ANIMORPHS #29: THE SICKNESS

hi hello everyone and welcome back to animorphs weekly, the answer i can’t give to the question, “so, what have you been up to?” this isn’t even the weirdest hobby i’ve picked up over the past year and a half. that stays between me and god.

wanna read a book?

CASSIE IS ABOUT TO MAKE A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER. . . .

there’s a lot to unpack here: the cool jacket, the slug, the tagline. i try to play this fun game with myself where i guess what’s going to happen in the book based on the animal on the cover, and applegate plays this fun game where she stabs me in the back every time.

it’s a cassie book!

SUMMARY

the book opens, and cassie is having a bit of a crisis. her friends think she’s nice, but she’s ripped the throat out of a hork-bajir, so she’s not sure it counts anymore. and while most people consider the yeerks to be pure evil, she’s spent a lot of time with one. they’re slugs. if they want to see the beauty of the world around them and experience life outside the pool, they have to enslave another creature. tough choice!

i know something about hard choices. i’ve made a lot of them since i became an animorph. and one of the hardest was whether i wanted to be an animorph at all. because i know that when - if - this whole thing is over, it may be too late for me to be either nice or normal ever again.

too true queen

rachel and cassie are eating lunch together in the cafeteria. rachel overhears allison and brittany, two npcs i’m sure we’ll never hear from again, talking about who they’re going to ask to the Big Dance. thank GOD we’re getting a Big Dance book. here i thought we were going to gloss over one of the best YA tropes! applegate! you trickster!

allison and brittany, of course, want to ask jake to the dance. The jake. cassie’s jake. of course, no one knows they’re together, because they haven’t had that discussion yet and the animorphs keep everything a secret, but still. the thought of jake going to the Big Dance with someone else is heartbreaking! thankfully, cassie’s best friend is rachel, who’s unafraid of confrontation. she leans over and is like, hey, allison and brittany, eat dirt! jake’s with cassie and i have no personal feelings about it!

rachel then grabs cassie by the arm and marches her over to where marco and jake are sitting. she’s like we’re going to to the motherfucking dance, and even though the two of you “make me want to hurl,” you should go together. jake chokes on his macaroni and beef. marco bats his eyelashes at rachel and she tells him she’ll go out with him when pigs fly. still. jake smiles at cassie. it would be kind of nice to spend a night doing something nice and normal.

“every time we try to do something nice and normal it ends up turning out nasty and weird,” marco said. “every single time.”

heard that one before

chapter two is the Big Dance. wasting no time! everyone’s there, including ax and tobias in their human morphs. the aforementioned allison eyes ax’s weirdly handsome face, and then she talks to him and immediately loses interest. cassie laughs. it feels good to laugh. it’s been a long time since she’s laughed. and then she thinks about yeerks, who will never experience laughter, and she gets kind of sad again. logically, cassie knows that the yeerks are their enemy, and it’s easier to fight against them if she can think of them as all entirely evil.

but! it’s one of the traits i admire about cassie the most: she cannot dehumanize their enemy. she’s the heart of the group.

jake asks her to dance. it’s really sweet. they twirl on the dance floor and cassie sees all her friends nearby dancing and she hopes rachel and tobias get a moment to themselves. as she stares at rachel, trying to catch her eye, she watches rachel’s expression change to one of amazed horror. cassie follows rachel’s gaze: oh shit! ax’s eye stalk is growing back!

the animorphs jump into action. marco tosses his flannel shirt over ax’s head. ax is totally delirious. someone must have spiked the punch! they try to guide ax towards the girl’s locker room — it’s unsupervised at this hour — but ax escapes and starts running. dangerous! he runs right into assistant principal controller chapman, who for once is doing his job!!!! with assistant principal controller chapman is mr. tidwell, the strictest teacher in school. mr. tidwell identifies ax as a drunk, and takes him outside to call his parents.

(uhhh)

cassie’s like please mr. assistant principal not-controller chapman sir we have his medicine please can we follow him?? assistant principal controller chapman gives them two minutes. that’s all the time they need.

the animorphs try to get ax to pull his shit together while distracting mr. tidwell, and it goes about as well as you think it could. just as they’re about to get ax out of the hallway, his tail springs to form and knocks mr. tidwell flat on his ass. cassie rushes to mr. tidwell’s side. he grabs her by the elbow and starts to lead her down the hallway. she glances over her shoulder towards her friends: marco and tobias are hiding ax, jake is holding rachel back. jake mouths to cassie: “don’t say anything.”

for sure!

mr. tidwell stops in the hallway and tells her he knows that ax is an andalite. he knows, too, what she and her friends are. and he has a message from aftran nine-four-two, otherwise known as rachel elizabeth, the yeerk cassie spent three days with in the woods. he introduces himself as illim, and says he and mr. tidwell are both a part of the yeerk peace movement. aftran has been taken by yeerk security. she’s unharmed, for now, but visser three wants to handle her interrogation personally. bad news bears. aftran knows all about the yeerk peace movement AND the andalites, since she spent some time in cassie’s brain.

tidwell gives her more information: she’s been held captive in the yeerk pool, and the interrogation will happen over the next few days because visser is attending a reinduction seminar on the blade ship. fun! cassie’s like, how do we know we can trust you!? and tidwell’s like if you couldn’t trust me, you’d be dead by now.

well, i guess that answers that question

tidwell leaves cassie in the hallway to go deal with assistant principal controller chapman. cassie rejoins her friends — they’ll deal with aftran in a minute. first, they need to help ax, who is not looking good. there’s a “gooey green-yellow pus gluing his eyelashes together” and his lips are chapped and he’s shivering. this doesn’t look good!

they get ax back to cassie’s barn. they set him up in one of the stalls with a blanket and some water, and cassie tries to get ax to talk to her about what’s happening to him. she might have two vet parents, but ax is an alien! meanwhile, marco and rachel keep trying to get her to talk about what tidwell said — but cassie ignores them. ax is DYING, people!!!

he weakly tells them what he thinks it might be: yamphut, the andalite equivalent of appendicitis. his tria gland might burst, releasing disease organisms throughout his body and killing him. he’s got a fever and again, you know, covered in pus. he turns to cassie. in order to save him, they need to take the tria gland out of him. where’s the tria gland? where else. his head!

could not have predicted we’d be doing brain surgery so quickly after the Big Dance, but applegate is a trickster god sent to trap me

the other animorphs let ax get some sleep and move to the other side of the barn to freak out where he can’t hear them. (as they leave him, cassie tells him, “bless your baby bones,” which is apparently a thing her mom says to her when she’s feeling sick. it’s a sweet gesture but also fucking terrifying. bless your baby bones. i’m gonna start saying that all the time now.)

of course, they argue. they’re stressed, they’re thirteen, they have no money and now they have to perform brain surgery on their andalite friend or else he dies. also, cassie finally shares what tidwell told her. and, to her credit, she accepts responsibility for the risk being so high. aftran wouldn’t know anything about the animorphs if cassie hadn’t let her into her head. they have to rescue aftran to protect themselves. and, hopefully, the yeerk peace movement.

jake says they’ll go in tonight. they can make it there and back before ax hits his crisis. of course, they can’t leave him in the barn, but the chee do owe them a few favors, so marco morphs and flies to fetch ancient erek. while he’s gone, the other animorphs try to figure out how they’re going to get into the yeerk pool. there’s still the gleek bio-filters, and hunter-killer robots. and the yeerks probably figured out their mole/bat entrance. marco returns with ancient erek.

“this is a change,” erek said. “i’m usually the one giving you guys some bad news.”

at least he’s self-aware

none of the chee know about andalite physiology, nor are any of them doctors. but they can at least protect ax while the other animorphs are gone. it’s marco who comes up with the idea to get into the yeerk pool: the pipes. there are sinks and toilets in the yeerk pool for human hosts to use. ancient erek uses the computer in the barn to create a map from the water tower to any sink or toilet in the yeerk pool. tobias goes to find an eel — they’re thin, fast, and can swim.

there’s something to be said about how quickly this plan comes together, and it is a testament to how the animorphs are progressing as a team. jake doesn’t hesitate to say yes to anyone’s ideas, and they’re all moving rapidly to achieve their goals. teamwork!

ancient erek makes the map and then crawls into the stall with ax, creating a hologram that will shield them both from cassie’s dad if/when he enters the barn.

“i just had a thought,” marco said.

“i’ll buy you a card to commemorate the moment.” rachel, of course.

even the banter is getting better

marco points out that if ax gets delirious and goes running around again, ancient erek’s programming would stop him from using physical force to stop ax. but it’s a risk they’ll need to take. all the other animorphs need to be in the yeerk pool.

tobias arrives, dropping an eel on cassie’s shoulder. each of them acquire the DNA. cassie feels like someone’s missing, and then she realizes, well, yeah. someone is.

ax. we’d be doing this mission without ax.

it is sad to be doing this without their friend, and also highly dangerous. ax is the only one of them that’s actually an andalite, and it’s gotten them out of sticky scrapes before. but this time, they’re on their own.

growing up!

we cut to the animorphs treading water in the water tank. that cannot be sanitary! they’re each trying to remember the detailed list of instructions ancient erek gave them to the yeerk pool — lots of twists and turns. marco is sure he’s going to get flushed. so am i! they morph to eels. lots of teeth and liquefied bones. turns out eels are biters, so it takes a few minutes for everyone to stop chomping on each other and get a handle on the eel instinct. rachel calls herself an angry little worm, which, mood!

then they’re in the pipes. world’s scariest water slide. they’re taking a lot of really sharp turns, and it’s important that they don’t miss any. they don’t wanna get trapped as eels forever!

jake gets sucked into the wrong pipe! there’s a quick-thinking chomp-chain led by cassie to yoink him back out into the main current. cassie asks jake what they’re supposed to do next, and he has a hard time trying to remember what he was just doing.

i got a flash of him sitting in the barn with his head in his hands. then another flash of the way his eyes looked when marco came up with his plan to get into the yeerk pool. i’d thought his eyes glittered with excitement.

i would have slapped myself if i had hands.

jake was sick.

aw, nuts!

the kids need to regroup. cassie tells the others via thought-speak that jake’s sick, probably with what ax had. which is a problem. if he starts demorphing like ax did, he’ll get crushed in the pipes, and so will the other animeels. there’s a brief discussion about whether they should split up, but jake insists they get out together. probably for the best. no need to storm the yeerk pool with only two animorphs. they ride the current, hoping it will take them out of the pipes.

and it does!

we were five eels. blown from the end of a fire hose, arcing through the air toward a burning building.

sick!

five eels land in a burning building, five birds of prey escape through a back window. they don’t make it far before jake needs to land. they demorph and discuss their next move. they’ll try again after school tomorrow. hopefully jake feels better, but if not, the rest of the animorphs will have to go without him. rachel and tobias go back to cassie’s barn to check on ax, and marco and cassie walk jake home. when they make it to jake’s house, jake’s mom is on the phone with rachel. cassie asks to talk to her. according to ax, jake should just have a normal case of the flu. but this particular strain is incredibly contagious, so all the other animorphs are probably going to get sick, too.

if we all got sick, who was going to save aftran? and who was going to operate on ax?

they’re just kids, and life is a nightmare

that night, marco and cassie take turns being a fly on jake’s wall, to make sure he doesn’t say or do anything revealing while big brother tom’s around. of course, this means cassie’s fucking exhausted the next day. she checks on ax, ancient erek, and tobias in the barn. ax is super guilty about being sick (whom among us has not been!!!!) and cassie tells tobias to get her if anything happens.

when cassie gets to school, the first thing she does is head straight to rachel’s locker. then she goes to her locker, thinking maybe rachel is waiting for her there. then she goes back to rachel’s locker. no rachel. she goes to class, then asks for the bathroom pass, then peeks into rachel’s first period. no rachel! she goes to the pay phone outside the gym (sure) and calls rachel’s house.

turns out rachel’s home sick with the flu.

they’re dropping like flies!!!

cassie rushes to the cafeteria to find marco. instead, she finds mr. tidwell, who leads her to an empty classroom. he tells her that visser three is returning earlier than expected, and aftran’s interrogation could begin as early as eight pm tonight. fuck.

cassie starts to ask some questions. she’s been hanging around marco long enough to pick up on his paranoia (and in the book, she even asks herself what marco would want to know). she asks illim (the yeerk) about mr. tidwell (the host) — illim admits mr. tidwell was an involuntary host at first. but mr. tidwell’s never-ending howls led illim to feel guilt. and then he started to hear about a group of peace-desiring yeerks. and then the real mr. tidwell begins to talk.

(presumably, obvs. there’s no way to be sure.)

the real mr. tidwell tells cassie that he has invited illim to stay in his body, figuring that they can do more for the peace movement together than apart. and then mr. tidwell trauma-dumps on a child, telling cassie about how his wife died and he was aimless for awhile, but now he has a purpose! and a friend!

yeesh

still, the issue remains. if aftran gets interrogated, visser three learns about the peace movement and the animorphs. the war is over. the yeerks will win. it feels hopeless. three of the six animorphs are sick (three of the battle-heavy members, i’ll point out). the others probably aren’t far behind. but cassie isn’t one to give up. she tells tidwell she’ll go.

then … then an idea …

“illim, if you had to survive for a few hours outside mr. tidwell, could you? without being in the yeerk pool, i mean,” i asked.

“as long as i stayed in some kind of liquid environment,” he answered. he sounded a little puzzled.

but i wasn’t puzzled. not anymore. i had a plan.

cassie, what tricks hide ye up that sleeve??

after school, cassie finds marco. he’s definitely starting to get sick, but neither of them want to acknowledge it. instead, cassie tells him about her plan. she’s thinking of morphing into illim. into a yeerk.

marco barfs in a bush. he’s definitely sick, and cassie’s definitely going to have to do this one on her own. but even ill, marco points out the big flaw in cassie’s plan. even if she manages to pull this off, even if she rescues aftran from visser, aftran will have no access to kandrona rays.

i could save aftran. only to watch her die.

hey kids could you lighten up back there

cassie heads back to the barn. ax’s temperature has been dropping — they have maybe eight hours before they have to perform surgery on him. brain surgery. ha HA. cassie tells tobias he might have to perform the surgery, depending on when/if she makes it back from the yeerk pool. she’ll have to go from putting one friend’s life in dangaer to another. dizzy with responsibility, cassie relieves tobias of his watch for one hour. (he wants to go check on rachel. cute!)

she heads into the back stall where ancient erek and ax have been playing rock paper scissors. ax, apparently, has been drifting in and out of consciousness all day. typical. cassie tries to ask ax where the tria gland is — but before ax can muster up an answer, cassie’s dad enters the barn! cassie leaves the hologram and leaps over the stall door, aware that it must look like she just Materialized out of thin air. cassie’s like, DON’T WORRY DAD EVERYTHING’S FINE IN HERE NO NEED TO UH LOOK AROUND. cassie’s dad is like, cassie. i know why you were hiding in that empty stall.

he nodded. “you were pretending you were a horse, weren’t you?” he asked.

i hadn’t played that game where i pretended i was a horse since i was about five. okay, maybe six.

but i didn’t tell my dad that. i just gave him a weak smile. “yeah. you caught me.”

not to scream about the wonders of YA again

sike this is my blog i’m gonna do it

having your parent ask you to remain a child while you are actively growing up is (i imagine) a part of everyone’s childhood. obviously cassie’s parents know something is up with their kid — most of her inner monologue is about how guilty she feels hiding all this from them, considering how close they are. and they probably just assume it’s adolescence. and it is. and it isn’t.

remember early in the books when cassie would morph horse and run around? and how the sort of joy that came early with this gift has disappeared in lieu of the responsibility?

~growing up~

after cassie’s dad leaves the barn, cassie tries to find tools she can use for the surgery. she finds a hole saw to drill into his head (jesus) and then assembles some syringes, scissors, hemostats, surgical thread, etc etc etc. tobias flies back in and drops to the ground. another one bites the dust. thankfully, tobias is a bird, so cassie just puts him in one of the little cages, creates a chart for him, and hopes her dad will come back and take care of him.

of course, this means that cassie will be performing surgery alone. after she escapes the yeerk pool alive with aftran, who will inevitably starve to death. she can’t be older than thirteen.

cassie pops inside the house. she tells her mom she’s doing a report on animal brain surgery, and asks if she has any books that might help. cassie’s mom hands her a few, and cassie lies, saying she’s going to go keep rachel company while she has the flu. again, the guilt. cassie wants to say goodbye to her mom, but she has to stay focused.

she goes back into the barn with the books. she tells ancient erek if she isn’t back before ax needs to have surgery, he can’t go to anyone else for help.

what i was really telling erek was he had to let ax die.

y o i n k s

cassie says goodbye to ax, and apologizes for not being able to stay with him. and then, before she can cry, she hops on her bike and starts to ride away. she thinks of all the what ifs: what if she doesn’t make it back in time? what if she doesn’t make it back at all? what if she gets sick? what if she’d killed aftran when she had the chance?

of course, even now, cassie knows that letting aftran live was the right choice. aftran went on to start the yeerk peace movement. she has to save aftran to protect the peace movement and the animorphs. failure is not an option.

she bikes to mr. tidwell’s house. he leads her to the kitchen, and cassie says rachel’s catchphrase, “let’s do it!” in hopes that it brings her some luck. (eyeball emoji) mr. tidwell leans his ear over the table, and illim plops out. plops! mr. tidwell doesn’t scream or thank her, so it turns out he and illim were telling the truth. they work together. (mr. tidwell even says “it always makes me feel … i don’t know. empty,” which is. Something.)

cassie absorbs the yeerk dna and then mr. tidwell puts illim into a little baggie filled with water. he puts the baggie in his pocket, and then cassie starts to morph. it’s gross! lots of mucus!!!! and then mr. tidwell picks her up and lets her slide into his ear.

the way applegate writes the yeerk’s joy at simple sensations like hearing and sight are honestly? poetic. then mr. tidwell is like uh, hey cassie? we have to go. she uses the yeerk instincts to take over his body (and in the process, rifles through his memories — he’s sad!). finally, she gets out of the house and into the car. she drives to a mcdonald’s parking lot (one of the yeerk pool entrances) and thinks about her friends.

usually i’d be listening to jake give last-minute instructions right now. i’d be laughing at the jokes marco tells right before we do something insanely dangerous.

tobias would probably be flying overhead, giving his version of an aerial traffic report. rachel would be getting all macho, her bravery bolstering mine.

i was hit again by how alone i was. i missed them. i missed them so much.

cassie :’(

she walks into the mcdonald’s and gives the password — “a happy meal with extra happy” — that gives her access to the entrance to the yeerk pool. she walks down the stairs and thinks about how weird it is to be in someone else’s body. then, the horrifying screams of involuntary hosts begin to fill the air. she’s in the yeerk pool.

guided by mr. tidwell, cassie joins the line to kneel by the yeerk pool. there’s a haunting description of a five-year-old boy kneeling down and then screaming for his mother once the yeerk has left his ear. finally, it’s cassie’s turn. she pulls some tricks so illim can crawl out of the ziploc bag once she’s left mr. tidwell, and then plop! she’s in the yeerk pool.

using yeerk sonar, she feels a chain with a box on the end attached to one of the piers. that’s got to be where aftran’s being held. she swims over to the cage. it’s only held shut by a latch, which wouldn’t be too hard for human hands. it’s risky — there are hork-bajir guards at the end of the pier, not to mention this is where hosts are reinfected. a controller could spot her.

i am ready to interrogate the prisoner.

RING THE ALARM

VISSER THREE HAS ARRIVED

someone begins to pull aftran’s cage out of the water. a host’s head is submerged underwater, and cassie takes the chance. she swims inside the girl’s ear and takes over her body. the girl is a part of The Sharing — a voluntary host. cassie wastes no time. visser three pulls aftran out of her little cage and cassie runs at him!! just charges!! pulls a Full Rachel!! she snatches aftran from visser’s hand and leaps into the yeerk pool. two taxxons slither in after her, so she abandons ship and slides out of the host girl’s ear. she wants to morph bird, but first she has to morph human. and humans (unfortunately) need air to breathe. she pokes her nose through the surface and sucks in air.

then i heard the words that turned my body to stone.

no one touch her, visser three ordered. i want the pleasure of killing her myself. after i find out everything that’s in her pitiful excuse for a mind.

harsh

sike! visser three was talking about the other girl! this buys cassie precious time. she cycles through her morphs: she needs something that will help her and aftran escape. the classic osprey comes to the rescue. she morphs bird and grabs aftran and starts to haul ass out of the pool. visser three morphs into a giant floating eyeball with long, poisonous tentacles. he gets a few good hits in, but cassie thinks of her friends and powers through!!! she makes her way towards the exit, dodging dracon beams, and the crowd below her is in a frenzy. some people are cheering, some people are furious, everyone is paying attention.

at the top of the staircase, a hunter robot appears. cassie poops on its eye!!!! long live birdshit!!!! she escapes the yeerk pool and busts through the mcdonald’s!!!! she did it!!!!!

now she has to perform brain surgery!!!!!

she flies back to the barn and quickly demorphs. she scoops up aftran and puts her in a water trough and then goes to see ax. he is Not Looking Good. ancient erek tells cassie that ax is in crisis. aren’t we all. ancient erek carries an unconscious ax to the makeshift operating room, and cassie washes her hands. and then she just. panics. she doesn’t know where the tria gland is!! ax could die by her hands if she fucks up and he WILL die if she doesn’t do anything!! if only there was some way for ax to tell her what to do!!

OH WAIT, THERE IS

cassie runs back to aftran. she scoops her out of the water and brings her over to ax. no hesitation. i’m sure this will cause some moral dilemma later — putting a yeerk (even a friendly one) into an andalite’s ear while he’s unconscious (even to save his life) brings up a lot of questions about consent!

but — aftran is able to speak with cassie, and identifies where the tria gland is. aftran walks cassie through the process, and ancient erek works as her nurse, handing her tools and dabbing sweat off her face. this would make an absolutely killer season 2 finale. delicately, cassie plucks the tria gland out of ax’s head. it’s time to sew him back up. but ax starts to come to. and he’s freaking out.

aftran takes the hint and slithers out. ax starts to freak out, but cassie grabs his head and puts on her Vet Voice. she holds him steady and calmly explains what happened as she stitches him back up. ax is, understandably, upset. and cassie recognizes that he has a right to be angry, because she’s emotionally mature. it’s a complicated situation. once ax is stitched up, cassie asks ancient erek to carry him back into the far stall and put the hologram back up.

cassie sits down on a little stool and deflates. i don’t blame her. there’s nothing quite like The First Sit after a long day — and cassie has had a very long day. and it’s not over yet. without access to kandrona rays, aftran will die in three days.

i pushed myself to my feet and leaned against the sink, staring down at her. she had done what few have the strength to do. she had questioned the beliefs she had been raised with. and ultimately, she had chosen to go against her society. to turn away from everything she had once believed, to become the enemy of those closest to her.

good!! ya!! is about!! CHANGE!!!!!!!!! and CHOICES!!!!!!!! zuko, catra, aftran: these characters are satisfying because they provide narrative examples of the importance of CHOICE. does switching over to the good side immediately negate all the harm they caused? no! but it allows everyone else to grapple with forgiveness and grace and hammers the point home that doing the right thing is hard and worth doing.

anyway

cassie lets aftran into her ear so they can talk. cassie thanks her for helping save ax. and then aftran asks cassie for a big favor.

i need you to kill me, she said simply.

DAMN!!!!!!!!

cassie starts bawling. of course!!! it’s been a long day and i know she’s a cancer. aftran’s like, it’s the kindest thing you can do for me. kandrona ray starvation is painful. and aftran can’t stay in cassie. it’s too risky. there are worse ways to die than at the hand of a friend.

the next chapter starts with the animorphs walking to the beach, trading stories about their time while sick. they come to the shore, and a humpback whale leaps out of the water.

“we made the right decision,” jake said. “better than the last time we used the blue box.”

:’)

they gave aftran the power to morph!!!!! she’s gonna live her life as a whale!!!!!!!!!! the most majestic animal in the ocean!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

jake asks cassie what she’s thinking about.

“just that every now and then, we actually win one.”

he nodded. “sometimes we do win,” he agreed. “this time? this time, cassie, you won.”

she did. she did!

REVIEW

5/5. what a fucking wild ass rollercoaster. i. loved. every second of it!!!! applegate really knocked it out of the park!!!

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• which ocean animal would you want to spend the rest of your life as?

• are you a big baby when you’re sick or are you normal

PREDICTIONS

• tobias’s mom

• marco’s mom

• stacy’s mom

that’s all i have for you this week, folks!! a personal note: i’m back at the sushi hut (the affectionate nickname i have for my place of employment) so this blog will become even less consistent. (which is why you’re getting it at 7:00 pm instead of the usual 10:00 am posting time.) (also it’s been a long week.) (lemon, it’s only tuesday.) anyway!! i hope you’ll stick with me, as i will stick with you. drink some water! bye!