At least not that I could see. We had lost Ax!

It had taken a total of about two minutes for us to mess up.

Then, suddenly, I saw a strangely familiar face.

"There he is! On the escalator!"

"How did he get all the way over there?" Jake demanded.

We took off after him, but it was so crowded we could barely move. Jake started pushing his way through. I grabbed him by the arm.

"Don't run, man. The mall cops will think you're ripping something off. Besides, we can't attract attention. Controllers shop, too."

Jake slowed instantly. "You're right. This many people, some of them are sure to be Controllers."

We threaded our way, moving as quickly as we could without being too obvious. I just kept saying "excuse me, excuse me," and tried not to bump into anyone who looked like he'd get mad and pound me.

It seemed to take forever to reach the escalator. By then we had totally lost sight of Ax.

"As long as he doesn't demorph we're okay," Jake said. "I mean, what's the worst he could do?"

"Jake, I don't want to think about the worst he could do," I said.

17 "There!"

"Where?"

"Over at Starbucks. The coffee place."

I'm not as tall as Jake so I couldn't see him as easily. But as we got near Starbucks, I spotted him. He was standing patiently in line.

We got to him just in time to hear him say, "I'll have . . . I-yull, lie, have a double latte, too.

Double. Bull. Bull. Latayayay."

"He must have heard someone else say it," I whispered to Jake.

"Caff or decaf?" the clerk asked.

Ax stared. "Caff? Caff caff caff?"

"That will be two ninety-five."

Ax stared some more. "Fi-ive."

Jake reached into his pocket and yanked out the money he'd brought to pay for things at Radio Shack. "Here you go," he said, peeling off three dollars.

I took Ax's arm and guided him to the pickup window. "Ax, don't go off on your own, okay?

We almost lost you."

"Lost? I am here. Hee-yar."

"Yeah, look, just stay close, okay?" I gave Jake a look. "See? It's your fault. You said, 'so far, so good.'"

The Starbucks guy handed Ax a paper cup.

Ax took it. He looked around to see what other people were doing. Like them, he put a lid on his cup.

Then, still mimicking the others, he attempted to drink.

"Um, Ax?" I said. "You have to drink where the little hole is in the lid."

"A hole! In the lid! No spills! Ills!"

This was the coolest thing Ax had ever seen. I guess coffee cup technology hasn't advanced very far on the Andalite home world. Probably be cause they don't have mouths, and so drinking is not a big concern. But whatever the reason, Ax wouldn't shut up about it.

"So simple! Imple. And yet so effective!"

"Yeah, it's a real miracle of human technology," I said.

18 "I have wanted to try other mouth uses. Drink ing. Eating." Then, as an afterthought, he added, "Eeee-ting. Ting."

"Just line the little hole up with your mouth," I said. "Come on, there's Radio Shack. We've already lost like ten minutes."

The two of us hemmed Ax in and herded him toward Radio Shack.

Then he drank the coffee.

"Ahhh! Ohhh! Oh, oh, oh, what? What? What is that?!"

"What?" I asked, alarmed. I swiveled my head back and forth, looking for some danger.

"A new sense. It ... I cannot explain it. It is ... it comes from this mouth." He pointed at his mouth. "It happened when I drank this liquid. It was pleasant. Very pleasant."

It took a few seconds for Jake and I to realize what he was talking about. "Oh. Taste! He's tasting it," Jake said. "He doesn't normally have the sense of taste."

"At least he stopped repeating sounds," I muttered.

"Taste," Ax said, contradicting me. "Aste. Tuh-aste."

He drank his coffee and we rushed him to Radio Shack. "Okay, look, Ax, we have very little time. See if the stuff you need is here."

I'll say this for Ax. He may have been a little weird by human standards, but the boy knows his technology. I mean, he went down the pegboards in the back of the store and just started lifting off different components.

"This must be a primitive gairtmof," he said, inspecting a small switch. "And this could be a sort of fleer. Very primitive, but it will work."

In ten minutes' time he'd accumulated a dozen components, ranging from coaxial cable to batteries to things I didn't even recognize.

"Good," he said at last. "All I lack is a Z- Space transponder. Transponder. PONder."

"A what?"

"A Z-Space transponder. It translates the signal into zero space."

I looked at Jake. "Zero space?"

Jake looked back at me and shrugged. "Never heard of it."

Ax looked doubtful. "Zero space," he repeated. "Zeeeero. The opposite of true space. Anti-reality." He looked patiently from one of us to the other. "Zero space, the nondimension where faster-than-light travel is possible. Bull. Possi-bull-uh."

19 "Oh," I said sarcastically. "That zero space. Um, Ax? Sorry to be so primitive and all, but we don't have faster-than-light travel. And I've never heard of zero space."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Oh."

"Let's get this stuff and worry about the other thing later," Jake said calmly. But I could tell he was getting slightly hacked off. "I'll go pay for this stuff."

Ax drained the last of his coffee. "Taste," he said. "I would like more taste." He cocked his head. "I smell things. I believe . . . buh-leeve . . . blee . . . bleeve . . . there is a connection between smell and taste."

"Yeah, you're right," I said. "We can't travel faster than light, but we can make a sticky bun that smells pretty good."

"Sticky," Ax said. "Must I carry this?" he asked, indicating his empty coffee cup.

"No, you can just throw it away."

Bad choice of words. Ax threw the coffee cup. He threw it hard. It hit one of the cashiers in the head.

"Hey!"

"Sorry, it was an accident, man," I yelped, rushing to the cashier. "He's . . . he's sick. He, um, has this condition. You know, like out-of-control spasms."

Jake said, "Yeah, it's not his fault. It's like a seizure!"

The clerk rubbed his head. "Okay, forget it. Besides, he's out of here and that's all I care about."

"He's what?"

Jake and I turned fast. But Ax was gone.

Jake grabbed the bag of stuff and raced after me out into the stream of people.

Ax was nowhere to be seen.

But then I looked down at the lower level. There was a crowd of people kind of surging. All moving in the same direction. Like they were running to see something.

"They're heading toward the food court," Jake said.

"Oh, I have a very bad feeling about this," I said.

We ran for the escalator. We shoved down it, yelling "excuse me" every two seconds.

20 We got to the food court. We wormed our way through a crowd of laughing, giggling, pointing people.

And there, all alone - because all the sane people had pulled away - was Ax.

He was racing like some lunatic from table to table, snatching up leftover food and shoving it in his mouth.

As I watched he grabbed a half-eaten slice of pizza.