the dolphin brain would surface, full of instinct-driven need and hunger and fear. The way it had always been before.

But it wasn't like that. It wasn't like a squirrel or even a horse.

This mind was not filled with fear and need.

This mind was ... I know this sounds strange, but it was like a little kid. I tried to listen to it, to understand its needs and wants. To prepare my self for a sudden onslaught of crude, primitive animal demands. Flee! Fight! Eat!

But that didn't happen. I felt hunger, yes. But not the screaming, obsessive need that Jake felt when he morphed a lizard or when Rachel became a shrew.

There was no fear. None.

And fortunately, I did not find a true thinking, conscious mind. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Just – again, I know it sounds strange – but I just found this feeling, like she wanted to play.

Like a little kid who wants to play. I wanted to chase fish, catch them, and eat them, but that would be a game. I wanted to race across the sur face of the sea, and that would be a game, too.

"Cassie?" I heard Tobias's thought-speech in my head. "Are you okay?" Was I okay? I asked myself. "Yes, Tobias. I'm ... happy. I feel like . . . like I don't know. Like I want you to come and play with me."

"Play with you? Mmmm, I don't think so, Cassie. Hawks don't do water."

"Come on, everyone!" I called to the others. "Come on! Let's go! Let's swim to the ocean! I want to play!"

"Let's go! Come on, you guys, let's go!"

I didn't like the river. I wanted the ocean. I could feel it close by. I could feel it in the way the current rushed me forward. I could feel it in some deep, hidden part of my dolphin being.

The ocean. I wanted it. It was my place. It was where I should be.

We swam in a school, the four of us, with Tobias flying overhead.

32 We raced the river's current, and soon I could taste the salt. I could feel the saltwater on my skin. It was as if I had opened the door of a toy store with every toy on Earth, and I had all the time in the world to play.