"Sounds good," Rachel said.
"Cassie? Will you go first?" Jake asked.
I nodded. "Sure." For some reason everyone has decided that I am the best morpher. I think it's mostly silly. We can all morph fine.
But the first time we morph a new animal it's always kind of tense. You never know what it's going to be like. You never know how much the animal's instincts and mind will resist you.
And this time there was a new fear, at least for me. What sort of mind would I find? Would it be just the dolphin instincts, or would I encounter a true dolphin mind, with thoughts and ideas of its own?
I shed my overalls and kicked off my shoes, leaving just the leotard that I thought of as my morphing outfit. See, it's possible to morph some clothing along with you, but only something skintight. Anything bulky you try to morph just ends up as rags. And shoes?
Forget shoes. We've all tried morphing shoes and it never works.
I stepped into the water. "Cold," I reported. The current tugged at my ankles.
I waded in a little farther, up to my waist.
Then I focused on the dolphin that was now a part of me.
The first change was my skin. It lightened from brown to pale gray. It was like rubber, tough but springy.
That was good. I wanted to hang on to my legs as long as I could. I wanted to change as many other aspects as I could before I had to drop down into the water.
I felt the odd crunching sound you get sometimes when bones are stretched or compressed.
And right before my eyes - literally - my face bulged out and out and out still farther.
"Oh, man, that's definitely not attractive,"
Marco groaned from the shore. "Not a good look for you, Cassie."
Morphing isn't usually very pretty. In fact, it's the kind of thing that, if you didn't know it was going to be all right, would freak you out. I mean, I've watched while Rachel does her elephant morph, and I can tell you, it is the creepiest, scariest, most disgusting thing you'll ever want to see. Let alone watching people go from human to fish. Truly gross.
I didn't have a mirror, but I could guess how gross I looked. I had this huge, long bottlenose sticking out of my otherwise normal face. My skin was gray rubber. And when I felt behind me with my rapidly shriveling hands, I could feel the triangular blade of a dorsal fin rising out of my spine.
31 My arms were gone, replaced by two flat flippers, and I was now standing about ten feet tall, wobbling on my puny human-sized legs.
It was time to let the rest of the morph proceed. I surrendered my human legs. Instantly I fell face forward into the water.
I looked down and saw my tail. I was cornplete. The water was too shallow, though, and I was barely afloat. I kicked my tail, scraped across the sandy bottom, and finally surged out into deeper water.
I waited for the moment when the dolphin brain would surface, full of instinct-driven need and hunger and fear. The way it had always been before.
But it wasn't like that. It wasn't like a squirrel or even a horse.
This mind was not filled with fear and need.
This mind was ... I know this sounds strange, but it was like a little kid. I tried to listen to it, to understand its needs and wants. To prepare my self for a sudden onslaught of crude, primitive animal demands. Flee! Fight! Eat!
But that didn't happen. I felt hunger, yes. But not the screaming, obsessive need that Jake felt when he morphed a lizard or when Rachel became a shrew.
There was no fear. None.
And fortunately, I did not find a true thinking, conscious mind. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Just - again, I know it sounds strange - but I just found this feeling, like she wanted to play.
Like a little kid who wants to play. I wanted to chase fish, catch them, and eat them, but that would be a game. I wanted to race across the sur face of the sea, and that would be a game, too.
"Cassie?" I heard Tobias's thought-speech in my head. "Are you okay?" Was I okay? I asked myself. "Yes, Tobias. I'm ... happy. I feel like . . . like I don't know. Like I want you to come and play with me."
"Play with you? Mmmm, I don't think so, Cassie. Hawks don't do water."
"Come on, everyone!" I called to the others. "Come on! Let's go! Let's swim to the ocean! I want to play!"
"Let's go! Come on, you guys, let's go!"
I didn't like the river. I wanted the ocean. I could feel it close by. I could feel it in the way the current rushed me forward. I could feel it in some deep, hidden part of my dolphin being.
The ocean. I wanted it. It was my place. It was where I should be.
We swam in a school, the four of us, with Tobias flying overhead.
32 We raced the river's current, and soon I could taste the salt. I could feel the saltwater on my skin. It was as if I had opened the door of a toy store with every toy on Earth, and I had all the time in the world to play.
I saw my friends around me, swift, pale shapes in the water. Sleek gray torpedoes as they rose to breathe.
I lived in both worlds - the sea and the air. I saw the blue-green of the ocean, the pale blue and white of the sky. I slipped back and forth through the bright barrier that separated them.
Jake went zipping by, shooting up from beneath me to explode into the air. I heard the slap of his belly as he landed. It was a game! I dove deep, down to where the sandy floor sloped toward depths even I could not explore. Then I powered my tail, steadied my flippers, and drove hard toward the surface. Above me I could see the shimmering, silver border between water and air.
Faster! Faster! I was a missile.
"Yah haaaaah!"
I shattered the barrier of the sea and hurtled up into the sky. I felt warm wind on my skin, in stead of cold water. I hung, poised in midair, almost floating above the surface of the water.
Now the barrier was beneath me. I pointed my nose toward it and dropped from the sky.
"Aaaaah!"
The water wrapped around me, welcoming me back.
"ls this cool, or what?" Marco laughed in my head.
"This is cool," I answered.
"This is beyond cool," Rachel chimed in.
"Let's all do it at the same time!" Jake said.
The four of us dove deep. The ocean floor was still far below us, rippling sand dotted with rocks and clumps of seaweed.
Near the ocean floor we leveled off, practically scraping our bellies on the bottom. And then, aiming at the silver barrier once again, we shot upward, racing each other, ecstatic from the joy of our own bodies' strength.
We launched into the air like a well-trained team of acrobats.
We flew, side by side, exhaling and refilling our lungs with warm air.
Life was joy. Life was a game. I wanted to dance. I wanted to dance through the sea.
So I did.
33 There was nothing I could not do. There was nothing I could ask of my body that it would not give me. Racing, spinning, turning, diving, skimming the surface, flying up into the sky.
I wasn't just in the sea. I was the sea.
"Are you guys just going to play all day?" It was Tobias. "You realize you've wasted forty-five minutes already?"