Animorphs The Reaction

Converted to E-Book by:

Kamal Raniga

My name is Rachel.

I won't tell you my last name or where I'm from. Here's what I can tell you about myself: I'm tall for my age. Maybe tall for any age. I have blond hair. I like gymnastics, shopping, and a good fight with bad guys.

Not necessarily in that order.

People say I'm pretty, and I guess I'm okay. People say I'm self-confident, and I know that's true.

My closest friends think I'm fearless. They're wrong about that. People without fear are just insane. I have plenty of fear in my life. Some days I feel afraid from the minute I wake up in the morning till my last nightmare at night.

But the thing about fear is you can't be afraid of it. I know that sounds confusing. I guess what I mean is, be afraid if you have to, right? Fear is like this vicious little worm that lives inside you and eats you alive. You have to fight it. You have to know it's there. You have to accept that you'll never get rid of it, but fight it just the same.

Brave isn't about not being afraid. It's about being scared to death and still not giving in.

That's all any of us do. Any of us Animorphs. We just try not to give in.

And in the middle of it all, in the middle of all the danger and betrayal and fear, we try to hold on to what's normal and good. Have to keep up with the homework. Have to be ready for that pop quiz. Have to still listen to music and watch TV and maybe go to a movie.

You know what I mean? When you live in an insane world, you have to hold on to the little things.

There are six of us. Five humans, one not-so-human. There's me; there's Jake, my more responsible cousin; Marco, my personal pain in the butt; Cassie, my best friend forever; Tobias, who was our first casualty, trapped forever in the body of a hawk; and Ax, the only Andalite to survive their mission to Earth.

It all began with an innocent walk through an

abandoned construction site at night. The five of us, minus Ax, were minding our own business, heading home from the mall. No one was thinking, Hey, let's get ourselves in the middle of an interstellar war.

I just wanted to get home, do all those normal things. Maybe watch TV.

Check out some Web sites. Listen to a favorite CD. Do my homework.

Whatever. Normal stuff.

But the damaged Andalite fighter landed right in front of us, and from that point on, nothing was normal again.

We are not alone in this universe. There are billions of stars and billions of planets. And on some of those planets, life arose like it did here on good old Earth.

On some of those planets, highly intelligent life evolved. Just like Homo sapiens - humans - evolved here. Out there in the stars, there are races like the Ellimists who are so advanced they make humans look as dumb as cows. Then there are races, like the Andalites, more advanced than us. You know: like a tenth-grader is more advanced than an eighth-grader. But still in the same zone of reality.

And there are races like the Hork-Bajir, razor-bladed killing machines that everyone says used to be rather sweet. And the Taxxons . . . well,

what can you say about the Taxxons? Huge cannibalistic centipedes. Not exactly the good guys of the galaxy. Not exactly nice.

And then there are the Yeerks.

The Yeerks, who enslaved the Hork-Bajir. The Yeerks, who made a devil's deal with the Taxxons. The Yeerks, who spread throughout the galaxy like a virus, attacking one race after another, enslaving, destroying.

They are parasites. Just gray slugs, really. In their natural state you could step on one and squash it like a snail without its shell.

But Yeerks have the ability to infest other species. To crawl and slither and squirm inside their heads. They flatten their bodies out and wrap themselves around the brain, sinking into every crevice.

They tie into the brain. They take over the brain and enslave the poor creature, making it a Controller. They did this to Hork-Bajir and Gedds and Taxxons. All Hork-Bajir and Taxxons and Gedds are Controllers.

They've even done it to one Andalite. But only one.

Luckily.

And they are doing it to humans. Hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of humans.

Some Controllers are taken against their will.

Others, believe it or not, become Controllers voluntarily.

That's always been the thing that made me maddest. Anyone can lose a battle. But to choose to surrender? To become a traitor? That's just sick.

The Yeerks have a front organization they call The Sharing. It's supposed to be like some kind of Boy Scouts or something, except that they take girls as well as boys, and adults as well as kids. Supposedly, it's this big family thing. You know: cookouts and rafting trips and everyone just one big, happy family.

Except that the reality is The Sharing is run by the Yeerks. They use it to learn about human society. They use it to disguise their meetings.

And they use it to recruit new members.

I always wondered what lies they told people to get them to agree to become Controllers. Now I know. At least I know what it took to get one person to betray his entire planet.

I guess he betrayed me personally, too. In a way. Not that he knew me.

There were probably a million girls like me with crushes on him.

I know what you're thinking. Rachel has a crush? Rachel? The person Marco calls Xena: Warrior Princess?

Well, what can I say? Cute is cute. And cute-

ness is a very powerful force. And he was the cutest of all cute guys that ever showed a dimple.

It was a shame I had to do what I did to him. It hurt me as much as it hurt him.

Well . . . maybe not quite as much.

But we'll get to all that grisly stuff later. I'll start at the beginning. Oddly enough, it all started at the zoo.

?Field trip." Two of the best words in the English language. Our class was going to the zoo at The Gardens.

Sure, I'd been there before. And yes, Cassie's mom was head veterinarian, so I could get in anytime I wanted. But who cared? Any field trip was better than sitting at a desk, zoning out at a blackboard. Right? I mean, when I was younger, we went on a field trip to a factory that made bread and Twinkies. They didn't even give us any Twinkles, but did I care? No. Because being out, moving around, seeing new stuff, is always better than hard desk chairs.