Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
Chapter 5
We all tensed.
What sound?
After a few frustrating minutes went by, during which time every animal noise imaginable assaulted our hyper-sensitive ears, Rachel rolled her eyes in exasperation. Cassie gave a wry grimace.
"Well, Jake, this is a barn. You'll have to be a teensy bit more specific if you want us to identify that sound for you."
"I can't hear it now. Just for a second, though, I could have sworn I heard a static sound. You know, like someone opening a bag of chips…or a radio." We all looked at each other as the implications of the mysterious sound sunk in. There were only two possible reasons why someone would be operating a radio near Cassie's barn. The first was that her father had come home early. The second was distinctly less pleasant—and unfortunately, the more likely to occur.
"Ax? Get into an earth-morph, pronto- human or something very small. Tobias? Sorry, buddy, but you need to get into a cage. A loose red-tail will generate too many awkward questions. Cassie, squirrel morph. We need to know what is happening outside." Tobias was in the air even before Jake finished rapping out his orders, heading for the row of cages Cassie and her father kept against the stall walls. Cassie immediately sprouted gray fur. Jake looked around in concern. "Ax?"
"Where is he?"
Tobias, flaring for a landing on top of the cage, suddenly doubled over with laughter and plowed into the hay bale in front of it.
"C-come see," he burbled, shaking with silent laughter as he winged his way over to one of the stalls. A hawk convulsed with laughter is a very odd sight, indeed. Rachel reached Tobias and began to smile. Cassie, in spite of the fact she had been halfway into becoming one of Tobias's favorite snack foods, was just a fraction of a second behind Rachel, and giggled all the way through the transition from thought-speak to her normal voice. "I think we've found the source of your 'noise,' Jake..."
Ax sat in happy oblivion, completely unaware of the ring of faces staring at him in amused horror. You see, he been in such a hurry that he had actually stopped part-way into human morph. His body was mostly human, although his hands still had too many fingers on them and withered eyestalks sprouted from rumpled hair. His tail was nowhere in evidence and he appeared to be bipedal. But this partial morph wasn't the cause of our hilarity. Oh, no.
Ax was still covered in the natural blue fur of the Andilite race, made more luxurious by some unknown factor as he transformed from, well, Andilite, to mammal. And his head was buried in the same bag of chocolate chip cookies that had caused his crazed haste in the first place. Crumbs flew everywhere as the rapturous aristh attempted to fit four of the deluxe cookies into his mouth at once. Every so often he would give a snuffling kind of snort as he attempted to breath through the chocolaty mess. Simultaneously all our eyes met, merry with suppressed mirth. All was still for a moment save for the sound of happy mumblings and masticated cookie.
"Well, I hate to be the one to say this, but...COOOKIE!" I roared and burst out laughing. "We should make him audition for Sesame Street, we really should. Can you imagine the money they'd save, having a real, live cookie monster? Can you imagine the money they'd pay?"
"Which you, of course, would use to go visit King Friday."
"Of course," I grinned at Rachel and mentally kicked myself. Sure, I'd been scared and babbling at the time, but I still should've had the sense to keep that dream to myself. It was just too valuable as blackmail material. "And Mr. Dress-up and Ernie and Bert and Big Bird; wait, I could be Big Bird..."
"You go for it, bird-brain."
"A-hey, watch it with the bird jokes there. I resemble some of them!"
Jake was desperately snorting into his hand, trying to keep a straight face. Cassie wasn't even trying and had fallen back on a hay bale, holding her stomach and wiping tears from her eyes. She turned away for a moment to compose herself and stiffened, squinting into the gloom on the far side of the barn. Rachel noticed first.
"Cassie? Hey, earth to Cassie, what's wrong?" Cassie didn't respond. Instead she paced forward, a puzzled look on her face as she examined the equipment sitting in the dark, murmuring "I was sure I'd left that over there..."
After a moment, her expression cleared and she laughed. "Nice try, Eric. Come on out."
See? They are getting longer. Unfortunately this means it takes longer to write them, too...I have a feeling that I'm straying away from canon. I'll try to get back to it...