"Did you hear what happened to that place?"
the taxi driver asked me. "House just fell apart. I tell you, the way they build things nowadays."
To my surprise my dad was actually at the hotel, waiting for me.
"About time!" he said, a little frantically as soon as I walked in the room. "The show goes live at five o'clock! It's almost three! Where have you been?"
"School."
"Oh. Yeah. School. Come on, come on. Fortunately, we can walk to the studio and avoid traffic. It's just down the street. Five minutes."
Choosing an outfit took very little time: I only had about three things salvaged from the wreck of my bedroom. I quickly called Cassie to tell her to hurry, too. She was supposed to meet me at the studio.
She wasn't home, which probably meant she was already waiting for me.
That was the plan. Cassie would be with me. The others would try to get into the studio in innocent-looking morphs. But we knew the Yeerks would be watching the place. They'd probably have some of their people in the audience. And for all any of us knew, Barry or Cindy Sue themselves might be Controllers.
"Are you nervous?" my dad asked as we hustled rapidly down the street.
"Not really," I said.
"Nationwide, live TV broadcast? Millions of
people watching? Coast-to-coast? And you're not nervous?"
"Now I am," I muttered. I suppressed the nervousness. I couldn't afford to feel anything. I just had to get through this without feeling any extreme emotion. I could do that.
We blew past the receptionist at the studio, my dad in the lead, looking like Mr. Big Time, and me double-stepping to keep up. Cassie was waiting in the lobby and got swept up with us.
"How you doing?" she asked me.
I shrugged. "Great."
"Really?"
"Yep."
"Nervous?"
"No."
"Excited?"
"No."
"Scared."
"Definitely not."
She leaned close and whispered. "Do we have a plan? I mean, what exactly are we doing about Jeremy Jason?"
I shrugged. "We're stopping him."
"How?"
I grinned. "We're improvising."
"Uh-oh."
Suddenly, a llama came tearing past. Its
dainty hooves skittered crazily on the waxed linoleum. It turned a corner and was gone.
"What the. . ." my dad said.
"Cool," Cassie said. Her eyes lit up the way they do when she sees any animal. "It's a llama. They're really neat animals, you know. They-"
Suddenly two people dressed in khaki raced up and shoved past us. They turned the corner after the llama and were gone.
The three of us just stood there staring at each other. Then a third person, a woman with a clipboard, ran up breathlessly. "Did you see a llama?"
I pointed. "That way."
"Hey, what's the deal?" my dad asked.
The woman shook her head like the world was coming to an end. "Bart Jacobs's on the show with his animals. The llama made a run for it.
Smart animal."
"Bart Jacobs?" The name sounded familiar. "Isn't he that guy who takes animals on the talk shows?"
Cassie made a disapproving look. "That's him, all right. I hate seeing wild animals dragged into studios and treated like -"
"Well. If there are no more wild animals," my dad interrupted, "we have to keep moving." He started off again and we fell into step behind
him. He swept us in his wake toward the makeup room. The door was open. A woman with weird hair and black lipstick looked at my dad and gave a little leer. Then she looked at me and Cassie, like she was trying to figure out what to do with our faces.
"She's the one," my father said, pointing at me. "Rachel, meet Tai. Tai, my daughter Rachel. She's on the show."
"The skin is beautiful," Tai said. "But I think we want more body in the hair." She grabbed a handful of my hair and sort of threw it disdainfully. "What do you use on your hair?"
I told her the brand. She sneered. My dad took off to schmooze with some people he knew. And Tai shoved me into a barbershop-style chair, whipped a sheet over me, and began doing things with brushes.
I hate being shoved around like that.
It really kind of made me mad.
"This hair! This hair!" Tai complained. Then she yanked. Way too hard.
I hate being yanked.
Suddenly, Tai backed away. "What is happening to your hair? It's . . .
it's turning gray!"
I looked past her to the mirror. I saw two things. I saw Cassie's horrified expression. And I saw my hair turning gray. Gray and shaggy.
Like a wolf.
It was happening! I'd gotten mad at Tai and I was morphing. Into a wolf! I shot a desperate glance at Cassie. Cassie acted instantly.
"Look!" she cried. "Out in the hallway! It's ... urn ... it's Kevin Costner! And Tom Cruise, too!"
Tai screamed, "Where? Where?" dropped her brush and ran for the door.
I focused. Calm . . . calm . . . no emotion . . .
But Cassie wasn't helping. At all. "You lied! To me! Again! You didn't do that hereth illint thing at all! You're still allergic!"
"I'm trying to be calm, Cassie," I warned. "I'm trying to demorph."
"You can't do this stupid show while you're still this way!"
"I'm doing the show. It's the only way! I'm not letting this creep . . .
now look! You're just making me upset!"
The gray fur was beginning to grow on the back of my arms and hands. I shut my eyes. No anger. No anger. No anger.
"I didn't see Kevin Costner out there," Tai said suspiciously when she returned.