Chapter 16

Jake

As we were eating lunch, suddenly people started barging through the door with cameras and other news equipment. I wondered what had happened and then I realized, duh, someone must have alerted the media.

"There they are!!" shouted a reporter.

"Okay, guys, listen up. We might as well tell them about Rachel now. I'll say that we have a big announcement to make; only it's for the channel that we decided. We tell the other channels to leave and then talk. Cassie, could you go get Ax and Tobias. When you get back tell them to go into fly morph before they come in. OK?" I said.

"Sure." I saw her push her way through the crowd as she left.

"Rachel, just wait. Demorph when I tell you to. For now go back in Marco's pocket."

Fine. she sighed.

"Excuse me," I told the reporters, "we're only talking to one channel." I told them the one it was. "The rest of you might as well leave."

"No way! We have every right to stay here," said one reporter.

Fortunately by now the manager of the mall had come over.

"Excuse me, Mr. Berenson, the mall has a small room for the employees to go to take a break. If you would like to, you may go there and talk," he said.

"Thank you very much," I said.

We followed the manager to the room he told us about. Every reporter tried to get in, but we only let the one channel come in. We took seats around a table in the room.

"Thank you for talking to us," said the reporter.

"You're welcome," I said. "We have important news that we need to tell the media."

"What is it," he asked.

"Rachel is, well, alive," I said. The reporter just sort of stared at me.

"Excuse me? Do you mean Rachel, the Animorph? But she is dead."

"No she isn't. She is alive," said Marco.

Jake, can I come out now? Rachel asked me privately

"Yes, Rachel, you can come out now," I said.

The reporter just stared at me as if I should be wearing a straight jacket. Then his eyes widened when a mouse crawled out of Marco's pocket. At least he didn't scream. When Rachel started demorphing, he started to get out of his chair and glance at the door.

"It's okay," I told him. "It's just Rachel."

"But.but."

Finally Rachel finished demorphing. She took seat across from Marco.

"Oh my god," said the reporter. "This will make almost as big a story as when the war was over. I can see it now, 'Rachel, the sixth Animorph, alive'. But where is Cassie. Also, do you know where Tobias is? It just seems as if you would considering the fact you know where an Animorph is who's supposedly dead."

"Cassie went to go get Ax and Tobias at my house. She should be here soon," said Marco.

"Okay," the reporter said, "as soon as they get here, we'll go down to the studio. We should just make the evening news. There are no big stories today, just the usual. Oh yeah, my name is Jeff, by the way."

"Okay, Jeff," I said.

Just then there was a knock at the door and then Cassie came in. I saw two flies buzzing around her. She shut the door on the mass of reporters and nodded at the reporters and sat down. Ax and Tobias began to demorph.

"Wait, you guys," I told Ax and Tobias. "We still need to get out of here. We're going down to the news station. Getting Ax out might be a bit of a challenge if he's and Andalite. You guys might as well stay flies."

Yes, Prince Jake.

"We should really get going," said Jeff.

"How do you propose to get there?" asked Rachel.

"Rachel, you could morph rat again and with Ax and Tobias as flies, we only have four people, including Shaun, who is Cassie's cousin. She's watching him for awhile," I said.

"My cousin's famous," Shaun said proudly.

"I know," said Jeff. "She is going to be on the news."

"Wow! Can I be on the news?" asked Shaun.

"We'll see," Jeff said. "But now, we should really go."

"How are we going to get there?" asked Cassie.

"By the van, maybe," said Jeff. "Only, four people, plus the driver and me, may not be able to fit."

"I could morph rat, too," said Cassie, and started morphing.

"So could Marco," I said.

"Good idea, only I don't have a rat morph. Also, I do not want to morph a bug. I cannot remember the last time I did that, and I do not want to remember the last time I did that."

"Fine, Marco," I said, exasperated. "Just morph one of your smaller morphs."

"Okay." He slowly started morphing. I was curious which morph he would choose. His sweatshirt billowed around him, seeming to get larger and larger, until it completely covered him. I pulled it off him. I saw the long, white hair sprouting down his back. When black hair started appearing, I realized what morph he chose.

Done.

"Why did you morph skunk," I asked.

It was the only one I could think of.

"Let's go, guys," I said. "Where is the van?"

"Just outside," said Jeff. "Follow me."

When we left the room, all of the other reporters were gone and there were barely any other people around, which was good. I carried Rachel and Cassie. Poor Shaun got stuck with Marco. Ax and Tobias stayed on my shoulder. I don't think he minded much, though. Once we got to the van, Shaun, me and everyone else got into the back. Jeff went up front.

Marco, why did you have to morph skunk? I can smell you even in fly morph. said Tobias.



A/N: The next few parts of the story may take a little longer to finish, cause I had written this a while ago and I only got this far. Of course, reviews will help make me write faster!