Jake had enough to worry about.
I went running down along the beach the next day. You couldn’t even see where the big sperm whale had lain, gasping for breath.
The news had said it was a freak shift in wind, bringing a small tidal surge that had lifted the whale free. Of course, I knew better.
I felt a small shadow pass over me, blocking the sun for just a moment. I didn’t even look up. I kept running. Maybe I could find a hidden spot somewhere up ahead and morph.
A few minutes later, “Hey! Rachel?”
I turned, surprised to find T. T. jogging after me.
“What?” I said, sighing as he caught up.
“Well, uh, I was just wondering,” he began.
“Wondering what?” I said, jamming my hands into my pockets.
“Well, uh, if maybe you might want to go to the movies with me, after all,” he said nervously, glancing at me.
My stomach twitched.
He really was cute. And so normal. So not Tobias.
He had almost certainly never eaten a mouse. On the other hand, he’d never morphed a sperm whale and gone to the bottom of the ocean while his brain was reeling with barely suppressed terror, just so he could look out for me.
I opened my mouth to say, “Sure.” Instead I said, “Hey, do you speak English? How many ways do I have to say ‘no’?”
He called me a name I’ve been called before. Then he took off. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t ask me out again.
“Oh, shut up, you mouse-eating freak,” I said.
Tobias laughed. He knew better than to take me too seriously.
“I know. I’m gonna go get some wings and come on up there. Keep an eye out for me.”
he said.
My name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill.
It is not a human name. It is an Andalite name. Not that humans reading this are likely to know what an Andalite is. I am the only one here on Earth.
No, that is not completely true. There is one other. But he is not the Andalite he once was. He is now the host body to the Yeerk who holds the rank of Visser Three. Andalites call him the Abomination.
My duty is to someday destroy him.
I am only an aristh, a cadet. But as any Andalite who ever reads this will know, Andalite custom demands that I avenge my brother’s death. Elfangor was a warrior and prince. Visser Three murdered him.
I suppose I thought that Elfangor would live forever. He was fearless. Honorable. Perfect. It was a lot for a brother to live up to because I am not any of those things.
But the memory of my brother is why I look forward to the day when I destroy Visser Three. It is not simply a matter of duty. I cared very deeply for my brother.
And I am not the only one who wants to destroy him and the other Yeerks who have invaded Earth. Before he died, Elfangor gave five human youths the power to morph. As well as the truth about why they need this power.
Now these five humans are the only ones resisting the Yeerk invasion. Fighting to stop the Yeerks from enslaving the entire human race. Fighting to stop them from crawling into human brains and taking over all thoughts, actions, and memories.
They are also the only ones who know about me.
They are my people now — the only people I have here, so far from home. I am grateful for their friendship. I respect them, too, which might be more important. But Tobias is the only one I might consider a true shorm.
A shorm is a deep friend, someone who knows everything there is to know about you. The word comes from the Andalite’s tail blade, which looks something like what you may know as a scorpion’s tail. A shorm is someone you would trust to put his tail blade against your throat.
Even though Tobias does not have a tail blade — or hooves, stem eyes, and fur, the way Andalites do — he is almost one of us. Elfangor was his father, and, as strange as it is to think of, I am, in Earth terms, Tobias’s uncle.
But I think it is the fact that he is almost as unique on this planet as I am that makes us close. Choosing life as a red-tailed hawk has set Tobias apart from everything he once knew.
We are both unique on this planet, and both very much alone.
There are times at night, as I search the dark sky for the home star, when I think about my real people, my family. I think about a life that might have been very different from the one I am living now, here on a distant planet, far from everything I once knew.
The others, Prince Jake, Cassie, Rachel, and Marco, all have homes and families. Only Tobias and I do not. Tobias lives in a meadow that is his territory. And I, until recently, did not even have that limited amount to call my own.
But now I have made my life a bit more comfortable. I have constructed a sort of scoop — what we Andalites consider to be a home.
Like any scoop, it is mostly open, with only a small area covered by a semispherical roof. And in my case the scoop had to be very small so that I could fold the roof down and erase all visual evidence of it.
I had only a few things in the scoop. A World Almanac that my friends had given me. A photograph of a delicious cinnamon bun. Some human clothing. And one other thing only recently acquired. One very important other thing that has changed my life.
A television.
About the Author
The Animorphs series, written by Katherine (K. A.) Applegate with her husband, Michael Grant, has sold millions of copies worldwide, and alerted the world to the presence of the Yeerks. Katherine and Michael are also the authors of the bestselling Remnants and Everworld series. On her own, Katherine is the author of Home of the Brave, Crenshaw, Wishtree, and the Newbery Medal–winning The One and Only Ivan. Michael is the author of the Gone and Front Lines series.
The invasion has begun.
Catch up on Newbery Medal–winner K. A. Applegate’s world-conquering series.
#1: The Invasion
#2: The Visitor
#3: The Encounter
#4: The Message
#5: The Predator
#6: The Capture
#7: The Stranger
#8: The Alien
#9: The Secret
#10: The Android
#11: The Forgotten
#12: The Reaction
#13: The Change
#14: The Unknown
#15: The Escape
#16: The Warning
#17: The Underground
#18: The Decision
#19: The Departure
#20: The Discovery
#21: The Threat
#22: The Solution
#23: The Pretender
#24: The Suspicion
#25: The Extreme
#26: The Attack
#27: The Exposed
#28: The Experiment
#29: The Sickness
#30: The Reunion
#31: The Conspiracy
#32: The Separation
#33: The Illusion
#34: The Prophecy
#35: The Proposal
#36: The Mutation
#37: The Weakness
#38: The Arrival
#39: The Hidden
#40: The Other
#41: The Familiar
#42: The Journey
#43: The Test
#44: The Unexpected
#45: The Revelation
#46: The Deception
#47: The Resistance
#48: The Return
#49: The Diversion
#50: The Ultimate
#51: The Absolute
#52: The Sacrifice
#53: The Answer
#54: The Beginning
Text copyright © 1999 by Katherine Applegate
Cover illustration by David B. Mattingly
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, ANIMORPHS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of S
cholastic Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
e-ISBN 978-1-338-21690-5
First edition, March 1999
The Exposed Page 9