Both my parents looked confused. But I saw realization dawn in Cassie's eyes.

  "Barry and Cindy Sue?" my mom said.

  "Rachel, why exactly would you want to do Barry and Cindy Sue?"

  I saw Cassie just staring at me with her jaw hanging open. Like she couldn't believe I was even thinking about the whole Jeremy Jason Mc-Cole thing at a time like this.

  "Well, Daddy . . . there's this guy. This actor... this kind of slightly cute actor. . ."

  I went straight from the hospital to my dad's hotel. Everyone had decided I needed rest. I didn't. What I did need was some answers.

  What was happening to me?

  The hotel room was on the twenty-second floor. I imagined what would happen if I suddenly morphed an elephant again. I'd crash down through twenty-two floors.

  What on Earth was happening to me? I kept checking my hands and feet to see if I was still totally human.

  I needed to talk to someone who understood. Someone I could really talk to. My dad was great, but he just kept talking about how the floor

  shouldn't just fall in. After all, the house was only ten years old. And while they were at it, why didn't the zoo make its railings higher so people wouldn't be falling in with the crocodiles?

  I hadn't fallen into the croc pit. And the floor didn't just happen to collapse. I had morphed an animal that weighed more than a couple of pickup trucks. Houses aren't made for elephants.

  I desperately wanted to call Cassie and talk to her on the phone. But we have a strict rule about that. You never know who is listening in on a phone call. So it would just have to wait.

  Instead I called room service.

  "I'd like a salad with the poppyseed dressing. And, um . . . I'd like the cheeseburger and fries. And cherry pie a la mode. And cancel the salad."

  I didn't care about eating healthy. I didn't care about fat. I was hungry. It had been a long, bad day. I deserved some grease and sugar.

  "And do you make milk shakes? Chocolate milk shakes?"

  I used the remote control to run through the Pay-Per-View choices. It was nothing but martial arts movies, crime movies, action-adventure movies. . . . What I needed was a nice, calm romance. My //Ye was an action-adventure movie.

  The phone rang. I expected it to be the room service people checking back. "Yes?"

  "Are you alone?" It was Cassie's voice. I nearly collapsed from relief. I hadn't even realized how incredibly tense I was.

  "I'm so glad it's you! Yes, my dad's gone. At least for a couple hours."

  "Does your window open?"

  I got up and checked. The window slid open easily. "Yes. You coming up?"

  "Give me five minutes. Flick the lights a couple of times so I know which window is you."

  I spent the five minutes calling down to room service and ordering the salad again. And another piece of pie. For Cassie.

  I was expecting her, but I was still a little startled when a great horned owl came flying in through the window.

  Cassie asked anxiously.

  "Yeah. But hurry up and morph out. Room service is coming."

  Morphing is never pretty to watch. In fact, it can be the most horrible thing in the world. If you weren't expecting it, and just saw it happening for the first time, I promise you'd run screaming like a lunatic.

  Especially some morphs. Trust me, you don't ever want to see a person become a fly or a spider. You think you've seen scary stuff on TV or in horror movies? Hah. Watch your friend turn into a bug. That will fill your dreams for a few weeks.

  But if anyone can make morphing not totally vile and horrifying, it's Cassie. Cassie has a natural talent for it. A natural ability.

  So she looked almost normal as the feathers sank into her skin and disappeared. It didn't even seem too bizarre when her own legs grew huge and tall from the owl's short, deadly talons.

  It was her head that changed last. Cassie has the ability to do that: sort of control the order things morph. I can't even come close. Even Ax can't do it.

  Finally, the big owl eyes became Cassie's own deep, dark eyes.

  There came a knock at the door. I held up a hand to calm Cassie. "It's just room service. You like pie, right?"

  The waiter wheeled a small table into the room. It was loaded with my burger and Cassie's salad and two pieces of pie and my milk shake.

  I signed the check and added a tip. See, I'd visited my dad in hotels before. I knew the routine pretty well.

  Cassie laughed when the waiter had gone. "You're going to have to be rich when you grow up, Rachel. I mean, this is all so natural for you. You fit right in."

  I grinned. "I have a natural talent for spending money. What can I say?

  It's my burden to bear."

  Cassie got serious. "Okay. Talk to me. What happened?"

  "What? You mean you don't believe that the floor of my bedroom just happened to fall in?"

  She shook her head. "No."

  I took a big bite of the burger, chewed, and swallowed. "I think I must have fallen asleep. I was clicking around some Web sites. . . . Suddenly, I was morphing into that big crocodile from today." I shrugged and took another bite.

  "You just started morphing?"

  "Yeah. I don't know ... I mean, I thought I was awake. But I must have been dreaming."

  "Uh-uh. I dream all the time," Cassie said. "I've never morphed in my sleep."

  I didn't want to dismiss the possibility it was a dream that caused me to morph. The alternative-that I was just out of control - was worse.

  "Are you going to eat that salad? It cost like ten dollars."

  "We all have nightmares and stuff. None of us has ever just started morphing." Cassie dug into her salad. But she was watching me all the time.

  I concentrated on my burger. "What can I say? That must be what happened. I must have had a nightmare."

  "And you morphed the croc and it made the floor fall in?"

  I shifted nervously. "Okay, look, actually, it

  was my elephant morph. See, I think what happened is that maybe I just dreamed the part about morphing the crocodile. Because then I went straight into another morph, and then . . . when I woke up ... I was an elephant."

  Cassie looked down at her plate like she was embarrassed. "Rachel. It's me, okay? Me. Cassie. Your best friend. I know when you're not telling the complete truth."

  That killed off what was left of my appetite. I put the burger down.

  "Okay, look. I don't know what happened, all right? I was on-line, I was getting kind of logy the way I do when I'm staring at a computer screen. Then all of a sudden I'm going crocodile."

  "We have to talk to Ax about this. He's an Andalite. Maybe it's some normal thing that happens sometimes."

  "It better not be something that just happens," I said. "I could have killed Jordan and Sara. It was just dumb luck that they were in the living room, not the kitchen."

  Cassie nodded. "Yeah. Well, we need to talk to Ax."

  I reached across the table and took her hand. "But not Jake, okay? He'll just get all responsible. He won't let me do anything. He'll tell me to stay home."

  "That's what you should do."

  "No." I shook my head violently. "What I need is to stay focused. The more focused I am, the less likely that will ever happen again. I'm not going to let it happen." I really hoped that was true.

  I picked up my burger. Cassie stared at me for a while, then she started picking at her salad again.

  "Okay," she said after a while. "But we talk to Ax."

  "Deal," I said.

  "By the way. It turns out Jeremy Jason Mc-Cole is already in town."

  "What?"

  She nodded. Then she smiled. "It was on Entertainment Tonight. He's staying on this big yacht owned by some movie producer. He's out on the bay right now."

  "We still need to figure out if he's already a Controller or not," I said. "I asked Jordan what she'd do if she thought there was some way she could get close to Jeremy Jason McCole. She basically said she'd walk barefoot over broken glass."

  "I'm not surprised," Cassie said. "A year ago I'd probably have been right behind her." She grinned crookedly. "Love is a powerful force."

  I attacked my burger again. "So? We go see

  Jeremy Jason on this yacht? The movie producer guy could be a Controller."

  "That's what Jake and Marco and Tobias and Ax and I already talked about. We thought tomorrow after school we'd maybe go out there and take a look."

  "Jake, Marco ... all of them? They're corning, too?"

  "Somehow they don't seem to exactly trust you and me alone with Jeremy Jason."

  "On a yacht, huh?" Rachel mused. "He'll probably be lying out in a bathing suit."

  "Mmmm."

  "Mmm-hmm."

  I woke up approximately fifty times during the night. I kept having to check to make sure I was human. And I had some seriously odd dreams. In one, I morphed into Jeremy Jason and then got fly eyes.

  Not a good night's sleep. My dad came in from the next room at about four in the morning to tell me I woke him up talking in my sleep.

  "You were yelling, 'Crocodile not alligator!'" he said.

  Fortunately, he just figured it was stress from the insane day I'd had. He was right. But he didn't know half of it.

  I took a taxi from the hotel to school. It beat

  taking the bus, that's for sure. Maybe Cassie was right. Maybe I'll have to be rich when I grow up.

  For the first couple of periods I had to put up with kids saying brilliant things like, "Hey! It's Crocodile Dundee!" And, "Stay away from me. You'll make the school fall down."

  And then there were the people who actually seemed jealous. "I guess you think you're cool just because you nearly got killed twice in one day," one girl said.

  "Yeah, that's right," I said. "Later, just to prove how cool I am, I'm going to jump off a cliff."

  By the time lunch was over, most people had gotten the message that I didn't really want to talk about it.

  Then I was called to the assistant principal's office.

  Chapman's off ice.

  I guess I should explain. Chapman is one of them. He's a high-ranking Controller. He's one of the leaders of The Sharing.

  He once came very close to having me killed. Not that he knew it was me, really. But still, I kind of resented it.

  I walked the empty hallway, clutching my hall pass and wondering how I was going to escape if Chapman was waiting for me with a bunch of Hork-Bajir warriors.

  "Rachel, come on in, come on in. Have a seat."

  Chapman looks perfectly normal. He's a little bald, but normal-looking. That's the problem with Controllers: They don't look any different.

  "Urn, what's this about, Mr. Chapman?" I asked nervously. I was playing the role of any normal kid who gets called to the assistant principal's office. It was easy to act nervous.

  He waved his hand dismissively. "I just wanted to talk to the big celebrity."

  I sat down, but I stayed tense and ready to spring into action. Did Chapman suspect? Had he figured out that I hadn't just fallen into the crocodile pit? Had he figured out that I was the crocodile who had carried the little boy to safety?

  I was dead meat if he had. The Yeerks believe we are a group of Andalite bandits. See, they know they're getting attacked by a group of people who can morph. It just never occurs to them that humans could morph.

  If they knew the truth . . . well, there's a good reason we keep the truth a secret.

  "So."

  "So," I agreed.

  "Yesterday was quite a day for you," Chapman said.

  "Yes, sir."

  "You were very lucky. Twice."

  "Yes. I guess so. But I guess the way I look at it, I was unlucky twice."

  He nodded like I'd said something deep. "No injuries?"

  I shook my head. "No."

  "Amazing," he said. Then he narrowed his eyes and stared hard at me.

  "Rachel. Your grades have dropped this last semester. Not a lot. But your teachers think you aren't applying yourself the way you used to."

  "I still have an A average," I pointed out.

  "Barely."

  I squirmed in my seat. This was insane. I wasn't sure if I was being interrogated by a dangerous Controller who suspected my true identity. Or if I was just being lectured about my grades by an assistant principal.

  "Has anything changed in your life lately?"

  I almost swallowed my tongue. Had anything changed? Like, for example, being given the power to morph by a dying alien and ending up fighting an invasion of Earth by parasite slugs from outer space?

  "Urn . . . nope," I said. "No big changes."

  He smiled an understanding smile. "Your parents got divorced, didn't they? And didn't your father move away?"

  I tried not to look too relieved. But I definitely sighed. "Oh, yeah. Oh, that. Urn, yes. Maybe

  that's why my grades are down a little. That must be it. You know, the trauma and all."

  I felt my feet itching. It was a strange thing to notice right then, with Chapman staring at me like I was some mystery he was trying to understand. But they were definitely itching. And I was feeling flushed

  . . . warm all over.

  "Well, as you may or may not know, Rachel, I am the local head of a wonderful group called The Sharing."

  And that's when my heart stopped beating.

  My heart missed about four beats before it started up again, going a hundred miles an hour. "Uh-huh," I said, trying not to let the adrenaline rush overwhelm me.

  Get ready, I told myself. Get ready.

  "We like to think we offer some help to kids who may be going through a bad time," Chapman said. "We have an awful lot of fun. Camp-outs. Bonfire barbecues on the beach. Just a month or so back we had a big waterskiing trip up to a mountain lake."

  I could have said, "Yes, I know. We were there, too, but not exactly in human shapes."

  Instead I said, "That sounds like fun."

  "It is fun," Chapman said with total sincerity.

  "And a lot of our members are kids who come from troubled homes. Kids with problems. But they're also kids who want to make life better. They're hopeful, optimistic kids. When I saw you handling yourself so well on the news last night I thought, you know, I should offer Rachel this opportunity. She's just the kind of person who could really benefit from The Sharing."

  "How did I look on TV?" I asked.

  "Very self-possessed. Very attractive and very mature."

  "Cool."

  "But. . ." He sighed. "I have to wonder at the same time if maybe you don't have some problems in your life. I mean, the stories all say you fell into the crocodile pit..."

  I held my breath. Here it comes! He suspects!

  ". . . but I don't believe in accidents. I have to wonder if maybe you have some problems that made you, shall we say, careless."

  I barked out a laugh. Then I stopped myself. He thought I was suicidal!

  Did he think I'd sawed through the floor of my house, too? Good grief. That's why he was trying to recruit me for The Sharing. He thought I was depressed or whatever. A perfect recruit for his little Controller organization.

  Yeah, right. Where do I sign up, Mr. Chap-

  man? Could there be a special discount on dues for Animorphs?

  I shook my head. "No. Actually, I'm very happy."

  Once again, a feeling like pins and needles of warmth swarming over me. I shifted my feet. The feeling was familiar. . .

  Oh, no!

  Oh, no! My feet!

  I looked down and it took every single ounce of my self-control to keep the look of horror from my face.

  My feet were swelling. They were growing thick, shaggy brown fur. They were swelling and straining my shoes. The laces were strained tight.

  "I know you say everything is fine, Rachel, but -"

  SNAP!

  He frowned. "What was that?"

  SNAP!

  "Nothing," I said in a squeaky voice.

  "I heard something pop."

  My laces had snapped from the pressure. I shook my head. "No."