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Without them, I was utterly alone. And Prince Jake's anger and suspicion had hurt me.
It is a terribly lonely thing to be a billion Earth miles from every living member of your own
people.
The next day, Marco invited me to "hang out" with him. This was a surprise. Marco has
never been very friendly, unlike Cassie and Tobias and Prince Jake. Rachel, too, has never
seemed to take to me.
I morphed into my human body and met Marco at the edge of the woods.
"So," he said. "You want to be Pinocchio, huh?"
"What?"
"Pinocchio was a little boy carved out of wood. He wanted to be a real, live human."
"I do not want to be a human. I merely wish to study them."
Marco smiled. "What a coincidence. And I want to study Andalites."
It took several minutes for me to understand what he was saying. "Oh. Prince Jake asked you
to press me for information."
"Jake was a little ticked off that you didn't tell us everything you know," Marco said. "Rachel
was even more ticked. Come on, we have to catch the bus. You want to learn about humans,
right? I thought I'd take you to a book store. Smart as you are, you can learn to read English."
"Bookstore? Book-kuh-store?"
"Yeah. Books. Fiction. History. A hundred thousand books all about the human race. And
you get to choose any of them you want. We have no secrets, unlike certain species I could
mention who don't even tell us a little thing like how they eat with no mouth."
"I see. You open your society to me. Soci-eteee. Teee. And you want me to do the same in
return."
"I told Jake I could cleverly weasel all the in formation out of you, but he said, 'No, Ax is a
friend. Show him we have nothing to hide. Maybe he'll finally decide to trust us.'"
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I felt a pang of guilt. They were treating me with trust. They had never done anything to hurt
me. On the contrary, they had been wonderful to me. Good in every way.
"I have reasons for keeping secrets," I said.
Marco nodded. "Yeah, we know. Rachel says you probably aren't allowed to interfere with
primitive races like humans."
I was surprised. It was very close to the truth. At first I did not know what to say.
Marco smiled a cold smile and nodded his head. "So that is it, right? Kind of too late for that
attitude, isn't it? After all, the Yeerks are interfering with us like crazy."
I had no answer to give. But as I looked around at the street, at all the humans in their cars,
and all the humans lurching along on two legs, it occurred to me just how defenseless I would
be without Prince Jake and Marco and the others.
We had reached the bus stop. Suddenly Marco slapped his pants. "Oh, man. I left my money
at home. We all pitched in for your book fund. I left it on my desk. Come on."
"Where are we going? Ing? Ing-ahng-ing. That is a very satisfying sound."
"Yeah, everybody loves a good 'ing.' We have to run over to my house. Don't worry, it's just
around the corner."
Marco led me down the street. There were houses on both sides. Big, boxy structures with
transparent rectangles here and there.
"That is Prince Jake's house," I said. I had spent time in Prince Jake's house.
"No, it's just the same model as his house. This is a subdivision. There are only like five
different models of houses. They all look alike. Welcome to the suburbs. But it beats the
place I used to live in."
He was correct. There were only five types of house. Although some had more grass, and
some had less. Also, some houses were decorated with items that had been placed on the
grass.
"What is that decoration?" I asked.
Marco followed the direction of my gaze. Then he rolled his eyes upward. "That's a Big
Wheel."
"It is very attractive. Very colorful."
"Uh-huh. I'd love to tell you how it works, but it's the very height of human technology, so
it's secret. Primitive races could get hold of Big Wheels, and then who knows what might
happen?"
I am still learning about human mouth- sounds. But I am very sure Marco's sound was
"sarcasm."
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"There's my house. My dad is home, working. He sprained his ankle, so he's using his home
computer. Don't be weird, okay?"
"No. I will not be weird. Weeeerd. Weeeeer- duh. I will act like a normal human."
"You act like a normal human and you'll win an Oscar," Marco said. He led the way up to his
house and opened the door. "Okay, look, you wait right there by that table. Don't go
anywhere. If my dad comes in and talks to you, just say 'yes' and 'no.' Got it? Yes and no
answers only. I'll run up to my room. I'm gonna call one of the others to meet us at the
bookstore. You're already driving me nuts."
I stood by the table. There was a primitive computer on the table. It even had a solid, two-
dimensional screen. And a keyboard! An actual keyboard.
I touched the keyboard. It was amazing. Andalite computers once had keyboards, too.
Although ours were very different. And it had been centuries since we'd used them.
On the screen of the computer was a game. The object of the game was to spot the errors in a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]