"I was sure that was him," Cassie said. "Sorry."
"Now what was going on with your hair?" Tai asked, staring baffled at my now-normal head.
"Dm ... not enough conditioning?" I suggested.
And that's when I suffered my second emotional jolt. Because that's when the cutest boy on the planet walked into the makeup room.
"Jeremy Jason," I heard Cassie whisper in awestruck tones.
No emotion . . . no emotion . . . , I told myself.
But you have no idea just how massively cute he was up close like that.
And then he smiled at Cassie, and gave her a little half-hug. Like he'd probably done with a million fans before.
I saw Cassie's knees buckle. She actually wobbled.
"Hi, I'm Jeremy Jason McCole," he said to me. "Are you on the show, too?"
"Yes," I said, trying to sound like a robot. "Yes, I am on the show, too."
I didn't get up from the makeup chair. And I didn't shake his hand.
Because I have to tell you the truth: Even knowing what he was now, even knowing what kind of person he was, even knowing that inside his head there lived an evil gray Yeerk slug, if he'd hugged me like he had Cassie, I would have morphed.
I would have morphed big time.
?Hey," Jeremy Jason said, giving me his famous squinty, skeptical look.
"Don't I know you from somewhere?"
I shook my head. "No. Definitely not."
"Yeah, yeah. You're the girl who fell into the crocodile pit after that kid. You're on the show today, huh?"
"That's not all she did," Cassie rushed to say. "She also had her house fall in on her."
I sent Cassie a "What are you doing?" look. Like having a house fall on me would make Jeremy Jason think better of me? Like that would impress him?
Cassie made a helpless, confused, giddy look and shrugged. She kept staring at Jeremy Jason
with this slightly weird grin. Of course, to be honest, I probably had the identical slightly weird grin.
Jeremy Jason flashed his smile. Then he said, "Look, Disaster Girl, or whatever you are, how about if you and your friend stumble on out of here? I need to get made up. And I don't need an audience."
That took care of the weird grins. Tai looked fiercely at me and jerked her head toward the door.
Outside in the hallway we found the llama. It was standing there, minding its own business.
"'Disaster Girl'?" I repeated. "Excuse me?"
"'Stumble on out of here'?" Cassie said.
We both looked at the llama.
"If you're waiting to get made up, you can forget it," I told the llama.
"You're not a big enough star."
"Maybe not, but I will be someday," the llama said.
"Yahah!" Cassie and I yelped. You'd think we, of all people, would be prepared for strange things like talking llamas. But it caught us totally by surprise.
"Marco?" I hissed.
"Who else would be this cute? Check out this fur. Check out this little llama smile on my little llama face."
"What are you doing?"
"Jake's somewhere around here in cockroach morph. Ax is here in fly morph. I came that way, too. But then I saw this llama wandering around loose. So I thought, hey, why be a bug?"
"Where's the real llama?" Cassie whispered.
"Don't worry. I put him in an empty dressing room. By the way, I saw the schedule. Bart Jacobs and various animals of his, including yours truly, go on first, then the Wussy Wonder, and finally you, Rachel."
Cassie cocked an eyebrow at me. I deliberately didn't look at her. I knew what she wanted me to do.
"Fine, /'//tell him," Cassie said. "Marco, Rachel may have slightly exaggerated when she said she was okay. You'd better warn Jake."
"She didn't burp the croc?"
"Nope."
"I'm fine as long as I don't get excited," I said defensively.
"You know, Rachel, I'm supposed to be the irresponsible one," Marco said.
Cassie was biting her lip thoughtfully. "It's too late for Rachel just to cancel. But we need a backup, just in case. No matter what happens, we can't have people seeing Rachel morph."
"What can you do? If she morphs suddenly -"
"Well," Cassie interrupted, "the important thing is that there always be a Rachel. See? I can't believe what I'm even thinking, and it totally gives me the willies, but Rachel? I think we need a copy of you."
"Morph Rachel?" Marco trilled. "I'll do it! I'll do it!"
"When pigs fly," I said.
Marco shot a llama look to his left. "Uh-oh. Looks like I'm busted." The two khaki-clad trainers appeared at the end of the hallway. They crept up slowly. Marco waited patiently till they caught him, slipped a rope around his neck, and led him away.
"See you guys later," Marco called back. "Break a leg. Not literally.
That's just what we show biz people say to mean "good luck." I'm going to be on tee-vee-ee. I'm going to be on tee-vee-ee."
Cassie laid her hand on my arm.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Don't worry, I'll never use your morph for anything bad," Cassie said solemnly. And then I started getting dreamy and drifty as she acquired my DNA.
"Don't do it unless you have to," I said. "It gives me the willies. I mean, jeez." I shuddered. And then, I felt my face beginning to bulge out.
"Rachel!"
"I'm cool. I'm cool," I said. I took a deep breath and let go of the grossed-out feeling I'd had about being morphed. The allergic morph stopped and my face returned to normal.
"Hey! You! The Falling Girl! Come on!"
The clipboard woman came rushing past and grabbed my arm, pulling me down the hall.
"Okay, listen up because we're desperately late. You go on in the last segment. I'll tell you when to go. You walk across the stage to Barry.