Rachel opened her eyes and immediately thrust a newspaper at me. 'Look,' she said, pointing to an article.
I started to read the article. It wasn't very long. It said that police claimed there had been a disturbance in the construction site the night before. It said several people had called, claiming they'd seen flying saucers landing there, followed by bright lights.
'Cool,' I said, looking up. 'So the cops know about it now. That's a relief.'
'Keep reading,' Rachel said.
The article went on to say that the police had arrived on the scene and found a group of teenagers playing with fireworks. The teenagers had run away. Fireworks were discovered at the scene.
The police spokesman had laughed at the reports of flying saucers. 'It was just a bunch of kids playing where they shouldn't have been,' he said. 'There were definitely no flying saucers. People shouldn't be so quick to believe nonsense.'
'But this is a total lie,' I said.
'Ding ding ding ding! Correct answer. Johnny, tell our contestant what he's won,' Marco said.
'Did you see the last part?' Rachel pressed.
I read the last sentence. It froze me up good, I can tell you. Police were offering a reward for information on the teenagers.
'They're looking for us,' Marco said.
'Why would the police be… I mean, why would they lie?' I wondered aloud. But the answer was pretty obvious.
Marco laughed his sardonic laugh. 'Let's see, Captain Brilliant — would it be because the cops are Controllers?'
'Probably not all the cops,' Tobias pointed out.
'If the police have been infiltrated by the Controllers, who knows how many others have, too?' Rachel asked. 'Teachers? People in the government? The newspapers and the TV?'
'Math teachers, for sure,' Marco joked.
We all looked around nervously, like we expected to find ourselves surrounded by Controllers.
'I tried to tell myself it was all a dream,' Rachel said. 'Been there,' I said.
For a while no one said anything. We all felt the same terrible feeling — like we were all alone.
Like suddenly we were dealing with stuff that was way, way, way over our heads.
Marco spoke first. 'Look, why do we have to deal with this? I say we just forget it. We never talk about it. We never morph. We just deal with our own lives.'
Tobias and Rachel both looked at me. They were waiting for me to argue with Marco.
'Marco, I halfway agree with you — ' I started to say.
Suddenly Marco just went ballistic. 'We could get killed!' he yelled. 'Don't you get it? You saw what happened to the Andalite. I mean, this is radical stuff, Jake. This is for real. Real! We could all get killed.'
Tobias was looking at Marco with this sideways look, like he thought maybe Marco was some kind of coward. I knew better. Marco had his reasons.
Marco shook his head. In a quiet voice he said, 'Look, I think these Controllers are jerks. But if something happened to me… my dad. He wouldn't be able to handle it.'
Two years ago, Marco's mom died. She drowned. They never even found her body. Marco's dad lost it big time. He totally fell apart. He quit his job as an industrial engineer because he couldn't handle being around other people. Now he was working as a night janitor, making barely enough to support Marco. He spent his days sleeping or watching TV with the sound off.
'You can all think I'm a weasel if you want,' Marco said. 'I don't care. But if I get killed or something, my dad will flat-out die. He's only hanging in there because of me.'
I wondered if I should go pat him on the back or something. But if I had, Marco, being Marco, would have just said something sarcastic.
'There's Cassie,' Rachel said, shielding her eyes and looking off across the open field.
A horse, galloping across the green. Its black mane was flying in the warm breeze. I didn't see any rider.
The horse slowed, trotting closer, and suddenly I had a strange feeling about the horse.
'Cassie and I have been here for a while,' Rachel said by way of explanation. 'She's really good at this. Look how fast she can do it.'
The horse nickered softly. Then the animal began to melt. The big brown eyes became slightly smaller. The long muzzle became a human mouth.
A thing that was part horse and part Cassie smiled at us with big horse teeth and said, 'Hey, kids.'
Marco suddenly sat down. Very hard. He had never seen a morphing. 'It's cool,' I said, trying to sound very relaxed. 'It's just Cassie.'
I decided I'd better be a gentleman and look away. After all, when Tobias and I had morphed, we'd kind of morphed right out of our clothes. But I noticed that as Cassie emerged from the horse she was wearing a skintight blue outfit. One of those outfits girls wear to do aerobics. I watched and saw something beautiful happen. For just a few seconds, she stayed half-horse and half-human. She reminded me of the Andalite. I realized it was deliberate. Cassie was controlling the way she morphed.
'Jeez, Rachel,' I said. 'You're right. Cassie is good.'
Suddenly we heard the sound of tires on gravel.
We all spun around. Down the gravel and dirt road came a single black-and-white car. 'The cops!' Tobias cried.
CHAPTER 11
'Cassie. Morph. Now!' I snapped. The police car was coming fast. 'We do not want to have to explain a half- horse half-person.'
'Which way should I morph?' Cassie wailed. 'Horse or human?' She reared up slightly on her hind legs.
I knew what was happening. She was fighting the horse's urge to panic.
'Human, human, human!' I said. 'Everybody, stand in front of her!'
The police car squealed to a stop, sending the gravel flying. A single policeman stepped out. I waved at him.
'Morning,' he said. 'You kids, uh… hiding something?'
I wanted to look over my shoulder and see what kind of shape Cassie was in. But that would have been a mistake. 'Hiding something?' I repeated.
'Step aside, all of you,' he ordered.
We did, revealing Cassie. Fully human.
The policeman looked puzzled. But then he shrugged.
I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
'Can we help you, officer?' Rachel asked in her best 'responsible' voice.
'We're making some inquiries,' he said, still looking at Cassie like something must be wrong with her. 'We're looking for some kids who were shooting off fireworks in the construction site across from the mall last night.'
Suddenly Marco started coughing.
'Something the matter with him?' the policeman asked.
'Nope,' I said. 'Nothing wrong with him.'
'We want these kids,' the policeman said. 'We want them real bad. See, it was dangerous what they did. Could have been someone hurt. So we want to find the kids.'
Suddenly I knew. He was one of them. The policeman was a Controller. I looked at his face. It seemed normal. But inside his head was a creature from another planet — an evil, parasitic slug. Just behind those normal, human-looking eyes, something vile lurked.
'I don't know anything about it,' I lied.
