I went to the beach and rode the thermals there. It was best where the cliffs pressed right up against the blue ocean.
I saw some prey, some mice and voles in the grass along the top of the cliff, but I ignored them. I was Tobias. I was human.
Jake had called a meeting for all of us for that evening in his room. Tom, Jake’s brother, would be away at a meeting of The Sharing.
The Sharing is a front for the Yeerks. They pretend it’s just some kind of Boy Scouts or whatever, but its real purpose is to recruit hosts for the Yeerks.
I’ve gotten into the habit of checking people’s watches from up in the air. Also, you know how banks sometimes will have a big sign showing the time and temperature? Those are helpful, too.
It’s strange the things you miss when you lose your human body. Like showers. Like really sleeping, all the way, totally passed out. Or like knowing what time it is.
In the afternoon I flew back to the school. I drifted around overhead till it let out. Then I waited till I saw Jake, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco come out. They appeared separately. Marco had pointed out that it was bad security for them to be seen together all the time.
I followed the bus with Jake and Rachel in it. They lived closest, just a few blocks away from each other. Marco lived in some apartments on the other side of the boulevard. He lived with just his dad, since his mom drowned a few years ago.
Cassie had to travel farthest, out to the farm, which was about a mile from the others. For me it was about a three-minute flight.
Like I say, there are some good things about having wings. I guess really it’s okay most of the time. Really.
I floated on a nice thermal above Jake’s house, waiting for him to get home. I saw him get off the bus and go inside. I couldn’t see Rachel from where I was because there were trees in the way, but I did see Marco for just a second or two.
I concentrated on watching my friends. That way I didn’t notice the squirrels in the trees as much. Or the mice that poked their little noses from their holes and sniffed the air.
After a while I saw Tom leave Jake’s house.
Tom looks just like Jake, only he’s bigger and has shorter hair. I’d never really known Tom well. But it was during the doomed attempt to rescue him from the Yeerk pool that I was trapped.
He headed down the street, acting nonchalant. Then, a block away, a car pulled up and opened a door. He jumped in.
Off to his meeting of The Sharing.
After a while, I saw the others start to head for Jake’s house. I could identify Rachel easily. She was practicing for her gymnastics class as she walked. She would walk along the edges of curbs, pretending they were balance beams.
I flew in Jake’s window once everyone was there. I didn’t want it to look like I’d been hanging around all that time with nothing to do.
“About time,” Marco said. “We’ve all been waiting here for, like, an hour.”
They’d been there for about two minutes.
“We better make this kind of quick,” Cassie said. “Ms. Lambert gave us papers to write by the day after tomorrow, and I promised my dad I’d help him release this great horned owl. He was a mess. He’d landed on a power line and got fried. But he’s ready to go now. We have a habitat picked out.”
“Friend of yours, Tobias?” Marco teased me.
The others all shot him nasty looks. But the truth was, it made me feel okay to be teased by Marco. Marco teases everyone.
“He’s a beautiful animal,” Cassie said.
I said.
“Um, okay, look, if Cassie has to get going, maybe we better deal with business,” Jake said.
“Yeah, if you two are done with the bird-talk part of the meeting,” Marco added.
“I have to get going soon, too,” Rachel said. She looked a little embarrassed. “My gymnastics class is putting on an exhibition at the mall.”
“Oh, I’m there,” Marco crowed.
“No, you are not there,” Rachel snapped. “None of you is going near that place. You know how I feel about having to put on stupid exhibitions.”
Rachel is not one of those people who likes to perform in front of a crowd.
“We have learned how the Yeerks get their air and water,” Jake said, trying to get down to business. “And we even know where they do it. And we more or less know when. There ought to be some way for us to use this information. Any ideas?”
Rachel shrugged. “We try and find a way to destroy the ship.”
Marco raised his hand like he was in class. “How about if we, um, go back to talking about birds?”
Rachel ignored him, as she usually did. “Look, we find some way to destroy that ship and maybe the Yeerks will run out of air and water. Maybe that will even mean that they have to give up and go home.”
“Maybe,” Cassie said. “Or they may have a dozen more of those ships in different places all over the Earth. We don’t know how many ships they have.”
“This one would be all we need if—” Marco began to say. Then I guess he realized he was about to suggest something dangerous. “I mean … nothing.”
“What?” Jake asked him. “What were you going to say? “
Marco looked trapped. He shrugged. “Okay, look, what if that ship didn’t get blown up or disintegrated or whatever. What if it was flying over the city and suddenly the cloaking device was turned off?”
We were all silent while we thought about that image. Suddenly a million people would look up in the sky and see a ship the size of a skyscraper.
“People would probably notice it,” Jake said.
“Oh yeah, they would notice it,” Rachel agreed. “Radar would see it, too. A million eyewitnesses. The Controllers would never be able to cover it up!”
Jake grinned. “The whole world would see. The entire human race would realize what was happening.” He was getting excited now. “And then we could go to the authorities. The Controllers wouldn’t be able to stop us! We could tell all we know!”
Rachel’s eyes were gleaming. “We could tell them about The Sharing. We could turn in Chapman!”
“And you figure Visser Three and his pals are just going to sit around and do nothing?” Marco asked. “Like you said, we have no idea how many ships they have. Or how much power.”
Jake looked a little disappointed.
“And how do you know that?” Marco asked.
I expected Marco to have some smart comeback. But he just nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“This could be our big chance,” Rachel said. “Uncloak that ship, so the whole world can see.”
“I hate to ask this,” Marco said with a groan, “but how do you think you’re going to do that?”
It was Jake who answered. “We’ll have to get inside that ship.” He winked at Marco. “Want to know how?”
Marco shook his head. “Not really.”
“Through the water pipes. As fish.”
Marco sighed. “Jake, I just told you I didn’t want to know.”
CHAPTER 14
Rachel and Cassie took off, heading in different directions.
“Have a good show,” Cassie called to Rachel.
“Yeah, right,” Rachel said grumpily.
“I’ll be there soon,” Marco told Rachel. “Don’t fall off any balance beams until I get there.”
Rachel shot Marco one of her �
�you’re a dead man if you mess with me” looks and disappeared, leaving just Marco, Jake, and me.
“She really kind of likes me,” Marco said, with a wink at Jake and me.
“Uh-uh,” Jake commented dryly. “Look, Tobias, if we’re going to do this mission, it can’t be till the weekend.”
“The timing. We have to morph to travel up there. There are no buses and we can’t walk that far in human bodies. Even as wolves, though, it takes time. It took more than an hour last time. It just seemed to me that we might want to get up there in the morning, camp out somewhere hidden, and then be ready by afternoon when the Yeerks show up.”
“And this time we may want to travel around that other wolf pack’s territory,” Marco pointed out. “I don’t want to get into it with them again.”
It made sense.
“Anyway, it might be a good idea if we had as much information about the area as we can get.” Jake gave me a thoughtful look. “So I was thinking—”
Marco and Jake both laughed. I think Marco was surprised that I could make a joke about myself.
I saw an intense look in Jake’s eyes. He was wondering if I was okay.
He raised an eyebrow and nodded. He had been upset, too. I could imagine. I suspected there had been a lot of nightmares over that mess.
“Okay, so now what?” Marco asked. “Do I sneak into the mall without Rachel being able to see me, or do we all sit around and play video games?”
“I have homework,” Jake said. “And trust me, Marco, if Rachel sees you at the mall making faces while she’s on the balance beam, she will turn into an elephant and stomp you.”
Marco winced. “Remember the good old days when all a girl could do to you was call you names?”
I flew off, leaving them to play video games or do homework, or however they ended up killing time. Either way, it wasn’t something I could participate in.
It’s kind of a shame, really. With my eyesight and the reaction time I have, I could probably be major competition in first-person shooters.
But joysticks and control pads aren’t made for talons.
I swooped out into the cool afternoon.
I drifted around for a while. I checked out Chapman’s house. Chapman is our assistant principal. He’s also one of the highest-ranking Controllers.
When we first learned Chapman was one of them, he was ordering a Hork-Bajir to kill any of us who were caught. He told the Hork-Bajir to save our heads for identification. Not the kind of thing you expect to hear.
Even from an assistant principal.
But it turned out things were more complicated than we thought. Chapman had joined the Yeerks. But he had done it in part to save his daughter, Melissa.
Melissa would be at the gymnastics thing with Rachel. At the mall.
Remembering the mall made me sad. It was just another one of the places I couldn’t go anymore. There was a long list: school, movie theaters, amusement parks …
Wait a minute. I could go to the amusement park. And I wouldn’t even have to pay admission.
The thought made me happy. I don’t know why. It wasn’t like I could ride the roller coaster. But still, the idea kind of perked me up.
I could bust right into The Gardens any time I wanted. Come to think of it, I could also watch any football or baseball game I ever wanted to see, too, as long as it was outdoors.
And concerts!
Whoa! Big stadium concerts, no problem. No tickets needed.
That’s the way I needed to be thinking. There were millions of things I could do as a bird that I couldn’t do as a human.
But not right now. I turned and headed toward the mountains. I had a job to do. It was another good thing about being me. I was the ultimate airborne spy.
There was a long line of towering clouds running to the mountains. Perfect weather for me. Thermals are what push those clouds up so high.
I just let myself get into it. It wasn’t a bad life. Not really.
I was flying. Back when I was in my old body, I used to look up in the sky and wish I could fly. Now I could. I figured there were probably kids down on the ground right now looking up at me and thinking, “Wow, that would be so cool.”
If only I had something to eat. I was feeling a little hungry. Should have asked Jake to grab me a snack.
It happened before I really even had time to think about it. I guess it was because I was feeling good. Feeling relaxed.
I was above the woods, just a half mile or so beyond Cassie’s farm. The trees opened up to form a little meadow. This is what redtails love. A little meadow.
It was full of prey. Squirrels scouring the ground for nuts. Hopping, then sitting up on their hind legs to look around nervously. Mice that scurried from hole to hole. Rabbits.
A rat.
My eyes focused on it with absolute intensity. I sort of shrugged one shoulder, turned sharply in midair, and plummeted toward the earth in a stoop.
My wings were back. My head low. My talons tucked back for maximum speed.
Sudden flare! I opened my wings. The shock of the air. Talons raked forward. Eyes never moving even a millimeter from the rat.
Focus!
I struck!
An incredible rush of excitement surged through me. I was ecstatic! Ecstatic! That’s the only word for it. It was intense beyond anything I had ever experienced.
Talons hit warm flesh. My razor claws squeezed. The rat squirmed in my grip. But it was helpless! Helpless!
I was in a frenzy.
I hooded my wings around my kill, shielding it from any other predator that might try to steal it away.
I fell back.
I looked down at my talons. They were red with blood.
Rat meat dripped from my beak.
In my panic, I forgot what I was. I tried to run away. But I no longer had legs and feet to run with. I had killing talons. Bloody talons.
I fell in the dirt.
No, I cried voicelessly. But I could still see the dead rat. And I could taste it. And no matter how many times I said “no,” it would always be “yes.”
CHAPTER 15
I flew.
I flew as fast and as hard as I could. I wanted to go so fast that the memory of killing and eating the rat would be left way behind me.
But not even I can fly that fast.
Human! I am human! I am Tobias!
I don’t know why it was Rachel I wanted to see right at that moment. Maybe she was just the closest thing I had to a real friend. Maybe it was the way she had seemed so sure of who and what I was.
I needed someone to be sure.
Down below I saw the huge, irregular rectangles of the mall. I saw a glass door. People streamed in and out. Rachel. That’s where she was.
“Tseeeeer!”
I screamed in rage and frustration and terror as I stooped. I shot toward the door like I’d shot toward the rat.
But I wasn’t going to stop. I wasn’t going to slow down. I was just going to end this right now. I would hit the glass at full speed and maybe that would awaken me from this nightmare.
The speed just kept building. The door rushed up at me. The earth itself was jumping up to hit me.
A guy, dark hair, short, stepped to the door. He opened it.
Shwoooop!
I must have been doing eighty as I hurtled through the open door.
A second set of doors, but these were open, too.
No impact.
No awakening.
Colors and bright lights all aroun
d me. Like a highs-peed kaleidoscope.
The Gap. Express. The Body Shop. Easy Spirit. Mrs. Fields.
Zoom!
I was a bullet, blazing inches over the heads of the shoppers. I heard screams. I heard cries of amazement.
I didn’t care. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to wake up. I wanted to fall to the ground because my wings had disappeared and been replaced by clumsy legs and flailing arms.
I wanted to be me again.
I am human! I am human! I am Tobias!
Nine West. Radio Shack. Barnes & Noble. Benetton. A world I knew. A world where I belonged. Places I had been. Foods I had eaten. The world of human beings.
Zoom!
Suddenly, in seconds, I was at the center of the mall.
A crowd was standing around in a circle. In the middle of the circle, blue mats were on the floor. Girls in leotards were doing midair flips and graceful backbends. People on the upper level were crowded around the railing to look down.
Rachel was on the balance beam. She was just raising one leg, balancing on the other.
I was a brown and gold and red missile shooting past her.
“Tobias!” she cried.
Straight ahead, a wall. A blank wall where they were going to put a new shop. I was still moving fast. I could still hit it and wake myself up from the nightmare.
“No!” Rachel cried.
I flared and shot straight up. The wall scraped my stomach. The ceiling was glass, a skylight. I was there! A last-second turn, almost too late. My shoulder hit the glass. I bounced off and began to fall down toward upraised faces staring at me with horror and amazement and pity.
I saw Rachel’s face in that crowd. Her eyes pleaded silently. No, she mouthed. No.
I fell, stunned and dazed. Rachel, still balanced on the beam, caught me as I dropped. She fell off and the two of us tumbled onto the mat.
“You have to get out of here!” she muttered tersely.
I cried.
“No. As long as you have me and the others, you aren’t lost, Tobias.”
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