| #29: The Sickness |
Detailed Plot: Cassie and Rachel are in the cafeteria like always when they overhear a couple girls discussing whether one of them should ask Jake to the dance. Of course Cassie is a little upset by this because Jake is her boyfriend, though it's not something they advertise exactly. Rachel takes charge of the situation and tells the girls Jake has already asked Cassie, and then they go over and sit with Jake and Marco, where Rachel insists that Jake take Cassie to the dance even though they hadn't exactly planned on going. Contrary to their expectations, Jake is actually for this, and thinks it'd be good for them to be involved in something normal for once. They do end up going to the dance, but the same girl who was interested in Jake starts crushing on Ax and asks him to dance. His bizarre response puts her off and they laugh, and Jake asks Cassie to dance, even though neither of them is any good at it. But enjoying themselves isn't on the agenda tonight. Soon they notice that Ax in his human morph is experiencing something odd: a lump on his head is visible. And he doesn't appear to be aware of it. Rachel uses Marco's shirt to make a bandana, and they try to get him out of there, but Chapman (a known Controller) and Mr. Tidwell (a very strict teacher) stop them, and Mr. Tidwell says he knows Ax's parents, which can't be true. The Animorphs pretend he needs medication and follow to try to give it to him, bypassing Chapman, but Mr. Tidwell doesn't fall for it and tells them he knows their friend is an Andalite, and that furthermore, he knows what they all are. But despite this seeming to be a fatal revelation, Mr. Tidwell reveals himself to be a Controller hosting a Yeerk named Illim, who is a member of the Yeerk peace movement, and they have a message for Cassie from Aftran, with whom Cassie formed an alliance in a previous book. He says Aftran has been captured by Yeerk security and is awaiting interrogation from Visser Three himself. But they have a little bit of time because the Visser is involved in a ceremony on the Blade ship for a few days. In the meantime, they go home with Ax, and manage to talk him into demorphing back to his own form. They hide him in Cassie's barn, take his temperature, and find it's four degrees above normal (for an Andalite). Deliriously, he explains that he has a sickness called yamphut, and that it may cause his Tria gland to explode. Now that he has this disease, he needs surgery to take the gland out or he will die when it explodes, much like a human would die from a ruptured appendix. Problem is, this gland is in his head. Fixing it will require brain surgery. With a Chee hologram in place to hide Ax while he suffers from the disease, they have to wait for his temperature to go back down to normal, which will be the sign that the gland is about to rupture. While they're waiting for that, they have to infiltrate the Yeerk pool to save Aftran. But Jake and Marco worry that it could be a trap, and Cassie feels very guilty since Aftran wouldn't know anything that could hurt them if it weren't for her. Minus Ax, they come up with a mission: they will morph into eels and infiltrate the Yeerk pool through the pipe system. And this seems to be a great idea, too, except that once they're in the water tower and careening around in the pipes as eels they realize that Jake is sick. He's caught the illness from Ax. They abandon their mission after getting out of the pipes (through a firehose, launched into a burning building), and Jake says he feels like he has the flu. He throws up a couple times and has to be taken home. The next day, Rachel isn't in school because she has the flu too. Then Marco gets it. Cassie and Tobias are watching over Ax, monitoring his temperature, and continuing to hide him with Erek's help. Cassie meets with Mr. Tidwell/Illim and drafts a plan to acquire and morph a Yeerk, which she will use as her disguise for helping Aftran. She has to hope she will have time to get Aftran out of there before coming back to do brain surgery on Ax, and she also has to hope she doesn't get the illness, but even if she succeeds at everything she doesn't know how she will save Aftran from dying of Kandrona starvation. She just knows she can't let Visser Three interrogate her. After doing some research on what she can do to operate on Ax once the time is ripe, she heads over to Mr. Tidwell's house. Illim the Yeerk comes out of his ear and lets her acquire him, and then she morphs into the Yeerk and manages to slither into Mr. Tidwell's ear. She experiences what a Yeerk experiences when controlling a new person, and finally gets control of Mr. Tidwell. She uses his body to drive to McDonald's, uses the "Happy Meal with Extra Happy" password, and gets taken into the passageway to the Yeerk pool. She's in. While in the Yeerk pool, she locates Aftran's cage and wonders how she's going to get her out. But then Visser Three arrives to interrogate Aftran, and takes her out of the cage. Cassie goes over to the reinfestation pier, infests a random human girl, and uses her body to attack Visser Three. He's so surprised that it actually works, and she manages to snatch Aftran and dive back into the pool. She leaves her human host and stays close to Aftran, in Yeerk form. But now she needs to figure out how to get her out, so she morphs back to human underwater and sticks her mouth out to breathe a little, while confusion is still rippling around the human she briefly possessed. They realize the girl is not infested, and Visser Three begins to suspect Andalites. Cassie becomes an osprey in the water, grabs Aftran, and escapes Visser Three's tentacled morph that he's trying to use to trap her. She has to battle a hunter robot too, but manages to foil its visual tracking system with bird poop. And she makes it out of the Yeerk pool alive, with Aftran, narrowly avoiding getting burned up by the Gleet BioFilter. Flying hard for home, Cassie gets to the barn and finds Erek with an unconscious Ax; Ax is on his side, lying down, which he doesn't do. She promises Aftran that she'll get her some water in a minute, and then kneels next to Ax. She doesn't know how to begin the operation, or where the Tria gland is. So she gets Aftran and puts her in Ax's head so he can tell her where to cut. She's easily able to see what part of his brain is swelling and helps Cassie figure out where to cut, and she's able to get the gland out, with Erek acting as her surgery assistant. But as soon as the gland is out, Ax starts to freak out because there's a Yeerk in his head. Aftran quickly vacates and goes back in a water trough, and Cassie explains everything to Ax as she stitches his head back together, but he was very rattled by the experience. He has trouble accepting that his mind was violated by a Yeerk, though Cassie manages to calm him down somewhat by saying Aftran nearly gave her life for the peace movement and also is going to die in three days if they don't find a way to save her. After everyone's recovered from the flu, they have a meeting and decide to use the Escafil device on Aftran, giving her morphing power. On one condition: she has to pick a form and get trapped in it, to make it safer for everyone that way. Aftran morphs a humpback whale and becomes it permanently, which solves the problem of her having to experience a painful death, not to mention it will hide her from Visser Three forever. Cassie delights in the fact that they finally won a battle, and Jake tells her that really, SHE won. Narrator: Cassie New known controllers:
New morphs acquired:
Cassie: Eel, Yeerk (Illim) Marco: Eel Rachel: Eel Ax: None Tobias: Eel Notable: This book is ghostwritten by Melinda Metz. It's clear that the Yeerk Aftran has managed to start a peace movement somehow, but it's not clear how she was answering for not being in her host, who was supposed to be a young girl named Karen planted to watch the girl's dad and report on him to the Yeerks. It was never explained why Aftran managed to survive as long as she did in the Yeerk pool without being in her host. Cassie again refers to her human form as her "human morph," which is inaccurate. It's interesting that when Cassie has to do this mission all on her own, she assumes a lot of the roles of the others: saying "let's do it!" like Rachel, making dumb jokes to herself like Marco, and leading the way/making decisions like Jake. It's not clear why Cassie of all people was the one who never got sick. If the flu was so contagious, why didn't she or anyone else around them get it? Because it was a bit too convenient, this felt more constructed than it should. Cassie, despite her experience doing veterinary care for animals, does not have the experience to do brain surgery. Cassie performs major surgery in a later book as well, and neither book includes realistic detail about blood loss or any mention of anesthesia. Despite being an alien and in a delusional state, there's no reason Ax would not have had some realistic pain reaction to having his head drilled into. Best lines: Cassie: I'm not beautiful like Rachel. And I admit I sometimes have a little bird poop on my jeans. Rachel: "Look at that! A flying pig! Oh, sorry, my mistake. I thought for a minute I saw a flying pig. But I didn't. And that's the only time I would go out with you."
Allison: "Hi. I wanted to know if you, you know, want to dance?" Marco: "So are you finally going to tell us what Tidwell said or what? I mean, if some Hork-Bajir are going to burst in the door any second I might want to bake a cake or something." Cassie: She had done what few have the strength to do. She had questioned the beliefs she had been raised with. And ultimately, she had chosen to go against her society. To turn away from everything she had once believed, to become the enemy of those closest to her.
Cassie: "What?"
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