I could've easily flown back to my uncle's house from Dealin Dan's lot in less than two minutes. On foot, it was over half an hour. All right, I could've made it back in half that time if I wanted to, but... I didn't want to. It wasn't home in any meaningful sense of the word. It was just the house I happened to sleep in. "Home" would be somewhere where my parents lived, where I'd always feel safe and secure, where I could invite friends over to hang out, where you could smell chocolate-chip cookies baking in the oven, where I could wake up on Christmas morning to see presents under the tree. Maybe, in this ideal world, I'd even have brothers and sisters. I could dream all I wanted, but it would never be the reality I'd be allowed to live in.
I don't remember ever seeing either of my parents. I'm not even sure whether or not they're alive. Part of me kind of hopes they aren't, because if they were still alive, wouldn't they want to be involved in my life? But if they don't want anything to do with me, that would have to mean they were terrible people, right? I don't think I could have lived with the idea of every single one of my relatives being so awful. As it is, all I know about my parents is that they're not here. As far back as I can remember, I've just been bounced back and forth between my Uncle Carl and Aunt Linda. I'd spend a few months at a time with one of them before getting shipped to the other side of the country to live with the other one. Sometimes it would be for five months, sometimes it might be for a whole year. Neither of them really wanted to put up with me.
The months I spent with Uncle Carl were the worst. He was all right when he was sober, but when he got drunk, he liked to hit things. And people. As the years went by, it seemed like he'd started drinking more and more. Lately, the only times I'd see him completely sober was in the morning before he left for work. When I saw him after school, he was usually already at least a little buzzed. So I tried to avoid him as much as I could, but I still had to eat and sleep, and sooner or later I'd have to go back to the house.
Getting shipped cross-country on such a regular basis didn't help with trying to make friends. There almost didn't seem to be a point when you didn't know how much longer you'd even be around. It wasn't too hard to find other kids to talk to once in a while, but meaningful, lasting relationships didn't seem like a viable option. Pretty much all of my 'friends' were science-fiction and fantasy books. I could always count on "Dune" or "The Hobbit" or "The Alchemist" to be there for me.
Pretty much my only friend who wasn't a book was my cat, Surfer Dude. Or just Dude for short. Not a particularly imaginative name, I know, but I was eleven when I thought of it. Lots of dumb things seem like good ideas when you're eleven. One of the neighbors was giving away kittens for free because they already had two cats and didn't want more, so it wasn't too hard to convince Uncle Carl to let me take Dude home, once he realized that cats pretty much take care of themselves. All he really needed to worry about was buying cat litter and food once a month. He even looked after Dude for me during the intervals when I went to stay with Aunt Linda.
Somewhere in the middle of getting repeatedly bounced across the country, I'd developed a reputation as that weird kid with no friends, and, well... that was where the bullies started paying a little too much attention to me. They knew they could do whatever they wanted and nobody would go out of their way to stick up for me. As if my life wasn't depressing enough already.
That's actually how I met Jake, though. A couple of weeks ago, some of the clowns on the school football team were holding me upside down over a toilet and trying to dunk my head in it. I don't know if Jake heard them from outside or what, but he came in and told them to knock it off and let me go. It took a while to convince them, but they finally put me down gently and walked away. Jake's just awesome like that. Now, I won't say that I worshipped the ground he walked on, but I'd be lying if I said he wasn't my hero. I really wished I could've been like him: athletic, confident, popular, good-natured, surrounded by friends and family... maybe I was a little bit jealous of him, but mostly I thought he was the coolest kid I knew.
Well, I felt safe around Jake, so I tried to hang out with him when I could. That's how I got to meet the others. Marco was Jake's best friend, Rachel is his cousin, and Cassie was Rachel's friend who Jake definitely had a crush on (and didn't think anyone else could tell). Lee, I met separate from Jake's social circle. He was also new in town and didn't know anyone yet, so we were able to bond as being a couple of outsiders who didn't seem to fit in anywhere else. We all probably would've just stayed casual acquaintances, but then we took that shortcut through the abandoned construction site, and, well...
Everything had changed overnight. Suddenly, I had a mission. A purpose in life. Teammates. Superpowers! The power to turn into any animal whose DNA I could acquire. I'd already morphed Dude and a hawk, and I wasn't even beginning to scratch the surface of potential. You can call it sad, depressing, or even just weird, but learning about the Yeerk invasion might actually have been the best thing ever to happen to me.
Author's Note: As far as I can tell, there is no canon information about the names of Tobias's aunt and uncle, so I was free to come up with my own names. And so, Carl is named after Cliff's stepfather from the horror webcomic "Wilde Life" - after nine years and fifteen chapters, the ONLY non-supernatural Monster of the Week (in a line-up that includes werewolves, giant snake demons, man-eating giant spiders, poltergeists, minor nature gods, and whatever the hell Sheol is). It's an excellent comic and I highly recommend it. And Linda is named for... well, for somebody who inspired me to leave a job I hated.