- disaster pastor
- May 1, 2007
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Just a reminder that right up to the end, Scholastic marketed Animorphs as roughly fifth-grade reading material (ages 1011 for non-US people).
Edit: ha, it gets better. I checked Scholastic's website, and now they have more general ranges, which means most of the books are either grades 37 (this one included; imagine being given this at age 8) or 47. Some are grades 68 (small spoilers beyond book 17): the oatmeal book, the butterfly book, David's first book, and parts of the final arc (but not the last two books).
disaster pastor fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Jul 1, 2020
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Jul 1, 2020 14:49
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- Adbot
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ADBOT LOVES YOU
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May 25, 2024 11:35
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- Epicurius
- Apr 10, 2010
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College Slice
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Just a reminder that right up to the end, Scholastic marketed Animorphs as roughly fifth-grade reading material (ages 1011 for non-US people).
Edit: ha, it gets better. I checked Scholastic's website, and now they have more general ranges, which means most of the books are either grades 37 (this one included; imagine being given this at age 8) or 47. Some are grades 68 (small spoilers beyond book 17): the oatmeal book, the butterfly book, David's first book, and parts of the final arc (but not the last two books).
It's probably accurate in terms of reading level....someone in 5th grade should be able to read and understand the book, in terms of word use, sentence structure, etc. Content might be a different story.
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Jul 1, 2020 18:39
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- Patrick Spens
- Jul 21, 2006
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"Every quarterback says they've got guts, But how many have actually seen 'em?"
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Pillbug
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The ants are nothing compared to the termites
Truth.
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Jul 1, 2020 19:25
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- Cythereal
- Nov 8, 2009
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I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
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jesus christ what the gently caress
Let's Read Animorphs: jesus christ what the gently caress
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Jul 1, 2020 19:35
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- QuickbreathFinisher
- Sep 28, 2008
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by reading this post you have agreed to form a gay socialist micronation.
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Just a reminder that right up to the end, Scholastic marketed Animorphs as roughly fifth-grade reading material (ages 10–11 for non-US people).
Edit: ha, it gets better. I checked Scholastic's website, and now they have more general ranges, which means most of the books are either grades 3–7 (this one included; imagine being given this at age 8) or 4–7. Some are grades 6–8 (small spoilers beyond book 17): the oatmeal book, the butterfly book, David's first book, and parts of the final arc (but not the last two books).
I don't remember the (same books as above) butterfly book being that bad, but I can see how the oatmeal book's depiction of biological warfare would be a little intense. Wild that the David book where he just starts attacking them is ok for 3rd graders.
This book is by far the most horrific we've had yet, and I feel like I remember Marco's books generally feeling this way which is why I liked them. But I'm interested to see why they even consider the termite morph in book 9, considering how the next part of this mission goes...
The lobster, and specifically Jake's face splitting into "a mess of valves," was a vivid and disgustingly visceral way to put it. Thanks KA! 
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Jul 1, 2020 20:03
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- Fritzler
- Sep 5, 2007
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Just a reminder that right up to the end, Scholastic marketed Animorphs as roughly fifth-grade reading material (ages 1011 for non-US people).
Edit: ha, it gets better. I checked Scholastic's website, and now they have more general ranges, which means most of the books are either grades 37 (this one included; imagine being given this at age 8) or 47. Some are grades 68 (small spoilers beyond book 17): the oatmeal book, the butterfly book, David's first book, and parts of the final arc (but not the last two books).
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Jul 1, 2020 22:26
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- Epicurius
- Apr 10, 2010
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College Slice
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The Predator-Chapter 7
quote:Jake and I were playing video games at the mall. I was kicking his butt. He was distracted because he was eating.
He was eating a big red bug with huge pincers.
I told him not to eat it. It would upset his stomach. But he just ignored me.
Then, suddenly, his stomach exploded. It just exploded outward, guts flying everywhere.
Eight huge spider legs appeared, like something in him was trying to crawl out.
I tried to get away, but the steam was rising. I was burning up!
I tried to run, but my legs were gone, replaced by a tail that jerked and kicked.
I screamed.
And screamed.
"Marco, Marco, wake up!"
My eyes opened very suddenly. Darkness. Someone holding onto me. I was confused.
"Mom?" I asked.
Silence. Then, "No."
My brain snapped back into reality. I was in my room. In my own bed. My dad was sitting on the side of the bed. He looked concerned and sad.
"It's just me," he said. He let go of my shoulders.
I felt sweaty all over. Cold sweat.
"I guess you had a nightmare," my father said.
"Yeah," I said shakily. "Sorry I woke you up."
"I wasn't asleep," he said.
I glanced at my clock. The red numbers showed 3:18 a.m. I didn't have to ask why my dad was awake. He often sat awake late into the night. Sometimes watching TV. Sometimes just staring into space.
He'd been that way since my mom died.
I mean, really, I've got tears in my eyes right now.
quote:My dad looks very different from me. For one thing, he's pretty tall. He's paler than me, too, and has light brown eyes. My mom was Hispanic, very dark hair and eyes. Everyone says I look like her. I know it's true, because sometimes when he's thinking about her, my dad will just glaze over and stare at me like I'm not even there. Like I'm a picture of someone else.
"I'm okay now," I said. "You should try to get some sleep."
He nodded. "Yeah. I'll do that. Look, Marco, you weren't dreaming about her, were you?"
"No, Dad. Why?"
"Because the first thing you said when you woke up was 'Mom.'"
"I guess I was confused."
"Do you ever? Dream about her, I mean?"
"Sometimes," I admitted. "But they aren't nightmares."
He almost smiled. "No. I guess they wouldn't be, would they?" He picked up the little framed picture of my mom that I keep on my nightstand. Then he got that twisted look of sick grief I had seen on his face every day for the last two years.
Part of me is mad when I see him that way. Part of me just wants to say, "Dad, get it together. Let her go. She's dead. She doesn't want us spending the rest of our lives mourning."
But I never do say that.
After a few minutes, he got up. He made some last remark about how I shouldn't be worried about bogeymen, and left. I knew he would sit out in the living room alone, and eventually fall asleep in his chair.
I lay there in the dark and tried to get the dream out of my head. But it's hard to forget a nightmare that's true.
This whole part is just so incredibly sad. It just devastates me, because Marco and his dad so desperately need each other right now, but their own misery is a wall between them.
quote:<There. It is finished.> Ax held up a small mess of electronic components for all of us to see.
It looked sort of like an exploded remote control, but smaller.
It was the next day. We were out in the woods, grouped together beneath a huge old oak tree.
It was like a strange sort of picnic. Jake and Cassie had each brought hand tools for Ax to use - screwdrivers, a solder gun, a battery-powered drill, a hammer, wrenches, pliers and, of course we had the electronic parts we had stashed in the trash before the lobster incident.
Rachel had brought sandwiches. I'd brought a six-pack of Pepsi.
It was a nice day, sunny and warm. I needed a nice day. I needed sunlight. I'd had a bad night, with too little sleep.
"So, Ax," I said. "What is it?"
<It is a distress beacon that can broadcast on Yeerk frequencies,> he said with satisfaction. <l know this is a Yeerk frequency. We have used it to trick them before. To send false instructions.>
"All it needs is a Z-Space transponder," Jake said wearily, rolling his eyes at me.
I think Jake may have been a bit ragged out by the lobster incident, too. He seemed snappish and kind of unfocused. Not at all Jake-like.
"And since we can't get a Z-Space transponder, it's basically useless, right?" Rachel asked.
<Yes. Totally useless without the transponder.>
Rachel threw up her hands. "Then what exactly are we doing?"
Jake just shrugged. Cassie sidled up next to him and gave him a small little sideways hug. No one was supposed to notice. But right away Jake's harsh look mellowed a little.
That wasn't doing anything for my bad mood, though. "Well, I'm guessing that in about two centuries or so, humans will discover zero space and make transponders. Whatever they are. But in the meantime, I'm going to have a sandwich."
Tobias came drifting down through the branches and leaves of the tree, almost silent. He landed on a low branch of the oak. <No one anywhere near here,> he reported. <Looks safe. At least as far as you guys are concerned. But there's a golden eagle about a quarter-mile south. I think I'll stay out of sight for a while and hope he goes away.>
Not for the first time, I realized how tough Tobias's life is. He shares all the same dangers we do, but he also has all the dangers that come from being a red-tail hawk. Golden eagles sometimes prey on hawks. They are bigger and faster than he is.
<So. What's up?> Tobias asked.
"We have a completely useless distress beacon," Rachel said. "We need a transponder that probably won't be invented on this planet for a century or two."
<How about Chapman?> Tobias said.
"What about Chapman?" I asked. Chapman is the assistant principal at our school. He's also one of the most important Controllers.
I used to hate Chapman. I mean, once I knew that he was a Controller and all. But then we learned that he surrendered his freedom to the Yeerks as part of a deal to keep his daughter, Melissa, safe.
It's hard to hate someone for protecting their kid. Even if he or she ended up being a deadly enemy. That's one of the terrible things about fighting the Yeerks. The real enemy is just the evil slug in a person's brain. The host is often totally innocent.
The whole thing with Marco reflecting on Chapman loving and wanting to protect his daughter, but now being trapped sort of, to me, is a callback to Marco and his dad at the beginning of the chapter. Marco's dad obviously loves him, but is so trapped by his own grief that he's unable to be there for Marco or protect him.
quote:<We know that Chapman communicates with Visser Three,> Tobias said. <He talks to Visser Three on the Yeerk mother ship, or on the Blade ship. Wherever Visser Three is. Doesn't that mean that Chapman's secret radio thing must have one of these Z-Space transponders?>
<Yes!> Ax said instantly. <If this Controller speaks to any Yeerk ship, he would have to have a Z-Space transponder. The Yeerk ships are all cloaked. Cloaking technology requires a Z-Space deflection.>
Jake caught my eye. "That's pretty much what I figured."
I smiled, despite the fact that I had a bad feeling about the way this conversation was going.
"How big is a Z-Space thingie?" Cassie asked.
Ax held two of his fingers close together, indicating something the size of a pea. <There would be several redundant units in any transmitter. We could take one without it being noticed. At least not right away.>
Rachel stood. "We are not going into Chapman's house again," she said firmly. "The last time we did, we almost got Melissa made into a Controller. We cannot morph her cat again. Chapman is on guard now. It won't be easy this time." She realized what she'd said and added, "Not that it was exactly easy the first time."
"A historic first," I observed. "Rachel saying 'no' to a mission."
"Rachel's right," Jake said. "We do nothing that will endanger Melissa again. So the cat is out. Also any other plan that means major risk that Chapman will discover us."
For a while no one said anything.
Finally Ax spoke silently in our heads. <I can not ask anyone to take risks for me. You rescued me from the bottom of the ocean. You sheltered me. And my foolishness almost got Prince Jake and Marco killed yesterday.>
What he said surprised me a little. I guess I'd expected him to argue that we should try and help him.
Ax is a good person. He's willing to sacrifice what he wants more than anything in the world to protect his friends and rescuers.
quote:"What if ..." Cassie began.
We all looked at her. "Yes?" Jake asked.
"What if there was a way to get into Chapman's basement room - the secret room where he keeps the transmitter - without even going through the house? With almost no chance of getting caught?"
I felt my heart sink. "As long as it doesn't involve anything with an exoskeleton."
I'd meant it as a joke. But Cassie just looked at me solemnly.
"What?" I demanded. "A lobster again? How is a lobster - "
"No," she said. "Think smaller. Much smaller. Much, much smaller."
I think this chapter affected me more than the last two. The last two were definately creepy, but this one was just sad.
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Jul 1, 2020 23:04
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- OctaviusBeaver
- Apr 30, 2009
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Say what now?
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Shame it's not lobsters, I like the image of 6 lobsters crawling into Chapman's front door in a line while he blithely ignores them.
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Jul 2, 2020 02:29
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- Tree Bucket
- Apr 1, 2016
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R.I.P.idura leucophrys
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Shame it's not lobsters, I like the image of 6 lobsters crawling into Chapman's front door in a line while he blithely ignores them.
I got an actual lol from this one
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Jul 2, 2020 08:04
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- Avalerion
- Oct 19, 2012
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Im actually curious if Arx has some cool alien morphs. Let him be the godzilla to Visier 3s gidorah.
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Jul 2, 2020 09:28
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- chitoryu12
- Apr 24, 2014
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Shame it's not lobsters, I like the image of 6 lobsters crawling into Chapman's front door in a line while he blithely ignores them.
Chapman has become a Jordan Peterson fan in his time on Earth.
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Jul 2, 2020 20:30
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- Epicurius
- Apr 10, 2010
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College Slice
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The Predator-Chapter 8
quote:Ants . That was Cassie's brilliant idea. Ants.
See, ants could get into Chapman's basement. And ants could carry away the small transponder.
Ants.
This was what my life had come to. We ended up spending a couple of hours debating whether we should be red ants or black ants. I finally left in disgust. I didn't want to be an ant, red, black, or any other color.
I saw Jake the next day in school. I had just come out of history class, where I had blown a pop quiz. I wasn't in the best mood.
I was opening my locker and muttering about the Mexican-American War, and how was anyone supposed to remember the difference between that war and the Texas war of independence.
It's, admittedly, a confusing period.
quote:"Hi," Jake said. "The answer is black. Turns out most of the ants near Chapman's house are black. Tobias checked it out."
I looked over Jake's shoulder to make sure no one was close enough to overhear. "Jake, I don't want to be a bug. I've been a gorilla, an osprey, a dolphin, a seagull, a trout, of all things, a lobster . . . and I'm probably forgetting a few. Gorilla was fun. Dolphin was fun. Osprey was fun. Ant? Not fun. Basically, bugs are a bad idea."
Jake shrugged. "I was a flea. That was no big thing." He grinned like he'd made the world's funniest joke. "Seriously, it was like nothing. I couldn't see anything. I could barely hear anything, just vibrations. All I knew was I liked warm bodies and whenever I got hungry I just poked a hole in some warm skin."
"And sucked blood."
He looked a little uncomfortable. "Well, it was Rachel's blood. Kind of. I mean, okay, it was cat blood, but Rachel was morphing the cat."
"Jake? Do you ever listen to yourself?"
"I try not to think about it," he admitted. "But look, we want to try and give Ax a chance to get home. And if he stays here he's a danger to us. We've got this big Anda - " He looked around to make sure no one could hear, and lowered his voice. "We have this big Andalite running around Cassie's farm. What if someone sees him? Any Controller is going to know what he is. And they're going to wonder why he's on Cassie's land."
I nodded. "Yeah. You're right. But I almost died the other day. I was almost boiled alive. I know you're the big hero type, Jake, but I'm not."
I grabbed my book out of the locker, slammed the door, and headed down the hall. Jake kept pace.
"You know what next Sunday is?" I asked him suddenly. I hadn't planned to say anything.
"Sunday? I don't know. What?"
"Two years, to the day. Two years since my mom died. And I don't know what to do. I don't know whether I should talk to my dad about it, or just let it pass. But I know one thing - this would be a really bad week for me to turn up dead."
I kept walking. He didn't follow me.
Two years.
She'd taken the boat out of the marina. She'd sailed it out into a rough sea. No one knew why.
She'd never done it before. We'd always gone out together, the three of us.
That night, after the high winds had blown past, they found the boat driven up onto the rocks.
The hull was shattered. There was no sign of my mother, except for a frayed safety rope.
They never found her body. The Coast Guard guys said that was not unusual. The ocean is a big place.
So is space, a voice in my head said.
Somewhere, very, very far away, a mother and father wondered what had become of their children.
For a long time, I made up stories about how my mom had survived. Maybe on a desert island or something. But I'm a realistic person, I guess. After a while I accepted it.
And after a while, Ax's parents would accept that he and his brother, Prince Elfangor, would not be returning. That they had been lost forever in space.
Lost fighting to protect Earth. To help the human race.
To help me.
I spotted Cassie up ahead, walking with some of her friends. She smiled vaguely when she saw me. We were supposed to kind of ignore each other in school, so no one ever figured out that Jake and me and Cassie and Rachel were hanging out a lot.
As I brushed past her I muttered, "Tell Jake I'll do it."
Sometimes I really hate having a conscience.
I mean, really, just drat. Not really anything I can say to that chapter.
Epicurius fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Jul 3, 2020
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Jul 2, 2020 22:53
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- Daikloktos
- Jan 1, 2020
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by Cyrano4747
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Somehow it took me a moment to parse it too, might just got munched in the formatting
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Jul 3, 2020 18:39
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- Epicurius
- Apr 10, 2010
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College Slice
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Edited to add a space that got left out in the transcribing. Marco is thinking about his grief for his mom, knowing she was lost at sea and hoping without hope that she survived, unable to get that closure, and then realizing that's the same position the parents of Ax and Prince Elfangor are in, not knowing for sure what happened to their sons, and that's why he's willing to help Ax.
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Jul 3, 2020 18:44
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- Radio Free Kobold
- Aug 11, 2012
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"Federal regulations mandate that at least 30% of our content must promote Reptilian or Draconic culture. This is DJ Scratch N' Sniff with the latest mermaid screeching on KBLD..."
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I mean it's referring to Ax, not Marco. He is emphasizing with Ax's parents based on his own experience as the loved one of a missing person in a certainly-fatal situation.
yeah, i get it now, marco doesn't want ax's family to wind up like his.
Note that this is essentially what Tobias has done!
yeah but in tobias' case does anyone actually care? there's been no mention of, for example, a missing person's report, no mention of next-of-kin (or police detectives) asking about Tobias, etc.
has what passes for tobias' family even noticed he's gone?
Radio Free Kobold fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Jul 3, 2020
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Jul 3, 2020 20:32
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- Avalerion
- Oct 19, 2012
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His family is lovely aunt and uncle who live in different states and don't talk each other, think he just send each a letter saying he's staying with the other one.
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Jul 3, 2020 21:50
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- Kchama
- Jul 25, 2007
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His family is lovely aunt and uncle who live in different states and don't talk each other, think he just send each a letter saying he's staying with the other one.
Pretty much. The fact that they don't even bothering checking in ever is proof how little they give a gently caress.
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Jul 3, 2020 21:56
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- Epicurius
- Apr 10, 2010
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College Slice
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The Predator-Chapter 9
quote:I wonder why these people moved?" Cassie said.
"Maybe they didn't like living next door to a Controller who is part of a conspiracy to take over the world," I said. "Or else maybe they just don't like assistant principals. I could understand that."
We were standing in the backyard of the house next to Chapman's. It was empty. There was a "For Sale" sign in the front yard. It did make you kind of wonder why these people had decided to move. Not that Chapman ever acted strange. That's the big problem with Controllers - you can never tell who is or who isn't.
"It's convenient for us, anyway," Jake said.
It was night. The moon was high and full and bright, so we were hiding beneath a tree. There was a high wooden fence between us and Chapman's.
Ax was just changing from his human morph back into his Andalite body.
We had already acquired some ants earlier, at Cassie's barn. We were getting ready to do it. I was scared. Badly scared.
I guess the others were, too. Everyone was talking too much, the way you do when you're nervous. Cassie was shivering like she was cold, only it was about seventy degrees out.
"Tobias?" I asked. He was in the tree, just a few inches over my head on a low branch. "How well can you see?"
<I think I'll be able to see you as long as you stay aboveground,> he said. <The moonlight helps. But I'm not nearly as good at night as I am during the day. My eyes aren't much better than yours in the dark.>
"Swell," I said.
Jake glanced at his watch. "It's time. We know Chapman will be at the meeting of The Sharing, starting about now."
The Sharing is a "front" organization for Controllers. It's a way for Controllers to get together without anyone being suspicious. Supposedly, it's just a sort of combined Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. In reality it's a way for the Controllers to recruit willing hosts.
Yes, believe it or not, some people choose to accept Yeerk control.
We didn't have to ask how Jake knew about the meeting of The Sharing. Jake's brother, Tom, is one of them. A Controller who is very into The Sharing.
"You ready, Ax?" Jake asked. The Andalite had to be back in Andalite form before he could morph. Just like all of us had to be human before morphing into another being. Once Cassie had tried morphing straight from one animal to another. Nothing had happened. And Cassie is the best morpher.
<I am ready,> Ax said.
"Everyone ready?" Jake asked.
"Yep," Rachel said.
Even she sounded tense. There was a bad feeling hanging over this whole thing. Or maybe I was just being paranoid.
"Okay," Jake said. "Soon as we're all morphed, we head across the grass, down along the wall, underground. We find a crack or a hole, and enter the basement."
"Yeah. Nothing to it," I said.
I concentrated on the ant I had acquired ear lier. There wasn't much to think about, really.
When I'd held the ant in my hand it had just been this tiny little dot. You could see that it had a sectioned body and legs, but that was about it.
The morphing began very quickly.
"Whoa!"
Falling! Falling!
That was the first sensation. I was shrinking rapidly. The ground was rushing up at me. It was like one of those nightmares where you are falling and falling but never seem to hit the ground.
I was still maybe a foot tall when my skin seemed to turn crisp, as if it had been burned. It became hard. Harder than fingernails and glossy black.
I looked over at Cassie and nearly screamed.
She was farther along than me. Only a foot tall and hard-shelled black all over. Glistening, ridged, plastic-looking skin.
Her legs were shriveling rapidly. So were her arms, although they had become longer, to match her legs.
The third set of legs was growing out of her chest.
And her face . . .
Her face was no longer human. Her head was sort of teardrop-shaped. Wickedly-curved mandibles were growing out of her mouth - huge, slashing, deadly-looking serrated jaws.
Her eyes had gone flat and dead. Just black dots. Antennae, looking almost like another set of legs, sprouted from her forehead.
Her waist was pinched tight. Her lower body swelled till it looked as big as a watermelon.
I didn't want to watch. Because I knew that all these same changes were happening to me. I knew it. I didn't want to think about it. I just wanted it to be over. I wanted the changes to be done.
Suddenly, all around me, huge, raspy spears shot up out of the ground!
Grass! I was diminishing to true insect size. The rough, sharp shafts that were rising all around me were just blades of grass. They weren't growing. I was shrinking.
One exploded directly under me. I tumbled, end over end.
And then my eyesight failed. My eyes simply stopped functioning.
I was blind!
Blind, and falling, rolling, cartwheeling down the side of a blade of grass.
I was standing upright. I knew that. I had stopped falling.
But I was blind.
No, not completely blind. It was not just blackness. But my eyes saw no detail. I could see patches of light and areas of darkness. But they were misty and fragmented, and my ant brain was not interested in them.
No. The world was not about sight anymore.
It was all ... something else. I knew I was getting something. Something ... a sense. A feeling, almost.
Then, I could feel ... I could feel my antennae waving. Waving back and forth, searching.
Searching ... no. They were smelling.
My antennae were smelling. I was looking for a scent. Several scents. It was not like human smell. Not like Jake had described dog scent when he'd morphed his dog Homer.
That kind of scent is full of possibilities. Subtleties.
This was different. I was looking for just a few scents. Just a few smells.
I tried to prepare myself. I had been through this before. There is usually a time, a brief few seconds, before the animal mind appears with all its fear and hunger and intensity. I needed to be prepared. Ants were tiny and weak. Surely their fear would be extreme. I would have to be -
Then, wham!
The ant's mind erupted inside my own!
There was no fear. None.
There was no hunger.
There was no ... no self. No me.
No me.
No ...
My antennae swept the air. Strange. Not home. Not the colony.
Enemy territory.
Smell them. Smell their droppings. Smell the acrid odors they smeared along the ground to mark their boundaries.
<How are you guys doing? It's Tobias. How are you guys doing?>
Strangers. The smell of others. They would come. There would be killing.
Killing. Soon.
Move.
<Jake. Marco. Rachel. Cassie. Answer me. It's Tobias. Talk to me.>
I began moving. My six legs picked their way nimbly. I was a nearly blind insect, picking his way through a forest of giant saw-edged grass blades.
Food. The smell of food. Find it. Take it. Return to the colony with it.
Change direction instantly. Move toward the smell of dead beetle. Others around. Us. Ours.
They had the right smell. They were not enemy.
<You guys are heading the wrong way.>
Moving faster now. Feet feeling each blade of grass. Antennae sweeping the air, searching for the scent of the enemy. Searching for the scent of the dead carcass that we had to find and return to the colony.
<Listen to me! You are going the wrong way! The ant minds are controlling you!>
Close now. The scent of food was stronger.
Mandibles working. We would touch the carcass. We would judge its size. If it was too big to carry, we would hack it into smaller pieces and carry the chunks to the colony.
<You have to take control! You have to fight! You have to get a grip!>
Or enemies would come. And kill.
The smell of enemies was everywhere.
There. We had reached the dead beetle. I scented the air. I touched it with my legs, touching again and again to learn the size.
I? My legs?
Confusion.
<Fight! Fight it! You have to get control!>
It was big.
The others were with me. I opened my cutting mandibles wide and bit into the beetle, slicing tough shell, biting into meat.
<- listen to me. You are losing. You have to fight!>
Fight?
Suddenly, I realized that there had been some thing ... a sound. Yes, not a smell. Not a smell.
Not a feel.
<You are humans! You are humans. Listen to me. You are not ants. Fight it! Fight it!>
Yes, not a smell or a feel. In my head.
My.
Me.
Marco.
<AHHH!> I screamed inside my own head. Tobias said later that it scared him half to death.
He thought I was being killed.
That wasn't it at all. I had been reborn.
<AHHHH! AHHHH! AHHHHH!>
This is the book when you regret that the author is so good at describing morphing.
quote:<What's the matter?> Tobias cried.
<I ... I ... I lost myself,> I said. <I was gone. I was lost. I didn't even exist.>
<Get out of that morph!> Tobias said.
But I could hear the others now, snapping back into reality. Becoming again. Crying.
<What kind of creatures are these?> It was Ax. He sounded terrified. Terrified. <They have no self! I was lost! There was nothing to hold onto. They are not whole. They are only parts, like cells. Just pieces. What kind of foul creatures are these?>
<Listen. You guys morph back,> Tobias said. <This sucks. This isn't right.>
<Hive,> Cassie said, sounding shattered. <They are social insects. Part of a colony. A hive. I should have guessed. I should have known. Ax is right. Each of us is only a part. Like a single cell within a human body.>
<Guys? I see other ants. They're coming your way,> Tobias said.
<How far away?> Jake asked. <Can you see them up there?>
< I'm not in the tree. I'm right here. I'm standing right over you. You're only a few inches from my right talon.>
<I don't want to have to do this all over,> Rachel said. <Let's do this. Let's get it done.>
<Are we all in control now?> Jake asked.
One by one, we said yes. It was only partly true. Yes, I had gained control over the ant mind.
But it was still there. It was powerful in a totally new way. It was the simplicity that made it hard. The ant was a piece of a computer. Just a tiny switch, a part of a much bigger creature -the colony.
<Guys?> Cassie's "voice" in my head. <lf you try, you can kind of use these ant eyes - a little, anyway. If you concentrate you can notice light and dark. It's like watching a really, really bad black-and-white TV that's almost all snow. And you can only see what's right in front of you. But you can almost see a picture.>
She was right. I could kind of see. But nothing I saw made any sense, anyway. I could recognize blades of grass. But a long, sloped wall that seemed about six feet high was a mystery to me.
<Someone just ran over my talon,> Tobias said.
The wall. Tobias's talon.
<That's good. You're heading in the right direction^ Tobias said. <You're coming up on the fence.>
If there was a fence, you couldn't prove it by me. I saw nothing. The bottom of the fence was seven or eight body lengths above me. Irrelevant.
<I don't want to go into Chapman's yard,> Tobias said. <It would look fishy if anyone saw.
Just keep going in the same direction.>
We did. I barreled through a forest of grass. Then, very suddenly, it ended. We were out of the grass and racing across a moonscape of boulders, each the size of my head.
In my ant brain the alarm bells were still ring ing. Enemies! Enemies! Their scent was everywhere.
But it was not fear I felt from the ant brain. It was not capable of emotion, or anything like emotion. It simply knew that there were enemies close by.
And it knew that it would come down, sooner or later, to kill, or be killed.
So that chapter wasn't disturbing at all!
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Jul 4, 2020 00:04
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- Epicurius
- Apr 10, 2010
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College Slice
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Checks out.
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Jul 4, 2020 01:17
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- Zasze
- Apr 29, 2009
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O man I was mainlining these from the local library as a kid, they were so much crazier than the premise seemed iniatlly. I can't wait to catch up and see what my dumb adult brain thinks of them.
Thank you so much for this!
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Jul 4, 2020 01:39
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- chitoryu12
- Apr 24, 2014
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Would you believe it gets worse from here?
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Jul 4, 2020 07:17
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- Epicurius
- Apr 10, 2010
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College Slice
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The Predator-Chapter 10
quote:We hit the wall. I knew it was the concrete wall of the foundation. I knew, logically, that just a foot or so over my head, the wall became wood siding. But I could not see that kind of distance.
What I saw and felt and "smelled" was that the horizontal world had simply stopped. Reality had a corner. The entire world, as far as I was concerned, was a corner between concrete and sand, one vertical, one horizontal. The concrete was full of cracks and pits big enough for me to climb inside of.
<Head down,> Jake reminded us. <Look for a way to follow the wall down.>
<There's a tunnel here,> Rachel said. <But it ... smells . . . bad. Real bad.>
She was right. I found the tunnel, too. It was one of theirs. It belonged to the enemy.
<I know there is an enemy. I can sense it,> Ax said. <But who? What?>
<I don't know,> Jake said grimly. <Let's just hope they're not around.>
We headed down the tunnel. The smell of the enemy was powerful. Their stench wrapped around us. We were an invading force. We were going deep, deep into enemy territory.
The tunnel was narrow. Boulders brushed constantly against my abdomen. My legs kicked some away. Others had to be moved aside. I should have felt cramped and claustrophobic, with the earth all around me, and my friends close ahead and behind me. But my ant mind
was at home in tunnels.
I was traveling down. I knew my head was pointed down, but gravity seemed less important than it did when I was human.
<There's a side tunnel up here,> Rachel said. She was in the lead. Big surprise. <There are a couple of side tunnels. It's starting to branch out. Should I YAHHHH!>
<What? What?>
<Oh, oh, oh. An ant!>
<What? Rachel!>
<He's running! He's running away. It's okay. It's okay. He was smaller than me. He ran off down a side tunnel.>
<I guess we're the baddest ants in the tunnel, I said, trying to joke away the sudden clutch of very human terror.
<Let's hope so,> Jake said.
<I feel air,> Ax reported. <A breeze. Down this next side tunnel.>
<Follow it,> Jake said.
Quickly we were out of the sand boulders and in a canyon. That's what it seemed like, anyway. Like a deep, deep canyon. A crack in the concrete foundation.
We clambered over craggy rocks and squeezed along the narrow crack. All the while the breeze grew stronger.
Then we were out of the canyon. We were on a flat, vertical plane.
<I think we're there,> Cassie suggested. <I sense open space all around. Air. And it's dark.>
<Okay. Morph out. But be careful.>
<Wait! Get horizontal first,> I said. <Humans can't cling to walls, and we don't know how high up we are.>
<Marco's right. And someone should go first.>
< For once , I volunteer,> I said. I couldn't wait to get out of that ant body.
First I moved away from them. It was totally dark, so I didn't have to watch the changes in myself. But trust me, feeling them was bad enough.
Once I was human again, I began to look for a light. Then I froze.
My huge, human feet could crush my friends!
I stood perfectly still and ran my hands along the wall. Nothing. Nothing. A bulletin board. Adesk! Phone. Some kind of machine, probably a fax. There! A lamp!
The sudden light was blinding. I blinked and covered my eyes with my hand. As soon as I could see, I looked around. I was in a very small room, like a windowless office. I was alone.
Then I looked down at my body. Arms. Legs. Feet. Yes! Human! Completely human.
<We see light,> Jake said. <I know you can't thought-speak now, so, if it's safe, flick the light.>
I could see them now. Four tiny ants, huddled against the corner of the wall. It took my breath away.
Had that been me? I had been one of them? Down there?
I flicked the light. Seconds later, they began to demorph. I turned away, and focused on rifling the desk.
"That was gross beyond belief," Cassie said. She was the first to complete her change.
"Yeah," I agreed.
"I don't want to do that again," she said. I could hear the shiver of fear and disgust in her
voice.
I didn't answer. I was too scared to want to talk about it. If I talked about it, it would become real, you know? Better not to think. Better to shove it out of my mind.
I might be wrong here, but I sort of get the feeling this is what Marco does with things that bothers him in general. It's something they also saw with the ant in the tunnel. Marco relies on humor and avoidance so he doesn't have to face the things that makes him uncomfortable or frightened.
quote:"This is the place," Rachel said when she had grown eyes and a mouth again. "I recognize it. Chapman's office. I was a cat when I was in here, but this is it."
"Let's get this done. In and out," Jake said nervously. "Ax? Find that transponder."
Ax, now fully Andalite again, immediately began removing a panel from the thing I thought was a fax machine.
I continued looking through Chapman's desk. Nothing much there. No papers. No files.
Ax looked at me and smiled in that way Andalites have of smiling with just their eyes. He touched a small cube I thought was a paperweight. The paperweight lit up and projected a picture into the air in front of me.
"Cool," I said. "A computer, right?"
<Yes. A computer.>
I poked the air, pointing at a symbol that looked like it would be a folder. It opened. The document was written in some totally alien alphabet.
<You can use a computer?>
i get the feeling that Ax wasn't paying attention in the class talking about human technical advancement. This actually also raises a question about Yeerk writing. In their natural form, they're almost blind slugs with nothing prehensile who spend their entire lives photosynthesizing. How'd their written language develop? Do they use the Andalite alphabet?
quote:"Sure. Why not? This is a few hundred years more advanced than ours but - "
<Stop!> Ax said suddenly. <Go back to that last document.>
"You can read this stuff?"
<Yes.> He stared intently. <lt is an announcement. The Yeerks have an important visitor arriving soon. Visser One.>
"Visser One? That would be like Visser Three's boss?"
<Yes. Visser One is more powerful than Visser Three. Just as Visser Three is more powerful than Visser Four. There are forty-seven Vissers in the Yeerk empire. Or so we believe.>
"Great," I said. "Forty-seven. Not all like our friend Visser Three, I hope."
Ax was back at work getting the transponder out of the faxlike machine. <No,> he answered. <Only Visser Three has an Andalite body. Only he can morph. Visser One has a human body, I believe. Ah. Here, I have it.>
Visser Three's boss. I'm sure they're going to be pleasant.
quote:He held up a tiny, shiny disk. No bigger than a pea.
"Okay, let's get out of here," Jake said. "Put that thing near the crack. We won't have to carry it as far. Everyone, morph back. Let's bail."
It was the moment I dreaded. I didn't want to return to that ant body. It made me want to cry,
just thinking of it. But there was no other way. If we tried to sneak out of the basement by going up through the house, we might be caught.
"Boy, I don't want to do this," I muttered. But at the same time, I focused on that ant shape.
And as I watched, my friends began to change.
Once we had shrunk back to ant size, the transponder seemed enormous. It was far bigger than we were. Standing beside it, feeling it with my legs and antennae, it felt about as big as a two-car garage.
<Everybody says ants are incredibly strong for their size,> Cassie pointed out. <Let's see if that's true.>
It seemed impossible, but Cassie, Rachel and Ax managed to lift that monstrous load off the ground.
I mean, it was like seeing three people walking down the street carrying a city bus. That's how big it was. But it's true what they say about ants. For their size, they are some strong little bugs.
When we reached the vertical wall, the three of them had to push it ahead and roll it up the wall, like some gigantic steel donut.
We reached the crack. They shoved the transponder in. Jake and I were in the lead.It took all five of us to drag that thing over the crags of the concrete canyon. But we made it through and back to the dirt tunnel. The transponder was so big it blocked the tunnel. It was like a spitwad in a straw. But with Ax, Rachel and Cassie behind pushing, and Jake and I clearing boulders - grains of sand - out of the way, we made progress.
It happened suddenly.
There was no warning.
One second the tunnel ahead of me was empty. The next second it was full.
Full of a charging, racing army of ants.
Enemies, my ant brain said.
Now the killing would begin
How many chapters of kids books end with "Now the killing would begin"? I mean, maybe Winnie-the-Pooh.
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Jul 4, 2020 23:22
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- bones 4 beginners
- Jan 7, 2018
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"...a masterpiece that no one can read too often, or admire too much."
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"Now the killing would begin."
I've been reading ahead and have felt compelled several times to keep a "lines without context" file and that one would definitely be included.
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Jul 5, 2020 01:26
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- Tanon
- Mar 14, 2011
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I has a hat..
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I havent read any of these books since I was a kid and this thread has had me enthralled catching up all day. I look forward to keeping track of it!
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Jul 5, 2020 06:33
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- Epicurius
- Apr 10, 2010
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College Slice
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The Predator-Chapter 11
quote:<They're behind us!> It was Rachel, yelling.
<Breaking through the side of the tunnel!> Cassie screamed.
<They're everywhere!>
<Help! Help!>
<Arrrrgggghhhh!>
The speed of the attack was incredible. The force of the attack was impossible to explain.
There were hundreds of them. Ahead. Behind. Flooding up from side tunnels. Bursting from the walls.
<My leg! They bit off my leg!>
<Oh, oh, oh! My neck. Oh, help me!>
There were three of them on me. They were pulling me, trying to force me down so they could tear me apart.
Tear me apart!
A fourth scampered over my head, brushing my antennae. He locked his mandibles on my narrow waist. He was trying to bite me in half.
There was no defense. We could not win. We would all be dead in a few seconds.
They were machines. Absolutely without fear. Unstoppable.
<Morph!> I yelled. <lt's the only way! Morph!>
One of my legs came loose, torn away. Ripped out by the roots.
<Aaarrrgghhh!>
<No! No! Help me!>
I could feel my waist being sawed through by grinding sharp mandibles.
A searing liquid was fired at me. Poison. They were stinging me. Stinging me again and again, and ripping me apart.
Human. I wanted to be human again. Please, just let me live long enough to become human again!
<Morph!> Jake's voice. Then, <Aaaaahhhhh! No! NO!>
My waist would snap. The mandibles would not release me.
Then, suddenly, the pressure around my waist was gone. Instead, I felt the sandy soil pressing against me.
I was growing!
I couldn't breathe. Sand blocked the air. Pressure. Then, the ground around me opened up. I swear it was like climbing up out of a grave. The air! Fresh, clean night air!
I exploded up out of the sand.
Jake was on top of me, pushing against me as he grew. And the others, who had been only inches away in the tunnel, also pressed together in a rapidly growing heap of misshapen bodies. I tried to squirm away, but it was awkward. I was only half human.
But at last I lay there on the ground, staring up through human eyes at the stars.
<Are you guys okay?> It was Tobias.
"Cassie?" Jake asked.
"I'm okay," Cassie said.
"Me, too, Jake, thanks for asking," Rachel said.
We were all alive. All in one piece. Four humans and an Andalite.
I looked down and saw the disturbed sand, where we had pushed our way up and out. Thousands of ants, almost too small to see, were racing wildly around.
There, too, in the dirt, was the transponder. I picked it up.
Rachel was stomping the ground back down, trying to flatten it out so it wouldn't look strange.
"Jake?" I said. "Let's not do this again any time soon."
He nodded shakily.
"One day I'm a lobster. Then I'm an ant. I fig ure the next step down the evolutionary ladder is a virus or something. And I just want to say right now, I'm not doing it. I am not going to become phlegm, even to save the world."
It wasn't much of a joke, but there was a kind of lame little laugh from everyone. And Rachel stopped stomping the ants - I mean, the ground.
That night, when I went home, I took a shower. I found the head of an ant. It was still locked onto the skin of my waist.
Lots of people think only humans fight wars. That only humans are murderous. Let me tell you something - compared to ants, human beings are full of nothing but peace, love, and understanding.
A month or so after the experience with the ants, I picked up a book about ants. The author said, "If ants had nuclear weapons they would probably end the world in a week."
He's wrong. It wouldn't take them that long.
Well, that was horrifying. The book that comes from, if you're curious, is Bert Holldobler and Edward O. Wilson's "A Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration", btw.
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Jul 5, 2020 23:05
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