ANIMORPHS #24: THE SUSPICION

it was like this awesome dance of giants. a titan hoedown.

hi hello everyone and welcome back to animorphs weekly, my belated attempt at gaining enough accelerated reader points to become principal for a day. i understand that these intro jokes might be super niche and only for me, but so is this blog, so. i won’t be apologizing.

wanna read a book?

WHAT COUNTS IS ON THE INSIDE. MOST OF THE TIME. . . .

too true queen!!!

it’s a cassie book!!

SUMMARY

we open with an epigraph written in the world’s smallest font:

go forth, mighty warriors! go forth into space! all the galaxy shall tremble before the helmacrons. all will obey us. all will be our slaves. for only we are truly worthy to be Lords of the Universe.

-posthumous exhortation of the emperor. from the log of the helmacron ship, galaxy blaster

cassie explains the situation earth is in, which by now we’re all familiar enough with that i think we could each give our own two-page summary if we wanted. the yeerks are here, humans are the perfect host bodies, the only thing standing in the way of a full on takeover are four kids, a birdboy, and an andalite.

and now you see why we really didn’t need a second alien invasion of earth.

i mean, isn’t one enough?

APPARENTLY NOT

applegate will never let me know peace

please i just learned that elfangor is tobias’s dad and now i have to learn about new aliens??? cruelty

we cut to cassie. it’s a bright saturday morning, and she’s in the middle of loading up her dad’s truck with a bunch of stuff her family’s planning on giving away. rachel arrives on the scene, and cassie wastes no time in telling us how beautiful rachel is. there’s a bit where cassie is like, i’m convinced dirt physically cannot stick to her!! and then she grabs a hunk of dirt and tosses it in rachel’s direction to prove her theory. but rachel, a softball queen, catches it one-handed. she’s like cassie, c’mon, we gotta go to the beach! i need to work on my tan! cassie literally says, “my tan is already pretty fresh,” which is very fucking funny. and then she’s like, i can’t go to the beach. i have work to do.

rachel crinkled her face. “hey. what’s that?”

“what’s what?” i followed the direction of her stare. she was looking at an old, hand-operated water pump. it wasn’t something we used. it was more of an antique that my mom liked the look of.

attached to it was a small, silvery object. “it’s a toy,” i said. “a toy spaceship.” i pried the little thing off the pump. “huh. must be magnetized.”

cassie doesn’t recognize the spaceship. but it is weird that it was stuck to the antique pump. the pump, you see, is where cassie hid the blue box. you remember the blue box, right? part of the david arc? anyway, after they trapped that kid in rat form for the rest of his life, cassie was charged with hiding the blue box. she hid it in the water pump, and if you have criticisms, you can remember she’s thirteen and cut her some slack. cassie tosses the toy spaceship in with the rest of the junk and agrees to go to the beach with rachel. she makes a joke about wearing bermuda shorts, which is a gay thing to do, and then they’re off.

the next chapter starts with another excerpt from the helmacron log, lest we forget about the other aliens

most powerful emperor, lord of the galaxy, disaster has struck your bold minions! our engines have malfunctioned. we searched the planet for a power source we could tap. but now, even as we replenished our strength from a strange source of transforming power, one of the alien monsters of this planet has attacked! we have sustained damage, but we are undaunted! perhaps the weak and unworthy captain of the planet crusher will assist us so that we may achieve everlasting glory!

-from the log of the helmacrom ship, galaxy blaster

pls only refer to me as a bold minion from now on

the gals spend a few hours at the beach - cassie thinks it’s so boring, but rachel’s having fun, so she has fun. when they make it back to cassie’s house, they find jake waiting for them. cassie tells us that she has a crush on jake, and for some reason points out that he’s rachel’s cousin and they’re very similar looking and in behavior. i’m looking into the camera for an uncomfortable period of time.

regardless, there’s a very fun bit where jake freezes at the sight of cassie in a bathing suit. cassie’s worried it means he thinks she’s ugly. rachel lets out a deep sigh.

“cassie, you are so hopeless. what you know about guys could fit on the head of a pin. good grief. that is not a ‘she looks dumpy’ look. that’s a ‘whoa, she looks hot, but i better not show my reaction or she’ll get offended’ look.”

and then rachel proceeds to move to stand behind jake to silently make fun of how awestruck he is at the sight of cassie in a bathing suit. cassie fights the urge to laugh, but then she spots something troubling. there’s another toy spaceship stuck to the water pump. this one looks different than the one from before - and then it flies away.

well, the weekend has been cancelled. it’s time for a barn meeting. once all the animorphs are assembled, they try to explain what they saw to ax. he is as helpful as always, which is to say, not much. unable to describe the toy spaceship to ax, they decide to morph seagull and fly to goodwill to fetch it. jake, rachel, and cassie manage to convince the clerk to let them pick through the unsorted donations until they find the ship. once they find it, a different small silver ship floats in. and shoots jake! tsew tsew!

most omnipotent leader! we have located the fools of the galaxy blaster. they have allowed themselves to be taken by the large aliens of this planet. but your loyal ship, planet crusher, will destroy all who stand in our way and will save that other unworthy ship so that they might, perhaps by mere accident, serve your great will!

-from the log of the helmacrom ship, planet crusher

forget top and bottom

which one of you is the galaxy blaster and which one is the planet crusher

rachel, never one to back down from action, grabs a nearby baseball bat and swings for the ships. after missing a few times — and getting some hair shot off — the animorphs decide to back off and watch what happens. the new little ship lands near the old little ship. they get a jumpstart, and then both ships hover in the air, staring down the animorphs. suddenly, someone on a little ship reaches out in thought-speak, demanding the power source under threat of slavery and annihilation. cassie understands: the blue box! she tries to approach them calmly, but they just shoot her and fly away. for about ten seconds, the animorphs stand in the middle of a goodwill garage, trying to figure out what the fuck just happened.

been there

doesn’t take long to put it together, though. the aliens are after the blue box! jake tells tobias (who i guess is just nearby with marco and ax) to follow the spaceships while he, rachel, and cassie start morphing into birds. it never gets less gross, y’all. the phrase “my heel bone suddenly popped through flesh” is used. and the word crusty. crusty………..

once everyone has morphed into their favorite birds, they’re off! rachel spots tobias far ahead of them, about halfway to cassie’s barn. as they draw closer, they realize that tobias is fighting with one of the ships! that’s bad news bears! as ax points out, a dracon beam too small to do more than sting a human could be disastrous for a little bird like tobias. as they draw closer, rachel realizes that the ships aren’t just shooting at tobias. they’re shooting at his eyes.

DARK

the poor boy has been through enough please he just learned who his father was

once the other animorphs get involved, the ships want nothing more to do with the fight. they peel away and start zooming towards the barn. ax points out how strange it is that the ships attacked tobias in the first place — he should have appeared as just a bird to them. there’s no reason for them to know that he’s an animorph. but there’s no time to delve into that mystery just yet. they have to get to the blue box.

when they reach cassie’s barn, the helmacrons have already managed to cut open the antique pump. the blue box falls to the ground, and a little airfight begins. six birds of prey versus two small silver ships in a twenty by twenty by twenty foot square. the birds tire quickly, and the helmacrons manage to lock onto the blue box with a tractor beam. cassie starts to demorph into human as the helmacrons fly into the barn. cornered!

cassie enters the barn and tells the helmacrons to surrender the box. the helmacrons threaten more annihilation and destruction. cassie points out that it’s gonna be pretty difficult consider their size. they fall silent, and then, without warning, a bright green light flashes in cassie’s eyes.

“oh no,” i said, more amazed than frightened. “i’m shrinking.”

HONEY I SHRUNK THE ‘MORPHS

this book series really does have it all

tobias flies in after cassie. before she can warn him, FLASH, the helmacrons get him with the shrink ray. cassie tells tobias to warn the others, but he’s shrinking too quickly! marco’s next in. FLASH! the shrink ray strikes again. tobias tells marco to warn the others. marco, thankfully, doesn’t ask questions, just turns over his shoulders and yells for jake and rachel to stay out of the barn. (he immediately rescinds and tells rachel she can come in, and tobias scolds him. it’s a good bit.) cassie, tobias, and marco finish shrinking, and jake and rachel stand-off with the helmacron ship. rachel has a brick and she’s not afraid to use it!

the second ship returns, shooting rachel in the back. out of surprise, she tosses the brick, which goes hurtling towards her tiny, tiny friends. jake tries to catch it, but ax’s reflexes are faster - he slices the brick in half with his tail, and nobody gets smooshed. this time. jake manages to wrestle the blue box out of the grip of the helmacron ship, which is good. both ships fly away, which is also good. but marco, cassie, and tobias are still teeny tiny, which is not so good.

also troubling? marco and cassie can’t really communicate with the others, because their voices are so so small. tobias ends up doing most of the in-between via thought-speak. jake suggests morphing, to see if it’ll help restore them to normal. cassie tries to morph osprey, but she just starts to get smaller! ax explains: the helmacrons diverted the energy of the blue box, and in doing so, set size parameters. any morphs would be relative to the size cassie, tobias, and marco are at now. yoinks, scoob!

“first thing is to get you guys somewhere safe,” jake said. “then—”

“ah! ax, morph to human!” i heard rachel yell. “cassie’s dad is coming!”

OH NO

everyone SCATTERS!!! cassie’s dad approaches and asks jake and rachel why two nice cousins are hanging around his barn. rachel’s like, oh, we were looking for cassie, but it looks like she’s not here haha! then ax emerges, in human morph. his interaction with cassie’s dad is exactly what it’s like when i decide acquaintances have unlocked my tragic backstory:

“i…i don’t think i do know you,” my father said slowly. “why were you hiding behind that cage?”

“i did not wish you to see me,” ax said. “but now you may see me.”

ax absolutely biffs the conversation with dad (no surprise there), cassie’s dad is like, alright kids i think it’s time for you to go home. keep in mind, this entire conversation, cassie, marco, and tobias are all RACING to get somewhere safe but are moving like, two feet an hour. cassie’s dad almost steps on them at one point. it’s all very drama. the three shrunken kids finally make it to a cage, cassie’s dad accidentally kicks some dirt over them, cassie gets buried in rocks.

but it turns out she’s like, super strong!!!!

marco, too — and tobias. somehow, there’s a science explanation for this, like how ants can lift really heavy things or fleas can jump super far. as they’re in the middle of this discussion, the helmacrons arrive. they’re about as tall as cassie and marco, with triangular heads and big round eyes. oh, and guns. these helmacrons identify themselves as the crew of the planet crusher, and their terms are simple: surrender and live as beasts of burden, or be annihilated. (applegate really uses the term beasts of burden which is so metal.) before the animorphs have a chance to respond, the other helmacrons show up, from the galaxy blaster. the two crews are in a stand-off when the calvary arrives.

the calvary, of course, being two cockroaches and a wolf spider

applegate doesn’t waste words here. the sight of two cockroaches and a wolf spider, at this size, is enough to psychologically scar cassie, tobias, and marco for life. they’re gross. and scary. and gross. not to mention ax has eight eyes.

not for long!

the helmacrons race off to find their ships, and once they’re inside, they easily burn out one of ax’s eyes and slice off four of his legs.

we had made a deadly mistake. it was all a question of size. the helmacrons were laughable when we were big. but down here, at this scale, they were as dangerous as yeerks.

jake tells ax to demorph (because if you die in morph you die in real life), but ax calmly points out that if he demorphs, he might kill the tiny animorphs. the helmacrons fire again, this time taking out jake’s antennae. cassie realizes there’s only one thing to do: surrender. if cassie and marco go with the helmacrons, it’ll give the others time to demorph and come up with a rescue plan. marco’s pissed, but he udnerstands. he waves the white flag, and the helmacrons take cassie and marco prisoner.

once aboard the helmacron ship (the planet crusher, for those of you keeping track at home), cassie and marco are forced to crawl though the ship to a domed room. in the center of the room is a helmacron wearing a flowing gold cape. oh, and also, he’s dead.

the helmacron captain did not move. did not breathe. his eyes did not look at us. he was covered with what looked a lot like bread mold and cobwebs.

what was worse, it was fairly obvious how he’d died. his arms and four legs were shackled, bolted to the deck. three long, steel swords were sticking through his body. it all looked very ceremonial.

CULT CULT CULT CULT

the helmacrons tell cassie and marco to grovel at the feet of their captain, and since the helmacrons don’t know what human groveling looks like, marco takes a relaxed pose and starts waxing poetic about how hard he’s groveling. once the helmacrons are satisfied, they demand to know where the blue box is. cassie’s like, uh, one of our friends must have it. the helmacrons turn on their external viewer, and they get a good look at rachel, jake, and ax, all demorphed and alive. cassie even spots tiny tiny tobias perched on rachel’s shoulder. the helmacrons demand to know which of their friends knows the location of the power source. marco’s like, oh, our other friend, who…isn’t…here…

the helmacrons are like, don’t lie to us foolish beasts!! our science allows us to know who possesses the morphing abilities!! cassie realizes it very quickly. if the helmacrons can identify who has the morphing ability, well, there’s only one other person on earth to point them towards.

suddenly, the light went on in marco’s head. “visser three?”

i nodded, feeling very pleased with myself. “visser three.”

kick his ass kids

cassie tells the helmacrons the person they’re looking for is on a spacecraft. marco’s quick with the support: the person they’re looking for isn’t a human. he’s a yeerk. the word yeerk causes quite the uproar in the helmacron ship, leading to a bunch of helmacroms swarming in, screaming, and then swordfighting. once they’ve gotten the violence out of their systems - and killed five of their own - the helmacrons turn back to cassie and marco. they demand to know where visser three is. marco tells them about the pool ship and the blade ship. and then, suddenly, the helmacrons summon a male.

male! male, here!

a hatch in the floor opened. and up through the floor poked a trembling head. it was like the other helmacrons, but smaller. the flat head had a forward slant. still insect-looking, but smaller, gentler. the entire bearing of this creature was humbler.

cassie and marco follow the male helmacron, and realize that so far, every other helmacron they’ve been talking to is female. but, you know, they’re aliens and gender is a myth.

the male helmacron - who marco quickly names wuss, which is bullying - explains why the captain was killed. according to the helmacrons, those who make errors must be eliminated. a captain would inevitably make an error, so instead, they ritually killed her so she could be a beacon of honor.

CULT CULT CULT CULT

it becomes clear that male is the helmacron term for submissive, and female is the helmacron term for aggressive. because cassie and marco are prisoners, they’re both male, and need to do what they’re told or they’ll be killed. or promoted to captain, which is a fancy way of saying killed. wuss leaves them alone, and marco and cassie start talking strategy. the helmacrons are going after visser three, which is good for the other animorphs. but it’s possible that the helmacrons will need the blue box to unshrink the tiny animorphs — if such a transformation is possible. they decide that priority number one is escaping the helmacrons. easier said than done, of course, because they’re on their way to the visser’s ship.

cassie and marco are summoned to the bridge. already, the helmacrons have tracked down visser three, who has left the blade ship in a smaller aircraft and is headed towards earth. cassie realizes that visser three is headed towards an abandoned denny’s (a journey we have all made, physically or spiritually). the roof of the denny’s opens, accepting the little ship, and a limo pulls up front. cassie tells the helmacrons that the visser will morph human inside the empty building, and be transported elsewhere in the limo.

car chase!

the helmacrons follow the limo and start firing at the window. visser three eventually rolls the windows down and is like omg helmacrons! cute! the helmacrons shoot at visser three, and then they’re no longer cute. now they’re a nuisance. the limo swerves towards the helmacron ship which narrowly dodges out of the way. the sunroof on the limo opens, and a human-controller arises, holding a gun. always the guns. they watch in slow motion as flames erupt from the gun barrel and a bullet the relative size of a greyhound bus comes shooting towards them.

the galaxy blaster dodges, swerving into oncoming traffic. they miss getting flattened by the grill of a suv by a breath, and then the helmacrons are swordfighting each other again. marco and cassie realize they’re going to have to escape. and there’s only one way out.

it’s morphin’ time

they’re going to morph flies!!!!! they get INCREDIBLY small. so small i actually had to take a break from writing the blog because i got so stressed. they literally see the cells in the helmacron’s hands. the CELLS!!!! they’re pointing out VACUOLES!!!! they’re so small even if they flew as fast as they could they’d travel nowhere. so they decide to hitch a ride on a nearby finger. cassie can see the molecules of the walls vibrating. they launch off the finger and land on a helmacron head. and then someone shoots at them with a dracon beam. they watch, in real time, the splitting of helmacron flesh and the explosion of the cells.

m e t a l

the fire from the dracon beam sends cassie and marco tumbling through the air as tiny, tiny flies. they get tossed for awhile, and when the heat from the explosion dies down, they realize they could be anywhere. they could still be on the helmacron ship, they could be on the highway about to get smashed by a truck. but they need to demorph. they can’t get stuck as tiny flies! slowly, slowly, they demorph together. gravity starts to work on them again, and they land on a scalp. a head! they race towards the forehead, not wanting to get lost among the hairs. then they hear the sound of visser three, cackling over the destroyed helmacron ship. but they’re not on the visser’s head. no no.

“congratulations on your defeat of them, visser!”

pah! defeating helmacrons is no great honor, chapman.

assistant principal controller chapman!!! setter of The Sharing’s intramural volleyball cult team and the world’s most unobservant assistant principal the kids have been morphing on your roof for weeks

and then tobias arrives! and a lot of information gets shared! while cassie and marco were gone, the other animorphs trapped the planet crusher in a vise in cassie’s barn. the planet crusher was able to track the location of the galaxy blaster to here. where’s here? a secret meeting of The Sharing, of course, with visser three and a bunch of other controllers. the others are nearby, waiting for cassie and marco to be rescued. the plan is to take them back to the barn and have the helmacrons use the blue box to unshrink them.

cassie’s like, uh, tobias, where’s the blue box now?

tobias is like, uh, ax is holding it. we didn’t feel safe leaving it behind with the planet crusher. why?

cassie’s like, YOU FOOLS! the helmacrons are coming for the blue box! they think we’ll be too busy fighting the yeerks to protect it!

right on cue, the planet crusher zips into the room, skimming a few inches over assistant principal controller chapman’s balding head. and it’s carrying the blue box. the planet crusher turns towards visser three, and then, FLASH! visser three begins to shrink.

STEP ON HIM

chaos erupts. everyone in the room is scrambling for the blue box. the light keeps flashing and people get struck — including rachel, who curses the helmacrons as she shrinks. cassie has a plan. she starts to morph into mole. marco follows suit. cassie calls out for tobias to come pick them up. she tells tobias to land on the helmacron ship. because their size is relative, they’ve been worrying about going too small. but now’s the time to go big.

once tobias has landed on the helmacron ship, cassie explains the plan. tobias will morph to human, which is bigger than his hawk. and cassie will morph to humpback whale, which is much bigger than human. cassie nestles herself between two engine pods and begins the morph. almost instantly, the weight starts to bear down on the ship, and a few helmacrons come out of a hatch to deal with the issue. but now that tobias is a human, and not a hawk, he’s able to snatch the little helmacrons with his bare hands. the ship starts to fall, and then a hand smashes into it.

frantically, cassie tries to demorph. a thumb crests over the side of the ship. they’re caught! but not for long! ax’s tail FWAPPPP’s in and slices that thumb right off!! ax catches the ship and BOOKS it out of there. but the trouble isn’t over. currently, on one of ax’s legs, a battle is raging between mini jake, mini rachel, visser three, and about twenty tiny controllers. the helmacrons abandon ship. ax bursts out of the building, but doesn’t know where to go. the other controllers aren’t far behind. cassie starts to think. where can they go? how are they going to defeat their tiny enemies? it hits her.

“tobias,” i said. “tell ax not to morph to human. we need to fly.”

fly where?

“to the zoo. we have to go to the gardens!”

but why?

“to reload,” i said grimly. “to reload.”

WHAT DOES IT MEAN

ax starts to morph to bird so he can keep a hold of the blue box. once his transformation is complete, the battle that had been raging on his leg now rages on his wing. marco and cassie morph to gorilla and wolf, respectively, and meet up with rachel and jake. the yeerks are close behind. for a moment, there’s a face-off between the yeerks and the animorphs. and then, cresting over the hill that is really a wing, come the helmacrons, demanding their foes surrender. visser three turns to the animorphs, and no joke, says, “i don’t know about you andalites, but these creatures are really, really, really annoying me.”

for a moment, it seems like the yeerks and the animorphs might fight on the same side. but then ax announces they’re over the gardens. it’s time to put cassie’s plan in action. she tells everyone to get to the end of a feather and get ready to jump.

i wish u would step back from that ledge my friend

they jump! visser three and the controllers aren’t far behind, and the helmacrons come tumbling, too. the animorphs land among some fur. as they demorph, cassie explains her plan. when the helmacrons shrunk them, they also shrunk all the animal DNA inside of them. but it’s possible that acquiring new dna would let them be big. everyone kneels down and begins to acquire the dna of the animal they landed on. what animal, you ask? well. what animal is designed to see, attack, and destroy tiny creatures?

“anteater,” i said.

nice

it’s morphin’ time!!! they start to get big, which is a huge relief for everyone, myself included. turns out anteaters are super chill. they have one of the lowest body temperatures of any land mammal and sleep for fifteen hours a day. rad as hell. they also have incredible instincts! cassie sees a few tiny helmacrons and doesn’t even think about it, she just FLITS her tongue right out and snatches them up! mm. she doesn’t eat them, though, because it’s cassie and she’s suffered enough.

unfortunately, visser three witnessed their brilliant anteater plan, and also morphs anteater. with his tongue, he reaches out and snatches tiny tobias from the air!

now we shall talk, visser three sneered.

like lightning, ax leaped. like lightning, his tail blade came down and stopped, quivering, pressed against the visser’s anteater throat.

now we shall talk, ax said.

cool

a deal is struck. cassie and marco demorph to their tiny human selves and board the helmacron ship, intimidating some of the males into helping them operate the shrink ray. visser three releases tobias in exchange for his full height, and the yeerks leave with their tails tucked between their legs. then the animorphs get de-shrunk, and the helmacrons fly away to terrorize someone else. on the way home, jake asks cassie if she wants to go to the beach with him. rachel bats her eyes at cassie and tries to tell jake that cassie hates the beach; marco throws his hands in the air and jokes about cassie running back to jake after they made plans to repopulate the earth with tiny humans; all is right in the animorph world.

will someone please talk to tobias about his father

REVIEW

2/5. look. applegate had 54 books to write. not all of them are gonna be killer. this was fine.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• do you like the beach? i found out recently there are people who actively detest the beach. what the hell

PREDICTIONS

• visser one has Got to make her triumphant return

• also tobias’s mom has got to make her triumphant return. perhaps as visser two?

that’s all i have for you this week, folks. here’s a link to my patreon, with $3 and $5 animorph tip jar tiers. if you have cash & the space, here is also a link to the minnesota freedom fund. another Black man, Duante Wright, was murdered by police in brooklyn center. Black Lives Matter, and the police need to be abolished. have a good week. take care of yourselves.