Chapter 4: Andrew
My name is Andrew. That's all I can tell you. You'll never know where I live, what school I go to, not even what side of the road my house is on. It's for my own safety, as well as that of my friends.
I can tell you this: Sarah, Cristina, Oliver, and I can turn into animals. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. We aren't quite sure how this happened, but we really don't care to know anymore.
But anyway…..I finished morphing back to my human form and got dressed. That's the downside of doing this; you can't morph clothes. When I was done, I went back out into the hallway to find the others.
We had brought Cristina's guinea pigs over to Oliver's house to morph into them in secrecy. I had been hoping that it would only be Oliver, me, and Cristina, but Sarah came right before we brought the pigs. Oh well, maybe next time.
"That was weird, but so much fun!" Cristina said, jumping around and smiling like crazy. "All that José could think about was which one of the girl pigs to go after first."
I just looked over at Oliver. He and I had morphed into Cristina's two female guinea pigs; Rebecca and Josefina. I had Rebecca, who was calm throughout the entire ordeal; Oliver had Josefina, who Cristina calls the "demon pig" because she is a wicked little piece of fur. Oliver didn't have the easiest time with her.
"I discovered that you can morph only skin-tight clothes, such as what I'm wearing," she said, indicating the sexy outfit that she was wearing.
After we put the creatures into their cages, I looked at my watch; it was almost 6p.m. I had to get going; I didn't have the shortest trip over here.
"Sorry I gotta leave, but you know it takes me a while to drive over here," I said, searching for my keys. "Have any of you seen……."
"Looking for these Andrew?" Cristina said, holding up my keys, grinning.
"How did you get them? I had my keys in my back pocket……"
"Well now, that's my secret, isn't it," she said, tossing them to me.
"I gotta get going now too," Sarah said to us, "so I'll se ya'll at school tomorrow, right?"
"Yup, we'll be there," we replied, not really being able to say anything else.
A few minutes later, I was in my car, pulling away from Oliver's house.
"I should try morphing into my dog tonight," I said to myself as I left the neighborhood.
And that I did, later that night while my parents were sleeping. My dog started to freak, so I had to let it out of the room before I could finish morphing. Morphing into a dog was completely different than morphing into a guinea pig. I had to share my experience with the others at school tomorrow.
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"Morning Cristina," I said, sneaking up on her, which explains why she elbowed me.
"Oh, Andrew! I'm sorry; I wouldn't have done that if you hadn't scared me," she said, helping me up from the ground.
Cristina had this thing about beating people up if they sneak up on her, but that's a good thing, sometimes. I just keep forgetting to keep my distance.
This sure was an interesting was to start the second week of school. Cristina, Oliver, and I have all of our classes together. Sarah is in our second and last class with us. Right now we have our first class, Show Choir (A.N. I wish I did, but I didn't make it), which is pretty hard to do when you're on the ground.
"Think you can stand now Andrew?" Oliver said, coming over to us, laughing.
"You wouldn't be laughing if she did this to you," I replied, standing on my own now.
We both turned to Cristina. "Ready to dance now?" we asked her.
"I thought that you'd never ask," she said, springing into action.
You have no idea how hard it was trying to think about what I was doing while watching her dance. Oliver had the same problem that I did. I can't help the fact that I find Cristina to be so damn irresistible!
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"I had a good workout today in class," Cristina said as we left the building.
"Yeah, my eyes did too," I thought to myself, letting a smirk escape.
"I guess we gotta head down to Hellth now (A.N. It's an inside joke, but you get the idea)," I said.
Reaching the room five minutes later, we walked in to find Sarah saving our seats already. It's a good thing she does that for us; we have a very large class. There are never any seats left.
That's when I heard someone call my name: "Hey Andrew! 'Sup?"
Jake and Marco were sitting behind Sarah. She was sitting next to a new boy, Tobias I think his name is.
"Hey Jake, Marco! And, Tobias isn't it?" How's it hangin'?"
Cristina just rolled her eyes, said 'Hello', and sat on the other side of Sarah, between Oliver and myself. She then started talking to Rachel and Cassie, as well as Tobias.
We were having a great time, just talking about nothing, until our teacher walked in. We call him Snapehart, just because that name makes more sense. (AN. Another inside joke, but if you read Harry Potter and can put 2 and 2 together, then you'll know where the name came from and why. It's actually quite funny and true.)
"What shit do you think we're going to be stuck doing today?" Oliver asked our group in a whisper.
Since we've had to go to this class, we've sworn that our teacher isn't normal, that he's plotting something against us every second; other than just an endless supply of busy work.
"Let's look on the bright side, after this crappy class, the three of us have Chorus, remember?" Cristina said to me and Oliver. "But that's after lunch."
"Thinking about lunch; Sarah, I turned into my dog last night," I said in the lowest possible whisper I could, yet I still got Jake's attention.
"No way. You're kidding, aren't you Andrew?" he asked me, getting the attention of Marco, Cassie, Rachel, Tobias, Cristina, and Oliver.
"I'll tell all of the details at lunch, since we all have it together before third block. Right now isn't the best time," I said, indicating that our coach was headed our way.
What got my attention was the way that Jake, Marco, Cassie, Rachel, and Tobias started talking in a secluded little group after I said that. I wondered about that for the rest of class.
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"I'm so glad that we're out of that prison trap now," Sarah said, on our way to the lunch room.
Soon we were seated, eating a wide variety of food, Cristina sharing hers with Oliver and me; we had forgotten money and she wasn't hungry.
"So Andrew, you became your dog last night. Don't tell anyone else about it. Those of us you see here; me, Marco, Cristina, Cassie, Rachel, Tobias, Oliver, Sarah, and you; we can all turn into animals. But we have powerful enemies," Jake told me, as well as the rest of us.
He then went on to tell us about the evil alien race, the Yeerks, which take complete control of a creature's mind, making them a Controller. Controllers can be ANYONE, from our parents to our best friends, and possibly even our pets. All Yeerks must return to the Yeerk Pool far underground every three days to soak up Kandrona rays, which is their source of food. Hork Bajir are giant, seven-foot tall creatures that were enslaved by the Yeerks. Visser Three is an Andalite-Controller. The Andalites were the supreme beings that created the morphing technology that we now have.
I was still wondering how we got the ability since we never saw the Andalite Elfangor, who gave the others their morphing power by having them touch a blue cube….
"That's it!" I said.
"What's it Andrew?" Cristina asked me.
"We got our powers from that blue cube. Remember when Sarah picked it up in the construction site? That's the same one the others are talking about," I said.
"We don't know who's a Human-Controller and who's not, except for a few people. A teacher here at our own school: Snapehart. His Yeerk name is Livednomed-666. I had overheard him speaking to…." Jake stopped.
Marco continued: "We heard him speaking to Tom about a way to get new Controllers three days from now. We plan to put an end to that."
RING! The lunch bell just rang. Lunch was over and it was time to head to our third class.
"This afternoon, the five of us are meeting at my barn. Please come. It involves the four of you now too," Cassie told us as we left the cafeteria.
"I'll definitely be there," Cristina said, looking very excited.
"I'll be there too!" Oliver and I said in unison. If Cristina was going, so was I. I can't stand to leave her.
"I may be a little late, but I'll be there," Sarah said.
With that said, we left for our classes. After what we were told at lunch, Oliver, Cristina, and I just weren't as into Advance Mixed Chorus as we usually were.
After that class ended, we headed for Genetics, where we rejoined Sarah and the others. Class just seemed to become ten times more interesting than it already was since we could become animals by absorbing their DNA.
RING! The last bell of the day rang, releasing us from school. Sarah left as soon as the bell rang; she had somewhere to be. Oliver and Tobias went off to their locker; Cassie and Rachel went out to the buses; and Cristina and I stayed in the room with Jake and Marco and talked for a little while.
"Cristina, you need a ride home?" I asked.
"I was going to walk, but since we gotta go to Cassie's, sure Andrew, I'd love a ride," she replied.
As she headed out the door, I pulled out my keys and winked at Jake and Marco. They just started laughing so hard that Cristina turned around and gave them a look and said, "Guys; will they ever be serious?"
As I was walking out the door, I turned and asked Jake, "So do we have a name for ourselves now?"
"Yeah. Marco came up with it: Animorphs," Jake replied.
Animorphs. That's us now.
Reaching my car, I opened the passenger side door for Cristina after she had tossed her stuff into the back. She got in, and I got in on my side.
"So. Do you know how to get to Cassie's house?" I asked.
"Yup, why do you ask?" she replied.
"Well, I thought that maybe we could get 'lost' on the way there," I said, looking deep into her sapphire eyes.
"Depends. Who am I going to be lost with?" She asked, grinning.
"With me, of course," I replied, getting rather hot at that point from looking at her.
"Well, let's go 'get lost' then," she said, buckling her seatbelt and letting her hair down in my face.
