As I shrank, I could see my flesh turning white. White as snow. White as paper. And then, when I was a creepy, shrinking ghost, the feather patterns begin to appear. They were tiny, close, delicate feathers. Much smaller than the owl or eagle morphs I used.
My teeth melded together and began to force themselves outward, forming a single hornlike protrusion. It pushed out and split open horizontally, creating a hooked beak.
I spread my arms wide and saw that they were already wings. Not the broad, powerful wings of
an eagle. Shorter, sharper, narrower, more acrobatic wings.
I had become the bird that is never endangered. The bird that lives on all seven of the seven continents. The bird that seems to thrive in every environment.
I was the mighty seagull.
Eater of fish, french fries, melted candy, eggs, Burger King Whoppers, popcorn, beef jerky, pickle slices, maraschino cherries, cheese puffs, burritos, and basically any other food that has ever been invented.
King of scavengers! Lord of the trash!
I flapped my wings and took to the sky. I flapped hard and rose to treetop level. And below me, the beauty of the world was revealed to my alert, seagull vision.
Food was everywhere! Everywhere humans threw garbage was a restaurant to me. The Dumpster behind the school! The parking lot of the convenience store! I saw it all. I spotted every blowing candy wrapper. I noted every single bit of road kill.
Other birds had to kill to eat. Other birds had narrow, cramped environmental niches with just one or two kinds of acceptable food. Not me. I could live on junk food and garbage.
And that's why the skies were filled with my brothers and sisters. I saw them everywhere, al-
ways near the ground, always on the lookout for the next bread crumb.
Above me I spotted a dangerous form . . . the dark silhouette of a bird of prey. But I wasn't too worried. He was high up, and I was fast and very agile.
I flapped hard and flew fast, zooming like a wobbly, erratic rocket above the treetops, over the roofs, flitting through telephone wires, skimming easily over lawns and yards and gardens.
"Enjoying yourself, Rachel?"
What the . . . ?
"Hello. Hello in there, Rachel. You're not falling into the morph, are you?" It took a few seconds for me to track. The voice in my head was Tobias.
Tobias was a human. So was I.
Oh. Hello. Wake up, Rachel.
"Sorry, Tobias. I was getting kind of caught up in the seagull's head there for a minute. I wasn't prepared. I've done the morph before, so I wasn't on guard."
It was embarrassing, actually. When you first do a morph it's very hard to control the mind of the animal. I mean, when I'd morphed the crocodile, even though I was totally prepared, I'd been ready to chomp that kid.
But I'd done the seagull before. I shouldn't have had any difficulty with it.
"You okay, Rachel?" Tobias asked.
"Yeah. Yeah. I'm fine, all right? I just wish everyone would stop asking me how I am. I'm fine."
This wasn't related to the problem with uncontrolled morphing. This was just a minor thing. A minor loss of concentration.
Nothing to worry about. That's what I told myself.
"You know your way to the beach from here?"
"0f course I know the way to the beach," I said, still mad for no good reason.
"Ooookay. See you there."
Tobias peeled off and I flew on. One thing the seagull knew was how to find the beach.
But I was not a happy little seagull.
Something was wrong with me, and it wasn't going away.
We met high above the beach. Four seagulls, looking totally normal among the hundreds of other seagulls. And higher up, floating on the thermals, a red-tailed hawk and a harrier.
The harrier was Ax. He'd never acquired a seagull. The harrier morph was a type of hawk, about the same size as Tobias.
"Okay, is everyone up for this?" Jake asked.
He was one of the wheeling, screaming seagulls around me, but I couldn't be sure which one.
"Let's do it!" I said. That's what I almost always say at the start of a mission. Everyone expected me to say it.
The truth was, I felt nervous and worried and totally unsure of myself.
But people expected me
to be all gung ho. If I hadn't been, they'd have known something was very wrong with me.
"What a shock," Marco said sarcastically. "Mighty Xena is ready to go.
Someone alert the media! It's a major story!"
"0h, shut up, Marco," I said.
"Okay, we fly out, find this yacht, then figure out how to proceed from there," Jake said. "Right?"
"lf we can find the yacht at all," Marco said.
"Not a problem. It's out there, maybe three miles, heading southeast.
There are three people on deck. I can't see their faces." Tobias laughed. "Hawk vision, boys and girls. You seagulls stick to Dumpster-diving. I'll take care of long-range spying."
"You sure it's the right boat?" Jake asked.
"The Daybreeze, right?"
"There is no way you can read the name on a boat that's three miles out," Marco said. "I've been an osprey, remember? Your eyes are good, but you're not Superman."
"Busted," Tobias said. "Okay, I can't read the whole name on the boat.
But I can see the D. And I took a good guess. I'm betting that's our wussy-boy actor."
"Good enough," I said. "Let's take a closer look." It was all the usual banter before we go on a mission. It felt good to be doing something. Action was better than sitting around waiting to see if I was going to morph out of control.