"You guys do what you want," Rachel said. " I'm going in."

" Oh , there's a big surprise," Tobias said with weary affection.

The four of us lanced forward, faster than ever, toward the whale in distress.

"l see them," Tobias reported from the sky above. "Straight ahead of you. Looks like four, maybe five sharks and a big - really, really big - whale. Did I mention big? Wow. Big." We were steaming through the water when I caught sight of my first shark. He was bigger than me, maybe twelve feet long, with faint vertical stripes.

He was too excited by the hunt to notice me. Until it was too late. With every bit of speed and power I could get from my tail, I rammed the tiger shark in his gill slits.

WHOOOOMP!

It was like hitting a brick wall. My beak was strong, but the shark was made of steel or some thing.

I fell back, dazed. But as I tried to collect myself I saw that a trail of blood was billowing from the shark's gills.

I swam beneath him, and then I saw the huge shape of the whale. He was a humpback, more than forty feet long. Each of his long, barnacle-encrusted flukes was bigger than me.

He was trying to surface to breathe, but sharks were attacking, tearing at the soft, vulnerable flesh of his mouth.

It made me angry. Very angry.

36 Suddenly, from the murky depths, Jake and Rachel zoomed upward, like missiles aimed at the sharks.

WHOOMP! Rachel hit her target.

Jake's shark twisted just in time. Jake scraped across the shark's sandpaper skin, and before he could get clear, the shark was after him.

"Jake! He's on your tail!"

"l got him!"

"Look out! Conning up on your left, Marco!"

They were as fast as we were, as maneuver-able as we were, and the sharks had one terrifying advantage - they did not know fear.

"He's on me! He's on me!"

"Aaaaarrrrggghh!"

"Marco!"

"l can't see! Where is he?"

"Cassie! Below you, lookout! Look out!"

It was no longer a game. I had gone rushing into a fight full of confidence and determined to help the whale. But now I was in a war. The sharks were killing machines. They seemed to be nothing but armored skin and razor-sharp fins and wide jaws with row after row of serrated teeth.

The water was boiling with twisting, turning, speeding sharks and us dolphins, locked in a high-speed battle to the death.

It suddenly occurred to me that we might lose. We might be killed.

I might be killed.

The water was dark with blood, still billowing from the shark I had hammered.

Suddenly two of the sharks turned away. They just turned and swam away. At first, I didn't know why.

Then I saw that they were following the shark I had wounded.

They were following the trail of blood.

They were at the limits of my sight when they struck. They ripped into the injured shark with wild, uncontrolled fury.

37 The last shark turned from the battle and went after them. Robbed of his meal of whale meat, he would feast on his brother instead.

"Everyone okay?" Jake asked.

"l have some cuts, but I'm okay," I said.

"Same here," Rachel said. She sounded tired. I guess I did, too. I felt exhausted and drained.

The fight had probably only lasted two minutes from beginning to end. But it had been a long two minutes.

"Marco?"

" I...I think I'm hurt," he said.

I looked for him. He was drifting in the water, almost motionless, twenty yards away. We all swam over, crowding around him.

Then I saw the wound. I think I would have screamed, if I could have. His tail had almost been bitten off. It was hanging by a few jagged threads. It was useless.

We were miles out in the ocean. And Marco could not hope to swim back.

38 Chapter 11

"He's going to die if we don't do something," Rachel cried.

"Cassie?" Jake asked. "What do we do?"

" I...I don't know!"

"Cassie, you're the closest thing we have to an animal expert," Jake said urgently.

But I wasn't feeling at all like an expert. I was feeling like a fool. This was all my fault. It had been my decision to go ahead. I was the one.

"Aaaahhh," Marco moaned. " Oh , man. That's a major ouchie. Ahh, ahh!"

"What's happening?" Tobias called down. "Marco sounds hurt."

"He is," Jake answered tersely.

" Oh , man, I don't want to die as some fish," Marco cried. "l don't want to die out here. My mom drowned. I'm going to die just like she did. My dad . . ."

"Morph!" I yelled. "l think I know what to do. Morph back to human."

"lf he morphs to human, he'll just drown," Rachel argued.

"No. Morphing uses DNA, right? The basic pattern of the animal. Marco morphs back to human. I don't think the injury will affect him, because it doesn't affect his human DNA.

Then, as soon as he can, he morphs back to dolphin. The dolphin body was injured, but the dolphin DNA should be the same. He should be a healthy, normal dolphin again."

"What if you're wrong?" Rachel asked bluntly.

"There's no other choice," Jake said. "Marco? You have to morph back to human. We'll keep you from drowning."

"Jake . . . buddy . . . You know I can't swim."

"l know, Marco. But we'll take care of you."

" Okay . Yeah, okay. Might as well die in my own body. Ahh. Ahhhh! Maybe it won't hurt as much. Maybe . . ."

He was drifting off. "He's losing blood," I said. "He may pass out. Marco. Morph. Now!" We formed a circle around him, the three of us, with Tobias drifting overhead and the big humpback resting alongside.

Then Marco began to change. Arms sprouted from his flippers. His face flattened down, with his wide, grinning dolphin mouth shortening to form Marco's own lips. His skin turned pink and his morphing suit appeared.

39 His shattered, injured tail split in two. Legs formed from the halves, toes appeared. Human toes. At the end of human legs.

"He did it!"

"Yeah, I did it. And now I'm drowning!"

"Here," I said, swimming beside him. "Grab onto me." He wrapped his arms over my back, and I held him up to the air.

Then I noticed something strange. It was like the ocean floor was rising to meet me.

No. It was the humpback. He had dived beneath us, and was rising slowly, slowly to the sur face.

"Look out! The whale!" Rachel yelled.

But at that moment the most incredible part of an incredible day happened.

My mind, human, dolphin, both minds, opened up like a flower opening to the sun.

And a silent, but somehow huge, voice filled my head, it spoke no words. It simply filled every corner of my mind with a simple emotion.

Gratitude.

The whale was telling me that it was grateful. We had saved it. Now it would save our schoolmate.

"Back away," I told Rachel and Jake. " It's okay."

"Yeah," Rachel agreed, sounding amazed. "l hear it, too. Or feel it. Or whatever." The humpback rose beneath a sputtering Marco. The broad leathery back lifted him up. And when I looked again, I saw Marco, sitting nervously on what could have been a small island, high and dry above the choppy waves.

Tobias fluttered down and rested beside him.

The whale called me to him.

Listen, little one, he commanded, in a silent voice that seemed to fill the universe.

I listened. I listened to his wordless voice in my head. I felt like it went on forever.