I wasn't exactly sure that I wanted to dive, but what could I say? I don't usually turn down a challenge. So I said, <Sure. >
(here is Rachel feeling nervous and hiding it because thatâs not her Role for the first time... that we know of)
But even though it was scary, it was also way cool.
Not that itâs a role that sheâs particularly unsuited too, though.
<This isn't like being an elephant. If I got in trouble as an elephant I could morph back to my human body. But I'm a long way up. If I morphed back to my human body . . . > I didn't finish the sentence. But I suddenly had this vision of me, real me, Rachel, dropping like a stone toward the hard ground below.
I guess Tobias could sense the fear that was building in me.
I want to keep an eye out for this, see if this is a thing with them, that Tobias sees through her bravado more easily than the others. (Not that itâs hard at this point, granted.)
I would have smiled, if I'd had a mouth. Jake is like me. He loves excitement and adventure and being a little crazy. Maybe we're so alike because we're cousins.
Also, we're both a little competitive, I guess.
It bothered me that he was a faster diver than I was. Just like it bothered him that I could soar better.
Mind you, I donât remember that anyone else sees this in Jake. (or that Rachel continues to?)Â
<I can see them,> Cassie said. She and Marco had joined up with us. They had both morphed the same osprey.
I need someone to seriously analyse the Aniâs bird morphs, and in particular explain this to me. Why Cassie and Marco would both choose to morph osprey, why Applegate chose to have them double up.Â
<They're way too young to be drinking,> Marco said in his most parent-like voice.
There's an old, run-down church no one uses any more not far from the beach. It has a bell tower, although the bell is gone. We flew there. That's where we had started from.
That is a cool location. Someone else said they shouldâve gone there more often, and I find myself agreeing. Maybe if Cassieâs dad had actually used the barnÂ
Cassie, still in her osprey body, peered down at her watch lying on the floor. <Good. An hour and a half. We should try never to go over an hour and a half. >
Morphing takes concentration. When you're going from human to animal, it's harder. You really have to focus. But going back to human is easier.
In some places when my skin reappeared, it would have this beautiful feather pattern for a few seconds.
I swear this is mentioned every single time they morph or demorph from birds.
My yellow bill sucked back into my mouth to become white teeth. That part sort of itched... My lips grew out around my teeth.
Hereâs a horrible image for you: Rachel, between these two sentences.
As for me, well, it's not that I'm Miss Fashion or whatever, but I do like nice clothes.
Looks are not the important thing. It's what's in your head that counts, and that's what I concentrate on.
Of course that's another area where Cassie and I are a little different. I guess she would say, "No, it's what's in your heart that counts."
I swear she would wear overalls to a wedding if someone didn't stop her.
Thereâs fic of this, right?
tall, thin, with blonde shoulder-length hair. white teeth. eyes... my normal blue
Jake is kind of a big guy, strong-looking, with brown hair and serious, dark eyes
Marco is a little self-conscious about being short. He has long brown hair and a dark complexion, and most girls think he's really cute. But being small bothers him.
Tobias, who had once had unruly blond hair and eyes that seemed hurt and tender and hopeful all at once.
Physical descriptions of the Animorphs. Oddly, nothing on Cassie. Two paragraphs about her familyâs animal thing, nothing on what she looks like (here) except for the wings.
"One of us could jump off the tallest building and it would be totally realistic. Then we just morph into a bird on the way down and fly away."
I googled it, and apparently takes about 8.81 seconds to fall off the Empire State Building. (about) So. Either Jake doesnât know that at all, or? Cassie morphed her wings into arms in about three seconds and laughed gaily. and sheâs the best so I donât think 9 seconds is remotely possible.
We didn't take the shortcut through the construction site, like we would have in the old days,
he took the Andalite and... You know what? I really don't want to talk about that.Â
We all fell silent as we passed by the site.
Then I noticed that Cassie had stopped walking and was just standing there. I went back to her and realized that she was crying.
Flying around in the sky had been a wonderful distraction. But my head was still full of awful memories.
"Last night I had a terrible nightmare about the Yeerk pool. I was back down there. Down there in that vast open cave. And I was hearing the screams and cries of the people being dragged to the pool."
Cassie nodded. "You know what's worse than the screams? The way they stop screaming once the Yeerk is in their heads. Once they've become Controllers. Then you know they are slaves again. Lost."
we are young and traumatised. ):
Jake kind of stroked Cassie's head. I guess he got embarrassed, because he instantly pulled away.
Marco gave me a sour look. "This is what you want to keep doing? Risking our lives and the lives of everyone we know? For what?"
"For freedom," Cassie said simply.
Marco didn't have a smart answer to that.
"If there were some way for us to get close to Chapman . . ." Jake let the words hang in the air. He carefully didn't look at me. But I knew what he meant. He'd obviously been thinking about this for a while.
"Melissa?" I asked.
I felt a bitter taste in my mouth. Jake was right, of course. Chapman was the logical lead to follow. And Melissa was our way to get close.
It made sense. It made sense for me to betray an old friend.
It also made me feel like dirt.
I do it because I've always thought of myself as kind of clumsy. My mom
says I'm not, but that's how I feel anyway.
Besides, it's just cool, hitting the little spring board and flipping through the air to bounce off the vaulting horse and stick the landing. Not as cool as flying, maybe, but fun just the same.
why Rachel likes gymnastics
She has pale gray eyes and pale blonde hair and pale skin. She looks like one of those solemn elves in a Tolkien book. At first glance she looks delicate, but when you look a little closer, you see strength there, too.
Itâs kinda sad Melissa never showed up much.
That was a lie, of course. But what was I going to say? Yeah, Melissa, same old same old. Been turning into animals and fighting aliens. You know, the usual.
Frankly, Rachelâs thinking Mâs a Controller is, um. Well, rushing over when youâre hurt then drifting off later seems like the opposite of controller signs.
It used to be we were very close. She was my second best friend, after Cassie.
Interesting question: what does Cassie think of Melissa? Did they know each other well? Rachel asks Melissa to the mall and maybe that was their thing before they drifted apart and Cassieâs sort of been drafted into the shopping thing quite recently. Could be.
He reached for me and missed. I walked faster.
He was behind me.
I broke into a run.
He ran after me.
I had no idea what was going on here as a kid and am really glad of that.
I was shaking like a leaf when I walked into my house.
âCause I, like Rachel, was more scared of Chapman than that anonymous guy
She was at the kitchen table, half hidden by a pile of buff-colored books. My mother's a lawyer, and she brings work home a lot so she can be around me and my two little sisters.
I felt like saying, well, Mom, I don't have to watch things that are scary, I am scary. Should have seen me a little while ago with tusks sticking out of my mouth and a three-foot-long nose.
(I feel like âI am scaryâ ends up mattering a lot about Rachel.)
Cassie gave me an encouraging smile. "It was dumb putting yourself in that position, Rachel. You need to be more careful. But still, I'd have paid my next ten allowances to see the look on that guy's face."
I also feel like at least Cassie shouldâve been written to get it more. Lot of victim blaming through this bit.
what are you going to morph into? A cockroach?"
We all shuddered at the thought.
you are so young and innocent  (we kind of ignore the very basic trauma of morphing a lot, that your own body shifts into something that might disgust you, and certainly through states that disgust you)
But then I looked at the photos I had mounted in one of those big frames with six different holes. One was of me with my mom and dad on a whitewater rafting trip we took. One was of me visiting my dad at his job -- he's a weatherman on TV. We were grinning in front of a map of storms. Another picture was of Cassie and me riding horses side by side, with Cassie, as usual, looking like she'd spent her entire life in the saddle,
and me looking like a total dweeb.
Just going to finish up with copying that list of photosâof memories, of Rachelâs past.
