It had started raining, so the trip home was going to be very unpleasant. "Oh, great!" I muttered.

"I have got to remember to kick off my shoes before I morph into an elephant."

Just then, a second car pulled up and came to a stop. The window rolled down.

"Hey, Rachel." It was Melissa. I recognized the voice. "Do you want a ride home?" She didn't sound very excited by the idea.

I looked through the car window, past her. Chapman was behind the wheel.

A wave of sick fear swept over me. Had he seen what I'd just done? If he had, then I was dead. My friends were dead.

"I'm ... I'm fine," I said. "I could use the exercise."

"Nonsense, young lady," Chapman said, sounding like his usual assistant-principal self. "It's beginning to rain. Get in."

What was I supposed to do? I forced a smile. It wasn't easy. "Thanks," I said.

Melissa was in the front with her father. I sat in the back. I tried not to shiver. I tried not to stare at the back of Chapman's head. That's how it is when you're around a Controller. You 22 know that evil slug is right there in the Controller's head, attached to all his nerve endings.

Controlling the human brain. Dominating it.

It's hard not to stare when you think of what is squeezed inside that skull.

"When we were stuck back at the red light it looked like some guy was bothering you,"

Melissa said. "Then he ran off. Was he bothering you?"

"Um . . . no," I lied. "He was . . . he was just picking up something he dropped by the side of the road."

Pathetic! I was such a lame liar.

I saw Chapman's eyes watching me in the rearview mirror. He looked like normal old Chapman. That's the problem with Controllers. There is no outward clue. They look so normal.

"He went running off like the hounds of Hades were after him," Chapman said.

"Did he?" I said in a squeaky voice. "I wasn't looking. I guess it was the rain. That's probably why he was running. There. You can turn left there."

"I know where you live," Chapman said.

I almost swallowed my tongue. Was that a threat? Did he suspect? Did he guess? Was he looking at me strangely?

Or was I just being paranoid?

He pulled up in front of my house. My heart was hammering, but I was determined to act casual. "Thanks for the ride, Mr. Chapman," I said. "Hey, Melissa, I was totally serious about us getting together, okay?"

She nodded. "Sure, Rachel. Absolutely."

I closed the car door behind me. I had escaped. I was alive. I'd probably just been imagining things.

Then I heard Melissa call out to me. "Hey. What happened to your shoes?"

I looked down. My shoes were in tatters, the result of my feet growing from a size six to a size three hundred in about five seconds flat.

"See?" I said, as lightly as I could. "I told you I needed to go shopping."

Melissa just looked puzzled. Her father stared at me with an expression I could not read.

I was shaking like a leaf when I walked into my house. I headed upstairs to my room and stuffed my ripped shoes into the trash. Only then did I go back downstairs and say hi to my mom.

23 She was at the kitchen table, half hidden by a pile of buff-colored books. My mother's a lawyer, and she brings work home a lot so she can be around me and my two little sisters.

She and my dad are divorced. I only get to see my dad a few days a month, so mom feels guilty when she isn't there for us.

"Hi, honey," she said. Then she got her "suspicious mother" look. "How did you get home?

You didn't walk, did you? You were supposed to call me."

"Melissa and her dad gave me a ride," I said. Well, it was the truth. Sort of.

She relaxed and made a point of closing her book. "Sorry. You know I worry about you."

"Where are Jordan and Sara?"

"They're in the family room watching another one of those scary shows. Of course, tonight Jordan will be sleeping with her night-light on and Sara will end up in my bed, no doubt. I don't know why they like things that frighten them. You were never that way."

It almost made me laugh. I felt like saying, well, Mom, I don't have to watch things that are scary, I am scary. Should have seen me a little while ago with tusks sticking out of my mouth and a three-foot-long nose.

What I really said was, "So, what's for dinner?"

My mother winced. "Pizza? Chinese? Any thing else you can order over the phone? I'm sorry, but I have this brief and I have court in the morning."

"Mom," I told her for maybe the thousandth time, "I don't mind pizza. Sorry, but your cooking isn't all that great, so it's no big deal ordering pizza."

"Well, at least get some veggies on it," she said.

After dinner I called Jake.

"Do you want to come over?" I said. "I got that new CD, if you want to listen to it."

There was no CD, of course. It's just that we always have to be careful. Like I said, Jake's brother, Tom, is a Controller. He could be listening on the extension. Then I called Cassie and Marco and told them the same cover story.

When they arrived I told them about Melissa, and then I told them about my little run-in with the creep. I did not tell them about Chapman driving me home. I don't know why. But when I saw the way Marco exploded, I was glad I hadn't told them the whole story.

"Oh, that was dumb! Dumb! DUMB!" Marco said. "What if that guy is a Controller?"

"He wasn't a Controller," I said\ scornfully. "Why would the Yeerks want to make a Controller out of a punk? They want people in positions of power."

"We don't know that for sure," Jake said. "Tom isn't in a position of power."

24 "And how about people driving by in their cars, or looking out of the windows of their homes?" Marco asked. "And what if he runs and tells someone about this girl who suddenly sprouted a trunk and tusks?"

"No one is going to believe a lowlife like that," I said.

"His friends won't believe him," Marco said poisonously, "but a Controller would believe him. A Controller would know what it meant."

Yes. A Controller would know what it meant. A Controller like Chapman. Or even Melissa, if she was one of them.

I felt sick. It was like my whole life was nothing but lies. Lies to Melissa. Lies to my mother.

Now I was lying by not telling the others the whole truth.

"Okay, I screwed up," I muttered.

"You sure did!" Marco crowed. "You screwed up so --"

"Marco, let it drop," Jake said. "Rachel knows she made a mistake. We all make mistakes."

Marco rolled his eyes.

Cassie gave me an encouraging smile. "It wasdumb putting yourself in that position, Rachel.

You need to be more careful. But still, I'd have paid my next ten allowances to see the look on that guy's face."

"The important thing is that it doesn't sound like Rachel can use Melissa to get close to Chapman," Jake said. "Not if she's a Controller herself. And not if she's going to continue being weird to Rachel."

"I guess we'll have to find another way," I said quickly. "I mean, we know where Chapman's office is. We know where his house is. Maybe we could just morph into some small animals and hide out."

"Small animals like what?" Marco asked. "When Jake turned into a lizard he got stepped on.