The Visitor by K. A. Applegate Page A

changed.”
    â€œLeave me alone,” she said grimly. “Everything has changed. Every
one
has changed. You stopped being my friend. And my mom and dad …”
    â€œWhat?” I pressed her.
    The bell rang loud and shrill.
    â€œI have to go.” She pulled her arm away.
    What could I do? I let her go. I wondered what she had started to say about her father. Had she discovered what her father was? What her father had become?
    I walked up the steps of the school with my head lowered in thought. As I opened the school door, I ran right into someone.
    â€œHey, hey, watch where you’re going, young lady.”
    â€œMr. Chapman!” I recoiled in fear.
    See, you have to realize that this was the man who had once directed a Hork-Bajir soldier to kill us all if he caught us. Kill us and save only our heads for identification.
    That kind of thing sticks in your mind.
    He peered at me. “What’s the matter with you, Rachel? A little jumpy this morning?”
    I nodded. “Yes, sir. I guess I didn’t sleep too well.”
    â€œBad dreams?” he asked. My mouth was dry. “I guess so, Mr. Chapman.” He smiled. A normal, human smile. His eyes even crinkled up a little as he grinned down at me. “Well, shake it off. Nightmares aren’t real, you know.” “At least not most of the time,” I said to myself.

W e couldn’t go to the Chapmans’ the next night because Marco and I both had papers we had to write. And the night after that was Cassie’s dad’s birthday.
    But finally, there we were again on the street outside the Chapmans’ house. It was a little before eight.
    Fluffer was out of the house, smelling a fence post four blocks over, where another cat had left his scent. At least, that’s what Tobias reported.
    â€œAre you ready?” Jake asked me.
    I nodded.
    â€œAre you sure?” Cassie asked. “You can put this off if you want. We don’t have to do this tonight.”
    â€œThe sooner the better,” I said. “We all know something is wrong in that house. Melissa is still my friend. Maybe somehow I can help her.”
    â€œYour job is not to help Melissa Chapman,” Marco pointed out. “You’re supposed to be spying on Chapman. You’re supposed to be finding some way for us to get at the Yeerks, so that we can all turn into wild animals and get ourselves killed.”
    â€œI know why I’m doing this, Marco,” I said.
    He nodded. “Okay. Well, take care of yourself in there. That’s an assistant principal you’re dealing with. He finds out you’ve turned into a cat and gone sneaking around his house, that will be after-school detention for, like, a year.”
    We all laughed. As if detention were the thing I had to fear. Marco can be obnoxious, but on the other hand, he can make you laugh right when you really need to.
    â€œI’m ready,” I said. I waved my arms at the dark sky above. Tobias swooped down, opened his wings to slow his speed, and settled on the fence beside us.
    â€œHow does it look up there, Tobias?” Jake asked.
    
    â€œYou know, you have quite a future in burglary,”Marco said to Tobias. “You and I can burglarize places, and Jake can be Spider-Man and catch us.”
    â€œOkay, I’m ready to do this,” I announced. “As ready as I’m going to get, anyway.”
    Tobias sent me a private message.
    I prepared to morph. I concentrated on Fluffer. It was easy to do. I had a very clear mental image of Fluffer dropping down out of that tree, ready to kill me when I was a shrew.
    Inside my own body, Fluffer’s DNA was stored, ready to