Don't worry, the nextpart has no more thoughtspeak signs for me to gripe about incorrect orientation thereof.
Tobias
Loren-my mom!-told us to go to Cassie's. She'd wait for us. I dropped off that second hirac delest, reminded myself to look at it, and flew over the city.
I had not seen the other Animorphs since Cassie and I switched places at the Rachel. I had only gotten a glimpse of them-but they had looked like adults. So different from when we met. And yet, now they looked the same. Jake was wearing a basketball jersey-Ax had told me that he was taking it up full-time as a way to compete more often. Cassie's shirt was grubby, and Marco was, well, being Marco.
Cassie was smiling. "It's the anniversary. Of the day we walked through the construction site. And I just remembered why I was there in the first place. Come on." We followed her into the kitchen. She opened up the freezer and began sorting through things that had been untouched for years. Finally, she came up with a white box. As she removed it, a can of orange juice fell out. It was about to hit the floor and explode when Jake caught it. Cassie set the box down and took the can from Jake. As their fingers touched, both of them grinned a little, and Marco laughed.
"What?" Jake said as Cassie put the can back in and closed it. "I...liked her before, why can't I like her now?"
"I'm not laughing at the relationship, I'm laughing at your intelligence. How could you have not figured that out for so long?" Marco asked. "What's in the box, Cassie?"
>I don't read human writing well, but even I know what it says>, Ax announced. He was morphing human.
She opened it. Six cinnamon rolls were inside that had laid untouched for years. None of us said a word until Marco reached for one, said "Well? Bottoms up!" and bit in. All of a sudden it really was like it had been. We were eating, teasing each other, and celebrating our victory.
I polished off my roll and looked into the box. We had each had one, so there should have been one left. But the others were noticing too-nothing was there.
"Ax?"
"What?"