"Hey, Michelle. Michael. Do either of you have gifts?" asked Phil.
They looked at each other, and Michelle said, "Yes, we do. They're about the same, though, only Michael needed to touch one first."
"What?" went Holly and Melissa.
"That could be taken wrong..." said Geordie.
Michelle threw a towel at him.
"Just for that, Michael's on his own."
"Whoa, wait a moment. You kept after me making sure that I wouldn't back out. So don't you back out now."
"Fine, fine. Ok," Michelle said, sounding anything but ok, "But you go first."
"All right." Michael looked straight ahead, arms held loosely at his sides, not looking at anyone, concentrating. Then, a light mist came up around him, and Michael wasn't Michael anymore. He was mostly blue, and had feathers, two claws, two wings, and a beak. And he was hovering where his head was originally.
"Whoa...you're a budgie!" exclaimed Adam.
{Pretty much,} said Michael, {I'd be an eagle, but Michelle doesn't own one.}
"Wait, I know that Michelle's budgie's a female. So you're a female budgie now?" asked Holly.
"Quick sex change," commented Geordie.
"Geordie!" Melissa exclaimed.
{Uh...I never thought of that. Michelle?}
"Here. Land on my finger."
{Depends. Where are you gonna look?}
Michelle rolled her eyes at him.
"At your beak. I can't see the colour of your beak with you flying like that."
"That could also be taken wrong," said (you guessed it) Geordie.
Mike landed on Michelle's index finger and she looked closely at his beak.
"It's coloured blue," announced Michelle, "You're a male budgie."
{So I'm gonna assume now that all my morphs are going to be male.}
"Wait, you said Michelle could do basically the same thing. So...Michelle, you can morph?" asked Phil. "Yep. And I'm cooler cuz I can morph imaginatively. I need not go through the troubles of acquiring. My budgie was really hard to catch. Oh, and best of all, I don't think there's no time limit."
"How do you know?" asked Melissa.
{She's crazy, and she stayed as a bat for a week. AND THEN SHE MADE ME DO THE SAME!!!}
"What did your parent's say?" asked Phil.
"Oh, I was staying at his place during that time, while his parents were gone, and my parents had stuff to do. I could've stayed as a bat for two weeks, but he made me change back."
{Both our parents don't know about this.}
"As well as my brother."
"Make that, all of our parents," corrected Geordie.
"So Michelle, morph," urged Phil.
"Ok, but one more thing. Melissa, you still interested in looking like a pirate? Long story, Mike."
"Sure, why not?"
"Then drape a towel over one of your shoulders. I don't want to claw you."
{And I will get of your finger now,} said Mike as he alighted, though not before Michelle stroked his feathers, as Adam noticed.
Michelle didn't concentrate as hard as Michael did. Later she explained this was because she morphed as much as she could, every chance she got. Michael was more reserved.
Once Michael flew off, almost instantly the air sparkled around her, and her body was replaced by a macaw parrot.
{And now we have, Pirate Moe! Scurvy, dreaded pirate of the seven seas!} said Michelle as she landed on Melissa's towel covered shoulder.
"Arr!" went Melissa.
{And I don't care too much for this morph. Oh, wait. There's something I've always wanted to do,} Michelle as the parrot opened it's beak and rasped, "Awk! Polly don't want a cracker! Polly don't want a cracker! Awk!"
"That's what you've always wanted to do?" asked Adam incredulously, "Just that?"
{Either do it or hear a parrot say it. Why are parrots usually named 'Polly' anyway?} asked Michelle as she left Melissa to land on the ground.
{Maybe because the name 'Polly' starts with a letter 'p', just like parrot,} answered Michael. He morphed back into himself.
"Nooooo," gasped Phil sarcastically.
"Ah well," shrugged Holly, "It's Nutmeg's purpose in life to do pointless things. She says so herself."
"Well, she's doing a very good job of it," nodded Melissa.
"Speaking of which..." Phil looked around, frowning, "Where is she?"
The other's looked around as well. They couldn't see Michelle either.
"Eh...what morphs can she do that are invisible?" Geordie asked Mike and Holly, "I mean, I don't like the idea of our not seeing Michelle. She can be very mischievous and-AGH!!"
Suddenly, an abnormally strong gust of wind knocked Geordie off of his feet.
"Holly! What was that fo-WHOA!!" Geordie jumped up only to be knocked down again.
"He-he...That wasn't me, Sir Graceful."
"Then who was it?!?"
"It's just a little wind..." the air whispered into Geordie's ears, once he was up again.
"Agh!! A wind spirit!! It's talking to me!!" yelled Geordie, falling over yet again, "It's come to kill me!"
Just then, Michelle appeared beside Geordie.
"Do you really need to practice your dramatic skills all that often now? Give me a break!"
"Um...I'm lost. I didn't hear anything before Geordie fell over for the third time screaming," said Adam, "Could someone please explain?"
"I second the motion," added Melissa.
"And I third it. The bill is passed," added Phil, "I mean...hi."
"Basically..." started Holly, then she looked at Michael, "Here. You'd probably explain it better."
"Ok. Michelle's extremely talented, as in freakily extremely talented, and she can morph into any animal, water, the wind, music, fire, light itself, even mythical creatures. But no in-animate objects."
"Michael, on the other hand," continued Michelle, "Has a slightly more difficult task. His morphing, though without a time limit, requires actual, obtained DNA. If you read Animorphs, you get this. If not, then basically he needs to acquire actual morphs through touch."
"He needs actual animals?" Phil whistled, "That's gotta be tough. But what about acquiring Michelle while she's in morph?"
"Believe it or not, it works," answered Michelle, "We tested this on me as a lion...by the way, he has personal reasons to want to be able to protect himself...and it worked."
"Personal reasons?" thought Melissa.
"What if, say, you got a person in morph to mate with either another animal or another morpher. What would happen to the kids?" asked Geordie.
"Let's not go there," answered Michelle, giving him a look.
"Why not?" asked Geordie, trying not to laugh.
Michelle quickly transformed into a grey wolf, and crouched, baring her teeth at Geordie.
{Because I know you, and you probably have something very twisted in mind. Besides, I'll bite you if you keep this up. And you know I will.}
"Down girl...good girl...stay there while I run away..." said Geordie quietly as he backed away, "Ok, ok, we'll drop this idea."
Michelle transformed straight into a golden retreiver, and sat smiling, letting her tongue hang out.
{Good.}
"So...what do we do now? Michelle's original plans were to talk about...ok, she said slave labour, which I don't-"
Michael was interrupted by Melissa's laughing, and frowned at her until she stopped.
"Sorry," Melissa tried to smother her giggles, "Go on."
"As I was saying...she originally wanted to talk about school and stuff, but then she also wanted to show you guys my, Holly, and her mutations so that maybe you'd tell us if you had mutations of your own. And she also wanted to introduce me."
{But now we don't have anything to do here that would include all of us.}
"Then let's just exclude Mike!" suggested Adam.
{That would be mean.}
"Boo."
"I told my parents that I'd only be here for an hour, and it's nearly three o'clock now," said Melissa, "I live pretty far, so I have to go now."
"And my parents don't know I'm out of the house, and they'll probably come home from work in about an hour," said Holly, " I still have some chores to do before they get back, so I have to get walking now."
"I'm staying over at Phil's until school starts," added Geordie, "And for some reason, his parents don't trust us leaving the house together for extended amounts of time."
{I wonder why,} thought Adam privately to Michelle and Michael.
"So in other words, we have to head home," finished Phil, and he and Geordie ran to catch up with the girls.
"Um...I've got nothing to do for a couple hours. My mom knows where I am, but doesn't expect me back since I'm going to my dad's house. And he won't be home until about six."
{Then come over to my place. My parent's don't really care who comes over, and won't be back 'til seven.}
"Yeah, come on."
Adam shrugged, "Sure. Could I talk to Michelle for a moment, Mike?"
"Ok."
Michael jogged a bit of the way ahead of Michelle and Adam, going down Lloyd Manor Road, and led the way home.
{What did you want to talk about, Adam?}
{Guess.}
{You're wondering how I feel about Michael.}
{You're good. Now make that a question and answer it.}
{Well...we've been friends for a long time. He's a lot like a brother to me. And...lately you haven't been very interested in me.}
{What do you mean?}
{We never talk much. We never talk about anything deeper than Pokemon.}
{Well, you always block. You never offer any information or bring anything up.}
{What CAN I talk about. Admit it, we have nothing in common. You want nothing to do with my religion, and it's important to me. It doesn't seem like you care about my family. You don't want to hear about anything personal. All you really want are the kisses, the sweet talk...and that isn't really all that important in a relatonship.}
{In other words, you wish that you could get more from me? That I'm not giving enough attention to you?}
{I don't care about the attention! I just want you to realize that there's more to me than my body. Ok?}
{Do you honestly think I'm that shallow?}
{It certainly seems that way.}
They looked at each other, and Michelle said, "Yes, we do. They're about the same, though, only Michael needed to touch one first."
"What?" went Holly and Melissa.
"That could be taken wrong..." said Geordie.
Michelle threw a towel at him.
"Just for that, Michael's on his own."
"Whoa, wait a moment. You kept after me making sure that I wouldn't back out. So don't you back out now."
"Fine, fine. Ok," Michelle said, sounding anything but ok, "But you go first."
"All right." Michael looked straight ahead, arms held loosely at his sides, not looking at anyone, concentrating. Then, a light mist came up around him, and Michael wasn't Michael anymore. He was mostly blue, and had feathers, two claws, two wings, and a beak. And he was hovering where his head was originally.
"Whoa...you're a budgie!" exclaimed Adam.
{Pretty much,} said Michael, {I'd be an eagle, but Michelle doesn't own one.}
"Wait, I know that Michelle's budgie's a female. So you're a female budgie now?" asked Holly.
"Quick sex change," commented Geordie.
"Geordie!" Melissa exclaimed.
{Uh...I never thought of that. Michelle?}
"Here. Land on my finger."
{Depends. Where are you gonna look?}
Michelle rolled her eyes at him.
"At your beak. I can't see the colour of your beak with you flying like that."
"That could also be taken wrong," said (you guessed it) Geordie.
Mike landed on Michelle's index finger and she looked closely at his beak.
"It's coloured blue," announced Michelle, "You're a male budgie."
{So I'm gonna assume now that all my morphs are going to be male.}
"Wait, you said Michelle could do basically the same thing. So...Michelle, you can morph?" asked Phil. "Yep. And I'm cooler cuz I can morph imaginatively. I need not go through the troubles of acquiring. My budgie was really hard to catch. Oh, and best of all, I don't think there's no time limit."
"How do you know?" asked Melissa.
{She's crazy, and she stayed as a bat for a week. AND THEN SHE MADE ME DO THE SAME!!!}
"What did your parent's say?" asked Phil.
"Oh, I was staying at his place during that time, while his parents were gone, and my parents had stuff to do. I could've stayed as a bat for two weeks, but he made me change back."
{Both our parents don't know about this.}
"As well as my brother."
"Make that, all of our parents," corrected Geordie.
"So Michelle, morph," urged Phil.
"Ok, but one more thing. Melissa, you still interested in looking like a pirate? Long story, Mike."
"Sure, why not?"
"Then drape a towel over one of your shoulders. I don't want to claw you."
{And I will get of your finger now,} said Mike as he alighted, though not before Michelle stroked his feathers, as Adam noticed.
Michelle didn't concentrate as hard as Michael did. Later she explained this was because she morphed as much as she could, every chance she got. Michael was more reserved.
Once Michael flew off, almost instantly the air sparkled around her, and her body was replaced by a macaw parrot.
{And now we have, Pirate Moe! Scurvy, dreaded pirate of the seven seas!} said Michelle as she landed on Melissa's towel covered shoulder.
"Arr!" went Melissa.
{And I don't care too much for this morph. Oh, wait. There's something I've always wanted to do,} Michelle as the parrot opened it's beak and rasped, "Awk! Polly don't want a cracker! Polly don't want a cracker! Awk!"
"That's what you've always wanted to do?" asked Adam incredulously, "Just that?"
{Either do it or hear a parrot say it. Why are parrots usually named 'Polly' anyway?} asked Michelle as she left Melissa to land on the ground.
{Maybe because the name 'Polly' starts with a letter 'p', just like parrot,} answered Michael. He morphed back into himself.
"Nooooo," gasped Phil sarcastically.
"Ah well," shrugged Holly, "It's Nutmeg's purpose in life to do pointless things. She says so herself."
"Well, she's doing a very good job of it," nodded Melissa.
"Speaking of which..." Phil looked around, frowning, "Where is she?"
The other's looked around as well. They couldn't see Michelle either.
"Eh...what morphs can she do that are invisible?" Geordie asked Mike and Holly, "I mean, I don't like the idea of our not seeing Michelle. She can be very mischievous and-AGH!!"
Suddenly, an abnormally strong gust of wind knocked Geordie off of his feet.
"Holly! What was that fo-WHOA!!" Geordie jumped up only to be knocked down again.
"He-he...That wasn't me, Sir Graceful."
"Then who was it?!?"
"It's just a little wind..." the air whispered into Geordie's ears, once he was up again.
"Agh!! A wind spirit!! It's talking to me!!" yelled Geordie, falling over yet again, "It's come to kill me!"
Just then, Michelle appeared beside Geordie.
"Do you really need to practice your dramatic skills all that often now? Give me a break!"
"Um...I'm lost. I didn't hear anything before Geordie fell over for the third time screaming," said Adam, "Could someone please explain?"
"I second the motion," added Melissa.
"And I third it. The bill is passed," added Phil, "I mean...hi."
"Basically..." started Holly, then she looked at Michael, "Here. You'd probably explain it better."
"Ok. Michelle's extremely talented, as in freakily extremely talented, and she can morph into any animal, water, the wind, music, fire, light itself, even mythical creatures. But no in-animate objects."
"Michael, on the other hand," continued Michelle, "Has a slightly more difficult task. His morphing, though without a time limit, requires actual, obtained DNA. If you read Animorphs, you get this. If not, then basically he needs to acquire actual morphs through touch."
"He needs actual animals?" Phil whistled, "That's gotta be tough. But what about acquiring Michelle while she's in morph?"
"Believe it or not, it works," answered Michelle, "We tested this on me as a lion...by the way, he has personal reasons to want to be able to protect himself...and it worked."
"Personal reasons?" thought Melissa.
"What if, say, you got a person in morph to mate with either another animal or another morpher. What would happen to the kids?" asked Geordie.
"Let's not go there," answered Michelle, giving him a look.
"Why not?" asked Geordie, trying not to laugh.
Michelle quickly transformed into a grey wolf, and crouched, baring her teeth at Geordie.
{Because I know you, and you probably have something very twisted in mind. Besides, I'll bite you if you keep this up. And you know I will.}
"Down girl...good girl...stay there while I run away..." said Geordie quietly as he backed away, "Ok, ok, we'll drop this idea."
Michelle transformed straight into a golden retreiver, and sat smiling, letting her tongue hang out.
{Good.}
"So...what do we do now? Michelle's original plans were to talk about...ok, she said slave labour, which I don't-"
Michael was interrupted by Melissa's laughing, and frowned at her until she stopped.
"Sorry," Melissa tried to smother her giggles, "Go on."
"As I was saying...she originally wanted to talk about school and stuff, but then she also wanted to show you guys my, Holly, and her mutations so that maybe you'd tell us if you had mutations of your own. And she also wanted to introduce me."
{But now we don't have anything to do here that would include all of us.}
"Then let's just exclude Mike!" suggested Adam.
{That would be mean.}
"Boo."
"I told my parents that I'd only be here for an hour, and it's nearly three o'clock now," said Melissa, "I live pretty far, so I have to go now."
"And my parents don't know I'm out of the house, and they'll probably come home from work in about an hour," said Holly, " I still have some chores to do before they get back, so I have to get walking now."
"I'm staying over at Phil's until school starts," added Geordie, "And for some reason, his parents don't trust us leaving the house together for extended amounts of time."
{I wonder why,} thought Adam privately to Michelle and Michael.
"So in other words, we have to head home," finished Phil, and he and Geordie ran to catch up with the girls.
"Um...I've got nothing to do for a couple hours. My mom knows where I am, but doesn't expect me back since I'm going to my dad's house. And he won't be home until about six."
{Then come over to my place. My parent's don't really care who comes over, and won't be back 'til seven.}
"Yeah, come on."
Adam shrugged, "Sure. Could I talk to Michelle for a moment, Mike?"
"Ok."
Michael jogged a bit of the way ahead of Michelle and Adam, going down Lloyd Manor Road, and led the way home.
{What did you want to talk about, Adam?}
{Guess.}
{You're wondering how I feel about Michael.}
{You're good. Now make that a question and answer it.}
{Well...we've been friends for a long time. He's a lot like a brother to me. And...lately you haven't been very interested in me.}
{What do you mean?}
{We never talk much. We never talk about anything deeper than Pokemon.}
{Well, you always block. You never offer any information or bring anything up.}
{What CAN I talk about. Admit it, we have nothing in common. You want nothing to do with my religion, and it's important to me. It doesn't seem like you care about my family. You don't want to hear about anything personal. All you really want are the kisses, the sweet talk...and that isn't really all that important in a relatonship.}
{In other words, you wish that you could get more from me? That I'm not giving enough attention to you?}
{I don't care about the attention! I just want you to realize that there's more to me than my body. Ok?}
{Do you honestly think I'm that shallow?}
{It certainly seems that way.}