The Android by K.A. Applegate

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

We had decided to meet with Erek at his house. We had not decided to trust him completely.

Jake, Cassie, Ax, and I were going to the meeting.

Rachel and Tobias stayed outside as backup. Rachel was all primed to use her grizzly bear morph if we called for help.

“I’ll be within range of Ax’s thought-speak,” she said for the tenth time. “I can morph my bear in a minute and go through that door about ten seconds later.”

“If you do that, try not to stomp over me in the process, okay?” I said.

I glanced up and saw Tobias swooping down to settle in the tree in Erek’s yard.

I could joke about it, but the truth was, it did feel reassuring to know Rachel and Tobias were ready to be the cavalry.

We went up to the front door of the very ordinary-looking house. I sent Jake a look that said, “Man, I hope we’re right about this.” But Jake was busy exchanging solemn glances with Cassie.

“So? Someone knock on the door,” I said. I glanced at Ax. He was in his human morph. His human morph is made up of DNA gathered at the same time from all of us except Tobias. There’s some of Jake and Rachel and Cassie and me in Ax’s human shape. In the end result he’s male, but almost as pretty as a girl.

Plus, he’s annoying in human morph.

“Knock? Knock on the door? Why? Knockon. Knock-kuh.”

Andalites don’t have mouths, and Ax can’t get over how fun it is to make actual sounds. Plus, you don’t even want the boy in the same room with certain foods.

Jake knocked.

The door opened. I was surprised. It wasn’t Erek. It was his father, Mr. King.

He nodded. “Come in.”

We stepped inside. I felt completely dorky. It was like we were coming over to ask if Erek could come out and play. I mean, the house looked so normal inside. Normal furniture and normal lights and normal dishes displayed in a hutch. A normal TV on “mute,” showing pictures from CNN.

There were two dogs, a Labrador mix and a fat little terrier. The Lab just lolled over on its back. The terrier came running over to sniff our shoes.

“Is Erek here?” I asked.

Mr. King nodded. “Yes. Would you like a soda or anything?”

“No thanks, Mr. King,” Cassie said. She bent over to scratch behind the terrier’s ears.

“You like dogs?” Mr. King asked.

“She likes any animal,” I answered. “She even likes skunks.”

“But dogs, do you like dogs?”

Cassie smiled. “If reincarnation were real, I’d want to come back as a dog.”

Mr. King smiled, nodding as if Cassie had just said something profound. “Would you all come with me?”

He turned and led the way toward the kitchen. Once again, the total normalcy of it seemed jarring. There were little Post-It notes on the refrigerator saying things like “dozen eggs, bell peppers.” Someone had left a box of Wheaties out on the counter.

Mr. King opened a door. It led down to the basement. We followed him down the narrow wooden steps.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.