Hello! I'm sorry for the long hiatus, but I'm back at school now and trying to get my bearings in Junior College =x I'll just say that they expect us to self-study and that's not working well for me... I must find motivation!! XD

OK well, here's Chapter 5! Enjoy! :)

Chapter Five

The next day was a school day. I sat with Jon on the bus, as usual. Hannah and Maria sat together, as usual. And Will sat off by himself in the disabled section, as usual.

No signal passed between us; no sign that we'd seen what we had the night before and the responsibility we'd been entrusted with. We ignored each other. Somehow, all of us knew how crucial it was that we keep up an appearance of normalcy. And normal, for us, was barely knowing each other.

We went through the morning's classes like that. For me, it was as if everyone around was acting suspicious, though. I would keep feeling eyes on my back when I sat at my desk, and had to restrain myself from turning to see who was eyeballing me. By lunch period, I was so tightly-wound I expected Hols'aars to pop up from behind the lockers. Jon seemed as highly-strung as I did. He'd mentioned the night before once, in tense, nervous tones. Asked me if it was a dream.

I knew that we couldn't go through the day acting totally like nothing had happened. We had to beat the Yeerks to the clean-up operation, for one thing. So I unobtrusively gathered the others at the same table during lunch. As we ate, I tried to speak as softly as I could, trusting that the hum of conversation all around would mask my voice.

"OK, guys. Somehow, today, we have to get to Jalilan's fighter. And then we'll have to sneak in through the barricade to search for the morphing cube. I think we should do it right after school. There are lots of people in the park at that time, so I guess the Yeerks won't try to get to the fighter until it's cleared up a bit."

I saw varying degrees of uncertainty on their faces. I knew how they were feeling. Myself, I was scared witless by the very idea.

But I kept quiet about it. From the encounter the night before, I'd gotten some idea of what the others expected of me. First and foremost, I wasn't allowed to freak.

"I don't think we should go as a group, though," Hannah said. "I mean, we don't hang around together normally. A group of five hanging around the fighter would sound alarms for the Yeerks."

Maria took a deep breath and waved a forkful of pasta to emphasize her point.

"You all do know that this is possibly the craziest thing we've ever done, right? I mean, it's un-freaking-believably insane. We could all end up dead!"

Jon glanced around, nervously.

"Shh, keep your voice down. It's not safe around here." Maria had made her last remark in a louder voice than either Hannah and I had used; some people at adjacent tables were looking across with curiosity.

"Sorry." Maria spoke in a whisper this time. "I only wanted to make sure you all understood how dangerous, stupid and possibly suicidal this is."

Surprisingly, it was Will who answered her.

"Yeah, it is. But I say we do it. For Jalilan."

Will spoke quietly, but we could all feel the emotion running through his words.

Jon's face relaxed; he didn't look so nervous anymore.

Hannah smiled and nodded.

Maria gave an exaggerated sigh, but at the same time reached across and patted Will's arm.

I drew them in closer.

"Here's the plan…"

We split up after that. Once school ended, Jon, Will and I made our way to the park. It took a bit of trouble, but we managed to find the clearing in the end. The fencing the Yeerks had constructed the night before was still in place. The muddy ground hadn't recovered from the battering it had taken; we could still make out the skid marks from Jalilan's fighter and the indentations from the Bug fighters and the Blade ship.

The fence looked extremely tall and solid.

I gave the surroundings a quick once-over. The clearing was on a slight hump in the ground, which gave us a good view down onto the field at the base of the hillock. There were only a few people down there; kids with Frisbees and balls, some adults out walking dogs and the like. We would be able to see anyone making their way over. At the same time, though, the brush growing up the sides of the hill wasn't enough to completely obscure the fence, which stuck out like a sore thumb. The plan was to work fast and trust to luck that no one would be struck by curiosity.

"Will, go keep a lookout."

Will nodded and positioned himself behind a tree, where he would be hidden from the field below but still have a good view.

Jon and I worked round the fence, running our hands over the smooth, raw-looking wood, feeling for weak spots. The cold had seeped into the plywood and soon our hands were raw and aching. We continued, every muscle tense, hoping we'd find an opening before anyone saw what we were doing.

We'd been doing this for a bit when there was rustling in the bushes on the side of the hill that was hidden from the field. Jon and I leapt about a foot, but it turned out to be just Maria and Hannah coming to join us.

The adrenaline was rushing through my body. I leant against the fence, pressing my forehead against the cold wood.

"I ask you!" Maria faced me, hands on hips. "Do I look like a Hols'aar to you?"

Hannah joined Jon, beginning to feel the fence as well. "Well, no. That'd be unfair on the Hols'aar."

I couldn't help myself but laugh.

We worked in silence for a while, feeling for any weak spot that might present itself. We were pretty much fed up when we realized there wasn't one.

I found everyone looking at me, waiting… waiting for me to tell them what to do. That freaked me out not a little. I mean, at school I wasn't an obvious leader or anything. People liked me and went along with me, yeah, but I'd never given out orders, like they were expecting me to now.

What scared me even more was that my brain was reacting. It saw a need, and filled it. I knew what to do.

"We'll concentrate on one plank; knock it around until it's loose enough to move aside."

Hannah looked doubtful. She opened her mouth to protest, but I cut in hastily.

"I know it's pretty dangerous, but it's our only choice."

We chose a plank that looked fractionally thinner than the others, though I suspected that was just wishful thinking. Together, we set about wobbling it like a loose tooth, hoping that our combined strength would be enough to dislodge the plank, driven into the mud as it had been by a troop of seven-foot tall Hols'aars.

Right.

Thankfully, it had rained the night before and the ground was muddy slush. We spent many patient minutes pulling the plank around, and were rewarded with the fact that it certainly was getting looser. I gave it one or two good kicks with my sneakers and it sagged crazily inwards until we pushed it down to lie flat on the ground.

We were in.

Somehow, nobody wanted to go inside the fence and poke around in the wreckage of the Andalite fighter. In the end, the job fell to me. I saw the others' expectant looks and sighed, resigning myself to it.

Maria moved off to join Will in watching the people down below; Hannah and Jon stayed outside the fence as I moved inwards, trying to sort through the crazy fragments of what had, until lately, been a spaceship. Much of it was twisted, blackened metal, scorched by its entry through the atmosphere. A horrible thought struck me.

Would the Escafil Device have been smashed along with the ship?

I tried to push the thought from my mind as I quickly sifted through the debris. I went through it two or three times.

No morphing cube.

Will hissed from his lookout position.

"Steve! A bunch of guys with tools are coming this way!"

Yeerks.

Frantic now, I dug through the wreckage, tearing my hands on the rough edges of the metal. All I could see was mud and metal. No cube in sight.

"Steve!"

Hannah leaned through the gap in the fencing.

"You've got to stop now! They're nearly at the hill; if they see us here they'll catch us!"

I'd gone over the fighter about five times now. The cube definitely wasn't there. I tried to leave the metal in roughly the same position as I had found it in. If it looked like someone had been scrabbling through it our days were numbered.

I backed out through the hole in the fence. Feverishly, we worked to drive the plank back into the ground, hoping that it would be hard to tell the difference between the other planks and the one we'd loosened. Maria scuffed out our footprints and Will's chair tracks as well as she could.

"Steve! They're climbing the hill!"

Hope you enjoyed that! :) You notice that Steve is taking on more and more of a leadership role... Oh, and even though there haven't been many clues as yet, anyone who can guess which state the Animorphs are from gets... my love. Lots of it.