Actually Cassie, morphed into me.
The man she was talking to was one of the show's producers.
"You're a very unlucky girl," the man said.
"That's what I keep telling people," Cassie said. "They keep saying how lucky I am to survive. I keep saying, like, not!"
He nodded. "You know, for a moment there I wondered about you . . . ,"
he said, letting the sentence trail off. Then he shrugged. "But the crocodile has been destroyed. And yet here you are."
I flattened myself back against the wall. If he turned and saw me he'd definitely flip. And what if he was a Controller? I couldn't take that chance.
"Yeah, I'm glad it didn't get me," Cassie said. "I'm getting out of here. I have to find my dad.
He's here somewhere. It would help if someone would like, you know, get things organized."
Cassie pushed past the man. I turned my face away, not wanting to surprise her.
"Andalite!" the man snapped.
My heart stopped. He was testing Cassie. Waiting to see if she would react. If she would recognize the word. If Cassie hesitated or stopped he would know.
He would know.
I shouldn't even have worried.
When he rapped out the word "Andalite!" she kept walking and without hesitation said, "Yeah, a light would be helpful, too."
The man made a snorting, dismissive sound and turned away.
I fell into step behind Cassie. "Nice job, sister," I said.
"Oh, good, you're back," she said. "It's a good thing. I'm having the worst time trying to control this morph!"
"You're having trouble being me? What could be hard about that?"
She raised an eyebrow in a way that looked as much like Cassie as it did like me. "This brain of yours. It keeps trying to get me to do really dumb things."
Paramedics came rushing past us, shoving us
apart. When we were alone again I said, "Hey, I said we were going to improvise, right? And look how well it all turned out. We're all alive. Jeremy Jason probably won't be endorsing anything for a while, let alone The Sharing. Plus, I stepped on the Yeerk."
"Jake will still kill you."
I laughed. "Cassie, if I were Jake, I'd kill me, too. Say ... I don't suppose you'd want to stay in my body a while longer. . ."
"Nope."
"Coward."
"Yep."
Two days later, we sat around watching TV up in my hotel room. It would be another week at least till my house was rebuilt.
In the meantime, there was room service. And cable TV.
We lounged around, eating pie. The Animorphs. Cassie, the ecology nut, animal girl; Marco, who thought everything was a joke; and our fearless yet modest leader, Jake.
There was also a disturbingly pretty boy named Ax - a boy who was actually an Andalite when he wasn't in human morph. Ax's entire face was covered with pie. Ax doesn't have a mouth in his normal body, and the sense of taste totally over-
whelms him when he morphs human. The boy is dangerous around food.
And standing on the windowsill there was a fierce red-tailed hawk.
Tobias didn't want pie.
We watched TV and picked at remnants of pie crust as familiar theme music started to play.
Marco invented his own lyrics and sang along. "Entertainment Tonight, we're so glib and so light. Entertainment Tonight, we got stars all right! We'll entertain you and drain you of all your thoughts tonight, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah!"
Jake threw a pillow and hit Marco in the back of his head.
"Shh," Cassie said. "Here it comes."
The male announcer said, "You'll all remember the story we reported yesterday of the incredible melee during the broadcasting of the Barry and Cindy Sue Show. Wild animals brought to the show by Bart Jacobs broke loose and created a terrible scene, during which Jeremy Jason Mc-Cole, the young star of the hit television series Power House, was nearly eaten by a crocodile.
"Well, today we have an update. Jeremy Jason McCole is out of the hospital. Doctors say he'll be fine. But in an amazing development, his agent says Jeremy Jason is quitting Power House and leaving the country.
McCole's agent refuses to divulge the young actor's whereabouts, but
sources say he has been spotted in Uzbekistan, a small central Asian nation."
"Uzbekistan?" Tobias repeated.
"I guess that was as far as he could get from the Yeerks and the media,"
I suggested.
"I wonder if they have crocodiles in Uzbekistan?" Marco wondered.
"I'm guessing no," I said. "I don't think Jeremy Jason McCole will ever get within a thousand miles of a crocodile again."
"Or a Yeerk. At least if he can help it," Jake said.
Cassie sighed loudly.
"What is it, Cassie?" Jake asked.
She sighed again. "It's just a pity. He really was cute."
"Mmmm," I agreed. "Those dimples."
"That hair."
"Those eyes."
"Those lips."
"Ax," Marco said. "You should have let the crocodile eat him."
I ignored Marco, as I usually do. "He was, without a doubt, the cutest guy ever."
"That does it," Jake said. "Marco? Change the channel. Put on Baywatch."
I reached over and tried to snatch the remote away from Marco, but he was too quick. He
flipped through the channels and then said, "Ah, there we go."
I looked up, expecting to see red bathing suits. Instead, I saw swords and leather boots.
Xena: Warrior Princess. My kind of girl.
Marco winked at me.
"Well, okay," I said. "This we can watch."