We decided to resume our human shapes. The space between the rows of containers was even narrower when we were fully human again.
"Brrr. It's chilly out here," I said. The steel deck was cold beneath my bare feet. And even though the sun was high in the sky, we were in shadow.
"Man, I swear, this is the worst thing about morphing," Marco said. "Can someone please figure out how to morph shoes, and maybe a sweater? Come on, Cassie. You're the morphing genius. I'm sick of these morphing outfits."
"But you look so cute in Spandex," Rachel teased him.
50 "Plus, they aren't exactly fashionable. All I'm saying is - uniforms. Something cool-looking.
And warm. Warm would be nice. When winter comes, we are going to be some sad little Animorphs."
"I have a more important question," Rachel said. "How do we know when we're there? You know, our destination."
Jake made a "who knows?" face. "I figure this ship is going like, what, twenty miles per hour? Figure an hour, and that puts us twenty miles out, right?"
Rachel pointed a finger at her forehead and said, "Jake's a total mathematical genius. One hour at twenty miles per hour. Right away he figures out that's twenty miles."
Jake laughed. "That's about all the math I can do."
"Actually, we're moving about eighteen miles per hour," Tobias said.
We all just stared at him.
"I fly along the roads sometimes and watch the car speedometers. So I have a pretty good idea how fast I'm flying. When we were flying alongside the ship, I clocked it."
"Okay, eighteen miles an hour, more or less, straight south," Marco considered. "That would put us within a couple of miles of where Cassie thinks we should go."
I winced. Every time anyone said something about me deciding where to go or what to do, it made me nervous.
"I'd better head back," Tobias said regret fully. "l don't want to try and fly eighteen miles back without a rest. And if I stay on this ship I'll end up in Singapore."
"Singapore?" Rachel asked.
"Yeah. I read the captain's log as we were flying alongside. That's where they're heading." Tobias flew off, leaving us the little watch.
It was extremely dull waiting for an hour, with nothing to do but try and guess what was in the big containers all around us. On the other hand, we knew what we had to do next would definitely not be boring.
So basically, we were happy to just be bored for a while, huddling together to stay warm in the whipping ocean breeze.
51 Chapter 16
After a long time, Jake checked the watch. "It's been about an hour. Cassie? What do you think?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "I ... I guess I was hoping that when I was back in dolphin morph I would be able to make sense of more of the details the whale communicated to me. It was mostly images. And some of the images were about sounds and currents and water temperatures, and stuff you can't see from the surface."
Jake thought for a moment. "Oh, well, now is as good as any time, I guess. Let's head for the side."
We stood up, uncramping our cold, stiff legs and arms. We moved along the row of containers toward the left side of the ship. The port side, as they say.
We reached the side. There was a solid steel railing that ran all around, about waist high. Jake checked to see if we would be in view of the bridge, and we headed forward a little more to a blind spot where no one should see us.
The four of us leaned over the rail and looked down at the water. It looked like it was a million miles below.
Marco whistled. "Man. That is some high dive."
"No big deal for a seagull or a dolphin, but a mighty long way for a human," I agreed.
"We can't morph up here. We'd never get our dolphin bodies over the side," Rachel pointed out.
"Nope," Jake agreed. "We have to jump in with our human bodies. All except Marco. He can't swim. I thought he could morph up here, and then we could all shove him over the side.
"
Rachel looked skeptical. "Jake? When Marco is in dolphin morph, he'll weigh like four hundred pounds."
Jake looked worried. "I kind of didn't think about this when I was planning."
I had a sinking feeling. The plan was falling apart before it had even begun.
"I'll lean against the railing," Marco suggested. "I'll start morphing, then, before I lose my legs, you guys help shove me over. I'll finish morphing within a few seconds of hitting the water."
"Unless the water knocks you out and you just sink," I said flatly. "Forget it. Forget it. Let's just morph back to seagulls and fly back home. This is insane."
"Insane?" Marco echoed. "Hey, that's my word. Look, we came this far."
52 "I don't care!" I yelled, surprised at my own passion. "I'm not going to be responsible for any one dying! This isn't going to work. I don't know where I am. I don't know where we're going. I don't know what to do!"
Marco laughed. "Excellent pep talk, Cassie. Now I'm really looking forward to this."
I was going to yell at him, something like, "Look, Marco, this is not a joke." But when I looked at him, I saw that his face was bulging way out, forming a long, grinning beak.
He had already started to morph.
"I'm nock koink to ..." he started to say. But his mouth no longer worked.
He was growing larger, straining his weak human legs with his weight. His arms were flattening into flippers.
"Now!" Jake said. He grabbed Marco's flipper arm. Rachel and I jumped forward and seized his legs just as they began to shrivel.
"Heave!" Jake yelled.
Marco, half human, half dolphin, tumbled backward over the railing and fell into the sea.
"Let's go," Jake said.
"Yee-hah!" Rachel said with a wild grin. She jumped up on the railing, balanced for a moment like the gymnast she was, then launched herself off in a neat swan dive.
Jake and I exchanged a glance.
"Rachel," he said, and rolled his eyes.
"She's yourcousin," I pointed out.
"On the count of three. One, two . . ."
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" I climbed over the rail ing and launched myself as far from the steel wall of the ship as I could.
"Aaaaaaaaaahhhh!"
I fell for what seemed like a very long time.
PAH-LOOOOSH!
I hit the water feet first and plowed beneath the surface in a pillar of bubbles.
The cold shocked me. The water was like ice. And just a few feet away was the intimidating steel wall of the tanker, sliding past at what felt like incredible speed.
53 I kicked my feet and began to rise to the sur face. I've been a swimmer since I was little, but it frightened me, being this far out in water this deep. This wasn't a pool or a pond. This was the ocean. Twenty miles from land.
I broke the surface and gasped a lungful of air and a mouthful of saltwater. What had looked like a little choppiness from up in the ship felt like towering waves down here. I couldn't see any of the others. All I could see was the side of the ship.
Come on, Cassie, I told myself, morph. Do it. This is no place for a person.