Cassie dragged me off and now, a little too

late, I was beginning to be Rachel again. But that wasn't the end of my problems. Because even as my human mind rose to the surface again, I felt my weight increase. I felt unbelievably heavy. And I felt the back of my outfit stretch and strain. It tugged at my neck and sleeves.

Suddenly, I was the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Something very large was growing on my back. And I had a really bad feeling I knew what it was.

Now I understood what Ax had been talking about. See, I knew the crocodile DNA was going to be expelled from my system. I just didn't realize it would become a full-grown, twenty-foot-long killing machine in the process.

But what's sad is that even this wasn't the worst of it. See, the whole thing was making me very upset. I was mad. I was scared. I was mad at how scared I was. I was a whole basket of extreme emotion.

And I wasn't rid of my allergy just yet.

?Rachel!" Cassie gasped.

"I know!" I said.

"We have to get out of here!"

"I know!"

Cassie grabbed me and quick-stepped me off the stage. We brushed rudely past Jeremy Jason, who recoiled in horror from the looney girl who'd bitten him.

We brushed past the clipboard woman who yelled, "Hey, stop! You can't leave!"

"She has to blow chunks!" Cassie said. "I think it's stage fright."

"Down the hall. On the left!"

By the time we reached the ladies' room, I was beyond hunchback. I looked like a buffalo.

"What are we going to do?" Cassie asked.

"Like I know?" I shrilled. "I have a crocodile coming out of my back!

And . . . and I think I'm ... grrr . . . rroowwwr!" I looked in horror at my hands. Yes, thick brown fur was growing. Fur I knew well.

Grizzly bear fur.

"Ax said you have to focus! Control the process! Or something like that."

I glared furiously at Cassie. I could no longer speak. I was making a warp speed change to grizzly bear. And not just the feet this time. My blunt muzzle was protruding. My fingers were growing short while my fingernails were becoming the black, hooked claws that could disembowel an elk.

And at the same time, the crocodile was emerging from my back. It was literally crawling and squirming out of me.

It didn't hurt. But oh, man, was it creepy. Creepy beyond any creepiness. And I'm a girl who's seen some creepy things.

"Oh, no!" Cassie whispered in utter horror, staring at whatever was happening on my back.

Someone tried to open the bathroom door.

"Go away! Occupied!"

"I have to go," a woman's voice whined.

"Trust me," Cassie grated. "Go somewhere else."

"Cassie!" I cried as soon as I got thought-speak. "This crocodile.

He's not me. Do you understand? He's a real, out-of-control crocodile!" Cassie shot a desperate glance around the bathroom. It was way too small to hold a twenty-foot crocodile as well as a grizzly bear.

"Cassie. The croc will kill you."

Now the crocodile was so heavy it was weighing me down. And in the bathroom mirror I saw the horrendous image of a crocodile snout growing and emerging in the area just behind my own neck. I would have been knocked to the ground by the sheer weight of the reptile, but as he was growing, I was becoming the grizzly bear. And grizzly bears are extremely strong.

"I don't have a morph that can beat a crocodile!" Cassie said. "Nothing can fight a crocodile!"

"Then get out!"

"I can't! You're blocking the door with your crocodile tail!"

"Get in the stall! Quick! The head is almost formed !"

I saw myself reflected in the mirror. It was an image from the nightmares of a madwoman. It was insane! Two heads seemed to be growing from the same body: grizzly bear and crocodile. The croc snapped its toothy jaws, trying them out.

"Rachel, what if the crocodile attacks the bear?"

I was surprised to hear Cassie using thought-speak. "Cassie, are you morphing in there?"

"Yes!"

"To what?"

"Um ... um ... a squirrel!"

"A squirrel? A squirrel?\"

"It was all I could think of!"

I felt a slurping, sliding sensation. It was like my guts were being ripped out through my back, only it wasn't really painful. More like extremely nauseating.

Then I felt the weight drop off me. I heard a loud series of thuds.

The hereth illint was complete. I had "burped" the crocodile.

It lay splayed across the tile floor, its big tail wrapped uncomfortably in the corner, blocking the door.

As for me, I was fully grizzly bear now. I stood erect, with my big shaggy head brushing the acoustical tile ceiling. I felt the amazing power in my massive shoulders. I felt the invincibility of the grizzly bear.

Nothing that lived could take down a grizzly bear. Except. . . except for perhaps the huge reptile at my feet.

Over the top of the stall door I saw a squirrel,

hunkering down on the toilet seat, shaking and quaking in squirrel style.

"The crocodile is eyeing me," I said. I felt terrible dread. You don't really know how deadly an animal is till you've been that animal.

I'd been the crocodile.

Grizzly bears are unbelievably powerful. They can swing their big paws and knock a horse to the ground. But the grizzly had no weapons to use on the crocodile. Not even the grizzly's ripping claws would tear a hole in the croc's scaly armor.

And once that crocodile latched its jaws onto any part of the bear, the bear... me ... would be ripped apart, piece by piece.

The crocodile eyed me coldly. It smiled its toothy crocodile smile. And then it lunged.

I saw a flash of teeth.