Invasion

I had this absurd desire to start giggling. Tobias was becoming a tabby cat! But I knew if I started giggling I'd just keep on and on and never, ever be able to stop.

Tobias was more cat than human now. The pointed ears rose atop his head. The whiskers stuck straight out from beneath his delicate pink nose. He had dropped to all fours, clothing now half-draped over him, like so many rags. His tail twitched. Yes — his tail.

I wondered if I would just drop dead from the lump that had filled my throat, or from the jack-hammer pounding of my heart. Then I wondered if I was still asleep.

But if it was a dream, it was a really convincing one.

I was standing there in my bedroom, staring down at a gray-black cat that less than two minutes earlier had been my friend, Tobias.

CHAPTER 8

"I hope I'm asleep," I muttered. "I really do."

<You're not asleep.>

"Is that you?" I demanded of the cat.

<Can you hear me?> Tobias sounded surprised. Although "sounded" wasn't quite the right word.

"Yes," I said cautiously.

<I did not know I could send thoughts like this,> Tobias said. <Just like the Andalite.>

"I guess it only works when you're… morphed."

I am talking to a cat! I realized. And I thought Tobias was crazy?

I wondered if Tobias had heard my thought. I concentrated. Tobias, can you hear me?

<Yeah,> he said. <I hear you.>

"Did you hear my thoughts before that?" I asked.

<No. I don't think it works that way. You have to think at me for me to hear. Hey, watch this.>

Suddenly Tobias leaped through the air. He pounced precisely on an autographed baseball that was lying in the corner. Maybe a four-foot jump.

<That is so excellent! Hey, pull a string for me to chase.>

"Pull a string? Why?"

<Because it's so fun!>

I dug in my desk drawer and found a length of string left over from a birthday gift. I'm not exactly big on keeping my room clean. The string was from a birthday two years ago, "How's this?" I drew the string slowly across the floor, a foot or more from Tobias's nose. He settled back on his haunches and began wiggling his hindquarters. He pounced! He landed on the string, grabbed it in his sharp teeth, rolled over, and began ripping at the string like it was the only thing on Earth that mattered.

I tried pulling the string away, but he pounced again.

<Yes! Got it!>

"Tobias, what are you doing?" <Pull it faster! I see it! I got it!> "Tobias, what are you doing?" I shouted. "You're playing with a string!"

Suddenly he stopped. His tail twitched. He looked up at me with those cold cat eyes, but I'm sure I saw a look of confusion there.

<I… I don't know,> he admitted. <It's like… like I'm me, but I'm also Dude. I want to chase strings, and oh man, if only there was a real, live mouse around! I'd really love to track it. To follow it so quietly. To listen to its heartbeat. To hear its scratchy little feet. I'd wait till just the right moment, and then a perfect pounce through the air, claws stretched out… > He extended his claws to demonstrate.

"Tobias, I think we're learning something here," I said. Amazing, how quickly I was becoming used to the idea of talking to a cat.

<What? What are we learning?>

"I think you aren't just Tobias. You really are a cat. I mean, you have all the same instincts. You want to do the things a cat wants to do."

<Yes. I can feel it. It's like I'm two different animals melded into one. I can think like a person and like a cat>

"You'd better change back," I said.

He nodded his cat head up and down. Very weird to see, I can tell you — a cat nodding yes in a thoughtful, normal way.

<You're right.>

The change back to human form was at least as strange as the change to cat. The fur disappeared, leaving bare patches of pink skin behind. A nose grew out of the flat cat face. The tail was sucked up like a snake going up a vacuum cleaner.

Tobias stood there, looking embarrassed. He quickly pulled on his clothes. "Maybe with some practice we can figure out how to change back into our clothes."

"We?"

He smiled his gentle smile again. "Don't you get it yet, Jake? If I can do it, so can you." I shook my head. "I don't think so, Tobias."

Suddenly he grew angry. He grabbed me by both my shoulders and actually shook me. "Don't you understand, Jake? It's all true. All of it."

I pushed him away. I didn't want to hear it.

But he kept after me. "Jake, it's all true. The Andalite gave us these powers for a reason."

"Fine," I snapped. "You use them."

"I will," he said. "But we'll need you, Jake. You most of all."

"Why me?"

He hesitated. "Geez, Jake, don't you understand? I know what I can do and what I can't do. I can't make plans and tell people what to do. I'm not the leader. You are."

I laughed rudely. "I'm not the leader of anything."

He just looked at me with those deep, troubled eyes — eyes I can now see only in my memory.

"Yes, Jake, you are our leader. You are the one who can bring us all together and help us defeat the Controllers. We have the ability to be much more than we are, to have the stealth of a cat, and… and the eyes of eagles, and the sense of smell of a dog, and… and the speed of a horse or a cheetah. We're going to need it all, if we have any hope of holding out against the Controllers,"

I wanted it not to be true. I wanted none of it to be true. But I knew that it was.

I nodded slowly. It felt like I was agreeing to something awful. Like I was volunteering for a trip to the dentist or something much worse. It felt like a million pounds of weight had just landed on my shoulders.

I knew what I had to do next.

"Well," I said grimly. "I guess I'd better go find Homer." Homer. That's my dog.

CHAPTER 9

It isn't painful. Morphing, I mean.

I petted Homer for a while, feeling like a complete and total fool. "This is the stupidest thing I have ever done," I told Tobias.

"Look, you have to concentrate. At least, I did, I mean, I formed this mental picture of Dude, right? I thought about becoming him."

"I see. So I have to, like, meditate on becoming a dog."

"That's right. You have to think about it. You have to want it."

Normally I would have figured he was nuts. But I had just seen him turn into a cat. So if he was nuts, so was I.

I thought about becoming Homer. As I stroked his fur I formed a picture in my mind of me becoming Homer. Homer became weirdly quiet while I did it. Like he was asleep, only his eyes were open.

"Just like Dude," Tobias commented. "I think the process kind of puts the animal in a trance or something."

"He's just scared because he thinks his master is a looney tune." I continued stroking Homer's fur and concentrating, and Homer continued to lie very still. "Okay, now what?" I asked Tobias.

"Now we better put Homer outside. He might get slightly freaked by watching you turn into him."

It took Homer about ten seconds to come out of his trance. But then he jumped up, normal, hyperactive Homer again. I put him outside in the yard.

Tobias was sitting patiently when I got back, just waiting. "Give it a try," he urged me. "Think about it. Want it."

I took a deep breath. I closed my eyes. I recalled the picture of Homer I'd formed in my mind. I thought about becoming Homer.

I opened my eyes. "Bow wow," I said, laughing. "Guess it didn't work for me, Tobias." The back of my hand itched and I scratched it. "Jake?" Tobias said. "What?"