ANIMORPHS #2: THE VISITOR

"i wish i had never come up with that word. animorph. gimme a break."

hi friends. welcome back to animorphs weekly, the animorphs gossip blog everyone’s tweeting about. if you made it to this week, i commend you. i’ll be honest: fifty-four books seems daunting. but, like our friends the animorphs, i’m going to face my fears and do what needs to be done. here we go!

NO ONE KNOWS WHO THEY ARE.

fun! we love a tagline that holds a double meaning. only five animorphs on this cover, and today, reader, i feel like a two: a clever cat that sometimes looks as if they would speak to you if only they could believe you were trustworthy. i know we’re all big fans of these covers — i’ve had people tell me that they’d often just sit in the library, staring at these covers with an almost hypnotized fascination — but i do have an obligation to show you this other cover i found.

tom hooper wishes.

on to the book!

SUMMARY

book two, blessedly, only has twenty-four chapters AND confirms what the cover gave me hope for: book two is from the perspective of rachel, who we all remember as the Hot Cousin from book one. this leads me to believe that we’ll be trading narrators throughout the series, which is pretty fun, and a concept i’m a huge fan of. let me learn about each of our heroes from their own perspectives — and more interestingly, let me learn about the other heroes from different perspectives. i guarantee you that rachel is not going to refer to jake as her hot cousin. (but she does have a soft spot for tobias, who as we all remember, is now a bird permanently. so. i’m sure we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.)

rachel opens the book with a disclaimer similar to jake’s: “i won’t tell you my last name. none of us will ever tell you our last names.” and then she covers her ass. “whenever i do use a last name, it’s a fake. sorry, but that’s the way it has to be.” let’s start taking bets on how many books are going to start this way. at some point, applegate is going to need to trust me. i understand these kids. frankly, i don’t want to know their last names. keep the mystery alive.

we open on the kids all flying as different birds. rachel is a bald eagle, marco and cassie are ospreys, jake is a falcon, and tobias is a red-tailed hawk. tobias is the smoothest flier, because being a bird is his full-time gig now. he teaches rachel how to do a dive, and we learn that rachel is a huge thrillseeker. cool! rachel thinks about how bad it would be if she had to morph out of being a bird while she was a thousand feet above the ground — which does raise the question, how long does the morphin’ need to recharge? could she morph to human and back to bird? can you morph mid-air? before any of these questions can be answered, the kids start getting shot at. rachel is pissed because she’s a bald eagle and therefore an endangered species, and the kids decide to absolutely scare the shit out of the people shooting from the woods. they dive-bomb these two dudes, assuredly scarring them for life, and rachel steals the gun and drops it in the ocean. hell yeah!

cassie reminds everyone that they’re nearing their two-hour time limit, and the kids fly back to the barn where they started. we get another excruciatingly detailed description of what its like to morph from animal to human. rachel assures us that they’ve all figured out how to morph with clothes on — only like, skintight gymnasts outfits, but still. it’s a start. rachel gives a brief physical description of the kids, and again — look, not to project, but last book jake said that all cassie wears is plaid and jeans, and in this book rachel says cassie would wear overalls to a wedding, and i’m just saying…plaid…overalls…short hair…she’s a Horse Girl…

rachel describes jake as “kind of a big guy, strong-looking, with brown hair and serious, dark eyes.” 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.” we stan a short king! the kids start complaining about how uncool it is to have to morph back into their human forms — and then they remember that tobias is still there, stuck as a hawk, forever and ever amen. read the room!

the kids start to walk home and pass by the construction site that started this whole mess. a challenge for ya books — and maybe for other books too, but i can’t read — is that they have to balance reminding their readers of what happened in the last book without being totally expository. it works, at least so far, because the kids are just processing their trauma. it is pretty cool that they’re talking about how scared they are — and how guilty they feel about failing to destroy the yeerk pool — but it’s also really sad that they have to bear this burden alone. super alone is tobias, who as a hawk can’t just hang and chat. jake reveals that the door leading to the yeerk pool that was located in the janitor’s closet is gone. the kids discuss how they’re going to find another entrance. rachel suggests following big brother tom, but jake isn’t into that idea. he doesn’t want to draw attention to big brother tom, in case the yeerks decide to kill Real Tom. but there is someone else. assistant principal controller chapman is a great lead — and even more convenient, he has a daughter, melissa, who just happens to be one of rachel’s oldest friends. melissa and rachel have drifted apart in the past few months, and even though rachel feels really shitty for having to use melissa in this way, the kids don’t really have any other leads.

the next day, rachel goes to gymnastics class at the ymca. she tells us that she used to want to be the next shannon miller but now she’s too tall. “people look at me now and say, “oh, you’re going to be a model,” not, “oh, you could be a gymnast.”” tragedy. rachel runs into melissa in the locker room and describes her as a tolkien elf. the girl has range! she reads! melissa is pretty distracted — and sad. rachel feels bad that she’s only just now noticing melissa’s downward spiral and asks the question we’re all thinking: is melissa a controller?

either that or her parents are going through a divorce. we’ve all been there.

right?

anyway, rachel gets really bummed that melissa doesn’t want to hang out — and also she might be a host for the slugaliens that are seeking to kill rachel and her friends — so rachel decides to walk home instead of going to the mall. on the way there, she gets catcalled, and the dude gets out of the car and follows her. she does what i would do — she starts to morph, but only halfway, so she can really scare the shit out of him. not a girl, not yet an elephant. is it satisfying that the guy practically shits his pants and dives into his car? absolutely. is it reckless, considering the animorphs need to keep their identity a huge secret and anyone could be a yeerk controller? absolutely!!! just as rachel has morphed back into a full-girl (and realized her morphin’ split her shoes in half), another car pulls up. this time, it’s melissa and her dad, assistant principal controller chapman. melissa asks if rachel needs a ride home. it starts to rain and rachel is obligated. it’s like the scene from tom holland’s spiderman when he’s in the car with michael keaton. fuckin’ nuts. everything assistant principal controller chapman says sounds like a threat to rachel, which, totally understand! he’s got a yeerk in his brain!

finally, rachel gets dropped off and runs inside, and we get a look at her home life. rachel’s mom is a lawyer! her parents are divorced! she has two siblings named jordan and sara. after dinner (delivered pizza, because single moms are bad at cooking), rachel calls an emergency morphin’ meeting so she can tell the other kids about melissa. she does NOT tell them that assistant principal controller chapman drove her home, but she does tell them she morphed in front of the catcaller. marco gets really upset — which, sure, i understand. the kids — minus tobias, i have to note, because red-tailed hawks don’t have phones — determine that using melissa to get to her dad is dangerous considering she might also be a controller.

(sorry, i have to sidebar — where is tobias?? i feel like for safety reasons he should always be like, nesting near one of their houses. i’m sure we’ll get his pov soon but i need to know!!)

the kids are trying to figure out the best way to spy on assistant principal controller chapman when rachel has a great cinematic moment. she’s staring intently at a board of photos — some of her with her dad (a weatherman), one of her and cassie riding horses, and one of her and melissa at melissa’s birthday a few years ago. suddenly, it hits her! there is one animal rachel can turn into to get close to melissa and her controller dad.

“it’s me and melissa,” i said. “it was like her twelfth birthday, or some birthday, anyway, and we were out on her lawn playing with the present her dad gave her.”

“so what?” marco asked.

“so…” i passed him the photograph. it showed me and melissa in shorts. and between us a small black-and-white kitten. “so her present was a cat.”

nice!

the kids decide to go over to melissa’s house right away. sure. we get some fun banter about how marco’s always been afraid of chapman, even before he was a controller. tobias, focused as always, is like, let me use my hawk-eyes to spy this cat. cassie reminds rachel that if she morphs into the cat, she’s gotta play it cool — which like, we’re doing this right now?? we’re gonna morph right now?? as the housecat?? is no one worried about the time limit??? tobias is right there, y’all! tobias is like, i found the cat — he’s chasing a mouse a few lawns over.

listen. y’all all know about my cat, who is fiv+, who is not allowed to go outside. the thought that some housecat is just roamin’ in the streets makes me nervous. is this something normal cats do?? please let me know.

rachel and cassie try to creep up on fluffer mckitty (real name of the cat, i did not make that up) and discover that male cats are real assholes. fluffer swipes at rachel, slices her hand, and then runs up the tree. rachel’s like, i’ve got an idea! tobias, fetch me a mouse.

girl!!!

cassie helpfully points out that they should all get their rabies shot. she, of course, already has hers, but this is obviously a good idea since they’re just gonna be handling wild animals all the time. tobias comes back with a shrew, not a mouse, and rachel is like, this will do. she acquires the shrew dna, and cassie is like, “hey, just be careful, because sometimes cats will play with their food and sometimes they’ll just fuckin’ snap the neck.” rachel’s like, thanks! that helps. she morphs into a shrew. rachel immediately succumbs to the terror of being a shrew and tobias has to come and catch her in his hawk talons. tobias reminds rachel that she’s a human inside a shrew’s body (comforting) and they try the plan again.

the kids capture fluffer and stuff him into a cat carrier. rachel morphs back and is like, alright, hand him over. cassie’s like, two morphs in one night?? u sure?? and rachel is like, i don’t know if you know this, but i’m the Pretty/Tough Girl. i can do this. she acquires fluffer’s dna and then cassie is like, wow, you’ve got four morphs. i wonder how many morphs each of us can have. marco helpfully points out that they’ll probably discover the limit at the worst possible time. and you know what? he’s probably right.

the kids decide to hold off on sending rachel into assistant principal controller chapman’s house. probably a good idea. they go home, and that night, rachel has a nightmare about being a shrew and eating maggots. her younger sister, jordan, wakes her up and rachel immediately vomits. jordan says, “i know i’m just your little sister by two years, but you would tell me if something bad was happening to you, right?” lovely exposition and another opportunity for paranoia to sink in. rachel is so sure that jordan isn’t a controller, but also knows that’s exactly what jake said about big brother tom. i love a good sibling dynamic!

on the way to school, jake and rachel have a conversation about how some animals give them cool dreams and some animals give them bad dreams. rachel says she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to morph into a bug, which, yeah! i don’t blame her. that sounds like a fucking nightmare. when they get to school, rachel sees melissa, who’s been crying. rachel is a compassionate person, and approaches melissa, who is like, “everything sucks you’re not my friend anymore everything’s wrong and nothing’s wrong and my mom and dad are…who cares!! not you!!” and runs off.

1000% i’ve said those exact words in that exact order to someone. or probably as a facebook status in 2009. nobody’s perfect.

a few days later, the kids are ready to sneak into assistant principal controller chapman’s house. rachel is going to morph into the cat, and before she does so, tobias sends her a private telepathic message letting her know he’s ready to swoop in at any moment and lift her out of there. sweet. rachel starts to morph into a cat and i am 100% sure tom hooper read this scene and said “that’s how we’ll do cats (2019).” everyone’s like, rachel, this is a good look for you! and i can’t tell if they’re fucking with her.

rachel loves being a cat. a jellicle cat…kidding! i’m not gonna do that here. write your own cats (2019) jokes. seriously though — rachel is like, being a cat is fuckin’ awesome. she says,

“that was my whole cat message to the world: don’t mess with me. don’t get in my way, don’t try to touch me if i don’t want to be touched, don’t try to keep me from getting what i want.”

cool!

the kids are like, hey, rach, just like, remember you’re a cat and you’re spying on a man who literally wants us dead and if you do anything out of the ordinary the man who literally wants us dead will absolutely get what he wants. rachel’s like, i’ve got this! and then she does like, three cat things in a row that have everybody going, rachel? you got this? tobias even steps in and says, “just remember: it’s fun being an animal for awhile. not so fun when it’s permanent. the two-hour clock is ticking. tick tock.”

rachel strolls into the house, finds assistant principal controller chapman and mrs. assistant principal controller chapman doing some menial tasks but in the weirdest, most silent way. assistant principal controller chapman starts to move towards the basement, and tobias checks in with rachel. she’s annoyed, but i’m relieved. don’t do things alone! assistant principal controller chapman moves through the basement into a secret room and rachel follows. there, assistant principal controller chapman holo-skypes with visser three. scary! assistant principal controller chapman greets visser three with this: “iniss two two six of the sulp niaar pool submits to you. may the kandrona shine and strengthen you.”

i will be saying that to my friends from now on.

visser three asks if there’s progress on locating the “andalite bandits,” which is my new band name, you can’t have it. visser three mentions that the Council of Thirteen will be upset with visser three if the andalite bandits are loose on earth, and when the Council of Thirteen is upset with visser three, visser three is upset with iniss two two six of the sulp niaar pool. then visser three is like, what the fuck is that?

assistant principal controller chapman is like, that’s a cat.

visser three is like, cool. kill it immediately.

rachel plays it real cool. she lets the cat brain take over so she doesn’t do anything un-cat-like, like care. assistant principal controller chapman is like, i’d love to kill the cat, sir, but the cat belongs to the girl (melissa), and if i kill the cat, she’ll be upset, and my cover will be blown, because only pre-serial killers kill cats for no reason. visser three is like……….fine. but soon we’re gonna have to take care of the girl. assistant principal controller chapman is like, no, we made a deal with real chapman that we wouldn’t do anything to the girl!

juicy.

visser three is like, deals are for losers. i’m not a loser, i’m visser three! we’ll deal with this later. don’t fuck this up for me, or i’ll fucking slurp you right out of that brain and eat you, iniss two two six. and then visser three shows a fun little hologram video of himself turning into an alien and doing just that to a different yeerk. assistant principal controller chapman is like, yes chef, and then visser three logs off.

upstairs, assistant principal controller chapman and mrs. assistant principal controller chapman have a brief talk. they identify the yeerk-sucking alien as a vanarx, or a yeerkbane. assistant principal controller chapman is like, visser three sucks and i hope the Council of Thirteen yoinks him out of that andalite body and shoots his little slug body in to space.

we love in-fighting!

melissa comes downstairs and is like, “can y’all help me with some math problems?” and both of her controller parents are like, no sweetie :) melissa runs upstairs and rachel’s cat instincts kick in. she follows melissa upstairs and is like, i need to comfort this child. tobias is like, hey rachel, just checking in, you have less than an hour and the real fluffer is heading home now. all your friends are freaking out! and rachel, in true cat fashion, is like, fuck my friends! i need to comfort this sad child. she starts purring.

melissa is crying to her cat, asking what she did to get her parents to turn into these loveless robots. this is sad! this is really actually sad. rachel gets really angry, and she suddenly has a personal connection to this larger fight.

“next time marco asked why were fighting the yeerks, i knew i would have a whole new answer. because they destroy the love of parents for their daughter. because they made melissa chapman cry in her bed with no one to comfort her but a cat. it was a small answer, i guess. i mean, it wasn’t some high-sounding answer about the entire human race. it was just about this one girl. my friend. whose heart was broken because her parents were no longer really her parents.”

like!!! go rachel!!!

she makes it back outside with ten minutes to spare, and justifiably, all the other animorphs are like, what the fuck??? rachel’s like, chill out, it’s fine — i got all this new information and a new purpose in life.

and then she bursts out into song.

kidding!

the next morning, rachel ruminates on how melissa must be feeling. she talks about how when her parents got divorced, she thought it meant that they didn’t love her or her sisters anymore, but she knows that’s not true. (which is a very mature thing to know and also a really nice nod from applegate to children of divorce who are probably reading these books.) rachel talks about how love is like wearing a suit of armor, and reader, i almost teared up! y’all know how i feel about love! it has to be in everything! it’s what makes us human and connected and we are what we owe to each other and !!!!!!!!!!!

later that afternoon, the animorphs have a meeting at the old church tower. (sure!) marco points out that they need coordinating post-morph outfits. he’s right! marco also confesses that he should probably be spending more time with his dad, and before rachel or jake can say anything insensitive, cassie jumps in and is like, “for sure. spending time with your dad is important. we can’t forget why we’re doing all of this in the first place.” true! the animorphs have a nice moment, and then it’s back to business.

rachel wants to go back into the chapman’s. she wants to discover the location of the kandrona so they can destroy it — and both assistant principal controller chapman and visser three know where it is. and what it is. rachel decides not to tell the group that visser three ordered fluffy be killed, which is not a good idea. rule number one: always tell your fellow animorphs every detail. this is a general rule of thumb — secrets can become deadly — but especially when you’re a group of kids taking on advanced alien species. tobias private messages cassie something, and cassie is like, “ok rachel, but you shouldn’t go alone.” true! also true.

we cut to a dark and stormy night. seriously! cassie, marco, rachel, and tobias are all down the street from the chapman household. jake is not there because he got grounded. i have to say, i appreciate how often applegate refers to them being real kids — lots of homework talk in this book, and now a grounding. bound to happen! rachel morphs into fluffer, and cassie kneels down and pets her, tells her to be careful, and then “smiling mysteriously, she stood up.” hm…

fluffer!rachel bounds inside the chapman house and follows assistant principal controller chapman back into the basement. once she reaches the basement, however, jake pops up in her head with a casual, “what’s happening?” rachel, naturally, kind of freaks out and almost gets caught tailing assistant principal controller chapman. turns out, jake’s morphed into a flea! cassie planted him! nice one kids!

but, again…maybe we should be telling our fellow morphs the plans??

while they’re hiding underneath the table, rachel has to confess to jake that last time she was in here, visser three ordered assistant principal controller chapman to kill her. jake, of course, is like, what the fuck??? and then visser three holo-skypes in. visser three tells assistant principal controller chapman that they need six more human controllers to guard the kandrona, and then assistant principal controller chapman kicks fluffer!rachel. y i k e s! visser three is like that cat is definitely an andalite bandit. capture it and bring it to me!

MAJOR YIKES, EVERYONE.

not only does visser three demand that assistant principal controller chapman bring fluffer to the nearest landing site, he’s also decided that it’s time to put a yeerk into melissa’s ear. rachel feels very guilty — and this is why, kids, we tell our teammates everything! visser three is like, it’s been a long time since i’ve tortured an andalite, this is very exciting, see you all soon! and logs off. assistant principal controller chapman pulls out a lil alien gun and points it at fluffer. he calls for mrs. assistant principal controller chapman to bring down a little cage for fluffer, and she does so. rachel climbs inside because she doesn’t want to get shot with the alien gun, and assistant principal controller chapman tries to instruct mrs. assistant principal controller chapman to go get melissa.

and then Real Chapmans start to fight back.

the Real Chapmans don’t want to give up their daughter! so they start viciously fighting back. Real Mrs. Chapman starts choking herself!!! eventually the yeerks regain control, but this forbodes well. a parent’s love!! the controller chapmans have a brief discussion about how difficult it is to control humans and then assistant principal controller chapman is like, alright, i’m just gonna take the cat, surely visser three will understand. (doubtful.) on his way out, he runs into melissa, who understandably is like, where are you taking my cat???? rachel, Real Chapman, and assistant principal controller chapman do not want melissa to interact — then they’ll have to take melissa in.

rachel dm’s tobias and asks him to bring the real fluffer. it’s minor chaos: melissa is sobbing, assistant principal controller chapman is trying to ignore his sobbing daughter, jake is a flea and can’t see a thing — and then real fluffer shows up. assistant principal controller chapman is like, see? there’s your cat! this is a…fake cat. who i was taking to the vet. not your cat. and melissa’s like, why didn’t you just say that?? and then assistant principal controller chapman delivers a slam dunk insult: “i didn’t notice you.”

devastating!

assistant principal controller chapman hops into the car with fluffer!rachel and flea!jake. rachel is like, when we get out of here, you have to jump off me and go morph back into being a human. they argue for a bit, but rachel is right. jake can’t get trapped as a flea. that would be fucking awful! at least tobias can fly! they reach the construction site and rachel kicks jake out of the carrier. they have a moment of farewell which is like, super dark. look, it’s only book two, and already we’ve lost one kid to morphin’ and might be losing another kid to visser three. this shit is not fucking around!

the alien ships show up. everyone’s afraid! including me! what is going to happen!? visser three rolls out of his personal spaceship, surrounded by hork-bajirs and taxxons. visser three speaks directly to rachel, who understandably is fucking terrified. he still thinks she’s an andalite, and she realizes it has to stay that way. which is a horrifying thought for a teenager to have. book two, people! book two and we’re grappling with the responsibility of death! then visser three is like okay, deal with that in a second, where’s melissa? and assistant principal controller chapman is like, uh, about that…

and then assistant principal controller chapman is like, “my host wishes to speak with you.”

wild!

visser three allows it, and Real Chapman collapses to the ground. it’s been so long since he was in control of his own body that he can’t even remember how to move or speak. we find out that Real Chapman’s wife was infested with a yeerk first, and that Real Chapman volunteered for the position to protect melissa. he reminds visser three that they made a deal. visser three informs Real Chapman that things have changed. Real Chapman is like, melissa is not a threat. AND THEN HE STANDS UP. and he says, “the girl is no threat…but I am.”

NICE

doesn’t last long. visser three laughs and pushes Real Chapman back down. this man is weeping for his daughter. but he manages to say to visser three that he’ll continue to fight for his daughter, and then lets iniss two two six take over again. this also provides rachel with the opportunity to check the watch chapman’s wearing. she has seventeen minutes left! big yikes! assistant principal controller chapman tells visser three that Real Chapman isn’t fucking around — he’ll continue to fight — and visser three is like. fine. the girl isn’t a huge deal; i’ve got an andalite bandit to deal with! get out!

assistant principal controller chapman hops into his car and speeds away. a hork-bajir comes over and picks up rachel’s cage — and then jake checks back in. surprise! he didn’t leave! if rachel has fifteen minutes left, jake only has ten — but he did let the other animorphs know where they were. the cage makes it onto the ship, and as if on cue, one of the earthmovers in the construction site turns on. jake’s like, time to double morph! see ya!

i’m pretty sure this gets answered later on, but morphing from one animal to another does extend the time limit. i think? regardless, jake morphs from flea to human to tiger. rachel morphs halfway, so she can have human hands but a cat body (cats 2019) and breaks out of the cage. however, because she didn’t fully morph back to human, the clock is still ticking on her two hour time limit. these kids just can’t catch a break!

jake and rachel bust out of the spaceship and scatter into the construction site. cassie and marco start another earthmover. jake tells rachel to scram and morph back into a human. she runs for a crumbled building and tries to focus on morphin’ back — but the ceiling is lifted by visser three, who has morphed into a huge, twenty foot tall rock monster. he starts just chucking cement. threatening! from behind him, one of the earthmovers slams into one of the spaceships, distracting visser three and giving rachel enough time to jump out of the way. she starts sprinting (#zoomies) and tobias swoops in and yoinks her out of there. he drops her into a nearby tree and she morphs back with minutes to spare.

at the next gymnastics class, rachel slips a note into melissa’s locker that she typed on her word processor. the note says: “melissa, your father loves you more than you will ever know. and more than he can ever show you. signed, someone who knows.” it’s a really sweet thing to do for a friend who’s struggling with her parents, and honestly? i’m proud of rachel for doing it. she tells the other animorphs (thank god), and they’re all relatively chill about it. they have a moment where they discuss their wins, and tobias wraps it up by saying, “there will be a next time. there will be a next time until the andalites return.”

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

• cats (2019)?

• will we get a tobias pov book?

• will there be other povs or do you think we’ll just stick with our five?

• i didn’t mention this, but at some point, visser three notes that the yeerk he’s chosen for melissa is iniss two two six’s spawn mate. what…does that mean, exactly? siblings? lovers? do yeerks have siblings or lovers? they’re slugs!

PREDICTIONS

• marco’s mom…c’mon! you can’t keep reminding me they never found her body!

  that’s all i have for you this week, folks. now, if you’ll excuse me, i have to go cry while my cat sits nearby. see you next week!