"Ga Tafrash horlit!" The Hork-Bajir let go. My cage hit the floor with another painful crash. <Get Tobias!> Rachel cried. Marco, in gorilla morph, was the only one with an opposable thumb, an often undervalued appendage. He reached for me, but a downed HorkBajir grabbed his leg and yanked him backward. So Rachel nudged me with her massive front paws, pushing my cage across the floor, down the hall, away from the fight. Suddenly, the cage stopped. We'd run into something. We'd hit human feet. Rachel froze, sniffing the air hard. I looked up. Sleek, suede boots. Fashionably worn jeans. The torso and head were in shadow. Who was this? Some innocent vet student, trapped by the battle? Her arm appeared from behind her back. Her fingers clutched a Dracon beam . . . My heart stopped. The girl's fingers glistened and sparkled in the semidarkness. The way real flesh fingers never do. <Taylor,> Rachel hissed, her voice rough with rage. "Make one move, bear, and your next stop is the taxidermist." <Yeah, right!> Rachel leaped, claws slashing. Tseew! Taylor seared a hole in Rachel's flank. "HhhhoooRRRAAWWRRR!" Rachel dropped, groaning with pain. And Taylor grabbed my cage with her artificial

OCRed By Arpit Nathany The author wishes to thank Ellen Geroux for her help in preparing this manuscript. For Michael and Jake Cover illustration by David B. Mattingly Art Direction/Design by Karen Hudson/Ursula Albano If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book." No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 555 Broadway, New York, NY 10012. ISBN 0-439-11517-5 Copyright © 2000 by Katherine Applegate. All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, APPLE PAPERBACKS, ANIMORPHS and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5/0 Printed in the U.S.A. First Scholastic printing, July 2000 M y name is Tobias. Still a freak of nature. Part human. Part bird. Confused? Don't worry, it gets better. I am flying over the forest. The air is thick. A storm is approaching. It is only early afternoon, but the sky is growing black as the front moves in on the city. A towering wall of rain, wind, and cumulus clouds. I had to find food before the storm. I was hungry. But then, I'm always looking for food. That's life for a bird of prey. Hunger. A shrew stepped out from its burrow. It loitered nervously, sniffing the moisture. We had the same thought, me and the

a crag of rock and hang on? Did she live? Would Taylor-the-girl ever live again? Would I ever stop caring? "You never really know how some things will turn out," I said. A twig blew across the surface of ayrock, swept along by the wind. I reached out to catch it. Rachel moved to stop it, too. Our hands collided gently. I took her hand. The twig blew past us, and fell into a crack. "Yeah," she answered, smiling. "There's no real point in worrying about what you might have done. The past is the past, Tobias. Let it go."