#tscaniquotes

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“I'm just saying there are people who should be lying out on the beach, and there are people who shouldn't be," Marco said. "Do you see fat hairy old guys in Speedos on Baywatch? No. No. On Baywatch they have a law against it. David Hasselhoff kicks anybody off the beach who isn't good-looking. We need the Hasselhoff law here. That's all I'm saying."

He felt somehow he was responsible for my feeling bad. He wanted to tell me that he didn't blame me. But he'd already told me, and I'd said thanks and still I felt bad. Marco didn't know how to deal with that. So he tried to make everyone laugh.

Jake stopped walking. "You don't have to do this, Cassie. The force of the impact... if you hit too fast...besides, maybe the Veleek isn't even around anymore..."

And some morphs...not many, but a few, are simply wonderful.

I was a creature with feet but no legs, hands that were flat and gray, and no arms. I had human eyes that still stung from the salt water, but a blowhole in the back of my neck. I was half-human, half-bottlenose dolphin.

It's hard to describe the way a whale communicates. The dolphins can hear their thought-speech, but it isn't words, really. More like strange, beautiful pictures that simply appear in your mind.

"So far-glublub-pah! Pah!" I spit salt water out of my mouth. "So far so good. I'm ready."

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<Should we try to keep the Veleek interested any longer?> I asked.

<No,> Jake said. <It's up to Cassie now.>

None of us had ever done so many morphs in such a short time. It was mind-boggling. It was impossible.

At the last second, the Veleek tried to break free. But it had wrapped itself too tightly around the prey that was no longer prey.

The tornado hit the water. All the billions of particles slammed into the ocean waves. In a split second, it was gone. Washed away.

Cassie yelled. <Take that, you big bag of wind!>

<What are you singing?> Jake asked her. <What are the words?>

<It isn't words, exactly,> Cassie said. <But if it were, it would be just one word: hope.>

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I focused my mind on one thing: morphing. No time to wonder where the ocean surface was. No time to worry about the Veleek. Morph. Morph. Morph.

And then, coming up to meet me like a tornado: the Veleek. It had sensed the morphing energy from my transformation back to human.

I focused my mind. But I was so tired. And it was so easy to just fall and fall and fall.

But I didn't have the strength. I was beaten. And then...at that moment, I felt the edge of the whale's brain brushing against mine. Its instincts, its DNA memories.

In a dream of falling and falling, I reached out to a dark, vast being that I could not define. I reached out for the whale's strength.

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It was not my favorite kind of flying. Hawks are not like geese. We can't just power-fly, hour after hour. Personally, I don't know how geese do it.

But I couldn't complain. Cassie had a worse job.

<Are you ever afraid?> she asked me.

<Who, me? I'm afraid of everything. I know I'm a predator and all, but do you know how many predators I have after me? Every golden eagle, every falcon. You know how fast they are? It's like getting hit by a bullet. They make me look like the Goodyear blimp. Then there are the raccoons and foxes and snakes and even the occasional nervy house cat. And that's just the natural environment. Add to that the Yeerks, and the fact that I wake up sometimes and don't remember exactly what I am, boy or bird...yeah, Cassie, I'm afraid a lot of the time.>

<Who says I handle it? There's only one way to deal with fear: Be afraid. Be afraid, and then go ahead and do what you have to do, anyway.>

A girl who thought she was a coward. It's amazing how people can just not know themselves at all.