Chapter 2

Invasion of the Body Snatchers 2 (Jake)

            My name is Jake.

            I can't tell you my last name.  I can't tell you where I live either.  It's too risky.  They might find us.

            Who are they?  The Yeerks, of course.  The Yeerks are slug-like aliens that crawl into your ear and travel to your brain.  They flatten themselves out and take over your body.  Total control.  All you are at that point is a voice in your head.  You can feel the Yeerk moving you body.  It can watch your thoughts like they were videos.  They have you, and you can't do anything about it.

            Believe me, I know.  I've had a Yeerk in my head before.  Do you think maybe I belong in a straitjacket? Maybe I do.  Maybe all the stuff happening to me was a dream.

            I wish it was.

            Well, I had assembled a meeting at Cassie's house, a.k.a. the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center.  Her mom and dad are vets.  Her mother works at the Gardens, a zoo/amusement park.  Cassie is my… well, I don't really like to say it, but Cassie is my girlfriend.  The others know… and I hate it.

            My eyes traveled across the barn.  Cassie was tending to a baby raccoon that had lost its mother.  She smiled at me and I smiled back.  "Loooove is in the aaaaaair!" sang Marco, my best friend.  He is the joker of the Animorphs, our group name.  He is the one who actually suggested calling us the Animorphs.  He lost his mom to the Yeerks.  His mom also happens to be Visser One.

            I gave Marco a playful punch on the shoulder.  "I wouldn't make fun of me, if I were you.  You're the one who looks at Rachel with goo-goo eyes."  He grinned widely.  "If only she was your regular mall-rat," he sighed.

            "Well, I'm not." Said a grumpy voice.  I looked up and saw Rachel, my cousin, standing in the door of the barn.  Her long blonde hair fell about her shoulders and shimmered.  Her blue eyes were currently narrowed in suspicion.  She very supermodel-like but don't get the wrong idea about her.  She's smart and can be vicious when she wants too.

            "Ahhh!" Marco said, giving a huge, fake scream of horror and hiding behind me.  "Well, I can tell you one thing, Marco, I think you must've kept the cockroach brain last time we morphed it." Rachel said.  Marco jabbed a fake sharp-something into his stomach.  "And Xena: Warrior Princess stabs me once again from another verbal combat." He said, stumbling and falling onto a bale of hay.  I pushed his leg with my foot.  He shot up and said, "Anyway, if I did have a cockroach brain still, I'd be a nothlit."

            Did someone say nothlit? came a thought-speak.  I looked up and smiled, seeing Tobias in the rafters.  He stared down at me with his intense eyes.  Not that it was anything personal, but hawk's eyes are always intense.  Yes, you read it right, hawk.  A nothlit is a person-or Andalite-who overstayed the two-hour morphing limit.  A person stuck in morph.  Well, Tobias isn't exactly stuck.  The Ellimist, an alien who is all-powerful to us, gave him back the power to morph.  But his true form his hawk.  Between you and me, I think he likes it better that way.

            "Yeah!  Rachel says I'm a nothlit!" Marco said, stomping his foot in mock anger.  Oh?  You look like Marco to me. Tobias said, cocking his head.  "She says I've got a cockroach brain!" Marco said, stomping his foot again.  Oh!  Now that has got to be true.  Oh, wait.  You were always as stupid as a cockroach. Tobias said and laughed.  Marco gave them a look of disgust.

            "I am here, Prince Jake." Said a new voice.  I groaned.  "Ax?" I asked.  The boy who had just entered looked at me.  "Yes, Prince Jake?" he asked.  "Don't call me prince." I said.  "Yes, Prince Jake." Said the Andalite.  If you've ever seen an Andalite, you'll know how weird they look… to us.  They are a cross between a deer, a human, and a scorpion.  Their torso is human and their body is deer-like.  They have a long tail that has a sharp blade on the end.  Their faces are hard to explain.  They have no mouths, to say the least bit.  They have four eyes, two main eyes and two stalk eyes.  Stalk eyes can look in any direction possible.  Their main eyes are on their face and they have a nose.  His real name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill.  I hope that made sense.

            "Erek said he was coming." I said.  Erek King is an android.  He was created by a race called the Pemalites.  The Pemalites were a pacifist species.  They programmed the Chee, their androids, to be nonviolent.  The Pemalites were then wiped out by another species called Howlers.  The Chee took the remainders of the Pemalites to Earth when humans had thought the wheel was a cool new invention.  The Chee then put the remainders of the Pemalites into wolves.  Thus forth creating dogs.  I have a dog.

            As soon as the words left my mouth, a kid walked into the barn.  "Hey, Erek." I said.  "Hey, Jake," said Erek, "Important news.  The Yeerks have found a technology superior to theirs… here on Earth."  I studied the hologram of Erek closely.  "Andalites?" I asked.  "No," said Erek, making his hologram shake its head, "Humans."

            "I have both good and bad news now," he said, making his hologram bite its lip.  "Yeah?" I asked.  "Bad news: the Yeerks are heading over to infest some of those humans.  Good news: You get to go to England."

            "YOU CALL THAT GOOD NEWS!?" exploded Marco.  "We have to go to London!" Erek looked at him.  "Not necessarily London.  Plus, England is a nice place." He said.  "I'll get some of my people to cover up for you."

            "Well, I say we use dolphin morphs." Cassie said.  "True," I said nodding, "I think we should go right away."  Marco, who had been babbling about Brits, yelled, "ARE YOU INSANE?"  Rachel's eyes glittered as she said, "Marco has just dubbed this mission insane.  Let's do it!"