Chapter 16

"Ahhh, this is certainly more like it," said Ferdie, flopping down onto the bed. "I never thought I'd be so glad to feel a proper blanket ever again."

"I'm all the central heating," I said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Aye - and the complete absence of crawling organisms."

We had managed to sneak into the hotel room at last, and were now enjoying the luxuries of a pretty decent executive room. We'd morphed raptors and located the correct room - which was empty. The door was also wedged open, something I guess they do with rooms that are unoccupied. We demorphed and tried out our new fly morphs, flying in through an open window of an unoccupied room nearby, buzzing out into the corridor and into our room. Now, we were making the most of our comfort time. Who knew how long we would have to wait before getting another proper bed like this? We had a television, which Sam was watching, flicking through the hundreds of American channels looking for news of the Yeerk enterprise. We had a private en-suite with a power-shower, separate bath and complementary shampoo. We also had a proper bed. Only one bed though, a double - and I could guess now which two of us would be nabbing that later on. Luckily there was also a three-seat sofa and extra blankets that one of us could use in the bath as a forth bed.

"I'm going to have a shower," said Ferdie, grabbing one of the big, fluffy towels that were folded neatly in the wardrobe.

"Oh, talk about the perfect gentleman!" laughed Sam sarcastically. "Mr I-want-the-first-shower?"

"Yeah, Flawless," I said, getting to my feet. "Who says you can go in first?"

"My idea, getting us this room," he said chirpily. "Plus, you girls always take hours in the shower. Guys can get in and get out in a couple of minutes." He grinned at Sam and I and pranced into the bathroom. A few moments later, we heard the sound of the shower.

"Fine!" I called. "Just don't use all the shampoo!"

Ferdie, of course, spent about half an hour in the shower. He emerged, flushed red and hair dripping wet, to the three of us curled up on the bed watching Friends on the telly. He was wearing his morphing outfit, minus the boots, which lay in a small puddle of mud on the bathroom floor.

"Why are you watching this?" he asked. "Isn't there anything decent on?"

"I like Friends," I said. "Besides, we're getting a good feel for New York life, watching this. Are you done in the shower now?"

"Yep," he said, springing on the bed and plonking himself down next to Sam. "What a fantastic shower that was. So nice and warm. Better than the stone cold rivers were usually get."

"At last," I said. "Anyone mind if I go next? I promise I won't spend as long in there as Flawless did!"

"That's fine with me," said Philip.

"Me too," said Sam. "I'll go last."

"What, so you get the most amount of time?" Ferdie asked, smirking.

"Something like that," she grinned, batting her eyes at him.

"Maybe we should have grabbed another room for you two," I said rolling my eyes and entering the bathroom. I peeled off my torn and filthy leotard and stepped into the shower, turning the hot water up to maximum. Mmm, bliss. After almost two weeks of living, sleeping and eating outside, often in the middle of nowhere, this was fabulous. It reminded me of the times I'd gone out to Africa with my parents on one of their aid missions. We'd spent months out in the desert, in a village with no proper toilets, no showers, no proper beds. We'd managed to get used to it, and even quite enjoyed it at times, but there was nothing like getting back to Britain and having a nice, hot bath and sleeping in a soft bed. I wondered if I'd ever live a life like that again. I'd thought a lot about my family and my home. I hadn't had any contact with them since the abduction, and dreaded to think how they were coping with my disappearance. Of course, I had long since accepted the fact that none of us had any choice in the matter. We were in a situation no other human being could possible imagine, on the run from the Yeerks and in danger of being killed or infested at any time. We'd had quite a bit on our minds to worry about what was going on back home. And for all we knew, our families had been made Controllers and were hunting for us along with the rest of the Visser Five's army.

I finished washing my hair and stepped reluctantly out of the shower, drying myself off in one of the thick white towels and putting my morphing outfit back on. I really needed a new leotard, I decided. I wondered if I would be able to persuade Ferdie to 'borrow' me another one. I opened the door and let Philip into the shower.

"That was so nice," I said. "Nothing like a good, hot shower after two weeks in the field."

"You should try being in the army," Philip called from the bathroom. "I used to look forward to days when we could actually have a proper wash and a night under a roof."

"I think we are in our own army," said Ferdie. "Probably been in more fights than a lot of soldiers out there."

That night, we each got the best night's sleep we'd had in a long time. Philip attempted to be blasé about the whole situation, saying that he really didn't need warm beds and showers to live, but we all knew he was secretly loving Ferdie's plan. Sam and Ferdie had hogged the bed, and were now curled up under the covers, sheepishly lying in each others' arms. Philip had taken a couple of pillows and some blankets and was asleep in the bath. As for me, I slept a cosy, dreamless sleep on the sofa. It was great not to have to wake up in the middle of the night and morph wolf to keep a look out. It was even better to be able to sleep on a soft sofa rather than the hard, and often wet, ground. Best of all, there were no horrible insects crawling all over me.

The four of us had slept through the night, and woken at around seven in the morning to the sunlight coming in through the window. Time to leave this haven, and set out once again, I thought wearily, as I became aware of Sam throwing the blankets off her and Ferdie and getting to her feet. Ferdie snatched the blankets back and curled up in a tight ball, refusing to get up.

"Come on, Flawless," yawned Sam. "We've got a Concorde to catch." She walked over to the window and opened it wide, ready for us to morph birds and fly out.

"I'm staying here!" Ferdie muttered from somewhere under the covers.

"The cleaners might walk in," I said, getting to my feet. "They think they've got Steven Carlson arriving in a few hours." I walked up to Ferdie and yanked the covers off him, prodding him in the shoulder.

"Come on!" I barked. "Up! Get up!"

Ferdie glared at me and got to his feet. "I hate mornings," he said.

"Even after a night in the same bed as Sam?"

Sam blushed and turned away. Ferdie smirked. "Alright!" he said, throwing a pillow at me. "I'm up!"

"Well, we've not got any more reason to stick around here," said Sam. "Lets go raptor as quickly as possible and make our way back to the airport. We need to get on that Concorde before it leaves."

We morphed to our bird of prey morphs, hopped out onto the windowsill, and flapped out into the early New York air, already bustling with the atmosphere of the rush hour, leaving our warm hotel room behind us.