"What about him?" I said.
"Well, let"s see. He invites you to join The Sharing. And now along comes Tom. And suddenly he is very interested in whatever happened at the construction site. And guess what? Tom also invites you to join The Sharing."
Tobias nodded in agreement. "Maybe this Sharing is an organization for Controllers."
Marco smiled. He"s my best friend and all, but sometimes Marco really makes me mad.
"We"re pretty sure the cop is a Controller. And I don"t care what you say, Jake, I think Tom is, too. So, here"s the deal. You want to get into this fight against the Yeerks?" Marco asked me. "Fine. Let"s see how much you want to do it when it turns out it"s your own brother you have to destroy."
That stopped me cold.
"It"s not exactly some video game, is it?" Marco said. "This is reality. You don"t know anything about reality, Jake. Nothing bad has ever really happened to you. You have this perfect family. Like I used to have."
His voice cracked a little. He never talked about his mom"s death.
I realized he was right. I didn"t know about reality. Not the way reality had happened to Marco - and to Tobias.
"So maybe we just walk away from this," Marco said. "Let someone else fight this fight. Sorry about the Andalite, but I"ve got enough death in my family."
"No," I said, surprising myself. "The Andalite gave us the morphing power for a reason. It wasn"t just for the fun of being a dog or a horse or a bird. He hoped we would fight."
"Then maybe Tom is the enemy," Marco said. "Maybe it"s your own brother you"ll end up destroying."
"Yes," I said. My throat felt all tight. "Maybe that"s what will happen. Maybe not. But the first step is to find out more. And I think maybe the way to do that is to check out this meeting of The Sharing. Tonight. I"ll call the others. Anyone wants to come, cool. You want to stay out of it, Marco, that"s cool, too."
He hesitated. He sent Tobias an angry look. But he said, "Okay, it"s just a meeting, right? We go and see. I"m in for that,"
I called the others. Rachel agreed quickly. Ca.s.sie had to think about it for a little while, but she agreed, too.
I told Tom we were interested in attending the meeting. Me and Marco and Rachel and Ca.s.sie. We"d already decided Tobias would be there, too. Only in a different way.
"Tonight"s a great meeting to come to," Tom said enthusiastically. "We"re having a bonfire on the beach. You know, hanging out, playing games, and stuff. We play night volleyball, which is so funny because half the time guys can"t even see the ball. It"s great. It"s the best organization. You"ll love it."
Listening to him, it sure didn"t sound like The Sharing was connected with the Yeerks. You couldn"t really picture Visser Three or a bunch of Taxxons playing volleyball.
I was thinking maybe we were all just nuts. The Sharing was probably just like some new kind of coed Boy Scouts or something.
It wasn"t that far to the beach, so we decided not to drive there with Tom. We walked. Tobias walked part way with us, then he stepped behind a dark dune as we got close to the sh.o.r.e. A few minutes later we saw a hawk take flight. There aren"t many thermals at night, so he had to work to get alt.i.tude. But then I guess he found a decent enough updraft, because he soared up and away till he disappeared.
"I have got to try that," Ca.s.sie said. "It looks wonderful."
"Yeah," I agreed. Ahead, the bonfire burned bright on the dark beach. People were all around it, playing, talking, eating. Kids from school. Adults. People I didn"t know. Others I did.
Were they all Controllers? I wondered. How could I ever know? And was my own brother one of them?
After about an hour of hanging out there on the beach, I was sure I was nuts. There was no way these guys were aliens. We played some volleyball, me and Tom together on one team. We ate the barbecue ribs they had. I mean, it was just like this normal, good time.
The sand was still warm. The night air was chilly, but near the fire it was nice.
"Now you see why I enjoy this?" Tom asked me.
"It"s cool," I said. I looked around at all the people having fun. "I didn"t realize it was so much fun,"
"Well, that"s not all it is," Tom said. "I mean, it"s more than just fun. The Sharing can do all kinds of things for you. Once you"re a full member."
"How do you get to be a full member?" I asked.
He smiled mysteriously. "Oh, that will come later. First you become an a.s.sociate member. Later the leaders will decide whether to ask you to become a full member. Once you become a full member . . . the whole world changes."
At that moment, something weird happened. I was looking at Tom, and he was smiling at me. But then his face kind of twitched. His head started to pull to one side, like he was trying to shake his head only he couldn"t quite do it. For just a split second there was a look in his eyes - scared or . . . or something. He was looking right at me, and it was like some different person, some scared person, was looking out of those same eyes.
Then he was back to normal. Or what looked like normal.
"I have to go for a while now," he said. "The full members have a separate meeting. You guys stay here and have fun. Have some more of that barbecue. It"s great, isn"t it?"
With that, he was gone into the night.
I felt like I had swallowed barbed wire.
Marco and Ca.s.sie came over. They had just finished playing Frisbee in the surf with some other kids. Marco was laughing.
"Okay," he said, "I admit it. I was wrong. These are just normal people having a good time. And Tom is not a Controller."
I didn"t know whether to laugh or cry. Marco was wrong.
I knew what I had seen in Tom"s eyes - he was trying to warn me. Somehow he had managed to gain control of his face for just a second before the Yeerk in his head had crushed him.
Tom - the real Tom, not the Yeerk slug in his brain - had tried to warn me.
CHAPTER 14.
"They"re all going off to a separate meeting," I said. "All the full members. I"d sure like to know what goes on in that meeting." I struggled to sound normal, but my insides were churning.
"I saw people heading that way." Rachel pointed.
"Let"s see if we can get close," I said.
"What"s going on?" Marco asked. "I thought we just decided everything was normal here."
It was Ca.s.sie who answered him. "Nothing is normal here," she said. "Can"t you feel it?" She shivered. "All these so-called full members, they"re all being so perfectly nice. So perfectly helpful. They"re so perfectly normal it"s abnormal. And all the time their eyes are following you, watching you. Watching you like . . . like a hungry dog watching a bone."
"Creepy," Rachel agreed. "Like if you took cheerleaders, combined them with gym teachers, and made them all drink ten cups of coffee."
"They are all just a little too happy, aren"t they?" Marco admitted. "People keep telling me how all their problems disappeared once they became a full member of The Sharing. It"s like some cult or something."
"I"m getting into that secret meeting," I said. I had to know. I had to be dead sure. "Let"s get away from the fire. Over behind that lifeguard stand."
"How are you going to get into the meeting?" Marco asked.
"They won"t worry about some stray dog that"s walking along the beach," I said.
"Some stray . . . oh," Marco said.
"Good idea," Ca.s.sie said. "I"d do it, too, but the only morph I can do is a horse. They would notice a horse."
I checked to see that no one could see us. I waved over my head. A few seconds later, Tobias came swooping silently out of the starlit sky. He landed on the lifeguard stand, "What"s up?"
"The full members are off in some private get-together," I told him. "Do you know where they are?"
"Of course. With these eyes I can see the mice scampering through the dune gra.s.s. Nice, plump, tasty-looking things."
"Tobias! Get a grip. Don"t start eating mice just because you"re in a hawk"s body. What"s next? Road kill?"
He didn"t say anything. Maybe he was offended at my suggestion that he would ever eat road kill. Or, worse, maybe he wasn"t offended.
"Where are the full members?" I asked.
"About a hundred yards down the beach. There"s a little bowl-like area formed by the dunes. There are people posted all around, though, like guards."
I nodded. "Good job. Tobias, you"ve been in that body for more than an hour. You need to morph back."
"No, I"ll keep watch from above for a while longer," he said.
"No, Tobias," I said sharply. "You need to morph back. You"ve done what we needed you to do."
"Um, there is that little problem . . . I don"t exactly have any clothes on."
"Marco has your clothes in a bag. Rachel and Ca.s.sie will turn away while you morph."
Ca.s.sie grinned. "I am going to have to teach you boys how to morph clothing."
Still Tobias hesitated. "I hate changing back. It"s like going back into a prison or something. I hate it when I don"t have wings."
"Tobias, you can always return to your hawk morph later," Rachel rea.s.sured him. "Now, come on, both of you. I"ll look the other way so your delicate boy modesty isn"t offended."
I took a deep breath. It was only my second morph. It still seemed totally ridiculous that I was even thinking about becoming a dog. But as I concentrated, I could begin to feel the itchiness and the squirmy feeling as Homer"s DMA combined with the Andalite"s technology and began to change me.
At the same time, I could see fingers growing from the ends of Tobias"s wings.
"Keep a grip on your human side," Ca.s.sie warned me. "We can"t have you off chasing cats or whatever. You need to focus hard on staying in control."
I started to say, "Yes, I know," but it came out "Rowr, rowwr, ruff!" I was already too changed to make normal human speech.
I thought my answer instead. "Yes, I know, Ca.s.sie. Don"t worry."
"But I do worry," she said softly.
I nuzzled her hand with my cold nose and she patted my head. I set off across the sand.
Ca.s.sie had been right to warn me. The dunes, the surf, the low chirping of sea birds in their hidden nests - all of it was so perfect for distracting my dog mind.
I heard something breathing in the sea gra.s.s, and then it broke and ran! I was off after it before I could even think. It ran and I chased. I think it may have been a chipmunk or something. I never could be sure, because it found a hole and went diving in.
I dug frantically in the sand for a while before my human brain realized, whoa, Jake this is not what you"re supposed to be doing. Stop it!
I made myself walk toward the meeting. I could hear the murmur of voices. I started to creep closer, then I realized that was dumb. Dogs don"t creep around. They just walk or run. If I went around acting like "spy dog," that would make people pay attention.
So I wandered along, like any dog out for an evening stroll along the beach. My tongue lolled out of my mouth. My tail wagged occasionally. The only thing I had to be careful of was not to let Tom see me too clearly. After all, I looked exactly like Homer.
Basically, I was Homer.
I approached the edge of the area. There were high dunes all around. About twenty or thirty people were standing together. Unfortunately, with my weak dog eyes I couldn"t see them very well in the darkness.
But I could hear them. I could hear them amazingly well. Sounds that I would barely have noticed with my human hearing were as loud as a boom box set on nine.
And I could smell. It"s funny about smell. As a human you don"t really get into it. But when I laid back and let my dog abilities come up, smell became as good as sight. Different, but just as good for some things.
I heard Tom"s voice. And I smelled a subtle combination of things that meant he was not too far away.
There was a man on guard, but all he did was look down at me, then look away. No one cares about a stray dog.
I was beginning to realize why the Andalite had given us the power to morph. There are things you can do as an animal that you could never do as a human.
The members all seemed to be waiting for someone to arrive. I heard Tom say, "He should be here soon. Wait, here he comes."
There was a stirring, muttering sound. I heard footsteps approach. I moved closer but stayed out of the light.
"Everyone, quiet. We have problems," the voice said.
The voice! I knew that voice. It was the same voice that had been at that construction site. It was the voice that had said, "Just save the head. Bring that to me, and we can identify it."
I crept a little closer. I had to look hard to see him with my dog sight But then, when he turned just the right way, I saw him, I recognized him. It was someone I knew. Someone I saw every day at school.
None other than a.s.sistant Princ.i.p.al Chapman.
My a.s.sistant princ.i.p.al was a Controller.
"Item one. We still have not found the brats who were at the construction site," Chapman said. His voice was hard. "I want them found. Visser Three wants them found. Does anyone have any clues?"
For a moment no one spoke. Then I heard a second familiar voice.
"It could have been anyone," Tom said. "But it might be the one who"s my brother, Jake. I know he goes through the construction site sometimes. That"s why I brought him here tonight. So we could either make him ours . . . or kill him."