Katherine Alice Applegate - Invasion

"So, what do we do?" Rachel demanded.

"Hey, it's not up to me to decide," I said hotly.

"Let's take a vote," Rachel said.

"I vote we try to live long enough to get driver's licenses," Marco said. "I vote we do what the Andalite said — fight," Tobias said.

"You've never even been in a fight," Marco sneered. "You can't handle the punks at school. Suddenly now you want to kick butt on that Visser Three freakazoid?"

Tobias said nothing, but a blush spread up his neck.

"I vote with Tobias," Rachel said, giving Marco a dirty look. "I wish we could dump all this on someone else. But we can't."

"Let's think it over for a while," Cassie said. "This is a big decision. I mean, it's not like we're deciding whether to wear jeans or a skirt."

I was relieved. Thank goodness for Cassie.

"Yeah, let's wait for a while," I agreed. "In the meantime, no one say anything to anyone. We just go back to normal life."

There was a smirk on Marco's face. He thought he'd won. But I wasn't so sure. Tobias was still blushing. He sent a secret, grateful look to Rachel.

Marco and I took off toward my house again, trying to act normal. We talked about the baseball season. We talked about who was going to slaughter who in Dead Zone 5, which is this CD game we were going to play on my computer.

By the time we'd reached my house, we'd run out of stuff to talk about.

We played Dead Zone for a while. Neither of us did very well. Face it, games just weren't all that interesting anymore. My mind was totally not there.

Tom came in after a while. "Hey, you guys," he said. "Can't give that a try?"

It had been months since Tom had done anything with me like play a game.

"Sure." Marco moved over and gave Tom his control stick.

We played for a few minutes, and Tom did pretty well. But then it was like he got bored or something. He gave the control back to Marco and just sat back and watched.

"You guys hear about all the stuff going on with the construction site last night?" he asked me.

Marco jerked in surprise. "What stuff?" I said.

"It was in the newspaper," Tom said casually. "They said some kids were there shooting off fireworks. A bunch of morons who live around there decided it was flying saucers or something."

He laughed. "Flying saucers, right." Marco and I both laughed, too.

"Yeah. And it was just these kids playing with fireworks," Tom said. "Uh-huh," I said. I was trying very hard to concentrate on the game. "You were out at the mall last night, weren't you?" Tom asked me. "Uh-huh."

"Did you come back through the construction site?"

I shook my head. "No way."

"Didn't see any kids hanging around there, maybe?"

"Nope."

"It's not like I'd get them in trouble," Tom said. "I mean, I think it's kind of cool. They're just shooting off fireworks and they get all these people terrified of flying saucers."

"Uh-huh."

"Flying saucers," he said. He laughed again. "Only complete dips believe that kind of stuff." He leaned close. "You don't believe in that, do you? Aliens and spaceships and little green men from Mars?"

I wanted to say no, none of them had been little or green. But I just said, "No way."

Tom nodded and stood up. "Cool. You know, Jake, I feel like we haven't been hanging around much lately."

"I guess not," I agreed.

"That's too bad," he said. He snapped his fingers like he'd just had an idea. "You know, you should join The Sharing. Marco, too."

"Why should we join?" Marco asked.

Tom just grinned. "I gotta go," he said. He gave me a playful punch on the shoulder. "Catch you guys later. And don't forget — let me know if you hear anything about those kids at the construction site."

He left.

Marco looked at me. "Jake. He's one of them."

"What?"

"Tom. Tom is one of them. Your brother is a Controller."

I swung my fist and caught Marco in the side of the head.

He jumped back and I swung again. But Marco was quick. He dodged my second swing, and I slipped and went down.

Marco snatched the bedspread off my bed, threw it over me to tangle up my arms, and sat on me.

"Jake, quit acting like a stupid jerk," he said.

I was trying to grab him, but he had me pretty good. "Take that back!" I yelled.

"Not likely," Marco said. "You think it's just a coincidence he's suddenly all interested in what happened at the construction site?"

I knew it looked bad. Even while I was struggling to get free and kick Marco's butt. I had this sudden flash about the smell I'd noticed on Tom when I was morphed into a dog. And there was that laugh I'd heard at the site.

But no. No! This was Tom, my big brother. Tom would never, ever have let those slimy creeps into his head. Never.

"I'll let you up if you'll calm down," Marco said. "Look, maybe I'm wrong, okay?" I stopped struggling, and Marco let me up. "You have to admit, Jake, it doesn't look good."

"Tom is not one of them, okay? That's final," I said.

"Whatever," Marco said. "Just don't punch me again, 'cause I might have to hit you back."

Just then I heard this fluttering noise at my window. Like someone beating on it very softly. I went to the window, followed by Marco.

There was a bird there. Some kind of huge bird like an eagle or a hawk, beating its wings against the window.

Marco's eyes went wide. He'd heard it, too.

I opened the window and the bird flew straight in. It landed on my dresser. It was almost two feet long, mostly brown, with gnarled talons and a sharp, hooked beak.

"It's some kind of eagle or something," Marco said.

"Is that you, Tobias?" Marco demanded. "I thought we weren't going to do any more of this morphing."

"Well, morph back, Tobias," I said. "You know what the Andalite said — never stay in any form for more than two hours."

Tobias hesitated. He tilted his hawk's head and peered at me with an incredibly concentrated gaze. At last, he hopped over onto my bed.

Let me tell you something, it is beyond weird, watching feathers turn into skin. The brown feathers ran together and merged and turned pink. It was like the feathers were melting. Like they had turned into wax and were being heated up.

The beak disappeared quickly, and lips grew out of it. The talons split into five and became toes.

Halfway through the process of changing, Tobias was a lump, half pink, half brown, with featherlike patterns still visible on his back and chest. His face was small and mostly human, except that he still had those sharp, alert hawk's eyes. Two tiny, shriveled arms protruded from the front of his chest with fingers like a baby's.

All in all, it was a pretty disgusting sight.

But the human DNA asserted itself over the hawk's and he became more normal. About three minutes sifter he'd started the change, there was a completely normal Tobias, sitting naked on the end of my bed.

"I haven't figured out how to morph clothes yet, like Cassie," he said sheepishly. "Can I borrow some?"

I loaned him a pair of pants and a shirt, but my shoes were all the wrong size.

"That was the coolest thing I've ever done in my life," Tobias said. His whole face was glowing. "I was riding the thermals."

"What's a thermal?" I asked.

"That's when there's warm air rising up from the ground. It forms this cushion under your wings. You can just float up there. Like a mile up! You just surf the thermals. You guys have got to do it! It is the best thing ever."