Animorphs The Escape

Converted to E-Book by:

Kamal Raniga

My name is Marco.

I've always kind of liked my name. Marco. It brings Marco Polo to mind.

Not that my last name is Polo. Or maybe it is. I'm not going to tell you.

None of us will tell you our last names. None of us Animorphs. Or where we live. Or anything else that would help the Yeerks find us.

Yeerks? What are Yeerks? you wonder.

I'll tell you. They are a species of parasites. Like tapeworms, only worse. See, Yeerks don't just crawl up inside your stomach or intestines. They crawl inside your brain. They sink their malleable bodies into the nooks and crannies of your brain. They tie straight into your brain's neurons.

They control your brain. They control you more completely than it is possible for you to imagine.

You think, Oh, well, I would still be able to keep control over myself.

But you'd be wrong. See, if you had a Yeerk in your head right now, it would be the Yeerk that would be moving your hands and fingers; the Yeerk who'd be focusing your eyes; the Yeerk who'd be deciding if you were hungry.

The Yeerks enter your brain and make you a slave. They open your memories and read them like a book. You can still think, sure. You can still feel. You can be afraid or angry or humiliated. But you can do nothing on your own. It is a slavery more total than any ever experienced on Earth. But then, the Yeerks aren't from Earth.

People with Yeerks in their heads are called Controllers.

Human-Controllers, if the Yeerk has taken over a human.

Hork-Bajir-Controllers, when the victim is a Hork-Bajir. Although pretty much all Hork-Bajir are Controllers, so we don't really bother to say "Hork-Bajir-Controllers."

We fight the Yeerk invasion led by the evil creature, Visser Three. Five human kids and an An-dalite kid. We're the only people who know what's happening. Just us. And the Yeerks, of course.

And how do we fight? With the morphing power given to us by a dying Andalite prince. The power to become any animal we can touch.

The power to morph.

How do you know who is a Controller and who isn't? That's the problem.

You don't. You can look deep into the eyes of the person you trust most and never, ever guess that behind those eyes is an alien parasite.

Now you know why I won't tell you my last name. Or where I live. Not even what state. See, I want to live. I want to live to fight.

And one day, I want to live to rescue the one person who matters most to me. The person whose eyes I looked into for years without knowing she was no longer my mother.

But being an Animorph is not always danger and battle. There are other times when the powers we possess can be useful. Even fun.

And on a nice Wednesday afternoon after school, I was at the mall with the others, doing just that: having fun. And we weren't at the usual, everyday mall. This was the new, massive Mega Mall they'd built across town.

It was Cassie's idea, oddly enough. Normally she'd be the last person to ever cook up a harebrained scheme. But this involved mistreating animals. And you don't want to mess with animals when Cassie is around.

"Squuuaaaakk! The food is good! The food is good! Squuuaaakkk!"

It was me, Jake, Cassie, Tobias, Rachel, and

Ax. Ax was in human morph, of course. So was Tobias. Tobias has regained his ability to morph now, but he's still a red-tailed hawk. He can morph into his old human shape, but if he stays in that shape more than two hours, he'll be trapped in it and never be able to morph again.

He made the choice to live as a hawk and keep his morphing power.

I don't know if I'd have been tough enough to make that choice.

As for Ax, well, he's an Andalite. He has a human morph he uses sometimes. He was using it now, fortunately, or otherwise there would have been a lot of screaming and panicking and general weirding-out. An Andalite walking around the mall is something you notice.

"Squuuaaaakkkk! Try the Rain Forest burger. It's squuuaaaakkk good!"

In this mall was a restaurant called the Amazon Cafe. It was a cool restaurant because it was like going on some ride at Disney World. The tables were totally surrounded by plants and stuff arranged to look like a jungle. There were lots of fake birds and fake alligators and fake snakes in fake trees.

Unfortunately, there were also some real birds. Parrots, to be exact.

These parrots were out where people wait in line to get a table. They were on perches, surrounded by people. Old people, young people, cool people, annoying people. People who would try to scare the birds or feed them garbage or poke them with cigarette butts.

Which annoyed Cassie. It annoyed her so badly she had come to me and asked, "Marco, what can I do to save those poor birds? They aren't allowed any dignity!"

And I had said, "Hmmm. Parrots, right? They talk, right?"

"Yeah. Why? Do you have an idea?"

"Oh, yes. I have a definite idea."

And now, a couple days after that conversation, we were at the mall. And we were right in the forefront of people annoying the parrots.

"Say 'Howard Stern rules!'" a kid urged a bright green parrot.

"Squuuaaaakkk! Amazon Cafe! It's an adventure!"

"No, idiot bird dude, Howard Stern rules, man! Say 'Howard Stern rules!'"

"Moron," Rachel sneered.

The kid turned to her. "Yeah, this bird is a total moron."

"I wasn't talking about the bird, you -"

Jake put his hand on Rachel's shoulder, quieting her down. Rachel has an occasional problem with anger. And she has no tolerance for jerks.

Rachel is tall and blond and beautiful and totally without fear. Now, sure, way down inside she's also insecure, scared by her own inability to fit in, and way too pressured to live up to her own high standards. But all that stuff is way down inside. Way down so far that if you ever tried to reach it, she'd have sliced and diced you before you even got close.

"Okay, let's do this," Jake said. "It's almost time for them to clean the parrot perches, if Cassie's timing is right."

"Every day at this time," Cassie assured us. "In fact, here comes the woman who does it."