Author's note: I know how to orient the thoughtspeak signs. does not. Sue them, not me.
"He was just a little kid," Cassie whispered, "and I left him for the Yeerks".
You don't know that they got him. He could have made it out. From his perch on the rafters, Tobias seemed to see things differently, almost coldly. He'd cling to that last chance when most sane people considered themselves doomed.
But I'm not sure I qualify as sane.
My name is Rachel. I have the power to turn into a grizzly bear and rip you to shreds. My best friend, my cousin, and even his goofball friend have this power, and we had been fighting a race of parasitic aliens for months in the company of a blue alien with four eyes and a lethal tail, not to mention the hawk that, okay, I was in love with.
Yeah, I think we need to revisit my qualifications.
>If you had stayed, you would assuredly be anothlit now.> Ax the Andalite attempted to comfort Cassie. Out of all of us, she's been hurt the most, but shows it the least. Every battle, which is a thrill to me, is infernal for her. Well, it is for all of us, but…ah forget it.
It seemed like it would never end, the war against the Yeerks. It was so draining, and so depressing. But for once in a blue moon, Marco came up with a decent idea. "One week till Christmas," he remarked casually.
"Really?"
He looked angrily at me, rolled his eyes, and then addressed the group at large. "We deserve a break. Why don't we get together for a party?"
"Because you'd try to use it as an excuse to get me to dance with you."
"Rachel, can you go for fifteen minutes without sarcasm?"
I put my hand to my chin. "No. Can you?"
Jake got us back on track, or at least some semblance of a track. "We don't all celebrate Christmas."
"But it would be nice for us to have some kind of thing. It wouldn't have to be related to the holiday." Cassie's voice was quiet and her cheeks were reddening.
"Why don't I ask my parents if we can have it over at my house? They're looking for a chance to get together with your mom anyhow." Jake suggested.
I don't know how he pulled it off, but somehow my mom, Jordan, Sara, and I were piling out of our station wagon at Jake's front door, and there were Cassie and her parents, and Marco and his dad. Even Ax, in his human morph, was there.
It was December twenty-second. I entered the house as the first snowflakes began to fall.