Chapter 7
"Wake up, you slackers!" was the insanely loud bellow that popped me out of my dreams. I jerked my head up in time to see Tom frog Jake's sleeping body in the arm. "Argh!" Jake grunted groggily as Tom left the bedroom. Again, perfectly normal. Again, nothing normal about some slug using Jake's brother as a marionette.
"Jeez," Jake muttered as he sat up and rubbed his arm. "That wake-up is one thing I wish would change around here." I was still trying to slow my heart rate down. Being woken violently from a dead sleep was rarely a good thing when you were an Animorph.
I pulled on my T-shirt from yesterday. "I smell bacon. That's one thing I miss about sleeping over here – your family is big on breakfast. My dad's idea of a nutritious breakfast is actually putting the Pop-tart in the toaster."
Jake, not bothering to change out of his PJs, rolled out of his bed, his foot narrowly missing my head. "Whatever. I'd trade the food for an extra hour of sleep." Jake is not a morning person.
We stomped down the stairs, both rubbing the sleep from our eyes. Tom and Jake's dad were already sitting around the table. Jake's mom was finishing up cooking. I took my place at the guests' seat, and felt a pang for my own mother. Back when she was around, this had been a normal scene at my house, too.
"So," Jake's dad said, digging into the plate his wife set down in front of him. "Hope the movie was worth it, guys. You missed a hell of a game last night."
"Yeah," Tom agreed. "I'm going to try to finish early this afternoon so I can get us back for the finals."
"You're welcome to join them, Marco," Jake's mom told me as she set another plate in front of me and sat down herself. "My living room is going to be full of grunting cavemen anyway. No reason why you shouldn't join the fun." She subtly checked me out; Jake's mom had been really upset when my mom had disappeared, and had told me several times that I was always welcome at their house. She never came out and said it, but I knew she had been worried about me since it happened. It was something normal, something nice. It would have been even nicer if I could have appreciated it without that gnawing suspicion that she might have some ulterior motive.
"Thanks, Mrs. B. If they don't decide to call the competition off a day early and crown me the champ, I'll be there," I said, trying to sound nonchalant.
"Marco's convinced he's the best gamer in the state," Tom staged-whispered to his dad. "He has no idea the level of competition he's up against."
"What is the level of competition going to be like, Tom?" Jake asked. "I mean, there has to be some advantage to my jerk brother running the competition."
Tom laughed easily. "First of all, I am but a servant. I don't run anything. But if it's inside info you want, I got some. "Some of the testers from two of the different gaming studios formed teams and signed up. Those guys are pros," he said, injecting just the right amount of awe into his voice.
"Boys that play video games for a living," Jake's mom said disapprovingly, shaking her head. "That's who I want my sons hanging around."
"No, it's really cool, Mom," Tom argued. "Those guys have to go to school for computer design, then they…" I drifted off as he prattled on, playing his part of a normal high-schooler. In my head, I was wondering how we were going to pull off our overall mission – stopping, or at least sabotaging, the competition. Having Tom involved was going to make things harder. Me, Jake, and Rachel wouldn't be able to do much. We'd have to be visible when the sabotage actually went down – we could not give Tom any reason at all to be suspicious of us. 'I guess we'll just have to wing it, as usual,' I said to myself.
"..and everybody who's anybody is going to be there. Think of all the connections I'm going to make this weekend! I might be able to get a scholarship or something to a graphic design school," Tom was saying. Right. Like the Yeerk in Tom's head was really worried about his college future. If he had it his way, by the time college rolled around, Harvard would be a Yeerk pool.
"Well, don't give up on an actual education so young," Jake's mom said. She gathered mine and Jake's plates. "Get upstairs and get ready, boys. Tom has to be there shortly." We did as she said, and ten minutes later, we were in his parents' station wagon. Tom was driving too fast, showing off, and once again I couldn't help but marvel at the show Tom's Yeerk was putting on.
"This is cool," Tom said for the third time since we'd left the house. "I don't know why we don't do stuff like this more often. On one hand, it sucks to be hanging out with underclassmen," he joked. "On the other hand, as far as worms go, you two aren't so bad." I physically had to stop myself from saying, "Who's the worm?"
"You know what I'm saying," he continued on, more to Jake than me. "Video games all day at the mall, then a b-ball championship party at night. If you would just open up your mind a little, consider joining the Sharing, we could do stuff like this all the time."
Even though I knew Jake would join the Sharing at about the same time he would go skydiving without a parachute, it still gave me the willies. Tom was still working on Jake to join the Yeerk organization, even though he'd been shut down by Jake in just about every possible way. 'Say what you want about the slimy creeps, but they're persistant,' I thought.
"I know," Jake said. "It would be cool to spend more time together, but I have absolutely zero free time right now. Johnson is killing me in algebra – right now I'm looking at a D, and if you tell mom and dad that, I'll deny knowing you. I already have no time to practice my ball skills, and you know I want to make the team next year. I've just got too much on my plate right now."
Tom nodded thoughtfully as we pulled into the parking lot. "I'm just saying, think about it. Slow down. Be a kid, for God's sake." He dropped it as we swung into a parking space about a half a mile from the mall. The lot was already packed, and the stores in the mall didn't open for an hour. This tournament was obviously a big deal.
Tom slipped some sort of ID badge over his head. "I have to go through the employee entrance," he said, indicating a small door off to the side of the main entrance. "You guys have to go to the food court. That's where they're having registration. I'll look for you around lunchtime, bro. Good luck, Marco. You got this," he said, offering me a fist-bump. I knuckled him only reluctantly, and me and Jake headed for the crowd in front of the food court.
When Tom was out of earshot, I said, "Jake, I know you don't like talking about it, so I'll only say it once. I'm sorry about Tom."
Jake looked surprised. "Yeah, me too. But you know, it's not that bad, hanging out with him. I mean, I know he's a controller and all, but Tom's still in there, too. I like to think that he feels a little victory every time I make it clear I won't be joining the Sharing anytime soon."
I had never thought of it like that. "I'll bet you're right. I'll bet that's at least one thing Tom can point to and say, 'Take that, Yeerk scum. My brother's too smart for you, you'll never get him.' That's probably why he keeps trying to get you to join so hard."
We stopped talking about it, because we were approaching the crowd. Jake said under his breath, "We're here to register you and get ready for some gaming. But we're also looking for anything – anything – that we can use to make this go belly up. Keep your eyes peeled."
I snickered. "Dude, I'm more observant than you in my sleep." We stepped up to the table that had a placard with the letter of my last name. "I can crush nerds and ruin certain people's plans at the same time."
