Applegate, K A - Animorphs 35 - The Proposal

by The Proposal (lit)

  Cassie sat beside me. She put her hand on my arm.

  "Cassie, does Jake know you're flirting with me?"

  She ignored my weak attempt at a joke. "And then we found out your mom was still alive. Only she wasn't your mom anymore. Her body had been taken over by a Yeerk. And she was the enemy. Marco, in the space of a few awful months you've gone from believing your mother is dead to almost literally having to try and destroy her."

  "And you think maybe that's stressful?" I deadpanned.

  "I think it would have crushed most people," she said. "That mission against her and Visser Three, you were setting her up to take a fall. You were intimately involved with leading Visser One, your mother, into a trap that -"

  115 "Shut up! Shut up!"

  I jerked up off the couch. I had my hands over my ears. Stupid. I took my hands down. They were trembling. "Look, Cassie ..." I started to say with exaggerated calm. But then I forgot what I wanted to say.

  I could see her. On that mountaintop. Her sudden realization that it was me who had brought her there. Marco. Me. Her son. Her host's son. Not some ruthless Andalite warrior but her own son . . . Visser Three's troops and ships closing in. The cliff giving way.

  Falling.

  And later, Rachel had come to me and said that her body could not be found. That maybe she was still alive.

  And Rachel had understood that she wasn't doing me any favors because it was so much better to know, to know for sure anything, even to know something terrible as long as the torture of uncertainty was over. . . .

  "What did I do?" I whispered.

  "You're in a war, Marco. You're here, in your own living room, eating cookies and watching TV and going to school on Monday, but you're in a war. Bad things have happened to you."

  "Tobias isn't losing it. Ax isn't losing it. Look at them, they're both all alone. My God, Tobias isn't even human anymore."

  116 "Marco, you don't know what they've gone through. They'd never tell you."

  "Guy code," I said.

  "It doesn't matter what they feel anyway, you know? You have to deal with what you feel."

  "I feel like you drank my milk."

  Cassie hung her head. She looked beat. Probably was. I was. I felt bad, like I'd let her down. She'd come over, as tired as she was, to try and help.

  "I feel better," I said.

  Cassie rolled her eyes. "Look, Marco, don't talk to me if you don't want to. Don't even talk to Jake even though he is your best friend. If you have to keep everything inside, I guess that's how you are. But you need to at least be honest with yourself."

  "Okay," I said noncommittally. "I'll do that."

  She got up, sighed, and headed for the door. Then she stopped. "You know, at the clinic we're always getting animals who are hurt or injured by humans. By jerks who shoot at them for no reason, or try and burn them, or whatever. And I used to get so mad. I just hated those people. And I'd feel like I was wasting my time because, you know, there's always some jerk with a twenty-two. I'd rage about it. But my dad told me, 'Deal with what is.'"

  I was confused. "What's that mean?"

  118 "It means, the animal is hurt. Help the animal." She came back over to me and took my hand. "Or in your case, Marco, it means that the Yeerks are here, your mother is Visser One, and your dad is lonely. None of that should be. But it is."

  117

  «Tready, Marco?» Tobias asked.

  «Am I ready? Was Sitting Bull ready for General Custer? Was General Schwarzkopf ready for Saddam Hussein? Was General Washington ready for whoever's butt he kicked?»

  «So, you're saying you're ready then?»

  «0h, yeah. I'm ready.»

  Every muscle in my body was alive, electric, eager to run, to jump, to attack! I had long claws and sharp teeth, specially designed to tear my prey apart. Limb from limb. I had a motor that could run nonstop for hours. Without even a thought of tiring!

  «AII right, he's just reaching the gate.»

  119 Not that I needed to be told this. My superkeen ears could hear him just fine, even over the roar of the surf. My nose, thousands of times more sensitive than any human's, had caught wind of him the moment he walked out his front door.

  I heard the familiar sound of the key turning in the lock, the squeal of the hinges as the door swung open. My nose was bombarded with his scent, so strong, so familiar. Only this time there was a new smell added to the usual mix of soap, deodorant, and laundry detergent.

  Fear.

  A smell even more powerful than Right Guard or Old Spice. It was a smell I loved. A smell I lived for. A smell that attracted me like a shark to blood.

  The growl began in the back of my throat, an unconscious, instinctive warning to my prey that said: "I'm coming to get you."

  «Stay back,» Tobias said. «He hasn't come out yet. He's looking for you.»

  Stifling the powerful urge to attack, I stayed crouched in the bushes just outside the gate.

  «0kayyyy,» Tobias said tentatively, «he's coming - NOW!»

  SLAM! The gate shut behind him. William Roger Tennant took off down the beach, jogging at twice his usual speed. Pretty fast.

  120 But nowhere near fast enough. I shot out of the bushes. I was on him in seconds.

  I had powerful legs made for running and jumping. I had claws and teeth that could tear a man apart. But these were nothing compared to my most horrifying weapon of all.

  My voice.

  "Arararararararararararrrrrrrrrrr!" I barked.

  He increased his speed. But he knew he was doomed. The smell of his fear, even stronger now, guided me like a heat-seeking missile.

  I pounced. Three feet off the ground! I bit into his shirt with my iron jaw and held on, making a swimming motion with my feet so my claws could scratch his bare legs and arms.

  "Stupid -!" Tennant screamed. Along with a few other words I can't repeat.

  He was ten times my size. A six-foot-tall human against a foot-and-a-half-long toy poodle. One well-placed kick or punch and he could have crushed my ribs or skull.

  But he couldn't do this. See, there were too many witnesses. Way too many people on the beach who would be horrified to see the great animal lover William Roger Tennant beating a poor, innocent poodle to death.

  A couple of dudes playing Frisbee stopped to watch the action. Broke out laughing when they

  121 realized what they were seeing. A six-foot-tall man being tormented by a crazed toy poodle.

  Tennant stopped dead in his tracks. The sudden stop was enough to cause me to lose my grip and send me flying. I landed on my feet and spun back around to face him.

  "I will kill you, Andalite," Tennant hissed, low enough for no one else to hear.

  Dogs don't have very good vision. It's a little fuzzier than human sight. And while they can sort of see colors, what they see is not much more colorful than the picture on a black-and-white TV.

  But I could read the expression on William Roger Tennant's face well enough. His mouth was bent in a vicious frown. His eyes were seething with hate. His right cheek twitched uncontrollably.

  "Do you hear me, you cursed beast?" he hissed. "I will kill you!"

  I pounced again. Got a grip on his shorts that nearly tore them off his hips.

  You know the little girl in the Coppertone ad? With the doggie pulling off her swimsuit? Tennant looked just like that little girl as he dashed back toward his mansion, desperately holding up his shorts with one hand.

  I let go when we reached the gate. He quickly

  123 unlocked it and stepped inside. Not before giving me one last leer before shutting it behind him.

  «Good job,» Tobias said, landing on a tree just above me. He turned his head and looked down at me with one seagull eye. «This plan just might work.»

  122

  For the next two days, Tobias and I followed William Roger Tennant like paparazzi on an actress. Hoping to go for an unmolested run on Wednesday, he took his limo out to a park near the river. We followed, and I w
as there to catch him before he'd jogged his first mile.

  Thursday afternoon, Tennant was scheduled to give a speech at the convention center downtown. I was waiting for him just outside the main doors. Before he had a chance to climb the stairs I'd ripped a sleeve off his suit jacket and torn a huge hole in the seat of his pants.

  He cancelled the speech.

  Thursday night after the show, Tennant met up with some local sponsors for a late dinner. In

  124 red-tailed hawk and owl morph Tobias and I followed the limo to the restaurant. I morphed again, and the minute his foot hit the pavement, I was peeing on it. His sponsors watched in horror as I pounced on him, grabbed hold of his tie with my teeth, and almost pulled him down face-first onto the sidewalk.

  Of course, he couldn't fight back. Couldn't kick me. Couldn't slap me. Not with so many fans and sponsors and non-Controllers watching. All he could do was smile.

  My dog senses could tell he wanted to kick and slap me. Could tell by the way his pulse went through the roof when he caught sight of me. By the way his breathing became short, clipped, and tense. The way his teeth ground together like a bowl full of marbles.

  Mostly I could tell by his smell. It wasn't a smell a human could detect. Too subtle. But this aroma, a combination of fear and total hatred, was a magnet to my nostrils. It fed me. It inspired me. Like a shot of adrenaline, it helped me jump high enough to reach his tie. Bite hard enough to rip even through his leather jeans. Run fast enough to catch him, no matter how much of a head start he got.

  And I loved every second of it.

  Let's face it. Everything messed up about my life could be blamed on the Yeerks. My mom. My

  125 dad's misery. Now the complication of his new girlfriend. For months, my friends and I have been living in fear, our lives changed forever by this invasion. Facing ridiculous odds. The threat of death or capture always there, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

  We'd experienced things no person should ever have to experience: war and devastation, betrayal and defeat. And all the skin-crawly horrors of morphing.

  Win or lose, I'll have nightmares for the rest of my life.

  Now, unexpectedly, it was payback time. Not some morally troublesome action that might result in a serious injury or even death, some violence that would eat away at me. This was clean. This was pure. I had a Yeerk in my poodle sights. And he was going to suffer.

  Was I taking a sadistic pleasure in it all? Yes. I was.

  Friday evening. The big night. I headed home.

  "Hey, you're just in time," my dad said when I walked into the kitchen. He flicked off the stove and shoveled the pieces of chicken he'd been frying onto our plates. He was jittery. Jumpy.

  "Something wrong, Dad?" I asked him.

  "No, no," he muttered nervously, avoiding eye contact. He sat down across the table from me. "What makes you say that?"

  126 I watched as he lifted his fork and bobbled his knife, nearly managing to impale his own thumb.

  "You, uh, thinking about switching to base nine for your math needs?"

  He stared at his shaking hands and laughed. "Just call me poker face." His smiled faded. He put down his fork and knife and rubbed his hands with his napkin. "Uh, Marco, I was hoping we could talk."

  "Together or separately?" I replied.

  "Uh, together, I guess," he said, oblivious to my joke. "You see, well ... oh, man, I've never been good with words. But, you know I loved your mom very much, Marco."

  I felt my heart stop. Sucked in my next breath like it was coming through a straw.

  He paused. He wanted me to say something. He wanted me to make this easier for him. I should have. But I didn't.

  I heard Cassie in my head telling me to deal with what is. No. I didn't like the "is." The "is" was about to get worse.

  "Losing her was so hard for the both of us. But she's been gone over two years now. And, and . . . and she's not coming back."

  He wiped tears from his cheeks. I hated him right then. How dare he cry? Who was he to cry? He was betraying her. He was setting her aside,

  127 consigning her to the past. He was killing her, that's what he was doing.

  "I - we - can't spend the rest of our lives grieving for her. And, for the first time since she died, I've actually been happy. Nora and I -" He paused. "I think it's what your mom would have wanted. She would have wanted us to move on with our lives. To be happy. Doesn't that make sense?"

  No. No, because she was my mom. She was his wife. So no, Dad, no, cut out the weepy crap, cut out the self-pity, no! She's my mom!

  I didn't say anything. What could I say? I knew I was wrong, knew I was being unfair, and I didn't care. But I couldn't say anything.

  "Nora and I have been talking about getting married, Marco. But we won't do it without your okay."

  "Yeah? And what if it's not okay?" I said. I could hardly hear my own voice.

  He sighed. His eyes turned vacant, distant. The way they'd looked for a large part of the past two years. I hadn't missed that look. I hadn't missed it at all.

  "Marco, we're a team, you and I. We've been through a lot together. If you say no, I'll accept that."

  Fine. So it was on me. Great. Typical. Yeah, why not? I'll decide if my dad is happy or not, if

  128 my mom is still my mom. I'll decide if she lives or if she dies so that I, the Great Marco, the great cold-blooded Marco can prove how tough I am by leading her into a trap, setting her up ...

  I felt pain. I was digging my fingernails into the side of my head.

  I was going to explode. Some artery in my head was going to blow apart. It was too much. Way too much.

  "I'm out of here," I said.

  I got up and ran for the door.

  129 We met on the roof of the TV studio. It was windy. Not easy to land with that much of a breeze.

  We demorphed from our various bird morphs. Tobias stayed as a hawk.

  "Okay," Jake said. "Here's the plan. Ax and I hit the control booth. Marco gets harassment duty, as usual. We may only have a few seconds, maybe a minute of airtime before we get shut down. We have to catch, on camera, William Roger Tennant losing control. Rachel and Cassie will be in the studio as backup. Tobias is outside, on lookout. And keeping an eye on the crew's preshow meeting. Got it?"

  Everyone looked at me. Waiting for my usual

  130 lame joke about how we were heading toward certain doom. I let them wait.

  "Something wrong, Marco?" Rachel said.

  "What could possibly be wrong?" I replied finally.

  Cassie gave me a long, hard look. She wasn't going to say anything, but she was making sure I knew that she knew I was messed up.

  We morphed flies. Entered the building through a fresh air duct. It led us right into the studio. From there, we went to our separate posts.

  The plan was simple. And only slightly more idiotic than the banquet fiasco. The network guy was in the studio to watch a live broadcast of Tennant's show. And we were in the studio to make Tennant look like the lunatic he was.

  That's where I came in. I was supposed to morph to Euclid and bait Tennant - before the show began. Had to be before the show began: Tennant was just controlled enough not to blow it in public. We had learned that at the banquet. He was crazy, but he was crazy in private.

  I would go after him. Alone on the set. Right where he could finally get his hands on me. When he attacked me - which he would - Ax would have cut into the computers and would send out a live feed across the country.

  A great idea. For everybody but the bait: me.

  131 Tennant would try and kill me. His chances of accomplishing that goal before Cassie or Rachel could stop him were pretty good.

  If Cassie and Rachel weren't shot first by a Controller on the crew.

  If it worked we'd all have a big laugh. If it didn't. . .

  So far, everything was going according to plan. William Roger Tennant was sitting on the set in his comfy chair. Arms and legs crossed. Eyes closed.r />
  Tobias and Ax had scouted the place earlier in the week. They'd made a crude sketch of the layout. We'd memorized it.

  And they'd made notes about Tennant's usual behavior. Like the fact that every night before the show Tennant chilled for about twenty minutes. Alone with only his Lava lamps for company.

  I wondered what the thing was with the stupid Lava lamps. Did they remind him of the Yeerk pool? Or did he just miss the sixties?

  The director, the cameramen, and the rest of the crew were at their usual preshow meeting. This time with Mr. UPN.

  «You know, it's really a shame I can't get to meet that UPN guy,» I said. «l have a great idea for a new Star Trek series. See, it's way in the future and the Federation has been broken up by the Dominion and only three ships are still -»

  132 «Marco?»

  «Yeah, Jake.»

  «Don't talk to the UPN guy. Poodles do not pitch show ideas.»

  «Tell me about it later,» Tobias said. «Sounds cool. I always thought the whole Federation thing was just too easy and -»

  «Puh-leeze!» Rachel exploded. «Next mission: girls only.»

  Tobias was keeping watch on the meeting through the conference room window. Though we knew at least some of the crew and probably the director were Yeerks, we were pretty sure Mr. UPN was not.

  The studio itself was low budget. Not much larger than a three-car garage. Pre-air time, the place was eerily dark. The bubbling Lava lamps gave the air a weird reddish glow. Tennant's chair was in one corner of the set. A pair of TV cameras faced the star's chair. In another corner a small control room had been built. One wall of the control room was a large window.

  Opposite the control room and just out of camera range was another small area, separated from the studio by unplastered Sheetrock walls. Tennant's dressing room. In it was a desk with a lighted mirror and a barber's chair. Next to the desk was a fire exit door with an "alarm will sound" bar across it.

  133 Cassie, Rachel, and I landed in the dressing room. I demorphed. Rachel and Cassie buzzed under the desk. They would morph wolf and get me out of there if Tennant went totally ballistic.

  «0kay,» Jake called out to us in thought-speak. «We have the control room to ourselves. Ax has morphed to human. He's setting up for the broadcast. Everybody check in.»