He lost his tail. Besides, what are you going to morph into? A cockroach?"

We all shuddered at the thought. The smallest, strangest thing anyone had morphed so far was when Jake had done the lizard. It creeped him out big time. A roach would be even worse.

"The problem with being a cockroach," I said, "aside from the fact that it is too gross to believe, is that roach senses might not even be useful to us. Can a roach "hear" in a way that would make it possible for us to understand what we're hearing?"

We all looked at Cassie. She's sort of our expert on animals.

Cassie held up her hands. "Oh, come on. Like I know how a cockroach sees and hears? We don't take care of roaches at the rehab clinic."

25 We all sat there feeling glum for a few minutes. But I wasn't going to let it drop. This was about more than just striking a blow at the Yeerks. I had to find out if Chapman suspected me. If he did, we were all in terrible danger.

I happened to glance over at my desk. There was my math homework, still not done. That didn't make me feel any better. But then I looked at the photos I had mounted in one of those big frames with six different holes. One was of me with my mom and dad on a whitewater rafting trip we took. One was of me visiting my dad at his job -- he's a weatherman on TV.

We were grinning in front of a map of storms. Another picture was of Cassie and me riding horses side by side, with Cassie, as usual, looking like she'd spent her entire life in the saddle, and me looking like a total dweeb.

But the picture that got my attention was one taken a couple of years ago of Melissa and me.

I got up and went over to take the frame down.

I stared hard at the picture.

"What?" Jake asked. "What is it?"

"It's me and Melissa," I said. "It was like her twelfth birthday, or some birthday, anyway, and we were out on her lawn playing with the present her dad gave her."

"So what?" Marco asked.

"So ..." I passed him the photograph. It showed me and Melissa in shorts. And between us a small black-and-white kitten. "So her present was a cat."

26 Chapter Six

"Look! A kitty door!" Jake pointed.

"Where?" Marco asked.

"See the lines of light? At the bottom of the regular door?"

"Oh, yeah," Marco said. "I wish the moon were out. I can't see a thing."

The four of us were cowering behind a hedge that bordered the Chapmans' lawn. They lived in a pretty normal-looking suburban home. You know: two stories, a garage, a lawn. Nothing to make you think that the person who lived there was part of a huge alien conspiracy to take over the world.

"Let me just ask you this," Marco whispered. "Why did it have to be Chapman? I was afraid of Chapman even before we found out he was a Controller."

"You're not still upset over that detention he gave you?" I asked. "Look, if you're going to listen to your CD player in math class with an earphone hidden under your hair, you have to remember not to start singing along."

"Yeah, that was only slightly stupid, Marco," Jake agreed.

"I still say Chapman never would have given me a whole week's detention if he was totally human."

"I have a question," Cassie said. "How do we get Melissa's cat to come outside?"

We all looked at her.

"Good question," I admitted.

"I mean, we could hide here in the bushes for a long time. But sooner or later the neighbors are going to notice."

"What does the cat look like?"

Tobias was sitting perched on a nearby tree branch. He was close enough to hear us.

I tried to remember. "It's name is Fluffer, I remember that much. Fluffer McKitty."

"You've got to be kidding." Marco, of course.

I tried to remember back to when I used to hang out with Melissa. "It's black and white. You know, in patches."

"l'll look around. Maybe it's already outside. "

Tobias spread his wings, swooped silently down over our heads, and flapped away into the night.

27 You know what we need?" I said. "We need another kitty. We should have thought of that.

Then we could have the second cat call out to Fluffer."

Marco turned to stare at me. "Meowfluffer, comeoutmeow, meow come and play meow?"

"Tobias morphed a cat very early on, didn't he?" I asked.

"Yeah," Jake said. "His first morph. The first morph any of us did."

"Rachel, you need to remember if you go in there tonight that you have to stay in cat character," Cassie said.

"Most people would just think it was weird if a cat acted strangely. But Chapman may be able to guess what's going on if Fluffer suddenly starts acting un-catlike."

"So you're saying I shouldn't try eating with a fork or changing the channels on the TV?"

Everyone laughed -- quietly and nervously, but it was laughter just the same.

Suddenly Tobias dropped out of the sky, then drifted over us in a lazy circle and called down, "Got him. "

He settled back on the branch. He was really an amazing animal, when you just looked at him as a bird and didn't think about him being a boy trapped in there. I mean, the gaze of a hawk when it is looking right at you is incredibly intimidating.

Gentle Tobias now had an expression that looked totally ferocious.

"You're kidding. You found Fluffer?" I asked.

"Hey, it's easy. Spotting prey is what I do. Or what a hawk does, anyway. Actually, there are maybe six or eight cats running around the neighborhood. Also, three dogs and an amazing amount of rats and mice."

"Rats?" That got Marco's attention. "Rats? Here? This is suburbia. I mean, it's a lot better than where I live. They have rats?"

"There are rats everywhere," Tobias said. "Rats and mice and all kinds of plump, juicy . . ." He fell silent, embarrassed.

"Get a grip, Tobias," Marco said. "Don't start eating rats, all right? I don't know if I can have someone who eats rats for a friend."

Sometimes Marco is funny. Sometimes he goes too far. This was one of those times. "Shut up, Marco," I growled.

"I ate a live spider," Jake pointed out. "Does that mean you and I can't be friends?" From his tone of voice I could tell he was angry, too.

None of us knew what Tobias was going through.

28 None of us had ever been in morph for more than two hours. Tobias had been a hawk for more than a week.

Marco realized he'd been a jerk. "Well, yeah, I guess you're right," he muttered. "Besides, I've been known to eat eggplant. So I guess I can't criticize."

That was an apology, or as close as Marco could get to an actual apology.

"The cat we're looking for is just a half block away," Tobias said. "Follow me. " He flew off, but kept low. We took off after him. Even flying at minimum speed, Tobias was too fast for us to keep up with, so he had to circle back again and again. We had a hard time keeping him in sight.

"This doesn't look too strange," Cassie joked. "The four of us running down the street looking up in the sky."

"There," Tobias called down. "See that yard with the two trees?"

"Yeah. Just to our left?"

"That's the one. The cat you're looking for is stalking a mouse, right behind the trunk of the nearest tree. "

"Okay, we can't all go traipsing over some stranger's yard," I pointed out. "I'll go with Cassie.