It was five days later, a Thursday. I was still beating myself up about letting Zenguh get away at the zoo, and it was making it really tough to listen in biology class. The lack of sleep, also from beating myself up, wasn't helping either.

At our meeting at the barn the other day, I had told the group that Zenguh got away because I didn't think to be in a morph that had fingers. Nobody seemed to blame me, but I was still thinking about it a lot.

Marco had gone to find the Chee. They hadn't heard anything yet, but they were keeping an eye out for us.

Nobody had any leads on this guy, so we'd been a little on edge since then. Every person he entered was getting trapped forever as a Yeerk that wasn't even in control of its own actions. We had to stop this guy.

"Hey Rachel, do you think Brad likes me?" I was shaken out of my thoughts by a girl I didn't really know. Linda, Laura, Lorax...L-something. Oh no, I don't think I know who Brad is either. Saving the world was really taking a toll on my social life.

"I don't know who that is," I replied.

"Oh Rachel, you're so funny!" she said. I was really praying for the bell. "Can you ask him for me?"

"Leave it to me," I said. After a second, I decided to wink at her. It didn't feel like a convincing human interaction. Maybe I was hanging around Tobias too much.

I scribbled on a piece of notebook paper. 'Hey Brad, I like you. Love, Lorax.'

Is this a thing that girls really do? Oh well.

"Hey Brad!" I pretended to sneeze, then looked around innocently and saw one of the boys perk up. Target acquired.

The bell rang, and I slipped the paper into Brad's bag as everyone left the classroom. On the way to my locker, I ran into Jake. We have the same last name, so I run into him there a lot.

"Hey, we need to talk today at lunch," Jake said. "All of us."

After History, I walked to the cafeteria and saw Jake already claiming a table. I got my lunch and sat down across from him. He smiled when he saw me. Cassie sat down a moment later. I was happy to see my best friend, but I felt sad that "all of us" was only us three now, at least in school.

And then, Erek King, one of the Chee, walked up. "Is this seat taken?"

We waved him in, and he sat down.

"I'm dulling out the noise in a bubble around us so no one will overhear," Erek said. "Okay, that's better. Someone tipped off the Yeerks about this Zenguh guy earlier this week, just before Marco informed us. They have teams searching the city for him, day and night. They knew where his original host lived, but they say he hasn't returned there since they've been looking for him. They haven't seen him at the Yeerk pool either."

"Doesn't he need to go back to the pool for Kandrona?" I asked. "I mean, he's still a Yeerk. In fact, he's several Yeerks right now."

"Marco, Ax, and I talked about that, a bit. Maybe he's got one of those portable Yeerk pool briefcases?" Jake suggested.

"The Yeerks thought of that too," Erek said. "In one of the meetings we secretly sat in on, they said that all of the portable pools are accounted for."

"Ax says that when we morph into something small, our extra mass gets pushed into Z-space," Cassie said. "And the mass in Z-space is used when someone morphs into something bigger than themselves."

We thought for a minute, then she continued, "So the mass has to just be in Z-space in some kind of mass bank, and it all gets treated the same, so maybe the mass doesn't need to eat while it's in Z-space?"

Jake nodded, "That makes sense to me. Marco had a similar idea. When I come out of a morph, I'm not two hours hungrier. I should ask Ax about that later."

"I fear that this Yeerk may never return to the pool," said Erek.

"Okay, that's scary; at least to me. Are the Yeerks worried about him?" I asked Erek.

"They seem uncertain about him, but they mainly want to get their hands on the Andalite morphing technology that he has; the shard of the morphing cube. They also don't like their invading force acting outside the Yeerk command structure, so they want to shut him down for that too."

"Like the Yeerk peace movement!" said Cassie.

"That's right," Erek continued. "They're looking pretty hard for him, but they don't have much more to go on than you do. They're mainly checking out missing persons reports filed with the police, and places someone could live without much notice. The latest intel says that the Yeerks have narrowed the next step in their search down to three locations."

Cassie instinctively looked at Jake, but why should he get to make all the decisions?

"It should be tonight," I said as Jake was opening his mouth. "The longer we wait, the more people he could capture. And maybe we can beat the Yeerks to him. We're going to have to split into teams and check all three places."

I suddenly realized that I had no idea how best to split us up.

Jake cut in, "Let's wait to hear about these locations before we decide what the teams look like."

I nodded and looked back at Erek. He started rattling off details.

"The first location is that old abandoned motel, off the highway. There are a lot of rooms he could be living in, and nobody around to keep him out. The second is an apartment complex near the beach. Several people have gone missing near there in the last week, and that complex is in walking distance to most of the missing people's last known locations. The third location is the park with all those hiking trails, just north of those same apartments, since he may be living outside."

"Okay," said Jake. "Rachel, you and Marco check out the abandoned motel."

"Great!" I said, voice cheerful but dripping with sarcasm. "Going to a motel with Marco. Have you been reading my dream journal?"

"I, uh-" Jake stammered, maybe looking a little flushed. He composed himself quickly, and continued. "Cassie and I will go check out the park. Our great horned owl morphs will be great there at night."

"Don't we all have owl morphs?" I asked.

"Not Tobias," said Cassie.

"Oh yeah," I said. "He was stuck as a hawk while we were acquiring…well, a lot of animals actually."

"It's fine," said Jake, "He and Ax can check out the apartment complex. It might take more time to stake it out or search the rooms. It's probably a big place. They won't have easy access to the whole complex, since people live there."

We sorted out the details as we ate together, then finished out the rest of the day, going through the motions to act like we still cared about school. Tobias met me outside as I left the building. I filled him in on what Erek had told us. We talked as he "walked" me home, then he flew off to tell Ax and Marco the plan. Now, all there was for me to do was wait for nightfall. And homework.