"Get close to a person. Stay with that person till you're in the walkway. We can figure it out from there."

I saw a human head below me. Zoomed down toward it. No! I pulled back.

The guy was bald. He'd probably have felt me land. There! A woman with big hair. Excellent. I landed on hairs like starched anchor cables. I could feel the breeze blowing past as we moved slowly forward.

The quality of the light changed and the sounds I heard seemed to echo.

We were in the access tunnel. Then, a voice saying, "Hello, welcome aboard!"

I was aboard the jet. "Everyone here?" I asked. They were. I breathed a sigh of relief. Actually, that's just an expression. I had no lungs.

I landed on the overhead. It was perforated plastic. Lots of holes in what looked like a circular pattern. I straddled one of the holes and looked down at the people getting into their seats.

"Ax, keep track of the time, okay?"

"Yes, Prince Jake."

"You know I don't want you to call me Prince Jake. I am not a prince."

"Yes, Prince Jake, I know."

"Good, as long as we're clear on that"

We waited. And we waited. And Ax counted off the minutes. Andalites have a natural ability to keep track of time. It had been fifteen minutes since we'd morphed in the men's room.

Finally, I felt the deep, disturbing vibrations from the engines go higher and higher. I realized I was resting on the cover for a speaker when the flight attendant announced everyone should put on seat belts.

The sound nearly blew me off my perch.

I zipped around aimlessly for a minute before coming to rest on the latch of an overhead luggage rack.

"How's everyone doing?" I asked.

"Twenty minutes have elapsed," Ax said.

"And how long is this flight, Marco?"

"An hour and thirty minutes. That leaves us fifteen minutes to get off the plane at the other end and demorph."

"That's a bit tight," Rachel observed.

"Yeah."

There wasn't a lot to do as the plane rumbled down the runway and rose into the air. The flight was basically boring. Until they served the meal.

Oh, man, you have no idea how much my fly body wanted to go down and land on that Salisbury steak and splash around in the gravy.

But that would have been suicidal.

"You know, airline food tastes much better this way," Marco said.

"WHAT?"

"Relax, it's a meal some guy already ate. I'm in the leftovers."

"WHAT?"

"Excuse me, miss, but there seem to be a lot of flies on this plane."

I heard the voice and it was like the announcement that calls you to the principal's office. It scared me.

"Did everyone hear that?"

"Hear what?" Tobias asked. "Everyone's talking. The whole plane is - "

"Someone just complained about the flies. About us."

"I'll see what I can do, sir," a second voice answered.

"They're going to see what they can do!"

"I'd appreciate that. See, I am on the board of directors of this airline, and I just saw a fly land in my Salisbury steak."

"Marco!"

"Yes, sir! I'll take care of it!"

"Ax! How much time till we land?"

"0kay. Everyone toward the back of the plane! Get out of first class!" We took off, six suddenly active flies. We zoomed toward the back. We zoomed crazily along the ceiling. We zoomed through the curtain that separates first class from the normal people. I figured we were safe.

Then ...

Disturbance!

I felt the air roil as a huge object came flying toward me.

I stopped, turned, and shot away to my right just as five fingers the size of redwoods swept past, raising a tornado in their wake.

I landed on the overhead and tried to calm my nerves.

"Man, that was close," I muttered. "Everyone still okay? How much time do we have, Ax?"

I never heard his answer. I felt a hand coming toward me again. I sprang off the ceiling, buzzed my wings, dodged . . . and was hit by the second hand. The one that had been waiting for me.

"Aaaahhhh!" The hand caught me! I was pressed back against a wall of flesh. It was like being swept along by a broom, i buzzed my wings, but then I realized one wing was damaged. I couldn't get away.

I saw the wall coming toward me. It was a thousand tiny images of doom in my compound

eyes. And there was nothing I could do. It was one of those nightmares where you see something terrible about to happen, but you can't move or even cry out.

WHAAAM!

It hit. I felt the massive hand press violently down on me.

I had been swatted.

J. was in the crack of the hand's lifeline. And because of that tiny indentation, I had not died.

But I was shattered.

My left wing was gone, ripped away. My right wing barely moved. I was blind in my right eye.

Four of my legs were broken. But by far the worst was that my body, my green-black body, had burst open.

But there was no pain. No pain. Just terror.

"Aaaahhh! Aaaahhh! Aaaahhh!"

"Jake! What happened?" Cassie cried.

"Jake, what's the matter?"

"l ... I got hit."

"Are you okay?" Tobias asked.

"No. I'm busted up pretty bad. I can't fly. I

can't move. I'm like, stuck. Stuck to the ceilings

"0h, my God," Cassie gasped.

"He'll be okay if he demorphs," Marco said.

"How is he going to demorph?" Tobias demanded. "He's squished on the ceiling. He de-morphs, it'll be right in front of a whole planeload of people."