CHAPTER 11: In the Jungle…

(MIKE'S POV)

One day later…

"Screams, human screams." Jake was telling us about what he had discovered during the morning he spent as a lizard. "They were far off, but that's what they were."

"You were a lizard at the time," Marco pointed out. "Who knows what you heard?"

"I know." Jake confirmed.

I was already starting to get tired of pretending to be surprised all the time. It was only a matter of time before the others started getting suspicious, and the last thing I needed was for them not to trust me. I had originally planned on telling them when they first met the Ellimist in book seven, but I now realised that they were bound to start questions long before then. It's not like I can go several months without telling them where I live and which school I go to. Besides, if I kept my secret from them for that long they would never trust me again.

I'm going to have to tell them soon, I thought.

"I suppose it makes sense really if you think about it." I eventually found myself joining the conversation.

"What do you mean by that?" Cassie asked.

"I mean about the location of the pool." I explained. "Three main reasons: first of all it would have to be underground to hide something that size, and secondly a school entrance is ideal for Chapman, Tom, and any other pupils or staff who might be controllers. They can go to school regularly without arousing suspicion."

"You said three reasons? I only counted two." Marco said.

"So you do sometimes stay awake in math class." Rachel joked.

"I'm getting to the third reason," I told them with a grin. "It's a school. Where else would you look for a source of pure evil?"

That gave everyone a laugh, and I'm sure I heard Marco mutter 'I'm starting to like this guy' under his breath. I even felt like I was starting to fit in, be one of the team.

"Anyway, jokes aside, I agree with what Rachel said on Saturday-"

"That the hot blonde chick with the green eyes likes Mike?" asked Marco.

"-that we need more firepower. We should head over to The Gardens to acquire some tough morphs." Jake turned to Cassie. "Can you get us in?"

"I have a pass so I can get in for free. The rest of you will have to pay, but I can use my mum's employee discount so it'll be cheaper." Cassie told him.

"I'm sure we could convince them to let us in for free," Marco informed them confidently. "Just tell them we're Animorphs."

"We're what?" Rachel demanded.

"Animorphs," I said with a smile. "I like it…"

It took about half an hour to reach the main gate of The Gardens. I was almost shivering with excitement as we entered the amusement/wildlife park.

So this is the famous Gardens, I thought as I looked around. We quickly passed through the amusement park half of The Gardens (which was kind of a shame because some of those rides looked really cool!) and found ourselves lost in an artificial jungle of strange plants and cheap plastic. Cassie then took us through an unmarked door and into a damp hallway. It was almost like being transported from a forest into a school corridor.

We all followed Cassie where, after a little gentle persuasion, Marco acquired his traditional gorilla morph. As we started off towards some of the larger habitats, we were spotted by an old balding security guard in a plain brown uniform.

"Hey! Hey you! What are you kids doing back here?"

"Oh man, oh man!" Cassie darted off down a hallway leading off to one of the main building exhibits, with Rachel and Tobias close behind. Jake and Marco started running in the direction of the other main building. Jake was yelling at me to follow, but I had my own game plan. You see, the way I figured was that I knew they could make it out safely without my help, and if I did intervene, Marco and Jake could be caught, or Jake could even miss out on acquiring his tiger morph.

Besides, I thought as I headed down the corridor to my right, I've always liked Jaguars.

Several years back, I even received full marks for a school project about Jaguars. (Author's note: That's a true story actually). I'd planned it out that very morning to get myself a Jaguar morph because I love all the members of the cat family and decided that a Jaguar would make a great battle morph. And thanks to Cassie (and Animorphs #1) I knew that the Jaguar Jungle habitats were somewhere along this passageway.

I spotted a map of the building on the wall and stopped to examine it. Seems that the guard had gone for Jake and Marco after all, I briefly wondered how they were faring with the tigers as I made a left at the next turn. I found myself facing down two doors: P-195, which (according to the map) led to the Jaguar habitat, and P-197, which contained the Leopards.

I opened the door marked P-195 and walked inside. Travelling from the grey gloomy hallway back into an imitation of a tropical jungle. I was surrounded by trees, bushes, and grass. Sunlight filtered down through the trees. Just ahead of me, the bushes opened up to a small grassy clearing. Inside this clearing were two men wearing white lab coats. The man nearest to me was carrying a long rifle, most likely loaded with tranquillisers.

Just as I was running for the shelter of a clump of trees, the man raised the gun to shoulder height, took careful aim, and fired.

PHIT! The tranquilliser dart struck a direct hit to the leg.

The leg of a very large Jaguar that is. The big cat snarled and roared in outrage at the two vets and dived behind a tree, but its head and tail were still easily visible.

I crouched low behind my tree as the two men turned towards the door; they hadn't spotted me. I sighed with relief and started listening to what they were saying as they walked past.

"…a few minutes. The male always takes a little longer than the female." Said Vet Number One.

"Yeah, Stalker's always been more active than Sheila." Vet Number Two added. Then they left through the same door I used to get in.

I stood up and looked around, making a mental note of the door on the other side of the room. I glanced towards the tree where Stalker had taken refuge, but he was gone.

I have a really bad feeling about this, I thought nervously. That's when I heard it.

GRRR! An angry, terrifying growl cried out from behind me.

Despite the fact that everyone single one of my body's instincts was telling me to run away screaming, I turned to face the huge cat and looked it straight in the eye with a defiant glare. This experience reminded me of two things which would have been plainly obvious to me under normal circumstances: First of all, that Jaguars can't really be intimidated; and second, my vague memory of a clip from the Discovery Channel which had said that male members of the cat family sometimes get a little mad when you make direct eye contact with them.

Stalker was staring at me in the same way that a starving man looks at a banquet, so I decided at that point that I should probably start acquiring him before he decided to sever my neck arteries and paint the tree with my blood.

Wondering how often these animals were fed, I slowly reached out my right arm, gently placed my hand on his head, and began to concentrate on this invincible feline. Stalker immediately shut his eyes. The tranquilliser must have kicked in faster because of the acquiring process.

Thank God for tranquillisers, I thought gratefully as Stalker lay down peacefully in the grass while I finished acquiring him. I could almost feel a surge of power as his DNA pattern became a part of me. All that speed, strength, and confidence of the big cat were now hidden inside of me and flowing through my bloodstream. I made a silent promise to myself to find a way of proving I was worthy of borrowing the DNA of such a noble creature.

"In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the Jaguar sleeps tonight…" I sang quietly as I finished acquiring the beautiful feline. I began to sneak away from Stalker towards the exit when two surprising things happened at once.

I was halfway to the rear exit when the two vets suddenly reappeared from a side entrance. They spotted me instantly and one starting yelling at me while the other was talking into a hand-held radio communicator.

Just as I had realised this and had started to speed up a little, I saw that the female cat, Sheila, had also found me and was in hot pursuit. It was then that I started to speed up a lot. Probably due to my dangerously high adrenaline levels brought on by sheer terror.

I'd read in a book once that certain animals (even ones that are far faster than humans) can be beaten by a person in a short sprint, as many animals take time to reach their maximum speed. Sadly for me, big cats are not one of those animals. Cheetahs in particular are famous for reaching their top speed within seconds, even if only for a short time.

Luckily I had a good head start on the Jaguar and there were two other people in the room to distract it. That bought me valuable seconds until Sheila the Jaguar decided that I was the closer target. I glanced round quickly and spotted the female Jaguar stare at me for a moment before she started racing towards me. I couldn't remember how long it took for a Jaguar to reach its top speed, and I had no intention of finding out the hard way. I started running like a, well, like a hungry Jaguar was chasing me!

Maybe I had a bigger head start than I thought, or maybe the vets tranquilised her. All I know is that I was out of that room and running for the Dolphin tanks before the graceful beast could reach me. Once I found the tanks, it became much easier to hide by blending in with the crowd, and I finally managed to slow my pounding heart.

Well, I thought as I searched for the others. At least I'll soon be getting used to deadly situations.