6 Chapter 2

Yeah , so then I do the gorilla thing, right? I save the old man. I'm the hero. I am Spiderman.

I am Wolverine. I am Batman - "

"Or at least Gorilla Boy," Rachel interrupted.

She did a forward flip as we walked across the springy grass. Rachel's into gymnastics. It's very distracting when someone flips while they're talk ing to you.

It was the day after my big hero act. We were all out in a far meadow of Cassie's farm - me, Jake, Cassie, and Rachel, strolling through little bunches of wildflowers. Tobias was flying overhead, about a hundred feet up, in a sky dotted with bright, white clouds.

"And what happens as I am playing Captain America?" I ask. "The old man unloads the gun at me. I totally lost the milk and my bag of M&M's."

Jake gave me a disgruntled look. "Marco? It was good of you to rescue the old man. But you really shouldn't be turning into a gorilla."

Now, as you're reading this, you're probably thinking, Urn, Marco? Time out. You've left out a few things. Like, how can you turn into a gorilla?

Good question.

It happened on a dark night when we were all heading home from the mall. There were five of us.

Me, you already know.

Jake is my best friend, even though, unfortunately, he is kind of a pain sometimes. He's one of those serious-type guys. You say the word "responsibility" and he snaps to attention. He's the kind of guy who always seems like he's bigger than he actually is. That's because he has that whole "I'm in charge, and you can trust me" thing going on. He has sensible brown hair, and trustworthy brown eyes, and one of those confident chins.

He also has a great sense of humor and is very smart, and I would trust him with my life any day, any time. Not that I would ever tell him that.

Then there's Cassie. I didn't really know her very well back then. But I think she's kind of Jake's girlfriend now. Of course, no one is supposed to know this. Ssshhh! Big secret!

Cassie is the one who is least like me. If I'm comedy, she's poetry. She's a natural peacemaker. She's the one who knows when you're feeling bad and will find something nice to say that makes you feel better. And it's not like she's manipulating. She really cares about things. She's like sincere or something.

Cassie is our animal expert. Her parents are both vets and she spends most of her free time helping her dad run the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. It's in the barn at their farm. They save injured woodchucks and deer and eagles and so on. Cassie actually knows how to get an injured, angry wolf to take its pills. (Not an easy thing. Believe me. I was a wolf once.) 7 You go out to her barn and you'll see this lit tle, short, black girl in overalls and boots with her arm halfway down the throat of a wolf that could just bite it right off. And she'll be smiling and acting like it's no big deal. And the wolf will be just standing there, looking like he's trying to earn a gold star for being the best little boy in school.

Then there's Rachel. Very beautiful. Very leggy-blond-supermodel type. Ms. Fashion. Ms.

Properly-Applied-Makeup. Ms. Has-It-All - Looks- and -Brains.

Rachel is Jake's cousin, and a total babe who, unfortunately, is also totally insane. See, somehow, underneath all that perfect hair and perfect teeth, there's this lunatic Amazon warrior-queen, just fighting to get out.

Here's what Rachel'll say whenever we decide to do something so dangerous it makes you want to wet yourself: "I'm in! Let's go! Let's do it!"

I swear that, if she could, Rachel would be wearing a suit of armor and swinging a sword.

And it would be a fashionable suit of armor, and she would look great in it.

Then there is Tobias. That night in the construction site, he was just this kind of dweeby kid I barely knew. He liked Jake because Jake once kept some guys from beating him up.

To be honest with you, I don't even remember what Tobias looked like back then. Now, of course, he looks like a fierce, angry bird of prey.

There's a downside to the morphing power we have. A time limit of two hours. Stay more than two hours in a morph, and you stay forever.

That's why Tobias was flying overhead, with his wide wings catching the warm updrafts.

Tobias is a hawk. A red-tail hawk, to be exact. I guess he always will be.

I tease Tobias sometimes.

What happened to him scares me.

Anyway, on that night we were cutting through this big, abandoned construction site. It was supposed to be a shopping center, but they got it half built and then stopped.

Then, to make a long story short, there was this spaceship. It was carrying an Andalite who was dying of wounds he'd gotten fighting the Yeerks up in Earth orbit. Or thereabouts.

He's the one who told us about the Yeerks. The Yeerks are parasites. They use the bodies of other species. They take them over. They control them. That's what you call a human who's been taken over - a Controller. A human Controller.

Jake's brother, Tom, is one. A Controller.

And Melissa, Rachel's friend, her father is one, too.

The Andalites fight the Yeerks. They had been trying to stop the secret Yeerk invasion of Earth, but basically they got their butts kicked. Before he died, the Andalite promised us that 8 reinforcements would come. Eventually. In the meantime, all he could do for us was give us a weapon.

That weapon was the power to morph. To ac quire the DNA of any animal we could touch, and then to become that animal.

So that was the deal. The five of us, five regular everyday kids, were supposed to fight the Yeerks until the Andalites came along and rescued us.

Five kids versus the Yeerks. The Yeerks, who had already conquered the terrifying Hork-Bajir and made them into Controllers. The Yeerks, with their creepy allies, the Taxxon-Controllers. The Yeerks who had already infiltrated human society, making Controllers out of cops and teachers and soldiers and mayors and TV newspeople. They were everywhere.

They could be anyone.

And all we had was five kids who could turn into birds.

Or gorillas.

"I just don't think we should be morphing out on the street in order to get involved in everyday crimes," Jake lectured me. "Remember what happened at the used car lot with Rachel and Tobias - and you asked them if they were insane!"

I was about to argue when Rachel spoke up again.

"I think Marco did the right thing," she said. "What was he supposed to do? Just walk away?

I don't think so."

"Okay, now I know I was wrong," I said. "Any time Rachel thinks I did the right thing, it has to be wrong. Besides, that was my whole point. I risked my life for that old man, and I don't even get a thank you."

"I don't know if it was a good idea," Cassie said, "but the feeling behind it was good. I think it was heroic."

Well, what could I say to that? It's very hard to disagree with someone who has just called you a hero.

Jake decided to let it go. Unfortunately, the reason he decided to drop it was that he had something bigger to talk about.

He got his serious look.

I groaned. I hate that serious look. It always means trouble.

"Jake? Are you going to tell me why we're all out walking in the fields together? Aside from the fact that it's a nice day and all?"

"We're going to see Ax," Jake explained. "Cassie and I have been talking to him the last couple days. You know, about what he wants to do."

9 "Uh-oh," I muttered. "I just know I'm not going to like this."

"Well . . . probably not. Ax wants to go home," Jake said.

"Home?" Rachel repeated.