Chapter 21
"I can't wait to morph the hobby," said Ferdie excitedly. "Should be much better than the crow. Look at those eyes. So fierce. And that beak! Very cool indeed."
We'd made our way round most of the park, acquiring a variety of animals. We now had rattlesnakes, geese, blue sharks and wasps on our list. The majority of the animals we'd chosen were famous for the long distance they travelled to breed or whatever. The reindeer, sharks and rattlesnakes were all migratory, and the geese were well-known as powerful, long distance flyers.
Ferdie had also acquired a couple of other random animals – such as a giraffe - just because 'they would be cool to morph.' The wasp was a bit of a cheat – it had been flying around Philip's head and he'd got so annoyed with it that he's managed to grab it in his hand and acquire it to stop it buzzing. Then I suggested we might need an insect morph, so we passed the wasp around and acquired it too. The shark acquisition had been quite terrifying. Not only had we had to physically touch the creature, we'd had all the trouble of sneaking into to the centre where the tanks were kept. Luckily, the park had closed the sea life exhibit and were keeping the sharks in smaller, separate tanks of their own, ready for transportation to different zoos. We had been lucky, with both the stag and the shark morphs. I was beginning to wonder how long our luck was going to last.
"How are we going to eat?" asked Ferdie.
"What?" I asked, only half listening. Having acquired the all the animals we needed, we had now left the wildlife park, morphed back to crow and were now loitering about in the car park of a nearby closed-down supermarket, having demorphed behind the dumpsters. I had suggested we morph crow as not only was it more familiar than morphing our bird-of-prey animals, but safer too, seeing that we had to fly in close formation for a fairly short distance. The place was deserted. The supermarket was once one of those big, out-of-town ones, accessible only by a slip-road off the dual-carriage way, so was pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I thought it would be a safe enough place to demorph – as long as the CCTV wasn't still working.
Ferdie was now staring at the backdoors of the supermarket, quite possibly contemplating breaking in and looking for food to steal.
"I said, how are we going to eat? We don't have any money. And I'm sure once we get into the wilderness, there won't be any Pizza Express to scrounge from."
I frowned. To be honest, I hadn't really thought about eater. Nor sleeping, or washing or anything like that. I just had this image of us almost continuously as animals on the move, flying as geese or hawks or whatever.
"Um, I'm not sure," I replied. "I guess we'll just eat in our animal morphs." We obviously couldn't bring any food – or anything for that matter. Stags don't look so good wearing Tellytubby backpacks.
"Does eating in morph count for when we're not eating as human?" Philip asked.
"Well, I don't know. I don't know if whatever we do in our animal morphs has an effect on our human bodies." Except possibly dying, I added to myself. "I guess if it doesn't have any effect, we'll have to live off what we find in the wild."
"Good grief," said Philip, "you think you can just survive on berries and stuff?"
"I thought maybe we could use our morphs to find food to eat as humans. Like fish, or whatever."
"Fish! How are you going to cook it? Or maybe you're just going to eat it raw?"
"I don't know, alright!" I yelled. "Why don't you tell us how, Philip?"
"Well you're the one who seems to be leading this little charade! Or at least, leading the easy bits then handing over the responsibility over to someone else when you don't know what to do! Can't you think of something yourself!"
I glared at Philip. No'one yet had actually elected me as leader – there hadn't been a vote or anything like that. Nor had the topic of leadership even arisen. But I realised I'd begun to take on the role nevertheless, strongly suggesting what morphs to acquire, practically forcing the others into doing what I did. I supposed, whether it was originally a conscious thought or not, that someone had to be leader, and I was the best one for the job. But it didn't have to be me, did it? I could easily off the load onto one of the others. Philip, despite his occasional difficultly to get along with, had a good, strategic brain, had led us without any problems to the wildlife park and had helped find himself and Asha some pretty excellent morphs. He'd probably make a very good, if somewhat dominating, leader. Why shouldn't it be him?
"Well fine, why don't you make the decisions? You can be Captain."
But Philips' argument quickly evaporated. He looked at me for a second with a cold, blank stare.
"I'm not leading anything," he said.
This surprised me. I thought he'd be raring to go.
"I'll put my suggestions in," he said. "I'll listen to what you guys have to say, I'll guide you anywhere you want. But I'm not making the decisions. Nor am I being leader."
Great. What was wrong with this guy? One minute he's yelling at me for not getting any answers. Then he's practically telling me to give up my leadership. But, then, as I offer him the opportunity, goes quiet and refuses! I sucked in my breath sharply and rolled my eyes in annoyance. I could see Ferdie and Asha's eyes watching me. Asha looked very confused. But Ferdie looked a little anxious. Almost as if he knew of something I didn't; that he was watching what was going on in us beneath the surface.
"Right well, we'll leave that topic alone then." I glanced at Ferdie. "Does anyone mind if I do this?"
Ferdie was quiet for a second, but then he smiled his cheeky grin and said, "Course not, Sam. I think you'll make a great leader. Show us the way, oh mighty one!" he laughed.
I looked at Asha. "Ash?"
Asha blinked and shrugged her shoulders. "I ain't bovvered about who's leader, as long as it's not me." Good enough, I supposed. I glanced at Philip.
"You know what I think," he said. I sighed. At least that was settled. "Now, where were-"
But I never got to finish, because Asha suddenly interrupted my words with a terrified scream.
