"It's not over as long as ... million teenage ... in love with me,"
Jeremy said.
"All I'm saying is, big changes are coming. Big changes like . . . has ever seen before, okay? Now, my company is part of the new order. You do business . . . parts in movies. Serious parts. Let you move beyond teenage roles."
Jeremy Jason laughed. "That'd be nice. I'm
about sick to death of dopey . . . sending me love letters and mobbing me for autographs. See, that's part of the problem I have with your offer. You'll have me still. ... I'm sick of ... be Mr. Goody Good all the time."
Then the other man, the one who had been standing with his back to us, stepped forward. He barely flicked a finger and the producer backed away. The woman in the bikini narrowed her eyes and seemed to shrink down in her chair.
"Let's stop wasting time," the man said. "We've been talking ...
yesterday . . . better things to do. I can give you . . .thing you want.
Everything. Money . . . power. But first, you have to agree to my. . . .
They are ... simple. You become one of us. And then, you take on this .
. . representing The Sharing. In exchange . . . anything and everything your heart desires."
Jeremy Jason sat silently while the man spoke. The man scared him. That was obvious. When Jeremy Jason did speak, it was in a low, strained voice. "And if I say no?"
"You won't say no," the man said. He turned then, and I saw his face. I saw an icy smile, and cold, dead eyes.
I had seen him before, just briefly. But once was enough.
"Visser Three!" Cassie hissed.
The Visser was in his human morph. But it
was him. And having recognized him, it was as if the sun was gone from the sky. I felt darkness reaching out from him. Darkness that clutched at my heart.
Visser Three, leader of the Yeerk invasion of Earth. The only Yeerk ever to take control of an Andalite body. The only Yeerk to possess the Andalite morphing power.
Visser Three, the evil creature who had murdered Ax's brother Elfangor while we sat terrified, helpless.
He smiled his icy, fake-human smile for Jeremy Jason. "You're an ambitious. . . . You want. ... So much more than you will ever get without my help."
Suddenly Jeremy Jason laughed. "I guess you see through me." He stood up to face the frightening man. "I let you perform this procedure . . .
make me a major movie star. Deal?"
The cold smile reappeared. "Deal."
"He can't possibly know what this means!" Cassie cried. "They've tricked him."
"Yeah. They have. But you know what? He wouldn't be falling for it unless he was a creep."
"l don't care," Cassie said. "We can't let them make Jeremy Jason a Controller^
"No, we'll have to try and save him," I agreed. "But now I wonder if he's worth it." I felt sick inside. I know it's dumb to have a crush on some actor you only know from TV. But it's a nice, normal kind of dumb. And I didn't have much normal anything in my life.
"Let's get back with Jake and Marco," I said. "Man. They are so going to rag on us over this. Jeremy Jason ready to become a voluntary Controller. It's disgusting."
I banked sharply away, caught the headwind again, and realized that I was getting lower. Lower very quickly. I flapped harder.
"Rachel! What are you doing?" Cassie yelled.
"l don't know! I can't seem to fly!"
"0h, no! You're morphing, Rachel! Stop!"
My wings were beating the air, but I just kept falling. And then I saw the reason. It was right in front of my face.
Literally!
Where my small, hooked seagull beak should have been, something long and gray was growing.
"I'm growing a trunk!" I cried.
From their positions a hundred yards behind the boat, Marco and Jake spotted the disaster-in-the-making.
"Rachel! What are you doing?" Jake yelled.
"l can't stop! I can't stop! I'm morphing!"
The trunk was now half-a-foot long and my wings were not even close to powerful enough. I fell. I hit the water with a splash.
But not before I caught a glimpse of Visser
Three. He was standing at the back rail of the boat. He was staring right at me with dead, evil eyes.
I hit the water and kept going. The elephant morph seemed to be speeding up. I was morphing at a speed unlike anything I'd ever done before.
Down I sank. Down and down as bubbles spiraled up away from me. My huge leathery ears were growing from my head. I felt my bones grinding as they swiftly became massive and thick and long.
I tried to tread water, but I had legs like tree trunks!
The sparkling surface of the water above me already looked as far away as the surface of the moon. I was drowning.
"Rachel! Morph out!" Cassie screamed.
"Ax!" Jake yelled. "lf you can hear me, find Rachel. Stay with her!" But I knew the others couldn't reach me in time. I was falling and falling, down and down through the water. My trunk could not reach air, although I stretched it high over my head.
I was drowning in an elephant's body. And all I could do was wonder why.
I fell down through the water, down toward the invisible ocean floor a mile below me.
I tried to focus. To find a way to demorph. But I couldn't. My mind was slipping away.
I was about fifty feet under when it occurred to me to see whether the elephant could swim. I mean, it seemed stupid. Of course elephants can't swim. But what did I have to lose?
I started running in water with my big telephone pole legs and to my utter amazement it turned out the elephant could swim. But too late to do me much good. I was too far down. I'd never reach air in time.
I saw a flash of gray, a deadly shape in the water
beside me. I heard, like it was from far off, a thought-speak voice saying, "l see her, Prince Jake!"