Fans of the Animorphs

"Cassie?" Rachel said.

"What?" she replied, a hint of anger in her voice.

"What should we do?"

"Why are you asking me? ... It's obvious what we
have to do. And not just to the bear's leftovers, but to any live seal we can find. What I don't understand is why you're asking me for permission. Do you guys think I'd put an animal's life over yours? Or mine, come to think of it? ... When did you start thinking I was some kind of fanatic? We're freezing, we're starving, and I'm going to go all tree-hugging, never-eat-anything-with-a-face on you?"

"Well, I can never tell what you'll think," I whined, taken aback and feeling like I'd insulted Cassie.

"Here's a clue. Don't kill a sentient creature except in absolute self-defense, try not to wipe out endangered species, and if you're going to raise animals for food, treat them as well as you possibly can. But when you're a wolf, a starving wolf wandering around the frozen
Arctic, and you see a meal, eat it."

David hadn't asked who the mastermind of the plan was. Who it was who
had so accurately appraised his emotions, his need to build his ego, the
fact that he would choose me to be his "companion." Cassie, of course.
Cassie had worked it out, step by step, after Jake and I failed to come
up with anything.

"We adapt," Cassie said grimly. "That's what animals have to do in order
to survive. Our environment is massively different. No civilization to rely on, surrounded by brutal predators. So we adapt. Or we get eaten."

"Great. Robinson Crusoe meets Jurassic Park. Look at us. We have nothing," Marco said. "No homes. No food. No tools. No weapons. We don't even have shoes!"

"Well, we're going to have to make all those things," Prince Jake said. "And we do have one big weapon: We can still morph. Maybe we can't fight a T-rex, but we can fly, and we can escape."

"We have food and shoes right here," Cassie said. She was looking at the dead Tyrannosaurus. "Ax has his tail. We can use the hide to make sandals. Skin from the lower leg there looks pretty tough and thick. We cut out some skin, remove the meat and eat it. Then we use ligaments and tendons to lace up the sandals."

I believe Prince Jake and Marco were shocked. Humans are strangely squeamish at times. I can never predict when.

"Wow," Marco said. "Wow. You're kind of getting into this, aren't you, Cassie?"

Cassie walked up to the dinosaur and placed one hand on its leg. She tested the skin with her fingertips. "Look, Marco, my best friend is gone. Tobias is gone. I don't want any more names added to that list. We need food. There's no Burger King anywhere nearby, okay? We're not big
or mean enough to be predators in this environment. We've moved way down on the food chain. The best we can be is scavengers. Here's thousands of pounds of protein. We eat some now, and we smoke some for jerky so we can eat later."

If anything, Prince Jake and Marco appeared even more shocked. And I felt the same. This was an aspect of Cassie I'd never seen. But then, Cassie is more involved than the others in the facts of environment. She had sized up the situation and realized that in this new world she and her fellow humans were no longer masters.

"How did you do that?" the man with the southern accent demanded. And then, like some vile punctuation, he added a word I won't repeat.

It was like a slap. I couldn't answer. I just gaped. ... This small battle was all mine. I didn't want any help.

"You don't like black people, Mr. Davis?" I said pleasantly. "No problem. I can turn white. Watch me."

Most of the time I'd probably have let it go. I'd been called names before. I'd run into racism before. Mostly I figured people like that were just sad, weakminded fools. So most of the time I just avoided people like that. But I had been in three wars since breakfast. I had seen Jake shot down. I'd just learned that Rachel, my best friend, was gone. I was sad and ashamed and filled with rage, all at once. So this wasn't "most of the time."

White fur began to grow from my face. Actually, it was clear fur, hollow needles of fur that were designed to keep the polar bear warm. But the fur looked white, taken altogether. My hands swelled, big as dinner plates. Long, raked claws extended from the fingertips. I was growing whiter. And bigger. Much, much bigger.

"It's some kind of voodoo trick!" Davis wailed.

Tobias was back on his feet, arms crossed over his chest, looking on calmly. "You two guys may want to step back out of the way because I don't think Davis here is going to be having a very good day."

I loomed larger and larger. Davis began to back away, pressing against one alley wall. But sheer amazement and disbelief kept him from running until it was too late. Finally, he broke and ran. I slammed a pile-driver front leg into the wall and blocked his way.
[Don't you like me?] I asked.