Cassie
I shoveled some more cereal into my mouth. I had to finish eating quickly, before my mom roped me into another shopping trip or something. Saturday mornings I can usually get a few hours to myself, to think about normal kid problems and joys. At least, try to keep my mind of what I've become.
It's a hard adolescent life. Homework, chores, friends, stopping alien invasions...
Lately, I haven't been able to keep my mind off the Yeerks. Okay, so most people would pay attention to the problem of evil parasitic slugs trying to take over Earth, but now it's always popping up. I can't scrub cages hard enough to clear away Hork-Bajir. When people talk, a cynical little voice in my head cuts in with scathing comments and morbid observations. Before, I could lock away the life of an Animorph and concentrate on the life of Cassie, in the way most everyone can. You can forget anything, if you want to badly enough.
Except it hasn't been enough these few weeks. I feel like every time the phone rings it'll be another meeting in the barn, another mission a wolf barely limps out of, ducking behind something and becoming a normal girl who'll have more screaming nightmares in a few hours...
"Good grief, Cassie, don't inhale your food," my mom said from across the table. Her eyes followed my spoon's rapid movement: to the mouth, pick up more, back again...
I swallowed hard. "I'm really hungry," I lied. She expected it.
"Well, if you're growing again, we might have to get you some new clothes."
Or maybe I won't need new clothes, Mom. Maybe my luck'll run out in battle and you'll never see me again. Or maybe you'll see my body, with something else controlling it so well you'll never know the difference. Until it's too late.
See what I mean?
I grunted in response to my mom's unspoken question, my mouth too full for the "No, I don't want to go shopping." I knew that she didn't either, really. The periodic new clothes are a mother thing.
She dropped the subject and opened the newspaper.
Wait!
My spoon stopped dead on its way up.
"Search for missing professor continues," a smallish headline proclaimed. My gaze searched for details. "Manuel Bythera's disappearance seems complete," the article continued. "No clues have been found. Even Bythera's briefcase is gone."
Too clean.
I smelled Yeerk.
But a second later and I had dismissed it, going back to my cereal.
Later that day, I stole out the back door.
I'd started thinking. Maybe the trick for peace wasn't trying to forget the Animorphs. Maybe it was enjoying being one for a gift.
Once I reached the cover of the woods, I stowed my jeans and T-shirt. Half-consciously, I slipped into one of my favorite morphs: horse.
But as I galloped, the wind singing in my ears, the pure exhilaration couldn't keep my mind off Bythera's disappearance. I couldn't explain my hunch, yet somehow it wouldn't go away. There was only one way to find out if it was right.
I sighed inside and pounded my hooves back toward home.