He nodded. "You have such a way with skunks," he said. "They like you. Besides, I have to go meet with the board of the Dudette Cat Food Corporation tomorrow. I can't show up smelling like skunk."
My mom appeared, climbing up from the basement. She was carrying a six-pack of V-8 juice.
"This is all I could find in the pantry," she said.
You see, tomato juice is one of the few things that helps get rid of skunk smell.
"Mom, shouldn't you be the one to help dad with this? I ... I have very important homework to do."
"Yeah, right," my mom said.
"This is pathetic. You guys are both highly trained veterinarians," I pointed out. "How can you be scared of skunks?"
"I didn't used to be," my father said darkly. "Back before . . . before the incident."
"Just because one skunk sprayed you -"
28 "In the face," he said.
"Just because you had one bad experience -"
"He sprayed me six times in about three seconds," he said. "I smelled for a week. Your mother made me sleep in the barn. Except the other animals there all became agitated, so I had to set up a tent in the yard."
"Then we had to burn the tent," my mother added. She giggled.
"You do have a way with skunks," my father said. "Actually, you have a way with all animals. Come on, you know skunks love you."
"A burned skunk by the side of a highway loves no one," I said.
Ten minutes later, we were on the highway. We were driving in our new pickup truck. My father's old, beloved pickup truck had been stolen and totally destroyed.
At least that's what my dad believed. Actually, we'd sort of had to borrow it in this terrible battle. Marco had been driving, and Marco cannot drive. The truck had ended up a total wreck in a ditch.
On the way, we listened to the CD player. That was the only thing my dad liked about the new truck. He was playing some old jazz or something.
We reached the spot the highway patrol had told my dad about. We pulled over and put on the hazard lights.
"Careful. People drive like maniacs through here," he warned me as we climbed out.
Cars were blowing past at seventy miles an hour with their high beams on. The black forest pressed in around the road on both sides. I shone a flashlight around the edge of the trees.
Normally, the forest doesn't bother me. But I knew that we were actually within a quarter mile of the Yeerk logging camp. It was beyond strange to be practically going back to the place where, just an hour before, I'd nearly been killed.
It took us at least twenty minutes, walking up and down the grassy shoulder of the road, before my flashlight beam landed on a shock of black and white.
"Dad! Here!"
He came trotting over and added his light to mine.
"Yep," he commented. "I'll get the cage.Don't forget your gloves. You know skunks are a major vector for rabies."
"Dad, I have had the shot."
"No vaccine is a hundred percent," he said.
29 I walked toward the skunk. It saw me and turned tiny, glittering black eyes on me.
"Don't be afraid," I said, pitching my voice high. "It's okay. We're here to help you. It's going to be just fine."
Here's the thing about skunks: They are the sweetest animals alive. They don't have a mean bone in their bodies. But that's because they don't have to be mean. They possess the ultimate weapon.
Even so, they will always warn you. If they turn their backs on you, that's a warning. If they raise their tails with the tips down, that's a very serious warning. If they raise the tips of their tails ... you are in a very bad situation.
If you're dealing with a skunk who has turned buttward and raised its tail all the way, you would want to freeze. Trust me. Every wild animal knows this. Dogs, unfortunately, don't understand about skunks, but bears, raccoons, wolves, and most birds of prey know that you just don't mess with that skunk tail.
Maybe you think you know how bad skunk musk is because you've driven by skunk roadkill.
That's nothing. Up close and personal, it's a whole different level of stench. If you imagine the most horrible smell possible, then multiply it by a thousand, you still won't be close.
"It's okay, sweetie," I cooed. "Don't spray me. I'm your friend, so please don't spray me."
I moved closer and crouched lower, making myself small. I wanted to look nonthreatening. I moved very slowly, a step at a time, always cooing and baby-talking like I was going to grab a little kid armed with a shotgun.
The skunk moved! I froze.
The skunk settled back down. I breathed again.
"Please don't spray me," I said. I reached into my pocket and took out a bit of mouse meat.
We keep frozen mice for the raptors we handle. Skunks also enjoy a nice mouse or grasshopper as part of their diets.
"Here you go. Dinner."
I held the meat out for the skunk. The skunk didn't seem to be hungry, but it did accept the fact that I must be okay if I was offering dinner.
I crouched beside the skunk and set my flashlight on the ground. Carefully, with my gloved hand, I reached out to touch the animal.
It was shaking. Shivering. And, at that very moment, I could see why.
There was a burn right across the skunk's back. A perfectly semicircular burn, as if someone had simply sliced a scoop out of it.
"Dracon beam," I whispered. "You were there, weren't you? Poor baby."
30 Aiming at me and Marco, the Yeerks had hit this skunk instead. A completely innocent animal caught in the cross fire of the war between Yeerks and humans.
The Yeerks would destroy all the forest and all its animals to get at us.
"Sorry," I whispered to the skunk.
I lifted it slowly, carefully, up into my arms.
31 Chapter Eight
We met at the mall. It was a Saturday, so it was a normal place we might be.
When you live in a world where you're surrounded by possible enemies, it's important not to do anything too unusual. You don't want to draw attention.
Not even from your own family and school friends. You just never know who can be trusted and who can't.
The Yeerks believed we were Andalites. We wanted them to go on believing that. If they ever figured out we were humans, let alone kids, we were toast.
So we left no clues. We tried not to act like we were a group. We didn't want some Controller teacher or whatever thinking, "Hey, you know what? Those same kids are always hanging out together, acting like they're planning something."
We had to look and act and seem normal. Rachel still went to gymnastics classes and shopped. Jake and Marco still shot hoops in Jake's driveway or played video games. I took care of animals at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic.
There was nothing we could do to make Tobias seem normal. He was way past being normal.
But Tobias came from a terrible, messed-up background, shuttling from one indifferent aunt or uncle to another. He'd never really been part of a family or a structure, and sadly, no one seemed to notice when he simply disappeared.
I spent an hour wandering along behind Rachel as she moved like a professional through the racks at The Limited and Banana Republic and The Gap and the various department stores.
Rachel has some bizarre, supernatural instinct for when and where sales will happen. She doesn't need the advertising. She just "knows."