We had taken the bus back to the airport. We were feeling pleased that we'd accomplished our mission. But I was worried about getting home. I did not want to go back aboard that plane in fly morph. But I didn't know how else to do it.
I was scared. Just that simple: I was scared.
But I was also scared of letting the others know I was scared. Weird, huh? Scared and scared of people thinking you're scared?
I was trembling by the time we got inside the
airport. I don't know if anyone noticed. I couldn't see myself trembling, I could only feel it. It was like when you have a fever and you get chills that make your stomach muscles shake violently and make you want to curl up in a ball and pile covers five feet high all over your body.
The others kept chattering away. And I kept adding a word here or a smile there. You know, so no one would think anything was wrong. But I was sweating. I used my sleeve to wipe my forehead and the sleeve came away as wet as if I'd dipped it into a sink.
"You know, maybe we should try some other morph on the way home,"
Cassie said nonchalantly.
Ah. So at least one person had noticed. Cassie. She was trying to give me a way out. Without embarrassing me.
"Why?" Ax asked.
"I don't know," Cassie said, with just a hint of tension in the way she kept her mouth tight. "It might be fun to do it a different way."
"We already went over it before," Rachel said reasonably. "We decided fly morph would work best, right? I mean, just because Jake had some trouble doesn't mean the idea is bad."
Deadlock. Cassie couldn't say anything more without it being obvious that she was trying to protect me. And I couldn't have that.
"Fly morph is fine," I said as coolly as I could. "Still the best way to do this."
I think Cassie was a little disgusted with me. "Hey, Jake," she said, fake-bright, "come buy me a pretzel. I'm hungry. You guys go on ahead."
Cassie grabbed my arm and hauled me aside. The others went on.
"That was subtle," I said. "I don't have any more money."
Cassie looked at me and shook her head. "What is the matter with you?
You don't have to do this. You don't have to prove how tough you are."
"It's not a problem, Cassie. Thanks, but let it go, okay?"
"Jake, you may have the others fooled, but not me. You're scared. And you have good reason to be scared. So what's the big deal?"
I tried to walk away. But that felt wrong. I turned back to face her.
"The big deal is I'm supposedly the leader of this little army."
"So? So you're not supposed to be human?"
"That's absolutely right. I'm not supposed to be human."
She laughed uncertainly, like she wasn't sure if I was joking or not.
"No one expects you to be Superman, Jake. You think the others won't respect you if you admit you're terrified of something?"
"It's not about respect. It's not even about being scared. It's about letting fear tell you what to do."
"If it's unreasonable fear you have to get past it," Cassie said. "But there's a reason for this fear. You were nearly killed."
I shook my head. "No. You're usually right, Cassie, but this time you're wrong. See, if I give in to fear, then that gives everyone permission to give in to fear. And we all have good reasons to be afraid. Pretty soon we'd be totally paralyzed. We wouldn't be able to do anything because one of us might have some good reason to be scared."
"We don't morph ants anymore because they scared all of us, but mostly Marco," Cassie pointed out. "We don't ever talk about morphing termites because of my problems with them. What's the difference?"
"The difference is you all decided I was the leader," I said. "That's the difference. A leader may be just as weak or scared or doubtful as anyone else. But he isn't allowed to show it. People say they want leaders to be just like them, but I don't think so. People want leaders to act the way people wish they could act themselves. Marco and Rachel and Tobias and Ax don't want me to give them permission to be scared.
They want me to help them to be brave."
Cassie looked at me a long time and I looked away, feeling uncomfortable.
"We didn't do you any favor when we made you leader, did we?" Cassie asked.
I forced a grim smile. "There's something else a leader doesn't do," I said. "Complain about being a leader."
"We did pick the right person, though," she said.
Once again I started to walk away, but Cassie grabbed my arm. "Look, maybe you're right. But I'll bet even great generals and presidents or whatever have friends they can be honest with. People who would never lose faith in them, no matter what."
I had the strangest desire to burst out crying right then. I also had a desire to hug Cassie really hard. I didn't do either.
"Come on," I said. "The others are waiting."
made it back home okay. No one swatted me and I felt better for getting past the fear. At least that's what I told myself. You never really get past the fear. Fear eats a little hole in you, like rust in the fender of a car. You fill the hole up with putty and sand it smooth and paint it over so no one else can see it. But it's never really as good as new.
I was exhausted by the time I made it home. My brother was in the kitchen, talking on the phone while he smeared peanut butter on a graham cracker. When he heard me come in he changed his tone of voice.
In the old days I would have assumed he'd
been talking to a girl. Now I assumed he'd been talking to some other Controller.
I unloaded a bunch of food from the refrigerator: leftover barbecued chicken and mashed potatoes. I plopped it all on a plate and stuck it in the microwave.
"I gotta go," Tom said into the phone. He hung up.
"What's up?" I asked him.
"Nada," he said, and left the room.
I took my food up to my room. I started to boot up my computer, but hesitated. Instead I sat down and munched indifferently while staring at the blank screen.