Saturday morning. Finally.

Somehow, I fell asleep. But it wasn't a restful night. I was prepared to be woken up at any moment with news that the ship was under attack. But by the time morning came there was still no call from the others.

First thing I did after getting up was to check the morning news on TV, without caring how out-of-character it might have looked to my parents. There was only a brief mention about the "unknown disturbance" in the construction site last night that was "still being investigated" - which was code for "we don't want to admit we have no leads". There was nothing about sightings of strange blue creatures. Wherever the Andalites were, they were apparently lying low. At least in the places the media could see them.

The morning dragged on. Tem and I waited, trying not to go crazy.

The phone rang.

I raced to the kitchen in a mad dash, but my mom answered it first. She'd been waiting there with some papers spread out on the table. "Hey, Madeline. So I read both drafts of the script and - What? Oh. Yeah, hold on." She held the receiver out to me. "It's for you."

"Thanks." I took the phone while giving her my nope-nothing-strange-going-on-here smile.

"Please make it quick. I'm expecting an important call from work," my mom said.

"Sure." I walked as far away as the cord would let me. (If I didn't make it clear before, this took place in the Nineties and cordless phones weren't really popular yet.) I turned away from my mom and spoke quietly. "It's me. What's happening?"

"We're fine," Eva's voice answered. "Nothing happened all night. Proximity sensors confirmed no one even approached the ship. They're not coming after us."

I breathed a sigh of relief I'd been wanting to breathe since last night. "Oh thank goodness."

"You're telling me," Eva said. "Even if the Andalites know we're somewhere on Earth, it's now safe to assume they don't know the pool's exact location. This makes things a lot easier."

"Listen, I can't really talk now. My mom's waiting for the phone." Translation: I can't say anything alien-related because my mom might overhear. "But what's the plan? Are we meeting up?"

"Not yet. Give us an hour or two first. Tidwell and I both want a chance to go home. You know, get a change of clothes. Have some real food instead of astronaut paste. We'll all meet at the ship after that to discuss our next move."

"I can come now while you're doing that." Translation: I can guard the pool while you're gone, just in case.

"Not necessary. I already talked to the Chapmans. Alison's on her way right now."

"Of course she is." Translation: You're leaving me out again.

"Tom, I know you're been worried since last night. But we're probably going to be very busy after today. You should take advantage of the downtime while you still can."

My mom spoke up behind me. "Tom, please. She could be calling right now."

It was the most important alien invasion ever, and I had one older woman telling me to wait around, and another older woman trying to stop me from talking altogether. It was more than a little frustrating. "O-Okay, fine. I gotta hang up now. I'll see you in an hour. Just - Just be safe, okay?" I walked back and hung up the phone.

"You're going out?" my mom asked innocently. "Is everything okay?"

I shrugged, distractedly. "Uh, yeah. There's . . . a thing, and . . ."

Usually, I was disturbingly good at lying to my parents and making up clever cover stories. But this time there wasn't a need. Barely five seconds after I hung up the phone, it rang again.

Mom answered it right away. "Hello? Yes, Madeline. I got them right here. So, in the first draft . . ."

I walked out of the kitchen, leaving my mom to her work.

After an uncomfortable sleep in the ship, bracing themselves for an attack, Eva and Tidwell wanted a break to unwind before jumping back to work. That was fair. But I didn't want a break. I'd been waiting on pins and needles all night - I wanted to do something! I wondered if I should just forget what I told Eva and rush to the ship now.

While Tem and I tried to decide what to do, Homer suddenly started barking from somewhere upstairs, loudly.

Over the barking, I barely heard my mom saying, "What was that? Fifteenth?" She struggled to hear as the dog continued barking his head off. "Hang on." She poked her head out the kitchen. "Tom, can you go see what Homer needs?"

I was already upset. A part of me wanted to say, "you deal with him. I have more important things to worry about". But frustrated as I was, I knew I wouldn't gain anything by making my mom mad too. So what I actually said was, "Fine," and headed upstairs.

Homer didn't usually make this much noise inside the house. Something must have been freaking him out. The last time he made this much racket indoors was when the Evil Ivy attacked.

[You don't think he's barking because the Evil Ivy came back, do you?] Tem worried.

[What do you think it means when I'm the guy with an alien parasite in his brain, and I think someone's being too paranoid?] I told him.

Slightly embarrassed, he changed the subject. [You know, you keep calling me an alien. But from my perspective, I'm the normal guy inside an alien's brain.]

[I'm not an alien.]

[You are from my perspective.]

[I can't be an alien if I'm still on my native planet. You're the immigrant.]

Tem paused. I sensed that he was trying to make a clever comeback, but he couldn't form the thoughts.

That finally put me in a good mood again. Tem was a genius and could pilot spaceships, but I could still outsmart him now and then.

[Oh, don't be so smug,] he thought at last.

By the time I climbed all the steps, Homer had stopped barking. But as long as I was up here, I figured I should check on him anyway. The dog wasn't in the hallway, so he was probably in Jake's room.

I knocked. "Jake, you got Homer in there with you?" I opened the door without waiting for an answer. "Mom's on the phone and -"

It wasn't Jake. It was a skinny blond kid I had never seen before.

I narrowed my eyes. "Who are you?"

"I'm Tobias." Then, as an afterthought, he said, "I'm a friend of Jake's."

Homer was with him. There were dirty clothes all over the floor - which wasn't strange. Jake's room was always a mess. What was strange was that one of Jake's t-shirts was slipped on over Homer's head and front legs.

I stared. "What . . . Why are you dressing up the dog?"

"It was Jake's idea," Tobias answered after a brief moment. "I told him it was weird."

[He needed to be told it was weird?] Tem wondered.

I looked around the room. The only ones here were this Tobias kid, Homer the dog, and me. "Where is Jake?" I asked.

After another brief moment, Tobias said, "He went to find more clothes."

I glanced at the pile of untouched dirty laundry on the floor. Then I looked at Tobias with a raised eyebrow. At that moment - and I'd swear to this in a court of law - the dog looked at him with the same expression.

"Uh-huh." On second thought, I didn't care what they were doing. "Well, our mom's on the phone. So stop torturing the poor guy and keep him quiet, all right?" I kneeled down and rubbed Homer's head. "Understand, boy? Quiet. Shh."

I scratched at Homer's ear, and the dog panted happily. This was actually the closest I've been to Homer in quite a while. He started avoiding me ever since I bonded with Tem. I was worried that he could smell the Yeerk in me and he hated it, or at least he was weirded out by how I was mysteriously different than what he was used to. But he didn't seem bothered by me now. Maybe he finally got over it.

Well, if the dog could adjust to the new me, maybe there would be hope for my family once they learned the truth.

I left Homer and Tobias, and closed Jake's bedroom door behind me. I casually wondered where Jake really was. Two steps down the hall I thought:

[Wait. He's not stealing my clothes, is he?]

I checked my room. No one there. Nothing missing from the closet either.

I rolled my eyes. Then I flopped backwards onto my bed. Between my mom tying up the phone and my little brother and his friends acting weird, moving out on my own was looking more and more appealing.

.

Not long later, I was feeling impatient again. I wanted to get in touch with the others. Mom was probably off the phone by now. Maybe I could call Alison at the ship or Chapman at home, see if they learned anything.

I went into the kitchen. Mom was gone, but Jake was there - talking on the phone.

I fought down the urge to groan. It felt like not waking up to news that the pool was already destroyed was the only break I was going to catch today. I wished we had a second phone line. Or maybe I should sell some stuff and just buy my own cell phone. It's not like I had no use for one.

Jake glanced at me as I came in. He was hunched over a bowl of cereal as he spoke into the mouthpiece. He quickly looked away from me, perhaps a bit nervously, and quietly said, "I'll just see you there in a couple hours, okay?"

He hung up the phone and resumed eating. So the phone was finally free, but I didn't want to talk about Yeerk-stuff with Jake sitting right there. I also couldn't just stand around waiting for him to leave. I had to act like everything was normal; like the emergency at the construction site never happened. I went to the counter to make some toast, giving myself an excuse to linger until Jake was gone.

I waited. Still.

There were aliens plotting a genocide hiding somewhere in the city . . . and I was standing around waiting to use a phone.

I didn't have time for this nonsense!

[The fighter last night wasn't that big. How many Andalites do you think would be riding it?] I asked Tem bitterly. [Three or four? Not more than four, right?]

[I'm really not an expert on Andalite ships, but about three sounds right,] Tem answered. Then he asked, [Does Jake seem okay to you?]

[What? Yeah, why?]

[I dunno. He seems kind of upset. He was really jumpy last night too.]

I did the mental equivalent of a sigh. [Is it time for another paranoid theory, Temrash? We've already established he wasn't killed last night.]

[Tom, I'm serious,] he snapped at me. [I mean, look at him.]

I turned my head towards the kitchen table.

Jake did seem a little pale. And he was eating his cereal kind of fast. He was definitely anxious about something. He was almost jittery, like he was pumped full of adrenaline, even though he was just sitting at a table.

I remembered how quickly he ended his phone call as soon as I came into the room. Earlier, he was sneaking around to do who-knows-what while his weird friend covered for him. It also wasn't like him to be out as late as he was last night. And when he finally did come home, I remembered the expression on his face. How tired and ragged he looked. But I didn't pay attention because I had my own reasons for being anxious and upset.

Temrash was right. Something was going on with my brother. And I'm ashamed to say an alien noticed it before I did.

I knew Jake and I had been drifting apart for a while, even before I got busy with The Sharing. I told myself it was just part of growing up. But we used to be so close. We used to talk to each other about anything and everything. And now, I was so wrapped up in my own problems that I wasn't even paying attention to him anymore.

Did I . . . really have no time for Jake?

No. Forget my problems. Forget the Andalites. Even if the entire world was in danger, I could spare a few minutes for my little brother.

I put on a smile. Brought my toast to the table, turned a chair around backward and straddled it, sitting across from Jake. I put on a big show of being casual, trying to put him at ease. "Hey. What's going on, midget?"

"Midget" was like my nickname for Jake. I teased him a lot about being smaller than me, but not in a mean way. At least, it wasn't supposed to be mean. I was pretty sure Jake understood that. He was actually big for his age, which is exactly why the nickname's funny.

"Nothing," Jake replied. He didn't make eye contact with me. He seemed to become even more nervous once I sat down. He was pale and twitchy, and I was even more certain something was wrong.

A horrible thought popped into my head: What if he was on uppers?!

[Why would Jake be taking drugs?] Tem asked me.

I paused. [. . . I dunno.]

[Well, you thought it. Why drugs?]

[Well, I guess . . . He's around the age people start pushing drugs on kids, right? So if he's all sweaty and hyped up and nervous around people, it might be uppers.]

[I suppose it's possible.] That was the conscious thought he directed at me, but I could sense subconsciously that he believed I was just being paranoid.

[Shut up. I'm not the one who thought he was abducted by aliens last night,] I shot back.

[Fair enough,] he admitted.

This mental conversation only lasted a moment or two, as I chewed and swallowed my toast in the physical world. Out loud, I casually said, "You sure? 'Cause you seem kinda worried about something."

"I'm fine," he muttered, still refusing to look at me. But he didn't seem in any hurry to leave. I got the feeling he really did want to tell me something but couldn't bring himself to spit it out.

I didn't want to be casual anymore.

I pushed my plate aside. I stared at Jake's face with a serious expression. "Jake, listen. I know we don't hang out much anymore, but I'm still your big brother. If something's wrong, you can talk to me. Whatever it is. You know that, right?"

That's when Jake finally made eye contact with me, and it broke my heart. He had the expression of a kicked puppy. Or someone who had the weight of the entire world forced onto their shoulders.

A hundred possible problems raced through Tem's and my minds, some teenage and some alien. Was it drugs after all? Or was Jake being bullied? Did he see the Andalite ship last night, and was scared no one would believe him? Did he suspect that there was an alien inside me? Did his friend Marco finally come out of the closet?

Finally, Jake said, "I, uh . . . I didn't make the team."

My theories were all over the place, and yet his answer still caught me off guard. "What team?" I asked, puzzled.

"What team?" he repeated. Abruptly, Jake didn't seem nervous anymore. He switched to looking as puzzled as me. "The basketball team. Your old team."

"Oh." Jake and I had drifted even further apart than I realized. I didn't even know he wanted to try out for basketball.

Wait. He didn't make it? From what I remembered of middle school, the basketball team had really low standards and I was the only player who took winning seriously. I'd have thought the coach would give him a spot just for being my brother. Jake must have been REALLY bad at tryouts if he couldn't even get on that lame team.

[Obviously, I'm not an expert on how to talk to brothers, but you probably shouldn't say that to him,] Tem told me.

Jake was staring at me, waiting for my reaction. I didn't know what to say, so I just made a little shrug and told him, "Too bad."

Jake's face scrunched up in confusion. "Too bad?" he repeated.

Well . . . wasn't it?

I shrugged again. "It's just sports."

His eyes bugged out at me. "It's just sports?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, jeez, Jake." I rolled my eyes. "The way you were acting a minute ago, I was downright scared. You had me worried this was gonna be something important."

This was the wrong thing to say.

Jake leaned back in his chair, staring at me strangely. ". . . Something important?"

[Is he going to repeat everything you say?] Tem wondered.

Jake's reaction was starting to make me uncomfortable. "What?"

He blinked. He gestured at me. "Tom, I just can't believe you're talking like this. You're . . . you! The basketball legend. You live for sports."

That actually made me a little angry. Was that really how Jake saw me? Like I was just some musclebound jock who only cared about putting a ball through a hoop?

[Please, no one thinks you're musclebound, Tom. You're too lanky for that,] Tem couldn't help but snark.

[Shut up!]

"I do not 'live' for sports," I said bitterly. I shifted in my seat. Diverted my eyes. "I'm . . . I'm not even on the team anymore," I mumbled quietly.

"You're what?" Jake asked.

I looked back at him and finally spat out my littlest secret. "I quit the team, okay?"

"You quit the team?!" With that, Jake nearly fell out of his chair. "When?!"

Awkwardly, I said, "About a week ago." I was rounding down. Vaguely.

"You quit a week ago and you didn't even talk to me about it?" Jake continued his little freak-out. "What's the deal?"

I couldn't believe how extreme a reaction Jake was having. I felt like I could have told him there was an alien living in my brain, and pulled Tem out of my ear to prove it, and he would have LESS of a reaction to that.

"Why would I talk to you about it?" I rose my voice. "It's not like I needed your permission. I just wasn't into it anymore, so I quit. It's not a big deal."

"Yes, it is."

"No, it's not!" I snapped at him. "I have more important things to do with my time."

Jake blinked at me again. "Like what, exactly?" he asked, not to be mean, but like he really didn't know. Like he was genuinely confused. Like he couldn't imagine any interests I would have outside of this one thing.

I scowled. "Well, not talking to you, that's for sure!" I stood up, pushing my chair away with a loud scrape. "Basketball's just a game, Jake. Get a life!" I turned and stomped out of the kitchen, ignoring Jake's shocked expression.

I regretted starting the conversation. I had wanted to make Jake feel better, but all I ended up doing was making myself angry.

Tem was silent inside my mind for a few moments. Then he hesitantly said, [I'm sorry for making jokes back there. I shouldn't have distracted you.]

I was still angry. Jake's reaction really bothered me. The worst part was, a year or two ago, his opinion of me would have been right. I would have thought not making the team was a tragedy. Because back then, there was literally nothing else I was good at besides basketball. But I was different now. I was doing really important stuff. I've saved people's lives. Even with just the "front" part of The Sharing, the stuff that wasn't a secret, I did volunteer work and helped the community. But my brother only thought of me as a dumb jock who had nothing going on in his life except a sports team.

Well . . . screw him.