I dove straight down. Flared my wings at the last second to kill my speed and avoid breaking my neck. I was in one of those little stands of trees that decorate a lot of developments. As soon as I touched grass, I began to demorph. My feathers thinned until they were hairlike, then sucked into my skin with a schloooooop! I grew. That is, my top half grew. Soon I was mostly human, trying to balance on regular-sized eagle talons. Eagle talons seem plenty big when you're a bird. Not big enough when you're half human. I toppled over sideways. Got dirt in my mouth.

I had been plenty mad enough before that, thank you.

I finished demorphing fast. I had plenty of energy. Gallons of adrenaline were pumping through my system. I rolled onto my now-human feet, going straight into the elephant morph. "Okay, Mary Sue," I said, as a wiry tail emerged from my lengthening spine. "You stay here. Keep out of trouble. I'll put you somewhere saaoouuuupphhfffft!!"

Morphing is always different. And it can be amazingly gross. This time, my lips had puckered as I'd been speaking, and then had shot out of my face. You know how in cartoons people will get their lips stretched out, so they've got a ten foot tube between their mouth and their face? That's how this was. And it definitely wasn't pretty. I might have even thrown up, but I thought about the vomit traveling all the way down to the end of my lips, and thought better of it. My nose slid down to join my lips, and the whole mess thickened, turned gray, and became my trunk.

I like going grizzly, but in terms of sheer collateral damage, elephant is a better morph. Plus, getting big seemed like a great idea.

{I protest!} Mary Sue said. {I intend to fight alongside you!}

I looked down for her just as my ears got big enough to put Dumbo to shame. I couldn't find her, of course. She's almost too small for me to see with my regular eyes, and elephants have worse eyesight than humans. I might as well have searched around for a certain bacteria. I liked this girl. She had some serious spunk. {Hey, nice thought. But you don't have a battle morph yet.}

{Who needs an Earth body to "kick butt"?} she demanded. {I shall fight as all Helmacrons, in my own awe-inspiring form!}

Man, she was crazier than I was. {Well, where are you? I at least need to carry you in there. It's a long walk for you.}

{I am seated on the tip of your tubular nasal extension.}

I was half-elephant at this point. I can't control morphs at all. Cassie is the only one of us who can. This particular morph was happening very slowly. My head had almost completely morphed, but most of the rest of me was still very-large Rachel. I looked around. To my right, past the trees, was Megan's house. Somebody was screaming and pounding drums, a lot of people were yelling to be heard overtop of it. To my left, past the trees, was a darkened house. It had a trellis over the door. Flowers everywhere. A birdhouse in the front lawn. Another one in the back lawn. It screamed "Grandma." It was dark. Apparently Grandma had decided to go out for the evening. I didn't blame her.

{Hold on, Mary Sue.}

{I am secure.}

I crawled on what were still somewhat-human hands and knees to the edge of the trees. I stretched out my trunk and wrapped it around the lovingly painted mailbox. I snapped it off, and retreated back into the forest.

{Is that a weapon?} Mary Sue inquired.

{Nope,} I replied shortly, snapping open the lid. I stuck my trunk in, and shook it gently.

{What the --- Rachel!! Aaaaah!!}

I slipped my trunk out and slammed the lid shut. Then I tightened it a little more with a squeeze from my trunk. {Sorry, kiddo,} I said, meaning it. {I don't have time to argue with a Helmacron. And I don't want you hurt.}

I ignored Mary Sue's protestations and concentrated on finishing the morph. I had a sister to save! How much time had I wasted? Was it already too late?

{What the - Oh, man. Rachel, that had just better not be you going big and gray down there!!}

{Tobias!?} I yelped. Oh, great. Perfect. Just what I *didn't* need!

{Rachel, what are you doing!? You're not supposed to be here!}

I ignored him, trying to speed up the morph. Elephant already, elephant! My slow morph was mainly due to the fact that I could barely concentrate. The arrival of Tobias didn't help things.

{Rachel, stop now. Think what you're doing!}

{I'm saving my sister,} I grunted.

{No, you're not! You're going to bust up the place and maybe kill somebody! If she isn't infested, she'll be scared half to death for no reason! If she is, she'll know it's you!}

I faltered. Could he be right? No, no way! {I've gotta get in there!} I shouted.

{So go in there,} Tobias said quickly, trying to reason past my anger and confusion. {Do it as a human. Find out if there are Yeerks there. Get Jordan out. But don't do something that will wind up dooming Earth, just because you didn't stop to think!}

At that moment, the elephant's instincts kicked in. It wasn't angry. It wasn't scared. It wasn't confused. It was slow. Peaceful. The opposite of my mind. I stopped. I thought.

"Brrrrrrrrrrrouuuuuuuugghhh!!" I trumpeted out of sheer frustration.

{Quiet!} Tobias shouted desperately. {Okay, that was all right . . . the band covered you. Now morph out, Rachel. Do this the right way. Do this the smart way. Do it.}

I felt the fog of anger lifting. I was still angry. About as angry as I get, actually. But Tobias had been able to inject some sense into my anger.

If I rushed in, I could expose us all. If I did, we would be infested. Jordan would be infested. Earth would be lost.

I began to demorph. I shrank. My hair sprouted from the elephant's skull. Human hands and feet appeared at the end of tree trunk legs. Then a suspicion crept into my mind. Before I lost thoughtspeech, I asked, {Tobias, were you watching me, or just flying by?}

{Just flying by this time, Rachel. But I may have to start --} he stopped in the middle of his sentence. Weighed his words. {Start accepting guardian angel pay if I keep this up.} It wasn't what he had started to say.

My human mouth more or less reappeared, and I laughed thickly. Guardian angel pay. Whatever heavenly currency God pays our angels, it isn't nearly enough. But at the same time, I felt the sting of the words Tobias hadn't said. If I kept acting like this, he would have to start watching me.

I was human again. I was in a leotard - close enough to a bathing suit to fit in at the party. Mary Sue had grown silent again. I looked with regret down at the crumpled mailbox. Then I jogged up to Megan's front door.

I broke the doorbell. I just meant to push it. Kind of. But, anyway, I broke it. The noise around the house was deafening. There was no way anybody heard me. I reached for the knob when the door flew open. I found myself staring into the watery eyes of a pale, gothic girl. "HEY!!" I yelled, trying to make myself heard. I thought the noise was bad with the door shut. With it opened, I was expecting my ears to start bleeding soon. "I'M RACH -- "

But the girl hadn't opened the door to let me in. She raced past me and hunched over the bushes, shaking and retching. I guess she'd already had a couple drinks.

I glowered and stepped into the room.

Have you ever been to Hot Topic in the mall? Any punk store, actually. One of these places where the walls are painted black, and the lights are funky colors, and the roof is exposed wiring, and you feel crowded and suffocated and deaf? Why do people make places like that? Is it cool to offend all the human senses at once?

Okay, Hot Topic does sell some good shirts. But I'm talking about the atmosphere.

Megan had transformed her house into just such a place. It was rank with beer and sweat and vomit. People were staggering, lurching, dancing, standing, laying on the floor, running everywhere. Black cloths had been laid down to cover the carpet, but they ended up bunching and curling through the halls, like the trail of a dirty animal. Over everything was the noise. The walls shook with the percussion. I felt the vibration of the bass in the pit of my stomach. It made me sick. The shrill whine of the electric guitars was like the blade of a Hork-Bajir slicing into my head. And the lead so-called "singer" might have been in Visser Three's torture room from the way he screamed.

"If Jordan is here, I am going to kill her," I said simply.

"Yeah," a tall guy said, stumbling into me, "I want more beer, too."