The Reaction

by K. A. Applegate

  This wasn't about Jeremy Jason. There was definitely something wrong with me. I couldn't breathe!

  I sucked in air and pushed myself back from the computer.

  And that's when I noticed my hand.

  My right hand was green. A dark, mottled, reptile green.

  36

  ?What the. . ."

  I held up my left hand. It was green, too. Getting greener as I watched. Getting rougher. Changing. Morphing!

  There were scales forming on my skin. Crawling up my arms.

  I bolted from the chair and raced for my full-length mirror.

  My face was just beginning to bulge out. A huge, long, black-green snout.

  This is something you never want to actually see.

  "Yahhhh!" I yelped.

  The swelling bulge split open to reveal a row of long, yellowed teeth.

  37 "Crckkk!" I started to say, but my mouth was no longer human enough to make human sounds.

  My legs shriveled as I watched helplessly. I fell forward onto the floor. The huge tail was surging behind me. I felt my spine stretching.

  No! No! I hadn't decided to morph!

  And yet I was morphing. At warp speed! I was on the floor of my bedroom, turning into a murderous, twenty-foot-long crocodile.

  Morph out! I ordered myself. Morph out!

  But the transformation continued. I was too big for the room! My snout was pushed into one corner, while my tail stretched out under the bed and curled in the far corner.

  What was happening to me?

  If Jordan or Sara or my mother walked into the room, my secret would be out. Worse yet, I wasn't sure I could control the crocodile.

  It was hungry.

  Focus, Rachel! Focus! Morph out! Go human!

  But I wasn't morphing out. At least, not back to human.

  Instead I began to notice a completely different kind of change. My body was narrowing in two places. I was cinching up. Forming three different body sections: head, abdomen, and thorax.

  I was becoming an insect!

  38 And that's when I became afraid. See, it's impossible to morph straight from one animal to another. Or at least it's supposed to be impossible. But I was definitely morphing. And I was not morphing to human.

  I was still a huge crocodile, but my massive crocodile head was connected to my body by a tiny, narrow neck. And the area connecting my squat crocodile body to my fat crocodile tail had narrowed so much it was the size of a human wrist.

  «This can't be happening!» I cried to no one. «This has to be a dream.»

  But I'd had dozens, maybe hundreds of awful morphing dreams. And they'd never been like this.

  I could hear my bones squishing as they turned to water and disappeared. I could see the black-green crocodile scales turn dark brown, almost black, as an insect's exoskeleton grew over me like armor.

  Huge spiky hairs shot like daggers from my back. My big teeth melted together, solidified, blackened, and reformed to become a long, vile-looking tube. Two new legs spurted from my sides. Two spiky, multi-jointed legs.

  I knew all these changes. This was a morph I had done before. But never like this!

  I was on my way to becoming a fly. But be-

  39 cause morphing is never logical, I was a gigantic fly. I was becoming a fly before I'd had a chance to shrink.

  Then the shrinkage kicked in and I was spiraling wildly downward. I was going from twenty-five feet in length to less than a quarter of an inch!

  I wanted to scream for help. But who could help me? No one. No one!

  Suddenly my reptile eyes bulged and popped out like balloons. The world around me was shattered into a thousand tiny pictures. I had the compound eyes of a fly!

  My mind was reeling. It had to be a nightmare. This wasn't possible. It had to be some awful dream!

  I was shrinking so fast that the corners of the room seemed to be racing away from me. The wood grain grew large and dark and clear. The cracks between boards were growing as wide as ditches.

  And then, with a sickening lurch, I realized I had stopped shrinking. I was growing again.

  The wood grain grew smaller. The cracks shrank. And I grew. And grew. And grew!

  My extra legs were gone. I had just four now. Four legs growing thicker and taller and thicker and taller!

  «0h, please! Someone help me!»

  41 Sproing! Sproing! The springs in my mattress popped as my bulk crushed them. I was too big for the room. Bigger even than the crocodile. My bookshelves fell over. My desk slammed against the wall. Sparks shot from my computer and the screen went blank.

  Too big for the room! I was big enough to be weighed in tons, not pounds. I was morphing a full-grown African elephant. In my small bedroom.

  C-r-r-r-r-r-e-e-e-e-k!

  «0h, no,» I whispered. I could feel the floor literally sinking under my impossible weight. My head was shoved up against the ceiling.

  C-r-r-r-UNCH!

  With a scream of twisting wood, the floor gave way.

  A sickening drop! And . . .

  C-r-r-a-BOOOOM!

  I was, very suddenly, in the kitchen.

  40

  CHAPTER 9

  CRASH!

  CRUNCH!

  I staggered and fell against the rubble of my room and the even bigger mess of the kitchen. It was chaos! Nothing made any sense.

  The stove sat at a ridiculous angle with a two-by-four piece of lumber spearing through its glass door. The refrigerator was open, with all its contents spilled out. A gallon of milk glub-glubbed all over the place.

  Sara! Jordan! Had they been in the kitchen?

  Had my mom?

  Oh, God! No one could have survived being crushed under this mess!

  42 "Rachel! Rachel!"

  It was Jordan's voice. She sounded scared but okay. And my elephant ears told me she was not in the room with me. She was out in the hallway. She couldn't see me through the rubble.

  I couldn't answer. I didn't have a human mouth or throat.

  Could I get out of morph? I had to try.

  I focused my mind on my own body. My human self. And slowly at first, then faster, I began to shrink.

  Suddenly the boards and Sheetrock were no longer pressing in so tightly around me. In the hallway I could hear Jordan saying, "Nine-one-one? Urn, um, we have an emergency! Our house fell in!"

  I would have laughed ... if I'd been sure Sara and my mother were both safe. Then I remembered - my mother was out. That just left Sara.

  Meanwhile, I began to see the best sight in the world: human flesh emerging from the thick gray skin of the elephant. I was still on all fours, but I could see fingers beginning to grow from the massive elephant feet.

  "Rachel! Rachel, where are you?"

  Sara's voice this time. She must have taken the phone. I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  43 "Yes, get here right away! Please! I think my sister is trapped!"

  My trunk slurped up into my face, leaving my tiny human nose behind. I cleared my throat. Could I talk yet?

  "Jordan?" I said. Yes. It was my voice. My own human voice!

  "Rachel? Is that you?"

  "Well, who else would it be?" I asked. I didn't mean to sound sarcastic. I was scared half to death, and I get snippy when I'm scared.

  "That's Rachel, all right," Sara said.

  "Are you okay?"

  "I'm bruised up," I said. "But I guess I'll live."

  Had I been in human form when the floor collapsed, I'd have been dead or on my way to a long stay in a hospital for sure. On the other hand, if I'd been human, the floor wouldn't have collapsed in the first place.

  What was happening to me? Why in the heck had I morphed?

  I had a few minutes to think that over while the paramedics and fire department and police and my mom and every person within six blocks showed up. But there were no answers.

  I had morphed without wanting to.

  The fire department guys dug me out of the rubble. They kept telling me
not to worry. What

  44 did they know? Had they ever suddenly turned into a crocodile? Had they ever had uncontrolled rnorphing?

  My mom was home by the time they dug me out. She did a lot of yelling and wailing and hugging and crying. They made me take an ambulance to the hospital to be checked over.

  It was total E.R. for a while. I told them I was fine, but no one could believe it. No one could believe that a girl could be trapped in a collapsed house and still be unhurt.

  Then the TV stations found out I was the same girl who had "fallen" into the crocodile pit. So for about an hour after that I had to answer really stupid questions from reporters who shoved cameras and lights in my face.

  I sat there on the hospital bed, wearing the black leotard I wear for rnorphing, entirely surrounded by microphones being jabbed at me. I just kept thinking, Man, my hair is probably a mess.

  "How did it feel to fall into a crocodile pit, then have your house fall down on you?"

  "Not very good," I answered.

  "Don't you think you're incredibly lucky?"

  "Urn, no. If I were lucky I wouldn't keep falling. Right?"

  "But you weren't hurt either time."

  "I think winning the lottery would be lucky.

  45 Having the house fall on me, that's not all that lucky."

  Behind the cameras I saw a familiar face. Cassie. The two of us locked eyes. All I could do was shrug.

  "Do you have any advice for other kids like yourself?"

  "Dm, yes. My advice is don't fall into crocodile pits and don't have the house fall on you."

  After that, the news people decided I was being sarcastic, I guess. They decided they'd had enough. Which was good, because I'd definitely had enough.

  "Sweetheart, are you okay?" my mom asked for about the millionth time once all the cameras were gone.

  Cassie was right beside her. "Yeah, how are you?" she asked in a carefully neutral voice.

  I shrugged. "I'm fine. I'd be even more fine if I weren't suddenly The Amazing Falling Girl.'" Unfortunately, my mom was not one of the people I could talk to openly about what had happened. Cassie was. But that would have to wait till we were alone.

  My mother laughed and ruffled my hair. "You are amazing, Rachel. It's a miracle you survived. I think we should all be thankful."

  "Thankful? The house fell on me. The house is destroyed."

  46 "We have insurance," my mom said. Then she grinned. "Plus we probably have the mother of all lawsuits. I mean, houses shouldn't fall apart like that. We can go after the builder, all the contractors and subcontractors, the city inspectors, the previous owners, the . . ."

  She went on like that for a while. See, my mom is a lawyer.

  "Can we get out of here now?"

  "The doctors say you're okay. But the question is, where do we go? We can't go back to the house and -"

  "Daddy!"

  I caught sight of him looming up behind Cassie. My parents are divorced. My dad lives in another state now, but I get to see him once a month. Most months, anyway.

  "Hi, Dan," my mom said in the fake-nice voice she uses with my dad.

  "Hello, Naomi," he said in his version of the fake-nice voice. Then in a genuine voice he said, "How's my girl?"

  I shrugged. "No biggie, Dad. The usual day: a little crocodile-diving in the morning, then the house falls in on me."

  He laughed. My dad is very cool. He's a TV reporter himself. But not like the ones who'd been driving me crazy. My dad is more like one of

  47 those 60 Minutes guys. You know, like very responsible and serious.

  At least on TV he's serious. In regular life, he's not that way at all.

  "I saw the report on the thing at the zoo," he said. "I caught the next flight. It never occurred to me you'd be performing another bizarre stunt the same day."

  "Yeah, well, that's it for this week, though," I said. "I figure that's about enough excitement."

  He laughed and my mom rolled her eyes. She thinks I like my father better than her. That's not true at all. Not really. It's just that my mom is always around. Unlike my dad.

  "Where are you all going to stay?" he asked my mother.

  "At my mom's, I guess," she said. Under her breath she added, "until the old woman drives me stark raving nuts."

  My dad nodded in sympathy. "Look, I'm staying in town for a couple of days. I thought maybe I'd run interference for Rachel. Keep the media off her."

  "They seem to have given up on this story," my mother said doubtfully.

  My dad shook his head. "Don't count on it. They were just trying to make their deadlines for the late news. This is a good human-interest

  48 story. But as a fellow reporter I might be able to warn some of them off."

  "Rachel can stay with me," Cassie said. "I know my mom and dad wouldn't mind."

  My father winked at her. "Thanks, Cassie." Then he turned back to me. "Look, Rachel, I have a suite at the Fairview Hotel. Why not stay with me till this all blows over? Room service? Health club?"

  "Cool! I mean, is it okay, Mom?"

  She looked grumpy. "Well, it makes sense. I guess."

  Right then, I realized that a wonderful, perfect, golden opportunity had just opened up right in front of me.

  "Dad? What you said about all the talk shows wanting to interview me? Wouldn't it be better if I agreed to do just one show? Then the others would let me be. Right?"

  He nodded. "Yeah. But, sweetie, you don't have to do any show. I can get everyone off your back."

  "I could do one, though," I said. "In fact. . . what do you think of the Barry and Cindy Sue Show? I heard they were coming to town."

  Both my parents looked confused. But I saw realization dawn in Cassie's eyes.

  "Barry and Cindy Sue?" my mom said.

  49 "Rachel, why exactly would you want to do Barry and Cindy Sue?"

  I saw Cassie just staring at me with her jaw hanging open. Like she couldn't believe I was even thinking about the whole Jeremy Jason Mc-Cole thing at a time like this.

  "Well, Daddy . . . there's this guy. This actor... this kind of slightly cute actor. . ."

  50

  I went straight from the hospital to my dad's hotel. Everyone had decided I needed rest. I didn't. What I did need was some answers.

  What was happening to me?

  The hotel room was on the twenty-second floor. I imagined what would happen if I suddenly morphed an elephant again. I'd crash down through twenty-two floors.

  What on Earth was happening to me? I kept checking my hands and feet to see if I was still totally human.

  I needed to talk to someone who understood. Someone I could really talk to. My dad was great, but he just kept talking about how the floor

  51 shouldn't just fall in. After all, the house was only ten years old. And while they were at it, why didn't the zoo make its railings higher so people wouldn't be falling in with the crocodiles?

  I hadn't fallen into the croc pit. And the floor didn't just happen to collapse. I had morphed an animal tha t weighed more than a couple of pickup trucks. Houses aren't made for elephants.

  I desperately wanted to call Cassie and talk to her on the phone. But we have a strict rule about that. You never know who is listening in on a phone call. So it would just have to wait.

  Instead I called room service.

  "I'd like a salad with the poppyseed dressing. And, um . . . I'd like the cheeseburger and fries. And cherry pie a la mode. And cancel the salad."

  I didn't care about eating healthy. I didn't care about fat. I was hungry. It had been a long, bad day. I deserved some grease and sugar.

  "And do you make milk shakes? Chocolate milk shakes?"

  I used the remote control to run through the Pay-Per-View choices. It was nothing but martial arts movies, crime movies, action-adventure movies. . . . What I needed was a nice, calm romance. My //Ye was an action-adventure movie.

  The phone rang. I expected it to be the room service people checking back. "
Yes?"

  52 "Are you alone?" It was Cassie's voice. I nearly collapsed from relief. I hadn't even realized how incredibly tense I was.

  "I'm so glad it's you! Yes, my dad's gone. At least for a couple hours."

  "Does your window open?"

  I got up and checked. The window slid open easily. "Yes. You coming up?"

  "Give me five minutes. Flick the lights a couple of times so I know which window is you."

  I spent the five minutes calling down to room service and ordering the salad again. And another piece of pie. For Cassie.

  I was expecting her, but I was still a little startled when a great horned owl came flying in through the window.

  «AII clear?» Cassie asked anxiously.

  "Yeah. But hurry up and morph out. Room service is coming."

  Morphing is never pretty to watch. In fact, it can be the most horrible thing in the world. If you weren't expecting it, and just saw it happening for the first time, I promise you'd run screaming like a lunatic.

  Especially some morphs. Trust me, you don't ever want to see a person become a fly or a spider. You think you've seen scary stuff on TV or in horror movies? Hah. Watch your friend turn into a bug. That will fill your dreams for a few weeks.

  53 But if anyone can make morphing not totally vile and horrifying, it's Cassie. Cassie has a natural talent for it. A natural ability.

  So she looked almost normal as the feathers sank into her skin and disappeared. It didn't even seem too bizarre when her own legs grew huge and tall from the owl's short, deadly talons.

  It was her head that changed last. Cassie has the ability to do that: sort of control the order things morph. I can't even come close. Even Ax can't do it.

  Finally, the big owl eyes became Cassie's own deep, dark eyes.

  There came a knock at the door. I held up a hand to calm Cassie. "It's just room service. You like pie, right?"

  The waiter wheeled a small table into the room. It was loaded with my burger and Cassie's salad and two pieces of pie and my milk shake.

  I signed the check and added a tip. See, I'd visited my dad in hotels before. I knew the routine pretty well.

  Cassie laughed when the waiter had gone. "You're going to have to be rich when you grow up, Rachel. I mean, this is all so natural for you. You fit right in."