The Stranger (2 page)

Y
ou threw the guy into the air?” Jake asked. “Wasn't that maybe just a little unnecessary?”

“No. He made me mad,” I said.

It was the next day after school, a Monday. We were walking through the woods. Me, Cassie, Jake, Marco, and Tobias.

Of course, Tobias wasn't really walking. He was flying overhead in little hops from branch to branch. He stayed close so he could hear us. Red-tailed hawks have excellent hearing, but he still had to stay fairly close.

“Well, Rachel, you know I sympathize,” Jake said mildly, “but I don't think our job is really to right every wrong that's done to animals. That would be a full-time job, unfortunately.”

I looked at Cassie. She gave me a wink. We kind of didn't tell Jake that she had been there, too. Cassie and Jake like each other. She didn't want him to be mad at her.

With me, it's a different story. Everyone knows I'm going to do whatever I feel like doing.

“We have other stuff to deal with,” Marco grumbled. “The Andalite didn't give us this power so we could turn into the Animorph Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.”

“Fine,” I said. Which wasn't exactly like admitting I was wrong. “But what's got you so serious, Marco?”

“Let's wait till we find Ax. I don't want to have to tell the story twice.”

So we tromped noisily on through the woods.

I felt a surge of excitement. You couldn't miss the tension in Marco's voice. Something was up. There was the smell of danger in the air, and that meant action.

I like action. I like
doing
things instead of just talking about them. Marco makes fun of me over it. He calls me Xena, Warrior Princess.

But I'm not one of those morons who is just into danger for its own sake. It's not about cheap thrills. It's about feeling like I am involved in something very important. I mean, let's face it — as corny as it sounds, we are trying to help save the world.

It began months ago. The five of us just happened to get together at the mall. It's not like we were a group, really. Not before that night.

Jake's my cousin, but we never hung out together much. Jake's sort of in charge. It's not something he ever asked for; it's just that he's good at dealing with responsibility. He's the kind of person you automatically turn to if there's a crisis. And probably the best thing about him is that he can tell people what to do without ever sounding bossy.

“Since when don't you want to tell the same story twice?” Jake teased Marco. “I've known you to tell the same tired jokes eighty or ninety times.”

“It's your own fault,” Marco said. “If you would just laugh the first time, I wouldn't have to keep telling them.”

Marco is Jake's best friend. He's smaller than Jake, funnier, darker, more skeptical. But his suspicious nature makes him very good at seeing beneath the surface of things. And as much as he whines and complains about the dangerous situations we get into, he's still there in the worst of the fight, still making dumb jokes.

Marco has changed lately, at least a little. He doesn't resist being an Animorph like he used to. I don't know why. Maybe it's because his dad finally seems to have gotten over the death of Marco's mother. I don't know.

“Hey, look! Over by that tree. See? A baby skunk with its mother.” Cassie, of course. No one else would notice, or get excited over, skunks.

“Let's run right over and pet them,” Marco said.

Cassie laughed. “I've handled skunks plenty of times and never been sprayed.”

“Yeah, well, that's you, Dr. Dolittle.”

Cassie has been my best friend forever. I have no idea why. No one does, because we seem like we would never get along. Cassie lives on a farm. Both her parents are veterinarians. She spends all her free time in the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic her dad runs in their barn. They save injured animals.

Cassie is very into animals, but she's not one of those animal lovers who can't stand people. She just thinks of humans as a different species of animal.

Then there is Tobias. Back when all this started, Tobias was barely an acquaintance of Jake and Marco, although I kind of knew him. He was a sweet, poetic kind of guy. The kind bullies love to pick on. He used to have messy, out-of-control hair and dreamy eyes that always seemed to be looking at something no one else could see.

Used to …

Now he has fierce, angry eyes that look through you like laser beams. Now he has brownish feathers, and a white chest, and a reddish tail, and cruel-looking talons, and a wickedly curved beak.

Tobias was trapped in a morph. Now, he's a red-tailed hawk. A predator who lives on mice and rabbits and sometimes other birds.

I still see him as sweet, gentle Tobias. But he has been a hawk for a long time now.

The gift of the Andalite, the power to morph, is a wonderful weapon. But like any weapon, it can destroy those who use it.

Tobias called down in the thought-speak we use when we are in a morph.

I heard the sound of fallen leaves being stirred, a faint drumbeat of pounding hooves on pine needles.

Then, with a leap, he cleared a fallen tree trunk and landed a few feet away from us.

Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. We call him “Ax” for short. The sole survivor of the destroyed Andalite Dome ship. The only living Andalite on planet Earth.

Ax is the brother of Prince Elfangor, the Andalite who warned us about the Yeerk invasion and gave us the power to morph. Prince Elfangor, who was destroyed by Visser Three, leader of the Yeerk forces on Earth.

Ax said.

As much as I know Ax, and even consider him a friend, it's always a little bit of a shock to see him.

He looks like some odd cross of a human, a deer, and a scorpion. But not really like any of those things.

His upper body and head are more or less the human-looking parts. He has thin arms and many-fingered hands. His face is flat, with slits for a nose and two large almond eyes. He has no mouth at all, which is why thought-speak is the natural language of Andalites.

From atop his head rise two stalks, each with an eye on the end. He can turn these eyes in any direction he wants. They're completely independent of his main eyes.

His body is that of a pale blue and tan deer, or a thin pony. He has four legs that end in hooves. But his back slopes down, so that you would never be tempted to think of riding him.

And he has a tail. A long, thick, powerful tail that ends in a deadly scythe-shaped blade. I've seen him use that tail. He can strike so fast that the human eye sees nothing but a blur.

“Hey, Ax,” Marco said. “How's it going?”

“Are you okay?” I asked.

Ax gave his strange Andalite smile, an expression he managed even without a mouth.

Marco rolled his eyes. “I'm telling you, Ax and Rachel belong together. The two of you are sick. Someday you could get married while bungee-jumping into an active volcano.”

I squirmed a little. Not because I minded Marco thinking I was bold. But because I really was not interested in Ax that way.

“Okay, now that we're all here, Marco, maybe you could tell us
why
we're all here,” Jake said.

“I have some news,” Marco began. “Actually, Tobias and I have some news.”

I glanced up at Tobias, sitting in the tree. Of course he showed no expression. He just fixed his piercing gaze on Marco.

Marco swaggered just a bit as we formed a circle around him.

“It's a tale of initiative and courage and, yes, brilliance,” Marco began.

“No, no, no. Just tell us, Marco,” I snapped. “Don't try to milk the suspense.”

“Okay,” he said with an easy laugh. “My fellow Animorphs … and visiting alien … we have found a way into the Yeerk pool.”

A
n entrance to the Yeerk pool?” I echoed. “Where? How?”

I looked around at the others to see their reactions. See, we had already invaded the Yeerk pool in an effort to save Jake's brother, Tom. Not a happy memory.

I saw Cassie shudder.

“Ax is the only one who wasn't there for our little vacation in the Yeerk pool,” Marco said. “As the rest of you know, the Yeerk pool is in a huge underground cavern. It's practically a small city down there. It's under our school, but it's so big that it also runs beneath the fire station, a couple of gas stations, and most of the mall.”

Ax nodded.

“Tobias and I have been working out a pattern of surveillance,” Marco went on. “For the last week, we've followed our very favorite Human-Controller, Assistant Principal Chapman, everywhere we can. Tobias tracks him from the air. Then I follow him when he goes into a building.”

“Why didn't you let the rest of us in on this?” I demanded.

Marco shrugged. “It was a two-person job, that's all.”

Jake looked as annoyed as I felt.

Then I realized why Marco had kept this quiet. Jake had just been through the terrifying ordeal of being infested by a Yeerk. For three days he had been a Human-Controller, a prisoner in his own body. Marco had been letting him rest.

“So?” I asked, a little more patiently.

“So what?” Marco answered.

“So where is this entrance to the Yeerk pool? Duh.”

“Well, I was hoping to amaze and entertain you all with the whole story of our brilliant detective work, but the short answer is — in a dressing room at The Gap. In the mall. That's the entrance. People go in, looking like they're going to try on clothes, and they never come out.”

through
The Gap,> Tobias added.

“In through The Gap, out through the multiplex.” Marco laughed. “Are these Yeerks on top of popular American culture, or what?”

“Good job,” Jake admitted grudgingly. “The question is, now what do we do?”

Ax said instantly.

“We tried that once,” Cassie said quietly. “We didn't exactly win. There were dozens of Hork-Bajir and Taxxons down there. And Human-Controllers. And
he
was there … Visser Three. That's when Tobias was trapped in a morph. Like I said, we didn't exactly win.”

“We got hammered,” I agreed. “Ax, you know I'm usually all for going on the attack, but the Yeerk pool is just too big.”

Ax said stubbornly. But he didn't sound quite as enthusiastic anymore.

“Attacking the Yeerk pool is out,” I muttered. But an idea was occurring to me. “Hey, Ax? What can you tell us about the Kandrona?”

He swiveled his head toward me, while his stalk eyes turned slowly this way and that, searching the woods for trouble.

“So their real weakness is not the pool itself, but this Kandrona,” I said. “This miniature sun.”

Ax explained.

“I agree,” I said. “But what if we didn't
attack
the Yeerk pool? What if we just spied it out? We might find out where the Kandrona is.”

Marco laughed. “That's more like the Rachel I know. You were starting to worry me there. You were sounding so sensible.”

“How big is a Kandrona?” Jake wondered.

“The size of a car? Surely a bunch of all-American kids like us could manage to wreck a car,” Marco joked.

“How much would it hurt the Yeerks?” I asked. “That's the question. Is it worth running the risk of going down there again? Down to the Yeerk pool?”

We all looked at Ax.

We all sagged with disappointment.

“So what would they do?” Marco wondered. “How would Visser Three react?”

“Visser Three is totally ruthless,” I said. “He would save as many as he could. But he'd have to let the rest die.”

Ax agreed.

“We'd have to find this Kandrona thing first,” Cassie reminded everyone. “And wherever it is, it will be guarded.”

Right then I guess we all realized we were going to do it. We were going back to the Yeerk pool.

Jake shook his head slowly. “Down to the Yeerk pool again. I still have nightmares about the first time.”

“Yeah,” Marco agreed. “Done that.”

“The Yeerk pool,” Cassie said grimly, and looked away.

I didn't say anything. I don't like talking about nightmares. But I'd had them, too. They were pretty bad.

Ax said. your
fear is beginning to scare
me
.>

“Good,” I said. “I don't know if you Andalites believe in places like heaven and hell. But let me just tell you — the Yeerk pool is definitely not heaven.”