I ran over to Tobias and sniffed his shoe. I wanted a better idea of who that big male dog was. From the scent of his urine picked up by Tobias's shoe I got a sort of picture of him. See, Homer knew him. His owners called him Streak. He was neutered, like me. He spent most of his time in his yard, but he broke out sometimes by digging under his fence. He got a mix of canned and dry food, Purina. No table scraps, unlike me.
All this information made me happy all over again, and I had to wag my tail. I looked up at Tobias. He looked tall and strange and not very colorful, I wasn't all that interested in looking at stuff. Smelling things was way better.
INTRUDER!
There was a noise in the yard. A dog! An unknown dog in MY yard. An INTRUDER! I ran to the window and perched against it and cut loose.
'Rrrawf! Rrawf rrawf! rrawfrrawfrrawfrrawf!'
I barked as loud as I could. No WAY some unknown dog was just going to walk through MY yard.
'Jake, get a grip,' Tobias said. 'That's Homer out there.' Homer? What? But I was…
I tucked my tail between my legs. What was going on?
'Jake, listen to me,' Tobias said. 'It's just what happened to me when I morphed into a cat. The dog brain is part of your brain now. You have to deal with it.'
<But… there's a dog in MY yard.>
'That's Homer, Jake. You are Jake. You're just in a body copied from Homer's DNA. That's the real Homer out there. You put him out there. Focus. You are Jake. Jake.'
I took several deep breaths. The smells! Oh, boy, there was this one smell I couldn't quite —
Focus, Jake! I ordered myself. Focus!
Slowly I calmed the dog part of my mind.
Let go of the smells. Let go of the sound of a dog out in your yard.
It wasn't easy, that first time. Being a dog is so completely amazing. For one thing, there's nothing halfway about it. You're never sort of happy. You're HAPPY! You're never sort of bummed. You're totally, completely bummed. And boy, when you get hungry in dog form, you are nuts on the subject of food.
There was a knock on my bedroom door. Yes, my bedroom door. I knew who I was again. I was Jake. Jake with four legs, a tail and a snout, but Jake.
The knocking seemed incredibly loud to my dog ears.
'Jake, you got Homer in there with you?' My brother Tom's voice. 'Mom's on the phone, stop him yapping — '
He opened the door and stepped in. He looked around, confused.
'Who are you?' he demanded of Tobias.
'I'm Tobias. I'm a friend of Jake's.'
'Well, where is he?'
'Oh… he's around,' Tobias said.
Tom looked down at me. There was a strange smell about him. My dog brain couldn't quite identify it. It was an unsettling, dangerous smell. And somehow, in my own mind, I heard the echo of a laugh. A very human laugh I had heard the night before as Visser Three swallowed the Andalite whole.
'Bad dog,' Tom said to me. 'You keep quiet. Bad dog.' And then he left.
I was devastated. I wasn't a bad dog. Not really. I was just barking because some other dog was in MY yard. Bad dog? I was a bad dog? No, I wanted to be a good dog. I crept into the corner, utterly miserable.
Tobias knelt down and patted my head.
When he scratched me behind the ears, I felt a little better.
CHAPTER 10
I called all the others on the phone after I got done morphing back into my normal body. Tobias took off on his own, saying he'd hook up with us later at Cassie's farm. I was on the kitchen phone with Cassie when Tom came in.
'Oh, there you are,' he said.
I covered the mouthpiece. 'Yeah. Tobias said you were looking for me before.'
'I just wanted you to shut your dog up,' Tom said. He turned a chair around backward and straddled it.
I hesitated. For some reason I didn't want to talk to Cassie with Tom listening in. 'I'll just see you there in a couple hours, okay?' I told Cassie. I hung up.
I looked over at Tom. He's bigger than me, even though I'm not exactly small. His hair is darker, almost black, while mine is brown.
I had always trusted him. He wasn't like a lot of guys who pound on their younger brother. We were always kind of close. At least, until the last year or so. Somehow we just weren't spending as much time together. Partly it was that he was involved in this club called The Sharing. They did all this stuff together, so he was busy a lot of the time.
The thing is, Tom should have been the very first person I told about all the stuff that had happened. But as I was sitting there watching him munch toast, I just had this feeling. This feeling that said No, this has to be a secret. Even from Tom.
Instead I told him the other thing I was afraid to tell him.
'I, uh… I didn't make the team,' I said.
'What team?' he asked. He looked puzzled.
'What team? The basketball team. Your old team.'
'Oh. Too bad,' he said.
'Too bad?' I repeated. I could not believe how little he seemed to care. 'It's just sports,' he said. He munched another big bite of toast.
'Just sports?' I couldn't stop repeating what he said. Tom, saying sports were no big deal? No way. He lived for sports. 'Yeah, I guess I just don't have your total skill.'
He shrugged. 'Well, I quit the team, anyway. A couple days ago.'
I practically fell off my chair. 'You quit! You quit the team? And you didn't even talk to me about it? What's the deal?'
'I didn't say anything because I knew you and Dad would make a big thing of it. Look, there are more important things than throwing balls through hoops,' he said. He had this mysterious look in his eyes. I figured he meant girls were the more important thing. 'Besides,' he added, 'we do much cooler stuff at The Sharing. Maybe you should join up.'
I was stunned. Obviously, Tom and I were further apart than I had realized.
When we were done talking, I headed outside to mow the lawn. I mow the lawn every Saturday. It's my major chore. That, and taking out the trash, which I hate, because we have to do all this recycling stuff.
When I was finally done mowing and trimming and raking, I hopped on my bike and took off.
I had arranged with everyone to hook up at Cassie's farm. It isn't exactly a normal farm, although it had been in the old days. And they do still have horses and a cow. But now the big red main barn is the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. Cassie's father runs it. They take in any kind of injured animal except pet-type animals, There are always lots of birds, along with squirrels and deer and skunks and so on. Sometimes they get a bobcat or a fox or even a wolf.
Cassie's mom is a vet, too, but she works at The Gardens. That's this huge amusement park that also has a zoo — or I guess they call it a wildlife park. Luckily, Cassie really loves animals. It would have been hard, having her parents, if she didn't really love animals.
Me, I have a dog. Tobias has a cat. Cassie has everything from porcupines to polar bears.
By the time I got there, Marco, Tobias, and Rachel were already waiting outside the barn.
Rachel had her face turned up to catch the tanning rays of the sun. Cassie wasn't there yet. I figured she was doing chores. She had tons of work to do around there.
'Hey, guys,' I said.
