"Has he ever even spoken to you before?" Rachel asked.

"I guess not."

"See? Progress."

Marco likes to tease Rachel, calling her Xena: Warrior Princess. And when I'm with her I guess I'm Gabrielle. The sidekick. Guys see Rachel first, second, and third. They see me fourth.

Personally, I don't care. Looks and clothing don't matter even slightly to me. And the people who matter are the ones who see past all that.

"Hey, Rachel. How's it going?" a boy named Jawan asked, smiling shyly.

"Fine," Rachel said coolly. "Cassie, you've met Jawan, haven't you?"

I shrugged. "Hi, Jawan."

"Hey, Kendra," he said. "See you later in English, Rachel."

"Kendra?"I asked Rachel.

"He gave you a definite look," Rachel said. "So what if he isn't good at remembering names?"

"He remembers yourname pretty well," I pointed out. Then I spotted a guy named Joe. Joe was a friend of mine from when we both took riding lessons together. He would remember my name.

"Hey, Cassie. Whoa! Whoa! Something different about you." He stepped back and stared at me.

"New outfit?" Rachel suggested.

Joe shook his head. "No, that's not it. Oh, I know what it is!" He snapped his fingers. "You look like you've gained weight! Have you been trying to bulk up?"

Rachel reached with one elegant hand and pushed Joe disdainfully out of her way.

"That proves nothing," Rachel said.

"Uh-huh. I look fatter."

"Guys are idiots sometimes."

"Not Jake," I said.

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Jake is the exception that proves the rule," she said. "And there he is now."

Jake was cruising down the hall, joking and talking with some non- Animorph friends. Part of what we have to do is maintain normal lives as much as possible.

"Hi, Cassie," Jake said, peeling off from his buds. "Hey, Rachel."

Rachel stood back, and held her hands out toward me like a fashion designer showing off her latest supermodel. "So?"

"So what?" Jake asked blankly.

"So the outfit! The outfit!" Rachel exploded in frustration. "Doesn't Cassie look great in these new clothes? These clothes that actually fit, and have no raccoon poop stains? Doesn't she look fabulous?"

Jake smiled his slow smile. "Of course she looks great. She alwaysdoes. You guys have fun in the Dry Lands this afternoon. And try to be careful."

He walked off down the hall leaving me with a nice, warm glow.

Rachel stared at me. "Okay, he's an idiot, too."

"No, you were right the first time," I said smugly. "He's the exception."

We reached first period class. I sighed deeply, my usual reaction to first period. The classroom was stuffy and airless. The windows just looked out at the blank brick wall of the gym.

I went to my seat and tried to remind myself of what we were supposed to have studied the night before. Did I do my homework? Oh, yeah. I had. It was in my — "No! No! It can't be!"

Marco's voice. He sits two rows over. But now he leaped clear over one row of seats and slithered into an empty desk next to mine. He stared at me, wide-eyed with wonder. Way too much wonder.

"Who is this vision of loveliness? Who is this fantasy come true? Excuse me, but are you Tyra Banks? No, no, you can't be any mortal girl. So much perfection could never be achieved by a mere human. You're an angel descended from heaven! I mean, they say clothes make the man, but these clothes make you an angel."

I took out my homework and placed it on my desk. "Are you done?" I asked Marco.

He thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah. That should be about enough."

"What did Rachel pay you?"

He grinned. "Two bucks. Girls are such idiots sometimes. I'd have done it for a dollar."

Chapter 6

We met up at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic.

I quickly doled out the meds to the caged patients. It was a slow week.

Half the cages were empty, which is totally unusual.

"You ready?" Rachel asked.

"Just have to check this opossum's bandage. Good. The stitches are holding. Good boy," I said to the opossum with the mangled paw. "Okay.

Now I'm ready."

"Why do they have that extra oin opossum?" Marco wondered. "What's the point of it if it's silent?"

Tobias was up in the rafters. He was in his hawk body once more. A red- tailed hawk with a brown back and tan front and reddish-brown tail. His eyes were gold and inhumanly intense.

Since he was in morph, he communicated in thought-speak. Everything's clear," he said to me. "Your mom just went inside the house carrying groceries. Your dad's truck is just coming through the intersection by the Exxon station. It'll take him five minutes to get here."

I didn't doubt Tobias. Hawks have amazing vision. From his position in the rafters of the barn, Tobias could see out through the open loft door. If he said my dad was five minutes away, my dad was five minutes away.

"Let's morph," Rachel said.

She removed her outer clothing and folded it neatly into her backpack.

Beneath she wore her morphing suit. See, we haven't figured out how to morph bulky clothing. We can only morph something fairly skintight. Like Rachel's black leotard. Or my somewhat more colorful aerobics outfit. Or Marco's bike shorts.

I focused my mind on the morph I wanted to do. It was an osprey, a type of hawk that usually eats fish and lives by water. It would be good for distance flying.

Rachel was morphing her own big bird of prey, a bald eagle. Marco has an osprey morph, just like mine. In fact, identical to mine, since we acquired the same bird's DNA.

I began to focus on the osprey, and as I did, I felt the changes begin.

Morphing is still exciting to me. I've done it dozens and dozens of times, but each time I realize how lucky I am to have the power. I will never get tired of it. I'll never get bored with it. It is an experience of total, complete, utterly amazing change.

Each morph happens differently. Things happen in unpredictable ways. It isn't always smooth and gradual. Often it's unbelievably illogical, and you never know quite what will happen first.

This time the first change I noticed was my legs. Without getting smaller, they began to morph into bird legs. My five small toes melted together.

And from those melted toes grew long talons. Three long talons forward, one turned back.

Looking down, I could see why people say birds descended from dinosaurs. A hawk talon looks exactly like the foot of a Tyrannosaurus or some other big predator dinosaur.

A hawk talon is one of those things where you can just look at it and know it's a weapon. They're fleshless and without feathers, so that the blood of prey animals doesn't stick and turn nasty; they're quick and powerful at gripping, but weak and reluctant to let go; and the claw at the end is designed not just to hold a branch, or to walk on, but to be squeezed directly into the flesh of the prey.

Nature, as I learned from my parents, isn't always warm and cuddly.

"She's got le-egs, she knows how to use them." Marco sang the line of an old song. Then he laughed, but the laugh was cut short when his mouth erupted into an osprey's beak.

The next change was my skin. It lightened toward medium gray. And all across the skin of my arms I saw patterns being drawn. Feather patterns, like tiny trees pressed flat. Networks of tiny veins that overlapped like shingles on a roof.