CHAPTER FIVE: RACHEL

So that was how we ended up going beachcombing with Loren Mullins in search of a broken spaceship.

It's a good thing I don't actually care about any of that popularity crap that people assume I do when they look at me. Like, I know that I'm considered kind of popular, okay? But it's not something I ever tried to make happen on purpose. And I doubt it's something I would care about losing if it ever stopped.

Unfortunately for Marco, he totally did care.

"Oh man, is that Darlene?" he muttered, ducking his head in a way that made him look way more suspicious than the rest of us, who were just walking around like normal people.

(Okay, the metal detector that Loren was teaching Jake how to use was a little abnormal maybe, but not that much. People love searching for stuff in the sand with those things. It's just that most of the people using them were older than us, or parents with little kids. So maybe we stuck out a little bit...but not enough to justify Marco's paranoia.)

"Darlene?" Cassie echoed, looking up from the tidal pool she was crouching over. I didn't think she was likely to find evidence of a crashed Andalite spaceship there, but what did I know? I'd never searched for a crashed ship of any kind before, alien or terrestrial. Maybe the starfish she was poking at would turn out to be the key to everything.

"Darlene," Marco repeated, his voice a low moan.

"Do we think she's a Controller?" Cassie asked, worried.

I snorted. "We think Darlene is a pretty girl, a.k.a. Marco's Kryptonite. Well, pretty girls and high shelves, I guess."

Marco shot me a dirty look. I grinned back at him.

Maybe it sounds awful to say it, given the circumstances, but I was having a great time. There were hours yet before the sun would go down, the breeze coming off the ocean was refreshing and salty, the sand was warm where it flowed around the soles of my sandals, and I was hanging out with my friends instead of hunched over my homework.

I don't actually super mind homework a lot of the time, but this was definitely better.

Besides, we were coming up on the patch of dunes where I'd gotten to claw-up a bunch of Controllers last night, and I couldn't help grinning at the memory of their panicked shrieks as I'd vaulted out of the grass at them like a small furry demon of the night.

Being an Animorph was pretty cool sometimes.

"Hey guys, look at this!" Jake called and we all trotted over.

He was holding the metal detector out gingerly in front of him like he was afraid it would turn around and bite him if he relaxed his grip, but he was wearing a big grin. Loren beamed at him as proudly as though he'd just invented fire while Tobias brushed the sand away from whatever Jake had found.

I bent down to help and together we uncovered…

"A hubcap." Tobias looked up, his lips twitching as he tried to suppress a smile. "Do you think Honda has a dealership on the Andalite homeworld?"

Jake deflated.

Loren patted him on the shoulder. "Look at it this way, now you know you're using it right!"

"Yeah," Jake mumbled, "okay."

We snickered and spread out to continue searching.

I ended up walking the edge of the dunes alongside Tobias. Aside from Marco's twitching whenever he thought he recognized someone from school, Tobias was the only one of us who looked like he wasn't enjoying his afternoon at the beach.

"Your mom's really nice," I blurted.

He jumped. "Um. Oh. Good. Thanks."

I nodded, trying to ignore the way I could feel my cheeks getting hot. "Yeah," I said, "it was really cool of her to let us all come along. And show us her current tracking maps, and to teach Jake how to use her metal detector-"

"She borrowed that from a guy she knows, actually," Tobias corrected me. "Someone else in the…" He grimaced. "In the community."

I felt bad, but I didn't know what to say to make it better so I just barreled ahead. "Well, it was nice of her to share it anyway. To help us look. Or let us help her, whatever."

Tobias nodded listlessly. "She's really excited you're all here," he said.

He didn't sound excited, but I didn't know how to fix that even though I was pretty sure I knew what the problem was. "It's not your fault you didn't believe her," I said. I dropped my voice so the others wouldn't be able to overhear us. "And now you do. Isn't that what's important?"

"I guess," Tobias said, unconvinced. "I still feel bad about how long I spent...doubting her."

I chewed on my lip for a little, then I made myself say, "I was really mad at my mom for a while after the divorce."

Tobias looked up at me. I looked up further, staring at the clouds overhead instead of watching his face. "I mean, I was mad at my dad too, but he was the one who moved-out so it was easier to blame my mom, because she was the one who stayed. So I told myself that she'd driven him away, or whatever, and that if she would only stop being a jerk we could all go back to being a happy family again but…"

"But?" Tobias prompted me gently.

I sighed. "But we weren't a happy family. They weren't happy, my mom and dad. Being together. It sucked for them, and that made it suck for us, even though they tried to pretend otherwise. I mean...I don't think Sarah ever noticed. But it just...it wasn't…" I shrugged. I didn't know exactly how to explain, and I didn't really want to either. These were scabs that weren't fun to pick at, even with a sympathetic audience. Maybe especially with a sympathetic audience.

"It wasn't working, basically. And things sucked afterwards, and sometimes they still suck, and it's easy to let myself think how much better they would be if we were one family again and everybody could just live together and get along, but...but that was never real. That's just, like...something you see on tv." I laughed bitterly. "But tv families are just one big lie. Nobody's actually like that. I mean, I know there are plenty of families were the parents do get along and love each other and stuff, I'm not stupid. Jake's parents, Cassie's parents...but." I shrugged again. "Even that's not as clean as it looks on tv, is it? There's no happy laugh-track for life."

"No," Tobias agreed, "there really isn't."

We walked along in silence for a while. I stopped needing to stare at the clouds and started looking at the sand again. I realized we were walking pretty close, so close out knuckles brushed each other a little now and then. I was contemplating whether or not taking his hand would be a good idea when I stepped in a hole and went tumbling down a dune.

"Rachel!"

"I'm okay!" I yelled, rolling over and pulling myself out of the sandy grass. "Just tripped! Everything's fine!"

Tobias helped me up and I let him, even though I didn't need it, because the look on his face was full of concern rather than condescension. It feels different to let somebody help you because they care about you than because they want to preen over the fact that you need their help.

I didn't need a mirror to know that my face was bright red, but thankfully after seeing me pop back up and wave to demonstrate lack of injury, no one else seemed compelled to rush over. Cassie caught my eye and raised her eyebrows, silently asking if I needed her; I shook my head and she nodded and returned her attention to the surf through which she was wading.

I shook sand out of my braid and brushed myself off as best I could. I still felt gritty, and I knew I would need a thorough shower later, but that tends to be a side effect of visiting the beach even when you don't do a barrel roll down a dune, so I told myself it was no big deal.

Tobias's face was a study in anxious curiosity as we started walking again, so I hurried to change the subject from my tumble. "Anyway," I said briskly, "what I was getting at was, like, that you shouldn't feel guilty for being upset when you find out your parents aren't perfect. That's like, a normal part of growing-up, right? That little kids always expect too much out of their parents, and then you get older and realize that they can't just, like, magically make everything okay, and that sucks, so you get angry and resentful and whatever, and then you...you get over it." I shrugged. "And parents are, like, expecting it or whatever, so they know not to blame you because it's just, like...how it works. Growing-up. Whatever."

I was regretting my rash decision to raise the topic, and wishing I'd stuck to joking about clumsy gymnasts and sand in my hair instead, but Tobias was watching me with those big, bright blue eyes that he usually tried to hide behind his hair, and this time he wasn't hiding. He was staring at me all unabashed and vulnerable, and he started to smile a little and it was nice enough that I sort of forgot about falling down the dune, and he started to say, "I never thought about it like that. About it being the same thing, sort of, that most kids have with their-"

"Ms. Mullins?"

A harsh, familiar voice made us both flinch. We scrambled up the side of the dune so we could see what was happening and found-

Assistant Principal Chapman.

He was dressed in pretty normal beach-walking clothes, looking like an ordinary everyday person and not like somebody enslaved to an alien slug living in his head. You'd never know that he was helping to lead an invasion of our planet - not unless you knew that The Sharing wasn't just a harmless community group, anyway.

Because Chapman wasn't alone. He was trailed by at least seven people that I could see, all of them wearing Sharing t-shirts. Several of them carried those long spiky sticks that people use to pick up trash and others held half-full bags of the garbage they'd collected on their walk. I eyed the trash-sticks and wondered how well those spikes would double as weapons, and noticed that two of the probably-Controllers held metal detectors instead. At least none of them appeared to be carrying guns this time.

"Oh boy," I whispered.

"Mr. Chapman," Tobias's mom said. Her cheerfully, vaguely-unfocused expression hardened into a sharp alertness that made her suddenly look like a real grown-up and not the perky college student she usually appeared to be. "I wasn't aware there was a beach cleanup scheduled for today."

Chapman's patronizing smile looked strained around the edges, even from a distance. "I wasn't aware you were on the beach's community management board." He chuckled. It sounded fake enough to raise goosebumps on my arms.

"I read the posted fliers," she explained flatly.

Chapman's smile stretched wider. "Of course," he said. His eyes flicked sideways to take in the rest of the Animorphs.

Jake and the metal detector had ambled a ways down the beach with Marco; both of them were now standing stiffly and staring at Chapman like he'd grown a second head to hold the Yeerk. Cassie was bent over a piece of driftwood just above the edge of the surf, and she'd frozen like a deer in headlights. Loren stood in the middle of a stretch of sand halfway between Cassie and Chapman. She'd planted her hands on her hips like she was bracing for a fight. My feet itched with the urge to run down and join her, but Tobias caught my hand.

"Wait," he hissed.

"And what brings you here?" Chapman was asking. His voice had a booming, jovial quality that made him sound like somebody who didn't usually interact with children trying to talk to a roomful of kindergarteners.

"Aliens," Loren said.

We all winced, except for Tobias. Jake flinched so badly he dropped the metal detector, and he and Marco scrambled together to fish it out of the sand and brush it clean.

Chapman didn't seem to notice; he had eyes only for Loren. "Aliens," he repeated emotionlessly.

"Yep," said Loren. Suddenly her voice was chipper again, although her eyes were hard above her smile. "A piece of a spaceship washed-up nearby. Did you see it on the news? Very exciting."

"I must have missed that story," Chapman lied smoothly. "You don't say. How interesting."

"It will be once we've found more of it," Loren said. Her smile showed a lot of teeth. "Have you picked up anything like that? While you were looking for trash, I mean?"

Chapman's smile was thinner but no less toothy. "Alas, we have found only commonplace garbage." His eyes flicked towards the rest of us again, and I saw recognition kindle as they raked across me and Tobias.

I pulled my hand free and slithered down the dune as Chapman turned back to Loren and said, "It looks like you've assembled a nice little group of helpers." His voice was sharp with accusation and curiosity.

"My son's friends," Loren said, and the sharp tone of her own voice lifted slightly. "He told them about our search today, and they wanted to come along."

"I see," said Chapman. He turned to watch me through slitted eyes as I trotted up, trying to smile.

"Hi Mr. Chapman!" I said brightly. "Melissa didn't say you were doing another beach cleanup today!"

"Rachel," he greeted me, although he didn't sound happy to see me. "No, it was a...an impromptu one. Inspired by a...shift of tides that brought more than the usual amount of...trash to the beach." He eyed Loren as he spoke; she was continuing to hold her wolfish smile in place as she glared at him.

"That's cool," I said. I heard Tobias shuffling across the sand behind me and smiled harder, trying to keep Chapman's attention on me. "It's a great day for it, at least!"

"Yes," said Chapman. He glanced suspiciously between me and Loren. "I wasn't aware you were interested in...hobbies like this, Rachel."

I shrugged. "It sounded like a fun way to spend an afternoon."

"You know this man, Rachel?" Loren asked. I thought she was overdoing it a bit, but Chapman just snorted.

"I am their assistant principal, Ms. Mullins."

"Don't remind me," Loren muttered.

"He's my friend Melissa's dad, too," I added, just to make sure that all the Controllers watching us remembered that I was an ostensibly normal girl who had presumably already been deemed non-threatening enough to hang-out with the boss's meat-puppet's daughter.

"So you can understand why I'd be concerned with the extra-curricular choices of my students. I'm sure this is a...charming diversion," Chapman lied snidely, raising his voice so it would be sure to carry to the others, "but it's never too early to consider more productive hobbies, too. Things that would look good on a college transcript. The Sharing, for instance-"

"No one's interested in your sick little club," Loren snarled, and lunged to grab Tobias's hand and pull him away from Chapman. I didn't have to fake my gaping stare at her unexpected vehemence.

"Mom, chill out," Tobias muttered.

Loren glared at Chapman like he was a stranger in a van full of candy and planted herself between him and her son. "And you're wasting time. If you want to get this whole beach cleaned before the sun goes down, you should probably get back to work."

All my muscles had gone tense, but Chapman seemed more amused by Loren's protectiveness than anything. "You're a font of good advice as always, Ms. Mullins," he sneered. He turned to me and raised an eyebrow. "Interesting friends you're keeping these days, Rachel."

"You know me, Mr. Chapman," I shrugged. I could feel cold sweat running down my back and hoped that if Chapman noticed, he would ascribe it to the warm weather. "I'm not a big fan of cliques. More fun to be friends with everybody. You never know what kind of fun new things you'll discover that way!"

Chapman snorted again, but he seemed more amused than annoyed by my perky attitude. "What an admirably egalitarian outlook," he observed, then jerked his hand to summon the watching Sharing members back into motion. "Let me wish you all a great deal of luck on your adorable little quest."

I laughed. I could see Tobias flinch at the sound, but I made myself do it anyway. "Yeah, sure," I said. "So far we've found a totally far-out hubcap and like thirteen cents in change, so I bet we'll get to the alien whatsits any minute now. I'm so psyched to 'discover' them."

Chapman smirked at my chipper sarcasm and nodded a smug farewell to Loren. We all stood still, watching the members of the Sharing walk past us. One stopped to stab a faded scrap of fast food wrapper with his spike in a desultory fashion, but eventually they shuffled out of sight around the next bend of dunes.

My face ached from fake-smiling and I lifted my hands to rub my cheeks as I scowled at the footprints they'd left behind.

"What a bunch of jerks," I muttered.

"Stay away from The Sharing." Loren's voice was low and grim. I turned towards her in surprise as the others rushed across the beach to join us. "Stay away from that man, too."

Marco laughed. "Love to," he said. "You got any assistant principal repellent in your pocket?"

Loren didn't seem to hear him. She was staring in the direction in which Chapman had vanished, and her face still had that strange hard, sharp look. "He's trouble," she announced, "and anything he's involved in is bad news."

"We know all about The Sharing, ma'am," Jake said darkly. He, too, was staring after Chapman. "They already got my brother, Tom."

Loren's hard expression shattered into wide-eyed sympathy. "I'm so sorry," she said, and wrapped her arms around Jake. The hug caught him by surprise and he stood stiffly in her embrace rather than returning it, but she didn't look offended when she let go. "If I can do anything to help, you don't even have to ask."

"Thank you," Cassie said for Jake when it became apparent that he wasn't going to manage to respond, "but you're doing enough for us already, helping us look for the - the spaceship. We appreciate it."

Loren smiled and it was like that other woman - the sharp-eyed, grim-featured one she'd been when facing Chapman - evaporated in the ocean spray. "Of course," she said, her eyes going vague again and her mouth settling into its usual gentle curve. "I'm so happy to be here with you all."

Marco looked over his shoulder towards where Chapman and the other Sharing members had gone. "Yeah," he said drily, "we're all super thrilled too."

Jake elbowed him, but didn't argue. I think we were all a little shaken by running into Chapman. Suddenly Marco's concerns about being seen in company with Loren Mullins didn't seem so silly after all, but what could we do about it now? The damage - if there was going to be any - was already done.

We trudged off across the sand again, looking for signs of a crashed spaceship, but the fun had gone out of the search.

After a while, Jake lowered the metal detector and said, "This is pointless. If there was anything to find, the Cont-" He stopped himself, glanced towards Loren, and amended his statement to, "Chapman and his people will have already found it. We're wasting our time looking where they've already been."

Loren shrugged. "People are good at overlooking things. Just because someone else has already looked somewhere doesn't mean there's nothing left to find. Besides, they were looking for beach trash, not spaceship wreckage."

The rest of us exchanged glances. Tobias spread his hands in a demanding sort of, Well? gesture. Jake frowned thoughtfully, then shook his head as Marco made wild pantomimes in the negative.

In the end it was Cassie who said, "Maybe what we need is to find a different way of looking at things."

I perked-up. "You mean, like...different eyes?"

Cassie nodded.

I grinned. "Let's do it."