He kept his voice low, too. He glanced toward the stairs. I guess he was checking to see if Melissa was around.
Ms. Chapman shuddered. "I'd heard that he acquired a Vanarx. I always thought it was just another story to frighten his underlings."
58 "He showed me ... he showed how he de stroyed Iniss one seven four."
Ms. Chapman looked shocked. "He used a Vanarx on an Iniss of the second century?"
"That Andalite-Controlling scum," Chapman said viciously. "I wish the Council of Thirteen would find out what kind of a mess he's making on this planet. Let them take that Andalite body from him and throw him back in some distant pool on the home world."
"Don't wish for that," Ms. Chapman said grimly. "Long before Visser Three loses power, he will surely have destroyed you for failing him."
My cat ears noticed the sound before either of the Chapmans. Movement. Human feet pounding. I cocked my ears toward the stairs.
"Hey, Mom? Dad? Can one of you help me with this math problem?"
It was Melissa. She was halfway down the stairs. She stopped and glanced hopefully at her parents. Or at least at the people who had once been her parents.
"We're busy right now, Melissa," Chapman snapped.
"Besides, dear, you should do your own work. That's how you learn," Ms. Chapman said. "If you still can't figure it out later, your father will help you." Melissa's face fell. She forced a smile, but there was no happiness there at all. "I guess you're right, Mom. It's just this square root stuff." She hesitated, like she was hoping her parents might change their minds and go back upstairs with her.
Ms. Chapman smiled. It was a smile as empty as Melissa's. "Square roots are hard to understand, aren't they? But I know you can do it."
"I'll come up and check on you before you turn in, sweetheart," Mr. Chapman said.
The words were normal enough. I guess my own mom or dad could have said exactly the same things to me. "Dear." "Sweetheart." But the way they were said . . . There was something missing. Humanity. Love. Call it whatever you want. The words were right, but they were cornpletely wrong.
It was horrible. Horrible in a totally different way than the monsters we had fought in the Yeerk pool. This was the kind of horrible that made you want to cry instead of scream. And suddenly I found myself running after Melissa as she headed back up the stairs. When I reached her room, Melissa sat down on the bed and began sobbing.
"Rachel? Can you hear me?"
"Yes, Tobias. I'm up out of the basement. I'm upstairs in Melissa's room."
"Thank goodness. I've been trying you every minute or so. I was worried that you were trapped downstairs. "
59 "No, I'm out. "
"Good. You have more than an hour left, but Fluffer is trying to head home. Cassie and Jake and Marco are trying to capture him again, but you know better than anyone how wily he can be. "
Melissa flopped on her face on the bed. She pulled a pillow over the back of her head and just cried.
"I can't leave just yet," I said.
"Rachel, if the real Fluffer walks in while you're still there . . ."
"Yeah, I know. But I still can't leave right now. I have something I have to do. " I went over to the bed. As small as I was, the side of the bed looked like a wall. It could have been the side of a two-story building. I settled back on my haunches, gathering energy in my leg muscles. Then I sprang up, effortlessly, to land with perfect grace on the bed.
I walked over to Melissa and sniffed her hair sticking out from under the pillow. I heard a sound coming from somewhere. It was a sound that reminded me of my mother. It reminded me of both my mothers, the human woman, and the cat who had licked my fur and carried me around in her mouth.
I recognized the sound. It was purring. I was purring.
Melissa put her arm around me and drew me close. The physical contact made me a little anxious. It made the cat in me want to leave. But then she started scratching my neck and behind my ears. I purred a little louder and decided to stay for a while.
"I don't know what I've done," Melissa said.
It startled me to realize she was talking to me. Did she guess the truth? Did she know I was human?
No. She was just a girl talking to her cat. "I don't know what I did," Melissa repeated. "Tell me, Fluffer McKitty. What did I do?"
"Rachel, what are you doing in there?"
"Tobias, I have plenty of time."
"You have less than an hour. Don't push your luck. Jake is practically having a fit out here.
He's telling me to tell you to get out."
"Not yet . Melissa needs me."
I had stopped purring. Probably because I was preoccupied, arguing with Tobias. I started purring again. I felt Melissa needed me to purr.
60 She was still crying. Still scratching slowly behind my ears.
"What did I do, Flutter?" she asked again. "Why don't they love me anymore?"
I felt like my own heart would break right then.
Because I knew now why Melissa had stopped hanging out with me. I knew why she had become more withdrawn. And I knew how little hope there was for her.
My stomach turned and twisted.
Next time Marco asked why we were fighting the Yeerks, I knew I would have a whole new answer. Because they destroy the love of parents for their daughter. Because they made Melissa Chapman cry in her bed with no one to comfort her but a cat.
It was a small answer, I guess. I mean, it wasn't some high-sounding answer about the en tire human race. It was just about this one girl. My friend. Whose heart was broken because her parents were no longer really her parents.
"Look, Rachel, I told Jake what you said. He said to remind you that you have a job to do in there. You're not in there to com-"
"Tell Jake to shut up, Tobias," I said angrily. "l'll come out. I'll come out. Just not yet." I purred as loud as I could.
Melissa cried. And it came to me, like a vision: All the children all over, whose parents had been made into Controllers. And the parents whose children had been taken from them to be turned into Controllers. It was a terrible image. I wondered how it must feel to see your parents stop loving you.
After a while, Melissa fell asleep. I got up and padded down the stairs to the pet door.
It was chilly outside. My friends were all wait ing. They were also a little mad at me for making them wait and worry.
"You only have ten minutes to spare, Rachel," Jake said. "I hope it was worth scaring us all half to death. Did you at least discover something useful?"
"Yes. I discovered plenty. I discovered that Chapman has a way to communicate directly with Visser Three. I discovered that Visser Three is pretty hot to catch us, although he still thinks we're Andalites. And I decided something, too. "
"What?" Cassie asked me.
"I decided that I don't care what it takes, or how many risks I have to run. I don't care what happens to me. I hate these Yeerks. I hate them. I hate them. And I will find a way to stop them."
61 Chapter Fourteen
That night and the next morning, I barely got any homework done. In math class that day I got the first C I'd gotten in a long time. My grades were starting to fall because I was busy trying to save the world. Or at least to save my old friend.