Chapter 3: Show and Tell

"Ax," Jake said firmly, and the young Andalite cadet pulled his tail back. "Thank you," I said, trying to calm down myself. "Mind if I sit on the couch," I asked as Jake, Cassie, and Rachel stepped aside. I slowly got up to my feet, in agonizing pain. My back was killing me, but my head felt much worse. I sat myself down on the couch closest to me as Jake asked the first two questions that I'm sure were on the group's minds. "Who, and what are you? How do you know who we are?" He took a seat, but left some space in between us.

Since they agreed to be decent around me, I decided to suck it up whenever I'd feel offended. I wasn't going to even try to push anyone's buttons. Unless they tried to push mine.

"My name is Marianne, and I'm human. Like most of you. Only, I can't acquire animal DNA and change shape like you guys can." I took a deep breath and blew out all the tension air I had. "You guys, are obviously not where you think you are." "Uh yeah. We kind of figured that," snapped Rachel. I continued, ignoring her. "You guys probably don't even share the same…reality as I do. Because here, there are no parasitic alien slugs looking for domination on Earth. No Hork-Bajir. No Andalites…"

I let them absorb it in. The looks on their faces? Shock, worry, anger. Rachel looked like she wanted to kill me. No surprise. "What? We're in some parallel dimension or something?" Marco asked. "Well, I'm not sure," I said. "I don't even know how you guys ended up here. I know about you guys, because I used to think…" I shrugged my shoulders in utter confusion in going onto my next statement. "I used to think you six were just fiction. Book series characters."

"WHAT!" most of the kids screamed. Ow, my poor ears… I don't understand, Ax said, and he didn't. No one around me did. I stood up. "I'll show you," I said, rubbing my sore right temple. Ax, you're SO going to apologize to me once I'm through with the explaining… Remaining as calm as possible, but not anytime soon to stop feeling moody, I led them back to the bookroom. I had all the Animorphs series together, and they took up the whole bottom shelf. I began to pull some of the books out, passing them Rachel and the others. "I ordered them by the events that occurred. I have every single book. …Also a book about your TV show actors, but I don't know where it is right now." "Whoa, a TV show too?" Marco said, incredulous while reading the back of book number 5, The Predator. The first book in which he narrates.

"K.A. Applegate is the author of the series. You guys came from her imagination. She created you," I said, helping myself back up to my feet again. I bumped into Jake and nearly fell over. He caught me by the arm just in time. The bookroom was so small only up to two people could actually stand around in it comfortably. Jake, Marco, Rachel, and I were in the room. Everyone else stood in the hall. Tobias though, was perched on the wicker chair in the middle of the room, beside one of my keyboards that I like to jam on from time to time.

"Okay, let's take these back to the living room," I said, and everyone obliged. We didn't like being all crowded together in a small space. I could see that Marco had the first five books. From The Invasion to the Predator. Rachel was holding a bunch of the others. Including the first two Megamorphs. Jake was holding some of the special books. The Andalite Chronicles, The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, and Visser.

I was in my previous seat, quiet and looked as they were looking through some of the books. Marco was reading through the first chapter of The Invasion, it seemed. He read some of it aloud. I was nervous. What if I made a mistake? They wouldn't blame me or anything, right?

-(So, that is what actually happened to Elfangor,)- Ax wondered, his main eyes open in sadness, his stalk eyes drooping downward. My heart sank to my stomach in sympathy for him. Ax has cared so deeply for his brother. "You read all these?" asked Rachel. I nodded and said, "Yup…" "Does anyone have the last book," Cassie asked. Without hesitation, she went to go get it. I couldn't stop her. Now that I found out these characters came to life all of a sudden, it would've been cruel of me to do so. These guys were as real as I was. I realized that.

Soon, she came back out with book 54, The Beginning. I didn't know, back in their reality, if the Yeerks were still doing this in secret, or in an open war. I soon found that out as Cassie blurted as she skimmed through the pages. "Oh my God… This actually goes into open war." Then, her face became one a lighter shade of brown. She looked like she'd been slapped. "Cassie?" Jake rushed to her side. She tried to avoid what I thought that she found out.

"Jake…I don't think you want to know," Cassie said, in a soft scared voice. Her voice was just shrinking and withering away as I suddenly felt sick inside.