With a desperate surge of energy, I tumbled over the side of the pan and landed flat on my shell back, atop the stove. I was looking up into a stove hood.

I rolled away from the heat and fell.

But the fall wasn't far, because I was now the size of a toddler, more human than lobster. I was one nasty-looking kid, though, with eight legs growing from my stomach and chest.

My human hearing returned with shocking effect.

"Ahhhhhh! Ahhhhhhh! Ahhhhhh! Ahhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhh!"

Someone was screaming uncontrollably.

My legs were back! I stood up. I looked around and saw a woman. Sort of pretty, except for the fact that her eyes were wide with terror and she was screaming.

"Ahhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhh!"

I glanced over and saw the plastic bag filled with ice. That's how she had carried us from the supermarket. Now we were in her kitchen. Jake was already mostly human, standing with one foot still in the grocery bag. The eight legs sucked into his chest. His human eyes appeared.

Ax was a truly disgusting combination of Andalite and lobster. But as I watched, he eliminated the last traces of crustacean.

Unfortunately, this did not make the woman feel any better.

"Ahhhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhh!"

"It's okay, ma'am," I said. "We're not going to hurt you."

"Calm down, ma'am," Jake said. "Please calm down."

Her eyes darted wildly from me to Jake to Ax. She kept screaming.

"Ahhhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhh!"

"Look, it's okay," I said. "We're going to leave. No one is going to hurt you."

"You . . . you . . . you . . . you . . . lobsters!" she managed to say.

"Yeah, it is slightly weird, I'll admit," I said. "But it's okay. It's just a dream."

"A ... a ... a dream?"

30 "Yes, ma'am. Just a dream," Jake said reassuringly.

I looked at Ax. "Can you morph to human yet? We need to get out of here."

"I can morph again," he assured me. And he started right away.

"We're going to leave now," Jake said. "You can wake up later, okay? But I wouldn't tell any one about this dream."

The woman shook her head violently.

"See, it could get you in trouble with . . . with certain people. Besides, folks would just think you're crazy."

She nodded with extreme conviction.

Ax was almost human. We were all dressed in our slightly ridiculous morphing outfits, but they would have to do.

We headed for the door. Then I caught sight of three more lobsters, still in the bag of ice. I guess it was supposed to be a dinner for six.

"Ma'am?" I asked. "Do us a favor, would you, please? Take those other guys down to the beach and let them go. Okay?"

31 Chapter 7

Jake and I were playing video games at the mall. I was kicking his butt. He was distracted because he was eating.

He was eating a big red bug with huge pincers.

I told him not to eat it. It would upset his stomach. But he just ignored me.

Then, suddenly, his stomach exploded. It just exploded outward, guts flying everywhere.

Eight huge spider legs appeared, like something in him was trying to crawl out.

I tried to get away, but the steam was rising. I was burning up!

I tried to run, but my legs were gone, replaced by a tail that jerked and kicked.

I screamed.

And screamed.

"Marco, Marco, wake up!"

My eyes opened very suddenly. Darkness. Someone holding onto me. I was confused.

"Mom?" I asked.

Silence. Then, "No."

My brain snapped back into reality. I was in my room. In my own bed. My dad was sitting on the side of the bed. He looked concerned and sad.

"It's just me," he said. He let go of my shoulders.

I felt sweaty all over. Cold sweat.

"I guess you had a nightmare," my father said.

"Yeah," I said shakily. "Sorry I woke you up."

"I wasn't asleep," he said.

I glanced at my clock. The red numbers showed 3:18 a.m. I didn't have to ask why my dad was awake. He often sat awake late into the night. Sometimes watching TV. Sometimes just staring into space.

He'd been that way since my mom died.

My dad looks very different from me. For one thing, he's pretty tall. He's paler than me, too, and has light brown eyes. My mom was Hispanic, very dark hair and eyes. Everyone says I look like her. I know it's true, because sometimes when he's thinking about her, my dad will just glaze over and stare at me like I'm not even there. Like I'm a picture of someone else.

32 "I'm okay now," I said. "You should try to get some sleep."

He nodded. "Yeah. I'll do that. Look, Marco, you weren't dreaming about her, were you?"

"No, Dad. Why?"

"Because the first thing you said when you woke up was 'Mom.'"

"I guess I was confused."

"Do you ever? Dream about her, I mean?"

"Sometimes," I admitted. "But they aren't nightmares."

He almost smiled. "No. I guess they wouldn't be, would they?" He picked up the little framed picture of my mom that I keep on my nightstand. Then he got that twisted look of sick grief I had seen on his face every day for the last two years.

Part of me is mad when I see him that way. Part of me just wants to say, "Dad, get it together.

Let her go. She's dead. She doesn't want us spending the rest of our lives mourning."

But I never do say that.

After a few minutes, he got up. He made some last remark about how I shouldn't be worried about bogeymen, and left. I knew he would sit out in the living room alone, and eventually fall asleep in his chair.

I lay there in the dark and tried to get the dream out of my head. But it's hard to forget a nightmare that's true.

"There. It is finished." Ax held up a small mess of electronic components for all of us to see.

It looked sort of like an exploded remote control, but smaller.

It was the next day. We were out in the woods, grouped together beneath a huge old oak tree.

It was like a strange sort of picnic. Jake and Cassie had each brought hand tools for Ax to use - screwdrivers, a solder gun, a battery-powered drill, a hammer, wrenches, pliers and, of course we had the electronic parts we had stashed in the trash before the lobster incident.

Rachel had brought sandwiches. I'd brought a six-pack of Pepsi.

It was a nice day, sunny and warm. I needed a nice day. I needed sunlight. I'd had a bad night, with too little sleep.

"So, Ax," I said. "What is it?"

"It is a distress beacon that can broadcast on Yeerk frequencies," he said with satisfaction. "l know this is a Yeerk frequency. We have used it to trick them before. To send false instructions."

"All it needs is a Z-Space transponder," Jake said wearily, rolling his eyes at me.

33 I think Jake may have been a bit ragged out by the lobster incident, too. He seemed snappish and kind of unfocused. Not at all Jake-like.

"And since we can't get a Z-Space transponder, it's basically useless, right?" Rachel asked.

"Yes. Totally useless without the transponder."

Rachel threw up her hands. "Then what exactly are we doing?"

Jake just shrugged. Cassie sidled up next to him and gave him a small little sideways hug. No one was supposed to notice. But right away Jake's harsh look mellowed a little.

That wasn't doing anything for my bad mood, though. "Well, I'm guessing that in about two centuries or so, humans will discover zero space and make transponders. Whatever they are.