"Who's eating first?" Jake's dad asked.
"I would very much like to eat. Tweet is a bird sound. Did you make spaghetti? Ti?" Guess who.
>Wasn't that me?>
Yeah, Ax.
"Yeah, I did make spaghetti. Okay, would you three like to go ahead?" He indicated Cassie and her parents. I really hoped he wasn't still trying to make up for Tom's humor.
"I don't think that would be a good idea." Cassie's mom elbowed her husband. "Otherwise nobody else would have anything to eat."
While they argued, I lay down on the couch and mindlessly ran my fingers through my hair, trying to get over the trauma of having Marco extricate me. And realized I hadn't washed my hair that morning. "Jake? Tom?"
The latter was still disturbed from the resurrection of Uggle-grr, so Jake responded. "Yeah?"
"What kind of shampoo do you guys have here?"
"Uh, just…the normal kind?"
"The normal kind? Whaddaya mean the normal kind?"
He wrinkled his eyebrows. "How many kinds are there?"
Cassie smiled. "Jake, welcome to my life."
"Aw…it's bearable."
"Emphasis on "bear"?" Cassie winked at Tom, who clenched his eyes closed even tighter. No-his Yeerk. Did it help me any to remember that?
>I don't know.>
That was a rhetorical question.
While I looked up at the ceiling, full of angst over my condition, time passed. Once again I was last to eat. "Aren't you going to have anything?" Cassie's mom, who else?
"I'm not hungry. Jordan or Sara can have my noodles."
She looked reprovingly at me. "There's enough for all of us. You don't have to play that game."
"What…game?"
"That being-all-noble game."
"I'm. Not. Hungry."
A voice sang from behind me. "Can't carry the world alone. But through the years it has been shown-"
Cassie's mom laughed at her husband. "Try singing with the guitar next time."
He shrugged. "They don't have one. I had to improvise…or do you?"
"We did, for a while around my twelfth birthday," Tom reminisced. "Electric. It broke within the week."
"Neh. All the good folk songs need guitar."
"What-ut is a folk song?" wondered Ax.
"It's…um…a song that gets passed down over time," Cassie's mom told him.
"And a guitar is a musical instrument," I cut in before he could ask again.
Oh. He only communicated with me. Well, she is incorrect. My people have passed down many songs without the use of guitars.
I waved him out of the room. "Hey, where are you two going?" Cassie's mom stood up.
"Just to talk," I shrugged.
She sat back down dubiously. Marco tried to keep from laughing.
We climbed the stairs to Jake's room. >As long as I'm here, I'll demorph.> Ax closed the windows and did so. >What do you want?>
"I wanted to ask about your song. Could you sing it for us?"
>I would err with a human mouth.>
"Please?"
>I can thoughtspeak it to you and the others.>
"Okay, cool." I ran back down and rounded them up. "Okay, Ax, go ahead."
He closed his stalk eyes in concentration. All of a sudden I saw an image of a…thing. A really small thing. And it was happy. How did I know that? The poem was addressed to the insect-it was an insect? Yeah…
We were all held captivated until Ax finished. "Whoa…" I breathed.
"The bug…I couldn't get its name…" Cassie concentrated.
"It knows something you don't know? Is that it?" Jake pushed.
"Its place. It knows its place."
Marco wrinkled his eyebrows. "And you're jealous because you don't."
>I'm rather amazed you were able to gather that. I never thought myself capable of sending such complex messages.>
>What the heck just happened in there?>
"Tobias!" I exclaimed as Marco rolled his eyes.
>I was demonstrating a "folk song".>
>In Andalitian? Er, what do you call your language?>
>Thoughtspeak. There hasn't been a language comparable to yours for a significant period of time.>
>Well, I heard something. Does dirrabepe shnaol mean anything to you?>
>Yes, of course, that's the sound of the hoober.>
>Well…I don't know what to say.>
And neither did we. I ate my dinner and we tried to watch TV, but the cable was out. As I climbed into the sleeping bag in Jake's room, I thought about that song. Where was my place?
Where were any of ours?