The doors close, but you leap up against the panel and hit the STOP button with your paw. You wait. After a few minutes, you butt the DOOR OPEN button with your head.
The doors open onto a small room. You see the last Controller just disappearing through the hidden door. You bound over and stick your body half-in to keep it open, then slip inside.
But the Controller sees you.
“Hey!” He looks at you, suspicious now. You take a step backward. You bare your teeth and try a growl. He drops back, but another Controller steps up the stairs.
It’s Finley, the policeman!
“Grab him!” he cries.
The other Controller reaches for your collar, and you sink your teeth into his hand. With a howl, he steps back. But Finley springs forward and grabs your collar. He half drags you down the steps.
You see a huge cavern patrolled by Taxxons and Hork-Bajir. There are humans in cages. The screams seem more terrible to your sensitive ears.
Finley hands you over to a Hork-Bajir. “Keep it. Something’s weird about this dog.” The Hork-Bajir fastens a leash from a chain. He attaches it to a piece of heavy machinery. Then he holds one of his blades to your throat. The message is clear. Move, and you die.
You decide to sit still. All you can do is watch.
Watch as Jake, Rachel, and Marco morph into fierce animals. Watch as they attack. Watch as the Hork-Bajir and Taxxons fight them. Watch as Visser Three morphs into a horrible creature with eight heads, tall as a two-story building.
You want to cheer when the others get away, running up the staircase. You want to cry when you see Jake’s brother Tom tossed back into the cage.
Then one of Visser Three’s eight heads swivels. His eyes fix on you.
<What have we here?> His voice is like the sludge in the Yeerk pool. Thick and evil.
You put your head into your paws, like a dog might. Your tail is stiff and straight.
<Welcome, Andalite,> Visser Three says. <Your friends didn’t want to stay for dinner. How kind of you to remain.>
He laughs, and you see his teeth glinting. They are sharp and pointed like daggers. He raises one of his many hands, and a fireball zooms past you.
<Time to get roasted,> Visser Three says. His hand lifts again, and he sends another fireball your way. This one hits its mark.
SIZZLE! You’re dead.
Bad morph choice. You took the chance you might be recognized. You lost.
“Pizza for dinner?” your mom says.
“Awesome,” you say.
It’s a Saturday afternoon. You just returned from the mall. Sometimes, you just need an ordinary day.
You’ve been on plenty of missions with the Animorphs. Your close calls have given you nightmares. You are living in a world with new rules. Sometimes, you think you’ll go crazy. Sometimes you want to go crazy. Living with stark terror every day will do that to you.
So whenever you can, you try to do something normal. As much as morphing into an osprey might be fun, it isn’t normal. Not by a long shot.
So when you called Jake that morning to ask if anything was up, he just sighed. “I say we take a day off from saving the world,” he said.
The smell of green peppers fills the kitchen. You watch your mom chop. She makes her own pizza, and it’s the best in town.
“Can we have sausage on it?” you ask.
Mom grins. “Sure. It’s Saturday. Let’s live a little.”
You reach into the refrigerator for a soda, and —
FLASH! The heat presses against your skin. You hear the call of birds and insects.
“Where did you guys go?” Rachel asks.
“And where are we?” Cassie wonders.
“And why don’t I have shoes?” Marco asks.
FLASH!
“— and a nice green salad,” Mom finishes. “I have to sneak something healthy in there.”
Your hand is cold. You look at the sweat beading up on the can. Whoa. What was that about? It was SO real. The heat had been just as intense as the cold in your fingers right now.
“Can you hand me that garlic?” Mom asks.
You nod and reach for a garlic bulb in a bowl on the counter. You hand it to Mom, and —
FLASH!
“Really, a monkey morph?” Marco says, lifting an eyebrow. “Listen, I’ve been a gorilla. That would be quite a demotion, don’t you think?”
“Marco, I’m just wondering,” Rachel says, her hands on her hips. “Do you always have to make things difficult? Is it like, your hobby?”
“It’s my life,” Marco says.
FLASH!
“— would you do me a favor and pick some basil off the plant?” Mom asks. “Sweetie? Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” you say. But you’re not. Something is really, truly wrong. And you have to find out what.
* * *
“It sounds like a Sario Rip,” Jake says worriedly.
You’ve ridden as fast as you can on your bike to Jake’s house. You only have a half hour before dinner. Ax is there, too, and he looks just as worried as Jake. He’d been eating his very first licorice whip, and he’d been really enjoying it. But he stopped when you blurted out your story.
“Not again,” he says. “No, not again, Prince Jake. This is not good.”
“What’s a Sario Rip?” you ask.
“Are you sure it was a jungle?” Jake asks, instead of answering you. “Or was it a rain forest?”
“Like I can tell the difference?” you ask. You’re starting to feel impatient.
Jake turns to Ax. “But I reversed the rip. How can this happen?”
Ax shrugs and begins to chew on the end of the licorice. “I don’t know. When they taught about Sario Rips in class, I was —”
“Not paying attention,” Jake finishes impatiently. “I know.”
“Young Andalite females can do that,” Ax says. He slurps up another inch of licorice. “This tastes red. R-r-rred. Tastes red. Red-duh.”
“Cherry,” Jake says absently. “It’s cherry flavored.”
“Will somebody please fill me in?” you demand.
“A Sario Rip is like a hole in space-time,” Jake explains. “We’ve all experienced it,
