Everyone just kind of shrugged at that. Who knew? All we knew was that we'd almost been slaughtered by a bunch of very unusual sharks.
"They were guarding that facility, that's clear," Tobias said.
"All the more reason for us to go in," I said.
Jake kind of raised his eyebrow at me. Rachel nodded agreement. I knew what Jake was thinking. He was thinking I had my own reasons. Reasons only he and I knew about.
I shook my head slightly, telling him no. No, I was not going to tell the others. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
He shrugged and let it go. But I could see he wasn't happy about it.
"I agree we have to go back there," Jake said. "These Leerans Erek talked about. We cannot have some psychic Controllers running around."
"You think that frog-looking thing on the sub was a Leeran?" Cassie asked Ax.
"Yes. Probably." He sounded uncomfortable. "l haven't exactly memorized the Encyclopedia of Galactic Life-forms."
"Where do you get that encyclopedia?" I asked. "Do they have it at the local library?"
"The question is, what do we do to get a look inside that complex?" Tobias asked.
"You aren't going to like the answer," I muttered.
That got a laugh from everyone.
"We have to think about going hammerhead," Cassie said. "Those guard sharks went after dolphins and Ax's tiger shark. My guess is they go after anything that isn't a hammerhead. And we don't have any hammerheads at The Gardens. However, they do have them at Ocean World.
They have a big shark tank. I called over there and found out they do have a big hammerhead. Fourteen feet long."
"Urn, excuse me," I said, "but has anyone considered the fact that we all have to be in our own bodies when we acquire one of these sharks?"
I regretted saying it the minute it came out of my mouth. It was like one minute I was all gung ho, and the next minute I was the one wea-seling. And after my performance the day before I couldn't afford to be sounding like a weasel.
So I said, "But hey, who's worked up by some little old sharks?"
"You are," Rachel said bluntly.
I felt like she'd kicked me. I mean, maybe she didn't even mean anything by it. But I found myself totally unable to think of a comeback. My cheeks burned. I turned away and pretended to care deeply about some bugs crawling up the trunk of a tree.
"We'd have to go at night," Cassie said.
"Tonight, I guess. And, of course, we have school tomorrow."
"Forget school," I said gruffly. "There's an assembly last period, anyway. We can bail out early and no one will care. Plenty of time to fly out to the island."
Jake nodded. "Okay. Ocean World tonight. The island tomorrow after school. We'll need some good excuses ready for parents in case we run late. I can't get grounded again."
And that was it. Until after sundown that night. I'd told my dad I was going to Jake's house to do homework. I said I might be home a little late. My dad had said to call him if I needed a ride.
We flew to Ocean World and landed in the dark, abandoned park. We demorphed, all of us back to human except Tobias and Ax.
It's funny, because I felt fine being in the dark, abandoned park in my seagull morph. But as a human I felt totally out of place. I felt like I'd get in trouble.
Ocean World is a very new facility. Basically, it's several big fish tanks. Big, as in apartment building size. There is a Plexiglas tunnel you walk through on a slow conveyor belt. The tunnel literally goes through the water. The fish are all around you and even above you.
But we weren't there to be tourists. We
couldn't just look at the hammerheads. We had to touch them.
"I wish I knew how we were going to do this," Cassie whispered as she led the way to the shark tank. "Sharks are not dolphins. I mean, these sharks are all well-fed, but they aren't exactly pets."
"Shark-petting. Add that to dolphin rodeo and we have a whole new ESPN show," I said. No one laughed. Jake smirked. But it wasn't a happy kind of smirk.
Personally, I felt like my insides were morph-ing all on their own. Like my stomach was mor-phing to some burning liquid.
"I have an idea," Rachel said. "The shark doesn't have to be conscious for us to acquire it, right? So we morph to dolphin. We go into the tank. Six of us against one hammerhead." She shrugged, like we could figure out the rest.
Cassie was shocked. "Just go beat some poor shark half to death? When it's not attacking us?"
Rachel held out her hands, being reasonable. "It's a shark, Cassie. A shark. People eat sharks."
"And vice versa," I added.
"Beats just jumping in the pool with it," Jake said. "I mean, in human form how would we even catch a shark?" He looked at Ax. "Or in Andalite form."
Cassie started to say something. But instead she just clenched her jaw tightly, the way she does when she disapproves of something.
"Sharks can all die as far as I'm concerned," I said. I laughed like I'd made a joke. But it wasn't a joke.
"They are just predators being predators," Tobias said. "They aren't evil. Just hungry."
"So you're on Cassie's side?" I asked him.
"No. Kill or be killed. Eat or be eaten. That's the predator's law. I know. I am a predator. I say we do what we have to do." Tobias has toughened up a bit since being trapped in hawk morph.
"Fine," Cassie said tersely. "Let's just get it over with."
We walked toward the fish tanks. They were three wide ovals. Like swimming pools almost. They were built up to make room for the Plexiglas passageways beneath.
There was no sound but our footsteps on concrete. And the sound of Ax's hooves. Nothing to see but deep shadows, made all the darker by the occasional pools of dim light. Nothing to feel but fear.
We were on the pathway to the tanks. Carefully tended bushes lined the walkway. Tobias fluttered along, then dove suddenly.
"Someone's coming!" he said.