Chapter TEN Well, what a surprise seeing you all here," Marco said in a low whisper. "Everyone still up for this?" Jake asked. "Sure," Marco answered. "We're looking forward to it. Who needs sleep when you can run off on a suicide mission instead?" It was pitch-black. It was three in the morning. We were at the edge of the forest. Jake, Rachel, Marco, and me. Tobias was in the tree above us. The same five kids who had wandered stupidly through a construction site at night on our way home from the mall. The same kids who had seen the Andalite fighter land. The same five kids whose lives had been changed forever. We had been made into soldiers that night. Soldiers in a terrible war we could not really hope to win. Tobias had paid a terrible price. But so had the rest of us. There we were, in the dark, ready to do things that would make us scream if we ever stopped to think about them for too long. Ax was there, too. Poor Ax, who was even more alone than the rest of us. He was in his own body, his stalk eyes restlessly peering

Chapter Eight We met at the mall. It was a Saturday, so it was a normal place we might be. When you live in a world where you're surrounded by possible enemies, it's important not to do anything too unusual. You don't want to draw attention. Not even from your own family and school friends. You just never know who can be trusted and who can't. The Yeerks believed we were Andalites. We wanted them to go on believing that. If they ever figured out we were humans, let alone kids, we were toast. So we left no clues. We tried not to act like we were a group. We didn't want some Controller teacher or whatever thinking, "Hey, you know what? Those same kids are always hanging out together, acting like they're planning something." We had to look and act and seem normal. Rachel still went to gymnastics classes and shopped. Jake and Marco still shot hoops in Jake's driveway or played video games. I took care of animals at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. There was nothing we could do to make Tobias seem normal. He was way past being normal. But Tobias came from a terrible, messed-up background, shuttling from one indifferent aunt or uncle to another. He'd never really been part of a family or a structure, and sadly, no one seemed to notice when he simply disappeared. I spent an hour wandering along behind Rachel as she moved like a professional through the racks at The Limited and Banana Republic and The Gap and the various department stores. Rachel has some bizarre, supernatural instinct for when and where sales will happen. She doesn't need the advertising. She just "knows." We were cruising through a series of tables piled with sweaters at Express. Rachel was looking for

been to? And now I also saw those little skunk kits. Starving. Crying out, and with each cry, signaling to some predator. "Sweetheart, are you okay?" 37 I realized my dad was staring at me. I had been breathing hard, almost crying. There were beads of sweat on my forehead. "Yeah. Fine. Fine," I said quietly. He finished his rounds and left. I stayed behind. I went back to the skunk in her cage. I opened the cage door and put my hand in. I was not wearing a glove. See, you can't acquire DNA if you're wearing gloves. 38