-----My name is Tobias.
-----I'm one of the strangest creatures on this planet, a mix
of bird and human. Instead of waking up in a bed and eating a nice
bowl of Wheaties for breakfast, I wake up on a tree branch and eat
a mouse for breakfast. Or a shrew. Or a squirrel. I knew the teen
years were going to be tough, but I never expected this.
-----I am one of seven kids - six human and one alien - that
fight the Yeerks. The Yeerks are parasitic slugs from outer space.
They crawl into your brain, spread out like a living blanket, and
tie into your thoughts. They take you over. You can no longer move
your hands, eyes, or legs. The Yeerk moves them for you. When that
happens, you're called a Controller.
-----I know, you're probably thinking, "A few kids are the only
things between us and world domination?" But we have a great
power. The power to morph. We can touch any animal, acquire its
DNA, and then become that animal. That's where our name came from:
the Animorphs. There is only one big downside: Stay in a morph for
more than two hours, and you stay forever.
-----That's what happened to me. On our first mission, I stayed
in a red-tailed hawk morph for too long. I became a nothlit, the
Andalite word for a person trapped in morph. Recently, however, I
get my morphing powers back from a creature called and Ellimist.
But that's it. I'm still in a hawk body. Although I've pretty much
gotten used to my strange life.
-----Each of us has our own role in the group. Jake is our
leader. Rachel is the reckless one, always ready to do even the
scariest of missions. I'm the 'guard:' with my eyes, I can see an ant crawling up a tree
two hundred yards away, much less a big, lumbering Controller.
Cassie is our moral person, sort of Rachel's counterpart. Marco is
the sense of humor in our group, quick to crack jokes, even about
himself. Ax, being an Andalite, provides us with all sorts of
information about the aliens we are battling. David is the "new
kid." He just joined our group recently. Personally, I think he's
a bit whacked-out. Not to mention a huge jerk. He's not too fond
of me either.
-----Which is why I was so surprised to see him in my territory
one evening.
-----I was soaring above the trees, searching for an unlucky
rodent that would become my dinner, when I saw him. He was human,
pushing through the undergrowth, muttering something to himself. I
couldn't quite make out what it was. Hawk ears are great, but they
have their limits.
-----He glanced up and saw me. "Tobias!" he yelled.
-----<Took you long enough to find me,> I muttered, more to
myself than to him. I folded my wings back and plummeted to earth.
Just to give him a little scare, I purposely rocketed inches above
his head as I came in for a landing.
-----"Aaah! Jeez, watch where you're flying!" he yelped as I
swooped upward and landed on a tree branch about six feet above
his head.
-----<What do you want?> I grumbled. I didn't mean to sound
grumpy, but I was hungry and tired.
-----"Okay, fine then. I won't tell you if that's the way
you're going to be," he said as he turned on his heel and prepared
to walk away.
-----<Hey, you try hunting your dinner for an hour and a half
and see how cheerful you'd be,> I snapped back.
-----He tensed up, then turned around and glared at me. It was
pointless. With my face I can out-glare anyone. Then he sighed.
-----"Jake sent me to tell you," he said.
-----<What?>
-----"You know that blue box that I found? The Espresso device
or whatever?"
-----<Yes.>
-----"It's gone."
-----<WHAT?!> I shouted. I puffed up my feathers in anger.
<What happened to it?>
-----"Like I know? All I know is that when Ax woke up today, it
was gone. Snatched right out of his hiding spot. We've been
searching everywhere for it. Then Jake said 'Someone go tell
Tobias. He can help look for it with those eyes of his.' I got
nominated to find you. And here I am. So start searching,
Bird-boy." With that, he ran away, obviously relieved, leaving me
seething in anger. I really hated the way he ordered me around
like that. David, not Jake.
-----Something about the whole thing seemed fishy to me. First
of all, why had Jake waited so long to reach me? Usually, when
something needs to be found, I'm the first person he looks for.
Second, how could the box have been stolen in the first place? Ax
has four eyes, two of which are mounted on stalks he can move in
any direction. It's next to - no, it is - impossible to sneak up
on him. And he practically guarded our hiding spot with his life.
Third, why was David in human form? He had a golden eagle morph he
could have used to find me. Maybe he knew that I seriously
disliked them and didn't want to scare me. But no, that was too
nice for David.
-----I tried to put my anger and doubt out of my mind and
pushed off the branch. Catching a nice headwind, I got above the
treetops in seconds. But from then on I had nothing but dead air.
I was struggling for every bit of altitude.
-----Then I saw it.
-----<Oh, no,> I whispered.
-----It had been smashed. Torn open and strewn about. Small
pieces of blue-whatever the Andalites used to make it - were
everywhere. I dove down and landed next to it.
-----I had to give it to one of the other Animorphs. But there
was one problem - I wouldn't be able to lift it in my hawk body.
It was too heavy.
-----So what did I do? I began to morph.
-----Immediately I shot up from the ground. Morphing is never
logical, which explains why I was still mostly hawk when my legs
grew and changed into completely human ones. My face was next: my
beak sucked in and divided into teeth as my eyesight dimmed and my
feathers melted away. They flattened down until it looked like a
full body tattoo, then faded away.
-----Ears sprouted from my head. My wings thickened and became
longer, forming arms. Finally my morphing suit, a too small
T-shirt and Spandex biking shorts, appeared. I was fully human.
-----I knelt down next to the blue box. Touching the mess of
blue shards and circuitry so small it was almost invisible to my
human eyes, an overwhelming wave of sadness engulfed me. The
Escafil device - that's what Ax had called it - had been my last
memory of Prince Elfangor, the Andalite who had given us our
morphing powers. And now it was gone.
-----Suddenly all I could see was brown burlap. Someone had
thrown a bag over me! I screamed and struggled against it. Through
the tiny holes in the burlap I could see a
pig-like, red face grinning evilly at me. Then something struck me
on the head. Hard.
-----And for a while, I didn't see anything at all.
Chapter 2
-----I woke up with a huge headache. Groaning, I rubbed my head
and looked around. I was in a cellar of some sort. As my eyes
adjusted to the darkness, I saw a door ahead of me. Was it locked
or not? I squinted to see.
-----"I wish I had my real eyes," I muttered.
-----A sudden panic seized me. I was still in human morph! How
long had it been? Oh, God, please don't let it be over two hours,
I pleaded silently. I couldn't stand being trapped in a morph. Not
again.
-----And yet, even as I thought those words, I got a cold
feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was the same feeling I had
gotten that fateful night two years ago on our first mission after
I had been trapped.
-----I had exceeded the two hour time limit again.
-----And this time, I knew the Ellimist wouldn't save me.
-----"This isn't happening," I said aloud. "This can't be
happening!" I frantically recalled my hawk body and focused my
mind with all my strength. Maybe, just maybe, I was only a few
minutes over. My friends had managed to demorph, albeit very
slowly and with a lot of effort, when they had been seven minutes
over the limit. But it was to no avail, and after a half minutes I
collapsed back, sobbing like a baby.
-----It was true that I had often fantasized about being human
again. To run and laugh and hold something in my hands. But to not
be able to morph? To never fly or look at the world with eyes like
binoculars? That I had never imagined.
-----A knock at the cellar door jerked me out of my self-pity.
I quickly wiped the tears from my eyes and tried to straighten up
a little bit. After a few seconds, the door opened. But instead of
the red piggish face of the man who had captured me, I saw a
teenage girl, about seventeen or eighteen, with short, spiky black
hair and eyes that were a piercing shade of blue.
-----"Hello," she said with a light, almost musical voice.
-----"GET AWAY FROM ME!!!!" I screamed as I cowered against the
wall. I don't know why I did that. Maybe I was scared out of my
mind about being kidnapped in the first place. Or maybe I just
couldn't take the agony of being a nothlit again.
-----"Whoa, whoa, calm down," she said, as if she was speaking
to a frightened animal. "Here, I brought you some food. Hope you
like chamomile tea and PB&J sandwiches." She set a plate down a
few feet from me. I cautiously crept towards it and picked up a
sandwich. It was strange, not having to work to eat. Not having to
wait for an hour before finding a small amount of food.
-----"I really hate what my dad does," the girl said. "You
know, kidnapping people. But we need to do it for the money. And
as soon as your folks pay up, you can leave. So what's your
number? Or address? We need to get the ransom note to them."
-----I picked up the mug of tea and took a swallow, almost
burning my mouth in the process. "Actually," I said, "I don't have
any parents. I'm an orphan." That was the
half-truth. Both of my parents were dead, yes, but my aunt and
uncle took care of me. On the other hand, neither of them gave a
flying rat's butt about me, so I guess that was being an orphan in
a way.
-----"Oh." She paused and furrowed her brow in thought. "Well,
we still need to keep you here for a day anyway. Don't ask me
why," she added hastily as she saw my questioning glance. "It's
just what my dad does."
-----"Uh, okay, I guess," I said.
-----"Good." She smiled at me as she turned to go. As she shut
the door firmly behind her, I heard the click of a key locking the
door. I sighed.
-----It had only been a few hours, and already I missed my old
body something terrible. Staring wistfully at the sky through one
of the cracked, dusty windows in the cellar, I felt a tear roll
down my cheek. This time I didn't bother to wipe it away. It felt
good to cry, in a strange way. It was something I had never been
able to do as a hawk.
-----But as I drifted off into a restless sleep, I dreamed of
flying. And I felt my soul cry out to be free again.
Chapter 3
-----I woke up in the middle of the night to a scratching sound
at the window. At first I thought it was just a branch. Then I saw
the outline of a wolf as my pathetic eyes adjusted to the
darkness.
-----<Tobias! Is that you?>
-----"Rachel!" I cried as I jumped up and ran to the window.
-----<Shhh. Try not to make a lot of noise,> Rachel said. <I'm
here to bail you out.> With that, she lowered her shoulder and
rammed the window. With a loud crash, glass went flying everywhere
as I jumped back.
-----"Oh, yeah, way to be quiet, Rachel," I muttered. I started
stacking a few broken chairs up underneath the window. Soon I had
a tower that was tall enough for me to reach the window with. I
squeezed through it, getting a few cuts in the process. Rachel
continued to talk.
-----<I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Come on, morph out and
let's get outta here. You're probably close to the two-hour limit
in that morph anyway. Oh, and how did you pull that off? It
must've been hard work to be constantly morphing and demorphing.
Staying human, I mean.>
-----"Rachel." And that's as far as I got. I broke down as I
fell to my knees and began to sob.
-----After a few minutes I realized that Rachel's arms were
around me. She had demorphed just to comfort me. That surprised
me. She's never really been a
touchy-feely person. That's Cassie's job.
-----"Tobias, what's wrong? I come here after hearing from Ax
that you got kidnapped, only to find you crying your eyes out in
human-" She trailed off as the realization came to her. "Oh, no,"
she whispered. "Oh, God, no. This isn't happening."
-----"I tried that already," I said bitterly. "Guess what? It
is."
-----"It'll be okay," she said, trying to reassure herself more
than me. "We'll just get you back to Ax, and he can use the blue
box to give you morphing powers again. Everything will be fine."
-----I shook my head. "No."
-----"Huh? What do you mean, no?" Rachel turned my face towards
hers. "You want to keep fighting the Yeerks, right?"
-----"Of course I do. You know that. But the Escafil device -
the blue box - it's been destroyed. I found it in the woods. It
was smashed to bits."
-----She looked at me with a puzzled expression on her face.
"Tobias, the blue box is still around. I saw it just today, about
an hour after you were kidnapped."
-----Now it was my turn to be puzzled. "But David said - And I
saw-" Then I realized it. David had played a trick on me. It would
have been harmless, if only I hadn't morphed and the kidnappers
hadn't kidnapped me, of all people. That's why everything had
seemed so fishy earlier.
-----I leaped up, all sadness gone. In its place was a blazing
anger.
-----"I swear, I'm going to kill that kid!" I yelled through
clenched teeth.
-----"What?"
-----"Never mind. Where's Ax?"
-----"In the forest, as usual."
-----"You have a horse morph, right?"
-----"Right."
-----"Do it. I'm going to ride you to find Ax and get my
morphing powers back!"
-----"Wow, you're starting to sound like Jake!" Rachel teased
as she began to morph. In a few minutes she was completely horse.
-----<Out of curiosity, have you ever ridden before?> she
asked.
-----"No."
-----<Ooookay. This should be interesting.>
-----After a few tries I managed to scramble onto her back.
-----"Just don't go to fast, okaaaaahhhhh!" I screamed as she
took off like a shot. We blazed through the woods together, Rachel
yelling for the sheer joy of it and me clinging to her mane in
fright.
-----"Right! No, left! LEEEFT!!" I screamed as we jumped a
fallen tree and skirted around another one.
-----<You realize that you would be totally dead if you were
riding a real horse, don't you?>
-----"Yes, I do. Now will you please slow DOWN!!"
-----She obliged, and I began to relax as we trotted through
the woods. Suddenly she stopped and sniffed the wind.
-----<I smell him. This way.>
-----She turned a sharp right, trotted a little ways, and there
he was. He was on his knees in the grass. His main eyes were shut
as if her was sleeping, but his stalk eyes were constantly
scanning the area. That's how he spotted us.
-----<Oh, hello, Tobias. And I'm speculating that that is one
of the others that you're riding.>
-----"You speculate right, Ax," I said as I dismounted. Or
tried to, anyway. Instead I landed flat on my back. "OOOF!"
-----Ax got up as Rachel began to demorph and I scrambled to my
feet. <Tobias, what is wrong?>
-----"In a nutshell, I'm a nothlit again. Only this time I'm
trapped as a human." I felt a lump rise in my throat.
-----<That is not good,> Ax said solemnly. <You won't be able
to fight any more.>
-----"Actually, that's why we found you," Rachel spoke up, now
completely human. "We were wondering if you could give Tobias
morphing technology again."
-----<I'm afraid I cannot. It is impossible to give morphing
technology to nothlits.>
-----I felt the color drain from my face. I couldn't believe
it. I was so close to being able to fly again. It was almost too
much to bear.
-----<Unless-> Ax continued.
-----"Unless what!?" I yelled. "Tell me!!"
-----Ax seemed surprised, to put it mildly. <If I remember
right from my systemology class in school, it may be possible to
revise the Escafil device. It would be very time consuming, of
course, but I do believe that it can be done. If I change the-> He
droned on for a little while in what sounded like a foreign
language before concluding, <-the device could be used to give
nothlits morphing technology.>
-----I suddenly thought of something. "Would I be able to morph
and be human at the same time? I mean, will I be a morph-capable
human, instead of a morph-capable hawk?"
-----<Unfortunately, no. As soon as you receive the technology,
you will return to your natural body - in this case, your hawk
body. However, you will still have access to all the morphs you
could do before you became a nothlit.>
-----So much for that thought. I sighed. As I searched inside
of myself, I realized that I couldn't imagine a life as a human.
It just wasn't me anymore.
-----"It's probably for the best," I said. "And in all honesty,
I'd much rather be a morph-capable hawk than a normal human."
-----Rachel nodded like I had said something profound.
-----"Ax, how long will it take for you to fix up the blue box
so Tobias can morph again?" she asked.
-----<Approximately one or two of your weeks.>
-----I reeled back. "Two weeks!"
-----<Most likely less,> Ax corrected me.
-----"Whatever." I turned to Rachel. "So, would your mom object
too much if I spent a week at your house?"
