JESSIE
My name is Jessica. You can call me Jessie. It's what everyone calls me. Except for my mother, who insists on calling me Jessica.
Jessica is not me. Jessica sounds like a normal girl who has friends and has crushes and didn't voluntarily let a slug crawl into her head. Jessie sounds like somebody out in the Wild West, having adventures and shooting train robbers. Or being one.
Which name fits me better? I used to be a Jessica, with a normal, boring life. I wanted adventures, and the Sharing promised me that I would have lots of adventures, if I let them put a yeerk in my head. I don't want you feeling bad for me; I knew what was going to happen. They described exactly what it was going to be like, and I accepted anyway. I'm not sorry. You can hate me for it if you want; I just want you to know exactly who it is you're hating. Who knows, maybe you'll even understand why I did what I did.
So now I'm in the middle of an intergalactic battle. I'm firing laser beams and dodging them. I've fought dozens of strange creatures. I'm doing what I've always wanted to be doing: Having adventures. I've even gone into space a few times.
I think that I've earned the right to be called Jessie.
But I certainly didn't feel like a Jessie at the moment. I had woken up, lying on some grass, with the three andalite bandits surrounding me, still in human morph. I could feel my chest wrapped in bandages, and my left arm was strapped in place.While it was in that position, I could barely move, let alone fight. I was at their mercy.
I didn't like that.
They were staring at me, and I realized that I had been too quiet for too long. I had to talk my way out of this one, not fight. I thought quickly.
"Ow. What happened?" I said, realizing something else. They had fallen for my lie about the yeerk!"I don't know." The short boy said, squinting at me. "How about you tell me?
"But-" I frowned and touched my head. "I-I don't know what happened? Who are you?"
There was a worried look in the girl's eyes. "I'm Cassie." She said, helping me to my feet. "Are you feeling okay?"
"She's obviously fine." The short boy snapped. "If you guys want to do this stupid thing, I'm at least going to get some information out of her. What are the yeerks up to?"
"Huh?" I shot him an innocent look.
"We both saw the dracon beam." He said. "Don't play innocent with me."
"Dracon beam?" I said, faking a puzzled expression.
"Oh. You're going to pretend that you have amnesia or something. Right." He nodded casually, clearly not believing me.
I let him win that one.
The tall boy had to hurry home and look up something, so Cassie and the other boy took me to her house. She had a house! I didn't know how the andalite bandits had gotten enough money to do that. It was far away from the rest of the town; it even had a forest a few yards away! Typical andalite, they hated being closed in. I guess that they ran around in there at night. Me, I had grown up in the city all my life, and this rustic place unnerved me.
"Come on inside." Cassie said kindly. It wasn't her real, andalite name, but it would do for now.
I moved towards the house door, but the boy grabbed my arm. "Uh-uh." He said, smirking slightly.
"Marco…" Cassie said warningly.
"She can sleep in the barn." Marco said. "It's safer – for everyone."
They walked me around the side of the house, and led me to- get this – a barn. They expected me to sleep in there?
Turns out that they did. They led me inside, and I nearly passed out. Not from the sight of rows and rows of cages, filled with every sort of animals that you can imagine. Not from the various wildlife scuttling past my feet (Though that did creep me out.). It was something else, more primal.
It was the stench. The putrid stench of wet animals, combined with the funk of assorted manure types, with an unhealthy dose of natural wilderness smell.
I gagged, and Marco smirked again. "What's the matter, a bit smelly?"
I covered my mouth, not bothering to respond. Cassie tried not to look offended, but she failed.
"You'll be sleeping up there." Cassie said, leading me over to the hay loft. I stared.
"Up there?" I asked incredulously. I had at least expected a bed. "You know, I have a home I could go to. There we believe in using a little something called beds."
"Yeah, we could let you go to this home, Which you shouldn't even remember, If I may point that out- except we don't trust you." Marco said bluntly. "Now get into the bed like a good little girl, and maybe Cassie will read you a bed time story."
Ignoring him and the pain in my side, I dragged myself up the ladder and flopped down into the hay. This was going to be the worst night ever.
Cassie left, with Marco trailing behind her. I hesitated, and then called out. "Why not?"
Marco paused in the doorway. "Why not what?"
"Why don't you guys trust me?" I asked, settling down into the hay as best as I could.
Marco sighed. "You know the hay where you're lying?" I nodded. "Well, A while back there was this kid named David. He lost his family, lost his house, lost everything. He knew our secret, and we tried to trust him. He lay right where you are now, thinking about how to betray us. You want to know why we don't trust you? Blame David."
And as I slept fitfully, surrounded by rough hay and smelly animals, I did.
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JAKE
OK, for the record, we aren't idiots. Me and Cassie both trusted that girl as far as we could throw her. Marco trusted her about as far as he could blow her. But if there was any chance at all that she was worth saving, it was a risk we would have to take.
After contacting Tobias, Rachel, and Ax, I walked back to my house. I got home in time for dinner, for once. My mom was just finishing putting everything on the plates when I came in.
"Great, honey, your home." She smiled. My mom is really big on us all eating together at the table. "Go wash up really quick, and call your brother for dinner."
I jogged up the stairs and ducked into my bedroom. I paused in there long enough to grab a pair of clean clothes, and then headed for the bathroom.
"Hey, Tom!" I hollered, banging on his door on the way past. "It's time to eat!"
"Fine, midget!" He yelled back. "Be quiet, I'm on the phone!"
I changed and splashed my face and hands with cold water, and then raced downstairs. My dad was coming out of the living room, and I almost bowled him over.
"Hey, whoa there, Jake." He said, grabbing me for balance. "Where's the fire? Don't tell me your mother burned the chicken again."
"Ha, Ha, Ha." My mom said dryly from the kitchen. "I heard that."
We walked into the kitchen, and pulled up a seat. Tom came down a few minutes later, and we began eating. Dad started talking about his job, and how good the food was. Tom joked about how terrible the chicken tasted.
"Hey, dad." I interjected casually, nibbling a tiny piece of broccoli. "Do you know anything about, um, Mary Sues?"
"Mary Sues?" My dad looked surprised. "As in a name?"
"Did you say Mary Sues?" My mom asked. I nodded eagerly. "Yes, it's a writing term. Why, what for?"
"For my english report." I lied smoothly. "Could you tell me about them?"
"Well," My mom said, "A Mary-Sue is a character that is very unrealistic. It's usually a super version of the author, of how they would like to be. They are a really horrible type of character, they tend to suck the realism out of everyone and everything they come in contact with. Most Mary-Sues can be found in fanfiction, where original characters fall in love with them, They save the day, and nobody lives happily ever after except for them."
"Thanks." I said calmly. I was really anything but calm. "That'll be a really big help."
So we were dealing with real life Mary Sues. Know the enemy, Jake.
"Is there anything else?" I inquired.
"I'm sure I have a few good books on the subject." My mom said. "I'll show you after dinner."
That's how I ended up reading a bunch of my mom's books on writing late into the night. As I learned more than I any human being should know about Mary-Sues, I was dazed, awed, and disgusted. But mostly disgusted.