CHAPTER FOUR: JAKE

We kept walking while we talked because, as Marco had pointed out, it looked bad for us to linger outside the construction site where the Yeerks had recently spotted a bunch of kids spying on them.

Tom already suspected me of being one of those kids, and I didn't want to give him—or the Yeerk in his head—any more reason to think he was right. I couldn't forget what Cassie had told me she'd overheard that night on the beach, that it had been Tom's Yeerk who had suggested that they kill the five of us—kill me—just to be safe.

I shuddered and did my best to shove the thought out of my head. Fortunately, Tobias made for an easy distraction.

"I mean, she knew I'd pulled that painting out to show you guys," he was explaining nervously, "and after I brought home a lady who said she'd been kidnapped by aliens and I asked her to help, well…I had to tell my mom something."

"You didn't have to tell her the truth, though," Marco pointed out. He sounded sullen. Probably because he was angry at himself for slipping-up.

"I've spent too many years thinking my mom was crazy, too many years telling my mom I thought she was crazy, for me to lie to her about it now that I know she isn't," Tobias said flatly. "You got a problem with that?"

I was surprised to hear such vehemence from meek, shy Tobias. I think we all were. Cassie and Marco gaped and Rachel grinned. I'm pretty sure I gaped, too. Tobias's cheeks turned steadily pinker, but he didn't duck his head or scuff his feet or mumble an apology.

"So there, Marco," Rachel said sweetly.

Marco shrugged. I knew it was as close as he was going to get to admitting Tobias might not be wrong.

I wasn't so sure he was right, myself, but I understood his point too. I couldn't imagine what his childhood must have been like, gradually growing aware that the whole rest of the world thought his mom was nuts, gradually coming to the conclusion that they were right and she was wrong—and then bam, all of that changed in one horrific night.

I grimaced. "All right, so you told your mom you met an Andalite," I said. "How much did you tell her about—you know, what happened that night?"

"Mainly just how it…you know…how being around Elfangor felt." Tobias cleared his throat, sounding embarrassed. "And, you know, what he looked like. Um…we might have, you know, done some sketching together. But not of, like, anything identifying. Just general Andalite sketching."

"That's sweet," said Rachel. I almost tripped over the curb, distracted by the lack of sarcasm in her voice.

Tobias blushed furiously. Fortunately he didn't see Marco grimacing with disgust and mouthing the word, Sweet? at me behind his back. Rachel did, and she punched Marco in the shoulder. He rubbed the spot where she'd hit him and grinned ruefully as she tossed her hair and brushed past him to walk by Tobias instead.

"My mom, um, she doesn't actually remember too many details about, um, about when she met…you know. Her aliens." Tobias hunched his shoulders up, like he was bracing for an attack. "That's why there were never any paintings of, like, a full-bodied Andalite. Just bits and pieces. So, um, so she wanted me to draw him out for her…"

All of a sudden Marco sobered. "Wait, she doesn't even remember what the aliens she met look like?" he asked. "How does that work?"

Tobias shrugged. "My mom doesn't have the greatest memory," he said tonelessly. "Not since she met her aliens, anyway. Like, her childhood she remembers pretty well. It starts getting hazy for her around high school, I guess, and then there's a few years there that are basically useless, and then her memory kicks back in, but…not all the way. She's…forgetful." His lips pressed together in a thin line and I got the feeling that Tobias had said all he was going to say on that subject.

I saw Marco open his mouth, his brows drawn in a curious frown, and I shook my head at him. Marco pressed his own lips together unhappily, but he continued to watch Tobias with a thoughtful look on his face.

Cassie stepped forward and took Tobias's hand. "That must be tough," she said softly.

Tobias jumped at the touch, then relaxed when he saw who it was. "It's fine," he said gruffly.

"Did you ask her about the Taxxon she painted?" Rachel said. I wasn't sure if she was genuinely curious or if she was just trying to change the subject for Tobias's sake. Personally I could have stood to never think about those gross, giant worms ever again, but I made myself listen to Tobias's answer.

"No," he said, and my shoulders sagged a little with relief. I looked around guiltily to see if any of the others had noticed, but they were all watching Tobias. "No," he continued, "like I said, I didn't mention too many details. I didn't even tell her Elfangor's name."

Marco winced. "That was me," he admitted. "Of course, I wouldn't have said anything if I'd known that Tobias had only given her the Cliff Notes…"

"Yeah Marco, we get it," Rachel snapped. "It wasn't your fault, blah blah blah. Skip to the important parts."

"You want important?" March retorted. "How's this: Tobias's mom got super weird, I mean weird even given her normal level of weird, when I said Elfangor's name."

I laughed; I couldn't help myself. "Marco," I said, "I see what you're getting at, but get real. What do you think the odds are that of all the Andalites there are in the galaxy, Tobias's mom met the same one that we did?"

"Impossibly small," said Marco. His voice was grim.

I gave him a funny look. It sounded like he was getting at something, something important, but he just shook his head and fell silent. "Oh-kay," I said slowly. "So…what else did you guys tell her?"

Tobias laughed harshly. "Oh, not much," he said. "Aside from Elfangor, Visser Three, and the blue box, that is."

We all stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and stared, first at Tobias and then at Marco.

"You. Did. What?" I hissed.

"Oh, man," said Rachel. She shook her head from side to side, like she couldn't believe the level of stupidity she was hearing. Frankly, neither could I.

I could feel my temper boiling up again and fought hard to tamp it down.

"I told you," Marco pleaded, "I thought she already knew! The way she was talking—"

"What were you thinking?" I exploded. "You know the Yeerks are already looking for us! You know they think the pool was attacked by Andalite Bandits, not by some kids in morph! Do you have any idea what they'd do if they found out we and they were one and the same? Do you have any idea how fast they would be all over us if they found out who were are—what we can do—?"

"Yes!" Marco shouted back. "Yes, I do know! That's why I was so angry with Tobias when I thought he'd told his mom all about it!"

"Well that's just great, Marco, because guess what? It turns out you're the one who told her, not Tobias! Congratulations!"

"Guys!" Cassie shouted, and we both flinched. Cassie isn't much of a shouter, usually. "Guys, shut-up!" Her eyes were huge in her dark face. "What if somebody hears you?"

Marco laughed harshly. "Somebody already has, Cassie. Did you miss that part? That's why we're shouting!"

"Shut-up," Rachel repeated, her voice a growl. "Cassie's right, you're both being idiots. Anyone could hear you right now."

I flinched, realizing how stupid I'd been.

We all looked around nervously, but the sidewalk we were on was empty. On one side of us, a street on which a car or two whizzed by every two minutes. If any of the drivers had heard us, they hadn't been interested enough to slow down and listen. On the other side, a crappy athletic park and field. The nearest people were a pair of old dudes playing tennis on one of the rubber courts. If they'd heard us, they were doing a great job of pretending to be concentrating on their match. On the other side of the park a woman was walking two Pomeranians, but when I squinted at her I was pretty sure I saw a walkman clipped to her belt and a pair of headphones over her sweatband. Nobody else was close enough to worry about, even if they had hearing better than my dog, Homer.

I breathed a tiny sigh of relief, but my nerves were still humming.

What was I doing yelling at Marco, anyway? Where did I get off acting like I had some kind of authority here? Sure, I was the only one of us who had a Controller in my immediate family, but that didn't mean I knew more about how to handle this insanity than any of the others—as I'd just so admirably proved by losing my cool out in the open.

"You're right," I said. I shot Cassie an apologetic look and she smiled back at me. "That was stupid. We need to be careful, not just about what we tell other people but about where we discuss things among ourselves." I smiled ruefully and added, "And careful about how loud we get during those discussions. I promise I'll behave now."

"Good," said Rachel, flipping her hair back over one shoulder. "I'd hate to have to deck you for your own good." She grinned at me and I rolled my eyes at her.

"Anyway," I said sternly, "getting back on track: Tobias, Marco, one of you tell us all exactly how much you told Tobias's mom about Visser Three and the blue box. Quietly."

Marco shrugged. He still looked grumpy, but now that I wasn't shouting at him, he wasn't shouting back at me. "I just mentioned them," he said. "Like—I was yelling at Tobias for telling his mom about it, not giving a book report. I got out of there before she could ask any questions."

I nodded. "Okay, that's good," I said. I hoped I sounded encouraging. "Very good." I turned to Tobias. "And did your mom ask you about anything after Marco left?"

"A little, yeah," Tobias said. He met my eyes briefly, then ducked his head and looked at his feet instead. "She was curious what he'd been talking about. I tried not to tell her too much, though. I told her I wasn't really in the mood to talk about it."

I tried to give him a heartening smile, but his hair was in my way. "Okay," I said again, my voice as soothing as I could make it, "okay, that's good. So what exactly did you tell her?"

"Just, um, just that Visser Three had been the name of someone else who'd been there that night, and that Elfangor had had a weird-looking blue box with him."

I felt my heart stutter in my chest, like it was about to seize up. "And…" My mouth was dry. I licked my lips. "And what did you tell her about the blue box?" I asked anxiously. "Did you tell her about…you know, about what Elfangor did with it? Did you tell her what we can do?"

I held my breath. I think the others did too.

"No," Tobias said. "No, I didn't say anything about that."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Great," I said, "that's great, Tobias. Awesome. The fewer people who know about that, the better."

. . . .

After school the next day, I found myself right back in the uncomfortable situation of having to yell at one of my friends again. We were all in Rachel's room, with the door locked so her little sisters couldn't wander in. Given that I'd seen them parked in front of a re-run of Thundercats on our way upstairs, empty pizza boxes on the kitchen counter, I didn't think they were likely to come bother us for anything.

We were all crowded into Rachel's bedroom, Rachel and Cassie and Tobias piled on Rachel's bed like it was a couch, Marco in the chair at Rachel's desk, and me half-perched on the lip of her windowsill. Rachel's room looked like something out of a catalog and being in it had always made me feel like a slob, even when I was a little kid staging battles with my G. I. Joes and her Barbies (and no, I don't want to talk about how often her Barbies won). I was expecting Rachel to tell us how her talk with Melissa had gone, and she did—but then she told us about her walk home and about the guy she'd scared-off by turning into a partial elephant.

This time Marco started yelling before I had to. I tried not to feel relieved. Why did I think it was my responsibility to keep the others in line? We were all in this together, and I was no one's dad. It wasn't my job to yell at my friends…especially not when Marco was doing such a good job.

"Oh, that was dumb!" he exploded. "Dumb! DUMB! What if that guy is a Controller?"

"He wasn't a Controller," Rachel replied scornfully. "Why would the Yeerks want to make a Controller out of a punk? They want people in positions of power."

I glared at her. "We don't know that for sure," I said. I could feel my blood boiling and tried hard to keep a rein on my temper. Still, I couldn't keep myself from hoarsely reminding her, "Tom isn't in a position of power." How could Rachel not get this? I thought that of all the others, she would be the most likely to understand; after all, Tom was her family, too, even if they weren't exactly close.

Instead, it was Marco who saw it all, saw all the dominos poised around us. "And how about people driving by in their cars, or looking out the windows of their homes?" he asked harshly. "And what if he runs and tells someone about this girl who suddenly sprouted a trunk and tusks?"

"No one is going to believe a lowlife like that," Rachel snapped.

"His friends wouldn't believe him," Marco said in a low, dangerous voice, "but a Controller would believe him. A Controller would know what it meant."

That sunk in. I saw the annoyance in Rachel's eyes fade to regret, to dismay. She looked down at the ground, her face pale. "Okay," she muttered reluctantly, "I screwed up."

"You sure did!" Marco crowed. "You screwed up so—"

"Marco, let it drop," I said. I was tired of yelling, tired of hearing it and tired of doing it. "Rachel knows she made a mistake. We all make mistakes."

Marco rolled his eyes.

Tobias leaned forward so he could look Rachel in the face, around the curtain of hair hanging down her shoulders. "Are you okay?" he asked quietly. "That must have been really scary."

For a moment, something almost like uncertainty crossed Rachel's face, like maybe she hadn't thought about being scared until Tobias brought up the possibility. Then she scowled and flopped back on her bed, crossing her arms tightly in front of her. "Of course I'm okay," she said sharply. "I'm not the one who ran away screaming."

Guilt pinched me suddenly. I had been so concerned with the possibility that Rachel had given away our secret that I hadn't even thought about why she had been in that position; hadn't thought about what might have happened if she didn't have the power to turn into a horrifying half-elephant creature and scare that scumbag off…

Tobias didn't look like he was offended by Rachel's harsh tone. He just nodded dolefully, and I remembered suddenly that he lived in a very different part of town than the dull, boring, smotheringly safe suburbs where my house and Rachel's house were located.

I stole a glance at Marco before I could stop myself, wondering what kind of an adjustment it had been for him when he and his dad had had to move. Did he have to be careful about walking home alone at night now? The biggest thing I had to worry about in my neighborhood was tripping over somebody's forgotten soccer ball, or upsetting some grumpy old man's dog, but I guess there were things other than Yeerks to be afraid of, out there in the world. It was a strange thought.

I mean, sure, everybody's heard stories about some kid going missing, or seen the messed-up headlines on supermarket tabloids—but you don't really think about it, do you? At least I hadn't, before. And maybe that dude had just wanted to cruise around town with a pretty girl in his car, show Rachel off like she was some kind of living trophy…or maybe my pretty, stubborn cousin had just narrowly escaped being the next photo on the cover of the National Enquirer or Star.

I guess Cassie must have noticed my sudden discomfort, because she gave me a warm smile before turning to Rachel and patting her knee. "It was dumb putting yourself in that position, Rachel," she said kindly. "You need to be more careful. But still," she added with a grin, "I'd have paid my next ten allowances to see the look on that guy's face."

I took a deep breath and did my best to shake it off. "The important thing," I said gruffly, "is that it doesn't sound like Rachel can use Melissa to get close to Chapman. Not if she's a Controller herself. And not if she's going to continue being weird to Rachel."

"I guess we'll have to find another way," Rachel said. I guess she must have felt as uncomfortable as I did, because she was talking fast, like she wanted to change the subject. "I mean, we know where Chapman's office is. We know where his house is. Maybe we could just morph into some small animals and hide out."

"Small animals like what?" Marco asked. "When Jake turned into a lizard he got stepped on." I sent Marco a glare that said, Thanks for the reminder, but he was looking at Rachel, not me, and didn't notice. "He lost his tail. Besides, what are you going to morph into? A cockroach?"

We all shuddered at the thought. The smallest, strangest thing anyone had morphed so far had been when I'd done the lizard, and I still had nightmares about eating spiders. A roach would be even worse.

"The problem with being a cockroach," Rachel said, somehow without shuddering, "aside from the fact that it is too gross to believe, is that roach senses might not even be useful to us. Can a roach 'hear' in a way that would make it possible for us to understand what we're hearing?"

We all looked at Cassie. She's sort of our expert on animals.

Cassie held up her hands. "Oh, come on. Like I know how a cockroach sees and hears? We don't take care of roaches at the rehab clinic."

We all sat there feeling glum for a few minutes. Marco looked like he wanted to make a dumb joke about cockroach hospitals, but was too bummed to come up with anything. Tobias was still watching Rachel, like he was worried about her or something. And Rachel—Rachel looked kind of weird, like she was feeling guilty about something. I wondered if I should say something to reassure her that we weren't still angry about her mistake with the elephant and the scumbag, but before I could, she stood and walked over to her desk.

She leaned right past Marco, who looked a little nervous at being approached without warning like that, while Cassie stared after her with concern. Tobias's expression was impossible to read because when Rachel had stood up, he had ducked his head quickly like he was afraid she was going to catch him staring, and now his hair was hanging in front of his eyes.

Rachel didn't look at any of them though, or at me. She was staring at this big, six-picture frame that was hanging over her desk like she had never seen it before. She pulled the whole frame off the wall and stared at it, hard.

When she didn't say anything I asked, "What? What is it?"

"It's me and Melissa," Rachel replied. Her voice seemed to come from a long way away. "It was like her twelfth birthday, or some birthday, anyway, and we were out on her lawn playing with the present her dad gave her."

"So what?" Marco demanded.

"So…" Rachel slipped one of the pictures from its frame and passed it to Marco. His eyes got big. "So her present was a cat," Rachel finished.

Marco silently handed me the picture. We passed it all around, all of us staring at a photograph of two blonde girls cuddling a black-and-white kitten with way more intensity than such a banal, ordinary image deserved. I expected Marco to make some smart-aleck comment but all he said was, "Oh man."

I looked at him. He was shaking his head and he was wearing a frown, not a smirk. "Oh man," he said again.

I couldn't think of anything to add to that.

"So," I forced myself to say, after a few minutes when no one else spoke, "I guess we have our way inside."