Applegate, K A - Animorphs 04 - The Message Read online

  Animorphs

  The Message

  K.A. Applegate

  AN APPLE

  PAPERBACK

  SCHOLASTIC INC. New York Toronto London Auckland Sydney

  1 For Michael

  Cover illustration by David B. Mattingly.

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any pay ment for this "stripped book."

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permis sion of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., 555 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  ISBN 0-590-62980-8

  Copyright © 1996 by Katherine Applegate. All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. APPLE PAPERBACKS and the APPLE PAPERBACKS logo are registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. ANIMORPHS is a trademark of Scholastic Inc.

  12 11 10 789/90 1/0 Printed in the U.S.A. 40 First Scholastic printing, October 1996

  Chapter 1

  M y name is Cassie.

  I can't tell you my last name. I wish I could. But I can't even tell you what town I live in or what state. We have to disguise our identities, we Animorphs. It's not about being shy. It's about staying alive.

  If the Yeerks ever learn who we are, we'll be done for. If they don't kill us outright, they'll make us Controllers. They'll force a Yeerk slug into our brains, where it will take control of us, making us slaves - tools of the Yeerk invasion of Earth.

  And I really don't like the idea of being under the control of an alien. I don't like the idea of be ing dead, either.

  2 On the other hand, there are some things I do like about being an Animorph. Some very cool things.

  Take the other night. It was late. I should have been in bed. Instead I was in the barn, get ting ready to turn into a squirrel.

  Technically, the barn is really the Wildlife Re habilitation Clinic. My dad is a vet. So is my mom, but she works at The Gardens, this big zoo. The Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic is just my dad and me. We take in injured birds and animals and try to save them, then release them back into their natural habitats.

  That's where I was. In the barn. Surrounded by dozens of cages full of birds, from a mourning dove who'd run into a car windshield to a golden eagle who'd almost been electrocuted by a power line.

  In another part of the barn we have bigger cages for the badgers and opossums and skunks and deer and even a pair of wolves who'd been poisoned. At the other end (far from the wolves) we keep our own horses.

  There's an operating room and a couple of small recovery rooms, too.

  Back to that night. Have you ever watched a squirrel in the park? They are constantly alert. Constantly looking around. It's like every minute of every day they're thinking, "Hey! What's that?"

  3 So I knew that if I morphed into a squirrel, all that nervousness and fear would become a part of me. It's something we've all had to deal with: controlling the animal instincts, the animal mind that comes along with the animal body.

  Anyway, that's where I was, in a gloomy barn with just the yellow overhead bulbs to light the room. Why was I there? Because someone, or something, had been sneaking in and getting at the birds. We'd lost a patient just the night be fore. A duck.

  And because I couldn't sleep, anyway. I kept having these dreams. Only they weren't like normal dreams, somehow. More like ... I don't know. Just really strange, that's all.

  "Relax, Magilla," I whispered to the squirrel in my hands. "This won't hurt at all." I pulled some chestnuts from my pocket and handed him one. Another nut fell to the floor.

  Some morphs are easy. Some are terrifying. When I was a horse, that was cool. When I had to become a trout, well, that was a little more weird. The whole time I just kept thinking how someone could fry me and serve me with tartar sauce.

  And I don't like tartar sauce.

  "Squirrel," I told myself. I always try to get into the feeling of what it might be like to be the animal before I even start morphing.

  The first physical change was in my size. I

  4 started shrinking. It's a very bizarre feeling. See, you feel like you're standing totally still, but the ground keeps coming up toward you. And the ceiling is moving away. Door handles aren't where they should be anymore. All of a sudden they're over your head.

  I had shrunk to maybe two, two-and-a-half feet tall when my arms came sucking back into my body. Right about that point, the real Magilla tore out of there. He ran back to his cage, got in, and - I swear this is true - closed the door. Anyway, I still had normal (although short) legs, but my arms were stunted. I still had the normal number of fingers, but they were teeny tiny now, way too small for my body.

  My ears traveled up the side of my head to rest on top. Soft gray fur spread across my body in a wave. My face puffed out and grew pointed.

  Then, the wildest thing! My tail sprouted out of my body! And what was cool was that I wasn't a squirrel yet. I was still about half human, the size of a small child, and my tail just shot out, about two feet long! Much longer and bigger than it would be once I was totally squirrelified.

  I tilted my head back and I could see this bushy gray tail arched up over me. Way cool.

  My legs sucked in and I was down on the ground, down on the cement floor of the barn.

  I suddenly discovered I hadn't swept and

  5 mopped as well as I thought I had. Amazing what you can see when your face is just an inch from the floor.

  Then the squirrel brain kicked in.

  WHOA! YOW!

  Man, did I have energy!

  It was like I was plugged into a million volts. I was supercharged! My slow, sluggish human brain was just blown away by the sudden explosion of energy.

  A noise!

  What's that? I cocked my ears. I swung my head, focusing my big eyes. A bird in a cage!

  A new sound! What was it? I spun around.

  No, wait! What was that? And that? And the other sound?

  PREDATORS! They were everywhere! I was surrounded! PREDATORS!

  Birds! Big birds with nasty claws. All around me.

  Wait. There was a nut. Oooh. A nut.

  PREDATORS! Alert!

  I scampered across the floor. Look left. Look right. Sniff sniff sniff the air.

  Oh, yes. Predators. I smelled them. I heard them. Birds. A wolf. A badger.

  PREDATORS! RUN RUN RUN!

  Oh, wait. Was that a nut? I hopped over to the nut. YES! A chestnut! I seized it in my little front

  6 claws and began immediately to chew a hole in it. Excellent! Wonderful! Chestnut! And I had it! No one could take it away. Hah hah!

  A noise! What?

  PREDATORS!

  Don't drop the nut! Run with the nut! RUN!

  With the nut stuffed into my jaw, I ran.

  I ran straight up the wall. Straight up.

  And that was the moment when Tobias decided to show up.

  7

  T obias flew in through the hayloft overhead.

  Unfortunately, in my squirrel mentality, with my human brain just barely holding on, I didn't realize it was Tobias.

  What it looked like to me was a red-tailed hawk. A bird of prey. And this one was not in a cage.

  No, this one was flapping around the high rafters of the barn. The hawk had talons like steel and a hooked beak that could open me up like a can of beans.

  I felt his hawk's eyes on me.
r />   RUN RUNRUNRUNRUN!

  I didn't know what to do. I mean, me, the hu man being named Cassie. I didn't know what to

  j

  8 do. I knew I had to get control over the squirrel. But it was so hyper!

  However, the squirrel knew just what to do.

  ZOOOM!

  I ran straight up the wall. My little claws grabbed at tiny splinters and cracks in the wood, and shot up at a terrifying speed. If you've never been a squirrel - and let's face it, you haven't - you probably don't have any idea what it's like to run up. The wooden wall was like a floor under me. But at the same time I knew the difference between up and down. I knew if I fell it would be down. It's as if you were running across the floor in your house, but if you tripped you'd fall back against the wall.

  Very strange.

  Tobias had come to rest on a rafter. But I could feel his eyes on me. I froze. I froze corn pletely. Not even my tail twitched. I just clutched onto the wall and froze.

  But I couldn't keep it up. That torrent of squirrel energy would not let me stand still for long.

  Suddenly, with barely a glance to the side, I launched myself through space. I flew. I mean, I just jumped and hurtled through the air for what seemed like half a mile, but was actually just ten feet.

  9 SLAM! I landed on the wooden beam that runs above the horse stalls.

  Bad move. Tobias had seen my movement. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his vast wings open. He swooped down, talons raked forward.

  But then ... a new movement. Something large and furtive. A board in the side of the barn pushed open. A head poked inside. It was just below me. An intelligent, alert face, looking up at me and wondering if I was dinner.

  A fox! Aha! My mystery bird-killer.

  I had to get control of the squirrel brain. It al ways takes a minute in any new morph, at least, to control those wild animal instincts, but I didn't have a minute.

  Tobias swooped.

  Suddenly it was insanity everywhere. Birds in every cage began to squawk and shriek! The wolves in the next room decided to start howling. The horses were whinnying shrilly.

  Tobias sheered away, startled.

  Too late. I had jumped again, and now I was falling toward the straw-covered floor of a stall. Fall ing toward the fox.

  I hit the ground and blew out of there, leaving a storm of dust and straw in my wake.

  The fox came after me. He was fast. Very fast.

  «Tobias! Help!» I yelled in thought-speak.

  10 «What the ... Is that you, Cassie?»

  I dodged left. The fox dodged after me.

  He was faster than me and almost as agile. Unless I could find a place to climb up and away, I was done for!

  «Yes, it's me!»

  «Well, why didn't you tell me?!» he said, sounding grumpy in my head. «l was considering eating you.»

  «l just morphed. I just got control of this crazy squirrel brain. Now would you PLEASE save me?»

  The fox's jaw snapped at my tail. I felt his teeth comb the fur.

  «Good grief,» Tobias said. He opened his wings and came hurtling down, straight at the fox.

  The fox saw the shadow of the big hawk. He stopped dead in his tracks.

  Too late. Tobias raked him with his talons and shot past.

  The fox decided this was more trouble than he needed. He bolted for his secret passageway.

  Tobias came to rest on a crossbeam and looked down at me with his fierce hawk's gaze. «Cassie? Why are you out here at midnight turn ing into a squirrel?»

  I was already starting to morph back to human shape. «Well, we've had some birds taken

  11 in the last couple of days. We figured it was a badger or a raccoon or a fox, but we couldn't fig ure out how he was getting in. So I decided to morph and wait to see when he showed up.»

  «Well, I certainly can't criticize anyone who wants to rescue birds,» he said. He fluffed his wings and began preening some ruffled feathers.

  I was halfway back to human shape, growing up from the floor, feeling my legs sprout beneath me. But my human mouth was not back yet. «So, what are you doing here, Tobias? Looking for a squirrel sandwich?»

  Tobias had almost completely accepted the fact that he was permanently stuck in the body of a red-tailed hawk. Recently he had begun to hunt and eat like a hawk. He was still a little sensitive about it, but I thought if I just made a joke out of it, he would realize I wasn't grossed out or any thing.

  «Squirrel sandwich?» he said. «No, I was thinking barbecue. Sorry I scared you.»

  "It's okay, my friend," I said in my own voice. My mouth had formed. I was almost back to nor mal, all but this huge tail, which was still poking out of the back of my morphing outfit.

  Normal, for me, is about average height, I guess. Whatever "average" is. I'm kind of solidly built, not skinny and not fat, with hair I keep short because I don't like messing with it. As my

  12 friends would tell you, I'm not exactly Ms. Fashion. Mostly, if you want to know what I look like, picture a girl in overalls and leather work gloves, biting her lip as she concentrates on trying to force a pill down the throat of a badger.

  Jake once took a picture of me doing exactly that. He has it next to his computer in his room. Don't ask me why. I would be glad to give him a picture of me in a dress or something. Rachel could loan me the dress. But Jake says he likes the picture he has.

  «l hear something,» Tobias said, suddenly alert.

  I strained my ears. Human ears are so lame. Almost any animal can hear better. But then I heard it, too. A voice.

  "Is someone in there?"

  "My father!"

  «You still have a tail!»

  Too late. The barn door swung open. My fa ther stood there, blinking sleepily and holding a flashlight. "Cass? What are you doing out here?"

  I stuck my hands behind my back and tried to hold my big squirrel tail down while I attempted to morph it away at maximum speed. "N-n-noth- ing, Dad. l-l-l just couldn't sleep."

  He nodded. "Okay. Well, go to bed now," he said crankily. My father is one of those people

  13 who needs about an hour and three cups of cof fee to wake up.

  "Okay, Daddy," I said.

  He hesitated. "Cassie? Turn around."

  "Turn around?" I repeated in a squeaky voice.

  "Yeah. Turn around. It's . . . just turn around."

  Slowly I turned. As I did, the last of the tail shwooped back into my spine.

  "Huh," my dad said. "I gotta get back to sleep. I swear I thought you had a tail."

  "Heh heh," I laughed weakly.

  When he left I collapsed back on the straw. "I really should have just stayed in bed," I said to Tobias. "Dreams or no dreams."

  «Dreams?» he snapped. «What kind of dreams?»

  I shrugged. "I don't know. These kind of weird dreams about the sea."

  «The sea,» he echoed. «And a voice, calling out to you from beneath the water.»

  It was warm in the barn, but suddenly I felt really cold.

  14

  N o, I haven't had any weird dreams about the sea," Marco said. "I've had weird dreams about my sheets trying to strangle me. I've had weird dreams about falling from way up high and when I finally land I'm in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood talking to King Friday. I've had weird dreams about that woman on Baywatch . . . hmm, well, that does kind of involve the ocean, I guess."

  "You have dreams about King Friday?" Rachel asked him. She put on a worried look. "I see." She shook her head slowly and made a tsk, tsk sound.

  "What? What's the matter with dreaming about King Friday?" Marco demanded.

  15 Rachel shrugged. "All I'm going to say is you should think about seeing a counselor before your condition worsens." Rachel turned so Marco couldn't see her and gave me a wink.

  "Very funny," Marco sneered. But he still looked a little worried.

  We were in Rachel's room the next day, af ter school. Her room is so neat. Straight out of a magazine, you know? Like e
verything matches or goes together. She has this bulletin board where she puts little wise sayings on Post-it notes.

  I drifted over to the bulletin board and read '"Don't think there are no crocodiles just be cause the water is calm.' - Malayan Proverb."

  Just beside that was '"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.' - Sun Tzu."

  It made me a little sad. In the good old days, Rachel would have had a bunch of quotes about being a good person or whatever. It just showed how much our lives had changed.

  In a very short time we had all grown accustomed to a world of fear and danger. We had arrived at Rachel's house separately. We had each checked to make sure we weren't being followed. We had planned the afternoon in advance to be sure that Rachel's mom and her two sisters would be out.

  16 We had even had Tobias fly over the area look ing for anything unusual.

  That's what our lives had become. That and quotations full of paranoia and battle.

  Jake hadn't said anything yet. Tobias and I had both told everyone about our strangely iden tical dreams. About the voice that seemed to come from beneath the sea. The strange voice that called to us.

  No one else had heard the voice in their dreams. Marco had made jokes. Rachel had been supportive but skeptical. Only Jake had re mained silent.

  I suppose you could say Jake is sort of our "leader," although he's not bossy in any way. It's more like this natural aspect of his personality. He's the one you just automatically look to when there's trouble.

  Of course, I look to him for other reasons. Not that I would ever tell him or anything, but I really like Jake. You know, as in like.

  He's very cute, in a big, strong kind of way. He has brown hair and dark, dark eyes. He seems very serious until you get to know him. And then you realize he's still pretty serious, but he also knows when to laugh.

  Jake has to know when to laugh because Marco has been his best friend since they were both in diapers. They've competed and fought

  17 and disagreed the whole time. Marco's mission in life is to find the humor in everything. Even in his best friend.

  Marco is kind of cute, too, although he's not my type. He wears his brown hair long and has these amazing eyelashes that I would love to have myself.