OCR by Nihtelek

My name is Rachel.
And I was facing down a Controller in a purpleand-pink Dunkin' Donuts uniform. He was holding a Dracon beam. Smirking. The little jerk.
Tseeew! Tseeew!
He fired at point-blank range. Hit me right between my three-foot-long tusks.
"HhhhREEEEEuuuhhh!" I roared in pain and anger. Mostly anger. Like a couple of Dracon beam blasts are enough to take down a thirteenhundred-pound African elephant.
Yeah, an elephant. I can morph into animals whenever I want. I can also morph a cat and a cockroach and lots of other animals and bugs. Sounds like fun, right?

Wrong. Like, about one percent of the time it's not seriously unpleasant. Mostly morphing is a weapon. A weapon in the most desperate battle ever fought by human beings.

Here's the deal. Earth is under attack. The planet has been invaded by aliens called Yeerks. These guys aren't into exploring strange new worlds. They're into exploring strange new bodies. They're parasites. Like lice or ringworm. Only intensely worse.

In their natural state, Yeerks are nothing but gray slugs. Until they infest a host body, enter the brain, sink down into the little crevices, and take complete control.

Once they have you, you can't focus your own eyes, or draw your own breath, or decide when to pee. You are powerless. A slave of the most complete and hopeless kind.

You can still do one thing. Just one terrible thing: You can watch in horror as the Yeerk in your head lies to your family, betrays your friends, plots to take over your planet.

Frightening?
Oh, yeah. And it gets worse.
Me and my friends are all that actively stand

between the Yeerks and their evil conquest of humanity. Just a group of five kids and a young alien.

We're trying to hold on until help gets here from a few billion light-years away. See, the Yeerks have enemies. A race of amazingly advanced aliens called Andalites.

Andalites look like deer. If deer had blueand-tan fur, humanoid arms, and scorpionlike tails tipped with wickedly sharp blades. Andalites also have two main eyes, on their face, and two on swiveling stalks that sprout from the top of their head. Beautiful and intelligent and cunning.

Not too long ago — who am I kidding, what seems like a lifetime ago — an Andalite ship got fried right above Earth. Torn out of the sky while battling the Yeerks. My friends and I saw it fall. Saw the dying Andalite war prince named Elfangor crawl from the wreckage. Listened, stunned and just a little freaked out, as he gave us the technology that allows us to morph. To acquire the DNA of any animal we touch and then to become that animal. But there was one rule we had to follow: Stay in morph for more than two hours and you stay there forever. Become what the Andalites call a nothlit Stuck in your morph for the rest of your life. Someone who means a lot to me knows about this firsthand. He'd stayed in morph too long and now he lives his life as a red-tailed hawk. He did regain his

morphing ability, but when he demorphs he's not a human. He's a bird. The sad part — at least for me — is that he seems to like his life the way it is now.

But even though it seems futile, we've been fighting ever since.
Trying to hold on even though we've just about given up waiting for any more help out of the sky.
So here we are: Jake, our leader and my cousin; Cassie, my best friend; Marco, Jake's best friend and a totally annoying — never mind; Tobias, a lost soul with the body of a bird; and Elfangor's younger brother, Aximili-EsgarrouthIsthill. We call him Ax.
Oh, there's one important thing I forgot to mention: Yeerks feed on something called Kandrona rays.
The Yeerks' need for Kandrona is the one flaw in their strategy. A weakness, an opening we can exploit. Every three days, thousands of Yeerks gather together at the enormous Yeerk pool complex built under our town.
Destroy the pool and the Yeerks will starve.
We just found out from our android allies, the Chee, that the Yeerks were beginning mass production of portable Kandronas. The heads of the Yeerk organization have had access to these for a while now. But mass production? That meant each and every Yeerk, no matter how low down on the corporate ladder, would be able to feed in the privacy of his or her own home as easily as you nuke a frozen pizza. The Yeerk pool would be obsolete. Our enemies would be rid of their only flaw.
We just couldn't let it happen.
So we'd attacked their factory, a dingy old industrial building on the edge of town, windows painted black. The Yeerks had disguised it as a Dunkin' Donuts bakery. The human-Controllers were even dressed in the ever-so-stylish polyester fast-food uniforms.
The Pepto-Bismol pink poly did not help my mood. Neither did the fact that we were way outnumbered.
Thirty human-Controllers were working on a crude assembly line in the back of the building. Four more were pretending to make donuts up front. There were at least a dozen guards.
I wrapped my trunk around a Controller's waist, tossed my massive head, and let go.
"Ahhhhhhhh!" he yelled, as he went flying. Then —
THUMP!
I didn't see where he landed.
"HhhhREEEEEuuuuhhh!" I trumpeted.

Jake, Cassie, Ax, and Tobias were back by the assembly line, on the other side of a false wall. I couldn't see them but the elephant's ears were picking up moans and roars and cries and Dracon beam blasts. Also, something that sounded like equipment smashing to the floor.

Marco was on my side of the wall, in gorilla morph. Three Controllers surrounded him. He lashed out with his ham-sized hands but the Controllers were slowly backing him against one of the three commercial ovens.

<Marco! I'm on my way!> I shouted.
<Just when I'm having so much fun.> The Controllers had their backs to me. Didn't

see me coming.
I grabbed the middle one. Tossed.
"Aaaahhhhhhh!" he yelled.
Now they knew I was there.
The right one turned his handheld Dracon

beam at me.
Too slow.
I grabbed him. Tossed.
"Nnnnnoooooo!" he shouted.
Marco moved forward. Knocked the Dracon

beam out of the third Controller's hand. Whacked him a solid gorilla punch to the jaw. The guy went down. And stayed there.

Marco and I looked around. Our part of the factory was littered with downed humanControllers. Yeerks who wouldn't be causing us any headaches for a long, long time.

<Let's bail!> Jake shouted. <Ax says we've got three minutes left to stay in morph!>
I powered through the main entrance, taking most of the door frame with me. Three minutes to demorph or be stuck as an elephant for the rest of my life.
The others were right behind me. Ax in his own Andalite body. Jake moving fluidly in his tiger morph. Cassie as a wolf, fast and low. Tobias, the red-tailed hawk. And Marco, a gorilla, bringing up the rear.
We ran. Down the deserted alleyway where we'd left our outer clothing. The pavement was damp. Strange misty halos ringed the sodiumvapor lights way overhead.
Not a minute to spare. Crowded in around the stinking Dumpsters and piles of oily, wet rags, we stopped.
<Nice work, guys,> Jake said. <Let's get out of here.>
I focused on my own body, and felt the changes begin.
My tusks went flaccid, like two overgrown pieces of spaghetti. They slurped up into my face, slapping side to side as they retracted.

Morphing is not attractive. Actually, it's pretty much a freak show.
My eyes sort of moved up and down as they traveled from the sides of my shrinking head to the front. Things went blurry for a second until human sight blinked on. And then —

" Hahooo wwwas that?" Cassie demanded with a mouth that was half-wolf and half-human. <A small explosion of light,> Ax said. <l believe it is part of a primitive visual recording device called a camera.>
"WHAT?" Marco exploded. "Someone took a

picture of me? Not cool. Do you see what I'm wearing? I'm Spandex-boy. Totally not cool."

I heard a garbage can tumbling over. Squeaky footsteps on the wet pavement. Someone was running away!

"Everyone stay put," Jake said. "We can't let anyone see us. Tobias?"

<l'm on it.> Tobias flapped his wings and rose up over Marco's head.
"Well, this is great, isn't it?" Marco said. "We close down a Yeerk-run operation only to let some tabloid photographer sneak up on us. I bet we're on the cover of the National Enquirer tomorrow."
"You don't know it was a professional photographer," Cassie argued.
"A kid can hope, can't he?"
"Not funny." Jake, his mouth pressed into a grim line.
One of the reasons we've survived as long as we have is that the Yeerks don't know who we are. They think we're a group of "Andalite bandits."
If they found out we were a bunch of human kids we'd be dead or infested within hours. No doubt our entire families, too.
"I'm going with Tobias," I said grimly. I concentrated on the bald eagle DNA buried somewhere deep inside me. Demorphing and morphing — especially after battle — is exhausting. But I couldn't just stand around and wait. So much easier to do something. Anything. The first thing to change was my mouth. My lips bulged out. Grew hard and stiff and turned yellow.
THUD! I fell forward as my legs rapidly shrank. The slimy bricks of the alleyway rushed up at me.
A feather tattoo started at my fingertips and covered my arms in a few seconds. Suddenly, the pattern sprang up and my arms and legs were covered with actual feathers. The feathers were dark brown, except for the snowy-white ones that replaced my blond hair and the skin of my face and neck.
My feet split open and formed yellow talons, each of which ended in a hooked claw. Claws that could grab a swimming fish out of a rushing river. My human bones became hollow and light.
Moments later, I was airborne, cruising soundlessly over the deserted streets. I could see the "Dunkin' Donuts" bakery a few blocks away. Rubble spilled out the door. Nobody was stirring.
The whole neighborhood was quiet. Which was good. No commando force of Controllers. Not yet, anyway.
There! I spotted Tobias maybe two hundred yards ahead and to my right, flying over some mid-rise buildings.
<Tobias!> I called. <Who was it?>
<Some kid,> he said. <About our age. He had one of those disposable cameras.>
<Where is he?> I asked.
<l lost him,> Tobias said grimly. <He ran into that building with the pigeon cages on the roof.>
<Let's go after him,> I said.
<No sign of him through any of the windows. But it's getting dark and I don't have the best vision for this job at night.>
Neither did the bald eagle. But by then I knew the others were on their way. When Jake felt it was safe they'd gone owl and followed us. The six of us circled the building, waiting for the kid to come back out or appear in a window. Nothing happened except that the strange mist turned into a steady downpour.
Jake made the call. <We need to keep an eye on this kid,> he said. <But there's no need for all of us to be here. Ax, Tobias, take the first watch. >
We arranged a quick schedule then split up.
I didn't sleep well that night. I spent two hours dreaming I was on the cover of Time magazine as a half-human, half-elephant freak. Not exactly the kind of fame that makes Mom and Dad proud.
At three o'clock, I morphed owl and flew back to the apartment building. Tobias and Ax reported that they hadn't seen anything. Cassie and I spent the next two hours flying in endless circles.
Jake and Marco relieved us at five.
I went back to my bed and my nightmares of exposure and infestation.
By eight-thirty Saturday morning, I was awake and heading to Cassie's barn for a meeting. I was tired and grumpy. The weather was rainy and cold. I wanted a nap. Maybe after we got the film.
Tobias was in his usual spot in the rafters. Cassie was mucking out a stall. Marco was sitting on a stool, looking all conditioned and blown-dry. Jake kept yawning. He looked rumpled, like he'd just crawled out of bed. Which he probably had.
Ax was back on watch at the kid's apartment building.
"Let's try to keep this meeting short," Jake said. "I don't want Ax on surveillance alone."
"I don't get it," Marco said. "What was that kid doing all night?"
"Probably sleeping," I grumbled.
<We need a plan,> Tobias said.
"Easy. We steal the film," I suggested.
"That's not a plan, 0 reckless one," Marco said snidely. "That's obvious. But I'm ready."
Jake nodded. "I spotted the kid around dawn. His apartment is on the fifth floor. The bedroom faces an empty lot in back."
"Did you see the camera?" Rachel asked.
"I think so," Jake said. "On his desk."
"We get it now," I said. "Before he hands it over to someone or takes it to Photos 'R' Us."
Cassie leaned against her rake. "Probably a hundred people live in that apartment building," she pointed out. "Some of them could be Controllers."
"Yeah," Marco said. "So maybe the kid is in the elevator with a neighbor and he just happens to mention these weird creatures he saw in a dark alleyway last night. Before you know it, there's a knock on your door. And it isn't someone with a check for a million dollars."
<He could be a Controller himself,> Tobias said.
"We've got to go in," Jake said with another yawn. "We could try —"
ZZZZZiiiiipppppp!
"What the — ?" Marco jumped to his feet.
A radio-controlled toy car blew into the barn. More precisely, a slightly damp, pink-and-aqua Barbie 4x4 . Only instead of Barbie, a very small spaceship sat in the driver's seat. The ship was three or four inches long, shaped like a baton with two big "engines" at the back and a death'shead bridge in the front.
The ship looked way too familiar.
insignificant creatures! Give us the power source and learn to accept your fate as our eternal slaves! We will not crush and annihilate you as we will crush and annihilate all the inferior species of this planet!>
"Oh, man," I said. "You've got to be kidding. Not these guys again."

O Most Powerful Emperor, Lord of the Galaxy! Bad news. Our ship's engines have again malfunctioned! The treacherous popinjay males pushed the red button instead of the blue one! Weaker and less worthy servants would be vanquished by this disaster! But the brave Helmacron females are undaunted! We alone will capture the blue box of transforming power! All the galaxy shall tremble before us, rightful leaders of our race!

— From the log of the Helmacron Females
Tseeew! Tseeew!

I felt two pinpricks on my neck. Like mini mosquito bites. "Ahhh! Owww!"
Maybe it was the lack of sleep, but I was already extremely ticked off. I wanted to pop those little jerks.
"The Helmacrons," Marco said with an amazed shake of his head. "I can't believe someone hasn't blasted these maniacs out of the universe by now." The Helmacrons are a race of tiny aliens. About a sixteenth of an inch tall, tops. But it's a sixteenth of an inch of egomania. They sound pretty harmless, right? Wrong. They have this shrinking ray. The technology to make you very, very tiny. To bring you down to their size. This makes them both annoying and dangerous.
<You would have the Lords of the Universe wait?> the Helmacron voice in my head blustered. <We demand the power source! And we demand it now! Follow our orders and live as our debased swine! Or resist us and be blasted into twisted molecules! See our might. Learn to obey your new masters!>
"I don't get it," Jake said. "We already gave them one jump start. Why are they here again?" "Who cares?" I asked. "Let's just get rid of them."
"Maybe something went wrong with their ship," Cassie said. "Hey — where are they going?" The Barbie-mobile backed up, did a 180, and zipped toward the back of the barn.
"Let's go!" Marco said.
We got up and trotted after them. I could hear Tobias flapping above us. We caught up in time to see the truck's rubber tires bounce off a battered freezer chest in one of the empty stalls.
Jake met Cassie's eyes. "Is it in there?"
"Yes."
"It" was the blue box. That's what we call it. The Andalites have another name for it. Several actually. Anyway, it's the device they use to transfer the morphing power to an individual. Kind of like a super-advanced alien battery. Elfangor used it on us.
Last time we saw the Helmacrons, we made a deal with them. They could use the blue box to power up their engines. Then they had to get off Earth. Pronto. And stay off Earth. Forever.
Obviously, they hadn't kept their half of the bargain.
<They're cutting into the freezer!> Tobias announced.
I couldn't see anything, but hawks have amazing vision. You'd have to have outstanding eyesight to see what the Helmacrons were doing with their tiny energy beams.
Cassie shot a nervous look over her shoulder. "My dad doesn't need to see this."
"No problem," I said. I grabbed a pitchfork that was leaning up against the wall. "I'll get them."
"I'll help." Marco grabbed a ceramic pot. "I'm gonna trap these weirdos like bugs under glass."
We moved toward the freezer.
The pink-and-aqua truck spun around and raced right between us.
Marco pounced.
I pounced and jabbed the pitchfork down on top of the truck. Vaguely aware that my elbow had hit Marco and that he was stumbling backward, clutching his head.
So what? The Helmacron ship had rolled off the truck and was tumbling toward the freezer. All I had to do was grab it.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Marco lose his footing and trip.
"Get it!" Cassie screamed.
"Lookout!"
THUNK!
Marco. Sliding down the side of the freezer. Slumping forward into the hay.
"What happened?" I demanded.
"Marco hit his head on the corner of the freezer," Jake said.
Cassie had already rushed to Marco's side. "Marco? Marco? Can you hear me?"
No reply. He was out cold.
"Man, these Helmacrons are bad news," I complained.
Jake raised an eyebrow. "Rachel, you were the one who elbowed Marco in the head."
"Because the little monsters were distracting me!"
<They're getting away!> Tobias shouted.
I glanced down. The Helmacron ship was right where it had fallen. I picked it up. "No worries," I said. "I've got them."
Tobias swooped toward Marco's head and narrowly missed grazing Cassie with his talons.
"Hey, watch out!" Cassie yelled.
<They're getting away,> Tobias repeated.
Then I got it. The Helmacrons had bailed out of their ship. They were loose somewhere in the barn.
"Where are they?" I demanded.
<Heading straight for Marco's nose!> "What?" But I was already down on my knees, inches from Marco's face.
Frantically, I scanned the hay and dirt. <Move!> Tobias ordered. <Get away from him so I can see.>
Cassie and I scrambled back.
<Oh, no,> Tobias said. <This is bad. Very, very bad.>
"What?" Jake demanded.
<They went up his nose,> Tobias said. "How many?"
<About a dozen.>
<Hah-HAH!> one of the Helmacrons cried. <The vicious human attacks us with a mighty metallic weapon, but we are not defeated! Give us the power source now and we will kill you quickly! Hesitate and we will prod you with sharp sticks before you die!>
"Give me one good reason why we should cooperate with you pipsqueaks," I demanded.
<Grovel and beg our forgiveness!> the Helmacron demanded. <Do as we say or your oblivious comrade will die!>
"News flash," I said. "Keep threatening us and you'll never get off Earth alive."
<Brave Helmacron females care nothing for their own safety!> the voice shouted. <We care only for glorious victory!>
<As do we, the newly liberated and courageous Helmacron males!> came another voice.
<We will kill the gigantic alien!> the first voice shouted.
<Not if we kill it first,> the second voice answered.
Then the Helmacrons fell silent. Probably beginning their march deeper into Marco's nose.
"What's this about male and female?" Jake asked.

•Ml

Cassie shrugged. "Don't you remember? When the Helmacrons were here before, Marco and I kind of gave the males a little .. . pep talk. We didn't like the way the females were always bossing them around."

"Yeah. Okay. This is a good thing," Jake said. "Because now the Helmacrons have even more reasons to fight among themselves."

M arco woke up about two seconds later. He took one look at the three of us staring into his face and got real worried, real fast.

"What happened?" he demanded, rubbing the back of his head and giving me a murderous look.

"Well, not anything good," I said. "Not anything you're going to like."
"What's the matter?" Marco asked.
"The Helmacrons kind of. . ." Jake started.
<You're sort of. . .> Tobias said.
"A hostage," Cassie provided.
Marco's eyes went wide. But before he could ask any questions —
"Ah! Ah! AhCHOOOO!" He sneezed, cupping his hand over his mouth.
"Did he sneeze them out?" Jake demanded.
<l don't see them,> Tobias reported. <Marco, open your hand.>
Marco glared at us and climbed to his feet. "What is the matter with you people?" he demanded suspiciously. "Why are you interested in my bodily fluids? Where are the Helmacrons?"
Cassie came forward and slipped an arm around Marco. "They cleared out of their ship," she said calmly. "And they went up your nose."
"To hide?"
"Well, no," Jake said. "More like —and I'm just guessing—it's because they want to kill you."
"No way!" Marco rubbed at his nose. Let out a snort. "That is so not okay with me!"
"Calm down," Cassie said.
"Calm down?!" Marco bellowed. "I have Helmacrons up my nose! Lunatics! And they want me dead! No, I most definitely will not calm down."
"I just thought we could think more clearly without you shouting," Cassie said.
"Think about what?" Marco demanded. "We have to get them out! They're armed. They might blow an artery or a, a — something else important! What exactly do we have to think about? Do something!"
"We will!" I shouted. "Just give us time to think!"
Marco frowned and flicked at his nose. "Tobias, you'd better get Ax," Jake said. "First, see if you can get Erek to keep watch for us. He won't be able to follow the kid with the camera if he leaves the building but at least we'll know where he is."
Tobias flared his wings and was gone. "Can we go in after them?" Jake asked. Cassie made a face. "Smallest morph .. . I guess a flea is small enough to get into nasal passages. It might be tight, though. Maybe a tick?" "Ticks are useless in battle," I said.
"Excuse me," Marco cried. "Are you planning to have a BATTLE in my NOSE?!"
"You have a better suggestion?" I demanded. "No," Marco whimpered, slumping down on a bale of hay.
"Ideas?" Jake demanded.
Cassie sighed. "Well .. . we have the Helmacrons' ship. We could power it up with the morphing cube, get tiny, and go after the Helmacrons as humans. That is, assuming the controls are still working."
Nobody said anything for a few beats.

Considering.
Pretending not to glance at Marco.
I know Marco. Marco is a get-it-done guy. He

has the strategic mind of a serious military man and he's never afraid to make unpopular decisions for the good of the mission. He knew our going after the Helmacrons was the fastest way to solve the problem. He wasn't going to stand in the way of the goal.

Still, we were talking about invading his body in an unbelievably intimate way. He had a right to be a jerk about it if he wanted to be.

"That could work," Jake said tentatively. Nothing from Marco.
<What could work?> Tobias asked.
A red-tailed hawk and a northern harrier fluttered into the barn and settled into the rafters. Tobias and Ax.

"We were just thinking about using the controls aboard the Helmacron ship to shrink ourselves and go after the aliens in Marco's nose," Jake explained.

<Yes,> Ax said. <l believe it is the only way. We have to find the Helmacrons. They have too much informations

Marco squeaked. "This is so Magic School Bus. Rachel, have I ever told you that you could definitely be my Ms. Frizzle?"

I ignored him.
"What information?" Cassie demanded. But Marco had already figured it out. "The

Helmacrons know we're humans with morphing power. From what we've seen, the Helmacrons hate the Yeerks and vice versa. But if the Helmacrons learn that Visser Three is looking for a group of morphing bandits, and there was something in it for them, the Helmacrons would sell us out in a minute."

Jake sighed. "Okay, we go after them. No choice."
"Isn't anyone going to ask me what I think?" Marco demanded, his arms wrapped around his belly. "The nose you're talking about happens to belong to me!"
Like I said, I know Marco. He'd already accepted the plan.
Jake gave Marco an impatient look. "Well?"
"Oh, sure," Marco said weakly. "Make yourself at home. Just try to be neat. Think of it as the National Nose Land. Keep it in good shape for generations to come."

Ax fluttered down from the rafters. Jake nodded. "Tobias?"
<No problem.>
Tobias would keep watch. Let us know if anyone got close enough to the barn to see Ax do his thing.

Ax began to change. His sharp raptor head ballooned up. His bright yellow harrier eyes migrated to the top of his head, turned blue, and sprouted stalks.

Total freak show.
"Why did the Helmacrons have to show up today?" Marco whined. "I already used my Honey, I Shrunk the Animorphs joke the last time they were around. I just can't get a break."
Cassie went to the freezer and started digging for the morphing cube. I followed her. Mostly because the sick look on Marco's face was making me uneasy.
"Why does your dad keep a freezer out here?" I asked her.
"We store stuff in it," Cassie said. She handed me an unidentifiable lump of something. It was frozen solid, so cold my fingers started to ache.
"Like what?"
"Frozen grubs," Cassie said, leaning back down into the freezer. "Certain, urn, bodily fluids from the animals. Oh, and Popsicles. Dad likes grape."
"Sorry I asked." I considered the frozen lump in my hand. Decided I didn't want to know.
"I figured nobody in their right mind would go pawing through this freezer," Cassie said. "Besides, I needed a place where no living creature could accidentally come into contact with the cube."
"I'm with you on that one," I agreed.
Ax went to work on the Helmacron ship.
I watched for a while. He used some of the surgical equipment Cassie's dad kept in the barn. Held the precise instruments in his delicate Andalite fingers and carefully manipulated control rods the size of human hairs. Squinting at the procedure for ten minutes was enough to give me a headache.

?8 29

My eyes kept drifting to Marco. Still sitting on the hay, looking miserable. I wandered over to him. Sat next to him. Considered giving him a hug, but couldn't quite bring myself to actually doit.

"You okay?" I asked. "Great. I always wanted to grow up to be a

Helmacron Holiday Inn."
It wasn't funny, but I smiled anyway. "We're
going to get them," I told Marco.
An hour later Ax was finished.
<This device is very simple to operate,> Ax
told us. <The target size has been set. All we
have to do is touch this panel and it should engage the shrinking ray.>
I felt wired. Nervous energy. I was anxious to
get moving. The Helmacrons had been in Marco's
body for over an hour. Plenty of time to do plenty
of damage.
"Just show me which button to push," Marco
told Ax eagerly.
Jake looked at Marco. "You're going to shrink
us?"
"Who else?"
"I thought Ax would do it."
"Isn't he going, you know, on the mission?"
Marco asked.
"Well, we know there are at least twelve Helmacrons," I said. "Five of us. Even with Ax they outnumber us more than two to one. I say he
comes."
<Operating the device is not difficulty Ax repeated. <l may be more useful up Marco's nose.> Marco giggled nervously. "That didn't sound
too weird."
Jake looked troubled. "Marco, don't you want
to have someone here with you?" he asked. "You mean, in case I collapse?" Marco asked.
"Pass out? Or, to make things crystal clear, drop
dead?"
Jake rubbed his eyes. "Right," he said wearily. "No." Marco shook his head. "If you don't
mind, I'd rather have the maximum firepower
working to make sure none of those things happen. What's Ax going to do for me here? Hold my
hand?"
"We still have the camera to deal with," Jake
pointed out.
"I'll handle the kid," Marco said. "One homey
shutterbug is nothing compared to a tiny bunch
of squabbling psychopaths from outer space." Jake's expression got serious. "Look, you can't
take unnecessary risks while this mission is going on. Don't play hero. Just keep in touch with
Erek or whoever he's got on surveillance." <Prince Jake,> Ax said, <l would also strongly
advise Marco not to morph while we are inside
his body. As far as I know, this is an unprece

dented event in the history of morphing technology. There is no way to predict what the redistribution of his mass into Z-space and the substitution of a foreign DNA will do to our miniaturized bodies.>

Jake pushed his hair off his forehead. "Got that, Marco?"
"Uh, not really. Ax, try English."
"Look," Jake said. "No morphing, under any circumstances."
"Don't worry," Marco snorted. "The thought sort of makes me sick."
"Okay, Ax, you're with us," Jake said. "I'm hoping we won't be gone long. But Marco . . ."
"Yeah, yeah, Erek's phone number is on the fridge. Listen, is it okay if I help myself to a snack after the kids go to bed?"
"All of this strategic planning is fun and all," I said loudly. "But we're giving the Helmacrons a big honkin' head start."
"Okay," Jake said. "In the words of my gungho cousin, 'Let'sdo it.'"
"We should hold hands," Cassie said. "That way we won't get separated when we shrink. Maybe."
The five of us huddled together. I took Cassie's hand and gently held Tobias's wing. We watched as Marco hovered over the Helmacron ship, looking too big and clumsy.
<Simply place your hand on the panel and pull down the left rod,> Ax said.
"Yeah, I got it," Marco said. "Ready, set —"
<Make sure it is the left rod,> Ax said. <You do not want to touch the right one.>
"I got it," Marco said, sounding annoyed. "Ready—"
FLASH!
A flashbulb brilliance. The light was green and shockingly bright, like looking into an emerald sun. Then, with surprising speed, we all started to get very small.

Down.
Down, and down, and down.
We were shrinking. Fast.
The Helmacron ship and the blue box were

growing larger. Marco was positively enormous. "Hey, Marco," I said. "From this angle, you
actually look tall."
"Hey —cool!"
"Too bad you can't shrink the whole school," I
said.
"Ha-ha. And, free this month only, a bonus
ha!"
Shrinking is something like morphing an insect. But different, too. When I've been in fly morph the fly instincts feel that being tiny is nat
ural.
Being a teeny-weeny human is just plain weird. I'd started out at five-foot-something. Now I
was roughly the size of an American Girl doll.
And getting tinier rapidly.
We were the Littles. The Borrowers. Thumbelina and friends.
Marco was peering down on us. His face was
the size of a billboard on Times Square. If he'd
been wearing Calvin Klein briefs — and nothing
else — the illusion would have been complete.
Almost.
"Remember, Marco," Jake called. "No morphing."
"What did you say?" Marco asked. "Small
people are hard to hear."
"I said, no morphing!" But at that point it
probably sounded like, "i said, no morphing."
"I can't HEAR you!" Marco was starting to
sound like a cheerleader at one of those televised
competitions.
"Tell him," Jake said to Ax.
<No morphing!> Ax yelled in thought-speak. "Okay!" Marco boomed. "Your puny lives depend on my following orders."
That was when the first wave of fear rippled
through me.
Okay, morphing is creepy. But, in a strange
way, you're in control.
Concentrate hard enough and you can control
the morph, at least to some extent.
Concentrate hard enough and even when you
think you're about to take your dying breath, you
can get your own body back.
But shrinking . . .
I couldn't undo this on my own.
In a very real and spooky way, my life was in
Marco's hands.
And, of course, Marco was infested with microscopic lunatics that wanted him — and us — out
of their way.
Now we were flea-sized, and still shrinking. The workbench loomed overhead like a windowless skyscraper.
The treads on Marco's running shoes were
like enormous purple sculptures.
Down.
Down, and down, and down.
Down until rake marks in the dirt looked like
hills.
Down until bits of hay were huge, felled trees
and grains of dirt were the size of soccer balls. And we were still shrinking.
Marco's mammoth form was entirely filling
my view. "I just thought of some —"
His voice just blinked out mid-sentence. Like a radio suddenly switched off. But I knew Marco was still talking. I could sense his words as sound
waves breaking around me.
Cassie gripped my hand a bit tighter. "What
just happened?"
<We are too small to hear sounds,> Ax said. "That didn't happen before," Cassie said. <Right,> Tobias agreed. <When the Helmacrons shrunk me and Cassie and Marco, we could
still hear. You couldn't hear us. But we could
hear you.>
Cassie looked at me. "Something's wrong."