But at last I lay there on the ground, staring up through human eyes at the stars.

"Are you guys okay?" It was Tobias.

"Cassie?" Jake asked.

"I'm okay," Cassie said.

"Me, too, Jake, thanks for asking," Rachel said.

We were all alive. All in one piece. Four humans and an Andalite.

I looked down and saw the disturbed sand, where we had pushed our way up and out. Thou sands of ants, almost too small to see, were racing wildly around.

There, too, in the dirt, was the transponder. I picked it up.

Rachel was stomping the ground back down, trying to flatten it out so it wouldn't look strange.

"Jake?" I said. "Let's not do this again any time soon."

He nodded shakily.

"One day I'm a lobster. Then I'm an ant. I fig ure the next step down the evolutionary ladder is a virus or something. And I just want to say right now, I'm not doing it. I am not going to become phlegm, even to save the world."

It wasn't much of a joke, but there was a kind of lame little laugh from everyone. And Rachel stopped stomping the ants - I mean, the ground.

That night, when I went home, I took a shower. I found the head of an ant. It was still locked onto the skin of my waist.

Lots of people think only humans fight wars. That only humans are murderous. Let me tell you something - compared to ants, human beings are full of nothing but peace, love, and under standing.

50 A month or so after the experience with the ants, I picked up a book about ants. The author said, "If ants had nuclear weapons they would probably end the world in a week."

He's wrong. It wouldn't take them that long.

51 Chapter 12

I was cool. I was fine. I slept okay. There were dreams, but I just put them out of my mind.

When I got up the next morning, I ignored the fact that my dad's eyes were red, like he'd been crying. He was getting worse, not better, as we got closer to Sunday. To the second year anniversary of my mom's death.

But I had to put that out of my mind, too. I had to put a lot of things out of my mind. It was getting to be a habit.

I saw Jake in the hallway at school. I pretended not to notice him.

I saw Rachel, too. She had a dark look in her eyes. Like she hadn't slept. Like something was really wrong.

Even Cassie seemed grim. It had gotten to all of us. It's not so easy to just forget terror. It's not easy to just ignore the memory of your leg being ripped off.

Of being dismembered. Torn apart.

One of these days, I thought, one of us is going to go crazy. Totally, lock-me-up-in-a-rubber-room nutso. It was too much. This wasn't how life was supposed to be.

One of us would snap. One of us would lose it. It could happen, even to strong people.

I knew. It had happened to my father. I used to think nothing could ever destroy him. But my mom's death had.

He used to be an engineer. A scientist, really. He's incredibly smart. We had a nice house. We had a nice car. I used to live practically next door to Jake.

I know all that stuff isn't important. I know having things isn't what life is about. But it was still hard when my dad just stopped going to work. Jerry, his boss, tried to be nice. He gave him a couple of weeks to deal with losing Mom.

But a couple of weeks was not enough.

My dad's a janitor now. Part-time. He gets jobs with a temporary service. He unpacks boxes at department stores. That kind of thing. But I don't care what kind of job he has. That doesn't matter.

What matters is that when I lost my mom, I lost my dad, too.

See, people can snap. People can lose it. I know.

I cruised through the morning classes. No big deal.

At lunch I ended up at a table with Rachel. She didn't seem to notice me. She was just hunched over her meal, eating mechanically.

52 A girl named Jessica came walking past with her tray. She bumped into Rachel, which made Rachel drop her fork. It splattered down in the food on her tray.

I don't know if Jessica did it deliberately or not. She's the kind of girl who thinks she's tough.

"Watch it!" Rachel snapped.

"What?" Jessica demanded, acting outraged. "Are you yelling at me? Don't give me any of your mouth, I might have to slap it for you." Then she shoved against Rachel's back.

In a flash Rachel was up, out of her seat. She spun around. She grabbed Jessica by the collar of her sweatshirt and pushed the girl back against the next table.

Jessica probably outweighs Rachel by fifty pounds. But it didn't matter. Rachel had her on her back, on the table, scattering dishes and food everywhere. Rachel leaned over Jessica and in a voice of cold steel, said, "Don't. Touch. Me."

I saw Jake across the room. Too far away to intervene. Cassie was with him. It was up to me.

I jumped up and raced to Rachel. I took a deep breath and shoved both my arms between them.

"Back off, Marco," Rachel said.

"Get her off me! She's crazy!" Jessica cried.

I pushed against Rachel, trying to force her off Jessica. Suddenly, Jessica started lashing out.

I assume she was trying to hit Rachel.

She missed.

"Ow!" I grabbed my left eye. "What are you hitting me for?"

And that's when the first teacher showed up.

Five minutes later, Jessica, Rachel and I were sitting in the assistant principal's office.

Chapman's office.

Jessica was acting outraged in a very loud voice. Rachel was staring stonily ahead. I was wondering whether my eye would just keep swelling up.

Chapman glared at us. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded. "Fighting in the lunch room? And you, Rachel, of all people!"

"What, like you think she's better than me?" Jessica demanded.

Chapman ignored her. He focused on Rachel. "Is something the matter? Mr. Halloram says you started the fight. Are you okay, Rachel? Is there some kind of stress in your life?"

53 For a split second, I was afraid. The look in Rachel's eyes was dangerous. I had this terrible flash of her saying, "Yeah, Mr. Chapman, I am a little stressed. I nearly got killed turning into an ant to sneak into your basement to fight you and the rest of your evil Yeerk friends."

I knew Rachel was too cool for anything like that. But then, I would have said she was too cool to start a fight in the lunchroom.

"It's my fault, Mr. Chapman," I said.

"Your fault?" His eyes narrowed.

"Yes, sir. Urn, they were fighting over me. See, they both want me. They're both madly in love with me, and I can certainly understand why. Can't you?"

"Are you crazy, you little toad?!" Jessica shrieked.

But when I glanced over at Rachel I saw just the slightest little tugging at the corner of her mouth. The beginnings of a smile.

Chapman yelled at us for a few minutes and told us all to make appointments with the school counselor. Then he let us go.

In the hallway outside his office, Rachel walked with me.

"I wish I could do that," she said.

"What?"

"Always think things are funny. It's why you're so ... you know, cool and in control."

"Me? Cool and in control?" The idea surprised me. Rachel thought I was in control?

"Yesterday . . . last night ... it got to me," she said. She shrugged. Then she smiled her supermodel smile at me. "You grind my nerves sometimes, Marco, always joking the way you do. But keep it up, okay? We need a sense of humor."

"Humor? You thought I was kidding? You mean, you and Jessica aren't both insanely in love with me?"

"Dream on, Marco," she said.