"Rats?" That got Marco's attention. "Rats? Here? This is suburbia. I mean, it's a lot better than where I live. They have rats?"
"There are rats everywhere," Tobias said. "Rats and mice and all kinds of plump, juicy . . ." He fell silent, embarrassed.
"Get a grip, Tobias," Marco said. "Don't start eating rats, all right? I don't know if I can have someone who eats rats for a friend."
Sometimes Marco is funny. Sometimes he goes too far. This was one of those times. "Shut up, Marco," I growled.
"I ate a live spider," Jake pointed out. "Does that mean you and I can't be friends?" From his tone of voice I could tell he was angry, too.
None of us knew what Tobias was going through.
28 None of us had ever been in morph for more than two hours. Tobias had been a hawk for more than a week.
Marco realized he'd been a jerk. "Well, yeah, I guess you're right," he muttered. "Besides, I've been known to eat eggplant. So I guess I can't criticize."
That was an apology, or as close as Marco could get to an actual apology.
"The cat we're looking for is just a half block away," Tobias said. "Follow me. " He flew off, but kept low. We took off after him. Even flying at minimum speed, Tobias was too fast for us to keep up with, so he had to circle back again and again. We had a hard time keeping him in sight.
"This doesn't look too strange," Cassie joked. "The four of us running down the street looking up in the sky."
"There," Tobias called down. "See that yard with the two trees?"
"Yeah. Just to our left?"
"That's the one. The cat you're looking for is stalking a mouse, right behind the trunk of the nearest tree. "
"Okay, we can't all go traipsing over some stranger's yard," I pointed out. "I'll go with Cassie.
"
Marco held up the kitty carrier we had brought along. "Don't you need this?"
"Not yet. I'll grab Flutter and bring him back over here. You two guys just stand here, looking casual."
Cassie and I stepped onto the lawn. The house was dark. Maybe no one was home. That would be good.
"Go left," I suggested to Cassie. We circled the tree.
"Hey, Flutter," I said in a high, talking-to- animals voice. "Here, kitty kitty. Remember me?"
"There he is."
"I see him." I squatted down and held my hand out toward the cat. "Hey, Fluffer Fluffer. It's me, Rachel."
Flutter flattened his ears back along his skull. He looked from me to Cassie and back again.
"Come on, Flutter, it's me. Come on, boy."
"He's a male? He's a tomcat?" Cassie asked.
"Yeah, I think so."
29 "Oh, wonderful," Cassie moaned. "Please tell me he's been fixed, at least."
"Have you been fixed, Flutter McKitty?" I cooed. "Why do we care?" I asked Cassie.
"Because pound for pound, a tomcat is like one of the toughest, most dangerous little things around."
"Who, Flutter? My little kitty friend Flutter?"
"Even if he is fixed, a male cat, out at night in hunting mode?" Cassie shook her head. "We should have worn gloves."
"Oh, come on. He's a sweet kitty cat." To demonstrate just how sweet Flutter was, I reached a hand for him.
"Hhhhhhssssss!"
In a movement too fast for my human eyes to see, Fluffer swiped out with one paw. Three bloody scratches appeared on the back of my hand and Fluffer shot straight up the tree.
"Owww!" I stuck my injured hand to my mouth.
"Gloves would definitely have been a good idea," Cassie said.
"How are you guys doing?" Jake whispered, just loudly enough for me to hear him.
"Wonderful," I said through gritted teeth. "I'm bleeding and Fluffer is up the tree."
I heard Marco giggle. I expected that. But then I heard Jake giggling, too.
I looked up and saw two glittering yellow- green eyes glaring down from the dark tree.
"This was supposed to be the easy part," I said. "I figured, okay, we go and acquire Flutter's DNA, and then the hard stuff begins."
"We have a cat up a tree," Cassie said dolefully. "You know how hard it is to get a cat down out of a tree?"
"I have a plan," I said. "Tobias, are you up there?"
"Right above you. But I'm not going to try and snatch an angry tomcat down out of a tree. "
"That's not what I was going to ask," I said. I took a deep breath. This night was turning weird real fast. "What I need is a mouse."
30 Chapter Seven
"Got something for you. A baby mouse. A mean baby mouse. It keeps trying to bite me." Tobias flew in a low, tight circle overhead, disappearing behind the tree branches, then reappearing. "Are you ready?"
I took a deep breath. I gave him a wave. Sure, I was ready. Why wouldn't I be ready to have a hawk hand me a mouse? Just your normal kind of thing to deal with.
Tobias flew low and slow. I held out my hands, cupped together. With amazing precision and perfect timing, he deposited the mouse in my hands.
"Don't let it bite you!" Cassie warned. "Rabies."
"Wonderful," I muttered. "Just one more fun aspect of this night." Actually, I was glad for the warning. The mouse was squirming in terror, trying to get away. I could feel its tiny little mouse legs scrabbling against my palms.
"You should all get rabies shots," Cassie said. "Seriously. I already have mine. But if we're going to be handling wild animals ... In the mean time, be careful to keep his teeth away from you."
"I wasn't planning on feeding him my finger," I said.
"Hey, wait." Cassie pried open my hands to get a better look. "That's not a mouse. That's a shrew. See the eyes? They're too small. And the tail is wrong. That's not a baby mouse, Tobias, it's a full-grown shrew."
"Sorry. Is that bad?"
Cassie shrugged. "I don't know. I just know it isn't a mouse."
"Wait a minute," Marco said, beginning to grin. "Rachel is going to become a shrew?
How will we know when she's changed? How do you become what you already are?"
Everyone was too nervous to find the joke very funny. We felt kind of stupid, standing around on some stranger's lawn playing with rodents. I mean, there are times when the whole thing just seems so utterly insane, you know?
"Okay, I have to concentrate on acquiring, so everyone shut up," I said.
Acquiring is what we call it when we absorb a sample of the animal's DNA. The DNA is the stuff inside the cells that sort of serves like a how-to manual for making the animal.
When you acquire, you have to think hard about the animal, focusing on it and blocking everything else out. Then the animal kind of goes limp, like it's in a trance. It takes just about a minute.
It was easy to focus on the shrew, what with it squealing in terror and squirming to get out of my hand.
31 But it was gross, definitely gross. I know there's nothing really wrong with shrews, but still.
They freak me out a little.
When I was done, I opened my eyes. "Okay, little shrew, thanks for your help. You can go now."
"I'm not sure this is a good idea," Jake said doubtfully.
"Really?" Marco was sarcastic. "You're not sure it's a good idea for Rachel to turn into a shrew in order to lure a vicious cat down from a tree so she can morph into that cat and sneak into the assistant principal's house? What worries you about that plan?"