"Until the hereth illint begins, you can control some of the symptoms by remaining very calm and unemotional. The out-of-control morphing in the water happened when you were upset or emotional."
I shrugged. "I was mad because that jerk Jeremy Jason McTraitor was betraying his fans. Not to mention his entire species, yeah."
"And you said a similar thing happened when
you were in Chapman's office, where you were afraid."
I nodded. "Uh-huh. I mean, not like afraid afraid. Just sort of nervous afraid."
"And the first time? When you morphed inside your house? What emotion were you feeling then?"
"Nothing." I kept my face blank.
"What were you doing when it started?" Jake asked me.
"I don't remember," I lied.
Cassie cocked an eyebrow at me. "Rachel, you were pulling up pictures of Jeremy Jason off the Internet."
"So?" I demanded. "That's not something emotional!"
"It was l-o-o-o-v-e," Marco crowed, drawing the word out. "The deadly, dangerous emotion of puppy love. Rachel was overcome by attraction! By desire! By intense, uncontrollable Tiger Beat passion! And it -"
He was interrupted by the fact that I tried to grab him and choke him.
But he dodged behind Ax.
"It turned her into a wild animal!" Marco yapped on. "Several wild animals, actually. She became the alligator of l-o-o-o-v-e!"
"It's crocodile," Jake said, smirking in a most un-Jakelike way.
And then, suddenly, I realized a feather pattern began to appear on my skin. Bald eagle feathers. I groaned.
"You see?" Ax said, noticing the beginning of the morph. "Passions and emotions set off the allergic reaction. You must try to eliminate the emotions."
"How about if I just eliminate Marco?" I growled.
"It's so perfect," Marco said. "Mighty Xena has a weakness: human emotion. She's a victim of l-o-o-o-v-e."
Jake grabbed Marco's arm and squeezed tight. "Marco, if you make her mad, she'll morph. And if she starts morphing, she might end up in full grizzly bear. Do you really want Rachel mad at you and in grizzly bear morph?"
Marco hesitated. He glanced at me. He bit his lip. "I get your point, Jake. I think I'll just go watch Tobias eat his mouse."
I was halfway feathered by the time I was able to reverse the morph. It took that long to calm down.
"Ax, tell Rachel whatever you can about this hereth thing. Get her prepared. And Rachel, until you are better, keep a very low profile. As in don't go to school. And forget about this TV show you were going to do with Jeremy Jason. Visser Three knows we're on to Jeremy Jason. The Visser will
make him a Controller immediately. Actor boy has seen too much.
They're probably infesting him right now."
"But we still have to stop him! We can't have him speaking for The Sharing. We could grab him, keep him locked up somewhere for three days till the Yeerk in his head dies."
"I know we have to stop him, and we will. We'll just have to figure out some other way to get at him."
"He's probably going to start endorsing The Sharing on the Barry and Cindy Sue Show. Then he'll leave town," I argued. "It's our last chance.
They'll be on guard now. They'll be watching for us. We'll never get near that stupid yacht again. That show may be our last shot at him!"
Jake nodded. "Could be. Could be we can't pull this off. Could be we'll have to forget about it." The good-humored smile evaporated. He gave me a cold look. "Maybe you should have thought about all that, Rachel.
You're the one who blew the mission today. You're the one who let Visser Three know we were on to Jeremy Jason. Next time maybe you'll let the rest of us know when you're not in shape to handle a mission."
I would have argued ... if I could have. But everything he was saying was true.
I glanced at Cassie. She was looking down at the ground, embarrassed. Ax made a point of
aiming all four of his eyes away, like he was watching something fascinating far off in the distance.
I couldn't see Tobias. He was still out in the tall grass. But he must have overheard because he whispered to me, "Hey, don't worry about it, Rachel. It's okay."
"No. It's not," I whispered.
Okay, yes, I had screwed up. But I was determined to fix the problem.
So I basically lied.
The next day I told Jake and Cassie that it had happened. The hereth ill int. I told them it had happened in great detail. I went on and on about how weird it was. I was very convincing. And they fell for it.
Of course, if I'd tried to fool Ax it wouldn't have worked. Because see, I didn't really know what was going to happen during this DNA burping.
None of us had really understood Ax when he'd explained it. Once he starts in about Zero-space, we all just kind of glaze over.
But if I had tried to trick Ax, he would have
asked the one question neither Jake nor Cassie thought to ask: What did you do with the extra crocodile?
Anyway, when ! saw Jake the next day in school and told him it was all over, he believed me. Even Cassie believed me because I told her in a hurried whisper as we changed classes. I think if I'd had to look her right in the face, she would have known I was lying.
I had no choice. I had to make it to the Barry and Cindy Sue Show. One way or another, whatever it took, we had to stop Jeremy Jason from endorsing The Sharing on that show.
See, I knew I was okay. Because all I had to do was to control my emotions. Just stay unemotional, and I wouldn't go into uncontrolled morphs. And I'm good at handling emotion.
Except anger, maybe. I have a small problem with anger.
But who was going to make me mad on a stupid TV show? It would be fine.
Fine.
Uh-huh.
After school I took a taxi again to my dad's hotel. I had the taxi pass by my house. Work crews were already there, ripping out the shattered remains of our kitchen and my bedroom. They had one of those super-sized Dumpsters out front, full of plasterboard and two-by-fours.