The Stranger by K. A. Applegate Read Free Book Online
Authors: K. A. Applegate
a bad smell. Sort of like an animal we have back on my planet called a flaar .>
Marco said.
Cassie said.
Suddenly a shadow fell over us. Something huge was overhead, blocking out the harsh fluorescent light.
Ax said.
I said.
Cassie said suddenly.
I said.
Hurtling down from the fluorescent sky at incredible speed came something like a bright red whip.
I powered my six legs in instant response.
It was too fast!
The red whip slapped the ground all around me. It fell over me like an awful, wet quilt. Something like glue oozed around me, seeping under my shell, gumming up my legs.
I screamed.
Marco cried.
I was lifted up off the ground. My back was glued to the red whip, and I was hurtling through space. I caught a wild glimpse of the others, stuck to the red whip just like me.
Cassie cried.
Ax said.
We were stuck to the froglike tongue of the Taxxon, as the evil creature slurped his tongue back down his throat.
Jake yelled. In an instant, without warning, death had come for us. I was glued down, helpless, as the Taxxonâs red tongue sucked back into its mouth.
And then â¦
And then ⦠everything, everywhere, stopped.
T he sticky red whip of the Taxxonâs tongue stopped moving.
But it was more than that. Nothing was vibrating against my antennae. There were no sounds. There were no smells, because the air itself had stopped moving.
Then, without meaning to, I began to demorph.
I asked.
Cassie said.
I asked.
Jake said.
I swiftly grew larger and larger. My center pair of cockroach legs dwindled and disappeared. My lower legs swelled and grew skin.
I fell from the Taxxonâs tongue to the ground, too large and heavy to be stuck any longer.
Toes appeared. Fingers appeared. My true human eyes opened.
I looked around, dazed and disoriented.
The others were all there. We were all human again, barefoot and dressed in our skintight morphing outfits, like we always were when we came out of a morph.
Ax was back in his Andalite body, just adding to the general weirdness of the scene.
We were inside a building. As we had guessed, it was a lunchroom. There was a kitchen to one side. There were a dozen long tables down the middle of the room.
People sat at the tables, eating. Only ⦠they werenât eating. They were holding forks. They were looking down at plates of food. They were getting ready to speak. They were holding mugs of coffee.
But no one was moving.
No one was breathing.
The steam rising from the mugs of coffee was frozen and still as a photograph.
âOkay. Iâm ready to wake up now,â Marco said. âThis dream is getting weird.â
âLook,â I said. âHork-Bajir.â
Two Hork-Bajir were standing by the door. I had never seen one standing still before. Even frozen in place they were frightening â seven feet of knife-edged arms, legs, head, and tail. SaladShooters on legs, as Marco said. Walking razor blades.
And then there was the Taxxon. The one who
Suddenly a shadow fell over us. Something huge was overhead, blocking out the harsh fluorescent light.
I said.
Hurtling down from the fluorescent sky at incredible speed came something like a bright red whip.
I powered my six legs in instant response.
It was too fast!
The red whip slapped the ground all around me. It fell over me like an awful, wet quilt. Something like glue oozed around me, seeping under my shell, gumming up my legs.
I was lifted up off the ground. My back was glued to the red whip, and I was hurtling through space. I caught a wild glimpse of the others, stuck to the red whip just like me.
We were stuck to the froglike tongue of the Taxxon, as the evil creature slurped his tongue back down his throat.
Jake yelled. In an instant, without warning, death had come for us. I was glued down, helpless, as the Taxxonâs red tongue sucked back into its mouth.
And then â¦
And then ⦠everything, everywhere, stopped.
T he sticky red whip of the Taxxonâs tongue stopped moving.
But it was more than that. Nothing was vibrating against my antennae. There were no sounds. There were no smells, because the air itself had stopped moving.
Then, without meaning to, I began to demorph.
I swiftly grew larger and larger. My center pair of cockroach legs dwindled and disappeared. My lower legs swelled and grew skin.
I fell from the Taxxonâs tongue to the ground, too large and heavy to be stuck any longer.
Toes appeared. Fingers appeared. My true human eyes opened.
I looked around, dazed and disoriented.
The others were all there. We were all human again, barefoot and dressed in our skintight morphing outfits, like we always were when we came out of a morph.
Ax was back in his Andalite body, just adding to the general weirdness of the scene.
We were inside a building. As we had guessed, it was a lunchroom. There was a kitchen to one side. There were a dozen long tables down the middle of the room.
People sat at the tables, eating. Only ⦠they werenât eating. They were holding forks. They were looking down at plates of food. They were getting ready to speak. They were holding mugs of coffee.
But no one was moving.
No one was breathing.
The steam rising from the mugs of coffee was frozen and still as a photograph.
âOkay. Iâm ready to wake up now,â Marco said. âThis dream is getting weird.â
âLook,â I said. âHork-Bajir.â
Two Hork-Bajir were standing by the door. I had never seen one standing still before. Even frozen in place they were frightening â seven feet of knife-edged arms, legs, head, and tail. SaladShooters on legs, as Marco said. Walking razor blades.
And then there was the Taxxon. The one who
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