"Tobias?" I asked, making sure I didn't sound worried or anything. I hoped I sounded puzzled.
I think I did, because my father nodded and babbled a bit about Tobias, how he hadn't been at school, how his aunt thought his uncle had him, his uncle thought his aunt did...
"And so now his cousin, Aria, after hearing about all of this from his father's lawyer, Mr. Degroot, wants to help Tobias, take him in. She's coming all the way from Africa for this. Isn't that sweet?"
"Yeah," I said. "That's really nice of her." Trap! My mind was screaming it and a glance at Rachel showed hers was too. "Sorry Dad, but... I don't know," I said. Rachel shrugged when he glanced her way.
He rolled his eyes and left, muttering, "I should have known you'd be useless."
I looked at my paper, trying hard to not let the words affect me. I didn't want to cry in the middle of the library. Rachel was too preoccupied worrying about Tobias to notice, and honestly, I was a little glad.
I hated this. I hated it. I don't know what was worse, thinking my parents hated me and had changed or knowing they were slaves and some alien enjoyed doing this to me. Why did it hate me so much? I didn't do anything to it! I just didn't know why an alien would hate me so much that it'd make my father say such things to me.
The school day passed pretty quick after that, since we were all distracted with the thought of a trap. When I brought David his dinner that night, it was just us and I told him.
"It's a trap," he said immediately. "But if nobody's able to find Tobias, that'd be worse, wouldn't it?"
I nodded, "Cause they'll keep looking for him."
"I'll bet you we'll have to check out this lawyer guy," David said, thinking. "At least they can't use our families like that. We already know their fates." He looked furious but calmer too, saying that. I couldn't help but nod. He was right. I hated the Yeerks, I really did, and I know they wanted to just keep making me cry, but at least I knew.
"And this is really good," David said, holding up some of the salisbury steak. "Thanks, for... all this. I really appreciate it."
I blushed and just shrugged, "We're friends. If we don't help each other, we're doomed, right?"
He just nodded. "You'd better get going."
"Thanks." I stood up and blushed more when he hugged me, but I couldn't help smiling even as I got inside my house. My parents weren't home, but was it really surprising? Especially with this going on, they were probably looking for Tobias.
We checked out the place the next day. The lawyer's office didn't look like much. It was in one of those strip malls with a convenience store at one end and a State Farm Insurance office on the other end.
It didn't look like a place to lay a trap. But that's the thing about traps: If they looked like traps, they wouldn't be very effective, right?
Rachel and I were in the laundromat, Tobias's first backup. If he yelled, we would go to the bathroom and Rachel would go through the wall to help him. I actually had clothes to wash, so it was fine. While I washed clothes, I was doing some English homework. Rachel was attempting to do some work too but we both knew she wasn't focusing on it.
David was doing Tobias's usual job: watching from the sky, keeping everyone informed the best he could. And something must have happened in the meeting because Tobias didn't return to the barn.
"He just needs time," Cassie explained to us when we asked. "Just... give him some time to come to grips with things."
"Why?" David inquired, shrugging. "Family wants him, so what?"
The others gave him a dirty look and Jake answered, "Yes, unless they just want to learn his secrets, learn why he's not with his family, learn about us and kill us."
Well... that was a bit of a downer.
"He'll be okay by tomorrow," Cassie said. "Come on, let's get some rest."
We all nodded and left the barn. My house was empty when I walked in and I sighed.
It was pretty obvious to me that Tobias wasn't the only one without a real family. Shrugging, I went to my room and managed to get through school the next day. I got held up a bit after school though, forced to tutor some guy on the soccer team. After that, I made my way to Cassie's barn only to hear Marco ranting.
"When do we get a vacation? I mean, Ben-Hur rowing that Roman galley while the guy whipped him and the other guy banged on that big drum got more downtime than we do. Our lives have become Nintendo games," Marco complained loudly, hitting a pile of hay with his hand. "We're always walking down some dark hallway with our blasters drawn and there's an endless array of enemy guys. We blow 'em up, but they keep coming. When do we get to hit the pause button? When do we get to switch over to a nice, peaceful Riven? When do we get to turn off the power and put down the joystick and just veg out with some HBO? When do -"
"When do we get to shut you up?" Rachel interrupted. "When do we get to switch you off? I mean, good grief, Marco, you act like you have something better to do. Before we became Animorphs your entire day consisted of figuring out which girl to annoy next."
Marco grinned. "And now I always know which girl to annoy next." He put his arm around Rachel and laid his head on her shoulder.
She laughed and shoved him away.
"Ooookay," I said slowly, shaking my head.
"Hey Melissa," Jake said. "As you can tell by Marco's complaining, we have a lot happening at once. And we can't blow off any of it. We need to find out if DeGroot is for real or a Controller. We need to find out the same about this possible cousin Aria. And we need to try and find this little, lost Hork-Bajir. Twenty-four hours plus last night, plus this morning while we were in school. Coming up on forty-eight hours he's been missing."
"I hate to think of what could be happening to him," Cassie said.
Jake nodded. But Marco said, "No, wait. You should try and think of what's happening to him. What are the possibilities?"
~I assume that any human would recognize this Hork-Bajir child as an alien,~ Ax stated.
"No. Not necessarily," Cassie said.
"Most people don't believe you aliens exist," Rachel said.
Ax nodded, ~Then what might a human think this creature is?~
"Deformed," Cassie speculated. "Affected by birth defects. Or seriously sick."
~The average, fairly decent human would think of taking it to a hospital,~ Tobias said.
"Or calling an ambulance," Cassie added.
"The average not-so-decent human might decide to shoot it," David said, thoughtfully.
"Or stick it in a cage and charge people to take a look," I said, making Jake nod in agreement.
"Yeah. Okay. Marco? Get on the Internet and look for any news reports or whatever. Ax? You help him. Cassie and I will go back to the valley entrance, morph wolves, and see if we can pick up Bek's scent. Rachel, you're with Tobias. Figure out if this Aria woman is a Controller. David, Melissa, you guys do the same thing with DeGroot. Follow them. Watch them. How long do we have till your birthday, Tobias?"
I looked over at David, who nodded, while Tobias danced around the question until everyone realized he really didn't remember when his birthday was.
Oh boy. We really were going to have our hands full and we didn't even have a real timeline.