After what felt like days but was less than two hours, Jake and I made our way inside the house. He looked like he had seen...well, what we had seen had been pretty awful. I probably didn't look much better. I gave him a quick squeeze on the shoulder before opening the door.

"Mom? Dad?" I called. "We're back!"

I heard footsteps, then saw Mom wearing a bathrobe.

"Hey, kids. Did you have fun at the mall?" she asked, giving us a tired smile.

"Yeah, it was great," Jake answered, sounding more or less himself.

"Dad still at the Sharing meeting?" I asked.

Mom laughed. "Yes. Well, he did tell me that I shouldn't wait up for him, but I wanted to make sure you kids were safe."

I forced a grin. "Still in one piece."

Unlike a certain someone...but I couldn't think about that, now.

"Good." Mom tousled our hair, then added, "I am heading to bed. Try not to stay up too late, even if it is a Friday."

We rolled our eyes in a good natured way, then waited until she left to talk.

"Should we-" Jake began, then stopped as I held out a hand.

"He could be home any minute. Come on...my room," I instructed. Pausing, I added, "I mean, if you want to talk."

Jake nodded, looking a lot younger than thirteen at that moment, and I almost wanted to hold his hand as we started upstairs. I settled for a brief hand on the shoulder.

"I want to make sure everyone else made it home okay," he said, suddenly, stopping and heading downstairs.

"Okay. I'll stay in case..."

Jake nodded, again.

Ten minutes later, everyone was accounted for.

Once we stood in front of my room, though, I couldn't help myself from pulling him into a bear hug. Jake clung to me, and then, his shoulders started heaving.

"Tom, he, he just-" he began, still clinging to me.

"I know, I know," I murmured, moving a hand to rub small circles on his back. After a moment, I added, "Hey, look. Get your PJs on, then come on in. We'll talk, maybe have a sleepover. If you want. We haven't done that in ages, and..."

I trailed off. Like I could say or do anything to make Visser Three murdering that poor Andalite any better.

Jake nodded, and I gently removed my hands from him. "Go on. I'll be right here," I promised, giving his hair a tousle.

Jake managed a very small smile, a more distant nod, and then disappeared into his room.

Following my own instructions, I changed out of my clothes and exchanged them for gym shorts and an oversized t-shirt. I headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth, then back to my room, where Jake was standing, a little awkwardly.

"Did you brush your teeth, Midget?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yeah, before you."

"Good kid," I said, a little teasingly.

I closed the door, deciding against locking it. Might be safer, but it would seem too out of character. No. We had to maintain the appearance of normalcy.

I made my way to my bed, then motioned for Jake to join me. He did, and we curled up under the covers, me holding him close. It reminded me of when he would wake up from a nightmare, maybe around eight or nine, and come into my room to tell me about it. By then, he was too ashamed to wake up our parents, but he always trusted me.

It occurred to me, as it might to him, that I was now the only person he could trust.

We didn't speak, at first. Jake wasn't even facing me, but I could tell from his breathing that, while more relaxed than earlier, he wasn't asleep. After several minutes, he turned to me. Facing me.

I realized there were dried tears on his face.

"What do we do next?" Jake asked me.

Like it was my decision.

I shrugged a little, having spent a good part of the last hour mulling over this question. To be honest, if I hadn't seen Visser Three and the Hork-Bajir and Taxxons, I could have dismissed the whole alien invasion thing. With the proof in front of me, it was less easy.

"I think," I began, "we should see if this thing, this morphing power, even works. It could just be an And-an alien thing," I corrected, just in case my parents could overhear us. Which was almost impossible, since we were whispering and their room was all the way at the other end of the hall but...maybe paranoia was a good thing, now. "We can try tomorrow."

"We just...pick up a bug or something?" Jake wondered.

I chewed on my lip. "How about something more normal? I could become you, and you me. If that works, we can try..."

"Homer," Jake offered. With a grin, he added, "I always wanted to be a dog."

"Yeah, all right. First us, then your dog," I agreed. "And then, you will get in touch with the others. If it works."

I sort of hoped it wouldn't.

Jake nodded again. "You think they're after us?"

Probably.

I hugged him tightly. "Hey. I am 6'4 and all muscle. I can so take them," I teased.

"Tom!" Jake protested, but he let a laugh escape.

"Look, if they do, they will have to use humans. Not gonna let a bunch of Taxxons or Hork-Bajir in public. If they do that," I added, "we might get some idea of who they are. Anyway, Midget, I figure you're safe tonight. If you stay here, anyway."

I gave him another squeeze, and Jake curled himself against me.

"Night, Tom."

"Night, Midget."

When I woke up the next morning, I did a mental double take at seeing my brother curled up against me like a cat. And that my arms were wrapped around him in a protective manner. The last time we had slept together must have been three years ago.

Had he had another nightmare?

I frowned, then winced as the memory of yesterday came back. Of meeting Elfangor, and then seeing him consumed whole by Visser Three's hellish morph.

It was a wonder I hadn't had any nightmares.

Leaning over to see Jake's face, I was relieved to see he was sleeping peacefully. Well, he looked peaceful, anyway. He sure wasn't thrashing around or, worse, screaming.

Then, there was a knock on my door.

"Tom? Honey? Is Jake in there with you?" came my mom's voice.

I got up, careful not to disturb Jake, then opened the door.

"Hey, Mom," I answered, hiding a yawn. "He's still sleeping."

"He was with you?" Mom asked, clearly surprised.

Not upset, though.

"We were up late, talking about stuff, and I didn't have the heart to kick the midget out," I explained, shrugging my shoulders. "Did we miss breakfast?"

Mom laughed. "There's plenty of cereal leftover. It's...well, one of his friends is here. Seems very excited to see him."

"I'll get him up," I promised. Then, I gave her a hug, which she returned.

I closed the door, then gave Jake a nudge, followed by a shake.

"Mmph," he grumbled.

"Jake, one of your friends is here," I said, giving him another shake.

His eyes opened. "Tom?"

Jake has never exactly been a morning person.

"Mom was here. And one of your friends is here," I answered.

He stretched, then sat up. "Who, Marco?"

I shrugged, then headed to my closet to get dressed. "She would have said it was him. Go on, put some clothes on. Unless you don't care if he sees you in those." Giving him a playful poke, I added, "Think it's about last night?"

Jake, who had been about halfway to the door, groaned.

I heard him call down to Mom. Then, footsteps. Our rooms were next to each other. I finished dressing, brushed my teeth, and then knocked on Jake's door.

"Midget?"

The door opened a crack, and Jake pulled me in. Tobias was there, and there was fur all over his face.

"Go on," he urged, shutting the door behind me.

I watched as Tobias continued becoming all furry, his clothes falling around him. Until a grey black cat just stared at us.

"I hope I'm asleep," Jake muttered. "I really do."

"If you are, so am I," I pointed out.

(You're not asleep,) came Tobias' voice.

Except, like Elfangor and Visser Three, it was in our heads.

Jake stared. "Is that you?"

(Can you hear me?) came Tobias, sounding surprised.

"Yes," we both answered at once.

(I did not know I could send thoughts like that,) Tobias mused. (Just like the Andalite...)

Thinking about him made me angry, and depressed, but I also remembered what he had told us.

"Hey, remember that he said that Visser Three couldn't hear us unless we were morphed and sent our thoughts to him? I guess this thought speech comes with the morphing territory," I guessed.

"I just thought something at you. Did you hear me?" asked Jake.

(No... I don't think it works that way. I guess you have to be morphed first. Hey!) Tobias added, suddenly. (Watch this!)

Suddenly, Tobias leaped through the air!

(This is so excellent!) he marveled. (Hey! Pull a string for me to chase!)

"Pull a string?" Midget echoed. "Why?"

(Because it's so fun!) Tobias explained, still jubilant.

I grinned. I guessed it would be pretty cool, for a cat.

Jake began searching through his desk drawer, finally coming up with a string.

"How's this?"

He dangled it in front of Tobias the cat, who did the typical cat butt wiggle before pouncing and attacking it.

They kept at it for several minutes, and then Jake said something that made a ton of sense.

"I think you aren't just Tobias. You really are a cat. I mean...you have all the same instincts. You want to do the things a cat wants to do," he explained, clearly awestruck by this.

(Yeah, I can feel it,) Tobias agreed. (It's like I'm two different animals melded into one. I can think like a person and a cat.)

(You'd better change back,) Jake advised.

Tobias nodded, which was beyond weird for a cat.

(You're right.)

Tobias began to change again, and we turned our heads while he put on his clothes.

Still looking embarrassed, Tobias suggested, "Maybe, with some practice, we can figure out how to change back into our clothes."

"We?" Jake echoed.

Tobias smiled. "Don't you get it, yet, Jake? Tom?" he added, acknowledging me. "If I can do it, so can you."

Jake stared at me, then at Tobias. "What do you think, Tom?" he asked, quietly.

I sighed, then shrugged. "There's only one way to find out."

"I-I don't feel comfortable morphing you," he admitted. "What about Homer?"

His dog.

I gave him a little shove. "You'd rather morph a dog than your big brother?"

He shrugged, looking sheepish. "Becoming you would be too weird. Not that a dog isn't, but..."

"Well, Tobias did become a cat. Okay, I'll get Homer," I offered.

I decided that I'd morph Midget's dog, too, if it worked for him.

When I returned with Homer, Jake looked tense. Maybe, even physically ill.

"It doesn't hurt," Tobias reassured us. "Your body kind of goes numb when it happens."

"That's good," I said, nodding. "I figure I'll morph Homer, too. What, exactly do we do?"

"Pet him...then focus. Imagine a picture of Homer in your head. Then, you think about becoming him, and it sort of happens," Tobias explained.

"So, I have to, like, meditate on becoming a dog?" Jake asked, as he petted his dog, who'd lain down, belly exposed.

"That's right. You have to think about it." Tobias paused, then added, "You have to want it."

Homer was already pretty relaxed, but I could sort of tell when Jake was acquiring him. His eyes were open, but he was really quiet, and he looked half asleep.

"That happen a lot?" I asked, taking a turn at petting him and trying to acquire him.

"It happened with Dude," Tobias answered. "I think the process kind of puts the animal in a trance or something."

"He's just scared because he thinks his master is a looney tune," Jake replied, dryly. "Okay, now what?"

"Put him in my room," I offered. "He'll go crazy if he sees two of us becoming him. Can't put him outside. What if Mom sees him, and hears one of us barking?"

Jake picked up Homer and took him into my room. I heard the door close, then, a few seconds later, he came back to his own room, and shut the door behind him.

"You want to go first?" I asked. "Should I?"

"You do it, Tom," Jake said, sounding like he did when he wanted me to intervene to Mom or Dad for him.

"Okay. Here goes nothing."

I focused on Midget's dog. Becoming him, like Tobias had stressed. The first thing that happened was fur covered my hands. I watched as it spread all over me. Then, I started to shrink. My bones began to shift, and I felt myself fall to my legs. It was behind weird, and it really should have hurt, but it didn't. That was good, because if it had, I would have started screaming, or reversing the morph, or last thing to change was a tail popping out of my dog's behind.

Then, the instincts set in. Happiness. Total, giddy happiness. It was incredible. All consuming.

I noticed the smells, next. You don't really know how awful human noses are until you've experienced what a dog smells. I could smell the waffle my mom was cooking downstairs. Even that Tobias had walked through a street that contained a big dog. It was pretty intense.

It was also...fun.

(Jake? Tobias?) I tried out this thought speech. (Can you hear me?)

I wondered if I'd be able to hear them, since they weren't in morph. But, Tobias heard Jake as a cat, and Homer certainly paid attention when we spoke to him. Besides, I still had my human brain, so I should be able to understand them.

"I can hear you," Tobias answered.

"Same here," Jake added. "What's it like, Tom?"

(It's kind of crazy, in a good way, though,) I answered, truthfully. (The smell is completely out of this world. I can tell that Tobias actually walked through a street that had a big dog on it. The eyes aren't that great, but the smell...oh, and Midget, you haven't been happy until you've experienced dog happiness. You have to try this!)

Jake sort of sighed, then reached out to pet me, and I rolled over on my belly. "Okay. Here goes nothing," he said, with obvious ambivalence.

(Hey, you got this, Midget,) I encouraged, hoping that I was only speaking to him, and not Tobias.

Not that it would mattered if my kid brother's friend heard, but I sort of wanted to try out this whole "private thought speech" thing.

It was a little harder for Jake. He started to change, then would freak out a little, then freak out about freaking out. Tobias and I encouraged him, though, and he finally made it all the way to dog.

The first thing he did was start barking at me.

(Hey!) I laughed, jumping on top of him. (Cut that out! What if Homer hears and starts barking? Or, Mom comes up?)

That shut Jake up. Or, maybe, it was me wrestling with him, like when we were kids.

After a minute, I let him go, and he began sniffing around. Even sniffing...well, you know where dogs try to sniff when they meet new people.

"Oh, man, cut it out!" Tobias grumbled.

(Jake? You okay? Can you hear us?) I asked, concerned.

There was a pause, a really long pause, and then Jake spoke up. (I...think so. This is really, really crazy. You weren't kidding about the dog sense of smell, Tom. The eyes are pretty bad, but the smell...wow!)

He emphasized this by sniffing, and Tobias took another step back. Then, he laughed, and said to Jake, "No problem, man," so I figured that Jake had managed to figure out private thought speech as well.

(Good job, Midget,) I told him, hoping that he could hear the pride in my voice.

Even though we hadn't been in morph all that long, the two hour time limit was on my mind, and there wasn't much we could do in a fairly small bedroom. It was hard to control the urge to bark at everything, too.

So, after a couple of minutes, I suggested that we try changing back. I hoped that it would be easier than morphing, and I also hoped that morphing would feel less creepy after we tried out more animals.

(Yeah, good idea,) Jake agreed, and he started the change immediately.

"I'll turn my back," Tobias offered. "You know, the clothes thing."

Right. I could see our clothing on the floor, even our underwear. Would it be possible to morph clothing if we focused hard enough? At least, stuff like underwear and maybe tight shirts? It would be super awkward if we couldn't even manage that.

I focused on my human body, and once I'd changed back to my regular self, I could see by Jake's outline that he'd managed okay. Still, as I grabbed my clothes, and doing my best not to look at him, I figured I'd make sure.

"You okay, Jake? Everything's back to normal?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm me again. That wasn't so bad. It was pretty cool, really," he admitted. "I kind of wouldn't mind trying more animals."

"Right, because we aren't going to do much damage to the Yeerks as cats and dogs," Tobias pointed out.

That kind of put a damper on things, but I knew he was right.

"I think we should meet as a group," I said, glancing Jake's way.

He nodded. "Do you want me to make the calls?"

"Sure. I'll mow the lawn while you do that," I offered. Giving him a nudge, I added, only half joking, "But I'm so taking half your allowance this week in exchange."

Jake rolled his eyes, but didn't protest.

We-well, I-borrowed the car to drive to Cassie's. Probably, we could have gotten there in dog morph, but Homer was recognizable, and two of him would raise eyebrows. Especially in the same general area. Anyway, there was still the issue of clothes. Better to arrive in the teenage way.

"You spend a lot of time with her?" I asked.

Jake shrugged. "We're friends, yeah."

Translation: he liked her. As in liked, liked.

It also meant that he wasn't ready to talk to me about it. Granted, he was only thirteen, and might not know how he felt. Or if Cassie felt the same way. The early teenage years could be rough. Then, just when you start figuring stuff out, you're in high school.

We arrived by her house, and then, under Jake's direction, headed to her barn. Either she'd told them to meet up there, or Jake had been there before. Or both.

We must have been late, because everyone else had already arrived. Well, Cassie was nowhere in site, but Marco, Tobias, and Rachel were all waiting outside the barn, looking like awkward teenagers. Except Rachel, maybe. She might be thirteen, but she didn't do "awkward." There's one in every class.

"Hey, guys," Jake greeted.

"Glad to see you made it back okay," I added. "I know, Jake made sure and all, but still."

There were a few smiles, and I was about to ask where Cassie was, but then, Rachel revealed a newspaper from her bag. "Look," she told us, pointing to an article.

The article wasn't too long, and Jake and I finished reading it within a couple of minutes. It claimed there was a disturbance at the construction site (well, that's one way to put it) and some people had called the cops claiming that they first saw flying saucers landing, then a bunch of bright lights.

My eyes widened. Okay, this was good. Maybe, we wouldn't even have to fight the Yeerks. Maybe, the cops had it under control.

Jake seemed to be thinking along the same wavelength. "Cool, so the cops know about it, now. That's a relief."

"Keep reading," Rachel told us.

The article went on and said that when the cops had arrived at the scene, it was just a bunch of teenagers, playing with fireworks. When they saw the cops, they ran. But, the cops had found fireworks at the scene. There was a quote from a cop about how people shouldn't believe nonsense about flying saucers.

"But this is a total lie!" Midget protested.

"Ding ding ding ding! Correct answer. Johnny, tell this contestant what he won!" Marco announced.

"Wait, there's more!" I had just noticed the last line. "The cops are offering a reward for information on the teenagers."

"They're looking for us," Marco clarified, and I nodded.

"Which means that the cops are Controllers. Some of them, anyway," I clarified.

Rachel pointed out that if the cops had been infiltrated by the Yeerks already, there could be people all over who were also Controllers. Teachers. Government officials. Even TV stars.

"I tried to tell myself it was all a dream," Rachel admitted.

"Been there," Jake admitted, and I nodded.

"I was hoping that if we couldn't morph, it meant that this was all a joke or something. But, Jake and I managed to change into his dog, and Tobias changed into his cat," I added. "It's for real."

Marco suggested that we throw in the towel and not morph at all. I could see where he was coming from. Having lost his mother, he only had his dad. There was a very real possibility that, if we fought these Yeerks, we could end up like Elfangor. Or, just as bad, turned into Controllers.

We could ignore it. Could move on with our lives, and never use the morphing ability.

"There's Cassie," Rachel said, suddenly, as a horse came racing towards us. At our look of confusion, she explained, "Cassie and I have been here for awhile. She's really good at this. Look at how fast she can do it!"

As I saw Cassie change back to human, I could see what Rachel meant. Not that I had timed myself or Jake, but she had to have been able to morph back at twice our speed.

I was about to look away, because I knew she wouldn't want me staring at her naked body, but I saw that she wasn't naked. She was wearing a skintight blue outfit, sort of like what Rachel wears to gymnastics competitions.

No shoes, though.

Still, this was a relief. If we went forward with morphing and fighting the Yeerks, we wouldn't have to be naked when we changed back to human.

Priorities.

As she morphed back, she looked kind of good. Like, she managed to change from horse to human sort of gradually, kind of naturally, instead of looking like...well, like a freak of nature.

Like me and Midget and Tobias. But, hey, as long as we didn't stay that way.

I grinned. "Hey, did your parents ever say that if you kept making that face, it would stick? I wonder if that applies here."

Jake chuckled, Rachel groaned, and even Marco managed a smile.

"Rachel is right, though," Midget told Cassie. "You're good!"

Before Cassie could reply, we heard the sound of tire on the gravel road. Turning around, I saw the familiar police car.

"The cops!" Tobias cried out.