CHAPTER ONE: TOBIAS

When I was a little kid, I totally worshiped my mom. I guess that's pretty normal for a kid, I don't know. I don't have the best context for judging normal. All I know is that I thought my mom was the coolest person on the planet.

She wasn't like other parents. She didn't wear dull suits and plain button-downs and sharp blazers. She didn't have a regular day job with regular, unchanging hours. She didn't talk down to kids or say things like "you should be seen and not heard" or "the grown-ups are talking now, sweetie." My mom always listened to me as though I was the most interesting, most clever person in the room. She wore old jeans splattered with paint and colorful thrift-store shirts and bright, rainbow jewelry that was all cheap plastic and clear glass that I could play with whenever I wanted. We drew pictures together and went on walks and weird trips and she'd tell me wild stories about aliens and let me stay up late eating cookies and grapes while we painted our nails or our t-shirts or anything else in the apartment we wanted to paint.

I guess it was a pretty good childhood in a lot of ways, all things considered. Yeah, there were visits from social services sometimes, but I was too young to be scared about those, and we didn't have much money but I was too young to understand what that meant, either. I didn't learn those things until after I started to learn that my mom was crazy-or at least, that everybody thought she was.

For a long time I defended her, of course, because she was my mom and anything she said had to be true...but then I stopped. I started to think that everybody else was right, and she was just some crazy lady obsessed with imaginary aliens. I started to resent her, because I blamed her for how I got bullied by the other kids; for how we couldn't ever have a normal life because she wouldn't give up on her crazy dreams of chasing down her fake aliens.

Then about a month ago I discovered that aliens were real, my mom wasn't crazy, and I'd been wrong about everything.

I didn't tell her everything I'd discovered, of course; it was better for her own safety that she not know all the details of our war against the Yeerks. I felt a little guilty for keeping things from her, but not as guilty as I felt for having doubted her for all those years. Still, even with the secrets and the guilt, it was nice being close to her like this again. To not be pushing her away anymore.

To be able to just sit on the floor of our tiny apartment and draw together again.

My mom's something of an artist, and she tells me all the time that I'm one too, but I don't know. It's hard to look at my stuff next to hers and think it looks good, but mom promises me it is. I'm trying not to doubt her anymore, so I guess I have to agree with her. Of course the nice thing about my mom is that, unlike most of the adults I've met, she isn't overly concerned with accomplishment either. Mom says that as long as somebody enjoys doing something, there's value in it. I guess I believe that, too.

It sounds nice, anyway, so I try to make myself agree.

It was getting kind of late for a school night, but my mom's never been the best at paying attention to time-or dates-so I doubt she had noticed. She was more interested in what I was drawing. "That looks beautiful, Tobias," she said, and I knew she meant it. My mom isn't much of one for lying, even when it would make her life easier, which was another good reason not to tell her the full truth about the war my friends and I were fighting.

We hadn't done much so far-one trip down to a Yeerk Pool, one fight on our assistant principal's lawn-but I knew we weren't done. Sooner or later, we'd strike at the Yeerks again. We had to; it was the only way to save our planet. It was the only way to avenge Elfangor, the alien who'd given us our morphing powers.

"You've got a great feel for waves," mom continued. "You really capture their motion well."

"Oh," I said. I could feel my cheeks getting warm, but it was a pleasant sort of blush, not a painful embarrassed one, so I didn't duck my head to hide behind my hair like I usually did when people made me blush. "Thanks."

"You've been drawing a lot of ocean scenes lately, huh?"

I blinked and looked around. Had I? The papers scattered around me showed beaches, waves, seaweed, waves, fish, and more waves. "I guess I have," I said, and frowned. That was a little weird. "I think maybe I've been dreaming about it, or something," I said, and shrugged. "It doesn't mean anything."

"Dreams are important," mom said earnestly. "You should listen to them when they tell you things."

I rolled my eyes. Maybe it was mean, but I couldn't help myself; just because I know my mom's not crazy now doesn't mean she's totally sane , either. She's a little...off. Her memory doesn't work so well, for one thing. In fact, sometimes it doesn't work at all. She also always thinks the best of everybody, which I know for a fact is unrealistic. Most people are pretty crappy when you get right down to it. But somehow my mom stays upbeat and optimistic no matter what.

Sometimes that annoys me.

"They're probably just telling me that I wish it was still summer break," I retorted.

Mom smiled and bent back to her own sketch.

I felt a little guilty but I shook it off. Yeah, aliens were real, but dreams were just weird things your brain did while it was recharging or whatever. They didn't have meaning.

"I'm going down to the ocean tomorrow," mom said suddenly. "You should come along. Maybe you'll see whatever it is your dreams are saying."

I stared at her. "You're going to the ocean?" I repeated, confused. "Why?" It's not like we never go to the beach-we live so close, it would be weird if we didn't-but neither of us are really what you'd call "beach people." There are some kids at my school that I swear spend more time on the beach than they do at their own homes. They practically live there. But mom and I? Well, she'd rather spend her day looking for evidence of her aliens than lounging on the sand, and I try to avoid making myself an easier target for my bullies than I am already, and a beach is a great place to get your butt kicked. I'm not sure we went even once all last summer.

Part of that was probably because I'd been doing my best to avoid spending time with her as much as possible, due to all that aforementioned doubt and resentment. This could have been some kind of bonding excursion now that we were reconciled, I guess. But she hadn't asked me to go to the beach with her; she'd said she was already planning on going, and invited me to come along. And on a school day, too. So what was she going there for?

Instead of answering, mom craned her neck to look at the clock hanging in the kitchen. I knew it was accurate for once, because I'd just put new batteries in and reset it last week. Smiling like somebody on the verge of sharing a big surprise, mom said, "It's almost time for the news, isn't it? Let's watch it together."

I continued staring at her as she crawled forward to turn on the television. It was old and grainy and there was a big blue thumbprint in the top right corner. We don't watch a lot of tv. We don't even have a VCR. And mom tends to scoff at television news, saying that all it's really good for is covering-up what's actually going on. I probably could have pushed her to explain...but she looked so pleased with herself, I decided not to ruin whatever it was she wanted to show me.

I kept drawing, but I was distracted now. I kept sneaking glances first at mom, then at the television. After a few minutes the crime show rerun that had filled the screen when she'd turned it on finished up and the usual deluge of commercials followed. Mom ignored them, coloring cheerfully, and I tried to do the same. When I realized I'd picked up the wrong pencil and accidentally colored half the beach red, I stopped.

"I'm getting some lemonade," I announced. "You want anything?"

Mom shook her head. I heaved myself to my feet and padded into the kitchen. It's not really a room and more like a very stunted hallway with delusions of grandeur, with a stove and refrigerator crammed in next to a sink and a tiny square of counter. There's not even room for a table; instead we have stools along the counter that serves as the dividing line from the living room.

I poured myself a glass of lemonade and walked back in just as the music for the nightly news was starting. It was some local channel-I don't watch the news often enough that I could have told anyone the station number if I'd been asked on threat of swirly-and the anchors had that sort of vague familiarity that indicated that I'd seen them at least a dozen times before without paying attention.

I sat back down on the floor beside our sketches and the sprawling pile of colored pencils but I didn't start drawing again. Instead I scooted backwards until I could lean against the couch and pulled my knees up in front of me. Aragorn, our fat orange tabby cat, was snoring softly to himself on one of the cushions so I alternated between petting him and sipping my drink while I watched and waited.

The first story was about some local environmentalist who'd run afoul of city council by submitting falsified data about local lake depletion in an apparent attempt to sabotage some big corporation's new development plans. I eyed mom sideways but other than clucking her tongue in sympathy for the environmentalist, she said nothing.

I sipped my lemonade and kept watching.

The second story was a piece on local road conditions. I yawned. So did mom. Aragorn snuffled and rolled over so I could pet his other side.

The third story was about our high school basketball team. I perked-up slightly in case there was something interesting I could pass along to Jake-I didn't know much about the sport myself, but I knew Jake loved it-but it was just some boring piece about the new coach they'd hired and whether or not he'd be able to improve their chances for some local championship, blah blah.

By the time the fourth story started, I was running low on lemonade and beginning to suspect that whatever mom had wanted to show me, nobody but her thought it was important enough to bother putting on the news. I was preparing myself for another lamentation about media cover-ups and journalistic integrity when the anchor finished talking about how scary it was that teenagers could now use their computers to communicate with one another, and introduced the next piece. I probably would have dismissed that one as equally pointless if she hadn't named the nearest beach when she did so.

The camera cut to a segment that looked like it had been taped sometime around noon, based on the lack of shadows, and an old guy in a bathing suit held up a piece of what looked like metal.

He said he'd found it a couple of days ago when it washed up during the last big storm we'd had. Apparently he was very proud of himself for finding it. From the way mom was suddenly sitting up and staring at the television, she thought it was a good find too.

The camera focused on what looked like a jagged piece of metal, about two feet long and one foot wide. As the camera zoomed in, I saw what looked like letters. Only they weren't any alphabet I had ever seen.

The news cut back to the anchorwoman's smiling face and mom relaxed. She turned to grin at me. "Well?" she said eagerly. "What do you think?"

"What do I think about what?" I asked.

"That wreckage. It's got to be from an alien ship, don't you think?"

My mouth was suddenly dry. I drained the last of my lemonade, but it didn't help.

"It...it could be, I guess," I allowed grudgingly.

Mom's smile got even wider. Her blue eyes danced like the waves of that ocean I couldn't seem to stop dreaming about. "I'm sure it is," she said with the passionate confidence of a true believer. "You want to go help me look for more pieces?"

I looked down at my last unfinished drawing. Thanks to my distraction with the pencils earlier, the beach in front of me looked like it was covered in blood. I swallowed hard and looked up again. Mom was looking at me. I managed to meet her eyes and I made myself smile.

"Sure," I said. "Let's go to the beach. Maybe I'll even invite my friends."