I can't believe it.
I truly can't believe it.
I can't believe I let Rachel talk me into going mall-crawling with her.
My mall crawling psycho of a cousin said, "Aww come on Jake, it's gonna be fun, Cassie and Tobias are coming."
And then I said "Oh, alright."
You are not gonna believe how exhausting it is.
According to Rachel I need a new fashion statement.
According to Rachel Cassie needs a new fashion statement.
According to Rachel Tobias needs a new fashion statement.
Shopping with Rachel: the deadliest thing in the world.
Ummm.... Besides the Yeerks.
So there we were going back to the Gap because Rachel had forgotten to check out a sales rack.
"Rachel, how many more times are we going back to the Gap?" Cassie asked despairingly.
I would have put my arm around her, but SOMEHOW Rachel got me and Tobias to carry the bags for her. "Being the strong men," Rachel had said grinning at Tobias. Cassie giggled. I blushed.
"Oohhhh! Cassie try this and this and..... Not this."
Five minutes later one more bag came for me to carry.
Finally after 100 hours of shopping, Rachel let us have a rest.
At food court…
Four floors down…
The elevators are all full…
The steps are across the mall…
Weight on me = 1 ton…
Finally we found a seat and dropped the bags and looked around.
We were in a fortress of bags.
"Uh…who's gonna order the pizza?" Rachel asked.
Two pairs of eyes stared at Rachel. Tobias was asleep on her shoulder. She looked down at his face. "Aww…aren't you a cute little baby!" she cooed, stroking his cheek gently and smiling softly.
Rachel glanced back at us and sighed. "Oh alright."
She was about to get up when a voice called out from somewhere beyond the impenetrable wall of bags.
"Knock, knock, anybody in there?"
I could recognize that sarcastic tone anywhere. It was Marco, had to be.
"Marco?" I asked.
"Who else? Uh…any reason you're hiding behind this huge pile of bags?"
"No, not really. We wanted to eat something, but there were too many bags."
"I see."
"Marco, while you're out there, can you order us two large pizzas? One supreme, and one pepperoni? That should be enough for all of us. I was gonna go get it but Tobias fell asleep on my shoulder and I don't want to wake him by moving," Rachel told him.
"Sure, why not, just send the slave."
We all rolled our eyes. Typical Marco.
"While we're all waiting, did I tell you that I got a new contract with Seventeen Magazine. They agreed to put in a section on the latest styles in every issue."
"Hmm…wha? You got what?" Tobias asked groggily, jerking out of his nap.
"I got a new contract."
Rachel worked as a fashion designer. She made up styles and ideas for her clothing line named Rachelle. She has made tons of millions of dollars with her clothes. It's the most popular brand.
Tobias is now an ornithology professor, not that he even finished high school. He was a bird long enough to know everything about them. He makes a substantial amount of money as well.
"Uh…ok, has anyone got any idea how I'm gonna get in?" Marco asked.
"Uh…"
"Here…" Rachel pulled aside a few bags, making a sort of door in our "fortress".
That made enough room for Marco to get through with the two pizzas, which he set on the large table.
"My fellow Animorphs, this is Kris Strasser…"
Kris was wearing a pair of black bellbottoms and a dark green halter-top that brought out green in her eyes. She had a pair of black Nikes with a navy trim to complete the outfit and her light brown hair was left loose and fell in layers framing her face.
"Hey Marco, isn't that the girl you fell on top of?" Rachel asked bluntly.
"Yes…well…you know…uh…" Marco stammered, beginning to turn red. He decided to change the topic.
"This is Jake Berenson, our fearless leader, Cassie Mayfield, the animal nut, Rachel Berenson, a.k.a Xena: Warrior Princess or crazy-mall-crawling-psycho, and Tobias Fangor, our resident bird-boy."
Tobias upon hearing this glanced at the watch around his wrist. "Uh…sorry but I gotta demorph for a while," he said glancing apologetically at Kris.
"No, don't mind me, go ahead," she replied in a curious voice.
Tobias quickly stood up and-thankful for the bag fortress hiding him from view-quickly removed his outer layer of clothing and his shoes and socks, revealing the spandex shorts and tight muscle shirt he wore for his morphing outfit. Giving his clothes to Rachel to hold he quickly began to demorph, the red-tail's feather patterns beginning to show on his skin.
The other Animorphs kept up their conversation and Tobias participated until his morphing mouth prevented him from doing so. Even so, when his thought-speech kicked in he quickly rejoined the general conversation.
Pretty soon, Tobias the red-tail hawk was perched on top of the table with Kris staring at him openly.
"Is that your normal body when you're not in morph?" she asked.
Yes it is. I was trapped in morph on our first mission but I regained my morphing powers but was still trapped as red-tail. >
Rachel gently stroked Tobias's breast feathers and fed him a piece of pepperoni.
Tobias began grumbling something in thought-speech as he preened his wing feathers. I'm getting old.>
"How can you be getting old? You're only seventeen," Rachel replied, slightly surprised.
In human years. In bird years I'm much older.>
"How old are you?" Cassie asked.
Tobias glanced sharply at her with his ever-glaring hawk eyes before returning to his grooming. That is private information.> he groused grumpily.
Tobias began to remorph back to his human form. Once finished he took his clothes from Rachel and put them on. He was clasping his watch back onto his wrist when he looked up and asked, "So…what's up?"
Rachel laughed.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
2 Weeks Later
I was adjusting my tie ready to go to the Grand Gala of the Animorphs. It is, supposedly, in honor of us. During these three years Earth has taken a jump on technology. The Andalites had given us some technology and some Escafail Devises in change to acquire human morphs and a Krispy Crème franchise. The Andalites gave us the Ecafail Devises because they thought it was better if we keep it, instead of 'some Government.'
"Cassie! You done?!"
"Hang on! Just…this….last….. strand…… There! "
She came out looking stunning in a beautiful dark silk scarlet dress.
She smiled at me.
"Ready."
"Uh… Yeah, let's go"
We went outside to our car, a silver mustang. In this baby it was a ten-minute drive.
When we got there, a huge mob of reporters were at the front of the huge white building.
"Oh no," Cassie muttered softly. She hated attention, as much a Marco loved it.
Suddenly a limo came behind us, and the President stepped out. Then, it got a bit quiet and all heads were pointed one way, not at us and not at the President, but at a white limousine, that was arriving just now.
A beautiful young woman with blonde hair and blue ayes stepped out.
Rachel.
Behind her, Tobias stepped out wearing a black tux.
"Is that Rachel?" Cassie asked.
Rachel was wearing a blue dress, of the same color of her eyes,
She and Tobias walked up the red carpet toward the grand doors.
We decided to walk behind them.
"Hi, Jake," A voice said.
I turned. Marco was behind me, with Kris on his arm.
"Hi." She said.
"Hi, Marco, hey Kris," Cassie had come to like, Kris, partly because Kris's father, Matthew Strasser, was Cassie's teacher at her college.
Behind them we watched a BMW pull up and park not far from our car and Ax and a very pretty young girl stepped out. He waved for us to go ahead.
"Oh, is that Rachel?" Marco asked glancing ahead.
"Yup, that's her," Cassie said approvingly.
"Well, lets go say hi"
We walked toward Rachel and Tobias.
Camaras flashed all around as we walked by with, everyone wanted to get a picture of Jake the Yeerk-killer I thought.
When we reached Rachel and Tobias, we were almost inside the huge arched doorway.
"Hey! Rachel!" Marco shouted.
Rachel and Tobias turned around and smiled with four thousand bright white teeth and motioned for us to hurry up.
We walked a little faster, while Rachel disappeared behind navy blue curtains. We followed.
"Seat number three-oh four head table, Mr. Berenson same to you Mr. Shields " said the lady in front of the navy blue curtains, that Rachel and Tobais passed through.
"Thank you" I said to the lady.
She nodded
We stepped through the curtains and drew our breath in at the sight. I was beautiful. Big glittery chandeliers hung from the ceiling and reflected the light making the place brighter that it already was. Blue and silver drapes hung from the walls and tables, the tables were elegantly set up, there were roses and tulips at the middle of each of the round tables. Rachel and Tobias were already at the head table talking loudly; suddenly Rachel threw back her head and laughed.
"I wonder what's so funny," Cassie murmured.
"Hmmm"
Sa we reached the head table I felt someone watching me, but then everyone was watching me walk up with a beautiful woman on my arm. But this particular sensation felt like something bad… it was unexplainable really, so I shook it of. I sat down next to
Tobias, the rest followed.
Then a booming voice said, "Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen, to our Grand Gala of the Animorphs…."
[2ndAuthor: Yeah, yeah, yeah you get the idea, there goes the "Today we shall " do this followed by this and that, speech, speeches which I'm not good at.]
There was a dance floor that I hadn't noticed before, while walking in. Music flowed out mega speakers and some couples began to dance.
I remembered when the perfect dancing women tried to teach us how to dance waltz and some other songs I had no where they came from.
"Remember back in school when our science teacher made us dance square dance?" I murmured to Cassie when Rachel, Kris and Cassie cried, "Finally they got it!" They were teaching us 'fluid movement' when dancing to a waltz.
It was Rachel and Tobias who first stepped out onto the dance floor, and they glided around to 'beautiful music' as Cassie described it.
I stood up and just about when I was going to ask Cassie for this dance, Ax stepped up to us.
"Good afternoon, Jake," Ax said cheerfully, nodding to the girl on his arm he said. "This is Irea-Fillean-Collonstar"
"A pleasure to meet you," said politely, Cassie did the same.
When Ax moved of to talk to Marco, I turned to Cassie and murmured, "May I please have this dance."
Cassie smiled and nodded.
I led her out to the dance floor and took her hand while I slipped my other hand around her waist and started to move gently. I saw Marco step out to the dance floor with Kris.
Then I felt it again, the feeling that someone was watching me.
"Can you feel that?" Cassie whispered
I nodded. I looked around and saw people and waiters… but one particular waiter caught my attention. Even at this distance I could see that his eyes were red rimmed and glowed strangely, and that he was watching me closely. I tried not o pay attention but that feeling never left me.
As the song ended the food was brought out. The delicacies were brought out and things that I haven't seen before, and some of them smelled a little funky. I leaned over to whisper in Cassie's ear., "What's that?" I asked.
"Crepés," she replied.
"What?"
"Food," she said.
I went back to look at the 'Crepés' and tried some. Not bad. I was finished before I could think of drinking the Champagné. I glanced down at the plate, and felt my blood run cold. On the ceramic, there was a message:
WE, KELBRIDS ARE HERE,
AND WILL NOT FAIL LIKE THE YEERKS IN CONQUERING THE HUMAN RACE.
YOU ARE POWERLESS TO STOP US.
I glanced to my left were everyone was sitting
and saw that they were staring at me. Beyond them I saw the waiter with
the red rimed eyes smile and point at me.