To Quillian: Hi! Thanks for all your reviews for far! Yes…I thought about them catching a plane too, but then that would make a very short and boring story. It would also be very much like Book 16 and we can't have that! Besides, I've something exciting planned for the next story and it can't take place on a plane! Hehe.

Chapter 18

Wasps. What a thing to have to have to morph. Tiny, buzzy, ugly little wasps. As far from human as you can get. Not even remotely like any of the morphs I'd done before. I suppose, after morphing a great deal of pretty amazing animals - stags, lynxes and raptors, for instance, we'd have to revert sometime to the ugly and the creepy to get the job done.

"Sheesh, Sam, if you'd have told us we'd be turning into wasps two days ago, I don't think I'd have wanted to come on this road trip," I said.

"I think I should go first," said Philip. Maggie, having never acquired a wasp, was about to do her beetle morph again. It was not an experience she had enjoyed. Sam, who would be our taxi, was getting ready to morph to crow.

"And why is that, Philip?" asked Sam. "I thought you didn't want to be leading anything."

Philip gave her a sour look. "None of us have done this morph before," he said, looking at Sam and I. "We don't know what it will be like to control. And we have no idea what its senses are going to be like."

"What can you tell us about wasps, Maggie? Anything you can tell us will be appreciated."

"Well, it wasn't really wasps my parents were helping to save, more like rhinos and that, laughed Maggie. She bruished her hand through her straggly red hair and straigtened her morphing outfit, thinking. "But I do know a few things," she said. "The first thing you'll notice is the compound eyes. They're nothing like human eyes. When I was a beetle, it was a lot like watching a thousand television screens all at once, from all angles. Each shows a slightly different picture, but together you get a pretty good, if bizarre, image of the world. Bees, I know, see different colours to humans, so I'm not sure if wasps do too. Its hearing will be strange too - more like feeling sounds than hearing them. That was the beetle, anyway. Oh, and then there's the wings. The flying, I can imagine, will be very different to flying as birds. And, um, try not to get angry and sting anyone! Unlike bees, you can sting as many times as you want, but it will probably just attract attention!"

"Cool. Thanks, Mags. I hope you were listening to that, Ferd. You'll be doing this in a minute."

"Gosh, yes, don't remind me," I said grimly.

The plan was a risky one, and - no offence, Philip - but a not particularly well thought out one. It involved sneaking into the main office of the port (James Bond, anyone!) as wasps, setting off the fire alarm (that was my idea - a favourite prank of mine), Philip demorphing and grabbing a computer, hacking in to the port's database of departing or departed ships (good grief!) finding a ship on it's way to America, and getting aboard it. All without getting squashed, swatted or seen by Controllers. We would be our most risky when Philip was demorphed. Visser Five, the Yeerk trying his utmost to find us, and his henchmen, could recognise any of us a mile off. And it would be down to the Yeerk pool for the four of us.

Sam looked at me. "When Philip gives the ok in thought-speak, you and Maggie morph to wasp and beetle."

"Yeah, yeah," I grumbled. I had never wanted to acquire the stupid thing in the first place, but it had been buzzing round Philip's head, and Sam had suggested we all acquire it incase we ever needed an insect morph. "I can tell now that this is going to be sickening to watch."

Philip narrowed his eyes, concentrating on the image of the wasp.

"Get this done quickly, please, Philip," I said. Philip has a bit of a talent for fast morphing, although lacks the ability to make it any prettier.

"Yah!" I yelped. The first thing that changed was Philip's eyes. They just seemed to pop out of his head, growing like huge balloons emerging from his eye sockets. Next to change was his body. It pinched in two - a small thorax forming out of his torso, and a huge, swollen abdomen with a nasty looking stinger from his lower half. His arms and legs were becoming black, hairy, and multi-jointed. His fingers disappeared, to be replaced by tiny black claws. But he was still human in size.

"Hurry up and shrink, Philip," I moaned. "I really don't want to be having to watch all this in such detail."

Philip did begin to shrink. But not fast enough. As he shrank, his head finished reforming into that of the insect. His mouth and nose became covered in the hard exoskeleton of the wasp, then stretched outwards to form a tear shaped head, complete with gnashing mandibles. Long antennae popped out of his forehead. And, even worse, another pair of legs popped out from his chest. Black, sharp, hairy. I resisted the urge to throw up.

Philip had so far been reacting to the changes with his typical still upper lip, but even he was breaking down after watching that.

--Urgh!-- he cried in thought-speak, quite out of character. --You're turn next for this, Flawless!-- He fell onto all fours - or, all sixes - and experimentally twitched his new limbs. He was almost fully wasp now, a shifting monstrosity about the size of a mouse. At long last, four fine gossamer wings popped out of his back. He opened them, and propelled himself into the air.

"Philip?" said Sam. "I hope you're not losing control of the morph there?"

Philip buzzed around her head, seemingly randomly.

"Oh, typical!" she said. "I knew this would happen! Ferdie, see if you can try and catch- "

Luckily, whatever Sam was about to suggest, I wouldn't have to do, as at last Philip replied.

--Well,-- he said stiffly. --This is all rather exciting. Excellent wings on this creature. Ugly, but definitely able to fly. Ferdie, I think you'll enjoy this,-- he said, buzzing round my head. --The wasp's mind isn't as bad as I thought. It sort of wants to go and rejoin its colony, but, now sensing any more wasps, it's lost interest."

"Cool," said Sam. She looked at me and grinned. "Ready, Flawless?"

"Ready as I'll ever be!" I laughed, trying to keep the nerves from showing in my voice.