CHAPTER 3

I left the meadow. I had to.

I think I was going insane. I sometimes wonder if I really am a nutjob who thought I was a hawk. Locked up in a straitjacket, inside a padded room. But can a madman know if they're mad? Can they even acknowledge about going insane?

So was I going mad?

No...maybe… Yeah, I was. Maybe that should be a good thing. Then I could forget about these feelings.

Why? Why didn't that old hawk eat it?

Did he just feel pitiful at me?

Ok, Tobias. Now you're bordering close to insanity. You just thought that hawk took pity on you.

But that was the thing. The word, pity.

I hated it even more. Was he really thinking I'd take his pity gift? I should have shouted at him to keep it. Or give it to the other rival. I could get my own food.

Yeah. I was definitely going mad.

It was still early afternoon. Everything was quiet in the housing development below me. Kids were leaving school for the buses, more chattering than they would be in the morning. Parents were still at work.

Then I saw it on the edge of a road.

It wasn't that fresh, maybe dead by a couple of hours old. It was a raccoon with its back quarter smashed flat by a tire.

Roadkill.

I've seen older, weaker, unlucky hawks eat roadkill. It happens. I just never went for it.

But it was...alright. It was a warm day so maybe the flesh could still be warm. All I could see was the trail of ants. No maggots yet. Or maybe the eggs were already there.

I wished it was breathing. It's stupid, I know. But something was getting more dangerous than my weird feelings the moment I saw the carrion. It had been there - getting meaner by the second.

I was hungry. All predators with a small food resource would. And there were two options: find food or let the mean hunger win.

I lowered down. I pretended it was still alive. Still worth being stalked on. I think I was close to the edge where a carcass stops looking dead to me.

I circled lower and lower, ignored by the humans elsewhere. It was still a decent kill. Yes, kill. A pointless, weak excuse to call that raccoon.

But I was so hungry. My hunger was winning this argument.

I had to eat to live.

I dropped down with talons stretched out. There were no cars on the street. Nothing to stop me from going for the kill. Maybe because I wanted to pretend that it's still helpless prey.

Then something yellow came into my tunnel vision.

No!

"Whoa!"

I forced myself back to the sky. Angrily, I gazed down. Someone had to be riding their yellow beach cruiser bike along that road.

The person in a white and pink parka didn't stop, even when they nearly had a face full of feathers thrown at them. They briefly glanced over their shoulder before turning back.

And up ahead was a familiar person.

Rachel!

She was walking along the pavement, schoolbooks under her arms. On a sweet, sunny day like that day, she was beautiful. In the middle of typhoons, hailstorms and mud slides, any natural disaster, she would still be beautiful. More magnificent.

Oh, god. I had forgotten she'd come by this way. If that rider didn't nearly run me over, she would have seen me eat roadkill. She would have been shocked, embarrassed for me.

I was actually thankful I didn't just drive my beak into that raccoon's stomach and pull out its liver.

As the rider got closer, Rachel waved at them. "Hey."

So she recognized this person, probably from school. The rider looked about her age but I couldn't see much with that hood over her head. I lowered myself down to the trees.

"Heya, Rachel." The kid pulled the brakes. "What's up?"

"Just heading home. You're off for a delivery?"

"Yup. First one today. Actually, good that you're here." The kid pulled a piece of paper out from their pocket. "I've been trying to find this place for the last fifteen minutes. Thought I might have taken a wrong turn."

Rachel's eyes narrowed tightly as she read the paper. She read it again. "I've walked down this route every day and there is no such address."

"Wait, really? That can't be."

"Are you sure this is the right address?" she asked. "Maybe you wrote it down wrongly."

"No, this is what the guy on the phone told me."

Rachel folded her arms with a frown that I've always found quite cute on her. "I think you got pranked, Elle."

"Pranked?" The kid examined the address again, completely baffled.

"You got asked to come deliver to a house that doesn't exist. That was a prank call."

"Really? But, but they asked for a huge lunch!"

Rachel shrugged ruefully. "I don't know what to say."

"Hmmmfp," the delivery kid groaned. She sighed. "The restaurant has never been pranked on before… Now what am I going to do with all this food?"

Their bike had a basket on the front, enough to carry three bags. I could see right at the top in one bag was a plastic container with what looked like stir fry.

(That does look good.)

Me and my big mouth. No doubt Rachel heard that because she was quickly looking around.

"Something wrong?"

She turned back to the kid. Then she smiled.

"I'll take them off you. You know how much my family loves your uncle's food."

"Are you sure, Rachel?" the kid asked warily. "It's 29 dollars worth."

"29-?! Ok, you've definitely been pranked."

Another groan out of her friend. "I can't believe someone would do that to Kong Kong's restaurant." The kid then rummaged through their basket, pulling out a paper box from the bags. "How about the steamed buns? I'll give a discount. 5.80 for six pieces all right with you?"

"Deal."

One box handed over and an exchange of goodbyes later, the delivery kid rode the other way. Back to the city.

Once the course was clear, Rachel searched for me. "Tobias?"

She didn't have to do that for me. To take pity on me. I could fend for myself. No matter how strong my hunger was begging me to morph and join her, I didn't want to show my face to her. To hear her say something that would make it all right.

"C'mon, Tobias. These buns are gonna get cold."

I sighed mentally to myself. If I'd leave, she'd never let it go. I was going to regret it either way.

I dropped down to some bushes. With a deep breath, I morphed.

Yes. I morphed. Not demorphed like Jake or the others. My human self is just another DNA I acquired, all because a vastly powerful creature named the Ellimist pulled some clever, neat tricks to make it happen.

The Ellimist is someone we've crossed paths with a couple of times. Ax's people, the Andalites know a bit about his race but not a lot. All of their information came from fairy tales. The Andalites see the Ellimists as tricksters. Unreliable beings who use their godlike power in unpredictable ways.

I guess my first encounter with him is a real-life fairy story. I was tricked by the Ellimist.

Some months after one of our first missions, after I became a hawk nothlit , the Ellimist used me to help some free Hork-Bajir escape. And instead of giving what I wanted, he paid me by giving me back my morphing powers. He turned back time and brought me face-to-face with my old human self. Sleeping in my old bedroom.

Once I got my DNA, I was tempted. I could be myself again, not the hawk self, the human self. I could overstay my time and be my old self forever. But it would mean losing my morphing ability too.

Or I could be that human boy for two hours and keep my powers.

But I realized there and then, all of this wasn't without a big catch. The Ellimist purposely left me hanging between two impossible choices: become human and stop being an Animorph. Or live the life I have now.

The memories came back vividly as I began to focus on that human boy. The old self I was. The resentment I had for the Ellimist came along with it. So did my indecision.

No, stop. Rachel's here. Don't back out now.

And just when my mind pushed those thoughts out, my body began to change.

I grew taller. I could hear bones stretching with crackling, popping sounds. They got stronger, more solid. My talons dulled, turning into pink, chubby toes. The leathery skin on my legs slipped away into beige skin.

Then my insides turned with a far-away slurping, churning sound. Feeling your internal organs change was a squirmy, almost sickening feeling, even if I've been through this many times.

My wings shrunk in feathers and grew in muscle mass. The bones longer and thicker, fingers emerging at the ends of my now-wingless arms. All of my body feathers followed straight away like a disappearing act, replaced by my pink skin and the minimal clothing I'd managed to integrate in my morph.

My beak softened, melting into my face and leaving behind charred lips. I could feel the rest of of it inside my mouth split up into teeth. The grinding resonating in my expanding skull was disturbing.

My hearing and eyesight worsened in one go. I was left feeling deaf and blind. Exposed and confused without my feathers. Without my hawk self.

I have been so used to being a hawk for so long that human senses stopped working to me. Close distances felt alien to me. All the colors humans would see were too bright to me. I was a helpless human.

Worst was the leaden pull of gravity. Sure, a hawk couldn't ignore gravity. But a hawk didn't need to stay on the ground. I didn't belong down on earth. But it was like I was remade in iron and Earth pulled me down like a magnet.

...But I guess I could see it this way - that magnet was now Rachel.

I stepped out of my hiding place.

"Hey."

Rachel beamed brighter than the setting sun. And all of the thoughts I had about the feelings, the meadow, the other hawks, they just dispersed away.

She pulled out a bun from the box. "You wanted to try, right?"

I wanted to say no. Really, I did. But the smell was making my mouth salivate. Birds don't do that. Right now, I was a human, my human body slowly remembering things on its own.

So I took it. I had the first bite. Tasted the barbecued pork inside.

"So? How is it?"

"...Actually, it's pretty good."

Rachel pulled out a bun for herself. "We should go to Yan Fú Wok one day. It's got the best Chinese food there."

"With Ax too?"

Then she grimaced at that mistake. "Ok, definitely not. Mr Liang's never going to forgive us if he'd try to raid the kitchen."

She laughed. I laughed too. Even though I didn't know who she was talking about.

We shared the rest of the buns as we walked to her house. Yeah, it was kinda strange to me. Walking Rachel to her house? I've never done that before. Or for any girl.

But it was a nice quiet walk. We didn't have much to talk about but, it was still nice.

We said our goodbyes and Rachel went inside. I left, demorphed and soared into the air.