{Hey, that's Marco's line,} Tobias reminded me.
{But he's not here to say it, and I'll feel weird if it isn't said.}
{Mm. What about your line?}
{It's been a while since I've said this.} I took another deep breath. {Let's do it!}
We landed just outside the school, opening our wings and gently swooping down on the well-fertilized grass. I huddled beneath Chapman's window and began to demorph, feathers melting into skin; Tobias's feathers melted instead into the snow-white fur of the polar bear.
{I wonder how long we have until someone sees us,} I pondered, seconds before my beak softened into a human mouth. I crouched in my uncomfortable position behind some stupid decorative bush and prepared for my next morph.
{Probably not long.} Black claws erupted from his wingtips. {I feel like singing an *NSync song. How pathetic is that?}
"I think I know which one you mean." I cleared my throat for effect as grizzly fur spread over my leotard. "Here we go, one more time -"
{Stop that!} cried a shaken Tobias. {It's eerie. You should never sing that band, Rachel. It's too wrong. What we're about to do is less scary than that song!}
"- Everybody's feelin' fine, here we go now -" Mercifully for Tobias, I lost my ability to speak then. Claws bit down into my gums. I reveled in the power of my thin arms thickening to tree trunks.
{Almost done?} asked Tobias, who'd only had one stage to go through instead of my two.
{Give me a minute,} I grumbled. My delicate human toes fused into bear feet that could stomp a fence flat. {You have it easy, you know. You only have to go from bird to bear. I have to go from bird to girl to bear.} I finished my morph. {I think that the more I complain, the more I'll feel like Marco's here in spirit, and the more normal this will feel.}
{Whatever works.} He grinned a bear grin and shifted his weight from paw to paw. He had obliterated his "decorative bush" and was exposed to anyone walking by. Fortunately, class was in session, and Chapman hadn't looked out his window yet. {Who wants to do the countdown?}
{I do,} I said quickly. {Three! Two! One!}
We bellowed loudly and plunged through the semi-brick wall of the school.
{Ow!}
Chapman looked up then.
"Andalites!" he yelped.
{I think that was instinctive, but just so we're all being honest here: We're Animorphs.} I slapped him in the face with a bear fist. He groaned and fell flat, bleeding from the nose and, to be honest, oozing from several dents in his face. {I should probably feel guilty about punching one of my friend's fathers. But to be honest, I don't.}
{This could actually work,} Tobias observed in disbelief. He lumbered behind the door, shoving a file cabinet roughly out of his way.
{I know. But don't jinx it.} I began to demorph, exhausted from all the changes already. {Hey, Tobias?}
{Yeah?}
{This was a great plan. More like me than you, really, but still a great plan. I don't know what I'd do without you.}
He showed his teeth in what I guessed was a bear smile. {No problem, Rachel. I'll always be here for you.}
{I suppose I have one more morph to do, don't I?}
{Just one. Then maybe, just maybe, this nightmare will start to end.}
I sighed through my now-human lips. "I really don't want to morph Chapman. That's just so deeply wrong it's insane. I don't want to be a guy." I knelt and began stripping Chapman's clothes off, shuddering at the mere thought of exactly what I was doing. "I hope I can leave him enough fabric to be decent."
As I pulled on Chapman's pants, Tobias snickered mockingly. {You're so hot in those.} He paused. {I think I just sounded like Marco. Maybe I'll kill myself once this is over.}
"They're only about ten sizes too big," I muttered, jerking on his shirt. "Wow. He needs to get a tan."
{And go to the gym more often.}
"You're awful." I grinned at him. "We're both completely high, aren't we? Because there's light at the end of the tunnel and hope and maybe, just maybe, we can get this little group back together."
{Or maybe it's that adrenaline high you get when one wrong move means the end of everything.}
"That too." I buttoned up his shirt over my slender body and began the morph. Abruptly, my body wasn't so slender anymore. "So this is what I'll look like in thirty years," I commented as wrinkles creased my thickening face.
{Assuming we all live another thirty years. Hurry up. This place makes me nervous, and I never did like schools anyway.} He sat down like a dog. A very big, white, clawed, deadly dog.
I waited another minute while the morph finished. "All done," I said in a very deep voice. Unable to resist, I added, "Here we go, one more -"
{Stop it!}
"I'm easing the tension." I crossed over to the intercom system. "Which button? Do we know what Jake's class is right now?"
{You should. This is third period. Didn't you have it together?}
"That's right, Theater Arts." I punched the button for Mr. Halstead's room and spoke in Chapman's voice. "Mr. Halstead?"
I waited until I heard the teacher yell "Yes?"
"Please send Jake Berenson to my office."
"Yes, sir."
I shut the intercom off. "Tobias, could you drag that body out of the line of sight? Someone could walk by any second."
He jerked it over behind him. We waited.
Eventually, after an eternity, the office door opened. "What is it, Mr. Chapman?" my cousin asked in the perfect parody of an innocent, worried teenager before the assistant principal. He clicked the door shut behind him and turned with the cold smile of a Yeerk. He hadn't seen Tobias yet; he was still looking at me.
I smiled with a rush of euphoria and looked into empty eyes that were not empty at all. "Never give up, Jake."
He stared at me for a moment before it clicked into place. Tobias promptly felled him from behind before he could even scream.
"I can't believe it," I whispered. "We did it."
{Hurry,} Tobias said urgently as he demorphed to hawk. {Acquire him. Lourdes will be here to replace him in a minute and we need to get out of here as quickly as possible after that!}
"I'm demorphing, I'm demorphing! Do you have any idea how exhausting this is?"
{It doesn't matter! Hurry!}
There was a knock on the door and I saw a student I didn't recognize. She tapped on the glass four times in a quick, frantic rhythm. I opened the door quickly with hands that were half-Rachel, half-Chapman. Disturbing, to say the least.
"Rachel, Tobias. I'm here." The hologram melted away to reveal a Chee. "Congratulations. I have to leave quickly. I'm risking enough to come out of hiding for this long."
"I know. Thank you, Lourdes."
Suddenly it was Jake standing before me. "If your plan works everything will be worth it," Lourdes told me in his voice.
"Then pray that it does." I knelt down and pressed two fingers to the unconscious boy's neck as she left, headed for Halstead's class. "Got his DNA. I'm going to go elephant to get him out of here." I knew they'd try to stop us - sheer luck that we got in without being stopped, no chance of it on the way out. "If anyone tries, Tobias, you know I'll do whatever I have to."
{I know. That's the plan.} He flapped his forming wings. {Let's go.}