Текст книги "Animorphs - 04 - The Message"

Автор книги: Katherine Alice Applegate

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 5 страниц)

I saw my friends around me, swift, pale shapes in the water. Sleek gray torpedoes as they rose to breathe.

I lived in both worlds – the sea and the air. I saw the blue-green of the ocean, the pale blue and white of the sky. I slipped back and forth through the bright barrier that separated them.

Jake went zipping by, shooting up from beneath me to explode into the air. I heard the slap of his belly as he landed. It was a game! I dove deep, down to where the sandy floor sloped toward depths even I could not explore. Then I powered my tail, steadied my flippers, and drove hard toward the surface. Above me I could see the shimmering, silver border between water and air.

Faster! Faster! I was a missile.

"Yah haaaaah!"

I shattered the barrier of the sea and hurtled up into the sky. I felt warm wind on my skin, in stead of cold water. I hung, poised in midair, almost floating above the surface of the water.

Now the barrier was beneath me. I pointed my nose toward it and dropped from the sky.

"Aaaaah!"

The water wrapped around me, welcoming me back.

"ls this cool, or what?" Marco laughed in my head.

"This is cool," I answered.

"This is beyond cool," Rachel chimed in.

"Let's all do it at the same time!" Jake said.

The four of us dove deep. The ocean floor was still far below us, rippling sand dotted with rocks and clumps of seaweed.

Near the ocean floor we leveled off, practically scraping our bellies on the bottom. And then, aiming at the silver barrier once again, we shot upward, racing each other, ecstatic from the joy of our own bodies' strength.

We launched into the air like a well-trained team of acrobats.

We flew, side by side, exhaling and refilling our lungs with warm air.

Life was joy. Life was a game. I wanted to dance. I wanted to dance through the sea.

So I did.

33 There was nothing I could not do. There was nothing I could ask of my body that it would not give me. Racing, spinning, turning, diving, skimming the surface, flying up into the sky.

I wasn't just in the sea. I was the sea.

"Are you guys just going to play all day?" It was Tobias. "You realize you've wasted forty-five minutes already?"

Minutes? I laughed. Who cared about minutes?

"Look, guys? I know you think the dolphin mind hasn't affected you, but it has. You need to get a grip. You have a reason for being here."

Reason? What was that?

"You're supposed to be looking for ... well, for something," Tobias said. "Something unusual. An Andalite spaceship or something."

Yes, he was right. He was definitely right. But would it be fun? Would it be a game?

"Find the spaceship. Cool," Rachel said. "l bet I can find it first!"

"No way!" Jake said instantly. "l'll find it."

"Where is it? Let's go look!" Marco said.

"Good grief," Tobias said. "You're like a bunch of five-year-olds." But I was too distracted to care. "Hey. Can you guys do this?" I concentrated, and suddenly, from someplace in my forehead, came a series of loud, very rapid clicks, almost like loud static.

"Whoa! What was that?"

Then, to my total surprise, I heard something in those clicks. It was weird. It was kind of like hearing, only not. The clicking noises had hit something, far off in deeper water. I sort of felt the sounds as they came back to me, like scattered echoes.

There was a universe of information in that echo. Some of that information made me uneasy.

"You guys?" I said. "l know this is crazy, but I feel like there's something out there.

Something ... I don't know. But I don't like it."

The others immediately began firing off the clicking noise that is the dolphin's underwater radar. It's called echolocation.

"Yeah," Marco said. "Now I see it. I mean, I don't see it, but you know what I mean." I searched in my dolphin mind, deep down in the places where instinct had been hidden be neath layers of intelligence.

34 Then a picture just popped into my consciousness.

"l know!" I cried, as if I had just won a contest. " It's a shark!" Suddenly we weren't playing anymore. The others had all found the same instinct in themselves. The echolocation indicated that there was a large shark nearby.

And we knew one thing for sure. We didn't like sharks.

35 Chapter 10

"You know, I hate to sound like the only sensible person – so to speak – " Tobias said, "but you aren't here to fight sharks!"

"He's right," I agreed. "Dolphins don't attack sharks unless the sharks attack first."

"Wait ... I'm getting more echoes," Rachel interrupted. "There's more than one shark. And there's something bigger, too."

I reached out with my echolocation sense and "felt" the sea ahead of me. "You're right," I said. "Several sharks. And a great one."

"A what?" Tobias asked.

I was confused. What did I mean? The words great one had just popped into my mind. "l mean there's a whale. A whale. Being attacked by sharks."

"A great one being attacked?" Marco asked. He sounded upset. It was strange, because we were all upset. More than we should have been.

"You guys do what you want," Rachel said. " I'm going in."

" Oh , there's a big surprise," Tobias said with weary affection.

The four of us lanced forward, faster than ever, toward the whale in distress.

"l see them," Tobias reported from the sky above. "Straight ahead of you. Looks like four, maybe five sharks and a big – really, really big – whale. Did I mention big? Wow. Big." We were steaming through the water when I caught sight of my first shark. He was bigger than me, maybe twelve feet long, with faint vertical stripes.

He was too excited by the hunt to notice me. Until it was too late. With every bit of speed and power I could get from my tail, I rammed the tiger shark in his gill slits.

WHOOOOMP!

It was like hitting a brick wall. My beak was strong, but the shark was made of steel or some thing.

I fell back, dazed. But as I tried to collect myself I saw that a trail of blood was billowing from the shark's gills.

I swam beneath him, and then I saw the huge shape of the whale. He was a humpback, more than forty feet long. Each of his long, barnacle-encrusted flukes was bigger than me.

He was trying to surface to breathe, but sharks were attacking, tearing at the soft, vulnerable flesh of his mouth.

It made me angry. Very angry.

36 Suddenly, from the murky depths, Jake and Rachel zoomed upward, like missiles aimed at the sharks.

WHOOMP! Rachel hit her target.

Jake's shark twisted just in time. Jake scraped across the shark's sandpaper skin, and before he could get clear, the shark was after him.

"Jake! He's on your tail!"

"l got him!"

"Look out! Conning up on your left, Marco!"

They were as fast as we were, as maneuver-able as we were, and the sharks had one terrifying advantage – they did not know fear.

"He's on me! He's on me!"

"Aaaaarrrrggghh!"

"Marco!"

"l can't see! Where is he?"

"Cassie! Below you, lookout! Look out!"

It was no longer a game. I had gone rushing into a fight full of confidence and determined to help the whale. But now I was in a war. The sharks were killing machines. They seemed to be nothing but armored skin and razor-sharp fins and wide jaws with row after row of serrated teeth.

The water was boiling with twisting, turning, speeding sharks and us dolphins, locked in a high-speed battle to the death.

It suddenly occurred to me that we might lose. We might be killed.

I might be killed.

The water was dark with blood, still billowing from the shark I had hammered.

Suddenly two of the sharks turned away. They just turned and swam away. At first, I didn't know why.

Then I saw that they were following the shark I had wounded.

They were following the trail of blood.

They were at the limits of my sight when they struck. They ripped into the injured shark with wild, uncontrolled fury.

37 The last shark turned from the battle and went after them. Robbed of his meal of whale meat, he would feast on his brother instead.

"Everyone okay?" Jake asked.

"l have some cuts, but I'm okay," I said.

"Same here," Rachel said. She sounded tired. I guess I did, too. I felt exhausted and drained.

The fight had probably only lasted two minutes from beginning to end. But it had been a long two minutes.

"Marco?"

" I...I think I'm hurt," he said.

I looked for him. He was drifting in the water, almost motionless, twenty yards away. We all swam over, crowding around him.

Then I saw the wound. I think I would have screamed, if I could have. His tail had almost been bitten off. It was hanging by a few jagged threads. It was useless.

We were miles out in the ocean. And Marco could not hope to swim back.

38 Chapter 11

"He's going to die if we don't do something," Rachel cried.

"Cassie?" Jake asked. "What do we do?"

" I...I don't know!"

"Cassie, you're the closest thing we have to an animal expert," Jake said urgently.

But I wasn't feeling at all like an expert. I was feeling like a fool. This was all my fault. It had been my decision to go ahead. I was the one.

"Aaaahhh," Marco moaned. " Oh , man. That's a major ouchie. Ahh, ahh!"

"What's happening?" Tobias called down. "Marco sounds hurt."

"He is," Jake answered tersely.

" Oh , man, I don't want to die as some fish," Marco cried. "l don't want to die out here. My mom drowned. I'm going to die just like she did. My dad . . ."

"Morph!" I yelled. "l think I know what to do. Morph back to human."

"lf he morphs to human, he'll just drown," Rachel argued.

"No. Morphing uses DNA, right? The basic pattern of the animal. Marco morphs back to human. I don't think the injury will affect him, because it doesn't affect his human DNA.

Then, as soon as he can, he morphs back to dolphin. The dolphin body was injured, but the dolphin DNA should be the same. He should be a healthy, normal dolphin again."

"What if you're wrong?" Rachel asked bluntly.

"There's no other choice," Jake said. "Marco? You have to morph back to human. We'll keep you from drowning."

"Jake . . . buddy . . . You know I can't swim."

"l know, Marco. But we'll take care of you."

" Okay . Yeah, okay. Might as well die in my own body. Ahh. Ahhhh! Maybe it won't hurt as much. Maybe . . ."

He was drifting off. "He's losing blood," I said. "He may pass out. Marco. Morph. Now!" We formed a circle around him, the three of us, with Tobias drifting overhead and the big humpback resting alongside.

Then Marco began to change. Arms sprouted from his flippers. His face flattened down, with his wide, grinning dolphin mouth shortening to form Marco's own lips. His skin turned pink and his morphing suit appeared.

39 His shattered, injured tail split in two. Legs formed from the halves, toes appeared. Human toes. At the end of human legs.

"He did it!"

"Yeah, I did it. And now I'm drowning!"

"Here," I said, swimming beside him. "Grab onto me." He wrapped his arms over my back, and I held him up to the air.

Then I noticed something strange. It was like the ocean floor was rising to meet me.

No. It was the humpback. He had dived beneath us, and was rising slowly, slowly to the sur face.

"Look out! The whale!" Rachel yelled.

But at that moment the most incredible part of an incredible day happened.

My mind, human, dolphin, both minds, opened up like a flower opening to the sun.

And a silent, but somehow huge, voice filled my head, it spoke no words. It simply filled every corner of my mind with a simple emotion.

Gratitude.

The whale was telling me that it was grateful. We had saved it. Now it would save our schoolmate.

"Back away," I told Rachel and Jake. " It's okay."

"Yeah," Rachel agreed, sounding amazed. "l hear it, too. Or feel it. Or whatever." The humpback rose beneath a sputtering Marco. The broad leathery back lifted him up. And when I looked again, I saw Marco, sitting nervously on what could have been a small island, high and dry above the choppy waves.

Tobias fluttered down and rested beside him.

The whale called me to him.

Listen, little one, he commanded, in a silent voice that seemed to fill the universe.

I listened. I listened to his wordless voice in my head. I felt like it went on forever.

40 Chapter 12

Tobias said later it was only ten minutes. But during that ten minutes, I was lost to the world.

I was being shown a small part of the whale's thoughts.

He had lived eighty migrations. He had many mates, many mothers, who had died in their turn. His children traveled the oceans of the world.

He had survived many battles, traveled to the far southern ice and the far northern ice. He re membered the days when men hunted his kind from ships that belched smoke.

He remembered the songs of the many fathers who had gone before. As others would remember his song.

But in all he had seen and all he had known, he had never seen one of the little ones become a human.

Marco, I realized. He means Marco. And little ones? Is that what the whales call dolphins?

We are not truly. . . little ones.

No. You are something new in the sea. But not the only new thing.

I wasn't sure what he was telling me. He spoke only in feelings, in a sort of poetry of emotion, without words. Part of it was in song. Part of it I could only sense the same way I could sense echolocation.

Something new?

He showed me a picture, a memory. It was a broad, grassy plain, with trees and a small stream. All of it underwater. And across the grass ran an animal that was part deer, part scorpion, part almost human.

Where is it? I asked him in a language of squeaks and clicks and mind-to-mind feeling.

And he told me.

Suddenly I woke up. That's how it felt, any way. The whale released me. It was like coming out of a dream.

"Are you okay?" Jake asked. "You were starting to worry us, but we had this feeling maybe the whale didn't want us to interferes " I'm fine," I said. " I'm beyond fine."

"Marco's ready to try remorphing," Jake reported.

"Uh-huh," I said, still lost in images from a mind larger and older and so utterly strange.

"Guys? You have about twenty-five minutes," Tobias reported. "And it's a long way back to shore."

41 I heard Marco say something, but he was speaking normally now, not in thought-speak, so it was hard to make it out with my ears under the water.

I stuck my head up and saw him begin to re sume his dolphin shape.

Halfway through, he slipped off the side of the whale and back into the water. His fins formed. His beak.

And his tail. Perfect and healthy and undamaged.

We headed for shore, tired but alive.

I felt strange, leaving the whale. But when we were a mile away, I heard his song – slow, mournful, haunting notes.

"Why didn't he sing more when we were with him?" Jake wondered.

I smiled inwardly. And of course, since I was a dolphin at the moment, I smiled outwardly, too.

"He doesn't sing for the little ones," I explained. "He sings for the mothers."

"What?" Marco asked.

"He sings for a mate."

"Ahh. Cruising for chicks. Got it. I wonder if the big old guy even realizes that he helped save my life."

"Marco, that big old guy realizes things you and I will never even be able to guess." 42 Chapter 13

T he next day I went to see Marco at his home.

He and his dad live in a garden apartment complex. One of the older ones, on the far side of the big neighborhood where Jake and Rachel both live. I'd only been over there a couple of times. I think Marco is kind of embarrassed be cause he doesn't have much money.

He used to live in a house just down the street from Jake. But that was when his mother was still alive, and before his father had a breakdown and quit his job.

I knocked on the door. From inside I heard Marco's voice. "Dad, there's someone at the door.

Put on your bathrobe, okay?"

There was a delay, and then the door opened. Marco looked annoyed.

"Cassie. What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to talk to you."

"To me? What about?"

"About yesterday," I said.

He hesitated. "Look, I'm spending the day with my dad, okay? We're thinking maybe we'll . .

. you know, do something together."

"That's good," I said. Over Marco's shoulder I could see his father. He was wearing a bathrobe and sitting on the couch. He was staring at the TV. That was normal for any dad, I guess, on a weekend morning. But I had the feeling that Marco's dad was always sitting right there in front of the TV.

"Look, Marco, I just want to talk for a minute. Can I come in?"

"No, no," he said hastily. He stepped outside onto the concrete breezeway. Down below us was a swimming pool. It was drained and closed. Leaves covered the bottom.

"Marco, I wanted to talk to you about yesterday."

"What about it?"

"You could have been killed. It would have been my fault. This whole mission was my idea.

Jake asked me if we should do it and I said yes."

Marco rolled his eyes. "That's it? Look, it wasn't your fault. It's this whole thing we're doing, this whole Animorph thing. I mean, it's been dangerous right from the start. It's insanely dangerous. What else is new?"

I shrugged. "What's new, I guess, is that the other times it was always someone else's idea."

"Oh, I get it. You don't like responsibility?"

43 I winced. Was that it? Was I afraid of taking responsibility? "I don't want to get my friends killed."

"And let me assure you your friends don't want to get killed, either," Marco said with a laugh.

"I am completely opposed to getting killed." He grew serious, even sad. "But you know what? Sometimes bad things happen. That's the way it is."

I leaned against the rail, looking down at the dismal empty pool. "I see things die all the time, " I said. "Animals, I mean. Sometimes you can't save them. Sometimes we even have to put them down – end their suffering. But my dad makes those decisions. Not me. He's the vet. I'm just his assistant."

"Look, here I am, all alive," Marco said, tap ping his chest. "Get over it. I didn't have to go. It was my choice."

"Were you scared?"

For a while he didn't answer. He just came over and leaned on the railing beside me. "I'm scared all the time now, Cassie," he said at last. "I'm scared to fight the Yeerks, and I'm scared of what will happen if I don't. I look at Tobias, and what happened to him scares me to death. What if I get stuck in morph someday? And most of all, I am scared of ... of him."

I didn't have to ask who Marco meant by him. Visser Three.

"That first time, in the construction site, when he killed . . . when he murdered the Andalite."

Marco made a twisted smile. "I see that in my head every day. And the Yeerk pool." He shook his head. "That's something I would like to forget, too."

"Yes," I agreed. "There has been a lot of fear."

"So was I afraid yesterday? Bet on it. I was scared plenty. It was like, man, it's not bad enough we have to fight Hork-Bajir and Taxxons and Visser Three, we also have to fight sharks? Sharks?" He laughed, and hearing him brought the laughter out of me.

We both just stood there and giggled like idiots for a few minutes. It was that laughter you get after something really tense has happened. Relief laughter. "We're still alive" laughter.

"Urn, by the way, I was going to wait and tell everyone at the same time," Marco said, "but I think we have a problem."

"What problem?"

"It was in the newspaper this morning – two stories. One is about this guy who is going to be looking for some supposedly lost treasure ship off the coast. The other was this story about some big marine biologist guy who has a ship and is going to be doing some underwater exploration off our coast."

"Yes? So?"

44 "So, all of a sudden our nearby ocean seems to be very interesting to people. Treasure hunters and an underwater exploration? At the same time?"

"Controllers?"

He nodded. "I think so. I think it's all a cover story to explain why two ships will be out there with lots of divers in the water. I think it's them, all right. And I think they're looking for the same thing you're looking for."

I felt weak. The image the whale had given me surfaced in my mind. And the faint cry in my dreams, the cry for help.

"I ... I can't ask anyone to go out there again," I whispered. "This time we might not be so lucky."

Marco looked uncomfortable. "Cassie, you know how I feel about all this. I think we have to take care of ourselves first. And our own families." He glanced back at his apartment door.

"On the other hand ... I guess after what the Andalite did for us, I wouldn't feel like much of a human being if I didn't try to save whoever is out there."

"I don't know who's out there," I said. "I don't know if it's even real."

"But you think it's an Andalite."

"I think it is. But Marco, I don't know. If someone gets hurt. . . killed . . . just because I have these dreams – I can't make that kind of decision."

"Yes, but can you decide to do nothing? That's a decision, too."

I had to smile. "Marco, you know, for a guy who's always joking around and being annoying, you're awfully smart."

"Yeah, I know, but don't tell anyone. It would destroy my image."

I started to walk away.

"You know what was strange about yesterday?" Marco said.

"What?"

"The sharks. They were so totally deadly. I mean, we worry about Hork-Bajir and Taxxons and Visser Three. You kind of forget that right here on little old planet Earth there are creatures just as tough and dangerous. It would be funny if it wasn't some alien that ended up getting us, but some normal Earth creature."

I didn't think it was funny at all.

Marco grinned at my stone face. "Okay, not funny ha-ha. More like funny weird."

45 Chapter 14

"Okay," Jake said. "Here's what we know. Or at least, what we think we know."

We were all at Rachel's house again. It was a few hours after I had gone to see Marco. Tobias was perched on the windowsill. He didn't feel all that comfortable being inside for long. He liked the feel of the wind and the open air.

"First, we believe that somehow a surviving Andalite, or maybe more than one Andalite, is trapped out in the ocean."

"Hopefully Andalites can hold their breath for a really long time," Marco joked.

"Second, Cassie believes she can find this Andalite, thanks to the information from the whale."

Everyone kept a straight face for about ten seconds. Then, all at once, everyone cracked up.

"Information from a whale," Marco repeated, giggling.

"Have our lives gotten really weird, or is it just me?" Tobias asked.

"Weird? Weird?" Marco crowed. "The talking bird wants to know if getting information on the location of an alien from a whale, that you've just saved from sharks, by turning into dolphins . . . You're suggesting that's weird?"

Jake smiled. "Well, stay tuned. It just gets weirder. Cassie and I have been going over maps.

She says the location we're looking for is pretty far out to sea. Too far for us to swim and still have any time left of our two-hour limit."

"Well, that's the ball game, isn't it?" Marco asked.

Jake nodded at Rachel. "I was talking to Rachel earlier and she has an idea."

Rachel stood up. She'd been lounging on the bed. "We hop a ride on a ship. First we morph into something like a seagull."

Marco groaned. "I hate plans that begin with the words 'first we morph.'"

"We morph into seagulls," I said, picking up the plan we'd worked out. "Then we fly out into the shipping channel. We land on a tanker or a container ship or something that's going the right direction. We morph back to human, rest up, let the ship get us closer, then jump over the side, morph to dolphin and go the rest of the way."

"Oh, well, when you put it that way, it sounds so easy," Marco sneered. "How about if we just walk over to Chapman's house and tell him to call Visser Three to finish us off? It's so much easier, and the results will be the same."

Jake sighed. "It is dangerous and risky, and there are about a hundred things that could go wrong. Plus, as Marco has told us, we have reason to think that Controllers will be out there, searching for the same thing we're searching for."

46 "This idea just gets better and better," Marco said.

"Let's put it to a vote," Jake suggested.

"I'm in," Marco said instantly.

A split second behind him, Rachel said her usual "I'm in."

Everyone stared openmouthed at Marco.

"Just once I wanted to beat Rachel to it," he explained.

"Tobias?" Jake asked.

"l don't think I should vote. I have to sit this one out. I can't stay up that long with nowhere to set down. Sorry."

"You had the dreams, just like Cassie," Jake pointed out. "Do you think we should do this or not?"

Tobias fixed his fierce glare on me. "Yes, Cassie and I both had the dreams. I think they're real."

"Okay, looks like we go," Jake said briskly. "Tomorrow. First thing in the morning. We can't wait any longer. The longer we hold off, the greater the chance the Yeerks will beat us to it."

We left Rachel's house. Marco split off in one direction. Tobias flew off to some unknown destination. Jake and I walked together for a while, even though it was out of his way.

"I think Tobias is feeling kind of left out," I said. "You should talk to him later, remind him of how many times he's helped us out."

"That's a good idea," Jake agreed.

We walked a little farther in silence. It's one of the nice things about the relationship Jake and I have. We can be quiet together and feel okay about it.

"This is really dangerous, isn't it?" I asked him.

He nodded.

Suddenly I stopped walking. I don't know why, but I had this need to tell him something. I took his hand and held it between both of mine. "Jake?" I said.

"Yes?"

It was on the tip of my tongue, but then it seemed ridiculous to say it. So instead I said, "Look, don't ever get hurt, okay?"

He smiled that smile. "Me? I'm indestructible."

47 The way he said it, I almost believed him. But then, as he went his way and I headed toward home, I glanced up at the sky.

Against the blaze of sunset I saw a flash of russet tailfeathers. Tobias. Our friend, who had been trapped forever in a body not his own.

None of us was indestructible.

48 Chapter 15

"Hey! Half a sandwich! It's salami!"

"Look over there. Is that a Jujubee?"

"Pizza! Pizza! Part of the crust and it's one of those stuffed crusts!" Fortunately, one thing we always have plenty of in the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center (also known as my barn) is seagulls.

We acquired the seagull DNA. Then the four of us, with Tobias watching from the high rafters, morphed into the new bodies.

I have been a bird before. An osprey, to be ex act, one of the types of hawk.

But gulls are different in some ways. For one thing, they are scavengers, not predators. So as we took wing and flew in a rush of white from the open hayloft, I noticed different things, felt different things. My seagull mind was not searching for mice or scurrying animals. It was much more openminded. My seagull intelligence looked for anything – anything – that could even possibly be food.

Fortunately, the gull brains were close enough to the other bird brains we'd all experienced that it was fairly easy to control them. We didn't waste a lot of time getting started.

Although, once we did get started, everyone was constantly pointing out food.

"Hey! Look! French fries on the ground."

"Whoa! That's half a 3 Musketeers bar by that car!"

"O ooh, ooh! Look at the Dumpster behind that McDonald's!" Sometimes you just have to accept the animal's basic mindset and go with it.

"There's the beach," Jake said as we flapped and soared and flapped some more.

It's easier being an osprey in some ways. Much less flapping.

Once we were out over the water, we could at least stop scanning for food. Mostly.

"Hey! Is that a bag of potato chips floating down there?" We flew low, just a few dozen feet above the water. Not like hawks, who can ride the thermals up to the bellies of the clouds.

But Tobias wasn't much higher than we were now. There are no thermals over water and he was having to flap a lot to stay aloft.

We flew on, skimming the choppy surface of the water.

"Hey, look," Rachel said. "Over to the left."

49 Sleek gray shapes sliced through the water, up, down, up, down, breaking the silvery barrier between sky and sea. It was a school of dolphins.

"You know, sometimes this is just so wonderful" Rachel said. "l mean, we're flying. We're flying! And later, we'll be like them, at home in the water."

"Yeah, just us and the sharks," Marco said darkly.

"Still, it is cool," Rachel said.

"There's a ship up ahead," Jake announced.

"You just now noticed it?" Tobias laughed. "Wow. Seagull eyes aren't exactly great, are they? It's a container ship called Newmar. It's from Monrovia. You want to know what color the captain's hair is?"

"Show-off," Jake grumbled.

Hawk eyes are totally amazing. As long as it's sunny out, Tobias can read a book from like three blocks away.

It was hard, flying to catch up to the ship. It was moving fairly fast, and by the time we were close I was exhausted.

The ship was gigantic, painted a rusty blue, with a deck longer than a football field. The superstructure was all crammed toward the back. That's where the crew would be, so we flew forward, hoping to find someplace private.

The deck was stacked with containers, big steel boxes like trailers. Row after row of them lined the deck, and we could see hundreds more down in the hold.

We settled in the narrow space between two rows of containers, far forward. It was like having walls all around us. Corrugated metal walls that went high over our heads.

"Tobias? How much time?" Jake asked.

Tobias twisted his head down to see the tiny watch strapped to his talon. " It's been about an hour and a half."

We decided to resume our human shapes. The space between the rows of containers was even narrower when we were fully human again.

"Brrr. It's chilly out here," I said. The steel deck was cold beneath my bare feet. And even though the sun was high in the sky, we were in shadow.

"Man, I swear, this is the worst thing about morphing," Marco said. "Can someone please figure out how to morph shoes, and maybe a sweater? Come on, Cassie. You're the morphing genius. I'm sick of these morphing outfits."

"But you look so cute in Spandex," Rachel teased him.

50 "Plus, they aren't exactly fashionable. All I'm saying is – uniforms. Something cool-looking.

And warm. Warm would be nice. When winter comes, we are going to be some sad little Animorphs."