Chapter 7

"Any reason why you acquired a moose?"

"What I'd like to know is how you managed to get near to it."

"And why weren't you keeping watch?"

It was morning at last, and the four of us were sat in a little circle nibbling on some berries and mushrooms Philip had found for us. It wasn't much, but we were all hungry and was as good as we could get right now. Sam had given us a lie in by doing a four hour watch, having done the last two hours as falcon. Now, Sam and Philip were discussing my new morph. Sam wanted to know how I'd got it.

"It was just there, alright, Sam?" I said in response to Sam's bugging. "It was mooing away and I Ferdie thought and I thought it would be a good opportunity to acquire something new!"

"So, Ferdie egged you on, did he?" said Sam.

Ferdie rolled his eyes and laughed. "Yup," he said. "It always comes down to the Flawless Lawless."

"Ferdie didn't egg me on, I decided to do it myself! And anyway, I don't see what the problem is, it's not like I was putting anyone in any danger or anything. I thought you'd be pleased."

Sam's expression softened. "Running into the forest in the middle of a night is a pretty silly thing to do, Mags," she said. "And no'one was keeping watch whilst you were at it."

"It wasn't like I was running into the wood without any protection," I retorted. "I was a wolf, remember? And Ferdie was keeping watch as stag."

Sam sighed and looked at me. I think this whole response to me acquiring the moose was just her way of reminding us who was in charge. We'd all voted her as leader, and now she liked to keep tabs on us all by wanting to know everything we did before we did it.

"You're too much like an over protected mother, Sam," I said, picking at my mushroom.

"I'm just trying not to get us all killed, or captured, remember?" She paused, then allowed herself a slight smile. "Look. I think it's great you've got a new morph. I can't wait to see it. But just be careful next time, ok? We're in an unknown country, being chased by Visser Five and we have no idea who might be watching us."

"Aye, alright," I said, not entirely satisfied. "So, what's the plan for today then?"

"Yeah, Wonder Woman," said Ferdie. "Do we get to meet some actual Americans today?"

Sam laughed lightly, our team was back on track. "I thought we would go and check out that town today. It's only a small one, basically a village, but we could probably find some money and grab a bite to eat. Find out where we are, work out where to go next. We've got to get from here to San Francisco - that's a heck of a long way. I can't see how we're going to manage it as animals."

"Train?" asked Philip. "I thought we agreed back in the UK that we couldn't risk any public transport."

"Look, it's just a thought. I don't think any of us realised what we were getting ourselves into when we set off on this journey, how far it would end up being."

"Well, I don't know about you guys," interrupted Ferdie, "but this breakfast hasn't quite satisfied my stomach. I say we have a proper meal as soon as we can, before my stomach starts growling at me again."

"Sheesh, Ferdie, you and your stomach!" I laughed. "Do you ever not think about food?"

"Food is a fascinating subject," he grinned.

"Not when we can't experience first hand," I said wryly.

"Ok, guys," said Sam, breaking us off. "Lets get going. We want to go north - that's that way." She pointed in the direction of the mountains.

"Birds, right?" asked Philip.

"That's what I first thought, as it would be quicker, but maybe Maggie should have a go at her moose morph. Get some practice in case she needs it. Ferdie and I will go as falcons, Philip, you go ibex with Maggie and keep an eye out at ground level."

"Cool, thanks Sam," I said, already picturing the animal in my mind. "Wonder what it's like?"

"What would you need a moose morph for anyway?" asked Philip, starting to morph to ibex. I think, by his tone, he meant it to be a rhetorical question, but Ferdie answered anyway.

"It's to scare Controllers down from trees," he replied.

"What?"

"They're so tall, they don't even need to climb," he said. Philip gave him a blank look.

"Whatever," he said, huge horns suddenly leaping out of his forehead. "Just get your feathers on."

Whilst the others morphed more familiar animals, I was trying out a brand new one. I had no idea what to expect as I held the image of the moose in my mind. The first thing to appear was the fur. Thick, coarse and brown, it covered my entire body like a tight fur coat. My body grew huge. My shoulders dropped forwards, growing, expanding, upwards and outwards. They grew a large hump, giving the impression that I was the hunchback of Notre Dame. This was the first large morph I'd done. The others had all got deer, horse and large goat morphs, but my largest so far had been a wolf. For everything, I'd always shrunk. Now, I was experiencing what it was like to grow. My back was arching upwards, almost seven feet high. My neck thickened and curved forwards, but my bum was enormous! My leg and elbow joints were changing direction, the bones shifting and reforming with sickening crunches and squelches. My toes and fingers hardened and formed four boney hooves. Morphing is never painful, but it is always a very strange feeling. My face and head were changing too, now. Up to this point, I'd been a moose with a human head. Now, my face was being pushed outwards, growing a huge, long snout. My eyes weakened and slid to either side of the snout. My nose grew large and wet, my sense of smell improving. My ears moved up the side of my face, growing longer and giving me hearing almost as good as my wolfs'. A curious little bell of fur, called a dewlap, grew out of my lower chin, where my Adam's apple would have been. And finally, two pairs of huge, flattened antlers emerged from my head, five feet wide at the tips, like a tree growing in time-lapse photography. I gave my head an experimental shake, barely noticing the weight of the antlers. Finally, I felt the moose's mind emerge, surfacing beneath my own. Territorial, skittish, but a lot calmer than I'd imagined. It was interested in food, eager to search for roots, or wade into the nearby stream for plant life, or wander off in search for a mate. Overall, not a particularly challenging mind to deal with. It was the size that excited me.

--Woah, I've never been this big before!-- I saw, letting the others know I was in control. They were all fully morphed by now - Sam was her lanner falcon, Ferdie was a hobbie, and Philip was his ibex, a morph he'd only done once before.

--Great stuff. That moose does look pretty amazing, Mags, if a little wierd-- said Sam, flapping her wings and taking off into the air. Ferdie followed her, and they began to drift above us in lazy circles.

--That's what you were making a fuss about last night?-- Ferdie scoffed. --"Impaled on it's horns,"that'swhat you told me. I don't think so.--

--Lets get going,-- said Philip making his way into the depths of the forest. Sam and Ferdie led the way from the sky leaving Philip and I to get to know our morphs a little better.