Hours passed, with few results to show for the day's observations. This was the usual result, and what we expected. The Yeerk invasion was being carried out in secret, after all. It would not do for them to make their presence obvious. There were tens of thousands of Humans just in this city, and millions of them in the surrounding area. Determining which of them had an alien parasite hidden inside their heads would require a great deal of patience. It was not a process that could be hurried. As we watched and waited, Tobias would tell me stories about his life on Earth before learning about the Yeerk invasion. At the time, it did not make much sense to me, but it did help me understand this planet a little more.

(We should probably head back home,) Tobias said, (School's out now, and the others are probably on their way over to Cassie's place already.)

He opened his wings, jumped off his perch on top of a streetlamp, and let the warm air rising from the pavement lift him up. I followed close behind, and we sailed away from the heart of the city, across row after row of houses, back towards the forest. Back to the trees. They were mostly what Tobias called 'pine trees'. They were almost like smaller versions of the trees that grew back on the Homeworld. Other Hork-Bajir had told me about them, during the scarce moments when the Yeerks left our heads so they could feed on their Kandrona rays. The trees of the Homeworld had been giants - some of the Tribe Trees had been half a mile tall, while the tallest trees on Earth were less than 400 feet.

Our destination was a small farm on the edge of the forest. There was a fenced-in pasture with four horses, a blue house, and an L-shaped red barn. Even from a thousand feet in the air, our hawk eyes were still sharp enough to read the sign on the side of the barn. 'Apple Valley Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic', the hospital that Cassie's family operated for injured wildlife. A green Chevrolet truck was moving up the gravel path leading from the main road up to the barn. Inside, I could see two Humans with dark brown skin and short black hair, and a third Human with pale skin and long yellow hair. Rachel and Cassie, my fellow Animorphs, with Cassie's father driving the truck. Tobias and I passed the truck and flew into the hayloft of the barn.

I had been in morph for over two hours, so with Tobias keeping watch, and safely hidden from view unless somebody climbed up the ladder into the hayloft, I demorphed. My neck stretched out, feathers retracted, feet grew larger, fingers reemerged, and internal organs reconfigured themselves from a carnivore's digestive tract back into something capable of processing tree bark. Back in my natural body, out-of-place though it was on this planet. But not for long. I rested for a few minutes, then focused on another DNA pattern. My own green, scaled skin became smooth and brown. Three toes split apart into five. My blades disappeared one by one, tail shriveled away, and my head changed from an elongated arrowhead to a squashed sphere. A short mat of black fibers grew across my scalp. And dark red and black fabric appeared across part of my body - the clothing I had managed, after a few attempts, to incorporate into my Human morph.

Humans are not the only sapient species to have invented clothing, but they took the concept much farther than any other species had. But since it is not part of the Human DNA pattern, I had to borrow it. And only skintight clothing was capable of being included in a morph. Rachel had loaned me a leotard, a garment worn by some Humans while engaged in athletic activities. However, it was not considered general-purpose clothing, so something else had to be worn over it. Carefully hidden up in the hayloft was a bag containing more donated clothing - blue jeans, a pink T-shirt, and a pair of white shoes. Visually, at least, I was now disguised as a teenage Human girl.

Down below, I heard laughter as Cassie and Rachel entered the barn. I couldn't hear what they were talking about, but I did at least recognize their voices.

(We're upstairs,) Tobias said. There was a wooden creak as somebody climbed up the ladder. Cassie's head and shoulders emerged over the edge of the platform, and they waved a hand in greeting when they saw me.

"Jake and Marco just got here," she said, "They're waiting up at the house. Do you want to come in, too?"

"Yes," I said, "I will be there momentarily."

Cassie disappeared back down the ladder. I hesitated for a minute before following. If I were in my own body, I could have easily gone down the ladder in seconds, and done so headfirst. But climbing with an unfamiliar Human body was an uncomfortable idea. No claws on my hands or feet, no tail... I made my way down, slowly and deliberately, only daring to move one limb at a time.

As I walked out of the barn, I suddenly came face to face with my exact physical double. Lee stopped and stared at me for a moment.

"Woah. This is still pretty weird, seeing somebody else with my face," he said.

When I first brought up the subject of a Human morph, the debate over exactly who I should acquire had lasted for over an hour. The others all agreed that it was a good idea in theory, but in practice? Marco was concerned that if any Controllers happened to see both myself and whomever I had morphed, they might become suspicious - especially if the Controller knew the individual that I had morphed. It was not an idle concern - Jake's elder brother, Tom, was a Controller. So were both of Lee's parents. Tobias suspected that the Andalites had a special technique for combining multiple DNA patterns to create a unique morph, but even if he was correct, we had no idea how to do that. So if I wanted a Human morph, I would still need to acquire a specific person.

Lee had been reluctant to volunteer at first, but in the end had decided that he was the most logical Human for me to acquire. He had recently moved from another city hundreds of miles away, and had no family nearby who might wonder why he suddenly had a doppelganger. Except for his parents, whom he avoided as much as possible. There was another factor Lee thought could be exploited. He was transgender - born in a female body, but with a masculine sense of identity. He believed that if he were to wear boys' clothes (as he normally did), while I wore girls' clothes, the difference in style might be enough to prevent people from realizing that we had the exact same physical features. We were about to put this theory to the test.

The back door of the house opened, and Cassie's father emerged.

"Hi, Walter," Lee said.

"Hello," he answered. "Ah... Lee, right?"

"Yes."

Cassie's father looked at me.

"This is my cousin Toby," Lee said, anticipating the question, "She's from Santa Fe."

We had agreed upon this cover story beforehand. Since I had only adopted the name Toby after escaping the Yeerks, we decided it was safe to use. Even if Cassie's father was a Controller, he could not possibly connect that name to the lone Hork-Bajir who had escaped the Yeerk Pool.

"Well, I'm afraid I don't have time to give you the tour. I've got some errands to run. Cassie can show you around. Just don't touch the animals, OK? They are wild, and I don't want to have to sew any fingers back on."

With that, Cassie's father climbed back into the truck. He had no idea that, despite appearances, I was not an ordinary Human. Or that I'd already touched five of the animals in the Clinic to acquire their DNA.