The Stranger by K. A. Applegate Page B

their lives. Almost a religion.>
    I squirmed and tried to get away. I tried to change into something else. The bear. I wanted to become the bear. But I was stuck. All I could do was beat my helpless butterfly wings.
    He showed us the dropshaft, Cassie’s voice murmured in the back of my head.
    I swirled down dark corridors. I flew wildly on butterfly wings, always chasing a light that never drew closer and yet never disappeared.
    The Kandrona, I thought in my dream. The light is the Kandrona.
    â€œThe center of their lives. Almost a religion.”
    
    â€œ He showed us the dropshaft, ” Cassie said again, only now she was Ms. Paloma.
    My eyes snapped open.
    I sat up in my bed.
    I was as awake as I’d ever been. I was electric!
    â€œHah HAH!” I yelled in the darkness of my room. “YES!”
    Then I hesitated. Was I nuts? Was I just desperate? I ran through it all again.
    â€œGot ’em!” I whispered. “Oh, man, we got ’em! Got the disgusting worms!”
    I shucked off the T-shirt that I wear to bed, and quickly slipped into my morphing outfit.
    I threw open the window. Then I paused. It would be Saturday morning in a few hours. No school. But if my mom found me gone, she might worry.
    I quickly scribbled a note saying I had gone for an early-morning run. That I might go over to Cassie’s afterward.
    And then I glanced at the picture on my desk. The one of three-year-old me on the balance beam, being held up by my proud father.
    I could not tell the others. We had already decided. We were going to say yes to the Ellimist. We would let him take us to a place where there would be no battles and no need to decide.
    If I told my friends what I suspected …
    I felt the weight come down on me again. The weight of uncertainty and guilt and fear.
    I looked at the picture of my dad and smiled. “What would you think of me, Dad, if I walked away, when I still had a chance to win?”
    And then I morphed. My arms shrank. My skin began to flow into patterns of soft feathers that could ride silently on the night breeze.
    In a few more minutes, I was ready.
    The moon was bright in the sky. Dawn was still hours away. A perfect night for an owl. But I paid no attention to the juicy prey below me as I flew at top speed toward the woods.
    
    
     I yelled.
    
    
    
    
    He opened his wings and flew alongside me, just a few feet away.
     Tobias said grumpily.
     I interrupted him.
    
    

O kay, it’s three forty-seven in the morning,” Marco said. “And I’m here, thanks to the fact that my dad is a sound sleeper who doesn’t notice when I wake up screaming because an owl and a hawk have just flown through my window. So now maybe you can tell us all why we’re here?”
    Everyone was there in Cassie’s barn. Jake looked sleepy but interested. Cassie was using the time to check on some of the sick animals. Ax just stood to one side, waiting to see what Jake told him to do. Tobias perched on an overhead beam, tired from having flown too much.
    We were lit by a single small bulb that never even touched the shadows in the corners of the barn. We didn’t want to take the chance that Cassie’s parents might notice a light on and come to investigate.
    â€œYes,” I answered Marco,