The Visitor Read Free

seconds and laughed gaily.
    Marco shook his head. “Great. When
we
morph we look like some mad scientist’s genetic experiment gone totally crazy. And Cassie gets to look like an angel.”
    Cassie and I have been friends for a long time, although to look at us, you wouldn’t think we’d hang out together. Cassie is casual to a fault. The girl just doesn’t care about clothing or style. I swear she would wear overalls to a wedding if someone didn’t stop her.
    Cassie lives on a farm and her whole family is massively into animals. Her dad uses the barn to run the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic, which is a kind of hospital for injured animals. It’s always full of birds and skunks and opossums and coyotes and every other animal you can think of.
    Cassie’s mom is a vet, too. She works at The Gardens, this huge zoo and amusement park. So maybe Cassie was just born with an instinct for understanding animals. All I know is she’s always finished morphing while the rest of us are still looking like creepy half-human, half-animal monsters.
    As for me, well, it’s not that I’m Miss Fashion or whatever, but I do like nice clothes. I guess that, plus the way I look, makes a lot of people think I’mstuck-up or something. People do think I’m pretty. But to me that’s just an accident, you know? 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.” She’s a natural peacemaker. If there’s ever a hassle within the group, it’s usually me and Marco who caused it, and Cassie who got us all calmed down.
    “Personally, I’m glad to be back to my regular body,” Marco said. “The flying part is great, but it’s not a good idea to be able to see that well.”
    “Why?” Jake asked.
    “Look, Jake, how many times have you been walking around the mall or whatever, and you’ll see a girl who seems good-looking from far off, but when you get closer it turns out she’s a dog? I mean, if you could see this well all the time —”
    “Excuse me?” I interrupted. “I’m sure I didn’t hear you say what I thought you just said.”
    “I wasn’t being sexist,” Marco protested. “It goes both ways. See, from far off, I look taller than I am.”
    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.
    “Your problem isn’t with people seeing you too well,” I said. “It’s with people hearing you too well. You
look
like a fairly smart guy. Then you open your mouth….”
    Marco just grinned. Marco lives to annoy people. He really is extremely smart and basically nice, underneath it all. It’s just that the boy loves to provoke people.
    Marco and Jake are best friends, even though Jake is serious and thoughtful and always trying to do what’s right, while Marco is sarcastic and temperamental and is the most reluctant of the Animorphs. Marco still thinks we should just give up the battle against the Yeerks and try to stay alive. But with Marco you never know if he
really
believes that, or is just saying it to be contrary.
    “Well, let’s get out of here,” Jake suggested. “I have homework to do.”
    “Me too,” I said. “And I have gymnastics class this afternoon and I’m totally unprepared.”
    Cassie sighed. “It’s such a drag. The chores and the homework all come rushing back as soon as we change back into our boring human selves.”
    As soon as she said it, Cassie bit her tongue. She cast a regretful look to Tobias.
    See, while all of us had changed back, Tobias had not. Tobias was still a hawk. Tobias, who had oncehad unruly blond hair and eyes that seemed hurt and tender and hopeful all at once.
    Tobias had been trapped while trying to escape from the hellish nightmare of the Yeerk