Everyone laughed.

Jake gave Marco an affectionate punch in the shoulder. "Just the same, it's nice of you to want to save us all. It's almost sweet"

Marco made a face and grabbed one of Rachel's pillows to throw at Jake.

Marco and Jake are absolute opposites, although they've been buds forever. Jake is big. Not football-player big, but solid. Jake is one of those people who are natural leaders. If you were ever trapped in a burning building, you would turn to Jake and ask, "What do we do?" And he would have an answer, too.

You can tell he and Rachel are cousins. They're both kind of determined people.

"I have to get going," Cassie said. "I have horses to feed and birdcages to clean."

"Don't say the word 'cage' around Tobias," Marco said. "He'll do some guerrilla-commando-Ninja-SWAT-team-hawk-from-hell attack on the Center. And he'll talk Rachel into stomping your house flat."

Everyone laughed, because we all knew why Cassie had birdcages. Her father and mother are both veterinarians. Her mom works for The Gardens, which is this huge zoo and amusement park.

10 Her dad runs the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in the barn on their family farm. The Center takes in wild animals that are sick or hurt and cares for them.

The cages Cassie had to get home to clean were filled with sparrows with broken wings and eagles who'd been shot and seagulls who'd gotten tangled in trash.

Cassie is our expert on animals. She also gets us access to animals to morph. She's a gentle person. She can also morph better than any of us.

Everyone stood up and started to go.

"You coming, Tobias?" Jake asked me.

"No, not right away. I think I'll fly around. It's a nice night"

"Cool," he said. "I'll put some food up in your attic for you in case you get home late. I don't want anything getting at it, though. Can you open one of those Rubbermaid things?"

I saw the way the others kind of looked away when Jake mentioned the attic. They feel sorry for me.

"I can get it open," I said. "Just be careful. You know - Tom." Tom is Jake's big brother. Tom is one of them.

Everyone said good night. I saw Cassie and Jake touch their hands together in a way that could almost have been accidental. Then they were all gone. All but me and Rachel.

"I don't like thinking of you living in a cold attic," Rachel said.

"I'm okay," I said. I wondered if I should tell her what I had seen, the darkness within darkness, the hole in the sky. But the truth was, even I didn't know what it was.

It would just worry her. And she worried about me too much.

"Good night," I said.

"Yeah. Take care of yourself, Tobias."

I flew out through her window into the night. Rachel's sad eyes seemed to follow me. I hated the way they all felt sorry for me. All they could see was that I was not what I used to be. All they saw was that I had no home.

But they didn't really understand. I hadn't had a real home since my parents died. I was used to being alone. ' And I had the sky.

11 Chapter 4

The next day I decided to go back to where I had seen - or not seen - the big thing in the sky.

I had a feeling about it. A bad feeling.

I flew up over the same area, rising as high as I could on the thermals.

Hawks are not quite as good at soaring as eagles or some buzzards are. (Man, you should see the way a turkey buzzard can work those thermals! Awesome.) And actually, the red-tail hawk in my head would be just as happy perched patiently on the branch of a tree, waiting to see its next meal go scurrying past.

But I didn't eat like a hawk. I ate food that Jake gave me. I didn't hunt. Although sometimes the urge to hunt was pretty strong.

I could just hear Marco making some smart crack about me eating mice. Or roadkill.

When you're in a morph, it's hard to resist the animal's instincts. Jake found that out when he became a lizard. He glomped down a live spider before he got control of the lizard's instincts.

I hadn't done that. Yet. I was afraid if I did it once, I'd never be able to stop.

I soared high above the city, over the area I'd been through the day before. But nothing.

Nothing moved in the air above me.

Then it occurred to me: Whatever it was, maybe it only happened at certain times of day. It had been almost sunset when I'd felt its presence last.

I decided to come back around sunset. Which meant I had the whole day ahead of me with nothing special to do. This did not make me happy. See, the fact is, a hawk spends almost all its time hunting food.

As for me, Tobias, when I hadn't been in school, I used to spend most of my free time watching TV, hanging out at the mall, doing homework, reading . . . all things it was difficult for me to do, now.

I missed school. Even though I had constantly been picked on by bullies. I didn't really miss my home, though. See, when my parents died, there was no one who really wanted me. I ended up getting shunted back and forth between an uncle here and an aunt across the country.

Neither of them really cared about me. I don't think they even missed me. I had arranged for Jake to leave a message with my uncle. We told him I had gone to stay with my aunt. Each of them, my uncle and my aunt, thought I was staying with the other.

I had no idea how long that trick would hold up before one of them figured out I wasn't in either place.

I guess when they realize it they'll call the cops and report me as a runaway. Or maybe they won't even bother.

12 So. What was I going to do with my day? I'd been floating up here in the high air, just below the clouds, for a couple of hours. It was time to give it up and try again another time.

I tilted my wings and adjusted my tail, turning toward Rachel's house. Maybe she would be hanging around the house, bored.

Then it happened.

A mile or more above me, the ripple passed through the air. An emptiness, a hole where no hole could be.

I reacted instantly. I had to get closer.

I flapped till my chest and shoulders were sore. But it was moving too fast, and it was too high.

It pulled away from me, a wave of air, a rippling of the fabric of the sky. It was moving in a different direction, though. It was moving toward the mountains.

Then . . . a flight of geese on the move in a tight V-formation.

There were maybe a dozen of the big, determined geese, moving along at an amazing rate, powering their way through the air like they always do. Geese always seem to be on a mission. Like, "Get out of our way, we're geese and we're coming through."

The geese were aimed straight for the disturbance.

Suddenly, the lead goose folded like it had been hit by a truck. Its wings collapsed. But it did not fall.

The crippled goose slid through the air. It slid horizontally, rolling and flopping like it was passing over the top of a racing train.

Most of the other geese suffered the same fate. One or two peeled away in time, but geese are not real agile.

The invisible wave smacked into the flight, and the geese were crushed. They were rolling and sliding along some unseen but solid surface.

And everywhere the geese hit, I could catch little glimpses of steel-gray metal.

The wave passed by. The geese fell in its wake, dead or crippled.

It flew on, unconcerned. But then, why should the Yeerks care about a handful of geese?

And that's what they were, I was certain. Yeerks.

What I had seen, or not quite seen, was a Yeerk ship.

13 CHAPTER 5

"It figures," Marco said thoughtfully. "The Yeerks would have to have some kind of cloaking ability. Like 'stealth' technology, only much better."