I don't actually mind being a hawk. There's worse animals to be trapped as - I mean, hypothetically, if I'd been trapped as a rat or a caterpillar, I don't think I could've handled that. But being a hawk gives you a lot of freedom - I can fly almost anywhere and see almost anything. Not only is it an excellent way to spy on the Yeerks, but being a hawk is just fun. I love soaring high up on the thermals, swooping down at breakneck speed, and drifting almost effortlessly from one side of town to the next.
Being human, on the other hand? Even if I wasn't secretly disappointed about having to demorph into a clumsy, awkward, almost blind body, my life sucked. I don't know who my parents are, or if they're even alive. As far back as I can remember, I'd been alternately raised by an aunt and uncle on different sides of the country (my only living relatives, as far as I know). For a few months at a time, I'd stay with my violently alcoholic Uncle Carl, or at least sleep in the same house. When I got older, I tried to spend as little time around him as possible and hang out at the mall or the library or anywhere else I could walk to, but I inevitably had to go back home to eat and sleep, and run the risk of getting a black eye if I caught him in a bad mood.
Then I'd go to North Carolina to live with my aunt for a while. Honestly, I kind of preferred it there. Not that suburban Charlotte was the greatest place in the world or anything, and Aunt Linda made it clear that she did not want to play caretaker for somebody else's kid, but at least I didn't have to scrape empty beer cans off the table before I ate dinner. But then my aunt would get tired of having me around, and send me back to California.
Relatives who didn't want me weren't my only problem. Because I moved around so much, I never really had enough time to get to know anybody well. I didn't have friends anywhere. And because I didn't have any friends to stick up for me - and I was too small to be able to fight back - I was the kind of kid that bullies loved to pick on. Jake intervened on my behalf once - we actually met when somebody was trying to shove my head down a toilet - but that kind of rescue was very much an exception to the rule.
Honestly, becoming an Animorph has been the best part of my life. I've actually got friends now. People I know will look out for me. As for being trapped in morph, well... at least I'm free of every unpleasant thing I had to suffer through in my old life. Maybe it was predestination. I mean, my last name was "Vogel". It literally means "bird" in Dutch or Danish or some language. Of course, there are some drawbacks to being a hawk. I can't go inside anywhere without drawing way too much attention - people tend to get upset when a hawk goes into the library. And I didn't consider just how useful hands and fingers were until I didn't have them anymore. But most importantly, I can't eat any of the food I'm used to.
Red-tailed hawks are predators. They're supposed to kill and eat other, smaller animals like mice, pigeons, voles, squirrels, rabbits... seriously, do any of those sound the least bit appetizing? Especially raw. So raw, it's still got feathers attached. For a few weeks now, I'd been living on what my friends could get for me: hamburger patties, beef jerky, sausage links, hot dogs, slices of sandwich meat, and the occasional bit of fresh ground beef. It was keeping me alive for now, but it was not quite what hawks were meant to live on. And it was getting expensive, too. My friends could barely afford to keep me fed from day to day. In fact, just recently Lee had mentioned that he couldn't afford a replacement part he needed for his computer because he'd spent the money on me instead. He hadn't even meant to say it out loud.
The part that really made me feel bad about it was why his computer needed new parts in the first place. Elfangor had given me some sort of alien computer disc. I'd wanted to try and put it into a computer to see what would happen, and the only one we had access to without having to worry about Controllers eavesdropping was Lee's. To our surprise, the disc actually ran for a few seconds, and played part of a message meant for Elfangor's son, but it almost set the computer on fire.
Author's Note: I'm not sure where I got the idea that Tobias's aunt lived in North Carolina. I just know that I had that idea years ago, a long time before I ever decided to write "The Extraneous". The only clues are that the series was most likely set in California, and Tobias's aunt was supposed to be somewhere on the other side of the country, and for some reason I added that up to mean "North Carolina". I've only been to North Carolina once, and my entire experience of that state consists of an awkward night trying (and failing) to sleep on the floor of the terminal at Charlotte International while on a 6-hour layover between flights. As luck would have it, I found a spot on top of a floor grate that was made by the iron foundry across the street from my childhood home.