ANIMORPHS #4: THE MESSAGE

"i hate plans that begin with the words 'first we morph.'"

hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the vow. i think each week this intro paragraph is going to get shorter and shorter because i have absolutely no clue how to preface this. i will start off by addressing a few questions — first, when i’m rating myself in terms of animal-to-human morph, i’m going top to bottom. (usually that means the animal is on top and the human is at the bottom.) secondly, i’ve been pronouncing hork-bajir like hORK (the sound you make when you choke on something) and ba-zjheer. third, yes, it’s been a few years since i’ve seen a therapist.

let’s read a book!

SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO CHANGE A LITTLE MORE THAN YOUR MIND…

incredible. we’re only at book four and already we’re starting to really stretch these double entendre taglines. also, i need you to know that when i google searched this book cover, i let out a gasp of joy. it’s a cassie book and she’s a dolphin. honestly? today i’m a one. i’m full dolphin.

(minor sidebar: dolphins terrify me. just like, existentially. they’re too smart. y’all remember when that woman lived with a dolphin for a few years so she could study him? and then she…whatever. science is weird. dolphins are weird. they know more than they’re telling us.)

i also don’t know if you can see it, but that bubble text is advertising a contest. it says: “PICTURE YOURSELF M O R P H E D ! contest details inside — win your photo transformed into an animal!”

could you imagine

SUMMARY

so, as per ush, we start off with cassie explaining that she can’t tell us her name. but she cuts right to the point. she’s like, we animorphs have to stay disguised. if we don’t, we’re either going to get murdered or we’re going to get slugs in our brains, and i don’t like the sound of either.

me neither!

those are the scary parts of being an animorph. but there are also really cool parts. mostly turning into animals. cassie loves to turn into animals because she loves animals! in her backyard is a wildlife rehabilitation center, run by her dad. her mom is a vet at the gardens, which is basically the zoo in this unnamed coastal, near-mountains town. cassie is planning on turning into a squirrel, because squirrels are incredibly alert, and she’s got a mystery to solve: someone has been sneaking into the wildlife rehab center and killing their patients (mostly birds). we get another detailed description of what it’s like to morph, though cassie doesn’t mention once how her bones grinded. thank god. the sequence where cassie is gaining control of the squirrel brain puts all “rawr XD so random!!!!” jokes to shame. a full half-page of rapid-fire thoughts. lots of caps. lemme just…

“PREDATORS! RUN RUN RUN!

oh, wait. was that a nut? i hopped over to the nut. YES! a chestnut! i seized it in my little front claws and began immediately to chew a hole in it. excellent! wonderful! chestnut! and i had it! no one could take it away. hah hah!”

excellent! wonderful! chestnut!

incredible.

anyway, tobias flies in. you all remember tobias, right? used to be a boy, is now a bird, had a crisis of humanity, shot a bunch of aliens, fell in love with price-cut polly and then like, watched her die? cool.

so tobias flies in, and cassie’s squirrel brain freaks out. she says “if you’ve never been a squirrel - and let’s face it, you haven’t - you probably don’t have any idea what it’s like.” you’re right girl! i haven’t! call me out! she runs up a wall — but then, she sees a fox. a-ha! the culprit! for some reason, she decides to divebomb the fox as a squirrel. she and tobias tag-team this fox and scare it away. she starts to morph back into a girl and she and tobias chat a little bit about why, exactly, she’s morphing into a squirirel at midnight. as she morphs back into a girl, she describes what she looks like.

“mostly, if you want to know what i look like, picture a girl in overalls and leather work gloves, biting her lip as she concentrates on trying to force a pill down the throat of a badger.”

(whispers: are you? are you….? yeah i’m…are you?? yeah!!)

cassie mentions to tobias that she’s been having strange dreams recently. dreams about the sea. and he says, oh yeah, the sea. and like, a voice calling to you from beneath the water?

obviously, we need an animorphs meeting.

the kids meet up in rachel’s room. rachel has a bunch of quotes on post-it notes on a bulletin board and some of them are about war, knowing the enemy, and always being alert. damn. these kids are Traumatized! cassie goes into great detail on her opinions of the other animorphs. normally, i’d type this all out, but cassie is incredibly observant, and so her opinions on each animorph take up like, a full page. here are the sparknotes:

jake

• a natural leader

• cassie really likes jake. “you know, as in like”

• he’s cute in a big strong kind of way

• he seems pretty serious but he knows when to laugh (important)

marco

• jake’s best friend since diapers

• his mission in life is to find the humor in everything

• he has long brown hair and “these amazing eyelashes that i would love to have myself”

rachel

• cassie’s closest friend

• jake’s cousin

• the strongest person cassie knows

• she’s very tall and pretty and blond but she’s not an airhead

• “it’s like all along there was this amazon warrior locked up inside of her and now she has an excuse to bring it out”

look i’m not here to like, speculate. or find the gay in everything. but…

anyway.

it turns out that only tobias and cassie have been having dreams about the sea. marco only dreams about a woman from baywatch or king friday from mister rogers’ neighborhood. rachel doesn’t really believe in dreams, and she’s eager to get off the subject, but jake’s like. hold on. he pulls out a vhs and is like, did no one else watch the late night news?

i love these little nerds. he recorded the late night news on a vhs.

they go downstairs and jake pops in the tape. they watch an old man talk about this strange metal he found on the beach. it’s covered in letters - but not letters anyone recognizes. jake thinks that it looks a lot like the writing he saw on the inside of the andalite ship. he posits that what washed up on the beach is part of a different andalite ship.

cassie faints.

amazing!!!!

she falls, and falls, and falls into the ocean. a voice cries out to her: “i’m here, i am here. i cannot survive much longer. if you hear me…come. if you hear me…come.”

suddenly, she snaps awake. jake is hovering over her, super concerned. rachel is literal seconds away from calling 911 but marco tells her not to. it’s too big a risk. he’s right! he may be an asshole, but he’s our asshole. and he’s the most concerned out of all the kids of running into controllers, which. well. someone should be. it turns out that when cassie fainted, tobias fainted, too. pretty weird for a hawk to faint, but he comes back, puffs up his feathers, and then (i imagine) the reality of his life rushes back to him. everyone’s like, that was fucking weird. (it was!) tobias and cassie, once again, had a shared vision. the group comes to the only logical conclusion: there’s an andalite trapped beneath the ocean. they all take a moment to decide what they want to do. rachel, of course, is the first to say that she’s going to go help this andalite. jake asks tobias, who is like, idk if i should get a vote, because i’m a bird and i can’t go underwater, but y’all know how i would vote.

“of all of us, it was tobias who had stayed longest at the andalite’s side, even as the andalite ordered him to get to safety. something really deep had gone on between the andalite prince and tobias.”

i’m staring directly into the camera.

cassie, of course, is in. and so is marco. wholeheartedly. growth!

we cut to the animorphs on the beach. cassie is, rightfully, a little intimidated by the ocean. marco is complaining, because that’s what marco does.

“marco’s cooperative mood hadn’t lasted long. i knew it wouldn’t. marco is never happy unless he’s complaining about something. just like rachel is never happy unless she has something to fight against. and tobias is never happy, period. he thinks if he’s ever happy, someone will just come along and take his happiness away.”

oh my god

the kids are trying to figure out why exactly cassie and tobias are the only ones who are receiving this underwater distress signal. jake’s like, if you were an andalite, you’d probably try to reach out to other andalites. cassie’s like hm, but tobias and i aren’t andalites! marco, of course, is the one to point it out. tobias is literally always in morph and cassie is the best at morphing. they’re the closest to andalites the group has.

i’m sure it’s going to come up at some point, but like, visser three is also an andalite. so he’s also probably receiving these signals?

anyway, tobias spots a few people up ahead on the beach with flashlights. the kids decide to hide in the nearby dunes while tobias does some recon. he comes back and confirms: the people are from The Sharing, the yeerks youth group/cult front. assistant principal controller chapman and big brother tom are with them. the kids are like, oh shit, they’re here because they’re looking for the andalite too (duh). apparently visser three has also been getting visions (double duh). and then The Sharing Search Party starts freaking out. the kids are like, they found something!!

yeah, you all

The Sharing Search Party easily tracks four fresh sets of footprints to the dunes. the animorphs are like, oh shit and start running. rachel’s like WE SHOULD MORPH and marco is like NO WAY DUDE HUMAN FOOTPRINTS INTO ANIMAL FOOTPRINTS WILL TOTALLY GIVE US AWAY. jake’s like WE HAVE TO DOUBLE BACK SO WE CAN GET INTO THE OCEAN.

and then gunshots ring out

y’all!!!!

cassie says, “i’ve been in one-on-one combat to the death with seven-foot-tall hork-bajir warriors, and i’ve been shot at by dracon beams that sort of disintegrate you slowly. but i’d never been shot at with plain old everyday guns.” good lord y’all. The Sharing Search Party continues to shoot at children and the animorphs run through the dunes. they follow jake’s plan and circle back to the ocean. right before they morph into trout, cassie reminds everyone that trout are freshwater fish, the ocean is saltwater, and it’s going to fucking suck.

it does!

assistant principal controller chapman tells The Sharing Search Party to fan out along the beach. they couldn’t have gotten far. big brother tom is like, huh. human footprints…no humans…could visser three be wrong? are the andalites not andalites like we thought?

yikes!

presumably, the trout!kids escape, because we open on a new chapter in which cassie is like, we didn’t see each other for the next few days. “we do have lives beyond being animorphs, after all.” of course you do. rachel’s busy with her gymnastics class and her mom won lawyer of the year. jake failed a test because he didn’t study so he had to write a make-up paper. and cassie’s busy helping her dad heal a golden eagle who had almost been electrocuted. y’all know i love when applegate is like animorphs - they’re also children! just so the sequences when they get shot at by real life guns feel that much more high-stakes.

cassie’s mucking stables when jake rides up on his bike. she plays it cool and has him help her shovel shit too. but jake didn’t ride all the way out here just to help cassie with her chores. he wants to know what she wants to do about the dreamvision she’s been having. it’s cassie’s call. this is like, one of those things i love most about ya — when two characters have to have a Very Serious Conversation. jake and cassie have a very patient and understanding talk. cassie really doesn’t want to be the one to make the call, but as jake reminds her, she’s the best morpher. she knows all about animals. the other animorphs respect her and trust her and will go along with whatever she decides. she jokes about having him make the decision for her and jake - bless him - very seriously is like, if that’s what you want me to do, i’ll do it. but cassie knows that this is Her Choice, and she believes that the dreamvision means there is an andalite out there that needs their help. so they’re going to need a morph that can get them into the ocean. cassie is hesitant about acquiring a dolphin from the zoo — they’re highly intelligent creatures. what’s it going to be like to become one?

jake’s like, again, this is your call. i have to go do my homework now before i fail another test. cassie says, “you’re just saying that to get out of shoveling manure.” jake replies, “cassie, i would rather shovel manure with you than do homework without you, any day.”

aw

the next day after school, the animorphs head to the gardens after school. we learn that marco is like, super poor, which makes sense. ever since his mom died, his dad has been too heartbroken to keep steady work. cassie notes, “it’s tough for marco because he feels like he has to take care of his dad - instead of having his dad take care of him.” marco!! my boy!! my small son!! so sad. cassie compliments marco’s new haircut to give him a seratonin boost before they get to the gardens. it’s nice.

the kids head over to the dolphin exhibit. they meet eileen, one of the dolphin trainers, who introduces the kids to the dolphins: joey, ross, monica, chandler, phoebe, and rachel. that’s not a bit i made up - that's applegate’s joke! eileen is like, here’s this bucket of fish. why don’t y’all give them some snacks? i’m just gonna go…away.

the kids stand around and start discussing The Moral Ethics of Morphin’. dolphins are highly intelligent - they make eye contact, respond when the kids speak to them, and are just sneaky motherfuckers. cassie feels uncomfortable taking over a dolphin brain. rachel points out that they’re not really taking over a dolphin brain, more like, creating a dolphin brain — but even she isn’t fully convinced. cassie is like, i’m gonna put a pin in this, but i do want to think about it, because it has been bothering me. which makes sense. she is a Horse Girl. she reaches forward and starts acquiring the dolphin’s dna.

“may i? i asked her silently. but of course, she couldn’t answer….”

damn

the next day, the kids don’t have to go to school because of a teacher conference. nice! they meet up at a river that empties out into the ocean so they can all try to dolphin morph for the first time. tobias is going to be the timekeeper on the “deadly two-hour limit” (his words) and shows off a little watch rachel attached to one of his legs. cute! cassie, of course, goes first. she’s a little nervous - would she have dolphin instincts? or is she going to encounter a full dolphin mind, with thoughts and ideas of its own? honestly? terrifying thought!

she starts to morph into a dolphin, which is just as horrific as it sounds. there is the mention of bones crunching and her nose jutting out from her face and like, all of her skin becoming slick like a dolphin’s. finally, she fully morphs, and preps herself for the animal instincts of the dolphin. but dolphins are basically apex predators (don’t quote me on that i’m not a scientist) and cassie discovers that a dolphin’s brain is much like a child’s. she just wants to play. chasing and eating fish? a game! racing across the surface of the sea? another game! she just wants to play games!!!

the animorphs fuckin’ love being dolphins. they swim into the ocean and just have a grand ol’ time jumping around, diving to the sand, doing tricks together. tobias is like, hey, animorphs? can you all, i don’t know, focus? we’re supposed to be finding a spaceship and you’ve already wasted forty-five minutes. cassie says, “minutes? i laughed. who cared about minutes?”

me, every second of this absolute hellscape year

cassie uses echolocation for the first time - and then all the others follow suit. it turns out they’re not alone in the ocean (duh). there’s a shark out there. and these animorphs know one thing for sure: they don’t like sharks.

turns out these sharks are attacking a great one (that’s dolphin for whale) and the animorphs, of course, have to get involved. they are all very emotionally invested in the great one’s well-being. are dolphins and whales allies? i’m learning a lot. the animorphs just start fucking fighting with these sharks. sharks, y’all! sharks are not fucking around! cassie manages to get one shark to start bleeding, and the other sharks swim after that injured boy. the animorphs are all exhausted and do a quick check-in. everyone’s okay — except for marco. marco’s tail was practically bitten clean off. the kids are miles out in the ocean and marco has no way to swim back.

okay, i’m just gonna take a brief pause — presumably, if you die in an animorph, you die in real life? it’s not like, the animal melts away and you’re back to your human self, unconscious but ultimately alive. presumably, you die. this is not the animorphs first brush with death, but it is their first brush like this.

marco is, understandably, not handling this well. his mom drowned! he doesn’t want to also drown! cassie feels super guilty, because she led the team into the shark fight. she tells marco he needs to morph back to human so he can remorph to dolphin. marco is like, i can’t swim! but the animorphs are like, we’re not gonna let you drown. marco slowly morphs back to a human - with all of his body intact, thankfully - and before he can start drowning the whale shows up.

the whale lets marco rest on its back and slowly rises to the surface so marco can breathe. and then the whale calls dolphin!cassie over and begins to speak to her. she describes his voice as universe-filling. it’s like, the only thing she can focus on. he’s like, hey, i’ve seen a lot of shit, because i’m a whale and i’m ancient, but never have i seen a little one turn into a human. (little one, here, is the whale word for dolphin. cute.) cassie explains that they’re not really little ones, and the whale is like, no shit. but also, you’re not the only weird thing i’ve seen recently in the ocean. and then he gives her a little picture of a little andalite running somewhere underwater.

cassie comes out of her trance and tobias reminds everyone that they only have twenty-five minutes left. marco remorphs into a dolphin (with a perfectly intact tail) and they all swim to shore.

the next day, cassie goes to see marco at his house. she feels responsible for what happened on the mission and she wants to apologize and set things right. marco won’t let her inside — but it has less to do with cassie and more to do with his home life. (i am really looking forward to marco’s book. one of my favorite character tropes is loveable scamp who uses humor to mask a deep and unmoveable sadness.) she and marco stand outside, and she tries to apologize, but marco won’t let her. their lives are super dangerous now. it’s something he’s trying to just accept. “sometimes bad things happen. that’s the way it is.” cassie asks him if he was scared. marco takes a second to think about it. he admits that he’s scared all the time. he’s scared to fight the yeerks, he’s scared not to. he’s scared that he’s going to get stuck like tobias. most of all, marco is scared of visser three.

“so was i afraid yesterday? bet on it. i was scared plenty. it was like, man, it’s not bad enough we have to fight hork-bajir and taxxons and visser three, we also have to fight sharks? sharks?”

this gets cassie to laugh, and then they’re both laughing, and there’s like an unspoken agreement that marco doesn’t hold cassie responsible for what happened yesterday. he then tells her that he was reading the newspaper that morning (he reads - the range) and discovered two stories. one is about a guy who’s looking for lost treasure off the coast, and the other is about a marine biologist who will be doing some underwater exploration. both are highly suspicious. marco believes they’re controllers searching for the andalite, and honestly? he’s probably right.

cassie is worried. she isn’t sure if she can ask any of the other animorphs to go out there again. marco is like, look, it’s no secret that i am the most reluctant member of the animorphs, because someone has to fill that role and also, i don’t know if you remember, i am the only thing holding my dad to this mortal earth, but. choosing to do nothing is also a choice. and i don’t know if that’s the choice you want to make.

cassie is like, damn, marco, that is incredibly insightful. marco is like, don’t tell anyone. it’ll ruin my ~rep~

(oh god am i a marco?)

(don’t answer that)

later that afternoon, all of the animorphs meet up in rachel’s room to discuss a game plan. cassie and jake were able to locate the approximate area the whale showed her on a map, and it’s too far out to swim and stay within their deadly two-hour limit. so they’re going to morph into seagulls, hop a ride on a container ship heading in the right direction, morph back into humans, wait until they’re close to the location, morph into dolphins, and search for the andalite.

what could POSSIBLY go wrong?

they all vote. marco says he’s in first - mostly because he wanted to beat rachel to it (sure jan). rachel, obvs, is in. tobias doesn’t think he can get a vote because he can’t go with them (there’s nowhere for his lil birdboy wings to rest out over the ocean!) but he does think that this is a good idea. good enough idea, i guess. jake and cassie came up with the plan so obviously they’re in, too. it’s decided. tomorrow, first thing in the morning, they’re going to go find! that! andalite!

jake walks cassie home. she points out that tobias might be feeling left out, and jake should probably remind him that he’s still an important member of the group even if he can’t go into the ocean with them. jake’s like, you’re so smart, i will do that. then they just like, walk for a bit, and cassie is overwhelmed. she has to tell him. but she doesn’t! instead, she just says, “don’t ever get hurt, okay?” jake smiles that smile (her words) and says, “me? i’m indestructable.”

“the way he said it, i almost believed him. but then, as he went his way and i headed toward home, i glanced up at the sky. against the blaze of sunset i saw a flash of russet tailfeathers. tobias. our friend, who had been trapped forever in a body not his own.

none of us was indestructible.”

if i could end poems the way applegate ends chapters, i’d be set for life.

the next chapter starts with the animorphs already in seagull form. they’re flying towards the beach, pointing out food and having a grand ol’ gull time. they land on a container ship called newmar from monrovia headed to singapore (thanks, hawkeyes), and morph back into people. tobias is like, cool, this is where i leave you all, because, as you all know, i am a birdboy. bye!

about an hour passes, and jake is like, cassie? do you think we’re close? cassie, of course, is kind of freaking out. leadership is not her strong suit, and even though she had a nice talk with both jake and marco, she doesn’t have a ton of confidence. she’s worried about leading her friends into danger. (in my humble opinion, she should have chatted with rachel, her best friend in the whole world who is practically an amazon warrior, but! what do i know. i’m just a blogger.) there’s a lot that could go wrong: marco can’t swim, so he can’t morph when he’s in the water, he needs to morph while on the ship. the ship is pretty high up from the water, so jumping down is a risk. cassie has a small outburst. she’s like, i don’t know what’s happening, i don’t know where we are, this is a terrible idea, we should all just go home! this isn’t going to work!

marco’s like, great pep talk cassie. i feel great about it now.

before cassie can yell at him, though, marco starts to morph. he’s like, shove me over the side! i’m all in on this plan! it’s kind of nice, in a marco sort of way. jake and rachel shove half-dolphin!marco over the edge. rachel is the next to jump, with an incredibly graceful swan dive. then jake and cassie jump together.

aw

the kids all manage to morph into dolphins successfully, and start swimming towards the location the whale showed cassie. once they’re about there, rachel points out a helicopter. it’s dragging a cable through the water. the yeerks are here.

the animorphs take a big gulp of fresh ocean air and start diving down, down, down. they’re just about at their lung capacity when they see it — underneath the ocean is a large, see-through dome, protecting a park from the crushing weight of the water. the animorphs find a hatch (insert lost reference here) and swim inside. it’s one of those nifty two-door rooms. they enter, the water drains from the room, they morph back into human. they’re standing now in front of the door that will take them into the domed park. jake opens the door - there’s a brilliant flash of light, and then cassie falls unconscious.

neat!

she comes back into consciousness to discover that it was the andalite that stunned them! he tells her not to move — he’s only stunned her to see what she and her friends are. the others also come back into consciousness and we get a quick interrogation scene. cassie explains that they heard the andalite’s distress signal. the andalite is like, how do you know what i am? they’re like, we’ve met one of you before! his name was prince elfangor. we were with him when he died. turns out that this andalite is prince elfangor’s little brother. he is, obviously, distressed to learn that visser three murdered his older brother. jake is like, hey, it’s ok. i’ve lost a brother too. the animorphs explain that they’re fighting the yeerks and that they’re using the animorph technology that prince elfangor gave them. this andalite is like, damn, shit must have been seriously fucked for him to give you the animorph powers. marco’s like, you have no idea.

the andalite explains that he’s been living in this dome ever since prince elfangor crashed to earth. the dome was separated from the ship and fell into the ocean. he is technically too young to be fighting in the war, according to andalite law, and has been waiting for his people to come find him. the animorphs are like, damn, we’re technically too young to be fighting, too. that’s something we have in common. cassie introduces the group, and the andalite introduces himself as aximili-esgarrouth-isthill.

marco dubs him ax.

(also would like to point out that i wasn’t wrong those many weeks ago - they do in fact get a little alien on their team!)

ax is like, who is your prince? they all look at jake. jake’s like oh my god i’m not a prince you guys omg no not me. but ax is like, this works for me. he says, “i will fight for you, prince jake, until i can return to my cousins.”

i am staring directly into the camera

ax gives them a little tour of his dome while they’re all recuperating from the morph. he’s describing not only the vegetation in his dome, but also like, the way the lake curves forward into the grass framed by trees.

“there are names for all the many ways the water and sky and field interact, he explained. and for the way the suns and the moons hang in the sky of our planet, and cast their lights in one way or another on the different aspects of the world.

rachel caught my eye and silently mouthed the words, “he’s cute.” then she winked.”

rachel!

jake is like, wow, this is like being on a totally different planet. ax is like, yeah, that’s the point. we bring a part of our home into space with us. it totally pisses off the yeerks. of course, everybody’s like, what? why? and ax is like, uh, because the yeerks yearn to make our world as barren as their own? just like they’re planning to do here?

everyone’s like woAH WOAH WOAH WAIT WHAT

ax is like, yeah. typical yeerks. they show up, they enslave their host species, they leave enough plant and animal species alive to keep the hosts fed and the rest they just obliterate. y’all didn’t know this?

cassie is like no prince elfangor failed to mention that as he lay dying in tobias’s arms

ax is like, yeah, the yeerks are killers of worlds. they’re a space plague. he explains that there are only three races left in all the known galaxy that still fight against the yeerks, and the andalites are the only ones that can stop them. cassie’s like, ok, cool, how long until the other andalites get here? ax’s like, maybe one or two of your years. rachel, of course, is pissed. she’s like, what the fuck? how did they get this far? if the andalites are so powerful, how come they didn’t stop these slimy slugs a long time ago?

ax is like, that is information i cannot give you right now.

applegate!!!!!!!!

before they can really dive into that nugget of information, cassie is like, we should probably have this conversation not underneath the ocean with a handful of yeerk controllers searching for us. ax is like, no problem. i will morph and swim with you to the shore. i found an animal the other day that i liked and so i plucked its dna from its body and would be pleased to test it out alongside you. the animorphs are like……ok. suddenly! sonar! the yeerks have found the dome! it’s time to fucking go! the yeerks start shooting at the dome, and the animorphs and ax start a-morphin’. by the time they’re out in the ocean, they’ve all morphed into dolphins — except for ax, who has morphed into a shark.

sharks and dolphins are mortal enemies apparently!!!

doesn’t matter. there are bigger fish to fry here. the animorphs + ax start swimming and ax is like, what hosts do the yeerks use? cassie’s like uh, humans, hork-bajirs, and taxxons of course. ax is like, taxxons?!?!?!?!

suddenly, a great shadow passes over them. it’s visser three’s personal blade ship. from the ship drop twelve splashes — you guessed it! taxxons! those motherfuckers are speedy! they start heading straight for the morphs. ax is like, tell me, in this body, am i able to fight? cassie’s like, hell yeah sharks can fight. ax says, “then, prince jake, shall we deal with these taxxon scum?” jake says, “don’t call me prince. and the answer is yes. let’s go kick some taxxon butt.”

turns out, kicking taxxon butt underwater is pretty easy. cassie slams her dolphin body against a taxxon and he explodes like a “dropped watermelon.” gross! ax, as a shark, is simply shredding taxxons. they just fuck these motherfuckers up. it takes half a page, if that. the animorphs dip up to the surface, take in some air, and try to calculate their next move. the blade ship is about a hundred yards above them, and there are two ships heading towards them, and they don’t have an approximation of how much time is left.

psych! they’ve got an alien now. he’s like we have thirty percent of the safe time left. what a fucking nerd. love him. the kids are like, ok, we gotta book it to the nearest island, unmorph, remorph, and swim for shore. no problem. except…from behind them, there is a gigantic splash. using echolocation, the kids are able to identify the size and shape of the thing - like a whale, but not a whale at all. ax is like, ah, yes, that is a mardrut. it is an animal from the andalite planet. it is a big fish. but this is no ordinary mardrut…

the kids are like yeah, duh, it’s visser three.

ax is like, you have fought visser three? and survived? you have my deepest respects!

they swim as fast as they can. but it’s not quite fast enough. they’re getting tired, and visser three is not. he’s just swimming and swimming and swimming. and then he speaks to them in thought-speak. some drivel about like, oh, i’m coming for you, andalite warriors, i’ll eat you or maybe i’ll put yeerks in your ear, who knows! i’m a big mardrut chomp chomp chomp

cassie is angry. she feels hatred surge in her. “i had lived my entire life without feeling hatred. it is a sickening feeling. it burns and burns and sometimes you think it’s a fire that will never go out.” damn! that’s good shit! one of the things i love most about ya — at least, the ya that i enjoy — is the idea that hatred is corrosive. cassie knows this. even in what she thinks are going to be her final moments, she refuses to allow herself to die with hatred in her heart. so she starts thinking about good things. her barn, her parents, jake, flying with tobias, sitting at her grandmother’s feet, the whale.

oh shit! she’s not just thinking of the whale. she can hear the whale! he’s nearby! cassie calls out to him in a last-ditch attempt. visser three is gaining on them. they only have twenty-four minutes left in morph. they won’t be able to outrun him. they have no choice but to turn and fight. they all know that they’re going to lose, but they turn to fight anyway. together. as an animorph team.

:’)

but then the whales show up!!!!

five of them just fucking whale on visser three. body slams. tail slams. visser three doesn’t stand a motherfuckin’ chance. he turns and runs — and the whales chase him for awhile, but they don’t kill him, because whales aren’t killers and we still have fifty books to go. cassie’s whale friend floats alongside them, and she tries her best to thank him. she waxes poetic about whales - “and even though i don’t really know what a soul is, i know this - if humans have them, then so do whales” - and the whale lets them ride on his massive back. they morph back into humans - except for ax, who morphs into an andalite - and ride the whale all the way home.

could you fucking imagine riding on the back of a whale after being a dolphin

cassie and jake have a small conversation on the back of the whale, and cassie comes to the conclusion that using animal dna to fight a war they didn’t start to save their planet is…probably okay. in the grand scheme of things, at least. once they’re near shore, they morph back into dolphins and swim up the river, where they meet with their clothes and with tobias. ax is like hm, what is that? that you put upon your bodies? they’re all like, aha, silly alien, these are clothes! cassie is like, ax can come stay on my family’s fucking expansive, huge wildlife reserve. marco’s like, ok, cool, but how are we going to get this deer-scorpion-eyeball hybrid there?

ax is like, oh, i got this. may i?

he then takes dna from all four human animorphs. and then morphs into a human using all four of their dna. obviously, he has no fucking clue how to dress himself. he does say that he chooses to be male, so jake and marco help ax figure out how to put clothes on while cassie and rachel turn away. once he’s dressed, cassie gets a good look at him.

“he was of medium height, a perfect balance between rachel and marco. he was of medium build, somewhere between jake and marco. his hair was brown, with just a little of rachel’s gold and a little of my curl. his skin was the color of light brown sugar, a blending of my brown and marco’s olive, and jake and rachel’s pale white.”

is he…hot?

ax cannot figure out how to be a human. talking out loud is weird. ha ha great fun!

the book ends with cassie flying into the gardens. she sneaks into the dolphin exhibit, and slips into the water, morphs into a dolphin, and dances with rachel, monica, phoebe, chandler, joey, and ross.

“they were asking me to play. they were asking me to dance with them. and so i did.”

fun!

RATING

ok honestly? four and a half out of five. a nearly full morph. i liked this book a lot. i wish we had gotten a scene between rachel and cassie, since they’re such good friends, but that might be my only complaint. we got our alien boy! we have like, a full team!

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• if you won the contest as advertised on the cover, which animal would you want to see yourself morphed into?

• is it moral to morph into an animal?

PREDICTIONS

• ok — what if marco’s dad becomes a controller? he’s like, down on his luck, super sad, wishing for some relief ever since his wife’s death…he hears about this super cool group called The Sharing…

• all i’m saying is SOMEONE’S parents have to become controllers and i think it’s gonna be marco!!

see you all next week when we finally get into marco’s probably super sad brain. can’t wait!!!!