The Unknown by K.A. Applegate

Author:K.A. Applegate
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2017-11-23T05:00:00+00:00

<Cassie. It’s me, Tobias. I don’t know if you can hear me, but you’re the only one I haven’t found. If you can, give me some kind of sign, anything. Where are you?>

<I’m down on the track,> I said.

<Hey! You must be in morph if you’re thought-speaking!>

<Yes, I am definitely in morph.>

<Well, where are you? What are you?>

<I’m in horse morph, Tobias.>

<Cool. So where are you?>

I sighed. <Look at the track. See the horses being led into the starting gates? See the horse whose jockey is wearing red-and-green silks? Number twenty-four?>

<You’re kidding.>

<No, Tobias. I am not kidding.>

<How did this happen?>

<It’s a long story. And I don’t have time to tell it. I have a race to run.>

My jockey was barely a feather on my back. That didn’t bother me. But I really did not like the bit in my mouth. It was infuriating! Almost as infuriating as the dark brown stallion one stall over.

I snorted defiantly at the brown stallion.

“Easy. Easy,” the jockey said.

Out of my right eye I spotted Marco pushing his way through the crowd. He waved frantically.

<I see you, Marco. It’s okay, don’t worry.>

Obviously, Tobias had told the others of my predicament.

“Who’s worried?” Marco yelled. “I just want to know if you’re going to win. I have five bucks I could bet on you!”

<Very funny. Oh, very, very funny.>

My jockey yanked my bridle and dug his toe into my side. And the dumb thing was, I didn’t really know what he wanted me to do. See, I had the instincts of the horse I had morphed. But I did not have the lifetime training of the professional racehorse named Minneapolis Max.

So I had to actually think about it. With my human brain. I was pretty sure he wanted me to move toward the starting gates. So I did.

A trainer was standing by the gate. Cigar-man. The cigar was even more disintegrated by slobber now.

“He’s always balky at the gate,” Cigar-man said to the jockey.

Oh, really? Well, I would show them. I tossed my head proudly and I walked calmly into the narrow gate.

But once inside, I realized why Minneapolis Max was balky. There was zero room. The wooden slat walls pressed in on me from both sides. It was a trap! A trap!

Run!

I reared up, flailing my front legs wildly. I kicked the gate with my forehooves and yelled at the top of my horse lungs.

WHAM!

“HreEEE-heee-he!”

“Take it easy, Max, easy,” the jockey said.

I was scared. Or at least my horse brain was scared. And I still had the obnoxious scent of that other big stallion in my nose. So I was mad, too.

That’s my excuse. I just wasn’t thinking. Because when the jockey once again told me to take it easy, I did something I shouldn’t have done. Something I wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t been distracted.

<You take it easy. I’m crammed into a little box here!> I said in thought-speak.

Thought-speak is like E-mail: It only goes to the person you address it to. So he did hear me.

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