"ls that you, Rachel?" I asked.

"Sure. Who else would it be? Is this great flying weather, or what?"

"lt's perfect. You up for a little cruise?"

"0f course. What's up?"

"Well, while you and the others have been off saving the world, I've been busy, too."

I shot by, just beneath Rachel's big eagle wings, and swung out past her, then turned and moved in front of her. I was showing off. I'm more agile in the air than a bald eagle is. Although a baldie is quite a bit bigger than me. Kind of like comparing a turkey to a chicken.

Rachel made a sighing sound in my head. "Tobias, just because you can't come along on every single mission doesn't mean you need to do extra work."

"Yeah, well, whatever," I said. "The point is I've been watching known Controllers from the air. I started with Chapman and his wife and the reporter and the policewoman we know about. And Tom, of course. " Chapman is our assistant principal. He's a very big deal Controller. Tom is Jake's brother. He's a Controller, too.

"l followed them and watched them and now I've found four separate ways into the Yeerk pool. Besides the one we know that goes through the

"Cool. When we know the Yeerk pool entrances, we can start figuring out who more Controllers are." Rachel sounded impressed. Even though all I'd done was fly around and keep my eyes open.

"l have a lot of free time," I said. I knew I shouldn't say what I was about to say next. But it was out before I could stop myself. "So.

Congratulations, I guess, huh? Packard Foundation Outstanding Student. " Rachel was silent for a few seconds. "Did someone tell you? Oh, no, of course not. You saw the letter in my notebooks

"Just call me old hawkeye," I said lightly.

"Tobias . . . you know how much I wish you could come. I mean, Cassie will be there, and she's great. But you know Marco will just be making snide remarks, and Jake will be trying not to laugh."

"No big deal," I said. "The only thing is, don't hide stuff from me because you think it will hurt my feelings, okay? I can't handle you feeling sorry for me."

"l don't feel sorry for you," Rachel lied.

"Good. Because, you know, how you think about me is sort of important." I winced. I'd sounded way too sincere.

I mean, what was I thinking? Rachel's a human. A real human. I'm a hawk.

You think Romeo and Juliet were doomed, just from being from families that didn't like each other? Well, you can't get any more doomed than caring for someone who isn't even the same species.

"Anyway, congratulations," I said as breezily as I could."Now follow me, and I'll give you a little tour of the Yeerk pool entrances."

"0n a day like this, I'd follow you anywhere," Rachel said.

"We're not going far. Just to the car wash."

"They're using the car wash? No way." Rachel laughed. "You have to admit, they are ingenious."

We flew. Not side by side, because that would have looked suspicious.

Hawks and eagles don't exactly fly in formation like geese. We kept a hundred yards apart. But with our incredible vision and thought-speak, we might as well have been next to each other.

We rose higher and higher on the thermals, then thermal-hopped. That's where you rise to the top of one pillar of warm air and glide to the next. Then you rise again and drift to the next. It's an easy, lazy kind of flying. You don't get

where you're going very fast, but you don't get tired out, either.

It was awfully nice, flying just under the bellies of the clouds with Rachel. I may have lost my human body. But I've gained wings. And flying is ... well, I'm sure you've daydreamed about it. I know I used to. I'd sit in class, gazing out at the sky, or lie back in the grass, looking up, and wonder what it would be like to have wings. To be able to fly up and up and away from all the stupid little problems of life.

Flying is as wonderful as you'd think. It has problems, too, like anything else. But oh man, on a warm day with the mountains of fluffy white clouds showing the way to the thermal updrafts, it's just wonderful.

"So where are we going? We're not heading toward the car wash," Rachel pointed out.

I snapped alert. I looked down at the ground, spotting the familiar road grids and buildings I knew so well from this angle. We were in an area bordering the forest. Not far from Cassie's farm. "What am I doing herel" I asked. "l must have spaced. Sorry. This way."

I cranked a hard left turn and beat my wings to gain some speed. Rachel has to deal with the two-hour limit. We'd wasted a lot of that time. I couldn't believe I'd spaced out so badly.

We flapped hard for a while.

"Um . . . Tobias? Am I crazy, or are we right back where we were?" I looked down at the ground. She was right. We were right back in the same area by the edge of the forest.

I felt a cold chill. "No way," I whispered.

"Are you lost?"

"Lost? Of course not," I said. "l don't get lost. We're heading just south of east. I know exactly where we are. But this isn't where I was heading."

"ls there something going on here?" Rachel asked.

"This makes no sense," I said. "l was heading for -"

And that's when I saw it happen.

We were gliding over the edge of the forest. Farmland on one side, all green and perfectly squared. Then a band of scruffy brush and fallen-down wire fence. Then the trees - elms, oaks, various pines.

The trees extended in a long sweep right, from the farmland up into the far-distant mountains. With my hawk's vision I could even see snow on those far-off peaks.

But that's not what I was noticing right then. What I was noticing right then was that a single huge oak tree was sliding to one side.

Just sliding. Like it had no roots. Like it was

on a skateboard or something. A huge oak tree just slid over.

And beneath the oak there appeared a hole in the ground.

"What is that?" Rachel demanded.

"You got me," I said.