The rest of the day passed at an agonizingly slow pace. I spent the time the way I normally did on Sundays, alternating between playing video games and reading through a stack of magazines about computers and electronics. My two big passions in life. But that day, I had a lot of trouble focusing on anything I was doing - the specter of the Sharing meeting hung over everything. I got the same feeling every time there was a big test coming up at school. Nothing to do but live with the encroaching dread for a few hours. But eventually, the time came to head out to the Sharing meeting.
At Marco's insistence, we showed up at the Sharing meeting in three groups to avoid suspicion. Once again, Rachel accused him of just being paranoid, but he insisted that it's not paranoia if somebody's actually out to get you. Granted, the Yeerks weren't out specifically to get us yet, but that's just how Marco wanted to keep it. So he went in first with Jake and Tobias, then Rachel and Cassie went together. That left me on my own. To be fair, I was still the new kid in town, and I usually was on my own.
There were probably about a hundred people there - a good-sized crowd to blend in with. A little more than half were kids either my age or a few years older, but there were a lot of adults, too. There were a few folding tables loaded with snacks and drinks, a couple of horseshoe courts, a half-dozen volleyball nets, and a large, roaring bonfire. I'd been there for about fifteen minutes when Marco pretended to recognize me from the mall, and we stopped to talk innocently about video games, superheroes, and other normal things.
One of the older kids walked over to us, a tall, thin boy with curly blond hair and sparkly green eyes.
"Hey, Marco! ¿Qué pasa?"
"Hi, Erek. Jake's brother convinced him to come check out one of these Sharing meetings, and he dragged me along."
The older kid looked at me.
"Oh, yeah. Lee, this is Erek King. Erek, this is Lee."
"You look kind of familiar, but I don't think I've seen you at The Sharing before."
"No, I've only been in town for a few weeks."
"Wait, I think I know you... yes!" He spoke my name. My FULL name. It felt like my soul was being scraped with sandpaper. "Your dad is Dr. H_, isn't he?"
"Yes... and it's just 'Lee', if you don't mind."
I probably should've asked Erek how he knew my dad, but honestly, I hated my full name, and hearing it spoken out loud like that for the first time in months left me feeling pretty shaken up.
When Erek finally left, Marco and I made our way along the beach, catching up with the others one by one to see what was going on. And for a while, it seemed like a completely normal and innocent event. But I couldn't quite shake the feeling that I was being watched. Once or twice I thought I saw somebody staring at me, but they'd be gone when I went back for a closer look. Maybe I was just imagining it, like I had last night when I thought I saw somebody sitting at my computer desk.
We caught up with Jake and his brother Tom over by the bonfire.
"I can see why you like this Sharing thing, Tom," Marco said, "This is a pretty cool party."
"It's so much more than just this," Tom answered, "The Sharing can do all sorts of things for you... if you become a Full Member," he said, carefully pronouncing the capital letters.
"Hmm. How do you get to be a Full Member?" Jake asked.
"That comes later. You have to be invited," Tom said, reflexively scratching at his ear, "But, once you're a Full Member, the whole world changes."
He smiled as he said this. He probably meant for it to look friendly, but I thought there was something cold and predatory about it. And then, just for a moment - just a split second - Tom's face seemed to twist and contort, like it was a mask somebody was trying to pull off. But he regained his composure immediately and carried on as if nothing had happened.
"Oh, hey, I gotta leave for a bit. The Full members are having a private meeting in twenty minutes. I'll catch up with you later." As Tom departed, Jake's smile faded, replaced with a look of grim determination.
"We need to listen in on that meeting," he declared, "You saw that abandoned lifeguard tower to the south? We'll meet there in ten minutes."
And he left to go pass the word to Tobias, Cassie, and Rachel. I pushed through the crowd and climbed up the back of a sand dune to get my bearings. There was the lifeguard tower... and the ocean.
In the middle of the crowd, I hadn't actually been able to see much of the water. But now, alone at the top of the dune, I got a very good look. And suddenly I was powerless to do anything except sit there and gaze out to sea. What you need to understand is that I grew up in a desert. Even though a lot of homes and businesses had well-manicured grass lawns, the city was still surrounded by sand and rocks. And I'd spent summers with my grandparents on the Reservation - their house was right between the mountains and the open desert. I'd never learned how to swim, unless you count splashing around a knee-deep inflatable pool. So less than two months after moving to the coast, I still wasn't used to seeing so much water all in one place.
The endless expanse of white-capped waves was fascinating enough during the day. But now, with the sun quickly setting, the view from the beach was absolutely hypnotic. Up above, the sky had become a dark blue, with a bright band of pink over the western horizon. Where the sun met the water, everything was a brilliant white. And below that, the sea reflected the sky above. The air was filled with a low buzzing sound - the white noise of thousands of waves rising and falling, surf pounding against the shoreline, distant seabirds calling out, and excited chatter from the crowd of beachgoers.
"Wake up!" Cassie said, gently tapping me on the shoulder.
"Hwa?" I almost fell off the sand dune. I'd gotten so wrapped up in watching the sunset, I'd lost all sense of everything around me.
"Cassie? What's going on?"
"The full members are going back for their meeting now," she replied, "Jake and Tobias are waiting for you."
We rushed over to the abandoned lifeguard tower. As promised, it was very secluded. Nobody else was within a hundred yards, and there was a hollow spot between some of the bigger sand dunes where we could stand up without being seen.
There was a hawk perched on the back of the tower, staring out towards the party.
"Tobias?"
(Yep.)
"How long have you been in morph?"
(Um... a while?)
"You be careful about that time limit," I warned him.
(Don't worry, I've still got about ninety minutes left. Now, are you and Jake going to morph or not?)
While Jake started morphing into his dog Homer, I focused on Dude's black and gray stripes, and started my morph. This time, it was my head that changed first. My entire head, all at once. The rest of the changes just flowed down from my shoulders and along my spine, until I was a cat with human hands and feet. But those quickly mutated into paws. The tail came last, sprouting up like some kind of fairy-tale beanstalk. My night vision kicked in almost at once. It was like somebody turned on a light switch. All the colors were still muted, but I could see everything around me like it was high noon. The night belonged to ME.
Tobias flew overhead, flapping hard to gain altitude.
(I can see where the Full members are gathering. Jake, Lee, you guys get moving. I'll give you directions along the way.)
(Hey, do hawks even have night vision?) Jake asked.
(Well, I can't see that great in the dark, but there's a lot of glare from that bonfire. I'll still be able to keep an eye out for Yeerk-sign.)
(Yeerk-sign?)
(Like worm-sign from 'Dune'?)
(Oh, good grief,) Jake said as we started racing up the beach.
We split up. Jake ran along the water's edge, just a stray dog on the beach in the eyes of anyone paying attention. I kept to the sand dunes, darting between tufts of dried grass, invisible to everyone except Tobias. In less than two minutes, we'd reached the meeting area for the Full members. Still undetected, we crept up close to listen in. What we heard wasn't good.