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the ground isn't easy. It is definitely work. I wondered if my human body got any of the
aerobic benefits of the exercise.
Once I got clear of the ground, I was able to catch little gusts of wind to climb higher. But it
wasn't till I made it above the trees and the school buildings that I started getting a good,
solid breeze that helped lift me up.
When I finally got high enough, I spotted Tobias. His reddish tail feathers were like a
beacon.
I said when I got close enough.
buildings themselves, they're all hot. So there's almost always a nice warm updraft.>
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I said dreamily.
Tobias agreed.
Sitting back on the couch with a can of pop and a bag of chips and no school the next day and
something good on TV. That's a good feeling, too. >
He didn't sound like he was feeling sorry for himself. Just like he was mentioning something
that happened to be true.
coming out of her morph. >
Tobias said.
Ten minutes later I had morphed back into my human body.
"You know what we need?" Marco said. "We need to coordinate these morphing outfits. I
mean, Cassie's wearing green patterned leggings and a purple stretch top, and Jake's got on
those
awful bike shorts, and Rachel is stylish, as always, in her black tights. Put it all together and
we look pretty scruffy."
"What do you want?" Jake asked him. "You want us all to wear blue with a big number four
on our chests? Become the Fantastic Four?"
Tobias added.
"No way," Marco said. "Not Fantastic Four. I'm thinking more an X-Men kind of thing. It's
not about being identical, it's just about having some style. Right now, if anyone saw us, they
wouldn't think 'Oh, cool, superheroes," they'd think "Man, those people do not know how to
dress.""
"Marco," I said, "I think it's time to get over this fantasy of yours. We are not superheroes.
This is not a comic book."
"Yes, but I really, really want it to be a comic book. See, in a comic book the heroes
don't get killed. I mean, okay, they killed Superman that time, but it was only temporary."
"Can we deal with reality here?" Jake asked. "We have business to discuss."
"What's the matter with combining green and purple?" Cassie asked Marco.
"It's a major fashion no-no," Marco said.
"Been reading Vogue again, Marco?" I teased.
Jake put his hand over Marco's mouth. "People? And I use the term loosely. We need to
decide what we're doing next."
Marco pried Jake's hand away. "I want to decide what we're not doing next. I should be
spending more time with my dad. You know, he's still messed up over my mom. . .."
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Marco's voice always cracked whenever he mentioned his mom. He'd start out sounding
tough and all, but his voice would end up with that little break, that little wobble. It had been
two years since his mother disappeared. They said she drowned, although they never found
her body. His father had fallen apart. It was the main reason Marco was so reluctant to be an
Animorph. He was worried that if anything ever happened to him, his dad would just give up
totally.
I could see that Jake was about to say some thing impatient. And I was feeling the same way,
like Marco just needed to deal with reality.
But Cassie put her hand on Marco's arm. "Don't ever let any of this get in the way of
spending time with your dad," she said earnestly. "He needs you. We need you, too, Marco,
but your dad comes first." She looked at Jake, then at me.
"There isn't much point in doing any of this if we forget why we're doing it."
I thought about Melissa. And I thought about my mom and dad and how great it was to have
them, even when they got on my nerves.
"Cassie's right. When you get home, tell your dad you love him, Marco." I blurted it out with
out thinking about it. It wasn't the kind of thing I normally say.
"Thank you, Doctor Rachel,"Marco said.
He said it snidely, but I could see he knew what I was talking about. Then he was suddenly
all business. He rubbed his hands together. "Okay, let's get serious here. How are we going to
go about getting ourselves killed next? Turn into flies at a frog convention? Morph into
turkeys at Thanksgiving?"
"I want to go back in," I said. "Back into Chapman's."
"Why?" Jake asked. "We learned a lot already. We -"
"We didn't learn the location of the Kandrona," I pointed out. "That's what we need to do,
sooner or later. The Andalite made it pretty clear to Tobias that the Kandrona is the weak
point for the Yeerks. The Kandrona sends out the rays that are concentrated in the Yeerk
pools. If we destroy
the Kandrona, we hurt them bad."
Marco raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Excuse me, Rachel, but what is a Kandrona? I mean, we
know what it does, but what does it look like? How big is it? For all we know, the Kandrona
could be the size of a lighter and be in Visser Three's pocket."
"Whatever," Marco said impatiently. "The point is: How do we destroy something when we
don't even know what it is?"
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"That's why we have to follow the one lead we have," I said. "Chapman. Chapman
communicates with Visser Three. The two of them know where the Kandrona is. If I can spy
on them, maybe I can figure it out."
They were all staring at me. Marco looked at me like I was crazy. Jake looked thoughtful.
Cassie looked worried, like she wasn't sure about what I was saying.
Tobias turned his fierce, intimidating hawk's stare on me.
back to spy on Chapman?> he asked me privately.
"I don't think you should go back in there alone," Jake said.
"How is anyone else going to go in with me?" I asked. "We can't have two cats running
around. I mean, as Fluffer I can go anywhere without any of them being suspicious."
See ... I hadn't told anyone about Visser Three telling Chapman to kill me. I knew it was
wrong to keep secrets like that from the group.
But if I'd told them, they would have never let me go back in.
Unfortunately, although Jake may not be all that perceptive, Cassie is.
"Are you sure nothing went wrong while you were in there, Rachel?" Cassie asked me. She
was looking at me with this kind of sideways look Cassie gets when she's trying to figure
someone out.
"It was scary," I said. "But nothing happened." It wasn't exactly a lie. Kind of a lie, but not
exactly.
Cassie thought for a moment. Her eyes went blank. Suddenly I knew what was going on:
Tobias was talking to her privately. He was telling her something. She nodded like she was
agreeing.
Tobias didn't know what happened with Visser Three. But he did know that I was pretty
freaky when I came up out of that basement.
"I think we should find a way for someone to go along with Rachel," Cassie suggested.
"What are you going to do, turn into a flea and ride on my back?" I asked her.
She smiled and gave a little shrug. "I'm just saying we should think about it."
"Okay then," Jake said. "Rachel goes in one more time. Maybe we'll get lucky."
"We haven't gotten lucky since we walked through that construction site and met our first
alien," Marco said.
"Maybe that's going to change," I said. "I'm going in and I'm finding a way to hurt those
creeps."
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Tobias said in my head.
just doing it to hurt the Yeerks, you're going back in there because you want to help
Melissa.>
"Same thing," I said. I guess the others wondered who I was talking to.
66
Chapter Fifteen
It was a dark and stormy night.
Sorry, I've always wanted to write that. But it really was a dark and stormy night.
"Where is Jake?" I asked as we all got together down the street from Chapman's house.
Everyone else was there. Cassie and Marco were wearing raincoats, although it hadn't started
raining yet. Tobias was overhead, trying to hold onto a branch in a tree while the wind tried
to knock him off.
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