Kate #1: The Discovery

Chapter One

Kate

My name is Kate. You probably don’t know my name, but you might recognize the names of my friends – Jake, Marco, Ax, Tobias, Cassie, and Rachel. And you know the drill – no last names, can’t tell you where we live. If you’re reading this, you probably know the whole Yeerk invasion thing, so I won’t bore you with a recap of all that stuff.

I was completely normal for the first thirteen years of my life. I got good grades, I played sports, my mom was a legal secretary, my dad was a veterinarian, and I was an only child, so I guess I was probably kinda spoiled. Then, when I was thirteen, I was diagnosed with cancer – leukemia. I finally went into remission after six horrendous months of chemotherapy and radiation that made my waist length brown hair fall out and took thirty pounds off my formerly athletic frame. Another result of my cancer was that my parents went from we-live-in-a-big-city-so-you-have-to-be-careful overprotective to you-might-drop-dead-any-minute overprotective. Which was ridiculous. But they couldn’t be convinced that it was safe for me to do anything by myself, and they began to think that the pollution in the city would kill me. So about two months after I got out of the hospital, we moved to a new town. I really didn’t have a problem with this, except for the irrational reasons behind the decision, because my friends had started acting weird after I got sick. Even my best friend, Jessie, acted like I had the plague or something. So I wasn’t as against leaving as I appeared to be.

The new town was about three hundred miles from the city where I had lived. It was much smaller, with, as my mother repeatedly pointed out, much cleaner air. It also had one of the best cancer centers in the country, a fact that my parents didn’t point out, but which I knew was in the back of their minds. For some reason, my parents bought a farmhouse about a mile from the suburbs of town, bordering the edge of a national forest. It’s actually a very cool house, old with big rooms and sloped ceilings, but it’s a big change from the apartment I’ve lived in all my life. There’s a field in the back that used to be used as a pasture, but my parents vetoed the idea of a horse, suggesting I look into getting a cat instead.

The first day we arrived, a group of kids about my age wandered down from the next house. There were four of them – a big brown haired boy, a tall blond girl, a short Latino boy, and a very short African-American girl.

"Hi!" called the short girl. "I live in the house over there." She pointed to the farmhouse on the right. It appeared to be a working farm. I’d spied three horses there when I was out wandering in the field. "I’m Cassie," she added.

"I’m Jake," the tall boy said.

"And I’m his cousin, Rachel," said the tall girl. She was very pretty, with long blond hair. I watched her jealously. I had looked like that eight months ago, only a little darker. Now I was skin and bones.

"And I, the cute, smart, funny one in our group, am Marco," chimed in the short Latino kid. He had laughing, mocking eyes.

"Hi. I’m Kate," I answered. I self-consciously touched my very short hair. In two months it had grown to just over the tops of my ears. It didn’t look bad, but I missed the feeling of it swishing on my back.

"So, where are you from?" asked Rachel.

"Big city," I answered. Not really, but I can’t tell you where I’m from. It’d be bad for security. I walked down the driveway until I was standing with them.

"Ah, you’re a city girl, huh? Well, you’ll be bored here," Marco laughed. "No excitement whatsoever." He grinned at Jake as he said that and Jake smiled faintly. I noticed that Jake had a serious look, sort of an aura, about him, as if life had handed him a burden. I probably seem the same way, since I was diagnosed.

"Maybe," I replied evasively. "What’s there to do?"

"The mall’s always good. Do you like to shop?" asked Rachel, smiling.

"Rachel, Rachel, Rachel. Is that all you ever think about?" Cassie asked, shaking her head.

I smiled. "Sometimes," I said, answering Rachel’s question.

"Great. What else do you like?" Rachel asked.

"Um, sports. And I used to help my dad out in his office."

"What’s he do?" asked Jake.

"He’s a veterinarian," I replied.

"Oh!" Cassie cried. "He must be the new guy at the Gardens. My mom’s head vet there. Hey, my dad runs the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic out of our barn. If you ever want to help out, I’m sure you’d be welcome."

"Thanks, that might be fun. Yeah, I think my dad mentioned the Gardens. What is that?"

"It’s sort of a zoo and an amusement park rolled into one," Marco said.

"Well," said Cassie, checking her watch, "I have to go. It was nice to meet you, Kate."

"Nice to meet you, too," I answered. They left and I watched them walk off. Maybe this town would be okay.

Chapter Two

Kate

My first day of school was a Friday. Why my parents even bothered sending me, I don’t know, but they did. I got through the morning without much trouble. I was happy to see that I had history with Rachel, English and PE with Cassie, and Spanish with Jake. Thanks to them, I didn’t get too lost. At lunch time, I wandered aimlessly through the cafeteria with my tray of unidentifiable slop, looking for a place to sit.

"Kate! Hey, Kate! Yo, Katy!" I spun around, looking for the guy yelling my name. "Over here!" I finally spied Marco sitting with Jake. Marco was standing up, grinning, and waving frantically at me. I smiled wanly, embarrassed, but went over anyway.

"So how’s your first day been?" asked Jake.

"Fine. Um, is there, like, a menu or something that helps you identify this stuff?" I poked at the gray gook on my plate. It was noodles and a sauce with chunks of something in it. There might have been meat, but I wasn’t sure. A few stray pieces of cheese decorated the top. I was used to hospital food, but this was much worse.

"This is . . ." Jake stood up to read the menu posted behind the lunch counter. "This is chicken divan."

"No, it’s not," Marco joked. "It’s those gym socks I lost last month. They figured we wouldn’t notice the difference."

"Okaaaaay." I had lost my appetite. Jake and Marco didn’t seem to be fazed by the fact that they couldn’t identify their lunches without consulting the board above the counter. For awhile I just watched them eat.

When he was done, Marco looked at me and asked, "A bunch of us are going to the mall tonight to see that new horror movie. You wanna come?"

I did (I love horror movies) – but I had my first appointment with my new doctor (my oncologist – cancer doctor) that afternoon. I was going to have a spinal tap (which gives me an awful headache) and chemo (which makes me throw up), so there was no way I was going to be in any shape to go to the arcade.

"Thanks, but I can’t. I have an appointment. Maybe some other time, though," I answered.

"Okay, sure." Just then the bell rang. "What’s your next class?"

I consulted the little card that had all my classes on it. "Bio, room 304. Then I have algebra in 211."

"Hey, we have biology class together. I’ll walk you. And algebra’s the advanced math class, right?" I nodded. "Rachel has that. Bye, Jake." Marco called over his shoulder.

"Seven o’clock, remember," Jake reminded Marco as we separated.

That night, as I lay in bed trying not to throw up, the phone rang. My mom answered it in the hallway outside my door, so I listened in. "Hello?" . . . "Your name is Rachel?" . . . "I’m sorry, but Kate can’t come to the phone. She had chemo this afternoon and . ." . . . "Didn’t she tell you? She has leukemia. She’s in remission, but she still has to have chemo once a month. It makes her sick." . . . . "Yes, I’ll tell her. She usually feels fine the next day." . . . "All right, ‘bye."

I was mortified! I couldn’t believe it.

My mom knocked on my door. "Katy?" she said, sticking her head in. I rolled over.

"I can’t believe you told her," I said hoarsely.

My mom looked surprised. "She wanted to know if you could go shopping tonight. What was I supposed to do, lie?"

"Yes! Mom, my friends in the city treated me like a vial full of Ebola after I was diagnosed. I had a chance to start over here, to not be known as ‘the girl with cancer.’"

"Katy, she just sounded concerned. She said to tell you that she’ll call you tomorrow and she hopes you feel better."

I sighed. "It’ll be all over school by Monday."

"I wouldn’t be too worried. This Rachel sounded very trustworthy. Oh, by the way. A woman from this group called the Sharing called me today and asked us to come to one of their meetings. She said that it’s kind of like a boy-scout troop, only coed, and they have adult members as well as kids. They like to invite new people in town to stuff, and they’re having a cookout and bonfire on the beach tomorrow. It would be a great way to meet new people."

"It sounds dumb," I answered shortly.

"Give it a try. You might have fun." She left then, and I rolled back over. Eventually, I fell asleep.

Chapter Three

Kate

The next day I called Rachel, nervously wondering how she would act. "Hi, is Rachel there?" I asked after her little sister answered.

"Yep," she answered. "RA-CHEL!!!" she hollered.

"Hello?" Rachel said a few seconds later.

"Hi, Rachel, it’s Kate."

"Oh, hi, Kate. How are you feeling?"

"Much better. I usually feel fine the next day."

"Yeah, that’s what your mom said. Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to go to the mall today. I’m dragging Cassie out shopping, and it usually takes two people to get her to shop anything more than K-Mart."

She sounded normal! I laughed a little. "That’d be great."

"Cool. So, how about noon? We can eat lunch at the mall."

"Okay," I agreed.

A few hours later, I was eating lunch with Cassie and Rachel in the crowded, noisy food court. I was digging into a salad when something suddenly occurred to me. "Have you guys ever heard of a group called the Sharing?" I asked, spearing a tomato with my plastic fork. "My mom’s making me go to some cookout on the beach with them tonight."

"The Sharing?" Cassie repeated. She shot a look at Rachel that I couldn’t read. "Yeah, we’ve heard of it."

"Are you members?" I asked.

"No, no. We’re not," Rachel answered quickly. "And . . . I don’t recommend it for you either. It’s not your thing."

"It’s not? My mom said that it sounded like fun."

"It’s not," Cassie answered sharply.

"Okay." I was surprised that their reaction was so strong. "Well, I don’t think I can get out of this thing tonight."

They just nodded.

I got home about six, with a new shirt and a new pair of pants. My parents loaded me into the car and we drove to the beach. When we got there, a group of people was playing volleyball and another group was playing Ultimate Frisbee. It was March and too cold for swimming, but the Sharing seemed to have plenty of other stuff going.

Two hours later, I was wondering why Cassie and Rachel had been so against this group. I had met a bunch of new people, all super nice, and was really having fun. Suddenly a dog started barking down the beach – really barking, like it was in trouble. No one seemed to notice except me, so I started jogging down the beach toward the sand dunes where the noise was coming from. As I approached, I could see another fire, but it was so dark by that time that I didn’t see anything else until I was about twenty feet away. What I saw then made me stop short and want to scream.

There was a bear. A huge, brown grizzly-bear. It was mauling some monster with blades all over the place, just completely ripping its throat out. And it was about ten feet from me.

And that wasn’t the half of it. There was a gorilla, swinging another one of those monsters around like it was a doll being swung by its hair. A wolf, bleeding from a wound on its back, was baring its teeth and crouching, getting ready to spring at another bladed monster. And finally, there was a blue creature, definitely not from this planet. It was sort of like a centaur, with a weak upper body, two arms, four hoofed legs, and two eyes mounted on stalks – plus two eyes in its mouthless face. And he was striking, again and again, with his tail, which was long and tipped with a very, very, very sharp blade. Humans were running around frantically, trying to avoid getting in the middle of the fight.

And oh, yeah – there was the dog I’d heard. I saw it in the shadows about four feet to my right. It looked like it was trying to hide, and I was just about to join it, when I saw something else that made me want to scream.

The dog was becoming human.

As I watched, human hands emerged from the dog’s paws, and the tail slurped up into the spine. A face emerged from the dog’s snout.

Jake’s face.

I gasped. Suddenly, the dog/Jake whipped its head around and saw me.

^Kate? Oh, crap,^ I "heard." Only I didn’t "hear" it. I "thought" it, but it wasn’t really that either. Whatever it was, it was Jake’s voice in my head.

^Kate? I want you to go back to the bonfire. Tell no one what you’ve seen. Your life and freedom depend on it. The Sharing is bad. You want no part of it.^ As he spoke, Jake was quickly changing back to his canine shape. ^Tomorrow, I want you to come to Cassie’s barn. We will explain everything. Ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Okay, Kate?^ His voice was calm but urgent. I believed him.

I nodded imperceptibly, got down on my hands and knees, and slowly crawled away, keeping as close to the ground as possible. When I knew I couldn’t be seen, I got up and ran.

In the car on the way home, Mom said, "Katy, are you feeling okay? You’re being very quiet."

"Yeah, Mom, I’m just tired."

"Did you have fun?" Dad asked, smiling at me in the rearview mirror.

"Not really," I answered. "The kids weren’t real friendly. If you don’t mind, I don’t really want to go again."

"That’s okay, sweetie," Mom said. "As long as you tried it. Your dad and I had a lot of fun, though. They said they have weekly meetings. I think we might start going regularly."

My heart skipped a beat. I didn’t know what was so wrong with the Sharing, but whatever it was, I didn’t want my parents involved. But I couldn’t tell them that, so I just said, "Sure, if you had fun . . ."

Chapter Four

Kate

The next morning I was a zombie. I hadn’t gotten any sleep because every time I closed my eyes I saw those bladed monsters and that blue thing with the tail and a dog turning into Jake. It made me queasier than the chemo.

I got to the barn at exactly ten o’clock. Inside, Cassie, Rachel, Jake, and Marco were waiting for me. Cassie was mucking out a horse stall while Rachel perched on a bale of hay and Marco leaned against the wall, watching me suspiciously. Jake was pacing.

"Hi, everyone," I said.

"Hi, Kate." Cassie eyed me critically. "You look tired."

"Well, when you saw what I saw last night, you don’t sleep much," I answered, more sharply than I’d intended.

"We know," Marco said flatly. He looked at the others and said, "Before we go on, I want to reiterate that I am totally and completely against this."

"WE KNOW!" the others said in exasperated unison. They shook their heads and were silent for a few moments.

"Will someone please tell me what the heck is going on?" I snapped. I glared at Marco. I didn’t know what was happening, but I didn’t like the way he was looking at me.

Cassie nodded. "Come with us," she said, putting her shovel away. She stripped off the overalls she was wearing over the outfit she’d bought yesterday at Rachel’s insistence.

"Cassie!" yelped Rachel, startling me. "Those are brand new clothes! I can’t believe you wore them to shovel horse poop!"

"Why do you think I wore the overalls?" Cassie replied calmly. Jake smiled at her affectionately and walked out of the barn. The others followed him so I did, too, bringing up the rear. We walked across the fields in back of Cassie’s farm. I watched the horses running around in the sunlight. They were beautiful creatures. I caught up to Cassie and started walking beside her and Rachel. Rachel was watching the sky where a red-tailed hawk was gliding overhead.

"It must be great having horses," I remarked to Cassie.

"Yes," she agreed. "But it’s even better to be one."

"Excuse me?" I said. She just smiled.

We were coming up on the National Forest that bordered the farms. It began abruptly at the edge of the fields and seemed to continue forever. I walked with them until we were about an eighth of a mile into the woods, and then we stopped. Suddenly the red-tailed hawk glided up and landed on Rachel’s shoulder.

^Hello, everyone,^ it said. I suddenly sat down very hard, very fast. A bird had just spoken to me in the same strange way Jake had last night. ^Ah, you must be Kate. I’m Tobias.^

"Also known as Bird-boy," Marco added, grinning. Then he looked at me and the grin faded. A scowl quickly replaced it.

I got up, embarrassed, and dusted myself off. Too soon, as it turned out.

^Ax is coming,^ Tobias said, his intense hawk’s gaze focused on me.

"Who’s Ax?" I asked. As soon as the words left my mouth I got my answer.

Ax was the blue alien thing with the tail. He ran up at full speed and jumped, neatly clearing our heads.

"Showing off, Ax-man?" Rachel asked grinning.

What do you know, I was sitting on the ground again. I stared at "Ax" in shock.

^Hello. Are you Kate?^ he asked me. I nodded, speechless. ^I am Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, but Prince Jake and the others call me "Ax."^ He looked at me with his emerald green main eyes and kept his stalk eyes moving, looking in all directions at once.

I looked up at Jake. "Tell me," I said, "are there any more surprises? Because if there are, I’ll just stay sitting to save myself the trouble."

The others laughed. "No, I think it’s safe for you to stand," Jake said.

I got up and sat next to Cassie on a fallen log. "Okay, what do I know? I know that last night at the Sharing meeting Jake was turning into a dog. I know that . . . um . . . Ax was there. I know that there was a grizzly bear, a wolf, and a gorilla fighting bladed monsters. I know that there is a bird talking to me. And I know that Ax is not from around here. What I don’t know is what all this means."

"Okay." Jake looked at me seriously. "We were the animals you saw last. Cassie was the wolf, Marco was the gorilla, Rachel was the bear, Ax was – well, Ax – he’s an Andalite. I was my dog, Homer."

"Why? How?" I cried.

Jake looked at Cassie. She nodded, and continued, "About two years ago we were walking home from the mall. We decided to take a shortcut through that old abandoned construction site. You know the one I mean?" I nodded. "Well, to make a long story short, as we were walking through an alien space ship landed in front of us and an alien got out. He told us why he was there and then gave us something." She paused briefly, and seemed to be remembering something painful. She continued, but her voice wasn’t as strong any more. "He gave us the power to morph into any animal we can touch."

"And that alien was Ax?" I asked.

<No,> Ax answered. <The alien was my brother, Prince Elfangor.>

"Is he here, too?" I asked.

<No,> Ax said again. His voice was sad. <Elfangor was killed that night by Visser Three.>

"By who??????"

"Visser Three," Rachel said. "The leader of the Yeerk invasion here on Earth."

"What’s a Yeerk?"

"A Yeerk is a parasitic slug," Marco said harshly. "They crawl in your ear and take over your brain. You try to scream, but can’t. You try to move, but you’re no longer in charge of your own muscles. It’s slavery more complete than any ever inflicted on anyone here on Earth. And the worst part is, the human mind is completely aware the whole time. They watch the Yeerk go through their memories, trick their family and friends, and they cry as more and more people become Controllers. A Controller – that’s someone with a Yeerk in their head." Marco stopped, breathless. "My mom’s a Controller."

"So is my brother," Jake added. "There are lots of human-Controllers. And Hork-Bajir Controllers, and Taxxon Controllers. There’s only one Andalite Controller, though."

<Visser Three,> Ax said, his thought speech seething with anger. <The Abomination. My brother’s murderer.>

"What’s a Hork Bajir? And what’s a Taxxon?" I asked.

<You know those bladed monsters? Those are Hork Bajir. Taxxons are like gigantic centipedes. Gigantic, cannibalistic centipedes. The Hork Bajir are actually a very peaceful species. They used to use their blades to strip off tree bark, which is what they eat. They are, as far as we know, all involuntary Controllers. The Taxxons, on the other hand, are all voluntary Controllers,> Tobias explained.

"What about humans?" I asked.

"Some of each," Cassie answered. "The Sharing is a Yeerk front organization. They recruit voluntary Controllers. Which is why we were there last night. When you told us that you were going to a meeting, we decided to go on a little spy mission to make sure nothing happened. But things got out of hand. The group you saw at the second fire – those are all full members of the Sharing. They’re all Controllers."

"My parents," I said. "They want to go back. They won’t make me go, but they think the Sharing’s great."

The others paused. "There’s probably not anything to worry about just yet," Jake said. "They usually don’t make people Controllers until they’ve been Sharing members for awhile."

I nodded. "Who else is a Controller? How can you tell?"

"That’s just it," Rachel said. "You can’t. They look and act totally normal. But we know of a few for sure – Tom, Jake’s brother. Marco’s mom. She’s actually Visser One, Visser Three’s boss. But she’s not here on Earth right now, at least as far as we know. Assistant Principal Chapman is a high ranking Controller."

"Chapman?" I asked incredulously. They nodded. I shook my head. "All this is going on and nobody knows?"

"Yes. As far as we know, we’re the only resistance here on Earth. The Yeerks think we’re Andalite bandits. If they knew the truth, we’d have about two hours until we all had Yeerks in our heads. If they catch one of us, they’ll catch all of us," Jake said. He looked hard at me. "Kate, we want you to join us."

"Excuse me?" I said. "But I can’t morph."

"We can give you the power," replied Cassie. "But it’s a dangerous job. And you can’t tell anyone – even your parents. Especially if they’re in the Sharing. You can’t be suspicious in any way."

Nobody said anything for a moment. I knew what I was going to do, but before I could say anything, Marco jumped into the conversation. "Look, we tried this before. It didn’t work at all. It was up there among the worst decisions we’ve ever made. It was awful. We don’t want a repeat."

"Don’t worry," I said. "I don’t know what happened, but it won’t happen this time."

^So you’re willing to go through with this?^ Tobias asked.

"Yes," I answered.

"Great," Jake said somewhat hesitantly. "But there are a few rules that go with morphing. Rule number one: Never stay in morph for more than two hours."

"Why?"

^Because if you do, you become a nothlit, a person trapped in a morph. Like me,^ Tobias said. ^I can morph, thanks to this guy called the Ellimist, but if I stayed in my human body for more than two hours, I’d become a human nothlit.^

I nodded.

"Rule number two," Jake said, holding up two fingers. "You must touch an animal to acquire it. Acquire – that means absorb its DNA. Once you do that, you can morph it. You don’t need to acquire it each time. But you can’t acquire DNA from someone in a morph. And you can’t acquire an animal while in a morph.

"Rule number three," Jake continued. "Since morphing works by DNA, if you’re injured in a fight and morph to your human body, you’ll be fine. When you morph the injured animal again, the morph will be fine also. But exhaustion transfers morphs, so a lot of the time we come out of fights ready to drop. And morphing itself is also very tiring."

I nodded again. "I have a question," I said. I glanced quickly at Rachel. "What about – what about cancer?"

"What?" Jake said, confused.

"You – you mean . . . Rachel, you didn’t tell them?" I asked her.

"It’s your business, Kate. I was pretty sure you didn’t want it spread around."

"Well, thanks." The others were looking at me. "I have – I have leukemia. I’m in remission, but there’s no way to know for sure if they missed a few cells with the chemo or something. How would the morphing affect that?"

Jake looked at Ax. "Ax? You know anything about this?"

^No, Prince Jake, I am not sure of the effect of morphing on cancer patients. It most likely won’t hurt Kate, though.^

Once again, I nodded. I was doing a lot of nodding. "Um, could you guys not tell anyone? About the cancer, I mean. You seem to be cool with it, but some people don’t understand and treat me like the plague or like I’m going to break. And I really hate that."

"Of course," agreed Jake. The others nodded. "Now, Ax. Do you have the blue box?"

^Yes, but it is at my scoop.^

"Your what?" I said. Ax was already walking further into the woods. Rachel motioned for me to follow. We reached a spot that looked totally normal – just dirt and some rocks. Then Ax bent down and unfolded his "scoop," which I guess is an Andalite’s house. He came back out holding a plain blue cube.

^This is an Escafil Device,^ Ax told me. ^It is what gives a creature the power to morph. Just put your hand on the side of the cube.^

I reached out and touched the – the whatever device. Ax held it out. Suddenly, I felt a tingle run through me. I drew back quickly.

^The transfer is complete,^ Ax said.

"So what happens now?" I asked.

"Well, there’s no urgent mission, but I think you should acquire your first morph," Jake said.

"Something easy," said Cassie, thoughtfully. "And oh, yeah, we have to get you a morphing suit."

"A morphing suit?" I repeated.

Rachel nodded. "It’s nearly impossible to morph clothes. They come out in tatters. And forget shoes. The most we can do is very tight clothing, like leotards and spandex. You should see us. We look pathetic, like a convention for the fashionably challenged." She eyed me critically. "You’re too tall for any of Cassie’s stuff and too thin for my stuff."

"It’s the chemotherapy," I said quietly. "I used to be about your size."

"Oh," said Rachel, not sure how to respond.

"I have a leotard at my house. I’ll go get it and meet you here," I said.

"Actually, come to my barn," replied Cassie. "I think you should do a bird of prey first, and we have a couple at the Wildlife Rehab Center right now."

Chapter Five

Cassie

We watched Kate run off through the woods toward her house. We started walking back to the barn.

"So what do you guys think? Marco, are you still completely against this?" Jake asked.

"No," replied Marco. "I still don’t know if it was a great idea, but she seems nice enough. Not like David. She’s sort of prematurely middle aged, kind of like our Fearless Leader here." He grinned and ducked as Jake swung at him.

"She’s been through a lot," said Rachel. "Cancer would do that to you."

"What did she mean when she asked you if you had told us? You knew about the leukemia?" I asked Rachel.

"Yeah, I called her house Friday night to see if she wanted to go to the mall and her mom told me. I guess she’d had chemotherapy that afternoon and she was pretty sick from it."

^Leukemia’s cancer of the blood, right?^ Tobias asked.

"Yes," I answered. "It’s one of the most common cancers in children."

^What is chemotherapy?^ Ax asked.

"I think it means chemical therapy," I said. "They treat the cancer with poisonous chemicals. The cancer cells suck up all the nutrients and they take up the chemicals with them, so it kills them off. Unfortunately, normal cells that grow fast, like hair cells, also take up the chemicals and it kills them, too. That’s why chemo makes people’s hair fall out and makes them sick and stuff. It’s not fun." I paused. "My aunt had cancer," I added when I saw they were all looking at me.

"What happened to her? Your aunt, I mean?" asked Marco.

"She died," I replied softly. "But she had a different kind of cancer that’s a lot harder to treat than leukemia."

Nobody said anything else for awhile. When we got to the edge of the woods Ax morphed into his human form and we kept walking.

Finally Marco cleared his throat. "She seems much more agreeable than David," he remarked.

^Yes,^ Ax said. ^There was always something about David I just didn’t like. I don’t feel that way about Kate.^

I smiled at him. I had noticed that Ax had watched Kate very closely – with his main eyes anyway. I winked at Jake and he looked at me quizzically. I looked at Ax and then back to Jake. He shook his head slightly. I knew what he was thinking: No way.

Chapter Six

Kate

By the time I got to the barn the others were all there. Cassie was shoving a pill down the throat of a very annoyed mallard duck, Jake was trying to hold the duck still, Marco was lounging on some hay, and Rachel was perched on a low stall door. I looked up and saw Tobias sitting in the rafters, looking out the top of the hay loft. Finally, sitting on a bale of hay next to Marco was a boy I hadn’t seen before. He was sort of pretty, of medium height with brown hair and skin the color of brown sugar. Ax, I realized. That must be Ax in his human form.

"Hello," said Ax, sounding a little strange.

"That’s your human morph?" I asked him. He nodded. "You look like a mix of the others."

"I am," he answered. "I performed a Frolis Maneuver, which means I acquired each of them and mixed the DNA. Ah-kuh-rye-errr-duh. Acquired."

"Neat," I said, smiling. Ax was strange – he was an alien, for crying out loud! But there was something I liked about him. For one thing, he didn’t scare me. He had startled me, but I had never really been frightened of him.

"So, Marco," I said. "I thought you said that this town was totally boring. No excitement whatsoever."

"I lied," he answered, smiling hesitantly.

"Okay, Kate," Cassie said. She put the duck back in its cage and wiped her hands on her overalls. "Time to really become an Animorph."

"An Animorph?" I repeated. "Oh – I get it. Animal morpher. I like that. Animorph."

"We have three birds of prey right now. A peregrine falcon, a golden eagle, and a red-tailed hawk like Tobias. Which do you want?" They watched me anxiously. Man, their last experience at this must have been bad.

"Well, what do you guys think?" I asked. "I mean, I’ve never done this before. You guys have been at this for . . . what? Two years?"

They looked relieved. "The red-tailed hawk or the peregrine falcon," said Jake. "The golden eagle’s just too big."

^Plus, he’s a jerk,^ added Tobias. ^The red-tailed hawk is good, but if you want to dive and go really fast, go with the falcon. They don’t glide as well, though. By the way, Cassie. I hope you’re not releasing any of those guys near my territory. Especially that eagle.^

"Don’t worry, Tobias," Cassie said reassuringly. "They all have well-established territories far from yours."

I studied the birds. I’d read somewhere that the peregrine falcon can dive at speeds approaching two hundred miles an hour. "No offense, Tobias," I said, looking up at him, "but I think I’ll go with the falcon. I like speed."

"Good choice," said Jake, grinning at me. "I have a falcon morph, too."

Cassie reached in the cage with gloved hands and gently lifted the bird out. "What’s wrong with her?" I asked.

"Broken wing," Cassie replied.

<Probably got attacked by a golden eagle,> Tobias said snidely.

"Her name is Glenda. Just touch her," said Cassie softly. I reached out my hand and touched the bird. "Concentrate," she told me. I closed my eyes and thought about the bird. She stopped trying to move around and became very still. After a moment, I let go and stepped back. I opened my eyes and looked around.

"You’re done?" Cassie said.

"I think so," I answered.

"You ready to go flying?" asked Jake.

"I guess," I replied.

"Why don’t I morph first?" suggested Cassie. "It’ll let Kate see it before she has to do it."

^And you look the least creepy while sprouting feathers,^ added Tobias. Cassie smiled at him. She stripped off her clothes until she was standing barefoot in a black leotard and tights. She closed her eyes.

The first thing to change was her arms. Feather patterns became drawn all over her dark skin and morphing suit. They popped out and became 3-D. Suddenly, she had wings. "You look like an angel," I whispered.

"Most of us don’t morph as well as Cassie," Marco told me. "We look like fugitive genetic experiments and Cassie looks angelic. She also takes about half the time."

^Yes,^ agreed Ax, who had demorphed. ^Cassie is a natural estreen.^

^A what?^ asked Cassie. While we had been talking, her head had changed to that of a bird’s – an osprey. She had started shrinking, too. In a few seconds, she was a complete bird of prey. ^What’s an estreen?^ she asked again.

^An estreen is a person who morphs artistically. On my planet, there are professional estreens. They are amazing to watch.^

"You ready to try?" Jake asked me.

"As ready as I’ll ever be," I replied.

"Be careful of the instincts," warned Rachel. "When you morph, you usually don’t get memories or thoughts, but sometimes you get a load of aggressive or fearful or hungry instincts. Sometimes it takes a few minutes to get control."

^Don’t worry, though,^ Tobias reassured me. ^The falcon’s pretty easy as far as instinct goes.^

"Okay," I said, feeling a nervous flutter go through my stomach. I shut my eyes and thought about the falcon, soaring high about the city and the trees. I thought about the falcon so much I almost forgot about why I was thinking about her until I suddenly felt itchy all over and held out my arm to see feathers sprouting from my skin. I gasped.

^Don’t worry,^ said Cassie. ^Morphing never hurts, but it’s almost never logical, even for me.^

Next to change were my eyes. They got smaller, but at the same time became much, much, much better. I mean, I’d never realized just how pathetic human eyes are until then. I could see a flea crawling through Ax’s fur, the pores in the others’ faces, and a fly scaling the wall on the other side of the barn.

"Whoa," I said. "These eyes are incredible."

^Aren’t they?^ agreed Tobias. ^They’re one of the perks of being permanently stuck in this body.^ Rachel seemed to stiffen a little at that, I noticed.

Next, my nose and mouth sprouted out and became a hooked, yellow beak designed for tearing my prey. Then my legs became thin, short, scaly, and yellow, both of which had a powerful talon for the foot. I was shrinking the whole time, with white and gray feathers crawling up and over my head and body, and long tail feathers sprouting at the base of my spine. Finally, I felt the falcon mind surface beneath mine. Like the others had said, it was really nothing overwhelming. Mostly, she just wanted to get off the ground, and she was very uncomfortable with so many humans and predators around, even if they were in cages.

"How are you doing?" Jake asked, startling me.

^Oh – fine,^ I answered. Wow. ^Hey, can I thought speak when I’m in my normal body?^

^No,^ Ax replied. ^Only in a morph. However, Tobias and I can because our human bodies are simply morphs.^

^Really?^ said Tobias. ^I didn’t know that.^

"How are the instincts?" Rachel asked me. She and the others were starting to change.

^Not bad,^ I replied. ^She’s uncomfortable with being on the ground, though.^

^We’ll take care of that soon,^ said Marco. He smiled as his face sprouted to become his beak. It was very odd to watch.

The oddest of all of them, though, was Ax. I watched him most of the time. His back legs shrunk and lost their blue fur, becoming first pink and then yellow. His hooves became talons. Then his front legs sort of sucked into his body, as his tail became shorter and broke up into tail feathers. Then his arms lost their fur and became wings with long flight feathers. His fur melted off the rest of his body and was gradually replaced by feather patterns, which became 3-D. His stalk eyes retracted into the top of his now feathered head. A split appeared in his face where a mouth would be and became a beak. Finally, his morph looked complete.

^What kind of bird that?^ I asked him.

^A northern harrier,^ Ax replied. ^Marco and Cassie are ospreys, Prince Jake is a peregrine falcon, like you, and Rachel is a bald eagle. Tobias, of course, is a red tailed hawk.^

^Everybody ready to fly? Ax, keep track of the time for us, okay?^ Jake said.

^Yes, Prince Jake. Cassie has been in morph for sixteen minutes,^ he replied.

^Okay, follow me,& said Tobias. We flew out of the barn and into the sky.

^Whoa,^ I said after a few minutes. ^This is incredible! Amazing!^ It was too. You may have flown in an airplane before. Forget it. There’s no comparison. None at all.

^Yes, it is amazing,^ agreed Ax.

^This is one of the good things about being an Animorph,^ Marco said.

It must have been. I couldn’t imagine anything bad about flying.

Email: riftkeeper@angelfire.com