ANIMORPHS #14: THE UNKNOWN
"i go on the internet. i just don't hang out in chatrooms, call myself 'studboy,' and try to convince people i'm an incredibly handsome thirty-year-old millionaire."
hi hello everyone and welcome back to your non-denominational youth group, animorphs weekly. as of right now, i’m writing this in december of 2020, a year far behind you as you read this hopefully in 2021. forgive me for any outdated references. i’m doing my best here. or something close to it.
wanna read a book?
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF A MORPH . . . .
applegate, i would never
there’s so much to appreciate here. first, starting off 2021 with a book titled “the unknown” feels incredibly appropriate. what is to come? for us and for our beloved team of twelve-year-olds? what horrors will this year hold, and what new things will we learn and appreciate about ourselves and each other? what new animals will be acquired? will i ever ride the l again? who’s to say!!!! it also feels right to be starting off the new year with a return to the classics: horse girl cassie!!! i literally would never underestimate the power of a morph, especially this morph. horses scare me. i respect them so much and i would never attempt to approach one without bowing low to the ground first.
it’s a cassie book!!
SUMMARY
cassie opens her book equating the yeerk danger to a noose slowly tightening around her neck. dark! right out the gate! classic animorphs. she’s like, i know it might sound dramatic, but i promise, i’m no drama queen. she goes on to say she’s just an average girl (taking time to say if you want to see a beautiful, tall girl you’ll have to meet her best friend rachel, which, i’m not gonna say it) who spends most of her time helping her vet dad with the wildlife rehab clinic he’s running out of the barn in their backyard. she’s covered in poop all the time and she’s learning how to suture (“you know - how to make stitches after you perform surgery”) but that hasn’t set her back! her best friend is really cool and her best friend’s cousin who is also really cool like-likes her.
one way you can judge a person is by looking at their friends … and their enemies. i have wonderful friends.
and terrible enemies.
take a moment to reflect on that in this new year
cassie explains what the yeerks are (mind-controlling slug parasites) and what they’ve done (enslaved the hork-bajir, allied with the taxxons, ruined jeremy jason mccole’s life) and where they are (all around you, right now, watching you read this newsletter). she’s like all that’s standing between earth and its doom is us: the animorphs. we’re five teens (and one alien) who can morph animals!!!! but we’re still just normal kids. and i’m a normal kid who doesn’t care about clothes, which drives rachel bananas.
rachel is in cassie’s barn, begging her to come to the mall with rachel to buy jeans that actually fit. cassie’s dad walks in, and rachel is like, please tell cassie she has to go to the mall with me. cassie’s dad delivers my favorite line in the whole series:
“nope. sorry rachel. i need cassie. crazy helen called and we have a sick horse way out on the edge of the Dry Lands.”
crazy helen….immaculate
cassie’s like, why don’t you come with us? i’ll let you buy me clothes if you come with me and my dad to check out crazy helen’s sick horses!! this, of course, is all rachel needs to hear. she’s in!
and that’s how we ended up discovering the evil horses that threatened all of humanity.
but i’d better not get ahead of myself. first we had to drive to the Dry Lands.
thank god
every week i sit down with these books and every week i am filled to the brim with delight. it never fails.
cassie, her dad, and rachel drive out to the Dry Lands, a place not quite desert and far away from the city. rachel asks the question we’re all thinking: who’s crazy helen? cassie’s dad is like, well, maybe don’t call her that to her face, even if that’s what she calls herself (i love crazy helen). she runs a souvenir shop and lives in a trailer behind it. cassie’s dad met her years back when there was trouble with Dry Lands horse herds - they all had intestinal parasites. i bet they might have some brain parasites!!!
the souvenir stand is called “LAST CHANCE SOUVENIRS” and looks like it’s been closed for decades. behind it is a fancy silver trailer decked out in christmas lights. enter crazy helen, with stringy gray hair, a faded flowery blouse, and patched jeans. rachel leans over to cassie and is like, look! it’s you in sixty years! cassie elbows rachel and they have a good laugh, and then rachel softens and is like, nah, you’ll end up running a big volunteer organization that saves unhappy whales or chickens. cottagecore!
crazy helen is like, she’s over there! a big ol’ horse! she’s been eating the loco weed!
i have to pause right here and be upfront with you all: i’m making none of this up. i know i say that every week, but the things i am typing out here are all verbatim from applegate’s mouth to god’s ear.
crazy helen says the aliens won’t let her sleep, and understandably, rachel gets a little tense. cassie reassures her: different aliens. although, maybe not?? maybe we shouldn’t write off crazy helen’s alien speak knowing full well there are minimum four alien races on the planet right now?? must we always forget about ancient erek???
cassie, rachel, and cassie’s dad go marching into the Dry Lands, searching for the horse crazy helen called about. rachel’s like, is that the horse? over there by the pay phone? sure enough, there is one (1) pay phone out in these here Dry Lands, and that dang horse sure is trying to use it. the horse pulls the receiver off the hook and picks up a stick in its mouth to start dialing some numbers. cassie’s dad approaches slowly. the horse notices him and tries to run away, but isn’t very good at running, which is weird, because running is one of the many things a horse is very good at. the horse stumbles off into the night, like a drunk girl running away from her friends (i’m not speaking from experience here i’ve never run a day in my life), and immediately falls over. the trio approach slowly. cassie’s dad thinks it might be a snake bite, but i’ve never heard of any snakes giving a horse the ability or desire to make a phone call. cassie’s dad heads back to the truck - and just in time, too, because wriggling out of the horse’s ear comes a large gray slug. a yeerk. the girls don’t immediately step on it, which is big mistake #2138402310 in the series.
and then the Pale Stallion appears
it’s a white horse, not terribly large, but very powerful. he looks down at the little yeerk, which tries to reach up at him, and then the Pale Stallion turns and runs away. cassie’s like, that feels like a good idea. she grabs rachel’s arm and starts running. they make it a few feet when suddenly TSSEEEEEEEEW! bright lights starting shooting from the sky! cassie biffs it! she’s out!
she comes to inside the last stand souvenir shop, surrounded by posters and cardboard cut-outs from fan favorites like x-files, star trek, and various alien movies. cassie’s dad explains: they’re on the edge of an air force base and they probably lost a missile or a bomb or something and the snake-bit horse set it off. which ?? is not a very calming explanation, even if it were true. they just …. lost a bomb??? crazy helen is like, well, no, it was the aliens. the government keeps all of the aliens out over in area 91! locked away in cages!
cassie’s dad is like ok time to leave crazy helen’s hut of wonders
the weirdest part about the whole encounter is that the horse who they came to see is gone. completely gone. crazy helen blames it on the martians.
rachel and i exchanged a look. we were both having the same thought: it’s a very strange world where a person called crazy helen is at least partly right.
amen sisters
the next day, the animorphs are all hanging out in the food court at the mall. rachel, of course, remembered that cassie promised they could go shopping, which is why cassie now has several bags from the gap and j. crew. she owns outfits now! fun! marco explains that area 91 is like, the conspiracy theory on the internet. everyone knows that! before they can dive too deep into what exactly the internet loves about area 91, a young boy nervously approaches the table.
“hey, tobias,” marco said. “we were thinking about ordering some pizza. you want mouse meat on yours?”
tobias is at the mall!!!!!!!!
cassie takes this opportunity to describe the animorphs. it takes her half a page where it used to take paragraphs. i can feel applegate phasing out my favorite part of these books. cest la vie, or whatever. more room for horse respect. tobias takes a seat at the table and the other animorphs fill him in on cassie and rachel’s encounters of the horse kind. no one can really understand why the yeerks would want to infest horses. they’re fast, but not the fastest. and they’re strong, but there are stronger animals. both jake and tobias feel a little doubtful: what if it wasn’t a yeerk they saw? and what if it wasn’t dracon beams, but really just a misplaced bomb? cassie and rachel feel fairly confident in what they saw, but just to be sure, cassie, rachel, marco, and tobias will go check out the Dry Lands tomorrow after school. ax doesn’t want to go, and jake can’t - it’s his dad’s birthday tomorrow, and he’s sure as shit not going to let big brother tom be the only son seated at that dinner table.
the kids go their separate ways, so as not to draw too much attention to themselves (and to not push tobias’s two hour human time limit). the next day at school, cassie wears her New Outfit handpicked by rachel. there’s a little bit where they walk down the hallway together and boys keep approaching rachel and getting cassie’s name wrong. rachel is frustrated because none of them seem to appreciate all the hard work rachel put into cassie’s outfit. (straight men never appreciate the hard work my friends put into my outfits either.) even when they pass jake in the hallway, he tells the pair that cassie always looks great. aw. they part ways and cassie moves to first period. marco enters and immediately starts gushing about how gorgeous she looks. a full little speech about how much of a radiant angel she is. cassie lets him get it all out, and then:
“how much did rachel pay you?”
he grinned. “two bucks. girls are such idiots sometimes. i’d have done it for a dollar.”
that afternoon, the team meets up at cassie’s barn. it’s a slow week at the wildlife rehab clinic, which means cassie only has to give meds - that’s vet speak for medicine - to half the usual amount of animals. once she’s done with her chores, it’s morphin’ time. turning into an osprey, even through the eyes of cassie who loves morphin’, is fucked up. once everyone’s teeth have shriveled away, they take to the skies.
after riding some sick thermals, the animorphs come across some geese. they all admire how well the geese can fly, and after making sure none of them get totally taken out by a yeerk ship (#ydgafag), they press on towards the Dry Lands. finally, they reach the edge of area 91, complete with a sign threatening trespassers with arrest AND prosecution. area 91 is made up of a handful of little buildings clustered near three large aircraft hangars. there’s an airstrip, and a lot of vehicles like trucks and tanks, and then just a smattering of horses, gallivanting around. i know what you’re thinking: horses? in my area 91? it’s more likely than you think.
from above, these horses are acting like normal horses. no phone calls here. tobias once again doubts women (tobias!) but points out that the other animorphs are near their two hour time limit. they land behind a bunch of rocks. except these rocks are special. these rocks are area 91 rocks. government property.
the animorphs demorph behind these area 91 rocks, very chill for a group of kids who have accidentally broken into a government base. there’s a bit about marco nearly getting bit by a harmless snake, but all of that sort of fades in the background once the kids hear the sound of cocking guns. cassie looks up, and lo and behold, there are three soldiers in desert camouflage holding big ol’ guns. one of the soldiers is like, the three of you, down on the ground with your hands behind your head.
i thought, the three of us? of course! they thought tobias was a hawk.
he is a hawk, cassie
tobias is like do what they say, i’ll watch from the skies, play dumb. rachel gets in a dig at marco - “you heard him, marco, be yourself” - and then all three of them get searched. it doesn’t take long because they’re all wearing morphin’ suits. the sergeant is like, ok, put on your shoes, time to go. cassie’s like oh man!! shoes!! the one animorph weakness!! the soldiers get real suspicious real fast: no shoes? miles from the road? inside area 91? how did you kids even get here???
i looked at rachel. rachel looked at marco. marco put on a big grin and said, “it was the martians, lieutenant. we were dropped here by aliens.”
we cut to the three kids getting interrogated inside the base. there’s a bulletin board cassie keeps looking over, with a lot of posters that say shit like “ZERO DEFECTS” and “SECURITY IS OUR BUSINESS” but also a sign-up sheet for a field trip to the gardens, the zoo/amusement park where cassie’s mom works and where many an animorph has touched many an animal. cassie and rachel are trying to go the innocent route, but marco can’t stop asking about where they’re keeping the aliens. the captain interrogating them is like, i’m not gonna tell you anything about aliens. you’re going to tell me how you ended up out here without shoes.
christmas shoes
anyway
the captain is like write your names down on this clipboard and your parents’ phone numbers and we’re gonna give them a little call. marco writes down fox mulder, rachel takes dana scully, and cassie freaks out and says her name is cindy crawford. they all scribble down fake phone numbers (rachel gives them the number to pizza hut, marco gives them the sports scoreboard report, and cassie just writes down 12345678), and the captain takes the clipboard out of the room. the kids have mere seconds. they start morphin’ into cockroaches. gross! but smart. they scurry under the door and get the hell out of there! they narrowly dodge getting stepped on (cockroaches are very good at that and now i am speaking from personal experience) and make it outside. they call out to tobias, who spots them instantly with his special eyes. he swoops down to pick them up - and then he DROPS CASSIE
it’s fine tho because roaches don’t feel pain. she hits the ground, feet in the air, and starts scrambling to turn herself over. she’s gotta hurry, too, because tobias spots a line of vehicles rolling right towards her. and not just any vehicles
tanks
cassie remembers too late that roaches have wings (never forget) and the tank rolls RIGHT OVER HER. but she’s still alive!!! because roaches are monsters!!!! she won’t survive another go around, though, so she quickly scrambles off the tank’s wheel and darts off. tobias swings by again and this time he doesn’t drop her. once they’re safely on the outskirts of area 91’s boundaries, tobias places them on the ground and apologizes profusely to cassie. they all demorph (except for tobias, forever our birdboy) and rachel immediately punches marco in the arm. she’s like why couldn’t you play it cool??? and he was like that was me playing it cool. if we’d looked like normal kids he’d really wonder why we had no shoes, but now he just thinks we’re a bunch of weirdos.
smart
still, the whole reason they risked it all in the first place was to get more info about these controller horses, and they learned nothing. it’s getting late, and there are going to be less thermals to ride, so they get ready to pack it up and head home. but then! a pack of horses rides by, moving towards a nearby stream. one of the horses poops - a normal horse activity - and then all the other horses laugh at her. could you imagine getting bullied by a horse
poop horse moves behind a tree to finish pooping, and cassie is like, you ever seen a shy horse? i don’t think so. i know horses. and these?? these are not normal horses.
the word horse no longer looks real to me
the next day is saturday. the animorphs meet up at cassie’s barn to discuss their next move. obviously, the way to spy on a pack of horses is to become horses, but cassie’s farm surprisingly only has one (1) horse. and she’s got distinctive markings. it’d be weird if six of the same horse started prancing around the Dry Lands.
(side note: i’m going to have to start keeping a tally or something about how many times the animorphs are like, “when ax is in his human form, he is surprisingly hot. like, a very pretty boy. so weird how hot our alien friend is when he’s a human. weirder still that he’s made up of our dna! hot ax. wow. weird!” because it happens literally every time he’s in his human morph and i think it’s very funny.)
they run through a couple different options to acquire horses: the gardens? they only have exotic horse breeds and the animorphs need normal horse breeds. sure! nearby farms? everyone around knows cassie, and it would be pretty weird if they found her and five of her friends (one of them being surprisingly hot) petting horses. rachel’s got it. the racetrack!
“they have tones of horses out there. usually a couple of dozen, at least. i’ve gone there with my dad. last weekend, in fact. that’s his idea of a cool place to take his daughters on visitation day.”
Divorced Dad Activity
marco asks if rachel got to bet, and she’s like, hell yeah. i put two dollars on chase me charley and he came in second so i got three dollars.
i stared at my friend. you think you know everything about a person, then, suddenly, you find out something new.
where do u think rachel got the money to pay marco to talk about how beautiful u are, cassie???
tobias is like, ok, i guess we’ll go to the racetrack, but can we at least discuss why we think the yeerks are taking over horses? the only explanation cassie can think of is that there’s something out in area 91 that interest the yeerks. a weapon, maybe, or some sort of spacecraft. or maybe…more aliens. regardless, the yeerks want it. and the animorphs are not here to let the yeerks get what they want.
off to the races!
they all morph seagulls (except for ax and tobias) and head to the racetrack, pointing out all the trash food along the way. they reach the racetrack in no time and start to search for a place to demorph. there’s a stable with a handful of empty stalls. perfect! except for one thing:
just one slight difficulty we’d overlooked: when you demorph you have to return to your normal body. for rachel and jake and marco and me that meant human.
but for ax that meant andalite.
no duh!
what is this?? book six???
everyone starts to demorph and NOBODY is keeping watch which is EXACTLY why two old geezers smokin’ cigars come strolling into the stables and are like what the fuck are you kids doing in here? and what the fuck is that? that doesn’t look like a handsome amalgamation of the four of you, that looks like a blue demon deer from the pits of hell?? the kids are like uh this .. . th is is . .. . ou r ho r se … h e is a good h or se and normal. . .. . . .
ax is like fuck this SLICE SLICE
not through their heads
but through the wood above their heads!
the railing bonks these two geezers right on the head! SCATTER!!! tobias is like i leave you alone for TWO MINUTES but there’s no time for a scolding the kids have got to GO! ax starts morphin’ into a human as they run, and jake tells everyone to head into the grandstand so they can get lost among the crowd. cassie takes a turn and then cassie takes a tumble. someone’s grabbed her by the ankle. some teen! he yells out, “i got this one! i got this guy!” which offends cassie, because being misgendered hurts, so she kicks his hand and scrambles away. she sees no animorphs, just a small crowd, so she ducks into a nearby stall. there’s a big ol’ horse in there. he starts freaking out! she starts freaking out! and then she remembers, oh yeah, i’m an animorph! she acquires the horse’s dna and then she hears a geezer voice from nearby, muttering about how one of ‘em’s still gotta be in the barn.
well. if you want to be inconspicuous in a horse barn, what are you going to do?
exactly. i started to morph the horse.
if cassie has to run a race as a horse i’ll lose my whole mind
cassie starts the morph - lots of teeth bulging, the phrase “megabutt,” and cassie seeing “the fleshless bones of [her] own fingers” which will surely haunt us both. once she’s finished the morph, she and the horse whose dna she acquired stare at each other for a moment, and then the horse brain does what i expect my brain to do if i’m ever in this situation: “it was like: what other horse?” chill! cassie’s like sick. i’m a horse now. time to go find the others. she trots out of her little stall, leaving the other racehorse behind, when a stablehand is like, oh no, mr. hinckley!! it’s minneapolis max making a break for it!!!! mr. hinckley is like bring me his gear!!! slowly, mr. hinckley approaches minneapolis cassie and is like woah there boy, it’s ok, it’s me! mr. hinckley! and you are my good champion boy, minneapolis max, and we are going to go win us a race!
that’s when it hit me. i’m no racing fan. but the name penetrated my slightly deranged consciousness. i recognized that name.
i had just morphed the horse who was expected to go on to win the kentucky derby.
GOD BLESS US EVERYONE
tobias calls out to cassie via thought-speak just as she’s being led to the starting line. she’s like, guess what! i’m a horse! but more importantly, i’m a winner. tobias informs the other animorphs of cassie’s predicament, and marco pushes his way to the front of the crowd and tells cassie she better win, because he just bet on her. cassie realizes quickly that while she has the instincts of a horse, she has none of the training of a racehorse - especially not one destined to win the kentucky derby - which makes things a little tricky. her rider, some poor schmoe, tries to lead her into the little horsegate where horses go when they start a race, but the horsegate is really frickin’ small. cassie freaks out a little bit, and the jockey is like, woah there! and then cassie speaks to him in thought-speech
you take it easy! i’m crammed into a little box here!
luckily, there’s no time for the jockey to think about the fact that a horse just spoke to him, because the starting bell rings!
one day there’s gonna be a little meeting of all the people the animorphs have fucked with and left behind. that catcaller rachel scared as an ele-girl, the elephant trainer rachel yeeted as an elephant, clumsy tyler, jeremy jason mccole, this jockey…
anyway
cassie’s off! she’s fuckin’ booking it! she lives to run!! the jockey tries to slow her down, to conserve her energy for the end of the race, but cassie (again) speaks to him telepathically and is like nah man, i got this. to his credit, the jockey is like, ok horse! cassie pushes ahead. there’s only one horse in front of her now. the jockey says, “don’t fade on me now, talking horse!” which is surely something he’s going to have to unpack in therapy later, and cassie surges forward. it’s a photo finish, but FLASH FLASH ZOOM, our girl cassie wins the race!!!!!
and then we just cut to the animorphs flying to the Dry Lands
no explanation of how they got out of there, no awards ceremony for minneapolis cassie, not even a scene where the jockey gets to say goodbye to his sweet talking horse. they’re just out of there!
on the way to the Dry Lands, marco tries to convince everyone that they could really rack up some money by morphin’ racehorses and placing bets on themselves. everyone’s like we’re not doing that - but like, i don’t know. consider it maybe. i think it could work! they soar over area 91, and once again spot a group of horses just tres chillin’. except some of these horses are marching along in a little formation. horse-controllers! they zoom ahead, land, and morph into horses. after dirtying up a little bit, the anihorse team is ready to infiltrate. ax asks again what the whole deal with area 91 is, and there’s a little talk about conspiracy theories. supposedly there’s an old alien spacecraft being hidden out here, but it’s never been confirmed and only “people who go on the internet and call themselves DarkTruth” believe it, according to rachel.
the animorphs join up with the other horses, normal and controller, and wander back into area 91. there are various threatening signs, and various threatening armed guards, but none of those apply to horses. suddenly, the controller horses start speaking an alien language known as galard. it’s a universal language spoken by different races throughout the galaxy, according to ax, and is used mostly when people who come from different species and don’t have a shared language need to communicate. ax says the horses were probably fitted with speech synthesizers. (it’s unclear if the horses are actually speaking out loud, and it just sounds like horse-noises, or if it sounds like an alien language and everyone’s just like ah, those horses! but applegate makes it clear that the horses can’t hear the thought-speech between the animorphs, and i guess that’s all that really matters here.) regardless, ax can translate. the controller horses said: stick to the plan. “if we do this right, we’ll be off this idiotic assignment, out of these idiotic stupid bodies, and back onboard ship where we belong.” no one is sure why they aren’t speaking yeerk, but there’s no time to figure that out. the controller horses are splitting up, which means the anihorses are, too. jake, cassie, and tobias will go one way, and rachel, ax, and marco will go the other.
cassie makes a little small talk with tobias about morphin’ horses while they sort of meander along the base. they pass by base exchange, a general store, while cassie muses about what exactly the yeerks want with area 91. is it tech? is it a ship? if so, what kind? she’s brought out of her thoughts by a very distinct smell: fear. the horse controllers are nervous. and if the horse controllers are nervous, the animorphs are, too. eventually, all the horses converge on a large hangar. it’s hella secure - armed guards at all the doors, a few snipers on the roof, the works. a loud bell rings, some sort of alarm, and then the main doors of the hangar begin to swing open. without warning, the horse controllers start to gallop towards the open doors - and after a moment’s hesitation, so do marco, ax, and rachel. not ones to be left behind, jake cassie and tobias follow suit.
it’s buckwild inside the hangar! the horses just start crackin’ skulls and shoving guards! someone gives the order to shoot, but that is quickly silenced - the guards could risk shooting what’s inside.
what’s inside, you ask???
let’s find out
all the horses - normal, controller, and animorphs - charge into the hangar. they push their way past more guards, and scientists, and stuffy old men in uniforms. everyone’s screaming about the horses - someone even yells that they’re allergic, which made me laugh - but cassie’s having a grand ol’ time. she loves running! she’s a prize-winning horse! she lets out a loud neigh, startling a woman into dropping her yogurt, and then the horse brigade keeps moving. finally, they enter the room in the center of the hangar, the reason for all the security. it’s glass on all sides, with a pedastal in the center, surrounded by cameras and wires and computers. on the pedastal is something not from this planet.
it was about eight feet across. the shape was like a cube with the corners rounded off. the entire surface was covered with tubing and painted symbols.
at one end was an opening, large enough for a person to walk inside. i could just barely get a glimpse of the inside. it was smooth, a lovely green in color, with soft lighting. there was some sort of instrumentation on the wall.
all the horses come to a standstill. the animorphs have no clue what it is. and the yeerks? the yeerks don’t know, either. a colonel yells at a nearby sergeant to get these dang horses out of his facility!!! the sergeant is like, horses!!!! about face!!!!
and all the horses do
throw all of these military members into that group therapy. how do you explain that. could you imagine telling a horse to do an about face and then have it do an about face? and walk out calmly after observing an alien spacecraft? where do you even go from there?
the animorphs head back into the Dry Lands, following the group of bummed out horse controllers. it’s confusing: what was that thing? why are the horse controllers so bummed? and what does it matter if no one understands what that thing actually was? well, ax says. he might know what it is. kind of. but before he can explain, WOOOOSH! from up above, a bug fighter glides over the Dry Lands and lands near the horse controllers. (tobias is like, can’t believe the radars on the base don’t pick that up, and ax is like, radar? any andalite child can build a radar-cloak out of their shit and some sticks, proving once again that andalites are the assholes of the universe.)
the animorphs keep their distance, but watch as the horse controllers assemble in front of the door of the bug fighter. out first is a hork-bajir, armed with a dracon beam weapon, and then out steps [ALARM BELLS RINGING / CONFETTI FALLS FROM THE SKY / THE SOUND OF A BEER CAN BEING PUNCTURED FOR SHOTGUNNING ] visser three!!!!!!
instantly, he’s like status report! what did you learn! the yeerks are like u h well s ir funn y st o ry ….. visser three wastes no time decapitating a horse. just. schink! head gone! he rants about how incompetant they all are, and says they’ll JUST have to move to the backup plan, which involves making controllers out of some of the humans on the base. and then, suddenly, visser three notices the animorphs. he’s like, those horses aren’t with us! i’ll have to kill them, just to be sure! cassie’s like, everyone!!! act natural!!!!
so then she eats some grass and shits
not a joke!
still, it isn’t enough to convince visser three that he shouldn’t kill them. yeerks don’t give a fuck about horses! he waves his little hand and the hork-bajir aims his dracon beam. minneapolis max’s instincts kick in. he doesn’t want to die. cassie charges at the hork-bajir, lifts her huge hooves high into the air, and manages to smack the dracon beam out of his hands and crush it beneath her feet. another hork-bajir emerges from the bug fighter. time to run!
the animorphs start hauling butt away from the hork-bajir. it’s tense - if the hork-bajir catch up to them, they’ll be glue before they can whinny. luckily, it doesn’t come to that. a couple of humvees come barging out of area 91, flashing spotlights into the Dry Lands. well, the hork-bajir don’t want to get caught, so they hightail it back to the bug fighter, and the animorphs are home free. as they’re leaving, everyone starts talking about what that thing was that was inside the hangar. cassie’s like, well, i guess we’ll never know, because we’re not risking our lives to go back there again. the yeerks don’t even know what it is!
of course the yeerks don’t know what it is, ax said calmly. they have never been aboard an andalite dome ship.
one by one, every one stops walking. and then one by one they all turn to face ax. still as horses! classic comedy. everyone’s like, you know what that is??? and ax is like, yeah. it’s a disposable model from the first generation of andalite dome ship. there were parts that were made to be used and then shot into space (aimed towards a star so they’d burn up). but this one got caught in earth’s gravity. everyone’s like so which piece of the ship is it?? the engine?? the weapons??
no, of course not. it’s … well, this is a bit embarrassing. it’s an andalite dome ship’s modular waste disposal system.
turns out the biggest secret in america is a primitive andalite port-a-potty
LOTS of poop humor in this one, folks!!!
the animorphs fly back home, a little dejected from their big mission. they’ve done a lot of important stuff. this was…not really important. when cassie arrives home, her parents are waiting for her, and they’re big mad. cassie’s like i’m sorry! i was out with rachel! and jake! and then her parents are like ….. do we need to have the sex talk? cassie is like s e x t alk / ?? ? / no we don’t need no please god no no i’m not dating i’ m not please
her mom takes mercy on her. they’re just worried parents, and after a stern reminder that all they ask from her is honesty, they release her. she moves into the kitchen to make a sandwich, and listens to her parents speaking quietly in the other room. they talk about how cool their kid is (true!) and how hard-working she is. the only real way they can punish her is by embarrassing her a little. they discuss various ways to do that in the future (including telling her that they’re going to have jake and his family over to discuss boundaries of the relationship, or telling her that they’re going to take her to father banion for a family discussion on intimacy, which honestly? objectively funny. pulling pranks on your kid is funny.) and then cassie takes her sandwich upstairs. but something her dad said strikes her. he used the term backup plan. and so did visser three. which gets her thinking: why do the yeerks need a backup plan?
they don’t know what the yeerk bathroom is, but they know it’s not a weapon or a ship. so what’s the interest? she tries to shake it off. she does homework, and ruminates on the fact that her parents totally know she’s into jake, and then goes to bed. and then, at four o’clock in the morning, she shoots straight up out of sleep.
“so it’s a toilet,” i cried. “that’s not important. it’s an alien toilet! an alien toilet! that’s the point!”
the last thing the yeerks want humans to have is proof that aliens exist. right now, that’s their greatest advantage in their invasion — even if the animorphs were to go on tv and claim that aliens were real, without proof, they’d just sound like internet weirdos, or worse. the yeerks don’t want the government to hang on to the alien port-a-potty. no one can know.
cassie remembers the sign-up sheet she saw at the base. tomorrow, the gardens is going to be full of people who work at area 91. it’ll probably be a great place for visser three and the yeerks to snatch up some unsuspecting military person and shove a slug in their ear. and the animorphs are not gonna let that happen.
that night, the animorphs fly over to the gardens. much like the restaurant company i used to work for (which will remain nameless but involves a food pun and a musical reference) zone 91 has rented out the amusement park for the soldiers and their families. cassie scrambled a plan together early this morning, and she made one crucial mistake: by the time the animorphs arrive at the gardens, the zone 91 people have been there for an hour. cassie messed up her military time, and now the animorphs have to dive straight into the action, instead of getting the opportunity to scout out the gardens for wherever the yeerks are planning to make controllers. cassie thinks quickly. there are two places in the amusement park section of the gardens the yeerks could be using: the log ride and the house of horrors. both are dark and provide ample opportunity for body-snatching. scary!
the animorphs split up. cassie, marco, and jake go to the log ride, while rachel, tobias, and ax go to the house of horrors. on the way, cassie berates herself a little. marco gives her a tip - all you have to do is subtract 12 when it comes to military time. neat. i will not remember that. team jacasco demorphs just outside the log ride. after waiting in line, they settle in - jake and cassie in the front, marco in the middle, and a man and woman behind them. the ride starts, and marco talks about how much he likes the log ride. from behind, the man says, hey! i know that voice! cassie slowly turns around. sitting behind them, in the log ride, is the captain who interrogated them back at area 91.
fuck!
at that moment, the log ride plummets down. everyone screams, and the captain tells them that they’re under arrest! they land at the bottom. there’s a lot going on. up ahead, jake points out, is a tunnel of love situation. it’s going to be dark, and that’s probably where the yeerks will strike. either way, cassie says, they’ll have to get out there, so they can lose the captain and not get arrested. marco turns around and casually tells the captain he actually doesn’t have any arresting authority. the captain whips out his cell phone (still on the log ride!) and calls security. the log bumps its way into the darkness of the tunnel up ahead. it’s dark dark in there, but they have no other choice. cassie leaps out of the ride (dangerous!) and hopes everything will go to plan.
it doesn’t!
cassie plummets into the water of the ride! she bangs her head against the concrete and starts floating away. there’s a lot of onomatopoeia as various people splash and bonk and punch their way through the darkness of the tunnel. cassie emerges from the tunnel. still on the log ride! just no longer in the log! this is how people die!!!! behind her, jake, marco, and angry captain torrelli are bobbing in the water. she tries to climb out, but she’s too weak, and the current of the water is too strong. she’s going to have to wait until the end of the ride. of course, the end of the ride comes after a huge fucking waterfall.
which they ride
cassie slides down the fifty foot drop screaming the whole way. girl! me too! behind her are jake and marco, also screaming, and captain torelli, who is screaming and angry. cassie rolls out of the water, dodging captain torelli, and scrambles off the ride. she, jake, and marco take a moment near the exit to regroup. no yeerks on the log ride, which means they gotta check out the house of horrors. they start running.
the house of horrors is on the other side of the amusement park. once they arrive, they assess the situation. they don’t know if the other animorphs are in morph, nor what morph they’ll be in. they don’t know if the yeerks they’re about to find will be humans or hork-bajir, if they find any at all. and captain torelli has angrily called security on them and will absolutely arrest their asses the second he can get his grubby little hands on ‘em. all so the yeerks can hide an andalite port-a-potty from the world.
it’s only book 14
they make their way into the house of horrors, sitting in a car with a man around thirty years old. weird! the car starts to trundle down the track, and various things jump out and try to scare the kids, but they have been so worn down by their near death experiences that the sight of a pirate holding his own head just isn’t gonna cut it. cassie looks backwards. in the car behind them is captain torelli and three garden security guards. awesome! captain torelli is like “airman jones!!!! you don’t let those kids out of your sight!!!” airman jones is like y’all are in trouble, huh? the car turns the corner, and cassie gulps. yep. they’re definitely in trouble.
waiting for them in the next room are six hork-bajir and one evil andalite, frozen in place so as to appear as part of the haunted house. behind them, a grizzly bear, a red-tailed hawk, and a rattlesnake are also frozen. cassie would recognize that grizzly bear anywhere. the loudspeaker above cries out, “nyah-hah-hah-hah! beware the graveyard ghouls!”
“this is the best part of the ride,” airman jones said. “those big blade monsters there are really cool!”
i rolled my eyes. my stomach rolled all on its own.
“this is so totally going to turn ugly,” marco said.
yeah! it is!
the world slows down for one moment. cassie realizes that the yeerks are going to go for the most important person in the room, and who would be more important than the head of security at area 91? time snaps back into place and she yells, “they’ll go for torelli!” BAM. chaos erupts. cassie, jake, and marco leap out of their car. the hork-bajir are already swarming the car with torelli in it. one of the hork-bajir slices off an arm (not of an animorph, but still). two other hork-bajir lift torelli out of his car like he’s a little doll. the morphed animorphs are there, too: rachel swinging her huge grizzly paws, tobias clawing out the eyes of a hork-bajir, ax chompin’ at ankles. cassie, marco, and jake have little choice but to morph, too.
this is so dangerous!!!! up until now the visser has just assumed that they’re all andalites. he’s never had any reason to believe they’re a group of kids. but cassie identified their plan, and they’re like, in the fight now. i’m freaking out!! obvs, the animorphs don’t have time to think about this. cassie, jake, and marco start a’morphin’, and visser three and two hork-bajir yoink captain torrelli out of view. and then a car full of people just comes driving through. they’re still in the haunted house! cassie finishes her wolf morph, jake and marco are in tiger and gorilla form respectively, and they look around. cassie can smell torrelli. they bound after him, when FWAPP! FWAPP! CRUNCH! there’s bright lights and a fuckton of noise. cassie turns. visser three has used his andalite tail to slice through the house of horrors, giving him and the hork-bajir a path straight into the gardens. three aliens, six animorphs, and one very angry human man.
and the band played “seventy-six trombones” with lots of loud tuba and louder pounding bass drums.
s e v e n t y - s i x t r o m b o n e s
objectively fucking funny
that’s right! the band! this is an amusement park, after all, and it’s time for the nightly gardens parade of characters. three brass bands! cartoon characters! dance teams! floats! clowns!!! visser three tries to decapitate daffy duck, but the actor inside just pokes her head out and is like what the fuck is your deal?? visser three is like ??? ? ? a second head ???
we never stop learning, you know?
the animorphs charge in. cassie is too fast for a hork-bajir to touch. rachel takes on two. jake sinks his tiger teeth into another. marco is using ax as a whip, letting the rattlesnake get in some good bites and yanking him out of the danger zone. fuckin’ rad! the crowd is loving this! so am i! cassie knocks out her hork-bajir and races ahead. she can’t see torrelli, but she can still smell him. up ahead: she spots him in the arms of a hork-bajir. she wastes no time. cassie runs and lunges, wrapping her teeth around the throat of the hork-bajir. torrelli breaks free and books it. cassie and the hork-bajir size each other up, but before either of them can make a move, visser three clatters by. the hork-bajir turns and follows his leader. moments later, a pair of bug fighters rise from the top of the alien adventure ride and shoot off into the sky.
as the bug fighters powered away into the night, i noticed a kid shaking his head disgustedly. “those aren’t what alien spaceships look like,” he said.
“that’s for sure,” his grandfather agreed. “i was taken aboard a spaceship once. the aliens performed medical experiments on me. and their ship was nothing like that.”
grandpa!
the official story in the newspaper is that a group of pranksters dressed up, vandalized the house of horrors, and carried out a mock abduction on the captain. when asked for comment, captain torrelli says he’s on the lookout for three kids named fox mulder, dana scully, and cindy crawford. good luck!
the animorphs meet up at the barn the next day to debrief. the yeerks are still after the andalite toilet, but at least the captain will be on high alert now that he’s had a brush with real aliens. everyone needs a project, rachel says, eyeing cassie’s jeans. cassie’s like oh no that’s how this whole thing started! you are not going to buy me more clothes! marco’s like can we please at least discuss the horseracing thing one more time?
and that’s when i dumped a bucket of water on marco’s head and we all went home.
classic animorphs!!!!!!!!
REVIEW
3.5/5! lots of good silly stuff here. this felt like a set-up book, you know? not a ton happened, but a lot got laid out for the future. will visser three remember the three kids in the house of horrors? are the animorphs ever going to have to team up with the air force? will that kid’s grandpa and crazy helen meet up? are the animorphs going to start a horse-race ring? i had fun. i love these books.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
our government definitely has info on aliens, right? like…they have to know something, right? they released that cia document confirming we live in a hologram so like, we’ve gotta know about aliens by now?? yes??
have you ever had an encounter with aliens? seen a ufo? been too close to a military base?
remember amusement parks
PREDICTIONS
matt’s prediction of a love triangle before book 20
charlie’s prediction of an animorph death before book 20
that’s all i have for you this week, folks! happy new year! i don’t think time is real, and we all know that a new calendar doesn’t automatically mean a fresh start, but. i hope you find new opportunities and joy. my roommate is going to make fun of me for this, but: i hope you think about the tangible ways you can make the world you want to live in a reality. we aren’t alone. to quote my favorite show (and i guess some actual real life philosopher), “we are what we owe to each other.” 2020 is over. the fight is not. i love you all. til next week.
It is hard for me to believe that the Bianca that wrote this hadn't yet been poisoned by the great bean dad controversy of 2021.
I love the idea of our big bad just standing still as hard as he can, waiting to be big and bad, and that we then double down on the joke with the Animorphs standing behind him just waiting. It's so fucking Scooby Doo and I am absolutely here for it.
Happy New Years!
I gotta say, I agree that this feels filler, but the addition of a desert area completely dethroned my peg of Dover, DE as their spot (despite Safeway being an east coast thing??) (and there is an air base in Dover). Applegate hasn’t thwarted me yet.
Aliens are 110% real and I truly and honestly believe that they probably think earth humans are too self-destructive to interact with us on a personal level. Some day tho.