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  i ii ANIMORPHS

  The Pretender

  K.A. Applegate

  AN APPLE

  PAPERBACK

  SCHOLASTIC INC.

  New York Toronto London Auckland Sydney Mexico City New Delhi Hong Kong

  iii Cover illustration by David B. Mattingly

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 555 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  ISBN 0-590-76256-7

  Copyright© 1998 by Katherine Applegate. All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, APPLE PAPERBACKS, ANIMORPHS and logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 189/90123/0Printed in the U.S.A. 40First Scholastic printing, November 1998

  iv The author would like to thank Michael Mates for his help in preparing this manuscript.

  For Tonya Alicia Martin Also for Michael and Jake

  1

  My name is Tobias.

  That's my name. But names don't really tell you much, do they? I've known two Rachels. One was this whiny, obnoxious person. The other Rachel - the one I know now - is the bravest person I've ever known.

  But you'd think that my telling you my name is Tobias would at least tell you that I'm human, wouldn't you? You'd assume I have arms and legs and a face and a mouth. But names don't even tell you that.

  I am not human.

  I was human once. I was born a human. There are human characteristics within me. And I can

  2 become a human for two hours at a time. But I am not human.

  I am a red-tailed hawk. A very common species of hawk, nothing exotic. Red-tails tend to live in woods near an open field or meadow. We hunt best that way: by sitting on a tree branch, gazing out across the field, spotting prey, then swooping in quickly for the kill.

  That's what I do. I live in the trees near a very nice meadow. Unfortunately, the hunting has been bad lately. Partly that's just the way it goes. There are good times and bad times in the predator business.

  But more, it's competition. Another red-tail has been moving in on my territory. He's been eating my mice. Between him and the minor drought we've been having, food's getting a little scarce.

  Stupid, huh? Stupid that I'd worry about something like that. I mean, I have powers far greater than that other red-tail. I can morph to human. I can morph to any animal. I could morph to some member of the feline family or some kind of snake and take out the red-tail.

  Only I don't.

  I could confront the other hawk. Red-tail to red-tail. We could fight it out.

  Only I don't.

  I don't do anything. Pretty soon he'll make a

  3 move on me, push me aside. Maybe then I'll have to figure out what to do. But right now, I don't do anything. I just go hungry.

  I could go to the others for help. To Rachel and the other Animorphs, my friends. But how weak is that? How can I go begging for help to deal with a situation I should be able to handle myself?

  I sat on my branch, in my tree, and watched the dry grass. I watched as only a hawk can watch. With telescope eyes and a mind that never grows tired of looking for the clues to a kill.

  I waited and watched and listened. A twitch of a grass stalk. A slight puff of rising dust. The faint sounds of tiny feet scrabbling in the dirt.

  And from time to time I looked across the meadow at him. At the other hawk. He was a hundred yards away. The length of a football field. But I could see him clearly. It was like looking in a far-distant mirror. The angry, yellow-brown eyes. The wickedly curved beak. The sharp talons dug into the bark of a branch.

  He looked at me. Our eyes met. He was pure hawk. I was ... I was that unique, misfit creature called Tobias.

  «No,» I said to him, though of course he understood nothing. «No, I won't use my morphing powers against you. It will be me and you. Hawk against hawk.»

  4 He returned his gaze to the field. So did I. I had long since marked the burrow of a rabbit and its family. Three baby rabbits had survived. I was human enough to know that people - humans- would be disgusted by the sight of my killing and eating a baby rabbit. They would rather I at least go after the adult female.

  But they'd be wrong. Life in the meadow isn't a Disney movie. If I killed the mother, the babies would all die. If I killed only the baby, the mother would survive to breed again.

  Breed more babies for me to take. To rip apart. To eat.

  There was another consideration: Rabbits are tougher than mice. They can aim those powerful hind legs and deliver a blow that will knock you silly.

  This is my life. A meadow running short of prey. A competitor who would like to push me out altogether. And a family of rabbits who had to die so that I could live.

  See what I mean about names not telling you very much? In the old days, back when I was truly human, "Tobias" was a word that meant wimp. That's what I was. I guess I was a nice person, back then. I guess teachers liked me and girls felt sorry for me. But the bullies were drawn to me like a mosquito to a sweaty neck.

  5 That all changed in the most unexpected way you can possibly imagine. It changed on the night Jake, Rachel, Marco, Cassie, and I went walking through the abandoned construction site.

  That's where we saw the damaged spacecraft land. That's where we met the doomed Andalite prince. Elfangor.

  It was Elfangor who told us that our lives as we'd known them were going to end. Had already ended. He told us about the secret Yeerk invasion of Earth. An intimate invasion by the parasite slugs who enter your brain and enslave you.

  And it was Elfangor who gave us powers no one but an Andalite had ever had before. It was Elfangor who transformed us with Andalite morphing technology.

  We gained the ability to touch an animal, absorb its DNA, and then to become that animal.

  Yes, to become.

  I morphed a hawk. I overstayed the two-hour time limit. I was trapped. Trapped in the body of a red-tailed hawk.

  Trapped in a world where another bird can be a dangerous enemy. Trapped in a world where I must kill to eat. And not like humans do, where they hire someone else to draw the blood and shatter the bone and then get the food in sanitized plastic packages at the supermarket.

  6 I must kill my own food. I must swoop down and drive the sharp talons into the brain, into the neck. I must feel the heart stop beating. After. . . after I have already begun to feed.

  That's what the name Tobias means. For this Tobias. For this one, strange, unique creature.

  Movement!

  Just a slight twitch of a single grass stalk. I looked at my opponent. He had not seen it.

  This kill was mine.

  I opened my wings, caught the breeze, and swooped down low across the reaching wildflowers and waving yellow grass.

  Swooooosh!

  I saw the flash of brown. I saw the small rabbit. I was intensely focused. I was electrified.

  It happened in seconds.

  I spilled air, changed the angle of attack, flipped my tail to aim, and dropped, talons wide open, onto the baby rabbit.

  It didn't see me!

  Its mother did, but she was three feet away. T
oo far!

  In seconds my talons would close . . .

  «Aaaahhhh!»

  Suddenly, I was scared, helpless, frozen with terror! Above me the wings blotted out the sun. Huge, monstrous talons came down, like they were reaching down from the sky itself.

  7 I screamed in terror. I plowed into the ground, beak first. I was a hawk again. But I had hit the dirt, missing my prey.

  I flapped madly, panicked. I tried to catch air, then . . .

  FWAPP!

  Two big rabbit legs kicked and hit me across the side of my head, snapping my head back so fast I almost blacked out.

  There was dust in my eyes. I blinked, frantic, terrified. I saw the baby rabbit hopping away. I saw the mother rabbit keeping station between it and me. The mother gaped at me with one perfectly round eye. Her mouth worked, her ears twitched.

  She did not see the second shadow. The one that came up from behind her, dropped, opened its talons, and flew away, dragging her baby to its death.

  8

  I was still hungry. And now I was shaken up, too. This was not the first time I'd had a similar experience. It had started in the last couple of weeks. Weird flashes like waking dreams. I would be closing in on my prey and then, in that ultimate moment, I would feel my mind transferred into that prey.

  At least that's how it felt. I know it sounds crazy. But then, if you're me, how can you even talk about crazy and sane?

  Sometimes I wonder if the truth is that I'm some lunatic. I wonder if in reality I'm a hopeless, raving madman locked in an asylum, merely imagining that I am a hawk.

  9 Maybe I'm wearing a straitjacket. Maybe I'm in a padded room in a row of other padded rooms full of nuts who think they're Napoleon or George Washington or a red-tailed hawk.

  How would I know? Does a madman know he's mad? Does he realize that the delusion isn't real?

  I left the rabbit to the other hawk. But that indelible memory of being the prey instead of the predator hung over me, shadowed my mind. Even with the bright early-morning sun baking up thermals off the roads and parking lots, I felt like I was flying in shadow.

  But there was a stronger need than the need for sanity. I was hungry. Hungry in that desperate, all-consuming way a predator has. It's a mean hunger. A dangerous hunger.

  It was early still. The housing development below me was quiet. Parents were getting into their cars and driving off to work. Kids were waiting for buses. Some were talking or playing around. Most were standing glumly, wiping the sleep out of their eyes.

  I floated above it all, ignored by the humans below me. And then I saw it.

  It was fresh, I could see that right away. A raccoon, its back quarter smashed flat by a tire.

  Roadkill. Carrion.

  10 But it was fresh. It hadn't been dead more than an hour. The flesh would still be warm, especially on this warm day. But the maggots would not have started growing. Not yet.

  I circled above it.

  If only it had still been breathing. Stupid, isn't it? Drawing a line between prey that's alive, that you have to kill, and somehow pretending that's okay, that's right. And on the other hand, acting like something already dead is off-limits.

  The truth is, I'd seen hawks eat roadkill. Older, weaker hawks. Unlucky hawks. It happens.

  It just hadn't happened to me.

  I circled lower. So fresh. I was so hungry. Such a stupid, meaningless distinction. My hunger argued with me. My hunger was convincing.

  I dropped down, as suddenly as if I were going in for the kill. Maybe I wanted to pretend that's what I was doing.

  I dropped down and landed on cracked blacktop. I looked around for cars. The street was empty.

  Quickly, furtively, I ripped my beak into the raccoon's belly. And I began to feed.

  Yes, it was still warm. I gobbled. I ripped and swallowed. Ripped and swallowed.

  "Tobias?"

  12 I snapped my head around, but I had already recognized the voice.

  Rachel? No! Oh, God, no! No.

  She just stood there, schoolbooks under her arm. Rachel would be beautiful in the middle of mud slides and hailstorms. On a sweet, sunny day, she made my heart ache.

  She looked at me. Embarrassed for me. Wanting to say something that would make it all right. Not knowing what to say. Hurting for me. Feeling my humiliation.

  What could I do?

  I flapped my wings, skimmed across the pavement, and finally soared into the air.

  She might believe I was some other hawk. She might. Or at least she would pretend to.

  A piece of raccoon liver was in my mouth. I swallowed it.

  11

  Chapter 3

  I saw Rachel again two days later. I'd checked in with Jake to see if anything was going on. There were no missions - we'd worked plenty lately, dealing with the horrifying matter of David, the first new Animorph.

  David had ended up like me, as what the Andalites call a nothlit. A person trapped in morph. But David had been trapped in the body of a rat. No flying for him. He was a prey animal.

  And unlike me, David had not, and would never, regain his morphing power.

  Jake said that although there was no mission, Rachel wanted to see me. He said it was important. I said, «0kay.»

  I flew to Rachel's house that night, after the

  13 lights in her sisters' and mother's bedrooms were turned off. She had left the window open, as she often did. Sometimes I'd come by and do her homework for her. I don't know why. Some weird desire to stay in touch with my old life, I guess.

  I flew silently, with the ease of long practice, through her open window and landed on her desk.

  She was sitting in the dark with one of those little book lights on so she could read. She put down her book.

  "Hi, Tobias," she whispered.

  «Hi, Rachel. Listen, about the other day-»

  "Something has happened," she interrupted.

  «What?»

  "Someone has come around asking about you."

  My heart missed about a dozen beats. When it started again I had to gasp in air. «What do you mean, someone is asking about me?»

  Rachel rolled off her bed. She was wearing a long sports jersey of some kind. It's what she wore to bed, I guess. I didn't recognize the team colors or the number. I was never very interested in sports, and now that whole thing means nothing at all to me.

  She flicked on the dim lamp beside her bed and came over to me.

  "Some lawyer. He says he was your father's

  14 lawyer. And he's also representing some woman. She says her name is Aria. She says she's your cousin."

  «Aria? Isn't that a song they sing in an opera?»

  Rachel shrugged with that impatient, "What are you, an idiot? Pay attention!" way she has. "Who cares what her name means?"

  «My cousin? Who does she say she's related to? I mean, who is her mother or father?»

  "I didn't exactly cross-examine her," Rachel said snappishly.

  I laughed. Don't ask me why, but Rachel being cranky always makes me laugh.

  "This comes secondhand," Rachel clarified. "From Chapman."

  That killed any amusement I was feeling. Chapman is the vice principal at my school. Or what used to be my school. He's also a high-ranking Controller. A human infested and utterly enslaved by the Yeerk in his head.

  «Chapman?» I asked sharply. «How did he figure it out? Did he ask you specifically?»

  She shook her head, a movement that caused her long, blond hair to shiver across her shoulders. "No. He was asking his daughter Melissa if she knew anything about Tobias. I just happened to be there."

  15 «l don't trust it.»

  "No one trusts anything about this," Rachel said. "Marco is in full-blown psycho paranoia mode. But for what it's worth, it sounded real to me. I mean, maybe Chapman knows more than he's letting his daughter know, but I didn't get the feeling he was interested in me."

  «This still reeks. Marco's right to be paranoid. This smells bad.»

>   Rachel laughed. "Definitely. Chapman was all like, Tobias hasn't been in school in months. I contacted his last address and his guardian says he thought he was with some other aunt.'"

  «Yeah, well, that's my family, all right,» I said, trying to sound lighthearted. Both of my parents are probably dead. I used to be sort of passed back and forth between an uncle and an aunt. One was a drunk and the other just couldn't be bothered.

  No one wanted me. I don't say that to get pity; it's just reality. I couldn't blame them, I guess. I mean, they didn't ask to have a kid all of a sudden. And when I disappeared I don't guess either of them spent much time looking for me.

  "Look, I know where this lawyer is staying," Rachel said. "Jake says we are all available to help check this out."

  «Has to be a trap,» I said. «My father's

  16 lawyer? Doesn't make any sense. When my mom disappeared and my dad died there wasn't any will or anything.»

  "I don't know what to tell you," Rachel said.

  «My father's lawyer. And some woman named Aria who is supposedly my cousin. It's a trap. Someone has figured out who I am.»

  Rachel nodded, but not like she completely agreed. "Maybe. Probably. But I guess this woman has been in Africa all this time. She just got back and found out that no one knew where you were. I guess she contacted this lawyer of your dad's. She told him and Chapman she wanted to take you in."

  «Take me in?»

  "Give you a home, Tobias. A home."

  17

  The lawyer's name was DeGroot. His office didn't look like much. It was in one of those strip malls with a convenience store at one end and a State Farm Insurance office on the other end.

  It didn't look like a place to lay a trap. But that's the thing about traps: If they looked like traps, they wouldn't be very effective.

  And the place did have one big problem for us: There was nowhere to hide any big morphs. Nowhere to conceal Jake's tiger or Rachel's grizzly bear.

  Behind the building was a fenced-in Dumpster. Between the Dumpster and the back wall of the building was a narrow space. Dark enough, private enough for me to morph.

  18 But I hesitated, floating above the building on the wonderful updrafts created by sun and concrete. I could see in the front window of the lawyer's office. I saw a secretary sitting at a desk. I saw some old magazines on tables in the waiting room. I couldn't see DeGroot.