Cassie looked down at the bags she was carrying; they held the wide assortment of outfits that Rachel had bought for her. Not just clothing, mind you, actual outfits. Cassie would be the first to admit that she couldn't tell the difference between the two, and she didn't really care either way. But, these kinds of things made Rachel happy, and so Cassie dealt with it as best she could.
As the two of them were nearing the food court, Cassie saw that almost all of the Animorphs were sitting at a table, seemingly waiting for them to arrive. Even Ax was there, in his human morph, of course. The three of them were sharing french fries and hamburgers.
"Hey, what a surprise to see all of you here," Rachel said, pretending that their meeting hadn't been pre-arranged. Putting on an act for any Controller who might have been looking their way.
Cassie thought it was a bit unnecessary, after all, perfectly normal teenagers often made plans to get together at the mall. But then, Marco and Jake had both said on more than one occasion that it was best that no one knew that the five of them were friends, since they hadn't all been friends with each other when they were in school together.
"Yeah, we figured we'd stop off here for some snacks before we all head home," Jake said. "Why don't you guys join us?"
"We'd be glad to," Rachel said.
Cassie smiled, sitting down next to Rachel. Jake looked around, checking to see if anyone was standing close enough to overhear them. No one was.
"So, what happened to you two last night?" Jake asked in a low voice.
"There was a Yeerk infesting the horse Cassie and I were trying to take care of," Rachel said in the same low tone. "It crawled away, and the next thing we knew, some Yeerk ship was firing Dracon beams at us. The entire place caught on fire. Next thing I knew, we were both inside Crazy Helen's store."
"She mentioned some place called Area 51," Cassie said. "Do either of you know what she was talking about?"
Jake and Marco both raised their eyebrows, looking at Cassie as if she'd just sprouted a third arm.
"You've never heard of Area 51 before?" Marco asked, disbelieving. "It's like the Holy Grail for conspiracy nuts. Haven't you ever gone on the internet? The internet is full of people who think that the government keeps a bunch of aliens captive out there."
"I go on the 'Net," Rachel said, smirking at Marco. "I just don't hang out in chatrooms, call myself 'Studboy', and try to convince people that I'm an incredibly handsome thirty-five year old millionaire."
Marco rolled his eyes right back at Rachel. "Excuse me, but I don't use 'Studboy' as my chatroom screename. Give me some credit. I use 'BaldwinBoyFive'. You know, the missing fifth Baldwin brother? The really cool-looking one."
"Even I know about Area 51," Jake said. "And, unlike Marco, I'm a fairly normal human being."
Miffed, Marco tossed a fry at Jake's head. The flying piece of food was neatly intercepted by Ax; the morphed Andalite popped the bit of food into his mouth and chewed with obvious relish.
"Mmmm, grease. Greassssss and salt!" Ax said, licking the rest of said flavor off his lips.
At that moment, another boy walked slowly toward the table where the five of them were sitting. The boy was dirty-blonde, but that wasn't the first thing that one would notice about him. The thing that was most likely to stick in one's mind after seeing this boy was the fact that he seemed very nervous being in the mall. He looked over his shoulder a lot, and whenever he looked directly at someone, the boy would squint as if he were nearsighted.
"Hey Tobias," Marco called out to the last member of their group to arrive. "We were thinking about ordering some pizza, d'you want mouse meat on yours?"
Tobias shook his head, rolling his eyes at Marco. "So, what's going on?"
"Rachel and Cassie went out to Area 51 last night and found horses making phone calls," Marco shrugged.
Tobias looked from Rachel, to Cassie, and then back to Marco. He raised an eyebrow. "Can someone please translate from Marco-babble into normal english?"
"I think I like you better as a chicken, Tobias," Marco said, giving the other boy a sidelong smirk.
"I'm a Red-Tailed Hawk," Tobias said, giving Marco a long-suffering look.
"Chicken, Pigeon, Hawk, what's the difference?" Marco asked with an offhanded shrug.
"How about we get down to business before someone interrupts us?" Jake cut in.
