Disclaimer: I don not own the Animorphs. I do, however, own Lee.

2)Questions

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Because of human diversity - different tastes, ambitions, interests, backgrounds, experiences, etc. - differences of opinion will be inevitable.

-Natan Sharansky

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I was filling out a long questionnaire, about 100 questions in length. Name, age, sex, date of birth (so why is age necessary?), political party (if any), mother's maiden name, social security number. I gave them all but the lattermost. Call me paranoid, but I don't like the idea of an organization made up of ordinary people having enough information to steal my identity. I only had two years to go until I turned 18, and I didn't want some Mary Sue or Gary Stu stealing my identity and ruining my credit score. Anyway, a speaker was onstage, talking about giving a part of yourself up to become part of something bigger, a collective, a whole. Isn't that socialism? I wondered. Giving up part of yourself for the greater good? Pretty loose concept. The only thing keeping me here was a stupid, irrational hope.

After Giovanni helped me up and made sure I was OK, we had started talking again. He had told me that junior members were assigned to full members so the full members could sort of mentor them and look after them, sort of like the Big Brother program. Tom didn't seem to have a mentor with him tonight, so I had this stupid, irrational hope that maybe, just maybe I would get paired with him. I know, stupid, right?

As I turned in my questionnaire, the lady at the reception counter gave it a brief once-over, and told me to wait a minute while she went and got a mentor for me. When she came back, she had Tom in tow.

"Lee, meet Tom. He's the full member assigned to you. Tom, this is your junior member, Lee."

Maybe dreams do come true. "Um, hi," I said.

"Hey," Tom said. His voice was better than I could've imagined. And his smile! And how much redder could my cheeks get?!

But he didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he just dismissed it as shyness. Or maybe he was just trying to spare my feelings. Anywho, we just sat and talked for the rest of the meeting. I was glad I had brought my notebook because I could feel a disturbance in my lower half. Kinda noticeable in gym shorts. I cursed my not wearing jeans. But I was able to use the notebook to hide it and eventually I forgot all about it. We talked about music, video games, and sports. I revealed to him not only the first major thing, but also the second, and even Marco's reaction to said major things. He sympathized, but that was when I changed the subject to books. He said his favorite had to be The Cat in the Hat. When I asked him why, he just shrugged and said that it was simple and fun. When I said I liked 1984 he of course asked why and I told him that it was because it was cryptic and depressing.

After the meeting ended, he offered me a ride home. I graciously accepted. We were in front of my house in his truck and I was about to get out when he asked If we could hang out together the next day. I smiled and said that that would be cool.