"Flies aren't social," Cassie said.
"Can I help you?" a saleswoman asked.
"No," Cassie said. "Thanks, anyway."
We started walking, heading to the food court to hook up with Rachel.
"It would just be to get into the hospital," I said, thinking out loud. "If they are using the hospital to transfer Yeerks into hosts, it will mean they have some kind of a Yeerk pool in there. That's what we are after. Find that Yeerk pool, wipe it out."
"So we would just be in fly morph for a brief time," Cassie said. "I mean, if we decided to do it.
We'd have to demorph to do any damage."
"And then, if we create enough confusion, we can escape in some other way. We wouldn't have to do flies again."
"True," Cassie agreed. "We'd probably only be in the fly morph for a few minutes."
"Yep."
"So it's flies," Cassie said.
"Yep."
Then, both of us, at the same time, said "H-e-e-e-l-p m-e-e-e! H-e-e-e-l-p m-e-e-e!"
43 Chapter 11
Here's the thing about flies.
Being a fly is fun. It really is.
Turning into a fly ... that is a whole different story.
I guess it's no big secret that I kind of like Cassie. I think she's really pretty. But when I saw these two huge, glittering, bulging, compound eyes come popping out of her eye sockets, I screamed.
I mean, I screamed like a baby.
"Yaaaaahhh!"
"Great, Jake. That's going to make her feel good," Marco said.
"Marco, you have your eyes closed," I pointed out.
"And they're staying closed, too."
"Excuse me," Rachel said. She raced for the door of the barn and ran outside. A few seconds later we heard the sound of barfing.
You have to understand. Cassie was mostly still human at the point where the fly eyes showed up. She was about two feet tall and shrinking fast, and the extra legs had already popped out of her chest, and the gauzy wings were growing from her back, but her face was still a human face.
Until the eyes popped out.
Oh, man. You think you've seen scary stuff? Maybe in movies or on TV? You haven't seen any thing scary till you've seen fly eyes pop out of someone's head like a pair of balloons.
She was pretty small by the time her fly mouth appeared. I was grateful for that. Because later, when I became a fly, I saw what a fly mouth looks like.
The eyes were bad. But if I'd seen that long, tubular, sucking, tonguelike thing come rolling out. .
. that thing that spits on the food, then sucks the spit mixture back in ...
Rachel came back inside. "Sorry," she said shakily. "Anyone have some gum? A Tic Tac?"
Ax was puzzled. "Does the morphing process disturb you?"
"Sometimes," I said, still fighting the urge to look away as Cassie shriveled down to a few inches. "Some animals give me the willies."
"The willies? What are the willies?"
44 "Well, it's just this feeling of being grossed out. Sickened. Nauseated. Creeped. Like your skin is crawling. Willies."
"Is she done?" Tobias asked. "I'm not coming in there until she's done."
"Tell Tobias it's okay, will you, Ax?"
"Tobias. Prince Jake says it's cool."
I smiled at Marco, who was now peeking through his fingers. Ax was learning to sound semi-normal. At least in thought-speak. When he was in human morph and spoke out loud, he still played with every sound and drove everyone crazy.
Tobias flew in through the open hayloft above.
"Can you hear me, Cassie?" Rachel asked.
"Tobias. Do you see her?" Cassie was a true fly now.
"Got her."
"Keep a sharp focus on her," I said. "Don't lose sight."
"Relax. It's broad daylight, she's ten feet away. At this distance I can see the hairs on her little fly legs. Unfortunately. Ooooh. Oh, man. Oh, that's just not even slightly attractive."
"Cassie?" Rachel asked again.
"Tobias? Try her with thought-speak."
"Cassie? Cassie, can you hear me? There she goes! She's flying!"
"Don't lose her, Tobias. Don't lose her."
"She won't go far," Marco said. "All the horse manure in this barn?
Where would she go that's any better for a fly?"
Suddenly, in my head I heard "Yeeeeee haaaaahhhh!"
"Cassie?"
"Cassie?"
"Whooooo hoooooo!"
"Cassie! Answer us!"
45 "Cassie? You okay?"
"Oh, man! Man! Can this thing fly! You guys have got to try this. This thing flies like a rocket.
Yaaaah haaaahhh!"
"Are you able to control the fly brain?"
"Yes, yes. Don't worry, you guys. I'm fine. Sorry. But it's just such a complete, insane rush!
Come on, let's go, time's a-wasting."
I sucked in a deep breath. I had been hoping everything would be fine. That Cassie would not have any problems. But at the same time, I was utterly disgusted at the idea of becoming a fly.
And now she was saying it was okay.
You'd think it would get easier, slipping in and out of strange shapes. But you'd be wrong. Gross is gross, and always remains gross.
"Okay, guys. It looks like we're doing this," I said, trying desperately to sound cheerful and optimistic.
"Oh, goody," Marco said.
"Yes! Goody!" Ax said, totally unaware that Marco was being sarcastic.
"Sounds like Cassie's having fun," Rachel said.
"Uh-huh," I said. "Let's just do it."
We did it.
Morphing was as gross as we'd expected.
But Cassie was also right. Once you were in the morph; once you got used to the fact that your vision was like a thousand tiny TV screens, each showing a slightly different picture; once you got done freaking about the way your nasty fly tongue stuck out; once you got past the bizarre combination of hooks and bristles and hairs that made up your fly leg; once you got past the fact that nothing looks right or familiar when you're only about an eighth of an inch long; and mostly, once you stopped thinking about that stupid fly movie . . .
Well, then, it was cool!
I have flown before. As a peregrine falcon and as a seagull.
Both are cool. I mean, the falcon can go like 175 miles an hour in a dive.
Faster than a stock car. Faster than small planes.
But flying as a fly is totally, completely insane.46 A housefly beats its wings 200 times per second.
Say "hello, there" out loud. In the time it took you to say that, a fly's wings beat 200 times.
A fly moves at about four miles per hour. Which doesn't sound very fast, compared to a falcon hitting almost 200 miles per hour. But trust me, when you're only an eighth of an inch long, four miles an hour is like warp factor nine.
And what's really cool is you can do that going down, going left, right, or straight up.
And you can change directions in no time. One minute you're shooting straight ahead like a bullet, the next tenth of a second you're going straight up.
Cassie was right. It was gross, but it was fun.
"Yeeeee haaaaahhh!" Ax yelled.
"Whoooaaaa hooaaahhh!" I cried as I blasted straight up at what felt like the speed of light.
"We are ugly as sin, but we are so cool!" Rachel exulted.
"Let's go find some dog poop!" Marco said. "Kidding," he added a second later. "Just kidding."