Chapter 6

"This is insane!" Marco said, for what seemed to be the thousandth time.

"Marco, that's wearing thin," I said, "I mean, seriously, is that going to be your catchphrase? You're just going to go around challenging everyone's mental health, now? Dude, stop it with your micro-aggressions and give me my safe space."

Marco stared at me, his mouth agape and his eyes unfocused. Then he let out a laugh like he'd been holding it in for hours. "I fucking hate you, Jake."

"Dude, remember to breathe."

"I can't!" he said amid his giggle fit.

"Marco, girls are watching."

And as though I'd flipped a switch, Marco reigned in the laughter. He was still laughing, but he was quieter, and he regained his composure.

We were downtown, at the main gate for the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. The Boardwalk is a small amusement park built right on the beach. It's about half a mile of various rides, roller coasters, arcade games, and there's a laser tag place Marco and I go to once in awhile. It's a great place to spend a day, really. It didn't look at all weird for a group of teenagers to be hanging out here on a Saturday in May, and honestly we might have been here today had we not ended up on alien business.

But the real reason we were here was because of the payphone.

The cell phone industry had inexorably whittled away at payphones, and they were becoming rarer each passing year. But there was one by Gate 3, right outside the Looff Carousel.

The plan was pretty straightforward, but now that I was here, I felt my heart racing.

I looked across the street to the surf shop on the corner - screw Huntington Beach, Santa Cruz is always going to be Surf City - and saw Tobias and Cassie hanging out, pretending to look at swimsuits and surfwear. Marco was the only one of us that was seriously into surfing, but after his mom had drowned, he was understandably a little hesitant about the water.

Lastly, I looked at the osprey circling overhead. We couldn't very well bring Elfangor with us as an Andalite, and the only animal in Cassie's barn that wouldn't look out of place at the beach had been an osprey. Getting Elfangor to the barn had been a bit of a challenge, and we'd driven the few miles to the beach with Cassie holding Elfangor on a towel in her lap, which I think was awkward for all involved. The morphing thing was still weird to me, and watching an alien centaur turn into a bird was nearly sickening. Still, as I watched him on the wing, I couldn't help but wonder what it felt like to fly.

Elfangor explained that he could only stay in morph for two hours, and it had taken about twenty minutes to get here.

I hoped this would go quickly.

I made a mental note of how weird it was to be holding my cell phone in one hand while putting quarters in the pay phone. The phone rang about four or five times before someone picked up. It was a woman's voice. "Hello, how can I help you?"

Moment of truth. "Hey, my friend said you guys wanted any information about the satellite that crashed."

"Yes, that's right. Our science department is trying to gather as much debris as possible for testing."

"Well, I was out near the Moore Creek Preserve last night, and that didn't look like a satellite to me."

My heart was pounding over the stunned silence on the other end of the line.

"Yes, um, let me transfer you to our other line. May I have your name, please, sir?"

And that's when I hung up.

"So now we wait, huh?" Marco asked.

"That's pretty much it, yeah," I said, trying to sound as nonchalant as I could.

The plan had simply been to call in, say something incriminating, and then hang up. As Marco was all too quick to point out, they'd trace the call immediately. Which was why I'd chosen you use the payphone on the Boardwalk, and that meant they'd have to physically send someone to the pay phone to look for us.

It wasn't a great plan. In retrospect, there were way too many holes in the plan. But if the Yeerks were as deep into the infrastructure as we thought they were, I was confident they'd send someone to check out the tip pretty quickly.

I checked my phone again. I decided to call Rachel and tell her what was going on. I was too paranoid to really talk about the alien invasion over the phone, but I'd told her we were at the Boardwalk trying to help Al. She cursed me out a bit that she was missing it, but I told her all we were doing is making a call and waiting to hear back from some people. The wait and see approach didn't seem to appeal to her as much, though she still wanted to be with us.

"Maybe I'll convince mom to take us down there when she gets back," she said.

"No clue how long we're going to be here," I reminded.

"Fine," she said and hung up. I'd be mad too if I was missing out on alien bonding time.

Though to be fair, though, we weren't really connecting to Elfangor on any kind of personal level. We knew very little about him, honestly. I looked up at the osprey again, only to see that Elfangor had apparently given up on circling in favor of perching on the roof of the surf shop. I think we were the only ones that had even noticed him, really. His eyes were focused on the pay phone.

I texted Cassie that I'd made the call. In a few more minutes, Tobias and Cassie were there with us, idly standing next to the gate of the Boardwalk. Cassies was holding a little shopping bag from the surf shop.

"So what do we do now?" Cassie asked.

I wasn't sure of that myself. The biggest glitch here was that there wasn't really any good place to just sit and wait. We didn't want to be seen by the Controllers if or when they showed up. I didn't want to hang out in the surf shop, so that meant we were going to stay in the Boardwalk. The Boardwalk itself is admission-free, and we weren't there to hit any rides. Marco and I already had season passes, so did Rachel for that matter. Maybe I'd treat Cassie and Tobias to passes for the summer. I had a hunch it would be a good place to bring Cassie for a date, and I figured Tobias might like having somewhere to go besides the movie theatre.

"We stay here. We can hang out here at the carousel. You guys feel like ice cream?"

The ice cream booth at the corner still allowed a good line of sight to the payphone, and I was halfway through a chocolate cone when I saw someone walk up to the payphone.

"Guys, someone's here."

Marco almost dropped his ice cream, but he turned and looked. "You've gotta be kidding me."

I had about the same reaction. I recognized the man standing there, scanning the crowd. He was tall, slender, and balding. He wore wireframe glasses, and he looked out of place without his suit and tie, but all of recognized Vice Principal Hendrick Chapman.

"Are we sure he's here because of the phone call?" Cassie asked.

I was. He looked around the carousel area and didn't leave the payphone more than a few feet. It was very obvious he was looking for someone. "It really looks that way," I said.

"Huh," Tobias said. "So we were right, our principal is an alien."

"Not the time for jokes, T," I said. "Come on, we don't want him to find us."

"What about Elfangor?" Marco asked.

"He's a bird," Cassie said. "Trust me, he can keep track of Chapman from the air, and he knows where Jake parked."

We made our way toward Gate 2, the cable cars of the Sky Glider overhead to the left, past the Pizza Hut on our right, past Fright Walk and the Pirate Ship to the multi-colored #2 sign by Sun Shops.

All in all, it looked like our plan had worked better than expected. I saw Elfangor on the wing again, flying around the Boardwalk. My friends and I headed back to the parking lot to the SUV. I wished there was a way to signal Elfangor. All I could do was wave and hope he figured out I wanted him to follow us.

He apparently understood, because by the time we got back to the SUV in the parking lot, there was an osprey on the luggage rack.

*Are we not supposed to follow the Controller?* he asked.

I shook my head. "No need. We know that guy, he works at our school. We already know where he lives, so there's no need to follow him."

*I understand. I am sorry. It is difficult to discover people you know are slaves to the Yeerks.*

"It's been almost an hour since you morphed. We should get you back to the barn, maybe stop and see if we can pick up Rachel."

"Yeah, but now what?" Tobias asked. "We know Chapman's a Controller, but how are we supposed to spy on him?"

I shrugged. "I don't have a clue, guys. I'm making this up as we go."

"The payphone was a good plan, Jake," Marco said. It was a little surprising, really. He was so dead-set against us getting involved, but for all his blustering about how terrible this was, he hadn't backed out yet. Still, it made me smile.

"Thanks, man. Your turn, what now?"

He shook his head. "Cassie, will we be intruding if we go back to your place? Is your dad going to get weird if we're hanging out there?"

"He shouldn't." Then she laughed to herself, and idea occurring to her. "Tell him you get detention and need twenty hours of community service."

"Cassie, you salty minx."

"Alright, jerks and Cassie. Everyone in the death trap. We have to go get Rachel, come up with a plan, and Marco and I have to go to work at four, so we have to keep this moving."

I was on the way to Cassie's barn yet again when Elfangor spoke.

*It is good to have friends..*

I sighed. It was still heavy, realizing how much Elfangor had lost when he met us. I had gone through a little bit of real-world training in grief when Marco's mom died. Two years later, and he was still dealing with it. He always would be dealing with it. I dared to ask, "Do you want to tell us about them?"

*My friends?*

"Yeah, what were their names?"

*Marco reminds me of my friend Arbron. We were friends since our days at the academy.*

"Was Arbron on the ship, too?" Tobias asked.

The osprey turned to look at him. *No, Arbron… Arbron was lost in battle years ago.*

"I'm sorry," I said. I could feel the heat of the tears standing in my eyes.

*I still miss him.*

"Well, when we get you back to Cassie's place, you can call your brother. See if there are any new developments with the Dome Ship, maybe he contacted other survivors."

*That would be good news, Jake, but I fear perhaps overly optimistic.*

"Well, optimism is all I have right now," I said. "We'll help you as much as we can, Elfangor. But we're new to the whole alien war thing. I still don't know how we're going to spy on Chapman for seventy-two hours. It's not like we can turn into animals."

*No, no you can't…,* he said. He sounded strange just then, like I'd said something that upset him.

"We're here. You guys wait here, I'll see if Rachel's free."

"Why didn't you call first?" Cassie asked.

"Honestly, Cass, Aunt Nicole is a lot less likely to say no to my face."

She laughed. "Then shouldn't I come in, too, shouldn't I?"

"Yeah, come on. Let's do this. Elfangor, try to watch the talons on the car seat."

*I will try, but I make no promises.* Maybe it was my imagination, but I had the distinct impression that Elfangor was becoming a wiseass on us. I chose to blame Marco.

I knocked on Rachel's front door. Aunt Nicole opened the door and gave me a hug.

"Jake, good to see you. Cassie, how are you? Rachel tells me you two finally pulled the trigger."

I saw Cassie blush. I was actually glad she was there though. It was refreshing to have company in the humiliation. Aunt Nicole looks like an older version of Rachel, same blonde hair, same blue eyes, same features.

"Alright, I'll stop. So what brings you guys over?"

"I wanted to see if Rachel wanted to go over to Cassie's. Her dad doesn't know about us yet, so if Rachel comes…"

"Oh, I understand. You should've seen your grandfather when he found out I was dating your Uncle Dan. Fathers always seem to forget how they were at that age. Cassie, go talk to your mom. I'm sure she can tell you stories. Anyway, I'll go grab Rachel."

About ten minutes later, we were all getting out of the SUV and walking up the path to the crash site. Rachel was not in a good mood. For one, she was not happy that she kept getting saddled with her younger siblings. Jordan and Sara could be a bit of a handful, I knew. Second, she was mad that we all went to the Boardwalk without her. Not that we did anything there, but she wasn't at all okay being left out. And third, she was livid that Chapman was a Controller. It hit her more than anyone else, because aside from Cassie, Rachel's best friend was Chapman's daughter, Melissa.

Elfangor had already demorphed from his osprey form and was once again in his normal Andalite body. I wasn't sure I'd ever get used to hanging out with an alien.

"So how long does it take you to contact your brother?" Tobias asked.

*The communications array takes some time,* Elfangor admitted, *But I think I may have a more pressing matter for you to consider.*

"Oh?"

Elfangor held up the canister I had carried the other night, the heavy one I thought would give me cancer. I had no clue how he opened it. There were no seams on the canister that I had seen, but it was alien technology, so what did I know? As it opened, we were all bathed in bright blue light.

Inside was a glowing blue cube.

*This is the Escafil Device,* he said. *It is the device that imparts the morphing ability to Andalites. I know that you are young. I know that we are few. And I know that you have no power with which to resist the Controllers. So, if you wish, I can give you the power to morph.*

"W-Wait," Marco said, "you mean morph, like you do? Turn into animals?"

*Yes. Anything you touch, you could then become. It requires concentration and determination, but, if you are strong, you can do it. There are limitations. Problems. Dangers, even. But first, you must decide whether or not to receive this power.*

Rachel nodded. "Let's do it!"

"Whoa, wait," Marco said. "Aren't you being a little rash? What kind of dangers?"

*You can never stay in morph for more than two hours.*

"Okay, but why?"

*The technology has limitations, and after two hours, it is no longer possible to return to your original body.*

"So if something had happened at the beach today, you could've been trapped as an osprey for the rest of your life?"

*Perhaps. The technology has risks.*

"I'm in," Cassie said firmly. "This is our planet, these are our people, and if we can help Elfangor fight the Yeerks, then I think we have no choice."

"I'm in, too," Tobias said.

"Jake?" Marco asked. "What do you think?"

"I can't decide for you, Marco."

"Don't deflect, Jake. I didn't ask you to decide for me. If you're going to do this, I want to know why. Give me a reason. Make it a good one."

I sighed. I wasn't sure why they kept looking to me. "Marco, I'm not sure why I want to do this. I'm not special. I'm not trying to save the world like Cassie. I'm not politically active, I don't give a shit about all that much. I'm not smart like you, Marco. I'm not gifted, or artistic like Tobias. I'm never going to play varsity like Tom. I go to school, I go to work, and I do what I have to do. And no, I don't want to do this, but I think we have to do this. Like Cassie said, this is our planet. If not us, then who else?"

I felt heat on my face. I looked at Cassie, and she smiled at me like she was proud

"And so I guess this is it, then. An alien and five idiot teenagers with a death wish."