"Just don't be near a mirror," I suggested. "And don't look at each other while you're morphing."

"Are these creatures frightening to humans?" Ax wondered.

It's amazing how quickly we'd all gotten used to the fact that this guy from another planet was with us. I barely even thought about the fact that an Andalite was standing there, looking like a cross between a blue deer, a mouthless human, a goat with eyes on the ends of his horns, and a scorpion.

The scorpion part is the Andalite's tail. It has a curved, scythe blade on the end. The Andalites can whip that tail forward so fast you don't even see it move.

I sat on the edge of Marco's bed. Tobias perched just inside the window, looking fierce and angry - although, of course, he wasn't.

Speaking of odd things I was getting used to. I mean, I was there with an alien, my cousin, my best friend, and Cassie, and they were all getting ready to become roaches.

Except for Tobias.

And the weirdest thing of all was that it didn't seem weird anymore.

I watched as they all began to morph. I looked away when it began to get disgusting. When I looked again, there were four cockroaches on the carpet.

18 "Okay," Marco thought-spoke to me. "We're bugs. Let's get this over with, because I have to tell you - I have a major urge to step on myself."

"Okay," I said. "Can you guys hear me?"

"Go ahead. We're ready. Say something," Marco thought-spoke. I couldn't tell which roach was him. All roaches look alike.

"Hello," I said loudly.

"Wait. I felt something," Cassie said.

"Tobias, tell them that was me."

"That was Jake," Tobias translated into thought-speak. " He said 'hello.'"

"Okay, Jake. Do it again. Say 'hello' again," Marco instructed.

"Hello."

"Yeah, I felt some vibrations there," Rachel confirmed.

"Hello."

"That sounded like hello," Cassie said.

"Jake?" Marco said. "Say 'I'm a huge dork.' I'll see if I can understand it"

"You're a huge dork."

"Very funny," Marco said. "I couldn't actually hear what you said. But I know you." We spent about an hour with Marco, Cassie, Rachel, and Ax learning to translate vibration into human speech. They were repeating the learning I'd done while I was stuck in a Roach Motel behind my refrigerator.

When they demorphed I looked away again. My dreams had been weird enough lately. I didn't need any help having nightmares.

Cassie is the best morpher in our group, even better than Ax - who's an Andalite, after all.

Usually she can kind of control the process a lit tle. Once, when we were morphing birds, she managed to turn totally human except for keeping huge bird wings for a few seconds.

It was really cool.

But even Cassie couldn't do anything to make a cockroach morph attractive.

It was disgusting. Flat-out disgusting.

19 "You have such wonderful animals on this planet," Ax said when he had returned to his normal form. Not that his normal form looked very normal, standing there in Marco's bedroom.

"Cockroaches are not wonderful," Rachel said, shuddering a little. "I mean, I'm sorry, but I don't like those bodies."

"They're easy to handle, though," Marco said. "Not like ants."

We all exchanged a look. We'd had a very bad experience with ants. That was one morph no one was going to be repeating.

"You know, guys, this mission doesn't really require all of us to go," I said.

"Look, I just said roaches are disgusting," Rachel protested. "I didn't say I didn't want to do it.

We need to know what's going on with that hospital. The best way to do that is to crash this leadership meeting of The Sharing. And the best way to do that is with roach morphs. End of discussion."

She looked around belligerently, like she was daring anyone to disagree.

"Yeah, but I can do it alone," I said.

"What's going on with you?" Rachel asked. "You know we're the Five Musketeers. One for all, and all for one. Six Musketeers now," she corrected, looking at Ax.

"What are Musketeers?" Ax asked.

No one answered him. They were all just looking at me like I'd done something wrong.

"Normally, I'd be all for staying out of trouble," Marco said, "But I'm just curious about why you're acting this way."

"It makes sense. One of us can go it alone."

"Are you worried about Tom getting hurt?" Cassie asked.

Count on Cassie to figure it out. I looked down at the ground. "Look, he is my brother. You guys are my friends. What if we get into it and it comes down to a fight?"

Marco raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. He understood. "We don't hurt Tom, that's the first thing."

"It's not that simple," I said. "He's involved in this big time. He's one of them. And he would . . .

look, he would kill any of us."

I hated having to say that. But it was true.

20 "Not Tom," Tobias said. "The thing that lives in his head. Never Tom." I sighed. "I had this dream." I almost stopped talking right there, because I felt like a fool bringing it up. "I know this is stupid. I know dreams don't mean anything. But I've had this dream a couple of times."

"So? Tell us," Rachel prodded.

"Okay, but don't laugh. In the dream I'm in my tiger morph. And I'm stalking Tom. Following him. On his trail. I'm feeling the tiger's eagerness. You know, that predator feeling. The hunger.

The desire to kill."

Tobias turned his head away. I knew why. Tobias was a predator now. He felt that eagerness, that killing desire, every day. It still bothered him, I guess. He had always been such a gentle guy. Back when he was fully human.

"Anyway, in the dream, I'm hunting my own brother. Only, when I get close ... he turns around.

And it isn't Tom anymore. It's ..." I stopped myself before I finished the sentence. I'd already said too much.

"I just don't want anything to happen to Tom," I said lamely. "It's not just about what might happen if there's a fight. It's. . . . Look, I think Tom is important to this whole hospital plan somehow. I think maybe he's in charge. If we manage to stop this thing, who knows what they'll do to Tom? I mean, maybe Visser Three just kills Tom's Yeerk. But we've all seen Visser Three in action. He likes to make examples out of anyone who fails him. He could kill Tom."

Rachel whistled softly. "If we succeed, Tom fails. If he fails, Visser Three may kill him."

"That's about the way it is, yeah," I said.

"So, what do we do?" Marco asked.

"We forget this mission," Cassie suggested.

"And leave the Yeerks in control of a hospital?

A little factory for making Controllers?" I countered. "Why? Because my brother may be hurt?"

"Yes," Cassie said simply.

I hesitated. I wanted to agree. But how could I justify backing off for selfish reasons?

"We don't have to make a final decision now," Marco said. "We can go in. Learn what they're up to. Decide then what to do about it."

I met Marco's gaze. I wondered what he was thinking about me. Only Marco and I know about his mother. To everyone else, she's dead. Only the two of us know that she's really a Controller.

That her body is the host body of Visser One. 21 Marco, of all people, understood what I was dealing with. He had given me a way out of deciding.