The Message Page 9
I shook my head slowly. “I’m still not sure it’s right. But I guess we don’t have much of a choice. The Yeerks started this fight, not us. And after what Ax said … I guess it’s not just about one species, human beings. It’s about all the animals. It’s about all of Earth.”
Jake nodded. “I think if you could ask the dolphins, they would say it’s all right to use them. Since what you’re trying to do is save them.”
“Nah, they would just think it was all a big game. They would never understand.”
We both laughed. Even if they could talk, the dolphins would never really understand what we were so upset about. We knew that better than anyone.
“I guess that’s true,” Jake said. “But we do understand.” He met my gaze. “We do understand what’s at stake. And we’ll do whatever we have to do to win.”
I knew what he was trying to tell me. We’d used the dolphins to save them. We’d used other animals to save them, too. And that made it okay.
CHAPTER 24
We morphed once more into our dolphin bodies and swam down the river to the place where we had entered the water. We beached ourselves in shallow water and returned to our human bodies.
“It feels good to be human again,” Jake said.
Marco said, “Oh, Jake, you were never exactly human to begin with.”
I guess it was funny, but we were all too tired to laugh.
We dug our clothes and shoes out of their hiding place. I pulled jeans and a sweatshirt on over my wet morphing suit. I shoved muddy feet into my boots.
“It’s clothing,” Rachel explained.
“Yes. That, plus the fact that people get very upset if you walk around naked,” Marco answered.
There was a fluttering overhead. One of the shadowed branches dipped with a sudden weight.
“Is that you, Tobias?” I asked.
“Yes. Tobias, meet Ax. That’s his nickname, anyway. Ax, meet Tobias. Tobias is one of us.”
The Andalite was shocked.
Ax turned his eyes on me, then looked from each one of us to the next. He seemed very solemn.
“This is all fine,” Jake interrupted, “but we have to get out of here. And we have to decide what to do with Ax. He can’t exactly just go walking through town with us.”
“I think he should come to my farm,” I said. “It’s not so different from the Dome ship. Fields, meadows, woods, all the way into the national forest land. He’d have to be careful, but it’s the only place we have to hide him.”
“That still doesn’t deal with how we’re going to get him there,” Marco pointed out. “It’s a long walk. People are gonna notice a big blue deer with extra eyes and a scorpion tail.”
Ax said.
“Yeah, but into what?” Rachel wondered.
Then, to my surprise, Ax walked over to me. He placed one delicate, many-fingered hand on my face.
I felt myself getting spacey. Not sleepy, exactly, but sort of like I was in a trance.
I realized what he was doing. He was “acquiring” me. He was absorbing my DNA.
“Um … excuse me, but you’re going to morph Cassie?” Marco asked. “Can you do that?”
Ax went to Marco and touched his face. One by one, Ax acquired each of us.
And then he began to morph.
I’ve seen a lot of strange morphings. But nothing was ever like this. Ax wasn’t becoming an animal. He was becoming a human being.
But a human being we all knew, in some ways. A melding of the four human Animorphs.
His front legs began to shrivel away. His back legs thickened and strengthened. Suddenly a mouth appeared in his Andalite face.
The scorpion tail shrank and disappeared.
He reared up and stood erect.
“Um, you know, I think we better give Ax some privacy,” I suggested.
“Is he going to be a boy or a girl?” Marco wondered.
“Either way, let’s turn our heads,” I said.
We did. Probably just in time.
“Hey, Ax? In the pile of clothes there is an extra pair of boxers and a T-shirt,” Jake said. “Put them on, okay?”
A few minutes later we turned around. We all stared.
Ax had the T-shirt pulled up like a baggy pair of shorts. The boxers were on his head.
“O-o-o-o-kay,” Jake said. “A few small adjustments needed. Ax, are you male or female?”
“I chose to be-be-be-be-be male.” He stopped suddenly, eyes wide. He was surprised by his mouth. It was not something Andalites understood.
“I chose male because I am male. Word. Male. Is that a good choice? Ch-oy-ce? Chuh chuh choy-yuss?” He twisted his lips around and stuck out his tongue. “Strange,” he said.
“Male is fine,” Jake said. “Rachel? Cassie? Turn around. Marco and I will help Ax adjust his clothing.”
When I looked again, Ax was dressed normally.
But he did not look normal. He was of medium height, a perfect balance between Rachel and Marco. He was of medium build, somewhere between Jake and Marco. His hair was brown, with just a little of Rachel’s gold and a little of my curl. His skin was the color of light brown sugar, a blending of my brown and Marco’s olive, and Jake’s and Rachel’s pale white.
He was human and yet, somehow, strange.
He jerked his head this way and that. “How do you look? Lookuh. LooKUH. KUH. How do you look around? Ound. Ow, ow, ownd behind?”
I grinned. It was exactly like every time I first morphed a new animal. He was getting used to his new body. Or at least trying to. As I watched him play with his lips and try out new sounds, he suddenly tumbled forward.
Jake grabbed him and held him.
“You only have two legs now, Ax,” he said. “Yes. Two. Oo. Very shaky.” “Yeah, we’re a shaky species,” Marco said. “Well, let’s get out of here,” Jake said. “Ax?” I said. “Don’t talk to any strangers on the way home, okay?”
CHAPTER 25
It was a couple of days later. After we had recovered. After I had made sure that Ax was safe in the far fields of our farm, away from curious eyes.
I waited till dark, and changed again into the seagull morph.
I flew out of my barn and through the night to The Gardens.
It was closed and empty, aside from a few scattered security guards. They would have stopped me if I had tried to enter normally. But no one was looking out for seagulls.
I landed near the dolphin tank and became human again. There were no lights on and just a sliver of moon, but I could hear the dolphins swimming. One came over to me, curious about why a human would be hanging around at night.
“Hi,” I said. “Sorry, I don’t have any food for you.”
Then I climbed up on the side of the tank. I let myself go, slipping into the cool water.
Three of the dolphins came over to take a look. This was definitely something unusual. Some strange human was getting in the pool with them. This was a new game.
I began to morph.
This definitely got their attention. All six dolphins swam around, looking up at me, sideways at me, back at me as they passed.
And slowly I became one of them.
It was a dumb thing to do, really. I knew it was dumb. But it felt like something I had to do.
I wanted to show them what I had done. I wanted their permission to become one of them. I wanted to find some way to
tell them … everything.
But you know, once I was in that dolphin body again, it was hard to remember all my solemn worries. It was hard to remember why I had come.
Hard to remember fear and worry and guilt.
One of them came over, gave me a nudge, then shot toward the surface. She exploded into the air and fell back, as silent and smooth as an arrow. They were asking me to play. They were asking me to dance with them. And so I did.
Don’t miss
ANIMORPHS™ #05
THE
PREDATOR
I guess I kind of zoned out for a while. I didn’t know for how long, until I became suddenly alert and heard Ax’s drowsy voice in my head saying,
That jolted me. I was not about to spend the rest of my life trapped as a lobster.
I focused on demorphing. I wondered if I could close my human eyes when Jake started to reappear. I really did not want to watch Jake and Ax demorph. Once had been enough. I would already have nightmares for a month.
And suddenly I felt a warmth billowing up around me.
Steam.
ANIMORPHS™
THE INVASION
THE VISITOR
THE ENCOUNTER
THE MESSAGE
Copyright
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Copyright © 1996 by Katherine Applegate
Cover art by Craig White
Cover design by Steve Scott
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This edition first printing, September 2011
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