The Stranger Page 3

  - ornithology

  - the study of birds. greater-than less-than You could definitely be the professoreagreater-than I said. less-than like just meant that sooner or later most of us are going to leave. Move somewhere else. What do we do then, if the Yeerks are still around8greater-than Tobias began preening his feathers. It's some thing he has to do, but it's also a habit he has when he's bothered by something. less-than like haven't really looked that far ahead. But I guess I figured this whole thing would sort itself out, one way or the other, long before then. The Yeerks win, and you don't have to worry about college. Or they lose, and we each go back to our normal lives. Some of us more normal than otherseagreater-than he added dryly. For a while I didn't say anything. I couldn't.

  I was too busy hating myself for bringing this up with Tobias. Tobias, of all people! He was already a casualty in this war. He was trapped in a hawk morph. And here I was thinking of bailing out? What was the matter with me? I couldn't leave. Leave Tobias living in the forest? Leave

  my best friend Cassie to fight, maybe to die, so I could cut and run? Leave Jake and Marco and Ax? Why? Because my dad was lonely and I could take gymnastics classes? less-than Rachel? You okay8greater-than No. I wasn't okay. I felt sick. What was the matter with me? I couldn't leave. I couldn't give up. less-than Me? Of course I'm okayeagreater-than I lied. less-than Just the same, I think I will go get myself some firepower. It's time for Yeerk Pool Two: Animorphs' Re venge, right8greater-than less-than like don't know. It looks like I'll be sitting out this battleeagreater-than Tobias said. less-than Don't worryeagreater-than I said. less-than l'll get a Hork-Bajir for you. greater-than less-than You're okay? Really? It seemed like you were upset. greater-than less-than Tobias, I am more than okay. Gotta go. greater-than less-than Rachel, go homeeagreater-than Tobias advised. I opened my wings and beat them powerfully, sliding through the dead air of night. But I did not go home. I flew around a while, trying to get a grip on the confusion in my head. But I couldn't. And I couldn't go home yet. I knew I would just lay there in bed, eyes wide open. I turned and headed south. From the air, The Gardens looks very different than it does from the ground. The roller coaster doesn't look nearly as tall or scary. And flying above the zoo area, you mostly just see the roofs of the various interior exhibits. The rest of it seems, at first, to be sparse woods, with cement pathways winding in and around and through, like curled ribbons. Looking closer, I could see the separate habitats. The trees and the running stream of the tiger area. The open field for the bison, separated by a tall fence from the impalas. I glided over the lions. Most were sleeping by a tree. One female was ranging around restlessly, like she was looking for something. It took a while to find the bears. I wasn't interested in the little black bears. Or the polar bears. I was looking for the grizzlies. I wanted power. There they were in a habitat of trees and rocks and a deep water-filled moat fed by a turn bling, rushing stream. There were two, a male and female pair. Both were asleep, sprawled across the rocks. The male was bigger: That's what I wanted. Big. Powerful. Fearless. If I was going back to the Yeerk pool,

  I wanted something desperately dangerous. Leave? Move out of town? Give up? No way. No way. And my dad? I would still see him when he came to town. That's what jets were for. I landed and began to morph back. To revert to my true human form. My feathers melted and ran together and became pink. My beak broke into teeth. My talons became smooth toes. My in- sides gurgled and squished and sloshed as some organs grew and others changed and others reap peared from nothing. The bear heard the sounds of my bones stretching, and the faint rustle of feathers melt ing together to become flesh. He opened one eye and looked at me without understanding or fear. He was well fed. He had been in the zoo for many years, and had all but forgotten the wari- ness of living in the wild. I was just something that smelled a little like a bird and a little like a human. I reached a trembling human hand down to touch the rough coat of the grizzly bear. His nearsighted eyes watched me. I was nothing to him. I could not hurt him. He could destroy me without bothering even to wake up fully. He was beyond fear. Beyond doubt. Beyond pain. "It must be nice," I whispered to him. I touched him and felt his power flow into me. And yet, as I absorbed his DNA and imagined myself becoming this fearless creature, I still could not forget the look in my father's eyes, or the quaver in his voice saying, "But, gee, Rachel, I think it could be okay, you know?" I could already feel the emptiness his moving would leave in my life. He could say he'd come back every other week. He could say we'd still see each other just as much. But I knew it wouldn't be that way. I could imagine him packing up to go. I could remember the screams in the Yeerk pool. I could remember Tobias trying to joke about college. Too much. Things that were small and personal, and things that were huge, all swirled together in my head. Nothing made sense. It was too much stuff. Too much fear and guilt and loneliness. Too many decisions. Too much. You know, there are days when I just don't feel brave and fearless. There are days when I just want to go to a ball game with my dad and eat popcorn and tune out everything else that's going on. Be a normal kid. But that wasn't the life I had. Not anymore.

  C The next evening, as planned, we all arrived at the mall separately. I hooked up with Cassie at the food court. "Hi. What a huge s urprise to see you here,"

  I said. "Uh-huh." We did a little act for any curious Controller who might be watching, pretending to be sur prised to see each other. I looked at my watch. "Perfect. We have fif teen minutes to wander slowly toward The Gap." "I saw Jake and Ax down playing video games," Cassie said. "Poor Jake. Ax is a little unpredictable when he's in human morph. While I was watching, he tried to eat a cigarette butt out of an ashtray." Andalites have no mouths and no sense of taste. So whenever Ax played human, he found the sense of taste extremely exciting. He would try to eat everything around him. I laughed at the image of Ax chewing on a cig arette butt. I was surprised I could laugh. This was not a mission I was looking forward to. We arrived at the store. "Marco says it's in the last dressing room," I reminded Cassie. "And we have to assume the people who work here in the store are all Con trollers. Speaking of Marco, I wonder if he made it on time?" "I'm sure he did," Cassie said. "He seems to be kind of into all this lately." "Yeah, what's that about?" I muttered. Cassie shrugged. "People change, I guess. I feel sorry for Tobias, not being able to come along. It'll tear him up. On the other hand, I'm jealous." I nodded in agreement. I was feeling hyper again. Jazzed. The way I usually did before we set out to do something dangerous. Only more so this time. I'll admit it

  - the Yeerk pool scared me. The idea of that awful place made me sick at heart. And now we were going back down there. "Time to go to the dressing room," I said. "Pick something out you want to try on." Cassie looked at me blankly. "Like what?" I rolled my eyes. Cassie cannot shop. She is shopping-impaired. "Just pretend you're me. Grab a sweater or something." I spotted Jake and Ax across the room. Ax's human morph is always a little surprising to see because it's a combination of DNA from Jake, Marco, Cassie, and me. He's a guy, but sort of pretty, andwitha definite hint of weirdness about him. I grabbed a sweater for Cassie and held it out for her. "Like I would ever wear that," she said. "It says' dry clean only."" We went to the next-to-last dressing room and closed the door behind us. "Let's do this," I said tersely. We had all decided the best way to go was in cockroach morph. The last time we'd morphed into roaches, things had not gone well. But roaches were fast, and their senses were good enough to use for our purposes. Also, they might go unnoticed. I was not looking forward to doing the roach body again. I don't like becoming anything that can be stepped on. Besides, if you think looking at a cockroach is gross, try being one. I looked at Cassie and let out a yelp. Two hugely long antennae were sprouting from her forehead. "Jeez, you could have warned me you were starting." Morphing is not some neat, sensible process where you just gradually become something else. It is much weirder than that. Different changes happen at different times. Body parts appear suddenly, other parts disappear. And the siz
es don't always match up till the end. The first change on Cassie was the sudden appearance of the antennae, which shot straight out of her forehead like two fishing poles. Then her skin started to get crispy-looking. At the same time, we were both shrinking, which feels just like falling. I mean, you see the walls shooting up, higher and higher. You see the ground rushing up at you like you're a para chutist whose chute didn't open. Unfortunately, since it was a dressing room, there were mirrors on two sides. "AAHHH!" I cried, startled by the nauseating sight of the skin of my back melting into two huge, hard, brown wings. Cassie was too far gone to say "shh," but she held one of her hands up to what was left of her lips. Just then her extra legs came popping out of her stomach, and I think I would have yelped again except that I no longer had a mouth. I heard a slurping sound as the last of my bones dissolved, and I sagged into my exoskeleton. My clothing was piled around me like a huge collapsed tent. Human sight was gone now. What I could see was vague and muddy and shattered into a thou sand pieces. But I'd had practice being a roach. I could make some sense of the roach's confusing way of seeing. And there were compensations. The antennae that had sprouted from my head were amazingly good at reading vibrations and smells. less-than You okay8greater-than I asked Cassie. less-than l'm trapped under my own jeanseagreater-than she said. less-than No, wait. There. I'm out. greater-than less-than like see yeagreater-than I said. less-than Yikes! Look out! There are pins all over the carpet. greater-than The straight pins were steel shafts that looked as big around as the crossbar of a swing set. The sharp ends didn't seem very sharp at this size. And the blunt ends were like big steel beach balls. less-than 0kay, let's get out of the wayeagreater-than I said. We scurried on our six legs over to a corner underneath the small triangular seat. less-than Man, this roach brain really wants to runeagreater-than Cassie said. less-than Tell me about xeagreater-than I agreed. When you first morph an animal, it is almost always a struggle to adjust to its particular instincts. We had morphed roaches before, so we were prepared, but the first time I had become a roach it was all I could do to control the panic. Even now, the roach's jumpy instincts were barely under control. "Run!" it said. "Run!" I heard loud, crashing vibrations. Something huge moved over our heads. I couldn't see well enough to recognize him, but a few seconds later he began to morph down into our world. less-than Who is t8greater-than I asked. less-than Me, Marco. What, you don't recognize me8greater-than After that came Ax, who had to morph back into his Andalite body and then into a roach. Jake grabbed all the clothing we had shed, stuffed it into a bag, and took it away to store in one of the coin lockers out in the mall. Then he came back and morphed into his own cockroach form. His own outer clothing would be sacrificed, left in the dressing room. That would look strange, but not as strange as five separate sets of clothing. less-than 0kay, boys, girls, and bugseagreater-than Marco said, less-than this has taken about fifteen minutes, which means we are already down to an hour and forty- five minutes in morph. And this is NOT a morph

  I want to be stuck in. greater-than less-than Amen. Let's move oueagreater-than Jake said. We scampered like a very tiny, very gross army beneath the divider that separated us from the next dressing room. This was the dressing room Marco believed led to the Yeerk pool. less-than We can hide up under the seateagreater-than I said. One of the cooler parts of being a roach is the ability to walk right up most walls. We shot up the wall and cowered beneath the roof formed by the little triangular seat. I rested, facing straight up on the wall. Tiny spines at the end of my legs gripped the small bumps of the painted wall. I could see two of the others just above me, parked like low-slung tobacco-brown cars. Their antennae waved around, just as mine did, picking up scents, feeling vibra tions. And then, quite suddenly, it happened. The door of the dressing room opened. A shape so tall, it might as well have been a skyscraper, came into the room. less-than We have companyeagreater-than Marco announced. As if we hadn't noticed. As if our little roach brains weren't screaming at us, "Run! Run! Run!" Then, I heard a soft snap. The mirror on the back wall of the dressing room swung open. I felt an assault of damp air, rich with a mineral scent. I had smelled that aroma before. Memories came rushing into my head. Memories I wished I could forget. less-than Let's gffgreater-than Jake yelled. We tore down the wall, hit the carpet, and blazed for the doorway. The feet of the Controller were just ahead of us, monstrous building-sized shoes that lifted and swung ahead, disappearing from sight. In we went after the Controller. The door closed behind us. less-than We're ineagreater-than Jake said. less-than 0h, goodyeagreater-than Marco replied. Down into the Yeerk pool. The very last place I ever wanted to go again. The first time we went to the Yeerk pool corn plex, we had taken an incredibly long stairway. This time it was more of a ramp. It wound downward at an easy angle, no worse than walking down a driveway. And to our roach bodies, which barely experienced gravity, it was like walking on level ground. Under our scampering feet there was bare dirt, covered by footprints. We climbed in and out of depressions that seemed to be several feet deep, by our cockroach standards. We let the Controller pull away from us, even though we could have moved as fast as he was. No point in taking the risk of getting stepped on. It was dark all around, with only an occasional bare electric bulb, high, high overhead like some dim sun. Still, we wanted to be careful not to be seen. My antennae were tuned in for any vi bration that might be another Controller on the path. Down, down we went, curving and twisting between rock walls. less-than Ax, how are we doing on time8greater-than Jake asked. Ax has the ability to keep perfect track of time, even without a watch. It's a very useful talent. less-than Twenty-eight of your minutes have passed since Cassie and Rachel entered morph. greater-than less-than You know, Ax, they're your minutes now, tooeagreater-than Marco said, just to make conversation. less-than like mean, we are all here together on good old Earth where we only have one type of minute. greater-than We had two hours total in any morph. At two hours and one minute, we would be st uck. Like Tobias. And this was one time I actually agreed with Marco. I was not interested in being a roach forever. less-than Stairs up aheadeagreater-than Cassie reported. Over, down. Over, down. Over, down. Seventy- five steps. At last we sensed that the walls were no longer hemming us in. The path had emerged into the cavern itself. Our roach "eyes" could not see it, but I remembered the first time I had looked down on the Yeerk pool. It was a vast underground cavern. Larger than one of those big sports domes. The stairways and paths emerged from all sides, right about where the upper tier of seats would have been in a sports dome. In the center of the area was the pool itself, a sludgy, muddy-looking lake that seemed to seethe with the mass of Yeerk slugs in it. But that was not the worst of it. Two piers were built out over the lake. One was where the Controllers