Chapter 1---Hello. My name's Jake. That's all I can tell you. The Yeerks are out there. Everywhere. And they could be controlling someone you least expect. Like your mother, father, sister, brother, or best friend. My older brother,Tom, is one of them. A Controller. Totally confused? Well, you should be. Me and the other Animorphs still are, too. Well, the Yeerks are parasites that crawl into your brain through the ear canal and take over all your functions. Your actions, your thoughts, everything. The bad thing is that it could happen to anybody, anytime. Even you. Who are the Animorphs? Me and my small group of friends. What are Animorphs? We're humans that can morph into any animal we want just by acquiring their DNA pattern. Any animal. From giant African elephants to small fleas. So there I was playing video games in Cyberia with my best friend Marco. Marco and I have been best friends since we were in diapers. Weird to think about, huh? He's shorter than me, but I guess I'm pretty tall for my age. Many people wonder why we're friends. We're as different as can be. But, you know what they say: "opposites attract". Marco's pretty much a joker, always with a wise-crack in mind. He has dark hair and dark eyes. He's also Hispanic. Marco lives with his dad. His mother is supposedly dead, but we found out she's really Visser One. I, on the other hand, have blue eyes and light brown hair. I'm pretty serious, but have a sense of humor. You've got to to have Marco as a best friend! The other Animorphs are Rachel, Cassie, and Tobias. Rachel's my cousin and has long blond hair and brown eyes. I guess you could say she's good-looking, but I don't really think of her that way since she's my cousin. She's really brave and sort of reckless sometimes. Cassie is Rachel's best friend. She's an animal-lover. She's kind of short and has dark hair and dark eyes, kind of like Marco. She doesn't have a light complexion, but not a dark one, either. Kind of in-between. Then there's Tobias. Before becoming an Animorph, I never really knew Tobias. He was new and I had only seen him in school a couple of times. Like, you know, passing in the hall while switching classes. He was kind of a quiet kid, not really saying much, like he wasn't really all there. Pretty strange. He had brown hair and brown eyes. But that was before he went over the 2-hour morphing limit. Now he's a hawk, but got back his morphing powers a while ago. So, he can morph his own human body whenever he wants. He doesn't admit it, but I think he likes being a hawk more than he does human. Before he was shuttled back and forth between his aunt and uncle, who didn't seem to like him much. He just recently found out his father was Elfangor and about his younger sister, Kara. Kara is part of our team, too, only she can't morph. And Elfangor was the Andalite who gave us the power to morph before he died. He was killed by Visser Three. Visser Three is the leader of the Yeerks. And lastly there's Ax. Ax is Elfangor's little brother. He helps us fight the Yeerks, too. And that's everyone. The only humans that can be trusted.
"Yes! I'm winning! Jake, you are SO getting creamed," Marco yelled, rubbing it in my face. He was winning the game, as you can see. "Not for long!" I shot back, more determined to win. We played a little bit longer and then the game was over. "Yes! I won! Yes!" I cried, just trying to rub it in Marco's face. "Is playing video games all you two ever do?" said a voice behind us. We whirled around. "Oh, hey Tom," I said. "What's up?" Marco asked him. Tom shrugged and smiled. Well, no, that's wrong. THE YEERK shrugged with Tom's shoulders and smiled with Tom's lips. "Where are you going?" I asked, already knowing the answer. "I'm heading down to the Sharing," he answered, starting to walk away. "See ya," we said to him. He raised his hand in a 'good-bye' gesture and walked out the door. Marco and I looked at eachother. "We'd better get going," I said to him. "Yeah," he replied, "I'm all out of coins anyway." "Me too," I said. We stood up and walked out of Cyberia and into the busy mall. "Hey, there's Rachel and Cassie," Marco said, pointing. I looked. Sure enough there were two girls coming out of The Limited. One girl, the blond one, was dragging about fourty bags. The other girl only had one. You see, Cassie doesn't like shopping as much as Rachel, as you could tell. Actually, I don't think ANYONE likes shopping a much as Rachel. Marco and I went over to them. "Hey, guys," Cassie said. "Hi," we answered. Marco took one look at Rachel and started laughing. "So, did you do a little shopping today, Rachel?" he asked, still laughing. Rachel just smiled innocently. We all laughed. "And Cassie only has one bag. What did you buy, Cass?" Marco asked nosily. "Marco!" I hissed quietly. Geez, If there's one thing you don't ask a girl, it's what they bought. "It's OK," Cassie said, smiling at me. "I just got a pair of jeans and a shirt." "Cool," I said. "Rachel, I'm not sure I want to ask this, but, what did you buy?" Marco asked, pretending he was horrified at the bags. Cassie laughed, "You don't even want to know!" We laughed again, then decided to leave. Well, actually, Marco, Cassie, and I decided to leave. We kind of had to drag Rachel out, wailing "But there's a big sale at Rave!" We started walking to Rachel's house, which is closest. *Hey guys* we heard after awhile. Tobias. We casually (in case anybody was watching us) scanned the sky, found a red-tailed hawk flying above our heads, and waved. As soon as I got home I got on my computer. I surfed the net until I heard Tom yell, "He nimwad, you gonna tie-up the line all day?!" from in the kitchen. I sighed and signed off. He probably wants to make a call. Yeerk business.
