Chapter 10

I was excited, so I woke up even earlier than I normally did. The dark purple of the night sky was beginning to lighten, as if it were a bruise that was healing before my eyes. The sun had not yet peeked over the horizon, and the prey animals in my meadow were using the shift change between the night and day predators in order to scavenge what food they could. There really wasn't enough light to hunt by, but I managed to snag an unsuspecting field mouse, anyway. I hurriedly finished my meal, anxious to get my day started.

'Ax was right,' I told myself as I made the short trip to his patch of land. 'Just thinking about doing something nice for Rachel is making me feel better. Too bad I don't have any money to spend on her.' That was actually why I was stopping by Ax's first – there was about five bucks in quarters left in our newspaper fund, and I was going to borrow it. I knew it wasn't enough to buy Rachel anything or do anything incredibly fun with, but at least I could buy her a burger and a Coke. I could make the gesture. Also, I needed one of the bus tokens we had there.

Ax was just about to leave for his morning ritual, which he did by the stream about a hundred yards from his scoop. As I morphed to human and raided the stash of clothing we kept at the scoop, I lamented the fact that I was only going to have five dollars. Ax offhandedly said, (Oh, I have human money. I do not believe it is as valuable as our quarters, but you are welcome to it.) He pointed to a weather-beaten, watertight yellow case in the corner of the scoop.

I opened the case, which was apparently somebody's survival kit they'd left behind after camping. Inside was a small flare gun with flares, monofilament fishing line, hooks, iodine tablets to purify water, and yes – there in the corner of the box was a folded stack of bills. I quickly counted it – a hundred and thirty-three dollars. "Ax, this is way more than the quarters." I tucked two of the twenties in my jeans pocket and explained to him the values on the bills.

(Ridiculous,) he scoffed. (Why would you humans value a renewable resource like paper more highly than a finite resource like metal? It makes no sense.)

I thought about it and agreed with him. "Whether it makes sense or not, you just saved my butt, Ax. Thanks a lot." I put on a pair of the cheap, dollar store flip-flops we kept in a milk crate by his books. "I'll see you later on."

(Wait, Tobias! Take the watch,) he opened a drawer and handed me the cheap Timex. In my hurry to get to Rachel, I'd forgotten it. I set the alarm for an hour and forty-five minutes and set off toward the edge of the woods at a brisk walk.

I resisted the urge to whistle as I broke the tree line and made my way to the bus stop. Had I felt this good since becoming an Animorph? Maybe, but I couldn't remember when. I had forty bucks in my pocket and nothing but good intentions for Rachel. "Morning, sir!" I said cheerily to the bus driver as I boarded the empty bus, and he shot me a dirty look in return. I checked the watch – it was barely after six am. Maybe a little early for cheerful "good mornings." Unperturbed, I took a seat and bounced impatiently until I got to the stop closest to Rachel's house.

The sun was up as my flip-flops smacked the sidewalk. It was weird to be walking anywhere; for a while now, most of my destinations had been a short flight away. While it was inconvenient, in a way, it felt right. I mean, I know I'm human, so of course being a human should feel natural to me…but it doesn't, most of the time. Not anymore. The birds in Rachel's sleepy subdivision seemed to urge me on, chirping happily, far away from the predators that would kill and eat them. Predators like me.

When I got to Rachel's house, I faltered a little – it was way before her family would be waking up on a Sunday. It only slowed me down for a second – I looked around, saw that no one was even outside, and jumped over the privacy fence between her front and back yards. I went around back to where her window was, and I called out in thought-speech. (Hey, Rachel! It's me – can you wake up?)

To my surprise, barely after the words had left my head, she was waving the Christmas sock like a flag from her window. I smiled and even chuckled a little – man, if I miss anything about being human, it's being able to laugh when something funny happens. (Not this time. Look down,) I called to her.

She did, sticking the whole top half of her body out of her window. When she saw me, I knew I'd made the right call by listening to Ax's advice. Her face broke out into the sunniest grin I've ever seen, and I swear my heart skipped at least one beat. "Be right down," she whispered loudly, still grinning insanely. I took a mental snapshot of that moment, of her leaning out of her bedroom window, the morning sun bouncing off of her and making her radiant.

As I waited for her, all of the nervousness that had been in the back of my mind went away. Before I'd arrived, I'd been thinking about what we could do that Rachel would consider fun. I was worried that I was making the wrong choice, that I'd been right before, and we shouldn't be human around each other. Not at a time like this. But the way she smiled at me before disappearing back into her bedroom to get ready convinced me that I'd been wrong. And I realized that, no matter what we ended up doing, just the effort to be together would be enough to make the day a success.

Yeah. I might pay for it later, emotionally…but for now, giving Rachel something that she wanted was something I could do. And I would.