Of course it was shut. You don’t realize how much you need your hands until you don’t have them.
But you know what’s cool? Humans. Nine out of ten humans are pretty decent creatures.
One of those nice humans, concerned for a bird obviously panicked by being trapped, opened the door.
I blew through.
I flew, flew, flew into free, wide-open skies.
I was relieved. But I didn’t have time to celebrate. I had to get home. Ax needed me.
I flew like mad for home. My body was trembling with exhaustion when I finally sailed in the hayloft window. I landed on a bale of hay and released Aftran.
My little bird heart was pounding like crazy. I wanted to fluff up my feathers and stick my head under my wing. Instead, I concentrated on my own DNA.
The feathers covering my body flattened until they were two-dimensional tattoos. My hollow bones grew and solidified. I heard a sloshing sound as my internal organs shifted and changed.
My bird eyes grew, and my vision became completely clear again. I watched the last few changes. Then I shoved myself up with a grunt. I scooped up Aftran and headed to Ax’s stall.
I couldn’t stop myself from gasping when I opened the door and stepped through the hologram. Ax was lying on his side. He never does that. And I could hear him breathing in short, ragged pants.
“He’s in crisis,” Erek told me.
I knelt next to Ax. “I’m back,” I told him. “I’m right here with you.”
He didn’t answer.
“He’s unconscious,” Erek told me. “Has been for a little more than half an hour.”
“Poor baby.” I ran my fingers over his soft blue-and-tan fur. His sides heaved with every breath he took.
“I don’t think you have much time,” Erek said gently.
“You’re right.” I stood up and slid Aftran into the water trough.
“You’ll be safe there,” I told her. I knew she couldn’t understand me. I knew she had to be terrified. But I had to leave her.
I turned to Erek. “I’m worried about hurting him when we move him. Maybe we could —”
Erek bent down and scooped Ax up in his arms. I’d forgotten for a minute how amazingly strong the Chee are.
I leaned over the stall door and checked to make sure the barn was still empty. Then I opened the door and led the way to the operating room. I pointed to the metal table and Erek placed Ax on top.
“Can you do another hologram to make the room look empty?” I asked. “Just in case.”
“You got it,” Erek answered.
I couldn’t believe I was doing this. I couldn’t believe I was actually going to perform brain surgery. On an alien.
I suddenly had this powerful urge to walk away. To go find a TV, plant myself in front of it with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, crank the volume, and forget everything.
“Probably nothing on, anyway,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Just take it one step at a time, I coached myself. But what should the first step be? I closed my eyes and tried to picture what my dad did before an operation and what I’d seen in the books I’d gotten from my mom. Got it. Step one: Get things clean. Duh.
Numbly I walked over to the sink and washed my hands with antibacterial soap. I dried them, then pulled on a pair of latex gloves.
I took a bottle of rubbing alcohol off the shelf and grabbed a jar of cotton balls. I soaked one of the balls.
“This will feel a little cold,” I told Ax before I started swabbing his head. I knew he couldn’t hear me. But it made me feel a little better to talk to him.
I tossed the used cotton ball in the garbage and carefully returned the alcohol and the rest of the cotton balls to their proper places. I was stalling. And that could be deadly to Ax. I didn’t know how much time he had left.
I jerked open the long drawer in the middle of my dad’s cabinet and pulled out a scalpel. I took it over to Ax. My heart was thudding so loud I could feel it all over my body. In my ears. Even in my fingertips.
I positioned the scalpel over Ax’s head. Then I froze. How could I just make a cut? Where was the Tria gland?!
Maybe I could feel it through Ax’s scalp. Maybe there would be swelling. Or a spot that felt hotter or colder.
I used my free hand to examine Ax’s head. I started with his forehead. Nothing. I moved up to the space between his eye stalks. Nothing. I checked the area around each of his ears. Nothing. I ran my fingers over every inch of the back of his skull, twice. Nothing. Nothing.
“This is hopeless! It’s impossible!” I cried. “He’s going to die with me standing right next to him!”
“You’ve already done one hopeless, impossible thing tonight,” Erek reminded me.
Rescuing Aftran from Visser Three had felt pretty impossible. Pretty hopeless. Now Aftran was safe and sound —
Wait.
Wait.
My mind seemed to slow down and speed up at the same time.
Aftran!
“Be right back,” I told Erek. I dashed out of the operating room and over to Ax’s stall. I scooped Aftran out of the trough and raced back.
I skidded to a stop at the edge of the operating room table. I brought Aftran up to one of Ax’s ears. Her Yeerk instincts should tell her to go inside.
Yes! Aftran slithered across my palm and into the opening of Ax’s ear canal. I watched as her slick gray body disappeared inside.
“Maybe she’ll be able to tell us where the Tria gland is,” I told Erek. I gripped the metal table with both hands.
“You’re brilliant,” Erek said. “Unless …”
“Yeah. Let’s wait and see if it works first,” I answered.
I stared down at Ax. Waiting.
Aftran should be pushing herself into Ax’s brain right now, I thought. Once she’s in control, she’d be able to talk. Wouldn’t she?
This had to work. It had to. If it didn’t —
Don’t, I ordered myself. Aftran will come through.
But why wasn’t she saying anything? Why was this taking so long? Was she having trouble with the Andalite brain? Was Ax’s illness making it impossible for her to connect?
“I’m here. We got away from Visser Three. You’re inside my friend, Ax,” I explained, talking as fast as I could. “There’s a gland in his head that’s going to explode any second. If it does, he dies. I have to take it out, but I don’t know where it is. Can you feel it? Can you tell me where to cut?”
“What?” Erek demanded. “Wait what?”
I grabbed a scalpel with trembling fingers. “Just tell me where to cut.”
I turned Ax’s head so I could easily reach that spot. “Okay, I’m going to make the first incision,” I told her. “Stay out of the way.”
“Thanks.” I picked up the scalpel and positioned it to one side of the spot Aftran had described. Then I made a straight cut about four inches long. I could feel the metal blade scraping the bone of Ax’s skull.
But that was good. That’s how deep I needed to go. I needed to peel back a flap of skin so I could work on the bone.
A line of blue-black blood appeared. My stomach did a flip-flop. I swallowed hard and made a cut that was perpendicular to the first, again about four inches long.
“Hemostat!” I snapped
.
The instrument was in my hand a split second later.
“Another. Okay. Retractor. No, it’s that other thing!”
I pulled back a flap of skin.
“Tape,” I said.
“How much do you want?” Erek asked.
“Three inches.”
He passed the piece of cloth tape to me. I used it to hold the flap of skin away from the bone.
“Can you control his heartbeats at all?” I asked. “Try to slow them down?”
“Gauze pads, Erek.” I held out my hand and Erek slapped them in my hand. I used them to mop up some of the blood oozing out of the incision.
“Now the hole saw. It’s in the sterilizer.”
“Here.”
Aftran sounded nervous. What would happen to her if Ax’s Tria gland burst while she was still inside his head?
“Okay, I’m going to need you to blot some of the blood away as I go,” I told Erek.
“You got it.”
Erek handed me the hole saw. I positioned the circle of saw teeth around where I hoped the Tria gland was. I turned the saw’s handle a few times.
I pulled the saw back, and the circle of bone came with it. Now I was looking at Ax’s brain.
Sweat popped out all over my forehead and started to run down my cheeks and nose. Erek dabbed it away with another gauze pad before it could start dripping onto Ax’s brain.
I didn’t have to ask Aftran for more help finding the Tria gland. It was easy to spot. Deep purple. Bulging.
“Retractor,” I told Erek. “Scalpel.”
My fingers shook when he handed them to me. The gland looked ready to blow. I was afraid if I touched it, it would start spewing.
“Hold this. My left eye! Sweat!”
He swabbed my eye with a cotton ball.
“Okay. Let’s do it,” I whispered.
I slid the scalpel blade beneath the gland with trembling care.
I cut.
The Tria gland was out. I tossed it into a metal pan.
“Okay.” I wrapped my arms around myself. My whole body was shaking.
Don’t lose it now, I thought.
As quickly as I could, I replaced the circle of bone. It would fuse back in place in time. I untaped the flap of skin and smoothed it down.
“Now we sew.”
“That was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen,” Erek said with a laugh. “And I’ve seen a lot.”
“What’s wrong?” I cried. “Am I hurting him?”
“Ax, listen to me. The Yeerk is Aftran. She helped me save your life,” I cried.
“He doesn’t understand,” I answered.
A moment later, Aftran slithered out of Ax’s ear.
Ax bucked on the table. His eye stalks jerked back and forth.
I grabbed his head between my hands. “Stop it!” I ordered angrily. “You have to stay still until I finish stitching your head!”
Ax obediently lay back on the table, but I could see tremors running through his body. My anger faded. Ax had been so sick. Then he’d come to and found a Yeerk in his head. One of the monsters who had killed his brother.
No wonder he went off. He probably thought he’d been captured and infested.
“You’re okay,” I told Ax soothingly. “You’re in my dad’s operating room. I put Aftran in your head. She looked inside you and told me where the Tria gland was. She helped me operate. I got it out. You’re past your crisis.”
I scooped up Aftran, filled the sink with water, and let her inside. “I’ll be back in a minute,” I promised her. Even though she was deaf again. Blind, mute. Helpless.
I turned back to Ax. He kept rubbing his ear. I knew he was feeling violated. Repulsed by what I had done to him.
“Visser Three was planning to interrogate Aftran tonight,” I said softly as I returned to stitching up Ax’s incision. “He discovered she was part of the peace movement.”
I made the last stitch. “That filthy Yeerk helped save your life. And she very nearly gave her life for peace between human and Yeerk. And now, unless I can think of some way to save her, she will die a slow death of Kandrona starvation.”
Ax didn’t say anything. Maybe when he’d gotten some rest, he’d think it over.
“Erek, would you take Ax back to the stall?” I asked. “He’ll need at least a few days to recover. Is that too long for you to stay and keep the hologram up?”
Erek gently lifted Ax off the table. “You’re talking to a guy who helped build the pyramids. A few days is nothing.”
I smiled at him. “Thanks. I couldn’t have gotten through all this without you.”
“Yes, you could have. But you’re welcome,” he answered as he carried Ax out the door.
I sat down on the little stool my dad keeps by the table. I wrapped my arms around my knees. All the fear I’d been pushing away suddenly hit me. I felt like my body was deflating.
It’s just a delayed reaction, I told myself. You’re safe. Ax is safe. Aftran’s safe.
That wasn’t really true. Yeah, I got Aftran away from Visser Three. But in three days, she would be dead.
I pushed myself to my feet and leaned against the sink, staring down at her. She had done what few have the strength to do. She had questioned the beliefs she had been raised with. And ultimately, she had chosen to go against her society. To turn away from everything she had once believed, to become the enemy of those closest to her.
Aftran had sacrificed so much. She had experienced all the richness and wonder of our world. But when she decided she did not have the right to control another, she had been strong enough to give it up to save a little girl’s life.
She returned to the Yeerk pool. It must have felt like the worst kind of prison to her after being in Karen’s body. But she didn’t allow herself to wallow in despair. She chose to fight. She battled to free us all.
I reached into the water and slid Aftran into my hands. I pressed her against my ear. It was the only way I could talk to her, and I needed to thank her for all she’d done.
A moment later I felt her cold, slick body touch my skin. My ear canal tingled as she pushed her way through.
she said as soon as she had made her connections with my brain.
There was so much I wanted to say to her, I hardly knew where to start.
She laughed.
she said simply.
I felt a lump of unshed tears form in my throat. Were they mine? Or Aftran’s?
Maybe they were
both of ours.
Both of ours. That gave me an idea.
She must have felt the wave of despair and sorrow sweeping through me.
“My mom didn’t let me eat any solid food until today,” Rachel complained. “And it’s been four days since I got sick.”
All the way to the beach, Jake, Rachel, Marco, Tobias, and Ax had been trying to top each other with stories about who felt worse when they were sick.
“Yeah, well, my dad brought me baby aspirin from the store. Baby aspirin!” Marco groused. “Like for a baby.”
“A Yeerk was in my head,” Ax said, still amazed. He was in human morph, naturally. “In my head. Head-duh.”
I mostly ignored my friends’ complaining contest. I was enjoying the warm sand sliding between my toes. And the salty smell and soft sounds of the ocean.
There’s nothing like a trip to the Yeerk pool to make you appreciate life and freedom.
“Is this where we’re supposed to meet Aftran?” Jake asked.
“Uh-huh. When I morphed to dolphin and visited her this morning, she said it’s time for her to move on. But she wanted to say good-bye,” I answered. “Just look out there.” I pointed out at the blue-green water.
“I don’t see anything,” Marco said.
Tobias answered.
We turned. I scanned the ocean and spotted a foamy spot. The water broke over a massive fin.
Then a humpback whale leaped. All the way out of the water. Droplets of water flew off her in a sparking comet.
There should be a picture of that scene in the dictionary — under beauty. And joy.
“We made the right decision,” Jake said. “Better than the last time we used the blue box.”
The Sickness Page 8
