"Well, your next assignment is a cat. Tobias was a cat. He said it was amazingly cool. He liked it. Just like I really enjoy being a dog. Sometimes when I'm feeling depressed, I really wish I could just morph. Dogs know how to have fun."

41 The bus pulled up in front of the school. "An other day of school. Normal life." I looked over the crowd of kids milling around on the lawn and on the steps. I spotted Melissa.

"See you later, Jake," I said. "Thanks."

"No problem. We're all in this together."

I made my way down the bus aisle and ran to catch up to Melissa. But when I got close I saw that her eyes were red and swollen. She'd been crying.

I didn't know what to do. In the old days I would have just run right up to her and asked what was the matter.

"Hey, Melissa, how's it going?"

She looked at me, confused. "What?"

"I said, how's it going?"

She shook her head slowly, like she couldn't believe I was even talking to her. "What do you care?"

"Melissa. Of course I care. What's wrong?" Her eyes went kind of blank. She seemed to be looking at nothing but the air right in front of her face.

"What's wrong? Everything is wrong. And nothing is wrong. But just the same, every thing is wrong."

"Melissa, what are you talking about?" "Forget it," she said. She started to walk away.

I grabbed her arm. "Look, you can talk to me. I'm still your friend. Nothing has changed."

"Leave me alone," she said grimly. "Everything has changed. Everyone has changed. You stopped being my friend. And my mom and dad ... "

"What?" I pressed her.

The bell rang loud and shrill.

"I have to go." She pulled her arm away.

What could I do? I let her go. I wondered what she had started to say about her father. Had she discovered what her father was? What her father had become?

I walked up the steps of the school with my head lowered in thought. As I opened the school door, I ran right into someone.

"Hey, hey, watch where you're going, young lady."

"Mr. Chapman!" I recoiled in fear.

42 See, you have to realize that this was the man who had once directed a Hork-Bajir soldier to kill us all if he caught us. Kill us and only save our heads for identification.

That kind of thing sticks in your mind.

He peered at me. "What's the matter with you, Rachel? A little jumpy this morning?"

I nodded. "Yes, sir. I guess I didn't sleep too well."

"Bad dreams?" he asked.

My mouth was dry. "I guess so, Mr. Chapman.

He smiled. A normal, human smile. His eyes even crinkled up a little as he grinned down at me. "Well, shake it off. Nightmares aren't real, you know."

"At least not most of the time," I said to myself.

43 Chapter Eleven

We couldn't go to the Chapmans' the next night because Marco and I both had papers we had to write. And the night after that was Cassie's dad's birthday.

But finally, there we were again on the street outside the Chapmans' house. It was a little before eight.

Fluffer was out of the house, smelling a fence post four blocks over, where another cat had left his scent. At least, that's what Tobias reported.

"Are you ready?" Jake asked me.

I nodded.

"Are you sure?" Cassie asked. "You can put this off if you want. We don't have to do this tonight."

"The sooner the better," I said. "We all know something is wrong in that house. Melissa is still my friend. Maybe somehow I can help her."

"Your job is not to help Melissa Chapman," Marco pointed out. "You're supposed to be spying on Chapman. You're supposed to be finding some way for us to get at the Yeerks, so that we can all turn into wild animals and get ourselves killed."

"I know why I'm doing this, Marco," I said.

He nodded. "Okay. Well, take care of yourself in there. That's an assistant principal you're dealing with. He finds out you've turned into a cat and gone sneaking around his house, that will be after-school detention for like a year."

We all laughed. As if detention were the thing I had to fear. Marco can be obnoxious, but on the other hand, he can make you laugh right when you really need to.

"I'm ready," I said. I waved my arms at the dark sky above. Tobias swooped down, opened his wings to slow his speed, and settled on the fence beside us.

"How does it look up there, Tobias?" Jake asked.

"Looks fine. The cat is nowhere near the house. There's no one out walking around, except way over on Loughlin Street. There are a couple of cars, but not coming toward you."

"You know, you have quite a future in burglary," Marco said to Tobias. "You and I can burglarize places, and Jake can be Spiderman and catch us."

"Okay, I'm ready to do this," I announced. "As ready as I'm going to get, anyway."

Tobias sent me a private message. "Rachel, if you get into any trouble, just try and make it out side. I can lift you out of any danger. "

I prepared to morph. I concentrated on Fluffer. It was easy to do. I had a very clear mental image of Fluffer dropping down out of that tree, ready to kill me when I was a shrew.

44 Inside my own body, Fluffer's DNA was stored, ready to be used. All I had to do was concentrate . . . concentrate. . . .

Each morphing is different. Especially the first time, when you can't even think about controlling how it happens. Even Cassie can't control the first morph.

In the case of Fluffer, it started with fur. Black fur came first, and then the white fur began to grow. The fur had almost completely grown in while I was still mostly human. I had luxurious fur on my arms. On my legs. On my face. Fur and whiskers, with everything else pretty much the same.

"Oh, that is cool!" Cassie said. She was staring at me and grinning this huge grin. "That is way cool. You look great."

Marco and Jake nodded agreement.

"It's kind of weird, but also kind of pretty," Marco said. "I'm thinking you could do commercials for cat food. You sing a little song, maybe dance a little. Forget Morris the cat.

You would rule."

I began to shrink. But it was strange, because as I shrank and my outer clothing slithered off me, I didn't feel like I was getting smaller. I felt more like I was getting stronger.

It was like I was shedding all this unnecessary stuff, these clumsy long legs, these ridiculous weak arms.

I felt like I'd been boiled down to my absolute essentials. Like I wasn't even made out of plain old flesh and bones anymore.

I felt like liquid steel.

I didn't feel the fear of the shrew. I didn't feel the total confidence of the elephant, either, or of the eagle.

This was different. There was fear, sure. But underneath the fear was confidence. The cat knew there were enemies out there, but he also knew he could handle it.

I felt . . . tough. That was it -- tough.

Then the cat's senses started sending messages to my brain.

"Whoa!" I yelled in surprise. "Suddenly it isn't nighttime anymore! I mean, wow. Talk about night vision!"

"A cat's vision at night is about eight times stronger than a human's," Cassie said helpfully. "I looked it up."

"Eight times?" Marco repeated. "Not seven, or nine? How do they measure that?"

But it wasn't just how well I saw that was strange. It was what I noticed.

45 A human being will notice colors, for exam ple. Now, a cat can see colors, more or less. He just isn't interested in colors. It's like, okay, that thing is red. Who cares?