"Well, you decide," he said, leaning his shovel against a wall. "I have to go. I can't blow another test, and I have to study."

He climbed back on his bike.

"You're just saying that to get out of shoveling manure," I said.

"Cassie," he said, "I would rather shovel manure with you than do homework without you, any day."

I think it was a compliment. Sort of.

He rode off, leaving me much less at ease than I had been before he'd come.

25 Chapter 8

The next day after school, the four of us headed toward The Gardens on a city bus. Tobias flew. He said he'd be there before we were, but he wasn't sure how close to us he actually could get.

The Gardens is this big amusement park that also includes a zoo. Only they don't call it a zoo, they call it a "wildlife park." My mom works there. Actually, she's the head of medical services, the head vet.

I have a pass to get in anytime I want, but the others all have to pay, which is kind of a drag be cause Marco never has any money. Ever since Marco's mom died, his dad has been kind of messed up. He just takes temporary jobs, and they're always broke.

I guess I kind of think it's romantic, the way Marco's dad has never gotten over his wife dying. But on the other hand, it's like I had to learn when I started helping my dad with the animals - sometimes death just happens, and all you can do is get over it the best you can.

It's tough for Marco because he feels like he has to take care of his dad - instead of having his dad taking care of him.

On the bus, I glanced over at Marco. He was looking out of the window, being kind of quiet.

"Hey, Marco," I said.

"What?"

"Is that a new haircut? It looks good."

"Yeah?" He looked surprised. He ran his fingers back through his long brown hair and kind of smiled.

I did some homework on the bus (math, gag, yuck!) and listened to my Walkman.

When we got there, it turned out there was a special on tickets - buy two and get the third ticket for a dollar. Marco had a dollar, fortunately, so we didn't have to go through any big scenes.

We cruised through the area where all the rides were, heading toward the wildlife park.

Jake shook his head sadly, looking up at the monster roller coaster. "That used to be the coolest thing in the world to me," he said. "But ever since I morphed a falcon, it just hasn't seemed like any big deal. I mean, you're going maybe eighty miles per hour on a steel track.

When I was a falcon I did like two hundred miles an hour in midair."

"This morphing stuff does kind of change things," Marco agreed. "I used to want to get all pumped up. Then I morphed into a gorilla, and it was like, why bother lifting weights? I can just become a gorilla and bench press a truck."

"I don't feel that way," Rachel said. "Being a cat made me more interested in gymnastics. I mean, as a cat I was just so totally, totally in con trol and graceful. Ever since then I've been 26 trying to use that feeling. When I'm on the balance beam I try and remember that cat confidence."

"And then you fall off just the same as always?" I teased.

"Oh, yeah," Rachel said with a laugh. She made little walking fingers in the air that then fell over. "Boom. I slip right off. But I feel confident while I'm falling off."

We reached the wildlife park entrance. The marine mammals are one of the first exhibits.

There's a main building, then there are several outdoor tanks.

We went straight for the largest outdoor tank. There were bleachers all around it on three sides where people sat for performances. A show had just ended, and hundreds of people were leaving. The next show would be in a couple of hours.

"Good timing," Jake said. "Not too big a crowd."

"It's a weekday afternoon," I said. "It's never all that crowded on school days."

We forced our way upstream against the rush of people, and reached the side of the tank.

It's pretty big. Like four or five big swimming pools. It's very blue, very clean-looking.

There's a low platform on one side where the trainers stand to communicate with the dolphins.

"So what's the difference between porpoises and dolphins?" Marco asked. "Both just fish, right?"

SPLOOSH!

The placid surface of the water exploded a few feet from us. Water sprayed across me.

"Oooooh!" we all said as one.

He flew straight up out of the water, like a sleek, pale gray torpedo. Eleven feet long from nose to tail. Four hundred pounds. He simply flew into the air, seemed to hang there, ten feet above the surface of the water, took a skeptical look at us, gave us his permanent wise-guy grin, and slid back beneath the water so smoothly that there was barely a ripple.

"That is a dolphin," I said to Marco.

"Okay, I like that. That is excellent," Marco said. "Did you see what he did?"

You know how really great athletes never look like they're even trying? Like Michael Jordan? How everything they do is perfect, and you know they must have practiced for a million hours, but they always look like, "Oh. No big deal. Of course I can fly through the air. Nothing to it."

That's a dolphin in the water. Effortless. Per fect. Utterly in control.

27 Fish swim through the water. Sharks swim, tuna swim, trout swim, even people swim.

Dolphins don't just swim through the water. They own the water. The water is their toy. The water is one big trampoline and the dolphins bounce around like kids having a good time.

Just watching them makes you happy. It also makes you feel like you're just this clunky, awkward windup toy, jerky and stumbling and clumsy. Human beings may be the smartest creatures on Earth, but we sure are dorky compared to a lot of other species.

"He's trying to get me to give him some more fish."

We all spun around. It was one of the dolphin trainers, a woman named Eileen.

"Oh, hi, Eileen," I said.

She nodded toward the dolphin, who was just exploding out of the water again. This time he turned a neat little somersault. "Joey is the biggest con artist. He's always trying to get extra fish."

"He's amazing," I said.

"Yes, he is," Eileen agreed, with a look of pride.

I introduced Jake, Marco, and Rachel. "We were looking at some dolphin information on the Internet," I lied, "so we thought we'd come out and see the real thing."

"Well, as you know, we have six dolphins here. Joey, whom you've met, Ross, Monica, Chandler, Phoebe, and Rachel. Hey, you guys want to feed them a little? You start throwing fish in the water and they'll all come over."

"It won't upset their schedule?"

"Nah. Just don't let Joey get it all. He's kind of pushy."

Eileen left us with a nice big bucket of fish.

"That is some nasty-looking fish," Marco commented.

"Once you morph into one of these dolphins, you won't think that," Rachel pointed out.

Marco gave her a skeptical look. "Do you realize that just a couple days ago we were fish?

Not that much different than these fish ?"

He was right. But it wasn't something I wanted to think about. I've always been very in volved with animals. But it is a whole different thing when you can become different animals.

I took a fish by the tail and tossed it into the water. Just as Eileen suggested, the rest of the dolphins showed up very quickly.

"Wow. Think these guys like to eat?" Rachel asked.