The Visitor Read Online Free

said. “We can follow Tom again, when it’s time for his Yeerk to return to the Yeerk pool.” Yeerks have to go to the pool every three days. They drain out of their hosts’ heads and soak up Kandrona rays.
    â€œNo. We leave Tom out of it,” Jake said firmly. “If we call attention to him in any way, the Yeerks may decide he’s trouble for them. They may decide to kill him.”
    Marco gave me a sour look. “This is what you want to keep doing? Risking our lives and the lives of everyone we know? For what?”
    â€œFor freedom,” Cassie said simply.
    Marco didn’t have a smart answer to that.
    â€œThere’s still Chapman,” Jake said.
    Chapman is our assistant principal. He’s also one of the most important Human-Controllers. He runs The Sharing, the club that helps recruit unsuspecting kids into being hosts for the Yeerks.
    â€œIf there were some way for us to get close to Chapman …” Jake let the words hang in the air. He carefully didn’t look at me. But I knew what he meant. He’d obviously been thinking about this for a while.
    â€œMelissa?” I asked.
    He nodded. “It’s a possibility.”
    See, Melissa Chapman, Assistant Principal Chapman’s daughter, is one of my closest friends. Or at least she used to be. The last few months, she’d been acting very strange toward me. Like she didn’t care anymore. We take gymnastics together. Actually, we got into it at the same time. You know — something to do together.
    â€œI don’t like using a friend that way,” I said.
    â€œOh, suddenly the mighty Rachel is weaseling,” Marco crowed. “You don’t like using your friends? You’re pretty willing to risk
my
life.”
    â€œSure, Marco, but who said you were my friend?”
    â€œVery funny,” Marco said. But at the same time he looked a little hurt.
    â€œKidding, Marco,” I said. “Just kidding. Of course you’re my friend. But you’re an Animorph. Melissa is just an innocent bystander.”
    â€œI wish I had never come up with that word,” Marco said. “Animorph. Gimme a break.”
    â€œRachel, Melissa’s father is one of the main Controllers,” Jake said gently, ignoring Marco. “She’s in this whether she likes it or not.”
    I felt a bitter taste in my mouth. Jake was right, of course. Chapman was the logical lead to follow. And Melissa was our way to get close. It made sense. It made sense for me to betray an old friend.
    It also made me feel like dirt.

T he next day after school I headed for my gymnastics class at the YMCA, which is just across from the mall. They have a big indoor pool, so the entire building always smells of chlorine. Except for the weight room, which just smells like sweat.
    My class is taught in a smaller room, with blue mats covering the floor. We have balance beams and uneven parallel bars and a vaulting horse with a springboard.
    I’m okay at vaulting and the parallel bars, but I’m pretty lame at the balance beam. To be honest with you, it kind of scares me. It takes such total concentration.
    It’s not one of those real serious gymnastics classes. I mean, none of us is going to be going to the Olympics. When I started out, I had dreams of being a gold medalist. But then I started to grow. I’m pretty tall now, for my age. People look at me now and say, “Oh, you’re going to be a model,” not “Oh, you could be a gymnast.”
    Most of us in the class are too tall or too heavy to ever be serious gymnasts. We do it for fun and for exercise. I do it because I’ve always thought of myself as kind of clumsy. My mom says I’m not, but that’s how I feel, anyway.
    Besides, it’s just cool, hitting the little springboard and flipping through the air to bounce off the vaulting horse and stick the landing. Not as cool as flying, maybe, but fun just the