CHAPTER TWO: CASSIE

School was done for the day and we were in Rachel's room. Her room is so neat. Straight out of a magazine, you know? Like everything matches or goes together. She has this bulletin board where she puts little wise sayings on Post-it notes.

I drifted over to the bulletin board and read "'Don't think there are no crocodiles just because the water is calm.' - Malayan Proverb."

Just beside that was "'If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.' - Sun Tzu."

It made me a little sad. In the good old days, Rachel would have had a bunch of quotes about being a good person or whatever. It just showed how much our lives had changed.

In a very short time we had all grown accustomed to a world of fear and danger. We had arrived at Rachel's house separately. We had each checked to make sure we weren't being followed. We had checked and double-checked to be sure that Rachel's mom and her two sisters would be out before picking her house for our meeting place.

That's what our lives had become. That and quotations full of paranoia and battle.

"So come on, Tobias," Marco said, leaning so far backwards in Rachel's desk chair that the top of his head actually brushed my elbow, "spill the beans. Why'd we all need to abandon our homework and rush over here like we'd just seen the Bat Signal?"

Rachel snorted. "Oh like you were doing homework," she said. "Puh-lease."

Marco grinned. "All right, so it was Donkey Kong. So what? That's like homework, only it actually teaches useful skills."

"What, being a monkey? I thought that came naturally to you."

"I like to think of it as battle training," Marco retorted smoothly, his lips quirked in a wry grin.

Rachel didn't have a smart comeback for that. Instead she grimaced in appreciation and turned to look at Tobias. He was sitting at the far corner of her bed, as near to the end as he could get without falling off. Rachel, sprawled at the other end of the bed, leaned back against her perfectly arranged pile of ruffled pillows and said, "What is going on, Tobias?"

Tobias looked like he would give everything he owned to be anywhere other than here right now, which was strange because he was the one who'd called us all together. "I, uh...my mom…"

He hunched his shoulders up and ducked his head, but not before I got a look at the grimace of misery twisting his face. I guess Tobias is kind of cute. I think Rachel thinks he is, anyway. I can't really see it, so I guess he's not "my type," whatever that means. He has this kind of kicked-puppy look about him that reminds me too much of the animals I help my parents take care of at our clinic. I don't mind bandaging opposums and squirrels, but I'd rather not date a boy whom I feel the need to patch-up whenever I see him.

That didn't mean I didn't like Tobias, or that I didn't feel the urge to patch him up if I could. "It's okay, Tobias," I said gently. "Take your time."

"But not too much time," Marco countered. "Donkey Kong awaits."

Rachel shot Marco a look that was probably supposed to be quelling, but I would bet actual money that Marco's never been quelled in his life. He ignored her.

"Sorry," Tobias mumbled. "It's just...kind of hard to figure out where to start…" He took a deep breath and tucked his hair behind his ears, but kept his eyes on the worn knees of his jeans as he spoke: "Okay. So, I went down to the beach today-"

"When did you have time for that?" I asked, unable to stop myself from interrupting. I'd barely been home from school for five minutes when I'd gotten the phone call to come to Rachel's, and while it takes me longer to get home than the others because I live farther away, it doesn't take that much longer.

"I, uh, I left right before lunch."

My eyes got big, I could feel them. "You skipped school?" I gasped.

Now it was my turn to get A Look from Rachel, who said, "Duh, you didn't notice he wasn't in class?"

I had to shrug and admit I hadn't. "I guess I wasn't really paying attention to who was there and who wasn't. Sorry, Tobias."

"It's fine, it's not your job to keep track of my attendance," Tobias said. He sounded impatient, like now that he'd started talking he wanted to get it over with, but not offended by my lack of interest. I felt bad anyway, and resolved to pay more attention to my fellow Animorphs. It was weird; I'm not a very sociable person so I've never needed to pay much attention before. I have Rachel around to do that for me, I guess, and it's not like it's easy to overlook her...or Jake, for that matter. Or Marco, for more annoying reasons. Tobias is the only one of us who's really good at sinking into the background, and maybe me as well for that matter. Huh. I wonder if Tobias and I have more in common than I thought…

I forced my attention away from my own wandering thoughts and back to what Tobias was saying:

"Mom picked me up early for a 'family emergency.' We went down to the beach to look around."

"What were you-sorry," Rachel interrupted herself before anyone else could. "Go on."

The next part seemed to be hard for Tobias to say. He laced his fingers together so tightly the knuckles started turning white and he licked his lips several times, like a girl who'd just bought a new flavor of chapstick and kept licking it off.

"My mom was...looking for stuff. She'd seen- we had seen-a news story last night, well, I guess mom had already heard about it because she turned the news on so she could show it to me, so she must have already known it was going to be on the news, and-" Tobias made himself stop rambling and take a deep breath. Then he managed to drag his eyes up off his knees and look at Rachel. "We were looking for wreckage. Stuff that washed-up from the ocean. Stuff that was...maybe...from an alien spaceship."

Tobias swallowed so hard I imagined I could almost hear it, standing on the other side of the room. He looked faintly greenish, like he was fighting the urge to throw-up. I almost asked him if he was feeling sick before I figured out that it was probably having to talk about his so-called "crazy" mom's obsession with aliens that was making him queasy, not a virus or anything he'd eaten.

"Alien wreckage?" Rachel said. She scooted closer to Tobias so she could reach over and put her hand over his. "Like from a Yeerk ship?"

Tobias ducked his head again and shrugged, but he didn't push Rachel away. "I don't know," he mumbled. "We didn't find anything. But…"

Jake had been oddly quiet so far, but he had stirred when Tobias mentioned the news story. "I think I saw that news story too," he said. His voice sounded kind of funny, like he had more he wanted to say but wasn't ready to yet.

Tobias shrank in on himself even more, like a turtle in the face of a hungry predator. I could tell that he thought Jake was about to start making fun, which was ridiculous because Jake was the last person in the world who would bully anybody, and I was just opening my mouth to say something like that when Jake, thankfully, continued speaking before I could embarrass myself:

"In fact, I think it's something we should all see."

Marco looked the least interested in what Tobias was talking about, which wasn't a surprise; Marco had made his position as Most Reluctant Animorph clear from the beginning, even though he'd been the one to give us our name. Now he smirked and said, "Well I don't know about you, Jakey, but I left my access key-card to the news station's archives in my other jeans…"

But Jake was already reaching into his backpack. He pulled out a VHS tape and Marco fell silent.

"We...we weren't the only ones looking." Tobias's voice was little more than a whisper. We all turned to stare at him, which made him drop his gaze even lower from his knees to his sneakers. "My mom and I. We weren't…"

"The Yeerks?" Jake asked quietly. I felt myself get cold, even though Rachel's window was closed.

Tobias nodded. "Probably. I didn't want us to get too close to them, but I think I recognized a few faces from that barbeque of the Sharing's we went to last month."

I saw Jake's face go closed at the reminder of the night we'd discovered that Tom, Jake's brother, had a Yeerk in his head; the night that had convinced us we had to go to the Yeerk Pool. I still had nightmares, and I suspected the others did too, although I hadn't had any for a few days. I hoped that meant they were over, but I had a feeling that horrible things like what we'd seen down there don't just fade away like that. I had an urge to go over and take Jake's hand, and I didn't know if it was because I wanted to comfort him or because I wanted him to comfort me .

I stuck my hands in the pockets of my overalls.

"So if the Yeerks are looking, what does that mean?" I asked, trying to pull my brain back on track.

"That we let them clean the beach up for us, and all stay home?" Marco ventured hopefully.

Jake ignored him. "Rachel, can we use your VCR?" he asked.

Rachel nodded.

We trooped down the stairs. Except for Tobias, who kind of slumped at the back of the group, like he was seriously considering bolting for the back door instead.

He didn't; we all filed into Rachel's living room together. Jake turned on the TV and popped in his cassette.

I found myself looking between the recording and Tobias, gauging his reaction, and noticed that Rachel was doing the same thing. We were all mostly looking at the TV though, except for Tobias, who was looking at the floor. On the TV an old guy in a bathing suit held up a piece of what looked like metal.

"Your mom's new boyfriend?" Marco asked Tobias in a loud whisper.

Tobias shot Marco a dark look from beneath the pale curtain of his hair, but didn't say anything.

"Is this the same news clip you watched?" Jake asked Tobias. He managed to nod, but looked like he'd rather invite Marco to tease him some more than actually look at the television.

"The guy says it washed up during the storm a couple of days ago," Jake explained. "Watch."

I turned my eyes back to the TV in time to see the camera zoom in on what looked like foreign letters along the strip of metal.

Jake leaned forward to turn the VCR off as the image cut back to the newsroom where an anchorwoman sat smiling into the camera with uncomfortably-perfect teeth.

"Okay, so?" Marco prodded. "Maybe I believe in aliens now, but I'm not going to become some tinfoil hat-wearing nutter chasing funky looking pieces of trash up and down the coast. No offense, Tobias."

Jake sighed. "So the night the Andalite landed, when I went inside his ship to get the cube that gave us our morphing powers, I saw writing."

I felt a chill creep up the back of my neck.

"I could be wrong, I mean, I'm not some expert," Jake said.

"Yeah," Marco muttered, "that's Tobias's mom-"

"But," Jake said loudly, talking over Marco, "I think it was that same alphabet. Those same kinds of letters."

Suddenly no one was laughing. Not even Marco.

"Did your mom recognize the writing?" Rachel asked gently.

Tobias shook his head without looking up. "If she did, she didn't say."

"Wait," Marco complained, "come on. You're not really saying-"

"I think what washed up on the beach is a piece of an Andalite ship," Jake said.

Suddenly, without warning, I felt the ground swirl beneath me. I fell straight back, not even caring that Jake caught me in his arms just before I hit the carpet.

I fell into this weird dream about the ocean that I've been having lately, but this one was much clearer than usual. Instead of a vague impression of a voice calling to me from beneath the water, I heard words as crisp and clear as though someone had whispered them straight into my ear:

I'm here. I am here. I cannot survive much longer. If you hear me...come. If you hear me...come.

Suddenly I opened my eyes. I stared up at Jake's concerned face.

Glancing across the room, I saw Rachel with the telephone to her ear, preparing to dial.

"She's awake!" Jake said.

Rachel and Marco argued about whether or not Rachel should call an ambulance for me while my head spun and I tried to pull myself together. I managed to sit up before Rachel could decide whether to dial the phone or smack Marco and I said, "No, Rachel, I'm okay." My head felt a little woozy, but I was all right.

"What about you, Tobias?" Rachel asked anxiously, her fingers still hovering about the keypad.

I turned to see Tobias sitting on the arm of the couch, head bent almost to his knees and his hands against his temples. "I'm fine," he said, although he sounded dazed. I wondered if that was how I sounded too. "Just a dizzy spell. It's okay. How's Cassie?"

"I'm okay," I said again, and made myself stand up, even though it meant stepping away from Jake's arms. Not that I'd been enjoying having him hold me, or anything. I swayed a little and made myself take a deep breath until the room stopped spinning.

"What happened?" Jake asked.

I shook my head and instantly regretted it, but I tried to hide my wince. Rachel had finally put the phone down and I didn't want her freaking-out again.

"I don't know, I just-I must not have been sleeping well. Sorry."

"Bad dreams?" Jake said, and the sympathy in his voice made my heart ache.

"No," I hastened to reassure him, "not like that." I didn't want him feeling guilty, thinking I was having nightmares about the Yeerk Pool or the fight at Chapman's house, when I wasn't. "Just, like, this recurring dream about the ocean." I forced a laugh. "I guess I'm just missing summer break," I added, trying to make it into a joke, even though I don't spend a lot of my summer at the beach. I like land animals more than sea creatures, and I can never seem to find a bathing suit that fits me right anyway.

"The ocean," Tobias said.

Something in the flatness of his voice sent a chill up my spine. I looked over and found him staring straight at me, not even flinching when I made eye contact.

"Uh, yeah," I said.

"Weird dreams about the ocean."

"Yeah. What, don't tell me you're having some too?" I laughed again but stopped quickly when I heard a tinge of hysteria creeping in.

There was no laughter in Tobias's voice when he said, "Yes."

"Okay this is freaky," Rachel said, "because I think I kind of felt something about the ocean too when you toppled over."

"Yeah," Jake agreed. Marco nodded.

"That's crazy," I insisted. "What, suddenly I'm sharing my dreams with all of you?"

"Or something else is," said Tobias.

I shut-up fast, but I knew I couldn't stay silent. I had to know if I was the only one who'd heard it. I made myself ask, "Did anyone else hear a...a voice? Like...someone in the water? Or under the water?"

Rachel shook her head, but she looked troubled. Marco eyed Jake, like he was hoping Jake was about to announce the whole thing had been some kind of prank and the VHS was a fake, ha ha gotcha. Jake just looked at me, his expression thoughtful. Tobias wasn't looking at any of us; still perched on the side of the couch, he'd tilted his head sideways, which made him look like an inquisitive sparrow. He was staring into the distance over my head.

"I didn't hear a voice," he said slowly, "but just this last time I kind of felt like something was...calling for me?"

"Calling for help," I said, and my mouth was dry. I cleared my throat and explained, "I felt a sort of call in my dreams, like a tugging, but it wasn't clear. Seeing that video, seeing that writing, it was like suddenly the message grew stronger."

"This isn't a dream," Jake said. He sounded so sure of himself I wanted to burrow back into his arms again and just stay there while he made the world make sense. "I don't know what it is, but it isn't a dream," he continued. "Even I halfway saw something. This is some kind of communication."

"No way," Marco said. His tan cheeks looked pale. "It's just a coincidence. Or what, are we supposed to believe it's some kind of psychic message? From who, the Little Mermaid?" He laughed, but it sounded pretty close to the edge of hysteria too.

Jake looked closely at me. "Cassie? Was the voice in your dream a human voice?"

I was startled by the question. I hadn't really thought about it. Now I found my eyes drawn back towards Tobias. "No," I said. My voice was hoarse. "I don't know how I know, but as soon as you asked me, I knew it wasn't human." I shivered. "But that doesn't make any sense."

"It does, if…" Tobias bit his lip, swallowing whatever he was going to say.

"Tobias?" Rachel asked softly. While we were talking she'd drifted over to stand next to the couch, and now she reached out and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. "It's okay. You can tell us."

Tobias took a deep breath, like he was fighting through a muscle cramp. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Marco open his mouth to say something, but Jake caught his gaze and shook his head. Marco pouted but stayed quiet.

"It does," Tobias said again, the words coming like they were being dragged out of him, "if the person calling to Cassie is the same kind of person who wrote the letters Jake saw in the Andalite's ship."

"You think it's an Andalite," I said. I wanted to sound cool and skeptical, but instead I blurted the words out like I'd just guessed the answer in the middle of a game of Taboo. "And the dreams are like thought-speak."

Tobias wouldn't meet my eyes, but he nodded.

"Cassie?" Jake asked.

"Yes," I whispered. "Tobias is right. It's an Andalite. That's who is calling to us from the sea. An Andalite."

For a few minutes no one said anything.

Then Rachel said, "He died trying to save us." She looked defiantly at Marco. "I know that doesn't mean anything to you. But the Andalite died trying to save Earth."

Marco nodded. "I know. And you're wrong, Rachel. That means plenty to me."

"Yeah? Well, if there's some Andalite calling for help, I'm going to try and help him," Rachel said.

I looked over at Jake and we shared this look, like "Oh, big surprise, Rachel is ready to go." I hid my smile and Jake kept a straight face.

"Tobias?" Jake asked. "How sure are you that those were Controllers you and your mom saw at the beach?"

Tobias shrugged. "I'm sure they were from the Sharing. I don't know if they were Controllers or not, but I'm pretty sure they were at the barbecue."

"Then it doesn't really matter if they're Controllers or not," I pointed out, trying to sound reasonable. "Either way, we can assume the Sharing sent them."

"Yeah," Marco said grimly, "but if the Sharing was willing to take the risk of sending non-Controllers who might see something they aren't supposed to, that's bad news for us."

"How so?" Jake asked. He sounded like he already knew, but wanted to hear Marco say it.

"It would mean they're more desperate to find this Andalite than they are to keep the invasion secret."

I didn't like the sound of that. "Well, maybe they were all Controllers. I mean, a lot of the people there that night were. We have no way of knowing whether these guys were or not."

"That's my point," said Marco. "We don't have any way of knowing. Which means we don't have any time to lose."