Authoress's Note: Hey everyone! Big thanks to Mimi-dudette, Riza-san, Purplestar Leader of awesome, voodooqueen126, and KityPryde for reviewing! You guys rock. :D Okay, so this is Chapter Two. Still haven't exactly gotten to the mission yet (that starts in the third chapter) but we're getting close. This chapter is mostly for humor. Hope you guys like it. :D I forgot to put a disclaimer in the first chapter, so...

DISCLAIMER: I... I... I don't own Erek. (sniffle) No matter how hard it is for me to admit. D: I don't own any of the other Animorphs characters, either. This disclaimer applies for the whole story.


My Best Friend Is An Android 2

Chapter Two: My Name Is Erek

(Erek's POV)

Hi. My name is Erek.

I guess Tessa's already told you about me. Well, there are a few things I'd like to make clear. If she's said anything about me being immature, or, you know, not modest or anything like that, it's not true. I am very mature and extremely modest.

In fact, I am probably the humblest person you have ever met in your entire life.

Seriously.

Okay, well, now that that's cleared up, I can go on with the story. I was in my room, trying to decide what to bring on the spy mission tonight.

Since we were trying to find out what they would be talking about in an important meeting tomorrow afternoon, I would bring a holo surveillance system. It's basically like a bug—but instead of only recording what people say, it also projects a hologram of them. So once you get it back and turn it on, it would be like you were actually sitting there watching and listening to the meeting.

I also grabbed a map I had drawn on a piece of notebook paper of the ventilation system of the Sharing's meeting place, and a small piece of wire. Then I changed into a black long-sleeved shirt, black jeans, black sneakers, and black gloves.

The other Chee say I'm having too much fun with this whole spy thing, but I don't see what's wrong with looking the part.

It was just starting to get dark as I crossed the street to Tessa's house and knocked on the door.

Tessa opened it. "Hey, Erek," she said. "Are we going now?"

I looked at her. She was wearing a light pink t-shirt, a jean skirt, gray leggings, and Converse sneakers. Her light brown hair was up in two pigtails, as usual.

"You can't go dressed like that," I told her. "You need to be wearing all black."

"Why?" she asked.

I sighed, trying very hard to be patient. "Because. Haven't you ever watched a good spy movie?"

"Uh... yeah, I guess..."

"So, in every good spy movie, they always wear black as camouflage. Don't you know anything?" I crossed my arms and shook my head disapprovingly.

Tessa rolled her blue eyes.

"And anyways, you need to dress like this because you can't project a hologram around yourself like I can. If you're wearing all black, you'll be less likely to be seen in the dark."

She nodded. "Good point."

I waited downstairs while she dashed up to her room. A few minutes later, she came back down wearing a black shirt, jeans, and shoes. I handed her a pair of black gloves, which she put on.

She glanced down at herself. "Okay, you were right, Erek. I do feel more like a spy."

"See, I told you."

"Hey, Mom, I'm going over to Erek's, okay?" Tessa shouted towards the general area of the kitchen.

A moment later, Ms. McConnell came into the living room.

"We need to work on our history project," Tessa explained.

Her mom glanced at us, and then frowned. "You two haven't joined some kind of cult, have you?"

We looked down at our clothes.

"No, Mom, of course not," Tessa said, exasperated.

"Why are you wearing so much black?" Ms. McConnell asked.

"Um…" said Tessa.

I tried to think of a good reason that we would be dressed like this, besides telling her that we were going to go spy on aliens.

"It's for our project!" I blurted. "We're doing a report on… the ancient civilization of, um, Mesotikia," I made up quickly.

Tessa's mom raised an eyebrow. "Mesotikia? I don't remember learning about them when I was in school. Where did these people live?"

"Australia!" I answered, at the exact moment Tessa said, "South America!"

She and I looked at each other.

"Well, they... they, um, originally lived in Australia, but they migrated to South America," I said.

"Yeah," Tessa agreed. "In those, you know, huge canoe boat things people used to make back then."

Ms. McConnell frowned. "Tessa, I thought you said you were doing your report on ancient Egypt?"

"Well… we changed our minds," Tessa told her.

"We decided to do our project on the Mesotikians because they're not as well known," I added. "Everyone knows about the ancient Egyptians—you know, because of their incredibly awesome and extremely well-built pyramids."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tessa slap her palm to her forehead.

"See, the ancient Mesotikians made their clothes out of a native South American plant that turned darker in the, um, weaving…uh… process," I explained lamely. "And so that's why we're practicing for our report by wearing all black cause we wanted to be historically accurate and all. You know." I finished my story with an innocent smile.

Tessa's mom stared at us for a long moment before finally saying, "All right. Be back by nine," and returning to the kitchen.

Tessa and I sighed in relief.

"Thanks, Mom!" she called, and turned to me. "That was excellent bull crap back there."

"Thanks," I told her, as we left the house. "You weren't so bad yourself."