Alberto
"Um...you know...I kinda forgot my wallet at home..." I started.
"Just like you did the last 5 times we were here, dun worry, I'll pay for you. Again," said James.
Now I got that over with...I started to wonder if i was insane. I mean...I just saw people turn into dogs, and walking Swiss army knives, and now they want me too!
Well the hell with that, I thought. I'm leaving.
"Okay…we're here," said Helen.
"Crap," I said.
"We're lucky Kyle's dad, and Helen's mom works here," said Lauren.
"Oh goody," I replied.
"Be quiet Marco," said Joey.
Silence.
"Marco? Um... have you been drinking or something?" I asked him.
"Hey! Shut up Alberto!" said James.
"Nevermind, let's just go inside," Joey continued.
So we followed Helen and Kyle to get back behind the exhibits.
They led us down a straight pathway. Helen whispered something to Kyle, and Kyle nodded.
They stopped n front of a door.
"This is the gorilla exhibit, anyone wanna try?" asked Helen.
"They're an extremely powerful morph," Kyle said.
"I'm not afraid of no monkey, I'll go," I volunteered.
Kyle and Helen just wore looks of concern.
"Um..." said James and Joey together.
They knew something. I could tell.
I shrugged.
Helen then went up to Caitlin. "You have an apple, right?"
Caitlin nodded.
"Then give him the apple," Helen told her.
Caitlin threw the apple to me. I caught it.
I stepped inside the exhibit. I didn't expect to find much. But then i found an enormous thing. With arms and muscles bigger than my head!
"Oh crap," I said to myself.
"Hand him the apple! So he won't rip your arms off!" said James.
He was enjoying me do this.
"Ha ha ha, and also, ha," i said.
The gorilla looked at me, I looked at him.
He looked at the apple. I gave him the apple nervously, but then I grabbed his arm.
"Concentrate abut him!" yelled Lauren.
"Shuddup! shuddup! shuddup!" I cried nervously.
But then I started to concentrate.
I felt the gorilla just collapse and kinda fell into a trance.
Then I ran like hell.
I saw them all laughing at me. I didn't find it very funny.
"Let's move onto the next exhibit," said Joey.
But just then,
"HEY! YOU KIDS! You're not allowed to be here!" said a voice.
It was a security guard. We ran till we hit a four way hall.
"Split up," said James.
"Yeah, we'll meet together at the front gate," said Joey.
Joey, James, and me turned left. Lauren, Kyle, Caitlin, Helen, turn right. Unfortunately the guard chose to chase after us.
"It's official," i said while running.
"We're risking our lives to fight some alien worms, and also risking to be arrested! We're totally Wacko! Insane! Maniac!" I said.
"Congratulations Alberto," Joey said.
"You've figured it out," continued James.
"I find no humor in that." I said.
We came across to a golf cart.
"Let's take it!" I said.
"Why?" asked Joey.
"If we don't then he will," I said.
"Good point," said James
Joey
SCREEK!
"And you said I'd been drinking?"
'Shut up, Joey, I'm trying to drive here!'
I tutted, 'Trying ain't gonna do it.'
Alberto glared at me, and slammed into another pile of boxes. They clattered all over us. One of them burst open, sending packs of something all over the floor.
'Did I mention that James should have driven this thing?'
Alberto swerved, and pushed me in the chest, I went rolling out of the golf cart, and slammed into the wall. Alberto sped off, until, I'm assuming James did this, the cart suddenly screeched to a halt, then started reversing. I clambered back in, and sneered at Alberto. The delay gave just enough time for...
'Hey, you kids! Stop!'
Oh great. Two guys in security uniforms, in a golf cart. Normally, I'd have said we'd have had an even chance, with Alberto driving?
'We're screwed.'
We tore out of there! The other golf cart hot on our tail. We swerved round a corner, narrowly missing scraping yet another wall.
'Mr. Ganucci, we're being tailed by the heat.' Alberto yelled, a tinge of Italian in his voice. I couldn't help but laugh.
'Pull over!'
I couldn't resist it. Hey, if Alberto got to be funny...
'But officer, this ain't even my car! I don't know where the crack came from, either!'
Alberto was getting better, but they were still staying with us. It reminded me of the Hork-Bajir chasing me the previous day.
'Take a left!...Now straight ahead! Left! LEFT!'
James was barking out orders, not that it made any difference, they were still staying with us, or were they?
'Yes!' I yelled, 'We're losing them!'
Famous last words. At that precise moment, the cart decided to spin madly, we slammed into a wall. The security guards were closing in, and there was a small metal door in front of us.
Guess where we went?
CLANG!
'Whew! That was close!' James sighed.
I stared around the room, ignoring the guards banging on the door outside.
'Um, in case you haven't noticed, we're in a cage...'
Alberto looked around nervously. 'That means...there's something in here?'
I pointed to the familiar looking footprints.
'Yep, and since I've got a morph, you've got a morph, and that this thing scares the crap out of me, I suggest James acquires it.'
James
It was staring right at me. Orange and black. Full of strength and power. A Siberian tiger.
"Acquire it, so i can get the hell outta here," said Alberto.
I rolled my eyes. Alberto was never patient. I gulped. I moved closer towards it. It made no movement. It just stared at me.
I touched his forehead very, very gently. It started to growl a little bit.
"Concentrate! Don't worry it's not that hard even though you're this close to being the cat's lunch, and dinner. and possibly desert," taunted Alberto.
This was his revenge for me taunting him. At least his creature didn't have teeth. I concentrated nonetheless. All of a sudden he started to go quiet. "How long is he in a trance for?" i whispered to Joey and Alberto.
No answer.
I turned back, and I saw Alberto and Joey already running. I rolled my eyes, but started to sprint after them too. Suddenly I saw a flash of Orange and black. Another tiger? Of course! There's more than one tiger in a exhibit! I caught up to Alberto and Joey. They had found a ladder, that brought them up to another doorway.
"Thanks, for sticking with me Alberto," I said sarcastically.
"Hey! I wasn't thinking of myself! I was thinking of all the billions of girl who would be disappointed by my death," Alberto replied.
"Your mom, doesn't count as one billion," I stated back.
We got up the ladder and went through the doorway. Luckily it was a doorway to the outside park, NOT another exhibit. We ran towards the entrance hoping to meet with Helen and the others.
Lauren
Helen, Caitlin, Kyle, and I looked at Alberto, James, and Joey being chased by the fat security guards. Finally Helen spoke up. "You think they'll be ok?" "Oh yeah," Kyle reassured her. "A couple of fat guards vs. 3 young, reasonably in shape kids. They'll be alright." "Come on! I want to get a morph!" Caitlin said impatiently.
"Well, we got cats down to the right, African animals behind us..." Kyle rattled off. "What's that?" Caitlin interrupted, peering through a doorway. I shouldered her aside and looked for myself. And promptly turned slightly green. It was a bear. A big-ass bear. "Girl, please don't tell me that you want to acquire that…thing." I said. She just gave me an insane grin back. "I'll take that as a yes." I said.
"Oh, the grizzly bear? Good choice." Helen said. Kyle opened the doors and we stepped through. God it looked even bigger close up. "Here, wait until I say go, then go and touch it, and concentrate real quick. It should go into a trance giving us time to leave." Helen explained. "What do you mean, if? They better be right." Caitlin grumbled, but got into position anyway. About 10 seconds later, "GO!!"
She ran forward and placed her hand on the shaggy fur. The grizzly started to turn around, but then got limp and complement as she concentrated. She pulled away, and after Caitlin had looked at it one more time, we tore out of there like a bat out of hell. "YEAH BABY!!!" Caitlin crowed. I hushed her, and we moved on.
After repeating the process twice: the first time for Kyle to get a hyena morph, and the second time for Helen to get a leopard morph, it was my turn.
We kinda wandered around for a bit looking at the various morphs when I saw the one I wanted to have. It was like Helen's leopard except there was white where there should be orange-brown, it was slightly larger, and had shaggier fur. "That one," I said pointing to the graceful cat.
Kyle looked at it. "Serefina, our snow leopard. We're loaning her to the other zoo for about 2 months. Nice." He opened the cage. "After you madam."
I stepped inside and looked at her. She had long shaggy white fur, with the same spots that the leopard had. She was about 8 feet long and at least up to my chest standing up. She woke up and looked at me with clear blue eyes. I took that as my cue to acquire her. It went off without a hitch, but for a moment I just looked at her, like the others had. Just trying to come to terms with the fact that now, Serefina was a part of ME. I had a lot of research to do on her species now. "Lauren, we need to go," Caitlin said quietly from the doorway. "Ok," I responded just as quiet.
"We have to meet up with James and the others at the front gate remember?"
For a minute we just looked at each other. Kyle looked at his watch. "Want to look at the dolphin show while we wait for the others to catch up?" "Alright," I said. Caitlin added, "Maybe we can acquire one of those..."
"CAITLIN!!!" we all yelled.
"Alright, just a suggestion..."
Caitlin
We left the gardens and headed our separate ways after we all got our morphs and decided to hook up later that night at Kraterz for fun, and part meeting.
"Caitlin, someone named Helen is on the phone." My mom opened my door and threw the cordless phone to me.
"Thanks." I replied as i got up to close the door.
"Caitlin?"
"Hey Helen." I switched to Buffy and turned up the volume. "Whassup?"
"Well I was wondering if you could drive me to Kraterz tonight, my mom has to work late tonight and won't get home until midnight."
"Sure, My mom will drive you."
"K, thanks, see you then!" She said excitedly as i hung up the phone and spun the chair around to face my open closet.
"What to wear.....?"
~~~~~~~~~~Later That Night~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"This place is awesome, how did you find out about it?" Lauren asked happily, we had been at Kraterz for about an hour or so now, and were on our second game of Laser Tag.
"Charge your weapons......AND GET READY TO ANNHILATE THE ENEMY" The voice boomed through the loud speakers as we all ran up and started 'shooting' each other.
I ran up to the front of the line and hit Alberto in the back. The little siren went off and he turned around and faced me "Hey!" He yelled as he and James ran after me.
"Can't cross the line." I stated blindly.
When the game ended the stage was cleared and tables were placed along the walls. I found a big one and waited for everyone else to find their was over there.
"Hey guys." They all arrived in a big bunch and quickly crammed the table.
"So, are we going to start this meeting or what?" Helen asked, her eyes suddenly widening as she looked right behind me.
"What, what's wrong?" Lauren asked, looking behind us.
"Nothing...thought I saw something, well anyway. What are we going to do now?"
