The Invasion by K. A. Applegate

The next minute, we were in what looked like a hallway at school. Only the smell was worse—kind of damp and moldy and musty. More like the boys’ locker room.
    “Okay, look, if any staff people stop us, the story is we’re here to see my mom,” Cassie said. “Of course, it’s so late in the afternoon she won’t be here. I hope. Because if she finds out I’ve been dragging four of my friends around back here … Well, I can’t be saving the world from alien invaders if I’m grounded. Hopefully, there won’t be many staff people here at all.”
    We shuffled along the hallway, feeling like we definitely did not belong. Which we didn’t. On either side of the main hall, there were paths that led tothe different exhibits. Unfortunately, the doorways to the exhibits just had numbers on them. I knew we’d have to rely on Cassie’s knowledge to find our way around. Behind some of those doors were animals you didn’t want to just walk in on.
    “How do you guys feel about gorillas?” Cassie said. She had stopped by one of the numbered doors. “This is Big Jim’s cage. He just came over from another zoo, so he’s in his own private environment for now. He’s very gentle.”
    Slowly it dawned on me what Cassie was saying. “Oh. You mean, does one of us want to acquire his DNA?”
    “That is why we’re here, Jake,” Rachel pointed out. She batted her eyes at Marco. “How about you, Marco? Haven’t you always wanted to be a big, hairy guy?”
    Marco didn’t look like he was crazy about the idea. But I knew how to handle him.
    “Maybe Marco should try something easier for his first morph,” I said. “You know, like a cuddly little koala or something.”
    That did it.
    “Koala?” Marco said, giving me a dirty look. “Open that door, Cassie.” He hesitated. “You said gentle, right?”
    “Gorillas are extremely gentle,” Cassie said. Then, in a quieter voice, she added, “Unless you make them mad.”
    Cassie opened her backpack. She took out an apple and handed it to Marco. “Here. You just open the door. The way it’s set up, none of the visitors will be able to see you unless you walk clear out into the cage. Besides, there’s an extra security gate, so he can’t just jump out and you can’t just walk in. So we just open the door, and hope Big Jim feels like eating.”
    Behind the door was a second door of steel bars, with a little cutaway section for the handlers to shove the food through. The entire door opening was concealed behind a fake rock ledge so it wasn’t visible to the people looking into the cage. But Big Jim noticed us right away. He climbed heavily down from his perch on a rock ledge and took a good look at us through the bars.
    Big Jim was definitely
big.
He had fingers the size of my wrist. But Jim didn’t seem to mind us being there. Mostly he seemed interested in Marco’s apple. He looked Marco over, snorted like he wasn’t impressed, and then held out his hand.
    “Hand him the apple,” Cassie directed. “He wants the apple.”
    “I loved your work in
King Kong versus Godzilla
,” Marco told the ape. He stuck his hand through the bars and held out the apple. With surprising daintiness, the gorilla lifted the apple and began inspecting it closely.
    “Hold his hand,” I said.
    “Yeah, right,” Marco laughed.
    “When you acquire DNA, the animal goes into a kind of trance,” I said. “Go ahead, grab his hand and concentrate.”
    Marco tentatively touched the gorilla’s wrist. “Nice monkey.” The gorilla ignored him. Big Jim was much more interested in the apple than in any of us.
    “Concentrate,” Rachel urged.
    Marco closed his eyes. The ape closed his eyes.
    “This is so cool,” Tobias commented. “You realize that gorilla could pull Marco apart like he was a paper doll. Look at those arms!”
    Marco opened one eye. “Tobias? Being terrified gets in the way of concentrating. So how about if you shut up about his arms?”
    Suddenly I heard a whirring