The Reaction

by K. A. Applegate

  I felt it bubbling up inside my own head, like a slow-motion volcano.

  Resist!

  But the crocodile mind had evolved millions of years before the first monkeys had swung in the trees. The crocodile mind had survived, unchanged, while dinosaurs went down to extinction and the first birds flew. It was old. Old and simple and clear, and it rolled across me, sweeping aside my fragile human thoughts.

  The crocodile knew two things. There was prey - the little boy. And there was an enemy - the other big crocodile.

  My eyes looked out of the sides of my head. It was good, clear vision, not much different than my own. I could see almost all around me at once. Just behind me, to my left, something struggled and moaned. I could practically taste the blood in its veins. I could sense its heat.

  Just ahead of me was a big male crocodile. Just like me. He was stalking the same prey.

  Simple equation: two crocodiles of equal size

  19 stalking the same prey. I either had to fight the other croc, or lunge for the prey before the enemy could act, or back away.

  I spun left, fast as a snake!

  I opened my jaws so wide that my own snout hid part of the prey from view. In a second I would close my jaws on that squirming, moaning little boy and . . .

  Sudden movement! I was being attacked!

  The big crocodile rushed at me with amazing speed. I whipped my tail and turned to meet him. The momentum carried me off the sandbar into the water. Water! Now we could really move!

  The other crocodile dived, trying to get below me to rip open my soft underbelly. I squirmed and rolled. A tail lashed through the murky water. I snapped.

  Yes! My jaws closed on something and squeezed.

  Then, pain! A sudden searing pain in my left hind leg. There was blood in the water. The other croc had my leg. I had his tail. We churned the water to foam, rolling and tightening our jaws.

  Slowly, slowly, like I was climbing up out of a well, I felt my own mind, the mind of Rachel, start to emerge again.

  I was too stunned and exhausted by the battle to resist the crocodile's cunning. It had the

  20 power of total focus. It had the power of utter simplicity. It killed, it ate, and it didn't care about anything else.

  We rolled insanely in the shallow water, two genetically identical crocodiles fighting a battle for dominance. Fighting to see whose mighty jaws would close on the human child.

  I saw flashes of horrified onlookers up above. I saw flashes of the child starting to crawl away. I saw flashes of the other crocodiles, slithering toward the water. They hoped to take the child while the two bigger crocs were busy fighting.

  I needed to win this fight to stay alive. And I needed to do it quickly to save the little boy.

  I did the thing the crocodile couldn't do very well. I thought. I used my intelligence.

  I let go of the tail at the same second I pulled my hind leg forward with all my strength. It was a slingshot effect. The enemy crocodile shot backward, I saw his pale belly go by, and I struck hard and fast.

  He rolled away, defeated. I slewed to my right, cutting off the crocodiles who were heading for the boy. Then I raced for the sand and motored up into the alcove, out of sight of the crowd above. The boy backed away in terror.

  I had no choice. I had to take a chance. I spoke to the little boy in thought-speak.

  21 «Hey, kid! I'm the good crocodile, all right? Climb on my back!»

  Fortunately, he was a cool little kid. Small enough not to question the fact that a crocodile was talking to him.

  He climbed on my back like I was a pony. I slithered to the water and carried him across to the pile of fake rocks where he could climb to safety. Crocodiles can do lots of things, but they can't climb.

  I raced back to the alcove and morphed back to human just as half a dozen zoo trainers armed with tranquilizer dart rifles and nets came rushing in.

  The kid was safe. I was safe. Even the big croc was okay after some surgery.

  So, all in all, it turned out to be a pretty cool field trip. And we never did have to hear Cassie's mom give her presentation.

  22

  ?I see," Jake said. "So basically you're saying it was no big deal. You jump into an alligator pit, you -"

  "Crocodile, not alligator," Cassie corrected him.

  Jake cocked one eyebrow at Cassie and she fell silent.

  "You jump into a crocodile pit, morph into a crocodile, engage in a battle to see who's going to eat the kid, end up carrying the kid on your back, and your feeling is this was all pretty cool?"

  I shrugged and looked to Cassie for support.

  "She d/c/save the kid," Cassie pointed out.

  "She also came very, very close to showing the

  23 entire world what she really is," Jake said, using the low, silky voice he uses when he's really upset.

  After saving the kid, you'd think my friends would have welcomed me as a hero, right? Wrong.

  Here's the scene. Me, Cassie, Jake, Marco, Tobias, and Ax were all in Cassie's barn, which is also the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. So picture cages everywhere, stuffed with every kind of injured, sick, messed-up raccoon, squirrel, duck, wild pig, bat, skunk, fox, eagle, and deer.

  Jake was pacing back and forth, which he also does when he's upset. Jake isn't a yelling kind of person when he's mad. He's a grinding-his-teeth, pacing, and talking-in-a-low-silky-voice kind of person.

  Jake is in charge, more or less. No one exactly elected him, but if we ever did vote on it he'd get all the votes - except his own. There was just never any question who was going to be the leader. Probably because we all know Jake isn't the kind of person who really wants to be a boss. He does it because someone has to, not because it makes him feel important.

  I would probably think Jake was good-looking. Except that he's my cousin. But of course Cassie thinks he's perfect. Cassie and Jake have a little thing going. Neither of them admits it, of course. And they never really say anything to each other

  24 about it. They think no one else knows. But they have a definite thing. Trust me.

  Anyway, lounging on a big bale of hay was Marco. Marco is Jake's best friend. Marco is not the leadership type. He's very smart but unfortunately, he uses all his brain to make stupid jokes.

  Okay, maybe not all his brain. If he used all his brain to make jokes, the jokes would probably be better.

  Marco is cute, although not as cute as he thinks he is. See, it would be impossible for anyone to be as cute as Marco thinks he is. Marco's ego is totally out of control.

  Then, there is Tobias. He was up in the rafters overhead, carefully combing his feathers with his beak.

  Tobias is what the Andalites call a nothlit. That means a person who is trapped in a morph. There's a two-hour time limit on morphing. Stay more than two hours and you stay forever.

  Tobias used to be this kind of dweebish kid with crazed blond hair and a dreamy expression. But now he is a red-tailed hawk. The dreamy expression is long gone. It's been replaced by the laser-intensity stare of a raptor.

  Tobias has had to accept the fact that he is not fully human anymore. Inside, he's still Tobias. But he lives in the woods and hunts for his food, and that has changed him.

  25 Then there is Cassie. Cassie is my best friend, although we're nothing alike. Cassie is probably the most capable, in-charge, amazing person I will ever meet. This is a girl who deals with school, has practically a full-time job helping her dad with the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic, and handles all the stuff we have to deal with as Animorphs. I mean, who else can keep up a B-plus average while she's saving wild animals and fighting a war with the Yeerk empire?

  Last, and definitely weirdest, is Ax. His full name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-lsthill. Which is why we just call him "Ax." He doesn't usually come to meetings, because he has to travel in human morph. He doesn't like going into human morph because he thinks walking around on just two legs is dangerous.

  Since we were safe inside the barn, Ax
was back in his own body now. His body is a strange but cool-looking mix of bluish deer body, humanlike arms and shoulders, and definitely alien head. He has no mouth. He has two big, seminormal eyes on his face where eyes should be, and two extra eyes stuck on short stalks on top of his head.

  And he has a tail. Like a scorpion's tail. Very fast, very dangerous in a fight.

  Normally when we're in the barn, Cassie would be busily cleaning cages or giving medications

  26 to skanky lizards or whatever. But I guess she felt like she had to help me defend myself. So she was standing there, looking guilty even though she hadn't done anything wrong.

  "What was I supposed to do?" I asked Jake. "Let the little boy get chomped?"

  "Yes!" Marco said, speaking up. "Yes. See, we're fighting to save the whole world, not one kid. And you endangered all that by trying to be the offspring of Xena: Warrior Princess and Superman."

  «Xena and Superman have a child? I didn't even know they were dating,» Tobias said in open thought-speak.

  I smiled up at him. He couldn't smile back, of course.

  Then, in a whisper that only I could hear, Tobias added, «Rachel. Ask Jake what he would have done. That'll get him off your back.»

  I carefully avoided nodding or giving any sign that Tobias had whispered to me. "Jake, if you think what I did was so wrong, what would you have done?"

  Jake stopped pacing. "The point is, secrecy is absolutely important," he said.

  "Jake," I repeated, "what would you have done in my place?"

  27

  Jake scratched his ear. He grinned sheepishly. "Just because I would have done the same thing doesn't make it right."

  "I think Rachel was a real hero," Cassie said.

  «Rachel was brave. Bravery is a great virtue.»

  Marco rolled his eyes at Ax. "Thank you, Obi-Wan Kenobi, for that wisdom. Of course she was a hero. She's always a hero. Rachel can't stop being heroic. Being stupidly brave is like some nervous tic she can't control. But what if someone had caught her morphing on videotape?"

  That wiped the smile off my face. As much as Marco annoyed me, he was right. If someone had taped me ... the Yeerks are everywhere. If

  28 they'd had evidence I'd morphed a crocodile they would know who and what I was.

  The Yeerks believe we are a highly trained group of Andalite warriors. If they ever found out we were just human kids . . . we'd be wiped out before we could blink twice.

  "Okay, well, anyway, Rachel, you were very brave. You were also very lucky. The news reports say you 'fell into' the pit because you were trying to see the kid. Everyone is focused on how amazing it supposedly was that a kid could ride an alligator . . . crocodile. The kid's going to be on five different talk shows."

  "Great. So I'm the idiot girl who 'fell' into the pit, and the kid is some big hero."

  "Be glad it worked out that well," Jake said.

  For a moment, I considered mentioning the way I'd felt sick while morphing the crocodile. But I decided against it. Why give Jake anything else to worry about?

  Cassie raised her hand. "Are we done with yelling at Rachel? I have work to do."

  Jake laughed. "I don't yell," he said. "I'm not anyone's parent."

  "You tell 'em, Dad," Marco said.

  We all laughed and the tension was broken. For about ten seconds - till Jake said, "Hey, by the way, Tom said something about how The

  29 Sharing is going to hire that kid from Power House as a spokesman."

  "That TV show?" Marco said. "Huh. That's strange. Well, anyway, I have homework piled up on my desk at home. Plus, I have the new Nintendo game. You know, the one where -"

  He stopped talking and just stared at Cassie and me. Probably because Cassie and I were standing there with our mouths hanging open.

  "What's with them?" Marco asked Jake.

  Jake looked mystified. "What is with you two?"

  "Jeremy Jason McCole is going to be endorsing The Sharing?" I asked in a wavering voice.

  "Jeremy Jason McCole?" Cassie echoed in awestruck tones.

  Jake shrugged. "Yeah, it's too bad, but it's not like anyone cares. He's just some wimpy little actor. I mean, it's not like he's Michael Jordan . . ."

  "... or Brett Favre," Marco added.

  « ... or Wayne Gretzky,» Tobias offered.

  «What is an actor?» Ax wondered.

  ". . . or anyone else important," Jake concluded. "He's just an actor. I mean, he's a dork."

  «What is a dork?» Ax asked.

  «That hair!» Tobias said derisively.

  "I love his hair," Cassie said.

  "Plus he's even shorter than I am," Marco said.

  30 "The difference being that Jeremy Jason Mc-Cole is cute," I said.

  "He's more than cute," Cassie said. "He is the single cutest boy on the planet."

  "He's in every magazine," I said. "Teen, YM, Seventeen."

  "Wussy Weekly, Midget Monthly, The New Dork Times..." Marco added. He and Jake exchanged a high five.

  I ignored Marco. I almost always do. Instead I made sure Jake was paying attention, and I said, "Jake, you're not getting it. About half the girls in our school have a poster of Jeremy Jason Mc-Cole in their bedrooms or in their lockers, or both. He is the number one cute guy in the country. He has like twenty Web sites just about him. If he endorses The Sharing, it would be as if . . ." I looked to Cassie for help.

  "As if the entire female cast of Baywatch endorsed something," Cassie supplied.

  "Yeah. Like that."

  Jake's smile evaporated. "You're saying this actor kid has that kind of influence?"

  "He has that much power?" Marco said. "He has Baywatch-eve power?"

  «Yasmine Bleeth power?» Tobias echoed.

  «Bleeth?» Ax echoed. «Is that a word?»

  "If Jeremy Jason McCole becomes a spokes-

  31 man for The Sharing, they'll be signing up girls like crazy," I said.

  "Then this is serious," Jake said.

  "Yeah, Jake, it is. We have to stop this from happening."

  Cassie sent me a sly, sidelong glance. "Of course ... we might have to actually meet Jeremy Jason in order to save him."

  "We have to do our duty," I said. "I mean, for a start, we have to find out if he's already a Controller."

  "And we'd probably have to meet him to do that."

  "Get close to him."

  "Very close."

  "Absolutely."

  "Mmm-hmmm."

  "The two of you are making me sick," Jake said.

  32

  Reruns of Power House came on every night at seven. Just after the news. I watched it with my two little sisters, Sara and Jordan. Sara was too little to care one way or the other about boys. But Jordan was closer to my age.

  "You think Jeremy Jason McCole is cute?" I asked her.

  "On a scale of one to ten? Maybe about a thousand."

  I nodded. "Yeah. He is cute."

  "He's even cuter than that guy Marco. You know the one who's Cousin Jake's friend?"

  "Yeah, I know Marco," I said cautiously. I shuddered. "You actually think Marco is cute?"

  "Sure."

  33 "Jordan, do me and the whole world a favor. Never, ever tell him."

  "As if!"

  "But you don't think he's as cute as Jeremy Jason, right?"

  "Of course not. Jeremy Jason is famous."

  "Oh. Well, let me ask you something. If you thought there was some club you could belong to that would mean you might get to meet Jeremy Ja-"

  She leaped up. "What club? What club? What club?"

  Which answered my question. I wasn't foolish enough to worry about what might happen if Jeremy Jason McCole came out in support of The Sharing. If anything, I wasn't worrying enough.

  If using Jeremy Jason worked at recruiting girls into The Sharing, what would the Yeerks do next?

  I watched Power House with a whole new outlook, knowing what I now knew about one of its stars. Was it really possible that someone li
ke Jeremy Jason McCole could be a Controller?

  No way. And if I did just happen to save him from being taken by the Yeerks. Well . . .

  After dinner and after Power House, I went up to my room to attack my backed-up homework. I had a paper due and it was supposed to be five pages long, at least. I had maybe four pages worth of material. So I played with fonts and

  34 margins until my four pages could more or less fill five pages. Then I hit "print" and hoped my teacher wouldn't figure out what I'd done.

  "Rachel? I'm running down to the store for some milk," my mom yelled up the stairs. "You're in charge."

  I dropped out of the word-processing program and logged on to the Internet. I opened my window since it was a warm night out and Tobias sometimes flew by in the evening.

  Then I started checking out the various Web sites for Jeremy Jason.

  "Know your enemy," I muttered under my breath. Not that I could really think of Jeremy Jason as my enemy.

  I had to wait through several busy signals to reach his own actual home page. My screen filled with a picture of the actor.

  "Way too cute to be a Controller," I said to no one.

  I scrolled down and found a button for his biography. It was two pages long. I printed it out. Then I clicked on his schedule of appearances. It was slightly out-of-date. I scrolled down the page. Then, "Whoa! Whoa!"

  I stopped and scrolled back. There it was. The twenty-fourth. Jeremy Jason was doing the Barry and CindySue Show on the road. On the road . . . right in our town for the week.

  35 Two days from now! He's going to be here! Here!

  I snatched up the portable phone. I speed-dialed Cassie. "He's coming here!"

  "Who? What?"

  "Jeremy Jason. He's going to be on the Barry and Cindy Sue Show when they come to town!"

  "No way!"

  "Oh, yes. Definitely yes." I hung up and started to click to another Web site to confirm the news.

  I felt like I couldn't breathe. I was majorly excited. I know, I know, it isn't really cool to get all mental about a TV actor, but Jeremy Jason Mc-Cole was like my first crush going back to when I was ten.

  I took a deep, steadying breath.

  But I couldn't quite do it. My breathing was short. Rough. Like I was being squeezed. A swarming feeling of heat needles spread across my skin.