The Conspiracy Read online

"That's because you got to eat like a pig," Rachel said.

  They were trying too hard.

  "Where's Marco?" I said.

  Cassie shrugged. "He didn't know if you'd want to see him right away. Thought you might need some time to calm down or whatever."

  "Come on out, Marco."

  He stepped into view from behind a tree. He looked a little leery. Which, given the way I'd treated him was not surprising.

  "Hey, Big Jake."

  "Marco. This had to be your plan."

  "Pretty much."

  "Yeah. Well. Good plan."

  "Thanks. Couldn't have done it without the Chee," Marco said, shrugging like it was nothing. "They're the ones who piloted the medevac helicopter and insisted on taking Tom back home. Without them, all we would have had was a kid with a busted leg out in the middle of the woods."

  "Tom's back home. Alive. My dad's alive. Crisis past. I should have thought of it myself. Tom, injured, had the perfect excuse for not coming on this trip. I should have seen that."

  133 Marco shrugged. "Yeah, well . . ."

  "I was too close to it," I said. "You were right. I was too close to see things clearly."

  Marco didn't argue. He didn't gloat, either. I guess we each have our strengths and weaknesses. Marco's strength is the ability to see the way to the goal, even when it means disregarding consequences and feelings and basic right and wrong.

  He'd seen this solution when I missed it.

  I took Marco's arm and drew him away from the others. To where they wouldn't hear.

  "You're my best friend, Marco. If you ever again tell me I'm losing it, getting too involved, can't lead -"

  "You'll kick my butt?" he interrupted with a grin.

  "No. I'll listen. I'll listen. Then I'll kick your butt."

  He laughed. I laughed. What can I say? Marco and I have been friends forever.

  We started to rejoin the others. I stopped him. "Marco?"

  "What?"

  "This whole plan worked because Tom came outside and made himself vulnerable. What would have happened if he hadn't?"

  Marco didn't look at me.

  "You had to keep me from blowing it at all

  134 costs," I pressed. "You had to preserve the security of the group and keep me alive. Those were your top priorities."

  He nodded.

  "So, what if you hadn't been in time? What if Tom had managed to kill my father?"

  "It was pretty clear, after I thought about it, that if Tom killed your father you'd lose it," Marco said coolly. "Like a chess game: Tom takes your father, you take Tom. You'd have gone after Tom, exposing yourself and us. Game over. So we couldn't let that happen. Your dad had to survive for you to survive. The one expendable piece was Tom. But if anything was going to happen to Tom it would have to look natural, not like an Ani-morph had been involved, and not like you had been involved. It would have to be done very carefully. So, if it came down to that -"

  "No," I said softly. I shook my head. I didn't want to know.

  For a while neither of us said anything. I just let it sink in.

  You know what Marco and I used to talk about? Whether Batman could beat Spiderman. Whether Sega was better than Nintendo. Whether some girl would rather go out with him or me.

  And now . . .

  136 "What are we, anymore, Marco? What has happened to us?"

  He didn't answer. I didn't expect him to. We both knew what had happened.

  "I better get back inside," I said.

  "Yeah. And we need to head home. We hitched a ride on a cattle car getting here. We're hoping for something less fragrant for the return trip."

  I went back toward the cabin.

  135

  My mom was back the next day. It was Sunday, the day for Grandpa G's wake and then we had his funeral on Monday.

  The local VFW chapter came and brought a bugler, who played a slow, mournful taps.

  The other old soldiers took the folded American flag off the casket and gave it to my grandmother, Grandpa G's daughter.

  She and the worn, grizzled men looked at each other for a long, quiet moment as if sharing a memory, a lifetime of experiences only they could understand.

  I understood it, though.

  Maybe not their war, but ours. Because now we're the ones out on the battle lines. The ones

  137 who fight and bleed, succeed and fail, win and lose.

  We're the ones with the nightmares and the old souls.

  I know what Grandpa G meant now.

  He only talked about the war twice, at least to me. Once, when he opened his footlocker. And the other, that day, long ago, when we'd sat on the dock.

  When my war ends, if I survive, I probably won't talk about it much, either.

  As far as experiences go, once will be enough.

  We each laid a rose on the casket as we left.

  It wasn't a big funeral, but everyone there cried. Anyway, I did.

  When we got back to the cabin we called the hospital and talked to Tom. He was doing fine.

  Everything was back the way it had been. My brother still lived. So did the enemy inside him. It had all been a pointless battle. No one had wanted it, no one had profited. Everyone had suffered: Chapman, Ax, Tom, Marco, and some guy who just wanted his parking space back. And me.

  But we'd all survived, and in war any time you wake up to see the sunrise it's a victory.

  My folks and I drove home together on Tuesday.

  I sat in the front seat with my dad while my mom dozed in the back.

  138 Dad let me choose the radio station and told me for only about the ten millionth time how much better the music was "in his day." We had burgers for lunch and my mom told us both for only about the ten millionth time that we ate too much saturated fat. We pulled off to witness the "World's Largest Ball of Twine!" You know, except for all the other "World's Largest" twine balls.

  Small, simple things, but good ones.

  We talked about Grandpa G and then about other stuff.

  Normal stuff.

  The ride always seems shorter on the way home.

  Tom had dropped the Nazi dagger in the water when he'd been knocked off the pier. I guess it had sank to the bottom of the lake.

  I could have retrieved it, probably. I didn't.

  But I had Grandpa G's medals in my pocket. My grandmother had given them to me. She said Grandpa G wanted me to have them.

  I always knew he'd been a hero in the war. That he had medals and all. And I'd wondered why he didn't put them up in a display case, show them off for all the world to see.

  But I was a little wiser, now.

  Medals aren't so simple for the people who earn them. Every time Grandpa G had looked at

  139 those medals he'd thought about the things that had happened, the things he'd seen others do, the things he'd done himself.

  I know he was proud of being brave, proud of doing his best for his country. But I also know why the medals were in a pouch, in a footlocker, in an attic, kept far out of sight.

  Someday maybe there'll be medals for those who fought the war against the Yeerks.

  I'll need to buy a footlocker.

  140 Don't; miss

  J. stood up. Looked around. Not ten feet away was this guy named Bailey. I don't know if that's his first name or last name.

  "What do you want?" I demanded.

  "Nothing." He shrugged.

  I glared.

  He blushed.

  "Looking good, Rachel."

  "What?"

  "That leotard and all. You're looking good."

  I was wearing my morphing outfit. It seemed okay for a trip around the rocks.

  "Of course I look good," I snapped. "I almost always do. You have something else to say?"

  I guess that threw him. He shrugged.

  "Looking good," he repeated. "Looking real good."

  "I think we've been over that," I said. "Yes, I

  141 am good-looking. Yes, I have great hair. Yes, I have
a great body. Now go away."

  "You are so stuck-up!"

  "That's right, I am. Now you know the difference between good looks and a good personal-ity."

  He left. I waited till he was back to a group of his friends. I scanned the other direction along the shoreline. A family with two kids, two little boys. They were coming my way but I'd have time to morph before they got close.

  I began to morph.

  First I shrank. Smaller and smaller. Puddles and pools rushed up toward me. A shower of spray hit me and all of a sudden it wasn't refreshing, it was scary. The force of the water nearly knocked me off my feet.

  Which was easier to do since my feet were disappearing. My thighs grew thick. My arms thickened as well, forming chubby cones.

  Arm, arm, leg, leg. And here was the gross part: My head was morphing to become the fifth leg. It turns out starfish don't exactly have heads. They have a mouth more or less in the middle, a bunch of wiggly little feet that look like suckers, and the five big cone legs.

  That's about it for a starfish. A cockroach, by comparison, is a model of sophisticated design.

  I went blind. Totally. No eyes at all.

  142 It occurred to me to wonder how exactly I expected to find an earring when I couldn't see, but I assumed the starfish would have other compensating senses.

  Nope. Not really.

  It could feel. It could sort of smell. It could scoot around on its many tiny little feet. If it happened, mostly by accident, to crawl onto something tasty I guess it could eat it. But that was pretty much it for the starfish.

  Well, I told myself, I might be able to feel the earring.

  I motored my many little feet. Down, down, slithering down wet rock.

  «0kay, this is stupid. An unfamiliar morph in a hole in the rock. Not your brightest move, Rachel.»

  Then my foot - one of them, anyway - touched something thin and hard and round.

  Amazing! I had stumbled onto the earring. It took me another ten minutes to get my useless little mouth to grab the earring. I headed back up. At least I hoped it was up.

  I climbed up over the lip of the pool, out into relative dryness. I focused my mind on morphing and began to -

  WHAM!

  Something hit me. Hit me hard.

  The starfish didn't have much in the way of

  143 pain sensors but I still knew, the starfish knew, deep down, that it was very, very badly hurt.

  I tried to make sense of it all. But all I knew for sure was this: I had been able to count to five on my starfish legs.

  Now I could only count to two.

  I was cut in half!