"Taste!" he yelled as he scarfed a huge bite. He threw the rest of the pizza through the air. It just missed the mall cop who was closing in on him.

Ax couldn't care less. He had found a piece of Cinnabun. "This was the smell!" he cried. He jammed the roll in his mouth. "Ahhh! Ahhh! Taste! Taste! Wonderful! Ful. Ful."

"They do make a good sticky bun," I muttered to Jake.

"We have to get him out of here," Jake hissed.

"Too late. Look! Three more mall cops."

The cops jumped at Ax.

Ax decided it was a good time to throw the rest of the bun away. It hit the nearest cop in the face.

"Ax! Run! Run!" I yelled.

I guess I got through, because Ax ran.

Unfortunately, he couldn't run very well in his two-legged human morph.

So as he ran and stumbled, chased by huffing, puffing mall police, he began to change.

21 Chapter 5

Stop!" a cop yelled. "I am ordering you to halt!"

But Ax wasn't interested in halting. He was panicked.

A woman stepped out of the Body Shop holding a bag full of colorful jars. Ax plowed into her. The bag went flying.

The stalks began to grow out of the top of his head. The extra eyes appeared on the ends and turned backward to watch the people chasing him.

Jake and I were two of those people. We were ahead of the cops, but not by much.

Fortunately, I guess the cops assumed we were just idiots running along for fun.

I could hear one of the cops yelling into his walkie-talkie. "Cut him off at the east entrance!"

Legs began to grow from the chest of Ax's human morph. His own front legs, small at first, but growing rapidly.

He was slowing down as his human legs began to change. The knees were reversing direction. His spine elongated into the beginnings of a tail.

That's when the screaming started.

"Ahhhhhhhhh!"

"What is it? What IS it?"

People were screaming and running and dropping their bags as they caught a glimpse of the nightmare creature Ax had become. Half-human, half-Andalite. A fluid, shifting mess of half-formed features.

I couldn't blame them. I felt like screaming myself.

We were getting near the exit, racing past the shoe repair place.

Suddenly, Ax fell forward, tangled up in his own mutating legs. He skidded down the polished marble floor.

Most of the crowd had been left behind, but the mall police were still with us.

"You kids get out of the way!" one of them yelled at us. "This guy could be dangerous."

Ax sprang up. He was much more sure of himself, now that he was on his four Andalite hooves. The morph was almost entirely complete. His mouth was gone. His extra eyes were in place. His two arms and four legs were fully formed.

Then, at the very last, the tail appeared.

It was then that I heard the nearest mall cop, in an awed, frightened whisper, say, "Andalite!"

22 I quickly turned and looked at him. Only a Controller would recognize an Andalite.

The Controller cop drew his gun from his holster.

"RUN!" I yelled at Ax.

The Controller stood between Ax and the door. Big mistake. The Andalite tail flashed, faster than my eyes could follow. The cop's gun went flying through the air. He clutched at a hand that was red with blood.

Out the door we blew, running for our lives.

Sirens!

"Those are real cops coming," I said. "Not mall rent-a-cops!"

"Where should we go?" Ax demanded, reverting to thought-speak.

"Oh, now he wants advice?!" I looked around frantically. The bus was not going to be an option. The mall cops poured from the glass doors. The city police screamed toward us in their black- and-whites.

All we could do was run. So we ran. Up rows of parked cars. Two kids and a guy who did not belong on this planet.

"The grocery store!" Jake yelled.

"What?" I gasped. I was getting tired.

"In there!" he pointed. It was the grocery store across the parking lot. It was the only way we could go.

Police cars screeched to a halt all around us.

"Freeze!"

"I don't think so," I said.

We jetted through the big glass doors of the supermarket at a full, panicked run. I halfway expected to hear guns firing and bullets whizzing.

"Jake!" I yelled. "Help me here!" I had an idea for slowing down our pursuers. I grabbed a big row of parked grocery carts and shoved them back toward the doors. Jake grabbed on and helped.

Then we were off and running again, with Ax skittering shakily on the slippery floor and banging into groceries. Cans of olives and tomatoes crashed behind him.

Customers screamed and crashed their carts into each other.

"It's a monster! Mommy, it's a monster!" some little kid yelled.

23 "It's just a pretend monster," his mother said.

Yeah. A pretend monster. Right.

Then I saw our way out. It was at the end of the aisle. But I needed some time. I needed to get everyone out of our way. We couldn't have witnesses.

"There's a bomb!" I screamed, at the top of my lungs. "BOMB!"

"What?" Jake demanded.

"There's a bomb! A bomb in the store! Run! Run! Everyone out! A BOMB!"

"What are you doing?!" Jake yelled.

"The cops have the place surrounded. There's only one way out," I snapped. I pointed.

I pointed at the live lobster tank at the end of the aisle by the seafood counter.

"Oh, no," Jake groaned.

"Oh, yes." I grinned.

The shoppers were running in panic, either from the supposed bomb or just from Ax. But the baskets in the doorway and the people shoving to escape slowed the cops down for a precious few moments.

I had a feeling the Controller cops were making sure that no real cops came in after us. They wanted us for themselves. With no human witnesses.

"Let's go for a swim," I said.

It was a big lobster tank, fortunately. I hoisted myself up the side and climbed in. Jake was right behind me. We each grabbed a lobster and threw one to Ax.

It was not easy "acquiring" the lobster. It took concentration. And all I could think was that there were an awful lot of cops outside the store, probably getting ready to rush in. And they would all have guns.

The lobster went limp and passive, the way animals do when you acquire them.

I dropped him back in the water. We stripped off our outer clothes and shoes and stuffed them, along with the Radio Shack bag, in a trash can.

Ax had already begun to morph. Jake and I waited till he had shrunk a little and then hauled him into the tank with us.

He was already hard, like armor, and his arms had begun to split open and swell.

Then I began the morph.

24 I've been afraid a lot since we became Animorphs. But I have not gotten used to it. And I can tell you, I was so scared my bones were rattling.

At any second they were going to rush in.

At any moment they were going to catch us half-morphed.

I looked over at Jake. His eyes were gone, re placed by little black BBs.

"Ewww."

As I watched, eight spindly, blue, insectlike legs erupted from his chest.

"Aaaaahhh!" I yelped in shock.

Jake's face seemed to open up, to split open into a complex mess of valves. I think I would have thrown up, seeing that. Except that I, also, no longer had a mouth.

At that very moment, I felt antennae explode from my forehead like impossibly long spears.

I was shrinking as I morphed, falling, falling, falling down into the water which had been around my thighs and was now around my neck.