The Predator by K. A. Applegate Read Free Book Online Page A

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? “
     he said.
    “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 togetherwithout 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.
     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 earlier.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