CHAPTER FOUR: JAKE

tw: ableism (to be fair Animorphs is one constant ableism-trigger warning so I don't usually bother to mark it for the fic but this chapter stands out as a bit extra-harsh so I wanted to flag it so you're all forewarned!)

I was eating lunch in the cafeteria the next day, wondering whether or not I'd managed to pass that morning's math test, when Tobias suddenly dropped into the seat across from me.

This was a little weird, because Tobias doesn't really hang-out with the rest of us at school - in fact, the rest of us don't hang-out all that much at school either, because we don't want to suddenly start doing everything as a group and risk attracting attention - but I didn't think too much about it. I figured the bullies who like to pick on Tobias were bothering him again, and he'd come to sit by me so they would leave him alone. (I'd had words with said bullies before, so they knew I wouldn't be down with them carrying-on like that around me.) I was trying to remember whether I'd mixed-up the x and y of the slope-intercept I'd had to plot, and how much it would matter if I did, so I just kind of grunted a hello. I figured that was as much interaction as Tobias wanted, anyway; he wasn't a chatty person.

Except today, apparently.

"We're going back to the beach today," he said.

That jerked me right out of my math class introspection and back into unpleasant memories of last night, running across the beach as a little cat too small to stop his friends from getting killed. I stared at him. "What?" I said.

"Mom and I," Tobias explained. "She's fixated on the whole...crashed-ship-thing." He didn't quite turn around to look over his shoulder, but he kind of hunched-up in a way that let him shift the angle he was sitting at to see behind him. "She wants me to come along."

I frowned. "Do you think that's a good idea?" I said, although I wasn't sure if not going would be any better. I was going to ask him if he'd tried talking her out of poking-around a place that we knew was sure to be crawling with Controllers, but before I could think of a way to say that casually, he dropped another shocker:

"I want you guys to come along."

"To help your mom look for...that thing?"

Tobias had been staring at the lunch tray in front of him up until this point, because he usually preferred looking down over meeting people's eyes, but now he raised his gaze to mine.

"Yeah," he said. "And I want to tell her what we know about it. I think she can help."

I didn't explode at him. I'm not Rachel, or Marco. I can keep my cool under pressure.

"You want to WHAT?" I whispered-yelled.

Tobias flinched and nodded. "She can help," he repeated stubbornly.

"No," I said. "No way. We are not telling your mom - telling anyone - about...this stuff."

"She already knows about it," Tobias said.

I shook my head. "Not like this. Not that."

I wasn't sure whether I was more frustrated with Tobias right now, or with how awkward it was to talk about this in the school cafeteria where we had to worry about being overheard just in case the clarinet player sitting next to us had a Yeerk in his head.

"She knows enough to help," Tobias insisted.

I glared at him, then jerked my chin pointedly towards the door of the cafeteria where Assistant Principal Chapman had just walked in to survey the students. "We can't talk about this here," I said in a low voice.

Tobias nodded. "Okay. After school?"

"Fine," I growled. "Cassie's barn."

"Okay," said Tobias. He picked up his tray and walked away. I glared at his retreating back until Marco plopped down in the seat he'd vacated, interrupting my line-of-sight.

"Bombed the math test?" he asked as he dug into his overcooked green beans.

I shook my head, no longer concerned about slope-intercepts. "Remember how we agreed to help Cassie out after school?" I said reluctantly. Marco gave me a funny look. I waggled my eyebrows at him. "With that thing with that animal she found? At the barn?"

I saw Marco deflate. "Oh," he said. "Oh yeah. That. Cool, yeah, right." He grimaced. "Awesome."

I couldn't have agreed more.

# # #

So that afternoon after school, we all gathered in Cassie's barn. Their farm is out near the edge of town, edged with fields of corn and open meadow that stretch off into the distance until they press up against the dark trees of the forest. It's a nice place, a peaceful place.

It's not like a regular barn, though; Cassie's parents are vets, and her dad runs the local Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. Their barn is where sick and injured animals get treated and held while they recover. Stuff like birds, raccoons, squirrels, anything that has a tendency to be turned into roadkill, you know.

Marco and I entered together, but the friendly argument that had occupied our walk (whether Spider-Man or Daredevil would be a better basketball player) trailed-away unfinished when we saw that the others had beaten us there. Rachel and Tobias were perched side-by-side on bales of hay, but it wasn't them we were staring at: it was Cassie, who had both her arms in a cage full of grumpy-looking golden eagle.

"Um, hi," I said.

"Oh, hi!" Cassie said, turning to smile at me over her shoulder. "Just a sec, I'm almost done here."

"Sure," I said, trying to ignore the way my bummed-out spirits had immediately become significantly less bummed-out when Cassie smiled.

I saw Marco smirking at me and elbowed him to shut him up.

We walked over to join Tobias and Rachel, the latter of whom was apparently trying to convince the former to go shopping with her. "Come on," she wheedled, "Cassie already bailed on me, don't you do it too."

"I'm, ah, I'm not sure I'd be much help with picking out...awards ceremony clothes? I'm not even sure what those are."

Rachel rolled her eyes. "It's not like a uniform, Tobias, I just need something nice to wear to a presentation dinner."

"Awards ceremony?" Marco perked-up. "Are they giving out prizes for being freakishly tall now? Is the award presented by Barnum & Bailey, Sideshow Division?"

"Ha, ha." Rachel rolled her eyes again. "I'd say they'd be more interested in a half-shrimp, half-boy like you," she retorted, "except where would they put the magnifying glass so people can find you? No, it's an award for my mom," she explained before Marco could offer a suggestion about magnifying glass placement.

Marco snickered. "What, Lawyer Of The Year?"

Rachel shrugged. "Basically, yeah. Something like that."

Marco and Rachel seemed to be having fun, despite the scowls on both their faces. I didn't get it, but I'd known both my cousin and my best friend long enough to accept it...and to know better than to interfere. Tobias apparently felt as eager to interrupt their banter as I did, which was to say, not at all. He picked at his nails while I shuffled my feet awkwardly and tried to ignore the sounds that Cassie's eagle was making behind me.

"And you want Tobias to help you pick-out what to wear? Tobias?" Marco jerked his thumb at the boy in question, as though Rachel might somehow be unaware of Tobias's presence beside her despite his immediate proximity.

"Yes," Rachel growled, "what about it?"

"Nothing," said Marco, in a voice that very clearly meant the opposite. "I just didn't think that Paint-By-Numbers Art Student Chic was your style."

Rachel probably would have said something cutting about Marco's fashion sense, but we were interrupted by a clang as Cassie closed the eagle's cage and turned to face us again. "All done!" she said cheerfully, pulling giant leather gloves off her hands.

"So, what's up?"

Everybody was looking at me. I jerked my thumb at Tobias and said, "Ask him."

I was still feeling a little grumpy at having been cornered at lunch, and it turned out that I had in fact bombed that math test and now I had to write a whole paper as makeup work, so maybe I took a little bit of unfair pleasure in watching the way Tobias ducked and hunched his shoulders as everyone's gaze turned to fix on him instead.

"Um, well," Tobias mumbled. "It's the...the beach. The alien ship-"

"The alleged alien ship," Marco pointed-out.

Tobias looked up long enough to shoot Marco a dark look. "The alien ship that crashed," he repeated, a little louder. "My mom wants to keep looking for it."

"Glad she has a hobby," sneered Marco.

"We're going back down to the beach tonight. I actually need to get home soon so I can meet her-"

"So why are we wasting time here?" Marco interrupted. "Run home and join the tinfoil-hat treasure hunting, and let the rest of us get on with our normal lives and fun, exciting homework assignments."

"What about the Andalite?" Cassie asked softly.

Marco winced. "We don't know that there's an Andalite," he insisted. "No offense, Cassie, but just because you had a weird dream and got the rest of us freaked-out enough to think we had it too…"

"Did she freak-out Visser Three into hallucinating the dream, too?" Rachel asked. She folded her arms across her chest and glared at Marco. "The Controllers think this ship is real. That's good enough for me."

"Why?" Marco retorted. "Why not let them waste their time looking for it? That means they aren't looking for us ."

"Because even if there isn't a crashed alien spaceship-" Rachel glanced at Tobias guiltily, but pushed on, saying, "Even if there isn't, the Yeerks are out there looking for one, which means we have to stop them."

"Why?" Marco asked again. "That's not our problem."

"So you'll just let the Andalite die?" Tobias snapped.

Marco exploded. "What Andalite? We have no proof there's an Andalite! Are we really going to risk our lives doing something stupid for something we could have just imagined?"

"Cassie," I said, cutting the others off before it turned into a full-blown shouting match, "what do you think?"

Cassie gave a fearful start. "Me?" she said. "Why me?"

"You're the one with the dream. You're the one that heard the voice. Was it real?"

I made myself ignore the others, pretend they weren't there. I looked at Cassie and only at Cassie, making sure she knew that I was listening. That I meant what I was saying.

"'Cause if you tell me it was, I believe you. I believe in you. But you're the one who dreamed it. You're the only one who knows."

"I…"

"What do you think? Is this real enough that we should try and do something about it?"

"Why me?" Cassie asked. "Why am I the one who has to decide?"

She looked around wildly, as though looking for a rescue, and I felt kind of bad for putting her on the spot like this - but at the same time, everything I was saying was true. She was the only one who could decide what we did next. I trusted her, and I needed her to make the call.

"Because it was your dream. We trust your instincts, Cassie." I didn't look away, but I did jerk my elbow sideways again, cutting-off whatever wise-aleck comment Marco had been about to make. "You're the best at understanding animals," I continued, pointing to the golden eagle behind her, which had settled down in a grumpy fluff of feathers to rest. "You're the best morpher. We all respect your insight." I braced myself, but this time there was no intake of air from beside me; apparently, whatever Marco thought he was keeping it to himself this time.

Cassie twisted her fingers together. "I don't know," she said in a small voice. "It's a dream. It's like a vision or something. How do I know if it's real?"

"There, see?" Marco exclaimed. "Even Cassie doesn't know if it's real! What are we doing here? We should go home, call it quits."

"That's all you've ever wanted to do," Rachel snapped. "Fine, then, call it quits. Who needs you?"

"Whoah, whoah!" I said, holding up my hands. "Everybody calm down. Let's just focus on this right now and not get ahead of ourselves. Cassie, the dream. The Andalite. Is it real? Is there really an Andalite in trouble?"

Cassie's face was a study in misery, and I felt like the biggest jerk on the planet.

"I...I think it's...I mean, I don't want to say anything that will land everyone in danger, not just on my say-so," she protested. "How can I decide that? I don't…"

Rachel hopped off her hay bale and walked over to take Cassie's hand. "We're behind you, Cassie. You know we are. We just need you to tell us what you know. Is the dream real?"

"The Yeerks think it's real," Tobias pointed-out darkly.

"The ocean scares me a little," Cassie said, her voice small. She looked away from us, staring out at the fields and forest. I felt Marco shift beside me, but this time I didn't elbow him; I knew it wasn't a smart remark that he was thinking about this time. "I know it's a little crazy," Cassie continued, unaware of his sudden silence, "but I understand the land. I understand soil and things that grow out of it." She gave a little laugh. "I guess I'm just an old farm girl. You know this farm has been in my family since the Civil War?"

Rachel snorted and I could feel myself grinning, even though the situation felt so dire. "Do I know that?"I echoed. "Puh-leeze. I had Thanksgiving with your family last year, you may remember. Your great-grandmother gave me the complete history."

"Going all the way back to when dinosaurs ruled the earth," Cassie said, turning back around to face us again with a rueful smile. "Grammy does tend to go on about our history, doesn't she?"

I was glad to see her looking better, and almost let the conversation go at that, but I couldn't. We had to decide what to do, and only Cassie could make the choice for us. "It's good history," I said gently, "but we need to figure out the future right now. What do we do next, Cassie? Do we try and find this Andalite? It will be really dangerous and we probably won't do much good. I mean, it's a big ocean out there. But it's your decision."

I watched her deflate. It was like watching a balloon the day after a birthday party, when all the helium started to leak out and just the floppy shell remained bobbing a weak half-inch off the floor. She looked past me, and I knew she was looking at Tobias.

"Yes," Cassie said. I saw Rachel squeeze her hand encouragingly. "Yes, I believe these dreams are real. I believe there's an Andalite out there, somewhere...somehow...trapped. Calling for help."

"Then we need to help them," Tobias said shortly.

"Yes," I agreed, turning away from Cassie to face him instead. "Now tell them the rest of it."

Tobias flinched, but after a second he made himself look up again and meet our eyes. "My mom," he croaked. "She's going to keep looking for the ship. For the Andalite. And I think...I think she can help us. I think we should tell her."

"No!" Predictably, it was Marco who had the strongest immediate reaction. "No way! Are you out of your mind?"

"I'm as sane as she is," Tobias said stubbornly, which was a nice thing to say but probably not the best argument by which to win Marco over.

"Oh no worries then!" he laughed harshly. "Let's spill all our most dangerous secrets to the town crazy lady! That won't cause any problems!'

"Don't talk about my mom that way!" Tobias didn't jump off the hay bale, but he did clench his fists.

Rachel stepped away from Cassie to come scowl at Marco, who ignored her.

"Just because the aliens your mom is obsessed with turned out to be real doesn't mean she's sane, Tobias! She's not right in the head, she doesn't-"

"Shut-up!"

"Marco! Uncool, man!"

"It's true," Marco insisted. He didn't look like he was enjoying himself, though. "You've all met her, you've all seen her. She's not stable. I'm not saying she's a bad person," he spun back around to face Tobias, and his hands were spread in a sort of helpless not-here-to-fight gesture. "She's a seriously nice lady. Weird, but nice. I like her! But something messed her head up. We can't trust anyone with this secret, man. Not anyone. But we especially can't trust your mom. She believes in aliens, Tobias. She's friends with people who believe in aliens. Do you really think she's going to not tell them all about it when she gets proof that they're real? She won't rat us out to the Yeerks on purpose, sure, but word will still get out. And then we're all dead."

"Maybe not."

Surprisingly, it was Cassie rather than Rachel who walked up to argue with Marco. "You said yourself, Marco, she's not entirely...stable." Cassie winced and shot Tobias an apologetic look, but he was glaring so hard at Marco I don't think he saw it. "And she's well known for being that way. I think, if we're careful about how much we tell her, we won't actually be in any danger because...well, because who would believe her?"

We all stared at Cassie now, even Tobias. He was starting to look a little less furious and more sad, but at least the red flush was leaving his cheeks.

"Cassie's right," I said, not meeting Tobias's eyes. "But that doesn't mean we should tell her our secrets, either. The more she knows, the more chance there is that she'll accidentally say something that will alert Chapman or someone else to the fact that she's dangerous. Right now, she's just that crazy lady looking for aliens. If the Controllers find out she actually knows what she's talking about…"

We all winced.

"Fine," Tobias muttered.

"But that doesn't mean we can't go down there with her and look," I continued. "Just that we can't tell her anything she doesn't already know from the news. But she's already interested in looking for this spaceship. We might as well all look together. I mean, she's not likely to second-guess our interest, is she? And nobody else is going to think she's telling the truth if she tells them about it. They'll think that...I don't know, that we're helping our friend indulge his mom's nutty obsession."

"Or that we're doing it to make fun of her," Rachel pointed-out cooly with a pointed look at Marco.

"Or that she's the one who's suckered us into believing something insane," Marco agreed grudgingly. "Okay, I see your point. But why involve her at all?"

"Because she has resources we don't," said Tobias. "All those 'friends who believe in aliens' you were talking about, Marco? Yeah, they've got things like metal detectors and night vision goggles and current maps and...and...just, all sorts of junk and information and experience. Things that could maybe help us actually find this Andalite. Providing that that's something you actually want to do?"

It was Marco's turn to squirm. "If there's really an Andalite in trouble…" he began.

"There is," said Cassie. This time her voice was firm. She'd made up her mind, and made peace with it. As much as my heart ached over having had to put her in that position, I was proud of her too. Cassie never ceased to impress me. It was one of the reasons I thought she was so cool, not that I was enough of a dweeb to actually say that.

Especially not where Marco could hear me.

He sighed. "Fine, then. Let's do it...I guess."