The Stranger by K. A. Applegate

Author:K. A. Applegate [Applegate, K. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0590997262
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
Published: 1997-04-08T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

"-swer."

Instantly, we were back in our roach bodies.

IF YOU LIVE, I WILL ASK ONCE MORE.

IF YOU LIVE.

The red whip of the Taxxon's tongue held me glued down, helpless!

<Morph! Morph out!> Jake yelled in my head.

I didn't need to be told twice.

Through the fear, I focused my mind on my own human body. Suddenly all around me went dark.

<We're inside the Taxxon!> I yelled.

<Focus on morphing!> Jake yelled. <We are busting out of here.>

A gush of stinging liquid, like a tidal wave, washed me from the sticky tongue. I tumbled blind and terrified through hot, viscous goo.

But at the same time I could feel that I was growing. My roach antennae brushed against something very close to me. Another cockroach. But bigger than it should have been.

<Demorphing!> Cassie yelled.

<Right with you,> I yelled back.

Everything was closing in around me. The bodies of the others were shoved against mine as we all grew out of our roach morphs. I felt the gut of the Taxxon spasming as it tried to deal with this deadly growing meal.

My human lungs were growing back, and as they grew they began to need air.

I was suffocating! My body was not as durable as the roach form.

<Air!> I heard Marco cry. <I can't breathe.>

<Just keep morphing,> Jake said. <We'll try and pop this worm open.>

<I have my tail again,> Ax said. <Should I ->

<YES!> Jake said. <Do it!>

The darkness around us split open suddenly. I caught a glimpse of Ax's scythe-like Andalite tail slicing the Taxxon open from the inside.

Air! Air rushed in. Stinking, foul, vile air, but air.

We exploded from the inside of the Taxxon, wrapped in its guts, covered with green-blue slime.

We were not fully human yet, still some awful melding of human and bug, but we were finishing our demorphing as fast as we ever had.

Air! I sucked it into my still-forming lungs. The Taxxon lay ruined and reeking all around us. The room full of human-Controllers eating dinner was no longer frozen by the Ellimist.

Now they were frozen by sheer disbelief.

"Let's bail!" I yelled. "Before they can think about it."

We ran. Slipping and slithering through the Taxxon's guts, still forming the last of our fingers and toes, we tore out of there.

"Get them!" a human voice yelled. "Get them, you fools, or Visser Three will chew your bones!"

Suddenly, with a roar, the human-Controllers surged up out of their chairs.

A Hork-Bajir near the door moved swiftly to cut us off. Ax swung his tail with blinding speed. It hit the Hork-Bajir in his shoulder.

"Head for the dropshaft!" Marco cried as he led the way from the room.

"Everyone but Ax, if you can morph again, do it!" Jake yelled as we raced for the dropshaft. "We need firepower!"

I didn't need to be told. The only one of us who had any kind of natural ability to fight was Ax. I was already trying to focus my mind on the bear that I had made a part of me.

Part of me knew it was foolish. I should morph the elephant, or a wolf.

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