CHAPTER 2
Marco
I DIDN'T TRUST THE ELLIMIST. I never have. Now we were suddenly suppose to gain an animorph? This all seemed too weird. And Cassie was right to worry about what kind of evil creature the Crayak would be adding to his team. It would only be a matter of time before the Ellimist would come back to transport us to his next battle against the evil team of the Crayak.
We decided to meet in the lobby after school. If anyone had a new student in one of their classes we were going to investigate. Ax and Tobias morphed to human and met us there.
"Okay, there's this one girl named Amy. I think that it must be her," Cassie said.
"Oh yeah," I inquired. "That one blonde girl. Kinda gawky, tall. She was in my history class." She wasn't exactly a babe. She actually seemed kinda rude. But it was the only new girl at our school today. Plus, her name started with an A.
"Now the only thing we have to do is find her," Jake said. "How are we going to do that?"
"She walks home," Rachel admitted. "I asked her. She's probably still hanging out around the school."
"But what I don't understand," Cassie said, "is how we approach her. Do we just walk up to her and introduce Jake?"
"That'll go over real well," I exclaimed. "'Hey there, Amy. This is Jake. Are you looking for him?'"
Jake shrugged. "It's a start. I'll just casually go up to her and introduce myself, telling her that I couldn't help but notice that she was a new student."
"Ah, the flirtatious approach. Good choice, fearless leader. What are we waiting for?" I held up my hands and started walking backwards out the lobby door and WHAM! Right into someone.
"Oh! Sorry!" she cried. It was a girl...a cute girl. She had long dark curly hair and she was, surprisingly, shorter than me.
I bent down to pick up her fallen books. "No problem," I stuttered. "My fault. I'm really bad at walking backwards." I heard Rachel stifling a laugh in the background. This girl was really, really cute, and I looked like an idiot.
The beautiful girl pushed the hair back from her face. She held out her hand. "Hi. I'm Allie. I'm new to this school."
Ding! Ding! Ding! Hello new animorph! At least I hoped so. I just stood there, acting like a moron, staring aimlessly at this girl, this beautiful, beautiful girl. I couldn't move. I was frozen.
Allie raised an eyebrow in confusion. Rachel and Tobias burst out laughing as Jake quickly stepped forward and shook her hand.
"Hi, I'm Jake. Nice to meet you."
Allie's eyes brightened. "I believe you're the one I'm looking for, Jake." And to tell you the truth, I was jealous at that moment. Jake got to touch her hand. Jake was the one Allie was staring at with a smile on her face. I was definitely jealous.
"Are you busy right now?" Jake asked. "You wanna come with us for a burger or something?"
"No, I'm not busy, that would be great." She smiled. An amazing smile. "Just let me drop this paper off with Mr. Chapman." She walked over to his office and knocked on the door.
Ah, good old Chapman. A major player in Yeerks politics. He's the right-hand-man of Visser Three, one of our most dangerous enemies. But it wasn't Chapman we were against. It was the Yeerk inside his head that we were after.
"Marco, I think you had better wipe the drool of your chin before she comes back, you don't want to look stupid or anything," Rachel smirked.
I was speechless. I had no comeback to her comment.
"Yeah, what happened?" Tobias asked. "Did smooth-talking Marco hit a bump?"
"That's so not like you," Cassie agreed. "Does Marco the Player have a crush?"
I couldn't deny it. "So? So what? I'm not allowed to like a girl?"
"It's just that you've never clamed up like that before," Jake said. "What happened?"
"I don't know...she's just so..."
"Uh, gag me with the details Marco. You and Jake can have a slumber party sometime to talk about her, but now we have to deal with the new kid on the block, okay?"
Surprisingly, I was able to acknowledge her by nodding my head. At least my neck was working, even if my brain was out to lunch.
Allie came out of Chapman's office and smiled. At me.
I almost passed out.
By & © 1999-2002 kel@twilightlost.net