Jake and Marco were lolling on bales of hay.

Tobias was perched on a cross beam a few feet over our heads. I felt a stab of pain, seeing him that way again.

Ax did not come to these meetings, usually. He would have had to assume his human morph, and he preferred to remain in Andalite form as much as possible.

"Hi, Rachel," Marco said, looking amused, but also a little wary. "What have you been up to?

Or maybe I should ask, what have you been!"

Cassie was busy changing the bandage on the wing of a sad-looking kestrel.

52 "Hey, Rachel," Cassie said. "Give me a hand here, will you? I didn't see you at school today."

I went and held the struggling bird as well as I could. Kestrels are small falcons. This kestrel tried to take a bite out of me, but he was too weak to do any damage.

"I felt kind of sick this morning," I told Cassie. "So I stayed home."

"But you felt better this afternoon, huh?" Jake said. "So much better that you decided to morph? How did you get here, just out of curiosity?"

Cassie was done and took the kestrel from me. I turned to look Jake in the eye. "I flew. Is that okay with you?"

He glanced at Cassie. Then at Marco. "That bear you morphed yesterday . . . you went to The Gardens and acquired that all on your own, didn't you?"

"No," I said, "I met that bear at the mall."

"Okay," Jake said. "And today you ditch school and end up morphing . . . whatever you morphed."

"An eagle." Tobias said.

"I saw a bald eagle riding the thermals this afternoon. I should have guessed. It was up for too long, acting like a buzzard. A real eagle would have perched after a while. "

"It's so nice knowing I have privacy," I said sarcastically.

"That was about noon." Tobias said. "lf you came here in eagle morph, that would be more than two hours. You must have demorphed, then morphed again. " Jake looked at me sharply. "You spent the whole afternoon in morph?"

"Yes, Mother," I said.

Jake jumped up and stood right in front of me, his face just inches from mine. "Don't give me your sarcasm, Rachel. You are acting really weird. That's everyone's business, because if you do something stupid, we could all end up paying the price. You go and acquire a grizzly?

Without backup? You could have been killed."

"So what?" I shot back. "You heard the Ellimist. We're doomed. It's going to be Yeerks one, humans zero. We lose. So who cares about anything? Who cares if I skip school to go flying?

"

Suddenly Jake just sagged. "I don't know, Rachel. I don't have any answers. I'm sick of trying to have answers. You decide. I don't want to argue with you. I don't know what your problem is, but you know what? You deal with it."

I've never seen Jake look so tired. One minute he was being strong, sensible Jake, leader of the Animorphs. And the next minute he looked exhausted. His eyes were red. He was blinking constantly. He looked like he was worn out just from breathing.

53 "My dad wants me to move out of state with him," I said.

Everyone just kind of stared at me. They all had blank, tired eyes, not much different from Jake's.

"What are you going to do?" Cassie asked.

I threw up my hands. "How can I even think about something that unimportant? I mean, like we don't have bigger things to worry about? The fate of planet Earth and the human race?"

"Different things bother different people," Cassie said. "I know how you feel about your dad.

"

"He's a jerk for dumping this on me!" I said loudly. "I mean . . . you know ... I mean. . . ."

It was weird. All of a sudden I felt like I was choking. Like I was ready to explode. Like my brain was spinning out of control.

"It's like . . . what am I supposed to do?!" I yelled. "After what happened last night. . . after all that, I have to decide who I want to hurt - my mom or my dad? And you guys? And - "

"Come on, Rachel," Marco said kindly. "Take it easy. Come on, you're Xena -"

"NO! No, I'm not some stupid TV character. I'm not some comic book, Marco. I'm scared, okay?! Just like all the rest of you. I'm scared of what almost happened to me last night. I'm scared just knowing that place exists down there. I'm scared about what happens to me. I just wanted to run away but I didn't think I could, so I was brave because that's the way I'm supposed to be. But now everyone's going, 'Oh, just come live with me and we'll go to ball games,' and 'Hey, forget moving to another state, we have a whole other planet for you.' And the more exits I see, the more scared I get, all right?"

For a long time no one said anything.

Marco sighed heavily. "I've been thinking. I'm changing my vote. If the Ellimist asks again, I'm going to vote yes."

"What?" Jake demanded. "Why?"

Marco shrugged. "Rachel's losing it. If she loses it, how long are the rest of us going to last?"

"Shut up, Marco, I'm not in the mood for your jokes," I said.

"Me neither," Marco said flatly. "You know how much sleep I got last night? About an hour.

Nightmares. I was a zombie in school today. I feel like . . . like my skin has all been rubbed with sandpaper. I'm jumpy. I'm scared. I'm stressed."

"It's gonna happen," Jake said.

54 "This was always insane, right from the start," Marco said. "A handful of kids fighting an alien invasion? Look what's happening. Tobias is trapped in a morph. Rachel is starting to use morphing to get away from her problems. The other night I woke up in bed, and I didn't know what I was. I didn't know if I had hands or fins or claws or talons. Maybe you and Cassie are immune, Jake. But I doubt it."

"We can't give up," Jake argued stubbornly.

"All we ever do is lose," Marco said. "We annoy the Yeerks. Maybe we blow up a ship, or have some little success. But the invasion marches on. And all we ever do is barely escape with our lives. We're like some baseball team that never wins a game. And now, according to the Ellimist, we know it's going to be a whole losing season. We aren't going to the play-offs.

"

"I don't care," Jake said. "I'm not giving up."

"Jake," Cassie said. "See this?" She held up her left arm and pointed to a scar above her wrist.

"I got this from a raccoon. The raccoon had been caught in a trap. Its leg was broken. I was trying to free it so I could save it. It bit me."

"We're not raccoons," Jake said.

"Aren't we? Compared to the Ellimist?" Cassie said. "Isn't it just possible he's right? That what he's trying to do is save at least a part of the human race? That he's just trying to get us out of the trap and fix our broken bones?"

"Cassie's right," Marco said. "If the Ellimist wanted to hurt us, he could just destroy us. You know it as well as I do. Fine. I'm going to let him get my leg out of the trap. But I have some conditions first. There are some people going with me. But if the Ellimist can save those people along with me, then I have to say yes."

Marco looked at me. Then Jake and Cassie and Tobias all looked at me. The vote was now two against two. I was the deciding vote.

It would mean no more battles. It would mean that somewhere, wherever the Ellimist took us, there would be no job in another state, for my dad. There would be no more painful decisions for me to make, I opened my mouth. I started to speak.