"You just started morphing?"

"Yeah. I don't know ... I mean, I thought I was awake. But I must have been dreaming."

"Uh-uh. I dream all the time," Cassie said. "I've never morphed in my sleep."

I didn't want to dismiss the possibility it was a dream that caused me to morph. The alternative- that I was just out of control - was worse.

"Are you going to eat that salad? It cost like ten dollars."

"We all have nightmares and stuff. None of us has ever just started morphing." Cassie dug into her salad. But she was watching me all the time.

I concentrated on my burger. "What can I say? That must be what happened. I must have had a nightmare."

"And you morphed the croc and it made the floor fall in?"

I shifted nervously. "Okay, look, actually, it

was my elephant morph. See, I think what happened is that maybe I just dreamed the part about morphing the crocodile. Because then I went straight into another morph, and then . . . when I woke up ... I was an elephant."

Cassie looked down at her plate like she was embarrassed. "Rachel. It's me, okay? Me. Cassie. Your best friend. I know when you're not telling the complete truth."

That killed off what was left of my appetite. I put the burger down.

"Okay, look. I don't know what happened, all right? I was on-line, I was getting kind of logy the way I do when I'm staring at a computer screen.

Then all of a sudden I'm going crocodile."

"We have to talk to Ax about this. He's an Andalite. Maybe it's some normal thing that happens sometimes."

"It better not be something that just happens," I said. "I could have killed Jordan and Sara. It was just dumb luck that they were in the living room, not the kitchen."

Cassie nodded. "Yeah. Well, we need to talk to Ax."

I reached across the table and took her hand. "But not Jake, okay? He'll just get all responsible. He won't let me do anything. He'll tell me to stay home."

"That's what you should do."

"No." I shook my head violently. "What I need is to stay focused. The more focused I am, the less likely that will ever happen again. I'm not going to let it happen." I really hoped that was true.

I picked up my burger. Cassie stared at me for a while, then she started picking at her salad again.

"Okay," she said after a while. "But we talk to Ax."

"Deal," I said.

"By the way. It turns out Jeremy Jason Mc-Cole is already in town."

"What?"

She nodded. Then she smiled. "It was on Entertainment Tonight. He's staying on this big yacht owned by some movie producer. He's out on the bay right now."

"We still need to figure out if he's already a Controller or not," I said. "I asked Jordan what she'd do if she thought there was some way she could get close to Jeremy Jason McCole. She basically said she'd walk barefoot over broken glass."

"I'm not surprised," Cassie said. "A year ago I'd probably have been right behind her." She grinned crookedly. "Love is a powerful force."

I attacked my burger again. "So? We go see

Jeremy Jason on this yacht? The movie producer guy could be a Controller."

"That's what Jake and Marco and Tobias and Ax and I already talked about. We thought tomorrow after school we'd maybe go out there and take a look."

"Jake, Marco ... all of them? They're corning, too?"

"Somehow they don't seem to exactly trust you and me alone with Jeremy Jason."

"On a yacht, huh?" Rachel mused. "He'll probably be lying out in a bathing suit."

"Mmmm."

"Mmm-hmm."

I woke up approximately fifty times during the night. I kept having to check to make sure I was human. And I had some seriously odd dreams. In one, I morphed into Jeremy Jason and then got fly eyes.

Not a good night's sleep. My dad came in from the next room at about four in the morning to tell me I woke him up talking in my sleep.

"You were yelling, 'Crocodile not alligator!'" he said.

Fortunately, he just figured it was stress from the insane day I'd had.

He was right. But he didn't know half of it.

I took a taxi from the hotel to school. It beat

taking the bus, that's for sure. Maybe Cassie was right. Maybe I'll have to be rich when I grow up.

For the first couple of periods I had to put up with kids saying brilliant things like, "Hey! It's Crocodile Dundee!" And, "Stay away from me. You'll make the school fall down."

And then there were the people who actually seemed jealous. "I guess you think you're cool just because you nearly got killed twice in one day,"

one girl said.

"Yeah, that's right," I said. "Later, just to prove how cool I am, I'm going to jump off a cliff."

By the time lunch was over, most people had gotten the message that I didn't really want to talk about it.

Then I was called to the assistant principal's office.

Chapman's off ice.

I guess I should explain. Chapman is one of them. He's a high-ranking Controller. He's one of the leaders of The Sharing.

He once came very close to having me killed. Not that he knew it was me, really. But still, I kind of resented it.

I walked the empty hallway, clutching my hall pass and wondering how I was going to escape if Chapman was waiting for me with a bunch of Hork-Bajir warriors.

"Rachel, come on in, come on in. Have a seat."

Chapman looks perfectly normal. He's a little bald, but normal-looking.

That's the problem with Controllers: They don't look any different.

"Urn, what's this about, Mr. Chapman?" I asked nervously. I was playing the role of any normal kid who gets called to the assistant principal's office. It was easy to act nervous.

He waved his hand dismissively. "I just wanted to talk to the big celebrity."