CHAPTER SIX: CASSIE

I stood in the dark in the middle of my vice principal's neighborhood, feeling useless and awkward as I waited for a boy I barely knew to bring my best friend a mouse.

I felt like a complete freak, even though I was still wearing all my clothes as well as my usual body. I felt like I should have been the one up there, looking for a mouse, even though it would have been silly for me to take the time to morph when Tobias was already in his hawk's body. Still, I was the one who "knew animals," wasn't I? If anyone was going to get us a mouse, it should have been me.

Heck, it should have been me who'd already found a mouse and acquired one ahead of time. Or at least come up with some other fool-proof way of luring Melissa's cat out to us. But cats weren't among the animals that we dealt with at the clinic, at least not domestic cats. We saw a fair amount of bobcats, but I wasn't sure how fine the line was between bobcats and housecats.

I wasn't sure what I'd have done to lure a bobcat either, to be honest, but at least I didn't have to admit that to my friends. They thought I was some kind of animal expert and I guess compared to them I was, but all I really knew was what I'd picked up from my parents. I hadn't studied veterinary medicine yet, or even had any advanced biology classes. I was just a kid.

We were all just kids. What were we doing here?

{Got something for you,} a voice said suddenly inside my head, making me jump. {A baby mouse. A mean baby mouse. It keeps trying to bite me.} Tobias flew in a low, tight circle overhead, disappearing behind the tree branches, then reappearing. {Are you ready?}

I was standing close enough to Rachel to see her take a deep breath, bracing herself. Then she gave Tobias a cocky smile and a big wave, as if to say, Sure, why wouldn't I be ready?

I winced and watched anxiously as he flew in low and slow, gliding instead of flapping, the mouse held tight in one talon. Rachel cupped her hands together and held them out and then, with terrifying precision and timing, Tobias deposited the mouse right in her hands.

"Don't let it bite you," I said quickly, mentally kicking myself for not thinking of that earlier. "Rabies."

"Wonderful," Rachel muttered darkly. "Just one more fun aspect of this night." She closed her hands around the mouse anyway, as though she wasn't worried, but I knew better. I could see the way her shoulders stiffened and her eyes went hard.

"You should all get rabies shots," I said. I was trying to strike a balance between impressing them with the importance of what I was saying, and not actually scaring them. I was also trying to make-up for the oversight of not taking care of this in advance, too. "Seriously. I already have mine. But if we're going to be handling wild animals . . . In the meantime, be careful to keep his teeth away from you."

"I wasn't planning on feeding him my finger," Rachel retorted, but I wasn't really listening. I had noticed something about that mouse—or I thought I had, anyway, but I had to check to be sure.

"Hey, wait," I told Rachel, and pulled her cupped hands open enough that I could peer in at what she was holding, without giving it enough room to escape. "That's not a mouse," I told the others. "That's a shrew. See the eyes? They're too small. And the tail is wrong. That's not a baby mouse, Tobias, it's a full-grown shrew."

{Sorry,} Tobias said, sounding guilty. {Is that bad?}

"I don't know," I said honestly, shrugging. Maybe I shouldn't have bothered saying anything; would a cat care about such a distinction between rodents? I didn't know that, either, and so much not knowing when my friends were counting on my "expertise" made me antsy, desperate to show-off whatever I did know…whether it was relevant or not. "I just know it isn't a mouse."

"Wait a minute," Marco said, beginning to grin. "Rachel is going to become a shrew? How will we know when she's changed? How do you become what you already are?"

I glared at Marco, not thinking that was a very nice joke to make, although Rachel didn't seem bothered. But then, she's always been better than me at telling when somebody is being mean in order to be mean rather than just kidding around (well, at least until she loses her temper). I usually think mean jokes just sound cruel, so I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt that they don't, well, mean it that way—sometimes more than I should, according to Rachel. But isn't it better to assume people are being too nice than too nasty?

"Okay, I have to concentrate on acquiring, so everyone shut up," Rachel snapped.

Acquiring is what we call it when we absorb a sample of the animal's DNA. The DNA is the stuff inside the cells that sort of serves like a how-to manual for making the animal. The information gathered by the morphing technology is a little more complicated than that—it has to be—but I'm not an expert in alien technology either, so I'm not sure how it works. I just know enough—just enough—about what DNA actually is to know that there's got to be something else going on…but I don't know what.

I guess the more important thing is knowing how to use the morphing technology; it's not like we're trying to reverse-engineer it. When you acquire, you have to think hard about the animal, focusing on it and blocking everything else out. Then the animal kind of goes limp, like it's in a trance. It takes just about a minute.

We all watched Rachel as she stood there with her eyes closed on somebody else's lawn. I guess it probably looked pretty weird, but what else could we do?

Rachel opened her eyes when she was done. "Okay, little shrew," she said, "thanks for your help. You can go now." She bent down and released her captive. The shrew raced out of there like it had rockets on its tiny little legs.

"I'm not sure this is a good idea," Jake said doubtfully.

"Really?" Marco was sarcastic. "You're not sure it's a good idea for Rachel to turn into a shrew in order to lure a vicious cat down from a tree so she can morph into that cat and sneak into the assistant principal's house? What worries you about that plan?"

I was worried too. "You know, Rachel," I said nervously, "usually a cat will play with a mouse a little bit. But sometimes they don't. Sometimes they go right for the neck bite. The mouse—or the shrew—dies instantly."

{Not all cats. I mean, Aragorn's a terrible hunter,} Tobias chimed in, probably hoping to make Rachel feel better. {I don't think he's ever managed to kill a mouse. Of course,} his cheerful tone wavered in our heads, {Fluffer McKitty is an outdoor cat, so he's probably a little more experienced in actually hunting prey…}

I guess Tobias realized that his attempt at reassurance wasn't all that reassuring, because he stopped quickly. Rachel looked up and gave him a little wink, saying "thank you" anyway. I might have thought that was sweet, but I was too sick with nerves about what Rachel was about to do to pay attention to anything else. I barely even noticed Jake and Marco walking around the hedge to join us.

Rachel started morphing and I wanted to look away, because watching someone turn into a shrew was not a pretty sight, but I made myself watch. I don't know what good I thought it would do, but for some reason I felt like I had to. Like I owed it to Rachel. I wasn't morphing a shrew; the least I could do was watch my best friend while she did.

The sight—gross as it was—was actually less disturbing than when I'd watched her morph elephant down in the Yeerk pool, but maybe that was just because the shrew was so tiny that I couldn't see all the details of the changes, once Rachel shrank down. From her perspective up close and personal, I'm sure it looked much more horrific.

Her clothing descended around her like a tent, blocking the last stages of the morph from the rest of us. After a few anxious minutes, when I was sure that she must be done morphing, I reached down and lifted her abandoned outer clothing away.

"Rachel?" I asked. "You okay down there?"

The shrew—Rachel—was standing frozen on the grass between her two sneakers. Then, suddenly—the shrew was gone, running like a starting gun had just been fired! I knew instantly what had happened: the shrew instincts had overwhelmed her. She was lost in the animal's mind!

"Rachel!" I called after her, speaking as loud as I dared, trying to sound soothing even as I was half-shouting at her, "You have to get control!"

Jake was the first of us to move to chase her, but the little shrew was too agile; she shot under a bush and darted back out the other way while he tried to turn and resume the chase. I winced; the last thing I wanted to do was to chase Rachel, which would only frighten the shrew more, but it was too late now. She was already off and running, and the more of us there were running after her, the better the odds were that one of us would catch her—but I knew our odds weren't good. Three big, clumsy, heavy humans trying to catch a speedy little shrew barehanded? Good luck!

Thankfully, we had more than three humans with us: we had a red-tailed hawk. And Tobias had just wracked-up some experience shrew-hunting, even though he'd thought at the time he was going after a mouse. Maybe to most predators there isn't much difference between rodents…or maybe the fact that Tobias was really a boy in a bird's body meant he lacked the proper nuances of predation.

He had the important parts down, at least, and I watched with mingled fear and awe as he dropped out of the sky over Rachel's little shrew head and caught her up in one sharp talon.

{I have you, Rachel. Try to be calm. Think about something human. Think about school. Remember school?}

My heart was pounding, less from the effort of chasing the shrew than from fear. What if Tobias dropped her? What if his talons stabbed her? What if Rachel couldn't get control of the morph? What if—?"

{I'm okay, Tobias,} Rachel said. {You can set me down.}

He circled around and landed with perfect gentleness on the ground.

{Did my talons hurt you?} he asked her. He sounded at least half as nervous as I felt, which made me feel a little better.

{No,} Rachel answered immediately. {I don't think so. I'm fine.}

"You okay, Rachel?" Jake asked as we all walked, very slowly, toward her and Tobias. He sounded worried too, although he was doing a better job of hiding it.

{Yes. Boy, that was totally different than the elephant brain,} Rachel said. Her thought-speak voice sounded rattled. {Or the eagle. They're both so calm and mellow compared to this mind.}

"It's like Jake's lizard," I said, my relief making me speak hurriedly. "He had a panic reaction, too. The other animals we morphed were all kind of big, dominant animals—gorilla, tiger. And Tobias's cat, even though he's small, is a predator too. My horse was skittish, though."

{Look, let's just do this and get it over with, okay?} Rachel said. {I'm not enjoying the shrew experience.}

"Are you sure you're going to be able to maintain down there?" Marco asked. "You still look a little nervous. Your tail is twitching and your little nose is sniffing like crazy."

{Yeah, I know,} Rachel said. {I'm still nervous. Let's just do this.} She paused and added grumpily, {You'll have to take me back to the tree where Fluffer is. I don't know what direction it is.}

Before any of the rest of us could move, Marco leaned over and scooped shrew-Rachel up in his hands. I drew in a sharp breath, but he held her gently on his cupped palms and raised her up to eye level. "I've never seen you look lovelier, Rachel," he told her sincerely. "Very cover girl."

The fact that Rachel didn't shoot back some sharp retort told me better than anything else how scared she was in that shrew, but to his credit Marco didn't take advantage by needling her further. I decided to revise my opinion of Marco a little; his humor could be cruel sometimes, but clearly he wasn't. That was good. I could get used to sharp-tongued banter as long as it wasn't cruel, I figured; after all, I'd been friends with Rachel for years.

We walked down the block, back to the tree where Fluffer was still perched. Marco placed Rachel down among the roots.

{You guys had better back off a little,} Rachel said.

"Not too far," Jake argued, before I could. "We have to be able to get between you and Fluffer fast."

{Oh, I can kick Fluffer's butt,} Rachel said. I was pretty sure she was joking. I hoped she was joking. You can't always tell with Rachel, though. She doesn't accept limitations lightly.

"Uh-huh," Marco said dryly. "Cat versus mouse. Who would you bet on?"

"Haven't you ever seen Itchy and Scratchy?" I said somewhat desperately, trying my best to bolster Rachel's spirits—and my own. I hoped no one else could hear the edge of hysteria tingeing my words. "Mouse, definitely. Besides," I reminded them inanely, "she's not a mouse."

We backed up, none of us happy about it. I caught a glimpse of Tobias coming to roost in a nearby tree but he wasn't looking at me: his eyes were fixed on Fluffer with the intensity that only a born predator can display. If that cat so much as tensed a muscle, Tobias was going to see it.

I breathed slightly easier, just slightly, seeing that he was on guard. A red-tailed hawk was not big enough to safely take on a tomcat, but he wasn't small enough that Fluffer would be able to shrug-off an attack from him either. At the least, Tobias was sure to be able to distract the cat long enough for Rachel to get away—providing that Fluffer didn't go straight for the kill, of course…

Waiting was agony. I'm sure it was worse for Rachel, using her own body as bait like that, but it was horrible for me too. Just standing there, helpless, waiting to see if my best friend was about to become Meow Chow… When Fluffer moved, I wasted precious seconds gasping and pressing my hands fearfully to my mouth, like an idiot.

Fortunately, Jake and Marco didn't hesitate. It was Marco who caught the cat in mid-pounce, moving faster than I would have given a lazy class-clown like him credit for, but Fluffer's claws met flesh anyway and Marco yelped, nearly losing his grip. Jake was right there next to Marco, though, and he caught Fluffer by the nape of the neck—the best place to grab a cat by if you want to avoid getting scratched, although not a good way to carry around an adult cat; unlike kittens, you can seriously hurt a grown-up cat by holding them like that.

Fluffer didn't have to worry, though, because after my second of dismay I had jumped into action too, grabbing the cat carrier from where Jake had left it sitting next to Tobias and Rachel's discarded clothes. I ran up and together we managed to get Fluffer into the carrier, although we all got several scratches for our efforts.

"I'm bleeding!" Marco announced, as if this was a surprise to anyone.

"We're all bleeding," I told him, calm now that the danger was over and we were back in my element: dealing with unhappy animals. "I told you guys: Kitties can be nasty when you get on their nerves."

Rachel was already in the process of demorphing when I turned away from setting the now-securely-caged Fluffer McKitty on the ground.

"Ugh! Ugh!" she said, before she'd even finished. "I'm never doing that morph again." She looked herself over nervously, as though to make sure that every last trace of the shrew had successfully disappeared back into her human body. She looked pale and sweaty, like she was coming down with the flu, and I felt a pang of guilt. I was the one who knew animals the best; shouldn't it have been me who had played bait for the cat? But I hadn't even thought about offering; had just stood by and let Rachel take the risk instead…

Jake was staring at Rachel and shaking his head like he was sharing my thoughts. "I should have done it," he said. "I should have used my lizard morph to lure the cat down from the tree."

Rachel shook her head right back at him, and I was struck suddenly by how much alike they looked at times. "No," she said. "That freaked you out."

"And now you're the one who's freaked out," Jake said. "But don't worry, you'll get over it. Mostly. At least you didn't eat a spider."

"Yeah. Look, I'm just tired, okay?" Rachel grumbled. "Let me acquire this pain-in-the-butt cat and get on with this."

"Are you still up for it?" I asked. "Acquiring two new morphs in one night?"

"I shouldn't have let you do the mouse. Shrew. Whatever," Jake said. He was still looking guilty.

"Look, it was my idea, right? Besides, since when do you let me do things?" Rachel demanded. "What are you, my master? I don't think so. Come on." She treated us all to one of her trademark, dazzling Rachel smiles. "Let me see how Fluffer likes me, now that I'm bigger than he is."

We all walked over to the carrier—well, except for Tobias, who was still hanging out in the tree. I waved that he could come down and join us now, but I guess he didn't see me, because he stayed put. I shrugged and leaned down to look in the carrier and couldn't help but smile. Fluffer was curled up, totally asleep in that cute little semi-colon shape that cats like so much.

Rachel reached a hand in to acquire him and I frowned, suddenly.

"Are you sure you should do this?" I blurted out.

Rachel turned to stare at me. "What?" she said. "Are you kidding? After all the trouble we went to in order to catch this dumb cat, now you think we shouldn't go through with it?"

I shook my head. "No, I just—I was just thinking…" I hesitated. I was remembering when I had morphed Tobias's cat on the beach that night when we had been spying on The Sharing. It had felt good—great, even—to be a cat. Aragorn had felt no fear, no doubts, no worries of any kind. A cat was pure, unadulterated confidence, and Rachel…well, Rachel already had confidence in spades. Was it a good idea to mix her boldness with a cat's total lack of concern? Especially going into Chapman's house, where she would have to be on her guard as never before?

I didn't know how to say that that it wouldn't just make Rachel more determined to go through with the plan, so I hesitated. It was Tobias who came to my rescue:

{Rachel, I know you want to be the one to do this,} he said, {because Melissa is your friend—}

"Yeah," Rachel said. Her pretty face started to settle into a belligerent scowl. "So what?"

{So maybe it should be me,} Tobias said hurriedly. He fluttered down from his tree branch and started to demorph. {I'm the only one of us who actually has a cat, so I know how they act better than any of the rest of you. No offense.}

"He has a good point," I said, trying not to sound too anxious.

Rachel rolled her eyes but her scowl shifted to something that was almost a smile. "It's just a cat, Tobias," she said. "Everybody knows what cats are like."

{True,} Tobias agreed as his bird body grew up larger and larger until he was taller than me again, his feathers fading back into his skin and his fingers stretching out from his wings. {I know, but…well, Chapman's a Controller. So if he sees an animal acting even just a little bit weird…}

His thought-speak voice faded as he progressed farther into the morph, but I picked up the thread where he'd left off: "Chapman would know right away that an animal acting un-animal-like is a threat," I said.

The smile was gone. Rachel was scowling at all of us now. "I can handle it," she said. She shoved her hand into the cat carrier.

I winced and looked at Jake, silently pleading with him to do something, to fix it somehow.

"Hey, you know what," Jake said brightly, "it's late. We've all had a tough night, first chasing Tobias then chasing Rachel, and Rachel, you've had a tougher night than any of us. Let's put a pin in this for now." He turned to look at the rest of us. "Why don't we all acquire Fluffer, just to be on the safe side? It can't hurt for us all to have cat morphs, especially a cat that can move around under Chapman's nose." He shot Marco a look, somehow anticipating whatever Marco was about to say, and Marco grinned ruefully and didn't say it. Jake looked back at the rest of us, but mostly at Rachel. "How about we reconvene tomorrow when we're all fresh? We can figure out who's going into Chapman's then." He smiled. "I mean, there's no need to rush, right?"

I expected Rachel to argue and I took a deep breath, getting ready to back Jake up, but instead she said reluctantly, "Oh, fine then. If you're all tired, we can do it tomorrow. But I'm still the one going in."

Jake nodded. "Maybe," he said. "We'll talk about it later when we aren't all so stressed. In the meantime—" he pointed at Rachel, then jerked his thumb at Tobias "—why don't you take advantage of the delay to get some lessons on cat-isms from the expert here?"

Rachel looked at Tobias speculatively. He looked a little awkward, a little sad even, like he always did when he was back in his normal body, but he gave her a weak little smile. Rachel sighed. "Oh, all right," she snapped. "But I still say you're all making this a way bigger deal than it is."

None of us argued with her; we just silently acquired Fluffer, one by one, then released him back out into the night. We watched him saunter away out of sight, none the worse for wear for his unusual night.

Marco caught Rachel's eye and gave her a grim smile. "Probably going off to kill your shrew," he said.

Surprisingly, Rachel didn't smack him. I guess she really was tired.