CHAPTER NINE: JAKE

We couldn't go to the Chapman's that night because Rachel and Marco both had papers to write. And the night after that was Cassie's dad's birthday, which Cassie couldn't exactly skip out on.

But finally, there we were again on the street outside the Chapmans' house. It was a little before eight.

Tobias had morphed hawk again and he'd spotted Fluffer smelling a fence post four blocks over. Now Rachel was taking off her shoes while the rest of us stood around, feeling antsy.

"I don't like this," I said.

"Well gee, Jake, it's not exactly my idea of a good time either," Rachel drawled sarcastically. "I mean sure, I like hanging out with Melissa, but usually I like doing it when I'm a human being, I'm not worried she might have an alien slug in her head, and she knows I'm coming over."

"You know, we don't have to do this tonight," Cassie pointed out diplomatically. "It's not like we're on a deadline, right?"

I was ready to agree, but Rachel said, "The sooner the better. We all know something is wrong in that house. Melissa is still my friend. Maybe somehow I can help her."

"Your job is not to help Melissa Chapman," Marco pointed out, which I thought was rich coming from a boy who had just risked detention to get Melissa out of trouble, but I didn't say anything. Hypocritical or not, Marco was right. "You're supposed to be spying on Chapman. You're supposed to be finding some way for us to get at the Yeerks, so that we can all turn into wild animals and get ourselves killed."

"I know why I'm doing this, Marco," Rachel snapped.

"No," I said, "you know why someone has to do this. Why does it have to be you? We all acquired the cat."

Rachel's eyes met mine and narrowed. "It has to be me because I'm the only one of us who's friends with Melissa."

"That is exactly why you shouldn't go," I said. "You're too close to this."

"Oh, like you were too close to Tom to go into the Yeerk pool?" Rachel snapped.

Cassie gasped. Marco winced. Even Rachel looked sorry the moment she said it, but she didn't take it back. I guess maybe she had a point, but I was too angry to see it. Besides, we'd all made it out okay, hadn't we?

"Raiding the Yeerk pool was a combat mission that needed all of us," I said stiffly, trying not to let on how furious I was. "This is just surveillance. A one-man operation. Any one of us could go."

"A one-woman operation, thank you," Rachel retorted.

"It doesn't have to be, is my point," I said. "It doesn't have to be you. And I don't think it should be."

"Tough," said Rachel. "You're not the boss of me." She seemed to be backing away from me, which I thought was strange for her to do in the middle of an argument, until I noticed the fur sprouting from her cheeks.

"I am if you're about to do something stupid which could risk all our lives," I said. "Rachel, stop."

Rachel glared at me with eyes that were slowly turning from blue to yellow-green. "Have you ever been inside Chapman's house, Jake?" she asked me. "Have any of the rest of you?"

I got Rachel's point immediately. I looked at Cassie, hoping that she at least had gone along with Rachel for a sleepover or a birthday party sometime, but she was shaking her head along with the rest of us.

"I know the layout," Rachel continued. "I know where the stairs are, I know which rooms are whose bedrooms, where Fluffer's food dish is kept. I know where his litter box is. I know what belongs in that house, and what doesn't." All the while she was speaking, she was shrinking, her bones shifting and her ears sliding up the side of her face. "You want to send somebody else in, somebody who's never been inside there before, and hope they can find their way without Chapman getting curious why his daughter's cat suddenly can't remember its way arrrrou?" Her mouth melted into the sideways-three grin of a cat and she switched to thought-speak as she continued the morph, her bright cat-green eyes fixed on me. Or do you want to trust me to get the job done, like we all trusted you when we followed you into the Yeerk pool?

Well, when she put it like that …

I sighed.

"How does it look up there, Tobias?" I asked the empty air.

He'd remained as a hawk to give us some cover, and to keep an eye on the real Fluffer McKitty. I suspected he'd also stayed as a hawk because he preferred being a hawk to being a boy. I wondered when that was going to come back to bite us all, but I pushed the thought out of my mind. One disaster at a time, I told myself.

Like I'd hoped, Tobias had stuck close enough to hear me. Now he swooped down, opened his wings to slow his speed, and settled on the fence beside us.

{Looks fine. The cat is nowhere near the house. And fortunately, nobody was close enough to catch sight of Rachel morphing over the hedges.}

Did I imagine the note of censure in his voice? Certainly Rachel didn't imagine the pointed look I shot at her, but she also didn't seem to react to either. Then again, how can you tell what a cat's feeling? My family have always been dog people. Cats seem aloof and lazy to me. I can't figure them out.

I decided maybe I'd try morphing Homer, my dog, when I got home tonight. It would be interesting being a dog, wouldn't it? And having a morph more innocuous than my tiger, but less helpless than my lizard, would probably be a good idea.

Now wasn't the time to think about that, though. I refocused on Rachel—on the mission.

She was fully cat now, sitting in the semi-circle of our feet and looking just like Fluffer.

{Whoa!} she yelled. {Suddenly it isn't nighttime anymore! I mean, wow. Talk about night vision!}

"A cat's vision at night is about eight times stronger than a human's," Cassie said helpfully. "I looked it up."

"Eight times?" Marco repeated. "Not seven, or nine? How do they measure that?"

I shook my head. I was staring at Rachel, not really listening. She was sitting strangely still, except for her head, which kept turning to look at things I couldn't see.

"How are you doing?" I asked her anxiously. Had she lost control of the morph? Cassie hadn't seemed to have trouble when she'd morphed Tobias's cat, but Rachel had freaked out when she'd morphed the shrew, just like I had the lizard. She didn't answer and I started to worry. I exchanged looks with the others. Tobias had managed to snatch her when she'd run off as a shrew, but he couldn't exactly scoop a cat up in one claw. What would we do if she lost it in Fluffer's body?

Cassie met my eyes, looking scared. She leaned down over Rachel a little and said, "Rachel, can you hear us? It's me, Cassie."

{Yes, I can hear you.} Rachel sounded annoyed. That was a relief. Annoyed I could deal with. {I just can't seem to concentrate very well on you. There are so many other things to hear and see and smell.}

"Well, at least she's not running around out of control," Marco muttered, and I nodded.

Cassie, however, was grinning now. "I know," she said. "It's pretty cool, isn't it?" Then her smile faded a little. "But Rachel—be careful. When I morphed Tobias's cat, I felt like nothing could touch me, you know? Like I was invincible. But I, um…" She glanced at me, winced, and continued quickly, "I kind of almost got caught by the Controllers I was spying on, because I forgot to be afraid of being seen. You can't let the cat's instincts lull you into a false sense of—"

Suddenly Rachel spun around! Her ears went back, her tail bushed out, and she let out a furious "Hhhhhiisssss! "

I looked around frantically for whatever had upset her, but Cassie had already figured it out:

"Rachel, take a pill, girl," she said. "It's just Tobias." She looked up at Tobias, who had glided over from his branch for a closer look. "Tobias? I think maybe you'd better stay away or morph out. Cats are genetically programmed to be afraid of large birds."

{Sorry,} Tobias said. He flared his wings, cutting his speed. {Um…I should probably stay up here to fly cover until Rachel is inside, don't you think? I can keep my distance so I don't freak her out…}

"That's a good idea, Tobias," I said reluctantly. I was starting to get a bad feeling about how much Tobias liked to be in his hawk morph, but we really did need somebody up there keeping an eye out, and he was already morphed. "As soon as she's inside, though, morph back. If she needs to bail in a hurry, we don't want to have any unfortunate confrontations."

{Okay,} Tobias said. His thought-speak tone was flat, giving me no clue what he was thinking.

I ground my teeth and looked down at Rachel, whose fur was still on end, but starting to flatten as Tobias banked away over another yard.

"Rachel?" I said.

{I'm okay,} she said quickly. {I think I'm pretty much in control.}

"Can you do this, do you think?" I asked.

{Oh, yeah. I can do anything.}

Cassie and I exchanged a worried look.

"Don't let the cat's arrogance get you in trouble," Marco advised. "Keep a little of your good old human fear." He paused. "Oh, I forgot, mighty Rachel doesn't have any good old human fear. So here's what you do: Borrow some of my good old human fear. I have plenty to spare."

"He's right, Rachel," Cassie said earnestly. "Keep focused. Between your own natural attitude and the cat's 'tude, you could get cocky." She scratched her arm and looked at Marco and I sheepishly. "I did. And I'm not nearly as confident as you."

{It's not a problem,} Rachel insisted. {I've got this.}

"Just be careful in there," Marco agreed. He grinned. "That's an assistant principle you're dealing with. He finds out you've turned into a cat and gone sneaking around his house, that will be after-school detention for like a year."

Cassie and I laughed nervously, but it didn't feel all that funny. Detention was the least of what Rachel would have to face, if Chapman caught her.

"We're here if you get into a mess," Cassie said reassuringly.

I nodded, but I wasn't sure what we would do if Rachel needed help. Morph into a tiger, a gorilla, a cougar, and a horse and bust into his house? Ring the doorbell and somehow keep him talking long enough for Rachel to sneak out? I started to get a very bad feeling about this mission. Why hadn't I come up with a back-up plan ahead of time?

{I'll meow if I need help,} Rachel said drily. {Don't worry, I'm in control now. It'll be fine.}

Cassie and I exchanged another anxious look, like we both wanted to say something to dissuade Rachel from going through with this stupid idea but weren't sure how. In the end all Cassie said was, "The morph clock is ticking. It's quarter to eight. Remember that."

Rachel trotted off down the street. We all watched her go.

"Hey," Marco said, "do you think Chapman keeps any of blank permission slip forms in his house?"

"Marco," I said warningly.

He held up his hands in protest. "Hey, I'm just saying, a booklet of those could be handy. Then all you need to do is pick a teacher who's got sloppy handwriting, forge their signature, and bam: you've got a get-out-of-detention free card all ready to be used…"

His voice trailed off as we watched Rachel jump up onto a fence as she passed. She sauntered along the wooden railing like she was in one of her gymnastics exhibitions.

"Um, Rachel, what exactly are you doing?" I asked.

Rachel froze. {Just practicing,} she said hurriedly and jumped back off the fence.

This time Marco joined Cassie and I on the exchange of worried looks.

Rachel started toward the Chapmans' house again, but stopped to sniff at a telephone pole.

"Oh yeah," Marco whispered, "this is going great."

We watched as Rachel gave a sudden start, like she'd suddenly realized what she was doing—or more likely, like somebody who was currently soaring overhead had just said something to her in private thought-speak. After a few seconds she started moving toward the house again.

Cassie's face seemed to have settled into a permanent frown. "When I was a cat, I kind of…used the cat's confidence to cover for my own fear," she said quietly. "Like, I didn't really want to get that close to Chapman and the other Controllers, but the cat didn't care. So I sort of…let it lead me. It was easy to be brave then, but hard to remember that there was stuff I should still be afraid of."

"So do you think it'll be better that Rachel doesn't need the cat's fearlessness, so she won't have to use its instincts, or worse because she won't have any instincts in her head saying stuff like, 'hey maybe it's not a good idea to go pick a fight with something five times my size'?" Marco asked.

Cassie didn't answer; just shook her head and stared anxiously into the night.

. . . .

I was pacing. Back and forth across the next door neighbor's lawn; back and forth, back and forth. Cassie was standing under their oak tree, worrying nervously at her fingers. Marco was sitting against their fence, arms splayed across his knees, trying to look relaxed, but I could tell he was tense. Tobias stood perfectly still in the empty space between them, his hands locked in fists by his side, alternately staring between me and the house. I knew he was upset that I'd made him demorph, but what good could he really do Rachel as a hawk?

"How far do you think thought-speak reaches?" he asked suddenly.

"What?" I said, startled from my thoughts.

"Thought-speak," Tobias repeated. "If I morphed back to hawk—"

"Tobias, forget about the hawk for once—"

"No, listen." He flinched when he met my eyes, but he didn't look away. "If I morphed hawk again, and I flew up onto the roof or whatever, do you think Rachel would be able to hear me inside?"

I shook my head. "Too risky," I said automatically. For some reason, I didn't want Tobias turning back into a hawk tonight.

"There's no risk," he insisted. "And Rachel's been in there for over an hour with no word. What if something's happened? What if she's calling for help right now, and we're too far away to hear her?"

I shifted my weight. "Okay, so I morph lizard and I sneak in—"

"What good are you going to do as a lizard?" Tobias asked.

"What good are you going to do as a hawk?" I retorted.

"If all you're doing is getting close enough so you can talk to Rachel, it doesn't matter," Marco pointed out, "since neither of you will actually be doing anything until you come back for the rest of us."

"Okay," I said, "fair enough…so I'll go and—"

"I'll be faster," Tobias said. His face looked funny until I realized that he had already started morphing. "No offense, Jake, I'm sure your lizard can motor, but there's no way he can run faster than the hawk can fly."

I wanted to argue but I knew he was right. I also wasn't eager to morph the lizard again, but I couldn't admit that aloud—could barely admit it to myself—so I glared at him to cover my relief. "Okay," I said grudgingly. "But remember, you're just getting close enough to get in touch with Rachel so you can find out what's taking her so long. No stupid heroics."

{Of course not,} Tobias said. {Reconnaissance only.} Since his eyes had already darkened into the sharp, expressionless eyes of a bird of prey, I couldn't tell if he meant it.

I grimaced and watched him go.

The minutes passed slowly. I was filled with a restless energy and I wanted to pace more, to try and burn it off, but I couldn't tear my gaze away from the house. I waited, shifting unhappily from foot to foot.

"I wonder if there is a limit to how many morphs we can acquire," Cassie said suddenly. She sounded as nervous as I felt.

"If there is, we'll probably find out at the worst possible time," Marco said darkly.

I sighed and ran my hand through my hair, making it stand up in awkward clumps. I couldn't bring myself to care enough to fix it, even though Cassie was standing barely five feet away.

Suddenly I heard a voice in my head: {Jake, Rachel's okay…but she isn't ready to come out yet.}

"Tobias?" I said. He couldn't hear me. I swore and got ready to morph so I could reply, but then I noticed a dark shape gliding toward me against the clouds.

{She says Melissa "needs" her. I'm not sure what she means by that.}

He settled on a branch overhead. I glared up at him, but I wasn't angry at Tobias. "Get her out of there," I snapped. "Get her out of there right now."

Tobias ruffled his feathers. {I can't exactly go soaring in the window to drag her out by the scruff of her neck,} he pointed out reasonably.

"I don't care," I said. "Tell her to get back out here right now. Remind her that she's in there to do a job, not to play Dr. Phil, Feline Edition with Melissa Chapman."

{I'll tell her,} Tobias said, and winged away before I could say more.

That was probably for the best. Nothing that I wanted to say just then was very nice.

Cassie came over and stood next to me. She didn't hold my hand or anything, but I felt a little better having her there beside me.

But just a little.

We waited for what felt like forever. Cassie kept checking the watch on her wrist when she thought I wasn't looking at her. Tobias didn't come back. I hoped he was arguing with Rachel, trying to make her see sense and come back. I hoped he hadn't gotten into some kind of trouble. I hoped Rachel hadn't, either.

"How long?" I asked Cassie. My voice croaked, like it had been hours since I'd used it last.

"Half an hour," she said.

The minutes passed. Marco started plucking blades of grass and shredding them between his fingers. I stayed where I was, feeling like a tiger pacing in a tight circus cage. Cassie looked at her watch.

"How long?" I asked again.

"Twenty minutes," she whispered.

At fifteen, Marco rose and dusted himself off, walked over to stand next to us. None of us said anything for a long time. I saw Cassie looked at her watch again. "How long?" I asked. I felt like I was about to explode.

"Fifteen minutes," she said.

Time passed at a crawl. None of us spoke.

Finally, finally, just as I was about to ask Cassie for a fourth time-check, a black and white cat came bounding toward us across the grass. I could vaguely make out the silhouette of a bird soaring overhead, but I only had eyes for Rachel.

"You only have ten minutes to spare, Rachel," I said sharply to her. I was sure I sounded furious. I felt furious. "I hope it was worth scaring us all half to death. Did you at least discover something useful?"

{Yes,} Rachel said. Tobias fluttered to the ground behind her, but this time her cat instincts didn't seem to care. She stared up at us, at me, her gold-green eyes bright. {I discovered plenty. I discovered that Chapman has a way to communicate directly with Visser Three. I discovered that Visser Three is pretty hot to catch us, although he still thinks we're Andalites. And I decided something, too.}

I raised my eyebrows, but before I could say something snappish about Rachel picking a great time for some introspection, Cassie asked simply, "What?"

{I decided that I don't care what it takes, or how many risks I have to run.} Rachel's thought-speak voice was tight and sharp. She was starting to grow now, abandoning the morph, but she continued to thought-speak as she shifted. {I don't care what happens to me. I hate these Yeerks. I hate them. I hate them. And I will find a way to stop them.}

"Oh, well, as long as you've decided, " Marco began to say snidely, but as she was demorphing I saw Rachel's face emerge from the fur, saw an expression similar to the expression I'd seen in the mirror on the morning after our fight in the Yeerk pool. Saw an expression similar to what I felt inside every time I looked at Tom, and thought about the Yeerk in his head, controlling him.

"Marco?" I said. "Shut-up."