Текст книги "Animorphs - 14 - The Unknown"

Автор книги: Katherine Alice Applegate

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ANIMORPHS The Unknown

Converted to E-Book by:

Kamal Raniga

Chapter 1

My name is Cassie.

I can't tell you my last name. The Yeerk danger is too great. There are days when it feels like a noose slowly tightening around my neck. There are days when I don't feel like I can trust anyone. But as long as they don't know for sure who I am, maybe my friends and I can stay alive.

Maybe.

Kind of dramatic-sounding, right? I sound like maybe I'm paranoid or nuts, don't I? Well, trust me, I'm not being overdramatic. I'm probably the least dramatic person you'll ever meet. And I'm not one of those crazy conspiracy people or anything. Really.

I'm just an average girl. I'm not some supermodel or rock star or whatever. I'm short. Okay– looking, but definitely not beautiful. I'm more stocky and solid than tall and willowy. If you want tall and willowy, you'll have to meet my best friend, Rachel.

But that's not me. I'm a short girl with short black hair and no makeup and a wardrobe that runs the gamut from jeans all the way to overalls. I own two pairs of boots. Both are currently covered with mud and various kinds of animal poop. I also have a couple of nice pairs of rubber gloves.

You don't even want to know what's all over them.

See, I work with animals a lot. I help my dad, who's a veterinarian. He runs the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic, which is actually just our barn. He takes in all kinds of injured wildlife and sets their broken legs, and heals their mange, and soothes their burns, and disinfects their bites.

I help him out after school and on weekends. Mostly I do things like give the animals their "meds" —that's medications. I wash the animals and their cages, and feed them, and change dressings, and help my dad out in surgery. He's teaching me how to suture. You know – how to make stitches after you perform surgery.

Cool, huh? At least, to me it is. But in any case, now you know why I own poopy boots and gross gloves and several pairs of torn, stained jeans.

What can I say? I will not be appearing on the cover of Seventeen.

On the other hand, Rachel is my best friend, and Rachel is without a doubt the coolest person I will ever know. And Jake likes me – as in likes —and he's the smartest, strongest, most balanced person I've ever met. Except maybe for my parents, who are cool but in a parental way.

So anyway, I guess the lack of a decent wardrobe hasn't set me back too much. One way you can judge a person is by looking at their friends . . .

and their enemies. I have wonderful friends.

And terrible enemies.

I have the kind of enemies that no normal, short, fashion-impaired animal nut should have.

Earth is being invaded. It is being invaded by a species of intelligent parasites called Yeerks. In their normal state they're just these grayish slugs. Like big fat snails without their shells. But the Yeerks have the ability to enter the brain of another animal, wrap themselves around the brain, sink into all the little cracks and crevices, and utterly take over.

The Yeerks have already enslaved the entire Hork-Bajir race. They've made allies of the vile Taxxons. And now they are after us.

They're here. They're all around you. You just don't know it. They can be anyone. You think you know your friends? Your teachers? Even your parents? Maybe you do.

But maybe you don't. Because any of them might have a Yeerk living inside their head. Any one of them might be a Controller.

That's what we call a person who is enslaved by a Yeerk. A Controller. A human-Controller, which is a human who is completely enslaved by the Yeerk in his or her head.

I mentioned Jake earlier. His brother, Tom, is on: of them. At school, our assistant principal, Chapman, is one of them.

And who is fighting to stop this invisible, secret Yeerk invasion? Just a bunch of kids. Jake, Rachel, Marco, Tobias, an alien kid named Ax, and yours truly.

Nowyou're worried. You're thinking, Earth is being invaded by evil slugs from outer space and all we have on our side is a bunch of kids?

Well, we're not exactly just abunch of kids. We have certain abilities.

See, we learned about the Yeerks from the dying Andalite prince, Elfangor. He gave us the Andalite morphing technology. It allows us to become any animal we can touch.

I've been a wolf and an osprey and a fly. I've been more than a dozen animals. I've been through terrible dangers, and awful, violent battles.

But I'm still alive. Still just Cassie.

And I still don't care about clothes. Which just drives Rachel nuts, even after all these years.

Rachel was standing there in the barn, just staring at me.

"Cassie, I'm just saying, look, wear jeans if you want. Wear overalls.

Wear crusty rubber boots. I can accept all that. But you could at least buy jeans that fit."

"These fit fine," I protested.

"Cassie, you know I love you. You know you're my best friend in the whole world. But those jeans are so short you could wade across the Mississippi and not get them wet. When did you buy them? When you were four?"

I looked down at my jeans. They did happen to end about an inch above the tops of my boots. I grinned at Rachel. She gets so distressed about things like that. There was a look of actual pain on her face. Like the mere existence of jeans this short was agonizing. "You're saying these are too short?"

"Not if there's a flood coming," Rachel said. "If you're expecting a flood, those would be the exact jeans to wear. Just come with me. I'm going to ... the place. They're having lots of sales. I want you to come with me."

I narrowed my eyes. I knew what "the place" was. "I'm not going to the mall with you," I said.

"Who's going to the mall?" a voice asked.

It was my dad. He'd just opened the side door of the barn.

"Rachel is going to the mall," I told him.

"Please make her go with me," Rachel begged my father.

He laughed. "Nope. Sorry, Rachel. I need Cassie. Crazy Helen called and we have a sick horse way out on the edge of the Dry Lands."

Rachel looked down at my father's own jeans. They ended about six inches above his shoes, revealing socks that didn't exactly match.

"Gee, I wonder where Cassie gets it from?" Rachel said dryly.

I made a helpless shrug for Rachel. "Darn. Now I can't drag behind you for three hours while you power-shop and guys drool all over you. Oh, what a pity. Oh, life is so cruel."

Rachel made a face at me, then laughed. "Hey, a sick horse is far more important than buying jeans that go all the way down."

"Come with us," I said to Rachel. I like my dad and all, I really do, but a two-hour drive with just him and his old Stevie Wonder CD's was not going to be fun.

"Yeah, right," Rachel said.

I said, "Come with us, and tomorrow I'll let you pick out a new pair of jeans for me."

"Realjeans? Not some pair of blue card– board-looking bargain jeans?" Rachel bit her lip, and got a misty look in her eyes. "Of course, you'll need a nice top to go with them. . . ."

And that's how we ended up discovering the evil horses that threatened all of humanity.

But I'd better not get ahead of myself. First we had to drive to the Dry Lands.

Chapter 2

It was dark by the time we got away from the city, away from the far edge of forest and out into the area we usually called the Dry Lands.

The Dry Lands aren't exactly desert. I mean, we're not talking cactuses and so on. But the area is a kind of wasteland of scruffy grass and lots of emptiness that seems to stretch on and on forever. Here and there you'll see a tree, or maybe a few trees, but mostly it's all just grass and wildflowers and scrub and piles of boulders that jut up out of the ground like they were piled there by some ancient giant.

Not that we saw much of the Dry Lands that night. It was highway all the way there. An hour of highway, with all three of us crammed in the front seat of the pickup. My dad won't let us ride in the back. It's not safe.

But of course Rachel and I couldn't really talk much, with my dad right there. It's not just that he's a parent. It's also that he doesn't know anything about our lives as Animorphs.

"So, who's Crazy Helen?" Rachel asked, desperate for anything to talk about.

"Probably shouldn't call her that," my dad said. "Even though that's what she calls herself. She's an old woman, maybe eighty years old. She has a trailer behind a souvenir shop she owns. I met her years back when there was trouble with the Dry Lands horse herds."

"There was a problem with intestinal parasites," I explained. "Worms."

"For who? The horses or Crazy Helen?" Rachel asked.

"There it is," my dad said, interrupting my search for a really funny comeback to Rachel.

He pulled the truck up to a souvenir stand topped by a gigantic billboard that read LAST CHANCE SOUVENIRS. The billboard was bigger than the actual store. The store was closed and looked like it had been for years.

Behind the store was a trailer. It was an Airstream. You know, one of those silver, bullet-shaped trailers? There was an awning out front trimmed in bright Christmas lights. Even though it was nowhere near Christmas.

Crazy Helen came out when she saw us pull up. She had stringy gray hair and was wearing a faded flowery blouse over patched jeans and cowboy boots.

"Hey," Rachel said. "It's you,Cassie. In sixty or seventy years."

I "accidentally" dug my elbow into Rachel's side, and we both laughed.

"Actually, Cassie, you'll end up running some big volunteer organization that saves unhappy chickens and whales or whatever," Rachel said, softening her sarcasm.

I kind of liked that picture of my future. Although I wasn't sure how I was going to work with chickens and whales at the same time.

"She's over there. Over there,"Crazy Helen yelled as soon as we piled out of the truck. "It's a big roan mare. She's acting all funny. Like maybe she's been eating the loco weed."

"Loco weed?" Rachel asked me.

I shrugged.

"Hi, Helen," my dad said calmly. "We'll go take a look, see what we have.

How have you been?"

"Those darn aliens still won't let me sleep," she said.

I saw Rachel stiffen. I gave her a wink. In a low whisper I said, "Different aliens."

"They keep sending me the messages through my teeth," Helen said.

"They keep on telling me they're gonna land, right out here. But I haven't seen a Martian land in forty years. Very untrustworthy. Very, very sneaky, untrustworthy folks."

"Who?" my father asked.

"The Martians, that's who." Crazy Helen laughed. It wasn't an insane laugh. More of a gentle, knowing sound. I wondered sometimes if Crazy Helen was really crazy, or just playing a game.

"Well, we'll go look at this horse," my dad said.

Rachel and I shone flashlights into the dark. The moon was up, but it was just a sliver and didn't cast much light. And soon we were beyond the pool of light from the trailer and the billboard. Out in the absolute blackness you get when you're far from the city.

The flashlight picked out stumpy trees and bushes and rocks. The only sound was the rustling of the tall grass as we walked.

My father and I peered deep into the gloom, looking for a horse. Rachel, on the other hand, turned to look back toward the highway.

"Hey. Is that the horse you're looking for?" Rachel asked.

"Where?"

"There. Back by the road. Back by that pay phone."

My dad and I turned back to look. A scruffy roan horse was swaying from side to side as it walked. Swaying like a drunk.

As we watched, the horse seemed to be attracted to the telephone. It picked up the receiver with its mouth and let it hang off the hook.

And that's when things got strange. The horse lowered its head to the ground, picked up a twig in its lips, and seemed to be poking the tele– phone keyboard.

"Am I crazy, or is that horse trying to make a phone call?" Rachel said.

My dad shrugged. "Must be disoriented. Doesn't know what it's doing.

Come on, let's get over there."

I dropped behind a few steps to fall in with Rachel.

"That horse is dialing the phone," Rachel said in a whisper.

"Sure looks like it," I agreed.

"Ordering a pizza?" Rachel suggested.

"Hay, alfalfa, and extra cheese?"

My dad was getting close to the horse. The horse spotted him, and hesitated. Like it wanted to complete its phone call. But also wanted to run away. It decided to run. Only it wasn't really up for running. The best it could do was wobble off into the darkness, practically falling over as it went.

"Whoa, girl, whoa," my dad said in his calming-the-animals voice. "Whoa.

I'm just trying to help you."

But the horse wasn't interested. It swayed and wobbled and drifted away as fast as it could. I lost it in the darkness, but then we heard a WHUMPF sound.

I broke into a run and soon caught up to my father. He was kneeling over the fallen horse. The horse was still trying to stand up, but it was out of it.

"What do you think it is?" I asked my dad anxiously. The horse was sweating profusely. It glared at us with huge brown eyes.

"Well, it could be a lot of things," he answered. "But I'd put my money on snake bite. Try and keep her calm. I have to get some things from the truck. I'll be right back."

"Snakes?" Rachel said.

"Sure. There are lots of snakes out here," I said. I patted the horse's flank and made soothing noises.

"Not at night, though, right? I mean, snakes are probably a daytime thing . . . right?"

"Not always."

"Great. This is much better than the mall. Poison snakes and phone– calling horses."

Suddenly I noticed something happening to the horse's head. "Look!" I cried.

There, crawling its way out of the horse's left ear, was a slug. A large gray slug.

"Is that what I think it is?" Rachel whispered.

"Yeah. I think so."

The gray slug wormed its way out of the horse's head. It plopped heavily on the gravel and grass beneath it. And then it started to writhe away.

I'd seen those slugs before. We both had.

"Yeerk," I whispered. "There was a Yeerk in this horse."

The Yeerk crawled into the darkness. I glanced back and saw my dad still digging through his medical supplies at the truck. And that's when the pale stallion appeared.

He was not a terribly large horse. But you knew right away, from the first glance, that this was a powerful animal. He stepped calmly toward us, head held high. He looked down at the snake-bit horse. And then he looked at the crawling Yeerk.

It was hard to see clearly in the dark, but 1 think the Yeerk tried to raise itself up to the horse. Like it was trying to reach it. Then the stallion turned and began to run away.

"Rachel?"

"Yeah."

"We have to get out of here."

"What do you mean? Why?"

I didn't know why. It was a feeling. An instinct. But it was really strong.

"Just do it. Run! RUN!"

I grabbed Rachel's arm and yanked her along with me. We took about eight steps, then . . .

TSSEEEEEWWW! TSSEEEEEWWW!

A blinding light! Brilliant and intense as a flashbulb-in-your-face light! The light was coming from above. From the sky.

The very rocks split open. The ground itself seeming to explode!

My face hit the dirt before I even knew I was falling.

Chapter 3

X was on my back. I was indoors. I opened my eyes. Staring down at me was an alien. A pale, ghostly oval face with two enormous eyes. It looked like a little kid, with weak arms and legs.

It looked like one of the aliens from that old movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.In fact, it looked exactlylike one of them.

I blinked and looked again. It was a life-size cardboard cutout. Standing just behind the alien was Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I sat up. All around me were shelves piled with Star Warsmasks – Wookiees and Darth Vader and Imperial stormtroopers, along with Star

Trekhandheld phasers and Spock ears. There were posters everywhere – Mulder and Scully from X-Files,Mike, Crow, Servo, and Gypsy from Mystery Science Theater 3000,Jane Fonda as Barbarella, and movie posters from Plan 9 From Outer Space, The Day the Earth Stood Still,

Invasion of the Body Snatchersand, of course, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

But mostly there were posters, mugs, ashtrays, pencils, and T-shirts, all emblazoned with a red-and-white logo dominated by the stencil letters spelling "Zone: 91."

"She's awake," Rachel said. She sauntered over, carrying a short stick in one hand.

"What's going on?" I asked her.

"You were knocked out. You know, when that totally unexplainable explosion happened." She arched one brow and gave me a meaningful look.

I understood. Rachel was reminding me that we had not seen what we had seen – there had been no Yeerk crawling from a horse's ear. There had been no Dracon beam.

My father came rushing over, followed by Crazy Helen. He knelt and began feeling my head.

"Ow!"

"Looks okay," he muttered. "Superficial cut. Serious bruise, but I doubt there's a concussion.

Still, I'll take you by the hospital emergency room on the way home.

Have the doctors there check you out."

Rachel winked. "Doctor Carter may be there. Noah Wyle. Oh, yeah."

"What happened?" I asked my dad.

"Well, honey—"

"It was the aliens," Crazy Helen interrupted. "They have these exploding rocks they spread around out there. BOOM!"

My father rolled his eyes. "We're on the edge of an Air Force facility.

They have a base way back in the Dry Lands. You see the jets flying over all the time. I suspect they may have lost a bomb or a missile or something. That snake-bit horse must have set it off. The blast caught you."

"That sounds logical," I said.

"It was the aliens!" Crazy Helen screamed. "They keep the aliens out at Zone Ninety-one! That's why it's all so secret out there. That's why the Air Force won't talk about it. Zone Ninety-one is the secret base where the government keeps the aliens it has captured. They have'em out there in cages. They get secrets of technology from them. You think computers just happened? All that stuff was from aliens. Here, have a souvenir mug.

Normally ten-ninety-nine. But you can have it because you got hurt."

Helen grabbed a mug from the shelf, wiped it off on her sleeve, and handed it to me.

Rachel held up her stick. "I got a pecan log," she said.

"You want a mug?" Helen asked her.

"No, the pecan log is great. But I don't really believe in aliens." Rachel said this with a perfectly straight face.

Helen just smiled. "Lots of people do,young lady. Very smart people, too. Out at Zone Ninety-one they know. Oh, theyknow! The government doesn't want us telling. They watch me. They listen in through the microchip they implanted in my head. They're listening right now! One of those black helicopters of theirs is listening in and transmitting everything we say to the New World Order headquarters in the Azores, which is where Atlantis is, you know."

This tirade left us all temporarily without anything much to say. We just kind of stared.

"Well, we may as well get out of Helen's hair," my father said, breaking the spell. "Cassie, honey, do you feel okay? Can you focus your eyes?"

"Urn, yes," I said. "But how about that horse?"

My father shook his head, mystified. "Strangest thing. There isn't a trace left of her. Not a trace."

"Hah. It's the Martians," Crazy Helen said. "It's all the fault of those darned aliens."

Rachel and I exchanged a look. We were both having the same thought: It'sa very strange world where a person called Crazy Helen is at least partly right.

Chapter 4

“You've never heard of Zone Ninety-one before?

It's the Holy Grail of conspiracy nuts," Marco said in between slurps of a Mountain Dew. "Man, don't you ever go on the Internet? The Internet is full of people who think there are aliens at Zone Ninety-one. It's called the Most Secret Place On Earth."

"I go on the Internet," Rachel said. "I just don't hang out in chat rooms, call myself 'Studboy,' and try to convince people I'm an incredibly handsome thirty-year-old millionaire."

"Excuse me," Marco said, "but I do not use 'Studboy' as my screen name. Give me some credit. I use BaldwinBoyFive. You know, the missing fifth Baldwin brother. The really cool-looking one."

We were all at the mall food court, the day after the incident in the Dry Lands. I was clutching a shopping bag. Inside were several smaller bags from The Gap and J. Crew.

It was all Rachel's doing. Despite everything, she had actually remembered my stupid promise. Now I owned outfits. Not just clothing, mind you. Outfits.

"Even I've heard of Zone Ninety-one," Jake said. "And unlike Marco, I'm a fairly normal human being."

Marco threw a french fry at Jake. Jake ducked. And with a quick movement, Ax snagged the french fry out of midair, popped it in his mouth and said, "Mmmm. Grease. Greassss and salt!"

Just then a boy walked up to the table. He seemed nervous, edgy. Like he was a little scared by the experience of being in the mall. He looked over his shoulders a lot. And when he looked right at you he squinted, as if he was nearsighted.

"Hey, Tobias," Marco said. "We were thinking about ordering some pizza. You want mouse meat on yours?"

Maybe I should back up a little and explain who all these people are.

Because otherwise you'd never guess that this bunch was the Animorphs.

First, there's Jake. Jake is pretty much the leader. Not that anyone really treats him that way. And not that he'd want anyone to treat him that way.

See, that's part of the reason Jake isour leader – because he's the kind of guy who doesn't need anyone sucking up to him.

Then there's Marco. What can I say about Marco? Not as much as he would say about himself, that's for sure.

Marco is our sense of humor in the group. But he is not the class clown.

There's a seriousness to him, way down beneath all the glib jokes and teasing. Marco sees things other people sometimes miss. He is very smart and very wideawake, if you know what I mean.

Marco is Jake's best friend. They've been best friends forever. No one even remembers when it started. But ever since their friendship began, they've been arguing with each other about the most completely idiotic things in the universe: whether you should use more pedal or higher gears to win this dumb driving video game they love; whether Spiderman could beat Batman; whether basketball takes more teamwork than football; whether cheese tastes yellow.

I'm notkidding. They once spent an entire Saturday arguing whether something could taste like a color. I seem to remember that Marco thought cheese actually tasted green.

Despite this, Jake and Marco, along with Rachel and me, are the most normal members of the Animorphs. The other two are definitely weirder.

Take Tobias. Tobias is a kid trapped in the body of a red-tailed hawk.

That happens if you stay more than two hours in a morph. You stay in that morph permanently. Tobias lives in the forest near a meadow. He still lives by hunting mice and rabbits.

But a vastly powerful creature called an Ellimist just recently gave Tobias back his power to morph. So now Tobias can morph like any of us.

Except that just as we each have to return to our human form before two hours, Tobias has to return to his hawk form.

So the human body Tobias was in at the mall was actually a morph of his old human body. That's why he seemed nearsighted: He was used to his laser-sharp hawk eyes.

He could stay forever in that human body, but then he'd be trapped as a human, unable to morph.

Confusing? It gets worse.

The last member of our group is not a human at all. His full name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-lsthill. We call him Ax.

Ax is an Andalite. But he also has a human morph he created out of bits of DNA from Jake, Marco, me, and Rachel.

Ax in his human morph is shockingly pretty for a boy. And extremely weird. See, Andalites have no mouths. No sense of taste. So when Ax is in human morph and has a mouth, he has no resistance whatsoever to flavors.

Ax is dangerous around cinnamon buns. And chocolate. And popcorn.

And the paper boxes the popcorn comes in.

Basically, Ax in human morph should not go anywhere near anything that can be eaten. We've had to stop him from eating the butts out of ash– trays. Don't get me wrong. Ax is brilliant and decent and honorable and brave – when he's in his own body.

"So. What's up?" Tobias asked.

Six sets of eyes casually scanned the area around us. The mall was not busy, and it was too early for a big dinner crowd at the food court. But we had to be sure that no one was even slightly within range to overhear.

Our enemies could be anyone. Anywhere.

"Rachel and Cassie went out to Zone Ninety-one and found horses making phone calls," Marco said.

Tobias's eyes darted to me, then to Rachel. He looked very serious. He had mostly forgotten how to make human expressions with his face. But he was still Tobias. "Can someone interpret from Marco-babble to normal language?"

"I think I like you better as a chicken, Tobias," Marco said.

"Red-tailed hawk," Tobias said tolerantly.

Marco shrugged. "Chicken, pigeon, hawk, whatever."

"Urn, how about if we get down to business before someone interrupts us?" Jake suggested.

"Okay, Dad,"Marco said. Then, becoming instantly serious, he quickly and efficiently summarized for Tobias what we knew.

"Yeerks in horses," Rachel said. "It makes zero sense. Why would Yeerks want to make Controllers out of horses?"

"Do horses have some special powers? Pow-werz-zuh?" Ax asked. In addition to enjoying taste, he finds speaking words out loud to be strange.

I shrugged. "They're herd animals. Not very smart. In fact, pretty dumb, really. They can run fast, but there are lots of faster animals. They're strong, but there are lots of other animals that are stronger." I shrugged again. "I can't see why the Yeerks would be wanting to infest horses."

"Maybe they think they can win the Kentucky Derby," Rachel joked.

"Maybe it's some kind of strange Yeerk entertainment," Jake offered.

"Maybe it's fun for them."

"I don't believe Yeerks do anything for fun, Prince Jake," Ax said. "They would have some reason."

"Ax, please don't call me 'Prince Jake.' Especially not in public."

"Yes, Prince Jake. Jay-kuh."

"Are you two sure about this?" Jake asked Rachel and me. "It was a Yeerk you saw? Not a snake or a snail or something?"

"And what if your dad is right, and it was an exploding artillery shell, not a Dracon flash?" Tobias suggested.

"We're not doubting you," Jake added quickly. "It's just that there's no good reason for Yeerks to infest horses."

I looked at Rachel. I was sure of what we'd seen. Mostly. "Well ... I guess I could be wrong. But I'm pretty sure."

"Yeah. Pretty sure," Rachel echoed.

"So? What do we do?" Jake asked. "Take a look around out in the Dry Lands? See if we can get some more proof?"

"Very good flying out there," Tobias said. "Lots of sweet thermals."

"And plenty of delicious snakes and toads?" Marco asked with mock innocence.

"I can't go tomorrow," Jake said. "It's my dad's birthday. We're all going out for dinner."

"Even Tom?" Rachel asked.

"Tom says he'll be there," Jake said darkly. "But who knows? He spends a lot of time at meetings of The Sharing lately. All the more reason why I haveto be there. My dad is not going to celebrate his birthday without at least one of his sons there."

"What did you get your dad?" I asked, trying to lighten the mood.

Jake grinned. "Haven't done it yet, but I think I'm going to clean the roof gutters for him."

Marco shuddered. "Actual physical labor? Couldn't you just get him a nice Hallmark card?"

"I am kind of curious about this thing with the horses," I said. "But we could put it off till the weekend."

"It could be worth checking out," Jake said. "But we don't need everyone to go along. Who wants to go flying with Cassie tomorrow after school?"

In the end Tobias, Rachel, Marco, and I decided to go. Jake was busy, and I don't think Ax saw any point in it. We broke up and went our separate ways. We try not to spend much time together in public. We don't want any inquisitive Controllers to start thinking of us as a "group."

So Rachel and I left together.

"No one is taking this seriously, are they?" I asked her. "I get the impression Ax thinks we're nuts."

"Yeerks in horses? Horse-Controllers? It is kind of hard to see where that's some big threat."

"Yeah. I guess that's true."

"But hey, any excuse to go flying, right?"

Chapter 5

The next day I wore my new outfit to school. I hooked up with Rachel before first period and we walked to class together. Down the main hall.

Me and Rachel, the Goddess of Clothing and Good Grooming.

"You look great!" Rachel said.

"Hi, Rachel," a boy named Charles said, smiling awkwardly. "Oh, and hi, urn ... Carla."

"See? Charles smiled at you."

"He called me Carla."

"Has he ever even spoken to you before?" Rachel asked.

"I guess not."

"See? Progress."

Marco likes to tease Rachel, calling her Xena: Warrior Princess. And when I'm with her I guess I'm Gabrielle. The sidekick. Guys see Rachel first, second, and third. They see me fourth.

Personally, I don't care. Looks and clothing don't matter even slightly to me. And the people who matter are the ones who see past all that.

"Hey, Rachel. How's it going?" a boy named Jawan asked, smiling shyly.

"Fine," Rachel said coolly. "Cassie, you've met Jawan, haven't you?"

I shrugged. "Hi, Jawan."

"Hey, Kendra," he said. "See you later in English, Rachel."

"Kendra?"I asked Rachel.

"He gave you a definite look," Rachel said. "So what if he isn't good at remembering names?"

"He remembers yourname pretty well," I pointed out. Then I spotted a guy named Joe. Joe was a friend of mine from when we both took riding lessons together. He would remember my name.

"Hey, Cassie. Whoa! Whoa! Something different about you." He stepped back and stared at me.

"New outfit?" Rachel suggested.

Joe shook his head. "No, that's not it. Oh, I know what it is!" He snapped his fingers. "You look like you've gained weight! Have you been trying to bulk up?"

Rachel reached with one elegant hand and pushed Joe disdainfully out of her way.

"That proves nothing," Rachel said.

"Uh-huh. I look fatter."

"Guys are idiots sometimes."

"Not Jake," I said.

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Jake is the exception that proves the rule," she said. "And there he is now."

Jake was cruising down the hall, joking and talking with some non– Animorph friends. Part of what we have to do is maintain normal lives as much as possible.