The morph was complete. I was a fish, less than a foot long. A trout, to be exact. Excellent broiled, fried, or grilled.

The saltwater was harsh on my scales, and my gills were barely able to breathe.

"Everyone okay?" It was Jake. Now that we had morphed we had the same thought-speech ability as Tobias.

" I'm okay," I assured him. "But I can barely breathe. I think we'd better be quick."

" I'm with Cassie," Rachel said. "l feel like my scales are burning up. And my gills are on fire."

"Keep the shore on your left and go full speed as long as you can stand it," Jake advised.

"Marco? Are you with us?" I asked.

" Oh , sure. Where else would I be? What could possibly be more fun than running around the sand dunes getting shot at and then jumping into the ocean and turning into a trout, who, 21 incidentally, can't live in saltwater? I wouldn't miss it for anything. Now can we go home and watch TV?"

22 Chapter 7

The next couple of days we didn't get together, except for passing each other in the hall ways at school. We do have lives beyond being Animorphs, after all.

Rachel was busy with her gymnastics class. Plus she got to go to this ceremony where her mom received some award for being Lawyer of the Year. (And since this is Rachel we're talking about, going to an awards dinner meant major shopping for new everything.) Jake had totally blown a test because he hadn't studied, so he had to do a paper as makeup work. And I was busy helping my dad out in the barn with the golden eagle who had almost been electrocuted. He was at a difficult stage of his recovery.

Tobias dropped by one evening and acted kind of snippy about me trying to save a golden eagle. Golden eagles and hawks don't get along. Probably because golden eagles are known to kill and eat hawks.

It was a couple of days later that Jake rode his bike over to my house. I didn't expect him, so I was dressed like even more of a slob than usual. Plus I reeked of various horrible things because I was mucking out the stables and cleaning the birdcages.

Typical guy. He had the totally bad timing to show up when I looked like Ms. Manure.

"Hey, Cassie," he said in his usual casual way, like nothing was going on.

"Hi, Jake. Did you come by to help me shovel manure?"

He grinned. He has a great smile. It appears kind of slowly, like it doesn't quite belong on his serious face. "I don't know. Did I?"

"Yes, you did," I told him. I handed him a shovel. "If I have to smell, so do you."

We worked a little bit, with no sound but the steel shovel blades scraping the concrete. I knew he had something to tell me. I can always tell. But I figured I'd let him get around to it whenever he was ready.

"So," he said at last.

"So?" I echoed.

"Look, um, I guess everyone is kind of waiting to see what you decide to do."

This surprised me. I stopped shoveling. "What? What do you mean?"

"I mean, we're waiting to see what you decide to do about this dream of yours."

I shrugged. "I don't know. Besides, it's not just my dream. Tobias has it, too. And all of you guys felt it a little, at least."

"Yeah, but Tobias figures he isn't going to be much help when ... I mean, if we decide to do something. We're talking water, and Tobias can't morph. As for the rest of us, I don't know.

23 Rachel and Marco were talking about whether it might have just been something they imagined, you know? Because you made it seem so real and all."

"What do you think, Jake?"

Jake stopped working and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked straight into my eyes. "Cassie, if you tell me it's real, it's real. I think you and Tobias are right. But Marco is having second thoughts." He raised one eyebrow, as if to say "You know Marco."

I felt a queasy, sick feeling. "You mean, I'm supposed to make some kind of a decision? Like I'm supposed to say what we do?"

"Cassie, you're the one with the dream. Only you can decide if it's real, and if it's real enough for us to try and do something about it."

"I don't know if it's real," I said. What was he asking me to do? Every time we had tried to get into it with the Yeerks, we had ended up barely escaping with our lives. Just two days had passed since I'd heard bullets whizzing past me.

Jake waited until I met his gaze again. "Cassie, you know we all trust your instincts. You're the best at understanding animals. You're the best morpher. You know everyone in the group respects you."

I made a face. "Give me a break."

"If you think we should pursue this, you know Rachel will be right behind you. Me, too."

"And Marco?"

Jake grinned again. "Marco won't be right behind you. He'll be several feet back."

We both laughed.

"I don't know, Jake. It's a dream. It's like a vision or something. How do I know if it's real?"

He shook his head. "I don't know, Cassie. I guess you just have to take your best shot and hope you're right."

I cringed at that. I'm not Rachel. I'm not a risk-taker. "Can't you decide for me?" I asked, joking.

He nodded solemnly. "If you want me to, sure."

"And then if it's a disaster, it will all be on your head," I said. "You'll be the one who feels bad. You'll be the one to blame." I reached out and touched his cheek. "That's incredibly sweet of you. But you're right. I guess it's my decision this time."

I sighed and looked around at the barn. It smelled pretty bad, and sometimes it was a nuthouse of yammering birds and howling wolves and whinnying horses, all needing care, and all scared of the care we gave them. But it was the place I felt most at home in the whole world.

24 Out through the door of the barn, the fields of corn and open meadow stretched off into the distance, till they pressed up against the dark trees of the forest.

"I know this is crazy," I said, "but the ocean scares me a little. I understand the land. I under stand soil and things that grow out of it." I laughed. "I guess I'm just an old farm girl. You know this farm has been in my family since the Civil War?"

Jake winked. "Do I know that? Puh-leeze. I had Thanksgiving with your family last year, you may remember. Your great-grandmother gave me the complete history."

"Going all the way back to when dinosaurs ruled the earth," I said. "Grammy does tend to go on about our history, doesn't she?"

He looked serious again, almost hard. "It's your call, Cassie. It will be really dangerous and we probably won't do much good. I mean, it's a big ocean out there. But it's your decision."

"Yep," I agreed. I shook my head slowly, sadly. "I believe these dreams are real. I believe there's an Andalite out there, somewhere . . . somehow . . . trapped. Calling for help."

"Good enough," he said. "Now. How do we get out there?"

I frowned, thinking of the possibilities. "Some kind of fish? It would have to be some thing fast. Something that isn't prey. You know, not some fish that's going to get snapped up by a hungry tuna or whatever."

Jake nodded. "And it has to be something we can acquire. Which means, probably, something at The Gardens."

"They have sea lions. And dolphins. But we can't morph them, can we?"

"Why not?"

"I ... I don't know. It's just that, I mean, dolphins? They're highly intelligent. It seems kind of, I don't know, kind of wrong."