When Sean meets Paul, Jake, Tobias and the other Animorphs are still asleep as they are three hours behind Sean. It has been a day since the attack on the Yeerk Pool and the others are still reeling over the news that Tobias is trapped as a hawk now, among other things.

To work this out in her head, Cassie wakes up and does a walk around her barn to make sure the animals are all right. She notices a few birds of prey in cages in the barn, including a new osprey and a bald eagle that came in the day before and begins making mental notes.

Amazingly, I was able to get to sleep. The body has that way of not giving a crap what you want. I learned this a few times when I was trying to stay awake for a really good Godzilla movie that wasn't on until three in the morning on the Disney Channel. Apparently living with a guy who could decide to make you a pawn in an alien war has about the same level of urgency.

Even more amazing was the fact that I did wake up alone the next morning. I almost felt insulted that this Yeerk didn't consider me enough of a threat to bother infesting. But it was starting to make sense too.

Dad wrote articles exposing people just like this Yeerk. Usually it was some guy who had been working at the job, or organization for a while. He felt he was owed more than what he was getting, whether it was true or not. And in order to get it, he formed the most elaborate and usually self defeating plan possible.

If Visser Three was so powerful that the Chee couldn't figure out his every move, what did this Yeerk think it could do? And would its antics get it killed and take my Dad down with it?

No. My first plan of action was to find out just how big this was. If I could get Dad out of the lime light long enough to starve the Yeerk out of him, I could have the Chee hide him somewhere safe before the rest of the Yeerks knew anything about it.

Then we were both going to work out a plan of action that exposed the Yeerk invasion to the rest of the world. With the information I helped to gather, Dad would write the biggest story of his or any other reporter's career.

I was up at five, as usual. I rarely sleep late, even on weekends.

"Feeling better?" Dad asked.

"Much better," I said, honestly. I poured a glass of orange juice while I waited for my bagel in the toaster.

Dad was leaning against the counter reading a paper and drinking his coffee. Just like the scene at the Treet's house, everything was so normal about this morning.

"Did anyone buy your article yet?" I asked, nonchalantly.

"Oh, I'm still going through all my notes." Dad answered.

It was the kind of quick, casual answer Dad would give. The Yeerk had gotten better overnight. That meant I had to be more careful too. I spread almond nut butter on my bagel and sat at the table to eat.

"Did you get all your homework done?" Dad sat in the chair next to mine and sat down.

"Yeah," I said. "A couple math problems and I had to write some definitions down. I guess they decided to give me a break on the make-up work."

"That's good," he said.

He handed me the "funnies" section while he turned to the sports page. It was so normal and perfect that I almost thought I could delude myself into believing everything was okay.

"I was going to head down to the school a little early," I said. "Mister Jones lets kids into woodshop early and I was thinking of trying to make a sword or something."

Dad snorted. Just the reaction I expected.

"Why a sword?"

I shrugged. "You never know. It might come in handy."

He just laughed and shook his head.

"Okay, well, good luck with that."

After I finished eating I started out to school. But instead of going the way I came, I took a back road that lead to a footbridge over the river. The lower half of the golf course could be seen from the bridge. My contact was waiting for me at pavilion where country club members ate lunch.

There was a nice fog rising up from the river, and it made the old wood of the railing moist glistening in the early rays of sun. I stopped in the middle and took a deep breath. The ground was moist from last night's rain and there were worms on the concrete where the sidewalk began.

I followed the road up to the entrance of the country club. There were houses across the street and lights were on. Before long the early commuters would be getting into their cars. Joggers and dog walkers would be using the golf course, or just passing by. And the country club's cooks, dishwashers, mechanics and groundskeepers would be getting in to start their day, completely unaware that the universe was way more complicated than they realized.

The main building that held the locker room, the tennis court and the pavilion was empty. The golf carts sat behind a fence and were locked in. Just a few feet away, the club owner's bungalow sat in the slowly dissipating fog. I didn't know his routine, but I was pretty sure country clubs had security on staff, so I was wary.

An older boy sat at one of the picnic tables. Dressed in shorts and a long sleeved t-shirt, he looked like he had just been out on a morning jog. He looked up as I approached.

"You thirsty?" He asked

I let out a sigh of relief.

"Yeah, do you have pear juice?" I replied, with my half of the password.

Bryce and I worked it out the day before. The boy got up and came to me, holding out his hand as he smiled.

"My name's Paul."

"Good to meet you," I said. "How many of you guys are there?"

"We number in the thousands," Paul said. "You could fit the entire Chee population into the Twin Towers and still have room."

"Nice."

I placed my backpack on the picnic table.

"You know about the two hour limit?" Paul asked.

"Yes," I said. "Erek explained that to me early on."

"All right. Do you have anything skin tight? Like bike shorts, or diving gear?"

I raised an eyebrow.

"I haven't had much reason to go scuba diving lately and I don't ride a bike," I answered. "Why?"

"Because they can morph with your body so you won't wind up naked after you've morphed out of your loose clothing," Paul explained. "They also won't shred if you morph something larger than yourself."

Had I been paying more attention that moment, I would have asked Paul how he or any other Chee knew this little fact about morphing. I highly doubted there was Morphing for Dummies book at the library I didn't know about. Unfortunately it was the words "morph something larger" that caught my attention. But the idea of morphing into a rhinoceros or an elephant became the big neon lights above the doors that distracted my thirteen year-old brain, when my investigator's training-by-proxy really should have kicked in and noticed the small print disclaimer reading 'made in Taiwan' at the bottom.

"Oh," was my response. "Well…I didn't think of that."

"It's okay," Paul said, going into his own backpack. "I was a diving instructor in the 80's."

An image of a Chee in android form with flippers and a snorkel flashed through my mind.

Paul handed me a folded suit.

"Here," he said. "You can wear it under your clothes and hardly anyone will notice."

I unfolded it. It was a wetsuit.

"How do I explain this to Dad?" I asked. "The yeerk might go through my closet for some reason."

Paul shrugged.

"Do you get a regular allowance?" He asked.

I thought about it. Wetsuits like this were pretty expensive, so I couldn't very well say I saved up and just decided to buy it one day. I just wasn't that whimsical with money.

"I'll figure something out," I said. "I appreciate this, seriously."

Paul pointed to men's room door at the end of the pavilion.

"I unlocked it for you," he said. "I'll let you know if anyone approaches."

I left my backpack with Paul and went into change. The suit was smooth and tight against my body, but it wasn't uncomfortable. I wasn't looking forward to how hot it would make me later in the day, but it was a temporary solution. As soon I was able to, I would have to buy some cheap bike shorts at a thrift shop. I could explain that away easily.

Paul was looking through my homework when I went back outside. Only this time, he wasn't Paul. He was me.

"If there's a part of this I'm supposed to be used to, will you let me know?" I asked.

"I" turned around and grinned. It was like watching an episode of the Patty Duke show. My sandy blond hair was the same length and cut. He even had the small birthmark below my left eye. The one that kind of looks like a hammer, that I used to tell people was a sign that I was the son of the Norse god Thor.

He was wearing a perfect copy of the black jeans and black and gray NYU t-shirt that I held in my hands. The shoes and socks…everything matched.

"I'll take those," Paul said in my voice. I handed my clothes over and watched as he folded them. Were all Chee laundry attendants at some point, or did they just hate messy clothes? "Do you use your locker at school?"

"Only my gym locker," I said, truthfully. "Until the school board decides that math is a subject worth spending money on, I only have three actual books to carry. And all of my homework goes in a five subject notebook in the binder, so my backpack isn't as heavy as it looks."

I watched myself test the weight of the pack.

"Nice and light," he said. "I'll leave your clothes in the gym locker then. If you're not at the school when it gets out, I'll be sure to bring them home."

"Thanks again," was all I could say.

Then I looked around.

"No one can see us right now," Paul assured me.

I took a deep breath and focused on the seagull. The memory of suddenly having to breath with turkey organs was fresh in my mind and I stayed focused this time.

This time the bones were the first things to change. They crunched and twisted as they shrank and became hollow. As my arms and hands twisted and flattened to become wings, gray feathers sprouted from the fabric of the wetsuit and met with the lighter colored feathers beneath the wings.

I started to shrink, but unlike with the turkey morph, I didn't get fatter. My belly did get rounder and a brighter shade of white, but the fattiness remained in the lower half of my body.

My chin and neck melted together and became one smooth, narrow curve. I felt a strange sensation as my butt seemed to shrink.

That was weird, I thought…well, not out loud exactly. But whatever the thought-speak equivalent of thinking out loud is considered.

"How does it feel?" Paul asked. Though my ears were mostly tiny holes, the seagull could hear the voice very clearly and somehow my human mind was able to translate the words.

It's weird, but not painful. Ooh, my eyes traveled to the sides of my head, just like with the turkey morph. There was squishiness as they changed larger, rounder. I was standing on webbed feet that ended in tiny claws. Much better than a turkey.

Paul laughed.

"I'd better get to school," he said. "Will you be all right?"

I cocked my head to one side and looked up at…me. Then I noticed the picnic table, and had memories from when I was a toddler and furniture like this was "big" to me. With an experimental stretch, I flapped my wings and jumped up onto the seat.

Dude!

"Good luck," Paul said.

Thanks. See you soon.

I aimed for the outside and flapped my wings again. Within seconds I was riding currents of air over the golf course. If I had been human, my heart would be pounding a mile a minute. As is, the seagull's instincts were pretty strong. It was at home up here and it knew what it was doing.