CHAPTER TEN: JAKE

"Screams," I said. "Human screams. They sounded far off, but that's what they were."

I filled the others in on what I had learned while following Chapman in lizard morph. We were at the mall again, at the food court. We figured it was the best way not to look suspicious. No one thinks there's anything weird about kids hanging together at the mall, eating nachos.

In the end none of us turned out to have much of an appetite for the nachos.

The day didn't get much better from there. The trip to The Gardens seemed to take forever, even though I had plenty of distraction copying notes for all the classes I'd missed. My stomach was churning and I kept wondering—was I doing the right thing?

Would any of the animals we found there—even the tiger—be enough to prepare us for what was coming next? Down into the Yeerk pool…and before that, another night of pretending that everything was normal. That I didn't know that aliens were real. That I couldn't turn into a lizard or a tiger. That my friends and I hadn't watched an Andalite die and had our lives forever changed by his little blue box.

That my brother was still my brother, and not an alien slug's slave.

It was probably the worst family dinner of my life.

After Tom left, I went to the upstairs phone, where my parents couldn't overhear me. I called Marco.

"He's on his way," I said.

I called Tobias and Rachel and Cassie. I told them the same thing. The plan was set: attack the Yeerk pool and rescue Tom.

Somehow.

I rode my bike to the school. I hid my bike across the street, the way we had planned. Then I hooked up with Marco and Cassie and Rachel.

"Where's Tobias?" I asked. Had he chickened out? Had he changed his mind? Could I blame him?

Rachel pointed to the sky. The sun was setting fast, but I could see Tobias circling high overhead.

"What's the matter with him?" I exploded. "He's got a two-hour time limit and we don't know how long this is going to take!"

"Relax," Rachel said. "He just went up to do some surveillance."

"They drew straws," Marco said, jerking his thumb at Rachel. He looked smug. "She lost."

"Bite me, Marco," Rachel said. Her voice contained less venom than I expected and I looked at her curiously but she just gave me a bright, dazzling Rachel smile. I let it go.

"We don't know how many morphs we can do in a row," I complained. "It was stupid of him."

"Sorry we didn't check with you first, fearless leader," Rachel sneered, "but you weren't here, so…"

I glared at her. "I'm the one who had to call everyone, remember?" I said. "I had to leave last. And I'm nobody's leader."

She might have kept arguing with me, but Cassie put her hand on Rachel's arm. "Let's not fight about it," Cassie said. "We'll p-probably have plenty of fighting to deal with soon enough." She smile she gave me was shaky and I immediately felt bad for losing my temper.

"Sorry," I said. "I'm just stressed-out."

"We all are," Marco said flatly, for once without any sarcasm.

I looked at Marco. "Are you sure about doing this?" I asked him quietly.

He glared at me. "I said I was in, wasn't I?" he snapped. "For Tom. I'm in. I'm scared, but I'm in."

"Okay," I said. "Thanks, Marco."

He grunted and looked away.

Tobias swooped down and perched on Rachel's shoulder. It surprised me a little. Why would Tobias perch on Rachel's shoulder? And she didn't seem at all annoyed. She rubbed her head against him a little.

{Are we doing this, or not?} Tobias asked.

I took a deep breath. "Yeah, we're doing this," I said. I met Tobias's eyes, fighting the urge to look away from that fierce hawk's glare. "So you better get ready."

He hesitated. {I don't know,} he said, {I think maybe it would be better if I stayed like this. A hawk can do plenty of damage if it puts its mind to it, and a little air support might come in handy.}

"We don't know what's going to come in handy," Cassie pointed out. "We're going to some kind of underground pool. There may not be a lot of room for flying down there. The cougar might be a better choice."

{But if—}

"Cassie's got a point," I said. "Better to go down human, then we can decide what to morph when we get there and see what's what."

"Right," Marco snorted, "because choosing between a tiger and a lizard, that'll be a real toss-up for you."

I rolled my eyes and ignored him.

"At least the rest of us have options," Rachel retorted. "You're stuck being a monkey no matter what."

"Ha, ha," said Marco.

Tobias fluttered to the ground and began to demorph. I looked away, hoping that he had his clothes hidden nearby, but when the sound of rustling feathers was gone and I looked back, he was standing there in a tight t-shirt and a pair of blue exercise leggings. They were a little baggy on him, but not too much that he couldn't morph them, I guess. I stared at him.

A blush crawled up Tobias's cheeks. "I raided my mom's closet," he mumbled, clearly embarrassed. He tried to tug the t-shirt down over his butt but it was too short. "I don't own any bike shorts or anything and I didn't exactly have a chance to go shopping, okay?"

"You look fine," I reassured him. Marco snorted and I amended my statement to, "Okay, no, you look like an idiot, but we're all going to look like idiots when we ditch our regular clothes, so you'll fit right in with the rest of us."

"Give me a minute, I'll get my jeans—"

I shook my head. "Why bother?" I said.

"Because he looks like a complete dweeb?" said Marco, snickering.

"We're all going to look like dweebs in a few minutes," Cassie pointed out.

Without speaking, Rachel took off her denim jacket and handed it to Tobias. He muttered something that sounded grateful and pulled it on, then stuffed his feat back into his beat-up canvas sneakers. He still looked like a dork, but it was the kind of dorkiness that people would just think was a really bad fashion choice. If he'd been a girl, and the t-shirt had been a little longer, he could have even pulled the look off.

Well, Rachel could have pulled the look off. Most people don't have her confidence, though.

"Let's just do this," I growled. The longer we stood around, the more tempting it was to just turn and go home and pretend none of this had ever happened. If it wasn't for the memory of those screams I'd heard following Chapman, and the thought of Tom down there, I would have done just that.

The school was locked up for the night. But Marco had taken care of that little problem. He knew of a window in the science lab that didn't lock.

We crawled into the science lab through the window. It was dark, except for the dying light of the sun that glinted off the glass beakers and the test tubes.

"Let me take a look," I said. I opened the door as slowly as I could and peeked out through the crack. I could see down the nearly dark hallway to the janitor's closet. Instantly I pulled back in.

"There are people out there!" I said. "Three people heading into the closet."

"Controllers," Rachel said. "I guess it's dinnertime for Yeerks."

None of us thought that was very funny.

"You know, I could barely look my parents in the eye at dinner tonight," Cassie said softly. "I just kept thinking—is this the last time I'll ever have a meal with them?" She shook her head. She looked like she was on the verge of crying. "I wanted to tell them how much I loved them, how much I would miss them, if…" She swallowed. "I didn't," she said, as if in answer to a question that none of us had asked. "I didn't want them to think anything was weird, so I didn't tell them anything. I didn't tell them I loved them."

I wanted to grab Cassie's hand, to hug her and tell her it would be okay.

I didn't.

"I know what you mean," Rachel said, surprising me. "I thought about calling my dad, you know? I mean…I haven't even seen him in like, two weeks. At least mom and my sisters, we got to eat dinner together, even if I couldn't tell them anything, but dad…" She shrugged and glared at the floor, as though it had offended her. "I played with Jordan and Sara for a little before I left, though," Rachel added in a very soft voice. "I didn't tell them anything, but we all played Barbies together. They were thrilled." She looked up and smiled without humor. "So there's that, at least. What do they say, actions speak louder than words?" She laughed bitterly.

"I told my mom," Tobias said softly. "Told her I loved her, I mean. Before I left. She'd made fish tacos…"

We all stared at him.

Tobias shrugged. "Hey, everybody thinks my mom is crazy, right? So even if something—you know, if something happens, so what? Mom could tell people the sky is blue and nobody would believe her. She probably won't even remember I said anything by tomorrow anyway." His laugh didn't sound very amused, either.

I looked at Marco, wondering how his night with his dad had been. He looked sick, but he didn't say anything. I thought about telling him to go home, to go spend the night with his dad instead of helping us with this insane idea to save my brother. He noticed me looking at him and he gave a tiny shake of his head.

I stayed quiet.

Marco looked away. "How are we going to get in there?" he asked.

"Wait a minute," Rachel said. "Do all the Controllers know each other by sight? I mean, maybe we're Controllers, right?"

"Don't say that," Cassie whispered. She shivered, even though the night was pretty balmy.

"Rachel has a point," Tobias said.

"So we just walk right on in like we belong there?" Marco asked. "Wonderful plan, Rachel. I have a better idea—let's just kill ourselves now and get it over with."

"Maybe Rachel's right," I said.

"Big maybe," Marco pointed out. "Big, huge maybe. How about Tom? He would know whether you were a Controller."

I cracked the door again and looked out. "I think Tom's already down there," I said. "Besides, the hallway's empty now. I guess they all went down already."

"So what do we do?" Cassie asked nervously. "Do we just…follow them?"

"Do you have a better plan?" I asked. "Come on…let's get this over with. Just try and act like you're supposed to be here."

Marco barked a harsh laugh. "Fly casual," he quipped. No one else smiled.

"See?" Rachel whispered to Tobias. "Just as well you morphed back already."

Tobias gave her a wan smile.

"I don't know," Marco teased softly, "we could just put him back on your shoulder and if anyone asks, tell them his name is Polly and he really, really likes crackers."

"Marco?" I hissed.

"Yeah?"

"Shut-up."

I knew Marco was only joking so much because he was nervous, but he was making me nervous. Besides, I really, really didn't want to think of how we'd talk our way out of it if some Controller heard him. For some reason, I had a feeling that Yeerks weren't big on telling jokes.

We stepped out into the dark hallway. My legs were stiff. My knees were rickety. I was walking like Frankenstein trying to look casual.

We headed for the janitor's closet. Fortunately, no one else was in the hallway.

We entered the tiny room and stepped inside. I tried to recall the sequence for opening the door. Faucet to the left, then twist the second hook around right.

The door swung open.

There was more noise than there had been the other day. Or maybe it was just that my human ears heard it better than my lizard ears had.

There was a deep sloshing, swooshing sound, almost like gentle surf breaking on the shore. But that was the nice sound. The other sounds were horrifying—despairing cries, terrified screams, shouts, shrieking triumphant laughter.

"You sure this is just the Yeerk pool?" Marco said in a nervous, shaky voice. "I see a guy with horns and a pitchfork and I am outta here."

This time I didn't tell him to shut-up. I stepped into the opening. The stairs were steep and there was no rail, so you felt like you were about to pitch forward with every step.

We descended together. The door closed automatically behind us.