I felt an emotion I don't feel very often. I felt it boiling up inside me. I glared furiously at him. At the ripping talons. At the nastily curved beak.
I could picture the scene in my mind. The way he would have swooped down, raked those talons forward, snatched the defenseless kit off the ground and . . .
I was shaking. I laced my fingers together, just to stop them from trembling.
"I'm going to save what's left of them," I said. My voice didn't sound like my voice.
"I'll help you," Tobias said.
59 Chapter FIFTEEN
I used my osprey morph and flew behind Tobias as he led me directly to the spot I had seen the night before. I carried the frozen grasshopper in my talons. I didn't ask Tobias any questions, and he didn't say anything.
He pointed out the almost-invisible entrance to the skunks' lair. And then he flew away. I knew he'd go to Jake and tell him what I was doing. And I knew that I had hurt Tobias by treating him so coldly.
But, to tell you the truth, I didn't care right then. I just wanted to find those baby skunks. I don't know why, but somehow in my mind those baby skunks had become very important.
When Tobias was out of sight, I began to morph.
It wasn't a difficult morph. I kept eyes and ears and a mouth all the way through the change.
Not like becoming a bug.
There was the now-familiar sensation of shrinking. And there was the surprise of having a huge, bushy tail growing from the base of my spine. But I had morphed a squirrel before.
This was pretty close.
But the fur was a new experience. Oh, I'd grown fur before, but never any so long and luxurious and dramatic. This was a regular fur coat, so to speak. Mostly black, but with an impressive swipe of white down my back and into my tail.
The senses of the skunk were nothing dramatic. The hearing was a little better than human, maybe. The sense of smell was good. The sight not as good as my own human vision.
And the skunk's body was not swift or strong. I shuffled and sort of waddled when I tried to walk. When I tried to run I just ended up waddling a little more.
My front paws could grasp and hold things, but they were far inferior to my own human hands.
It was the skunk's mind and instincts that seemed strangest of all. I've been inside minds that were all fear, or all hunger. Minds that were keyed up, like they lived on adrenaline.
But this mind, this package of instincts, was so ... gentle. So unafraid. Not cocky and swaggering like a big cat, just unafraid.
I was an animal no bigger than a house cat. No sharp teeth or talons. And yet just about nothing in the forest messed with me. 1 felt the gentleness of absolute confidence.
I could hear the mewing sounds of the skunk kits within the burrow.
I waddled over to the opening and pushed my head inside. It was dark, but I could make out four of them. Tiny, helpless little things. No longer infants, but not yet able to defend themselves or hunt like skunks.
I know some people think animals don't have emotions. But those kits were happy to see me.
And something in the mind of the skunk was relieved and joyful to see them.
60 I retrieved the frozen grasshopper, now completely thawed. I crawled inside that little hole in the dirt. I curled around, and the kits nuzzled up against me. I fed them the grasshopper.
I knew I only had two hours in morph. But even though I had just gotten up a few hours earlier, I suddenly felt sleepy. The meal was done. The kits wouldn't starve. And I was sleepy and very, very peaceful.
Even in my sleep I knew what was happening to me. See, I had always loved animals.
Always. But now, I think was falling out of love.
Nature wasn't all cute and fuzzy. The strong ate the weak. The weak ate the weaker. It's what the Yeerks were doing: trying to make prey out of the ultimate predator, Homo sapiens.
WHUMP!
"Hey! Hey! Are you in there? Cassie!"
I woke up. Where was I? It was dark. Was I in my bedroom? Was I ... oh, no, was I in the termite colony?!
The four kits still slept, curled up against me. I was in the skunks' den.
"What?" I said.
"It's me, Jake, Cassie, get out of there. Now! You've been in morph for almost two hours!"
That woke me up all the way. I shot out of the burrow and instantly began to demorph.
Jake was standing there with Marco. Tobias was in the tree overhead.
I have seen Jake mad before. But I'd never seen him this mad. "What did you think you were doing?!" he yelled, without even waiting for me to become human. "You were ten minutes away from spending the rest of your life as a skunk!"
"I fell asleep," I said. My mouth wasn't formed yet.
"Are you out of your mind? What is the matter with you?" I'd never noticed that Jake has this vein that kind of pops out on his forehead when he's furious.
"Look, I'm sorry," I mumbled, as I finished demorphing.
He was a long way from forgiving me. "This is not why we have this ability. We are not trying to save every lost skunk in the world," Jake ranted. "We are an army. A small, weak, pathetic, outnumbered army. We have exactly six members. Tobias has already been trapped in morph. But he was trapped fighting the Yeerks. I can't believe you would nearly get yourself trapped in morph over some skunks!"
Marco stepped in and put a hand on Jake's shoulder and kind of pulled him back. "Look, it's okay, Jake. She's okay."
"Thanks to Tobias," Jake snapped. "No thanks to her."
61 I didn't know what to say. I was too shocked. And to be honest, I was pretty horrified by what I'd almost done.
"Marco. Tobias. Take a walk, okay?" Jake said. Then he turned and stood with his face just inches from mine. "I know you had a real bad experience last night. I've been there. I've had the nightmares. I know what's going on in your head right now."
"I'm fine," I muttered.
"Just shut up and listen to me," he said. But the anger was gone now. "I care about you, Cassie.
We all do. And we all need you."
"To win?" I said. "You need me to fight battles? What if I don't want to fight any more battles? What if I've had enough? I've done enough."
"You've done far more than enough. A hundred times more than enough. But the Yeerks are still here."
I shrugged. "The strong eat the weak," I said. "It's part of nature. Humans always win, other animals always lose. Maybe it's our turn to lose."
Jake nodded. "This isn't about some race called humans. It's about people we know. People we see every day. My brother, Tom, is one of them. So why don't you go tell Tom it's okay that he's a slave of the Yeerks because it's our turn to get hammered?"
He turned and walked away.
"Jake?"
He stopped.
"Jake? Urn ... my dad will have the skunk mother ready to be returned here in a day or so. I'm not going to just abandon these kits."
He put his hands on his hips and glared at me. "You can't stay in morph that long, and you know it."
"I know. But I have to make sure no predators come around. I have to get them food. And I have to morph at least some of the time, so they can imprint on their mother here in the wild.
Look ... I know it seems stupid to you and Marco and probably everyone. But I have to do this."
"I'll watch them," Tobias said.