But in the end, it looked like that was our only

  choice. We broke up and headed home with no hope.

  It was depressing. I mean, we'd messed up missions before, but we'd never been lame enough to fail before we'd even started.

  Now the Chee would be lost and the Yeerks would possess technology that would stump even Ax.

  Atmospheric pressure, our own Earth force, had beaten us.

  Cassie headed toward her farm. Jake and Marco headed to Erek's to tell him the bad news.

  Tobias and Ax melted back into the woods.

  I walked home alone.

  My neighborhood looked normal.

  Kids playing street hockey. Adults sweeping driveways.

  Gossiping about the gorilla who'd been at the mall.

  "And by the time the news van arrived, the gorilla was already gone," one woman said.

  "Someone said they saw him abduct a child," the other woman said nervously. "I'm afraid to let my kids out of my sight."

  I kept my face carefully blank as I passed, but inside my heart was pounding. A news van had shown up? Had they found out anything? Had they tracked our movements somehow?

  Were Jake and Marco walking into an ambush at Erek's?

  I started to jog, then to run. I bolted across my front lawn and into the house.

  "I'm home," I yelled, slamming the door behind me.

  "I was beginning to think you'd been abducted by this so-called gorilla haunting the mall," my mother called. "And now on the news there's something about an elephant at a flophouse."

  "Yeah? Elephants with drug problems?" I said, entering the kitchen.

  My mother had half the table covered in legal papers. The other half was set for dinner.

  I grabbed the phone and dialed Jake's house. Let it ring thirteen times. Hung up.

  Called Marco. Got his answering machine and hung up.

  What now?

  "Did you hear about the gorilla who was riding an elephant into some abandoned house?" my sister Jordan asked, switching on the TV.

  "Shut it off, Jordan," my little sister Sara whined. "You know we don't watch TV while we eat."

  "But they're gonna show the gorilla on the news," Jordan said, blocking the TV so Sara couldn't touch it. "Mom!"

  "Sara, watching TV this once won't hurt anything. Now, sit down and eat," my mother said absently, shuffling through her papers. "This is the last weekend I have to prepare this case and I'd appreciate your cooperation."

  "Yeah," Jordan said, smirking at Sara.

  "You're ugly when you do that," Sara said.

  "Look, here's the story," I interrupted, pointing at the TV as the familiar front of the mall covered the screen.

  "In local news, a publicity-seeking gorilla kicked up quite a stir at a mall today," the anchorman announced. "Some say the primate was an actor promoting a soon-to-be-released movie. Others, however, insist it was a real gorilla."

  The camera flashed to the sales kid at Spencer's Gifts.

  I caught my breath.

  "Sure I saw it," the kid said, shrugging. "It was just some guy in a gorilla suit. No big deal. But he dropped a lava lamp on my head."

  "What about the rumors that it had abducted a child?" the reporter asked solemnly.

  The kid laughed. "Look, we get all kinds in here, like folks into alien abductions. We get a lot of college kids, too."

  "So you think this was a fraternity prank?" the reporter asked.

  The kid shrugged again. "Probably."

  The camera flashed back to the studio. "Adding to this mystery is that all of the security cameras malfunctioned while the gorilla was in the mall, so there is no videotape for police to review. However, there have been no reports filed in connection with any missing children. And police deny reports that a bust at a stolen goods warehouse turned up a small zoo full of exotic animals."

  "Man, I'm never around when the good stuff happens," Jordan complained, plopping down at the table. "Burritos. Yum."

  My stomach growled and I started eating. I snagged two volumes of our ten-year-old encyclopedia and started reading as I ate.

  The volumes covered the "Sq" and "Wh" entries: squid and whale.

  So there really was no videotape. Good. No problem.

  But wait. We'd taken a bus home. What about the bus driver?

  If the Yeerks got him, they'd tap into his memories and know exactly who we were and where we'd gotten off the bus.

  I shut the encyclopedia. And I almost missed the next news story.

  "The entire town is trying to save a fifty-nine-foot whale that beached itself on the coastline less than fifteen minutes ago," the anchorwoman chirped. "This is the first marine mammal stranding in the town's history. Let's go live to the scene."

  The burrito lodged in my throat. I swallowed hard.

  The reporter was standing on the beach.

  And behind him was a massive, wrinkled wall of whale.

  I didn't hear much of what the reporter was saying.

  Something about volunteers and the whale surviving.

  "What kind of whale is that?" I croaked.

  My mother glanced up from her paperwork. "Hmmm? Oh, they just said it was a sperm whale."

  And then the camera zoomed in, and suddenly the whale and I were looking straight at each other.

  His dark, solemn gaze locked onto mine.

  I pushed back my chair.

  This was no coincidence.

  Someone or something wanted us out there bad. And was willing to sacrifice a whale to do it.

  "Aren't you going to finish your dinner?" my mother asked as I grabbed the phone.

  "I'm not hungry," I said, punching in Cassie's number.

  "Hi," I said, when she answered, "What're you doing?"

  "I just came in from the barn," she said. "Why?"

  I chose my words carefully. We never trust phones. "Well, we were just watching the news and they had some bizarre stories about a gorilla tearing through the mall and a sperm whale beached down at the shore. Weird, huh? How come we always miss all the interesting stuff?"

  "A sperm whale," she said slowly. "Uh-huh. Well, it's a shame, but there's nothing we can do about it. We already have plans for tonight."

  "Oh, yeah, I know," I said and then, in case anybody was listening, added, "you're gonna learn how to cartwheel if it's the last thing I do."

  She laughed. "Sure. See ya."

  I hung up and yelled that I was going to Cassie's.

  My mother barely looked up from her paperwork.

  Sometimes having a busy mom is a good thing.

  I walked out into the evening, steaming. Someone was playing games with us. Someone was treating us like a bunch of sock puppets. Jerking us around.

  I was mad. But it was a cold anger. A calm, cold anger.

  We'd see who jerked who.

  I went around the back of the house and slid into the shadows between the hedges and the fence. Pulled off my running shoes, jacket, and jeans. Concentrated on my bald eagle morph.

  Instantly I felt the changes begin.

  I was falling like an elevator with a snapped cable.

  My bones crunched, hollowing out and remolding themselves.

  SPPPRRROOOUT! Wings burst from my back.

  My face shifted and bulged. My chin slid away and my nose stretched, hardening into a fierce, deadly beak.

  Feathers etched a tattoo pattern on my skin,

  then rose and formed dappled layers. My vision sharpened.

  The eagle's brain wanted to hunt. It wanted to eat.

  Get a grip, Rachel. Think about what you have to do.

  And suddenly, my mind was clear.

  I spread my wings and took off.

  First, I had to get to Erek's to make sure Marco and Jake hadn't walked into an ambush. Just because the news hadn't mentioned our bus driver didn't mean the Yeerks hadn't found and questioned him.

  Aha! Down below, Marco and Jake stepped out of Erek's and closed the door.

  I called, dipping a wing when they glanced up.

 

  I knew they couldn't answer me in thought-speak, so I drifted above them for a few minutes, watching for a sign.

  And I got one, as soon as Jake turned down one street and Marco turned down a different one.

  I asked.

  He nodded and walked faster. Broke into a

  jog. Marco was morphing behind someone's shed.

  I flew as fast as I could to Tobias's meadow. He saw me coming and listened as I told him about the whale.

  he said.

  I veered off and headed back toward the barn. Cassie was perched in a wild cherry tree waiting for me, already morphed to osprey.

  Marco, in osprey morph, landed nearby.
  "coincidence"?>

  I said.

  <0r die trying,> Marco added grimly.

  A red-tailed hawk and a northern harrier drifted into view.

  Ax asked.

  Marco replied.

  Jake showed up twenty minutes later.

  So the place was going to be crawling with Controllers.

  Cassie said.

  Jake said.

  Tobias wondered.

  <0r what?> Marco said.

  Jake said.

  Cassie said.

  I felt a shiver of fear. Suffocating. The whale was suffocating.

  A whale, beached so we could acquire it. A pawn in someone's game. Expendable.

  Not if I could help it.

  I said.

  It wasn't a long flight in a straight line. But we couldn't fly in a straight line. We'd have been a whole sky full of raptors flying in formation. Slightly conspicuous.

  So we stayed far apart at different altitudes, never seeming to go in the same direction at all.

  It took a while to reach the beach. It was empty of sunbathers. The sun was weak and watery and heading down. Besides, what people were still at the beach were gathered around to gape at the spectacle.

  It lay below us, improbable, out of place. Huge. It dwarfed the small army of humans who clustered around it like busy ants around road-kill.

  The whale looked dead. But I knew it wasn't. Whoever or whatever was directing this little play wouldn't allow it to be dead.

  Jake said.

  Marco said.

  That got a laugh from everyone. The time Erek had spent with us had involved a trip to the planet of the Iskoort, and a deadly confrontation with a creature of infinite power and malice: the monster called Crayak.

  Cassie said.

  Marco called.

  I said, heading for a deserted dune far away from the crowd around the whale.

  Jake said, his tone sardonic.

  I said.

  he confirmed.

  I sighed.

  Cassie said simply.

  I said, just as simply.

  We landed behind a dune in an area of tall scruffy grass. Tobias stayed airborne, always on alert.

  This was going to be a little hairy. If anybody came over that dune and saw us, they'd run screaming all the way to the next county.

  We were mutants. A group of bulging, stretching, pulsating blobs of feathers and flesh, fingers and wings. Stubby little people with beaks and talons, legs and hair.

  The first thing I noticed when I was fully human again was the smell. The fresh smell of salt and sand. Birds of prey have hearing and sight that is far superior to humans. But they are not into smell or taste.

  "It's occurred to everyone that this is all a trap, right?" I said.

  "What?" Marco mocked. "You suspect treachery? Now, why didn't I think of that?"

  I ignored him. "Okay, so look, we don't expose anyone we don't have to here."

  Jake smiled at me. "You volunteering?"

  I shrugged.

  "Rachel's right," Marco said. "We go out there all together, we're exposed. How many of us do we need to morph whale?"

  Jake nodded. "A couple, anyway. I'm not sending anyone squid-hunting without backup. But you're both right. The less exposure, the better. So we pick two of us to acquire the whale. Excluding Ax, who can't because he'd have to be in his own body to acquire."

  "And that might cause some slight disruption down on the beach," I said.

  "Two of us will morph into whales and go find a squid," Jake continued.

  "The rest of us will use our dolphin morphs, stay topside as backup -"

  "Who gets to be the whales?" I interrupted. "I'll go."

  Cassie rolled her eyes. "You know, Rachel, you're like the smart kid in class who sits in the front and always raises her hand. 'I know! I know!' Only with you it's 'I'll go! I'll go!'"

  I laughed at the image.

  "I guess we'll draw straws," Jake said. He bent down and yanked up some grass and began breaking the stems into pieces.

  Ax said.

  As usual with Ax, it was hard to tell if that was supposed to be a joke.

  Jake put his hands behind his back, then held them out in his fist.

  "Pick. Short ones are whales."

  Part of me wanted to hang back. I had bad mental images of the world several miles underwater. But most of me wanted to go, and for the same reason: because it scared me.

  Tobias landed on a broken piece of wooden fence. he said.

  I met his fierce gaze. I looked hard at him, as hard as he looked at me.

  he said in thought-speak only I could hear.

  I narrowed my eyes and pressed my lips tight together. I couldn't thought-speak, but Tobias would get the message.

  he said.

  Marco drew a straw. A long one.

  Cassie drew. Long straw.

  I glared at Tobias.

  he snapped in angry surrender.

  I pulled the straw second from the left. "Short," I announced, holding it up.

  Tobias said.

  Jake walked over to him and held out his hand. Tobias pecked up a straw with his beak.