The Departure Read online

  I pushed further, harder. And little by little, I emerged from the chrysalis.

  149 Then, at last, I unfolded my wings. They were limp and damp at first, but I held them out to dry and harden.

  They were made up of millions of tiny scales, almost like the skin of a reptile. But these scales glittered with color.

  It was funny, I suppose, because I was seeing color the way a butterfly does, which is very different from human sight. To my fractured, compound eyes, I seemed to be a dazzling ultraviolet and red. But human eyes would see me quite differently.

  Where my mouth should have been, there was a long, coiled proboscis. My life's work would be to flit from one beautiful, glowing flower to the next. To uncoil my proboscis and drink nectar from the heart of the flower. And, as if by accident, carry grains of pollen to the next flower.

  I had been a caterpillar. Now I was a butterfly. I had eyes. I had wings. I would not live out my life as a slug.

  Had I cheated Aftran the Yeerk? Had Karen known about caterpillars and butterflies? Maybe not. In which case Aftran would not have known, either.

  I could almost have been happy. But now, awake again, alert, aware, all my human memories came rushing back.

  How long had I been this way? What awful

  150 agony would my parents have endured? And my friends, did they even know?

  I tested my wings. Sunlight had dried them.

  I was what I was. A butterfly. I would live a short life in a world of flowers.

  I wanted to cry, but my butterfly instincts told me I had work to do. Flowers, loaded with pollen, waited for me to help them live.

  151

  Jake

  I was sitting in science class, listening to some hopelessly complicated lecture about fungus when I saw the familiar flash of brown and tan shoot past the window.

  «Jake! Jake! She's coming out!» Tobias said.

  "I thought it was supposed to take at least ten days!" I said. The teacher stared at me. So did most of the class, those that were awake.

  "Sorry," I said. "I ... um ... I'm not feeling too well. Permission to go to the nurse?"

  "Wait till the end of class."

  "But I have to hurl!" I cried, and ran for the door. No one argues when you say you have to hurl. They just get out of your way.

  Seconds later, Rachel got sick, too. She also

  152 had to hurl. Then Marco left the classroom he was in. Marco, being Marco, told his teacher he had to rush out to put on one of those Nicoderm patches. "I'm trying to break the smoking habit!" he yelled. "Don't stop me!"

  Twenty minutes later, we were all assembled around the little flower garden behind Cassie's house. That's where we'd moved the chrysalis. It had been hanging from its transplanted plant, amid the flowers, with Tobias staying nearby, day and night, to protect it from predators.

  Cassie's parents didn't know, of course. Three days had gone by. They were still hopeful that she'd be found. I didn't know what to tell them. Or when. Or whether I should just let them go on hoping.

  We gathered around the chrysalis, which was split wide open. The butterfly emerged, little by little. Then, at last, it spread its beautiful wings.

  "It was supposed to take a couple of weeks," I said.

  «Cassie always was the fastest morpher,» Tobias pointed out.

  Rachel was crying, which is a disturbing sight because Rachel doesn't cry. I guess I was, too.

  "She's a butterfly," Rachel said. "She made it. At least now she'll ..."

  She broke down. It was nice that Cassie was a butterfly instead of a caterpillar. But it wasn't

  153 anything to celebrate. Not to us. Not to her parents.

  Ax arrived in human morph, trotting a little erratically on his two legs. He bent over and looked closely at the butterfly, just testing its wings. "What is that?"

  "It's Cassie," I said. "Emerging from the chrysalis."

  Ax looked puzzled. "But this is not at all the body she had."

  "No, that's what happens," Marco explained. "The caterpillar becomes the butterfly."

  Suddenly, the butterfly simply took off. It fluttered away, off across the flowers, like it was shopping for just the right one.

  "Naturally-occurring morphing?" Ax asked quizzically. "You didn't tell me."

  "I guess it is natural morphing," I said. "And I guess it's better to live your life as a butterfly than as a caterpillar."

  "Would Cassie prefer being this creature to being human again?" Ax asked. "Creee-cher. Cuh-ree-ture."

  Rachel sighed. "No, Ax, of course not. We're just saying that this is better than her only other choice. Better to be a butterfly than a caterpillar."

  "Ah. I see," Ax said. "But maybe she would like to demorph now."

  154 "I'm sure she would," Marco said grimly.

  "Then she should," Ax said.

  Slowly, one by one, we all turned our eyes to stare at him. Rachel did a little more. She jumped up, grabbed him by the collar and said, "Are you jerking my chain, or do you have something to say?"

  Ax seemed a little surprised, to put it mildly. But he said, "Oh, I see. You didn't realize. Zuh. Re-uh-liiii-zuh. A very complicated word, 'realize.' And the 'z' sound makes my human mouth-parts tickle."

  "Ax! Are you saying Cassie can morph?!" I demanded.

  "I believe so," he said. "This naturally-occurring morph should reset the morphing clock. She has two hours to demorph."

  "GET! THAT! BUTTERFLY!" I yelled.

  155

  Cassie

  I had to lie to my parents. I stuck to the truth as much as I could. I mean, I told them about falling in the river. I just left out Karen. And I told them I'd survived for three days eating mushrooms.

  I was on the news. And in the newspaper. The headline was "Girl Survives Ordeal Eating Mushrooms."

  I thought that was kind of funny. Like the ordeal was mushrooms.

  I was interviewed a lot. And I was hugged a lot. For a couple of days my parents wouldn't let go of me. Which was fine with me.

  But finally, at last, my life started to get back to normal. Normal, except for the fact that each

  156 day I woke up wondering: Would this be the day the Yeerks would take me? Would this be the day my friends and I would be made into Controllers?

  But days went by and there were no sudden attacks. At school, Chapman, the assistant principal and a major Controller, ignored me like he always did. Jake's brother, Tom, just made some crack about me and mushrooms, but that was it.

  No attack.

  And then, my dad came home, snapping his fingers and giggling. He lifted me up and twirled me around into a really bad dance. Probably the Frug or the Twist or whatever.

  "We're saved!" he said.

  "Ooookay," I said.

  "No, we got funding! We got funding! The Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic is open for business again, and back better than ever."

  "Noway!" I screamed.

  "Yeah. It was weird. Suddenly this guy from UniBank calls up and says his daughter had heard about the clinic. He says she's been bugging him to contribute enough money to keep us open. The man actually said, 'So, tell me what you need so my little girl will be happy.' So I did. And he's sending the check over."

  He laughed. "A good week, huh?" Then he hugged me like he'd been doing every eight minutes

  157 since I'd come back. "Wonder who that little girl is? We owe her big."

  I knew the little girl's name, of course. Karen. Karen, who had been made into a Controller to keep tabs on her father, the president of Uni-Bank.

  But I, too, wondered who she was. All I knew for sure was that she had not given us up to her fellow Yeerks.

  Another week went by before I was sure. I was in the mall -with Rachel, of course. Since being a butterfly, I'd become more interested in colors. Rachel decided this meant I should have all new clothes. So she was dragging me from store to store, attempting to get me to understand the concept of accessorizing.

  And that's when I saw h
er, standing off by herself, just a little distance from the woman who must have been her mother.

  I went over to her, leaving Rachel in the midst of some sweaters.

  "Hi, Karen," I said.

  "Hi, Cassie," she said.

  "How are you?"

  She looked at me with those familiar green eyes and said, "I'm free, Cassie. She kept her promise. I'm free."

  I couldn't say anything. Words wouldn't come

  158 out. I just knelt down and gave the little girl a hug.

  One small victory. One girl free. One connection made with one of our enemies.

  A very small peace.

  "She would be glad you escaped," Karen said. "She tried to stop you at the very end."

  I nodded, wordless still.

  Her mother came and got her then. Karen disappeared, a little girl carrying a huge secret, her mind filled with things no little kid should know.

  Kind of like me, I realized. Kind of like all the Animorphs.

  Was I still an Animorph?

  Yes.

  It meant I would have to fight sometimes. But being an Animorph might also let me find other small victories for peace. Amid all the conflict and fear and rage, I could still look for the enemy who might become a friend.

  It wasn't a perfect answer, but it was the best I could do.

  "So?" Rachel demanded, holding up two sweaters. "Which one do you like? The green or the red?"

  I thought of Aftran, the enemy. I thought of her swimming blind in the Yeerk pool, with only her memories of a brighter world. She'd told me

  159 that humans live in paradise. She'd turned her back on paradise to make a small peace.

  "Both, Rachel. And I like the blue. And the yellow. And that gross color there. And the stripes. We live in paradise, Rachel, and we don't even know it. And we don't know when it might end. We'd have to be fools not to enjoy it while we can. So, whip out your credit card, girl, we're adding some color!"

  160 Don't; miss

  Animorphs

  #20 The Discovery

  We moved David from my house to Jake's house. We didn't have any idea what to do with him long-term. He couldn't go home. He couldn't go anywhere. He was a hunted person. And we could not allow him to be caught. Not with what he knew.

  The day after he witnessed his father as a Controller, we assembled in the woods. Cassie's dad was working in the barn. Even though it was still chilly out and the sky was filled with clouds, we were tramping along, clutching our sweatshirts and jackets closed with one hand.

  With the other hand we were carrying a large, divided wire cage. We'd passed poles through, front to back, one on each side. Cassie, Jake, Rachel, and I each had a pole-end. David walked alongside, a little off by himself. Tobias and Ax were in the woods.

  161 In the cages were two big birds of prey: a merlin and a golden eagle. The merlin was about a quarter of the size of the eagle. The eagle was one big bird. And heavy. My carrying arm was straining.

  Both birds had been patients of Cassie and her dad. Both were going to be released.

  Tobias came swooping down, seemingly out of the clouds. He landed with easy precision on a small log.

  «What are you doing with that?» he demanded, glaring at the eagle.

  "Relax, relax, Tobias," Cassie said, setting down the cage.

  «You're not releasing him near my territory,» he said flatly.

  "Tobias, this bird has only been at the center for a couple of days. He has a well-established territory well back in the mountains. You know golden eagles don't like roosting in trees if they can find a nice cliff. So he won't be hanging around. But we can't get him any closer to his territory, really, because the road back up there washed out."

  Tobias stared fiercely at her. But then, Tobias always looks fierce. That hawk face never looks exactly happy or relaxed.

  He switched his gaze to David, then to Jake. It was a clear, unspoken question.

  162 "David's here to acquire his first morph. The merlin."

  "Which one's the merlin?" David asked.

  "The smaller bird," Cassie said. "They're very fast, very agile," she added helpfully.

  "Faster than the big one?" David asked.

  «You don't want to be a golden eagle,» Tobias said. «They're jerks. They go after other birds. Not to mention anything from a rabbit to a small deer. And I'm not kidding about the deer. I saw a golden eagle take down a young doe. Sank those talons right into the back of her head, boom, she went down like she'd been shot»

  "I want to do the eagle," David said.

  A moment's hesitation. "Any special reason?" Jake asked.

  "Yeah. You tell me I have no home. No family. Now I'm supposed to be in the middle of some war with aliens. If I'm in a war, I want to kick butt."

  Jake nodded. "It isn't always about sheer power. That golden eagle is as big as a bald eagle, and we have problems sometimes with Rachel being a bald eagle because of the size."

  "That bird has a seven-foot wingspan," Cassie pointed out.

  David nodded and looked down at the leaves and grass underfoot. "Did Jake here tell you all what animals to morph? Or did you pick them yourselves?"

  163 "I'm not telling you what animal to morph," Jake said calmly. But it was that calm voice Jake uses when he's actually starting to get mad.

  "Okay, then I'll morph the eagle," David insisted.

  "Here's an idea," I said. "How about not being such a jerk? We saved you from the Yeerks. We've been doing this for a while, all right? We know what we're talking about. And Jake is the leader of this little group, so how about if you show some respect?"

  "What are you, my father?" David sneered. "You don't tell me what to do. No one tells me what to do. As for saving me, hah! That's a joke. You wanted the blue box, and now you have it, and you know what I have? Nothing. That's what I have, nothing. So thanks."

  I don't know what I'd expected from David. I couldn't be a hypocrite. I wasn't thrilled about being an Animorph at first, either. I didn't care about saving the world then. I just cared about my dad not getting hurt anymore. And I guess I didn't really accept it all till I discovered my mother was a Controller. That's when I knew we had to fight.

  "Look, kid -" Rachel began.

  But Jake gave a little shake of his head and Rachel stopped talking and just fumed.

  164 "You guys all think you're so tough and so cool," David said. "All these battles you've been in and all. But now, here I am, the new guy - as usual for me - and you don't like me."

  "No one doesn't like you," Cassie said.

  David turned his head to stare right at me. "He doesn't. I'm not an idiot, you know. I can tell what people think about me. My family moves every couple of years whenever my dad gets transferred. I'm always the new kid in school. So I've gotten good at telling what people think of me. And now, here I am in this different school. And I'm the new kid." He shrugged. "So, look, maybe you like me, maybe you don't like me. I don't care. I'm here. If you use the blue box on me I'm one of you. But I'm not going to get pushed around. And I'm not going to be all, 'Oh, thank you, wise and wonderful Animorphs, for letting me join.' If I'm in, I'm in all the way. If not . . . I guess I'll walk away and try to figure out what to do. On my own."

  The funny thing was, I kind of liked David's little speech. I like people who push back when they get pushed. I liked the speech. I liked the attitude. I still didn't like David.

  But Rachel laughed out loud. "Oh, he'll fit in fine."

  Jake looked at Tobias. "Where's Ax?"

  165 «Can't you hear him? You people are so deaf. He's galloping, should appear right about. . . there.»

  Ax sprang lightly into view. «l am sorry to be late,» he said. «l had to go out of my way to avoid some human campers. Are we going ahead with the Escafil Device?»

  Jake hesitated, just a split second before saying, "Yes."

  Rachel had been carrying the blue box in a waist pouch. She unzipped the pouch, popped the box out, and tossed it to Ax. Ax
missed the catch. Andalite hands are weak and slow. But before the box could hit the ground, Ax whipped his tail forward, turned the blade flat, and caught the box. He raised the box to his hands.

  «Press your hand on the square nearest to you,» Ax said.

  "Wait! Shouldn't there be some kind of ceremony or something?" Cassie said.

  "Like what?" I asked. "You want us all to join hands and sing 'The Star-Spangled Banner'?"

  "No, I don't know all the words," Cassie said. With a sly grin she added, "We could sing 'M MM Bop.'"

  We all laughed. Even David.

  Ax held out the cube in one hand. David stepped forward, still obviously a little intimidated 166 by Ax. He pressed his hand down on the cube.

  "It tingles," David said.

  Suddenly I was back in that dark construction site. Back with Jake and Rachel and Cassie, with a human Tobias and a dying Elfangor.

  I barely recognized the person I'd been back then. I had changed. Everything had changed that night.

  Now David, another kid not very different from any of us, had been dragged into this nightmare reality of great power and greater fear.

  Maybe I didn't like him. But I felt sorry for him.

  I stepped up to him and stuck out my hand. He took it. "Welcome to the Animorphs, new boy."