Katherine Alice Applegate: Invasion

"So there I was, just sitting on my bed, thinking about it. Concentrating. Thinking about becoming Dude. I looked down at my hand." He grinned at me. "What do you think I saw, Jake?"

I shook my head slowly. "I don't know."

"I had fur, Jake. And I was growing claws. You should have seen the real Dude. He went nuts. I had to put him outside before I could morph all the way. He clawed me up pretty good." Tobias stuck a sliced finger into his mouth.

I swallowed hard. Okay, this was definitely crazy now. "Um, Tobias, is it possible you maybe just dreamed all this?"

"Not a dream," he said. Now he was serious Tobias again. The grin was gone. "It's all true, Jake. All of it."

His eyes met mine. I knew what he was saying. He had tried to pretend it was all a nightmare, too. But it was real. I looked away. I didn't want to start believing it had all been real. I wanted it all safely stored away in my head, just another bad dream. Bad dreams should stay in your head, not come jumping out into real life.

"I just kept concentrating on changing," Tobias said, "and in a few minutes, I was… not myself anymore."

His eyes bored in on me. "You have no idea what it's like, Jake. Being a cat is so… it's… I can't even describe it. You're so strong, for one thing. Just all this coiled power, and the way you can move! You know what I did? I jumped onto my dresser Three feet straight up in the air, and I landed like a feather. Three feet! You know how high that is when you're a cat? It's like a person jumping maybe thirty feet straight up."

He stopped suddenly and looked at me. "You don't believe me, do you?" he said. "Look, Tobias, it's just that sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between something real and something you're just imagining or dreaming."

"You think I'm crazy."

I considered for a minute. "I don't know, Tobias, let's review the facts. You say you turned into your own pet cat. Turned into an actual cat. Yes, I have to say that sounds crazy to me."

Tobias nodded thoughtfully. He gave a little smile. "I understand, Jake. You still don't want it to be true."

"What? You mean do I want to believe that you can change yourself into a cat? And all the rest of it? Do I wanted believe that Earth is being invaded by slimy slugs who live in people's brains and turn them into slaves? Do I want to believe that… that… Duh! No! I don't want to believe any of it."

"And how about the Andalite?" he asked in a quiet voice.

I hesitated. I don't know why, but I didn't want to just pretend the Andalite away.

Tobias put his hand on my arm. "Stand right there."

"What? What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to help you decide whether it's real or not."

"Tobias… "

"Just wait And don't scream or anything." So I waited.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Tobias just stood there. I glanced at his face. His eyes… his eyes were different. The pupils weren't completely round anymore. I swear there was a reflective greenish light in them. And his mouth was protruding a little, puffing out.

He was shrinking. Growing smaller right before my eyes.

The neck of his shirt was loose. His pants started scrunching up at the ankles. He was shriveling. And at the same time fur — yes, fur! — began to grow on his hands and neck and face. It was gray, striped with black, just like Dude's.

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.

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

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

Tobias sounded surprised. Although "sounded" wasn't quite the right word.

"Yes," I said cautiously.

Tobias said.

"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?

he said.

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

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

"Pull a string? Why?"

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.

"Tobias, what are you doing?" "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.

he admitted. 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.

"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."

"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.

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.