"Is she singing "Jingle Bells"?" Marco demanded.

"Ax, I'm in dolphin morph now, but I can't see Rachel. Where are you two?" Cassie cried. "l should be able to see an elephant and a shark!"

"Rachel is no longer an elephant. In fact, I can't see her at all. She's too small."

"What?" Jake asked.

"We're almost there! Ax, you have to find her!"

I rose slowly from the brink of unconsciousness. Slowly, the gears in my brain started to grind forward. I was underwater. I was sure of that.

But I was no longer the elephant.

I could breathe! And I was no longer sinking.

At least, it didn't feel like I was. But I couldn't see to be sure. I was blind.

Don't panic, Rachel, I ordered myself. But that was easier said than done. I was blind!

"l can't find her," Ax yelled in frustration. "These shark eyes are too weak. She was too small. I think she was morphing an insect."

Insect?

Slowly, reluctantly, I took stock. I had legs. I could move them, feel them. Four legs. No, six! Yes, I had become an insect. I had feelers. I waved them around and tasted the air. Nothing. Just my own smell.

And what brain was in with my own? None. No awareness. No thought. It was the body of a mindless machine. There were two possibilities: termite ... or ant!

"Ax? Cassie? I think ... I think I went into ant morph!" I cried.

"Nobody swallow anything. It could be me."

"Are you okay?" Cassie asked.

"You mean aside from the fact that I'm in ant morph, trapped inside an air bubble in the middle of the ocean?" I said, more sarcastically than I should have. "Yeah, aside from all that, I'm great."

"Uh-oh," Marco said.

"Uh-oh what!" Jake snapped.

"Uh-oh, Visser Three is going from Andalite form to something else."

"What is it? What's he morphing?"

"l don't know what it is. But it's big and it looks like it could swim."

"0h, man! Can anything else go wrong?!" Jake yelled in frustration.

"Rachel, can you de-morph? Can you get human? Or dolphin? Or something useful?"

"l don't know." I tried to calm my panicky, jumbled mind. I tried to focus on morphing. On getting human again.

Come on, Rachel, you can do this, I told myself. But I had the feeling I was lying.

And yet I could feel myself growing once more. I felt myself press against the rubbery walls of the air bubble.

"l think I see her!" Cassie said. "No, wait. Just seaweed. No, wait again. I do see her. She's green, maybe half an inch long but growing fast."

"Rachel, what are you morphing?" Jake asked.

"Why don't you tell me? Because, guess what? I DON'T KNOW!"

"Stay cool, Rachel," Jake advised.

"Cool? Cool? Hey, sorry if I sound tense, but I keep turning into things I don't want to turn into."

"It's the crocodile!" Cassie said. "Jake, over here. This way." Suddenly, I could see again. Eyes appeared just in time for me to see sticklike ant legs morphing into stubby, green-scaled crocodile legs.

I was growing at incredible speed. I could feel the water sliding over and around me as I occupied more and more space. But at least I could see again. And I wasn't drowning. The crocodile has the ability to hold its breath for a very long time.

Above me I could see the bright sheet that was the divider between water and air. And in the water around me hovered two big, gray bottlenose dolphins, both grinning their eternal dolphin grins. Cassie and Jake.

Moving swiftly past, just a hundred feet off, was a menacing-looking tiger shark. Ax. I hoped.

I looked at Jake. Or maybe it was Cassie. "l guess maybe I should have mentioned I was having this little problem with morphing, huh?"

"No, it's much better to find out this way, Rachel. You know - when you could get us all killed," Jake said.

It's not like Jake to be sarcastic.

"0h, man," Marco said. He was still in seagull morph. "l don't know what Visser Three is now, but he's getting ready to dive in the

water. And you don't want to be there when he does."

"Let's get out of here while we can," Jake said. "Rachel, if you feel any more morphing happening, tell us, all right? If you don't mind."

"Yell at me later, okay? Let's get some distances

I turned my long body easily and began swimming, using my big crocodile tail.

Cassie and Jake and Ax all turned on the speed and in ten seconds they were far out ahead of me. I saw Jake stop and look back.

"Alligators aren't exactly fast swimmers, are they?"

"Crocodiles," I corrected him. "And no. I guess not."

Then we heard . . .

PUH-WHUMPF!

It was a sound like a depth charge. Like something very large had just cannonballed into the water.

"Here he comes," Marco announced grimly. "Look out for those spears.

They look nasty."

"The what?" I asked. "The spears? What spears?"

"The thing Visser Three morphed into. I can't be sure, but I think maybe it shoots spears out of its mouth."

"Ah!" Ax said, speaking up. "l bet it's a Lebtin javelin fish! I've always wanted to see one of those. I mean . . . you know ... in a zoo or something."

"Well, we can't outrun it with Rachel in alligator morph," Jake said.

"Crocodile," Cassie said. "Not alligator."

"You guys get out of here. I'll take care of Visser Three," I said, sounding much braver than I felt. "It's my fault we're in this mess."

"Yeah, right, Rachel," Jake said.