"Yeah," I said, nodding at my friend. "Marco's right. This is just a spy mission. There's plenty of time to decide what to do, when we know more about what they are up to."

I should have felt relieved.

I didn't.

22 Chapter 6

How long do you think this will take?" Rachel asked. She checked her watch. "I set the VCR for two of my favorite shows, but I forgot to tape the movie of the week."

"I'm taping it in case you miss it," Cassie said.

It was dark out, but not very late. The moon was up, but hidden by the clouds. We were walking along the street, doing our best to look like a normal bunch of kids just hanging out.

Normal.

"This sucks," Tobias said from high above. " I'm half-blind at night. Especially without moonlight. I should have gotten myself stuck in an owl body. Owls are so cool. Aside from the fact that some of them try to kill and eat falcons."

"How can you ever run in these bodies?" Ax wondered. "Two legs? It is absurd. Surd. Ubsurd.

Ubzerd. Not even a tail to help you stay up."

Ax was in his human morph. It's a combination of DNA from me, Marco, Rachel, and Cassie.

The result is kind of like looking at all of us at once, but in one body. It's really weird.

Ax had almost gotten used to having a mouth when he was in his human morph. Almost. He still had a tendency to want to play with sounds, repeating them. Plus, the boy was dangerous when he got around food. The sense of taste was just overwhelming for him.

"You know, Ax, now that you mention it ..." Marco started gyrating wildly, like a guy out of control. "I only have two legs! I'm falling . . . falling!"

"See? I knew it must happen sometimes," Ax said, adding, "Happen. Hap. Hap. Pun."

I wasn't sure if Ax knew Marco was being funny or not. Ax might have a very dry sense of humor. Or he might have no sense of humor at all. I hadn't figured it out yet.

"There's the place," I said. It was up ahead, at the end of the block.

It was a residential neighborhood, with older houses and a few kind of low-budget shops mixed in. You know, thrift shops and car parts places and small restaurants.

Our target was a single-story, whitewashed building. There was only one door, and the windows were high up, narrow and long. They were blocked off so that no one could see inside. There was a small parking lot with a dozen cars in it.

Over the door was a sign: "The Sharing. Building a Better Life."

"Yeah, right," Marco sneered. "A better life for slugs from outer space. You notice the guy standing by the door? He looks like he's ready for trouble."

23 A very large man stood by the door, muscular arms folded over his chest. But we'd expected that.

Marco and Rachel and I had scoped the place out ahead of time.

"Okay, we cut down this alley," I said. "That building down there is abandoned. The basement is empty and unlocked. That's where we morph."

The basement was dark and depressing and smelled of mildew. I guess it used to be part of a restaurant. There were still some old tables strewn around. There were also a lot of old beer bottles and bits of garbage.

"Wonderful," Rachel said in a whisper. "This whole Animorph lifestyle is so glamorous."

Tobias fluttered in through the open door. Then we heard a thump.

"Ow! Man, who put a pillar there? Banged my right wing."

"Great. This is the guy who's supposed to be looking out for us," Marco grumbled.

Ax had instantly begun to morph back to his Andalite body. It is not possible to go straight from one morph to another. Just like we have to return to human form between morphs, he had to resume Andalite form.

"Come on, let's do this and get it over with," Rachel said. "I'm going to be a roach in a filthy basement. My mother would be so proud if she knew."

"Wait," Cassie said. "We agree on how this works, right? We're not looking for a fight. This is a spy mission. No one do anything dramatic, like morph into an elephant and go on a stomping spree."

Cassie was looking at Rachel. Rachel has an elephant morph. She's very fond of it.

Rachel laughed. "Absolutely. Spy time. Stealth is my middle name."

"Okay." I was a little embarrassed that Cassie had brought it up. She was trying to remind everyone that Tom was one of the Controllers in that meeting. Trying to remind everyone that we were just there for information.

"Let's morph already," Rachel said. "Come on. I'll miss the movie."

"Five little roaches. We'll be right at home in this dump," Marco said as he began the transformation. "You will keep the rats from eating us, won't you, Tobias?"

"Hey, I may not see that well in the dark, but I can still catch a rat, light or no light. I am the rat-killer of the universe."

"Ax? You ready?"

"Yes, Prince Jake. I am fully Andalite and ready to become your roach." 24 A few moments later, we were five cockroaches amid the scattered garbage on the bare concrete floor.

"Wow. That is one big beer can," Marco said.

A blue and white can towered over us, curving away into the sky.

"Let's, urn, scurry," I said. "Ax? You keep track of the time." We took off, a little knot of fast-moving roaches, all running in the same direction.

"You know, if this wasn't so gross, it would be kind of cool," Rachel said. "Stairs! All right. A little vertical rock climbing."

Tiny pincers on the end of my six legs grabbed the small protrusions of concrete and wedged into invisible cracks. It all happened so fast and so automatically that I could run straight up the cement step, almost as fast as I could move horizontally.

Up the riser. Over the edge. Zoom, to the next riser. Up. Over. Across. To the top of the four stairs.

"You know, you guys still give me the willies," Tobias said. "You should see your selves. The urge to step on you is pretty strong - if I had shoes. I never did like roaches."

"This from a guy who disembowels live mice for lunch," Marco said.

"Don't knock it if you haven't tried it," Tobias shot back.

In some corner of my mind I noted the fact that Tobias seemed more and more at peace with his weird life - half-bird, half-human.

But mostly my mind was on the job at hand. We had reached the threshold. We scampered across it and out into the alley.

The alley was a mix of gravel and cracked, torn-up blacktop. The blacktop was like running across hard oatmeal, all bumpy and uneven. The gravel was more difficult. The pieces of rock were as big as we were, and even with our six clever legs, there was a lot of stumbling and slipping.

"I'm going airborne," Tobias said. "You're out on the sidewalk. Turn left. There's better light out here so I'll be able to watch you from the top of the telephone pole."

"Okay, we'd better spread out. Don't forget, these are Controllers. Yeerks. They believe there is a group of Andalite warriors running around loose. In other words, they'll be on the lookout for morphs. So act like normal roaches."

25 "You mean I should crawl inside an open box of cereal?" Marco asked. "I had that happen once.

I almost ate the bug. Yuck."

We fanned out, staying several inches apart as we moved toward the building. I stopped when I reached the whitewashed cinder block of the exterior wall.

"Crack!" Cassie called. "l found a big crack here. I'm going in." The rest of us waited. I felt obvious, just sit ting there. Obvious and helpless. The big guy at the door could decide to step on me. I couldn't see him, but I knew he was there.