ANIMORPHS #25: THE EXTREME

Sample Chapter

We met after school in Cassie's barn -- a.k.a. the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic -- to discuss the situation. Cassie's parents are veterinarians. While her dad runs the clinic, her mom runs the vet staff at The Gardens, an amusement park and zoo. Cassie helps out at the clinic, giving suppositories to cranky skunks and stuff. And let's face it: A wildlife clinic definitely comes in handy when we need to acquire a new morph.

The get-together was like opening night of the local freak show. Four kids who regularly become furballs. Erek, the ancient Android. Tobias, the red-tailed hawk, keeping a lookout from the rafters. Ax, the Andalite, in his human morph.

Ax's human morph is a combination of DNA from me, Jake, Rachel, and Cassie. Together we make one disturbingly beautiful person.

Ax is the only Andalite on Earth. In fact, he's Prince Elfangor's younger brother. Ax was in his human morph because, well, let me put it this way: Cassie's mom and dad are about the coolest parents you'll ever find, but if they were to walk in and find their daughter shooting the breeze with a blue-furred, half-humanoid, half-deerlike creature with a mean scorpion tail, no mouth and four eyes, including a pair that sat on swiveling stalks atop its head...they would definitely freak.

"Do you know any more details?" Rachel asked Erek.

Rachel is your basic psycho-babe. And I mean that in a nice way. She's a tall, willowy, supermodelesque blonde. You might think she was a mall-rat airhead - until you called her an airhead. Then, after she removed your left kidney, you'd realize your mistake.

Rachel's a great person to have on your side in a fight. The only problem I have with her is that she's always looking for a fight.

"Details? I'm afraid not," Erek replied. "We've infiltrated much of the Yeerk force, but we don't have access to everything."

"Nothing at all about the location of the facility?" Jake asked.

"No. Just that Visser Three will be visiting it very soon. We do know this: We've discovered the location of the Visser's new feeding pasture. It's close enough for you to fly there in bird morph. A Bug fighter is going to pick him up there tomorrow afternoon to go off and inspect this site."

Jake got his "Jake look." The sort of weary, worried expression he gets when he's faced with some decision that may result in all of us ending up dead.

Jake, who is Rachel's cousin, is our sort-of leader. Not because he asked to be. It's probably because he'd never ask to be. You know - he's one of those tiresomely dutiful, level-headed guys. If you met Jake, you'd understand why we turn to him. Call it charisma. Something about Jake commands respect.

Not from me, of course. He's been my best friend forever. I was with him when he was nine and ate an entire pie on a bet and ended up blowing blueberries for an hour.

Jake looked around at all of us. Not exactly asking for a vote, but obviously wanting to hear from us.

<So, no problem, right?> Tobias said. <We fly out to Visser's Three feeding place and when the Bug fighter arrives, we hitch a ride.>

"That appears to be our only option. Op. Shun. Shunn," Ax confirmed. Andalites don't have mouths. They communicate in thought-speak. So whenever Ax does his human morph, he's fascinated by the sounds he makes.

By the way, he's the only one who's fascinated.

I held up my hand like I wanted to ask a question in class. "I'm not allowed to hitchhike. Especially not with evil alien parasites. My dad is very definite about that."

Jake managed a brief laugh. Rachel gave me her "what are you, a moron?" look.

"It doesn't sound like my idea of a good time, either," Cassie said. "But if it's true the Yeerks are building a system that will turn any body of water into a Yeerk pool, we have to do everything we can to stop them."

I groaned. I can usually count on Cassie to be rational.

"Okay," I said. "I'll be there, but I promise to complain the entire time."

"Do we need to take a formal vote?" Jake asked.

"No way am I going to miss out on this," Rachel said.

Big surprise there.

"No, no, no votes," I said. "Jake decides. Then if it goes bad we can all blame him."

<I'm there,> Tobias said. <But aren't we overlooking a key detail?>

"What's that?" said Jake.

<I mean, it's not a problem for me. But you guys can't just disappear for a few days. This place could be in, I don't know, Nepal for all we know.>

"Nepal?" I echoed.

"That is a bit of a problem," Jake said.

"Perhaps I can provide a solution," Erek replied.

I held up rny hand again. "Is it okay if I say 'uh-oh,' again?"

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