Book Number: 3
Written by: Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant
Pages: 155
Narrator: Tobias
Synopsis
Tobias is pissed that a local car dealer is filming TV ads with a caged lady hawk, so he convinces Rachel to help him free her. Tobias flies in and harasses people while filming takes place, while Rachel morphs into an elephant and starts destroying shit. This is all damn good television.
Anyway, mission accomplished, the lady hawk is free, but the other Animorphs are mad. "What if the Yeerks saw the ad?" My question is what would the Yeerks do about it? I can only picture them looking at it and going "Huh. Those Andalite's are weird." But then again, I'm more amused by the idea that the people at the car lot called the cops and they're on the lookout for an elephant on the loose, unable to find it, and wondering how in the hell they lost an elephant.
But lately Tobias seeing weird anomalies in the sky, and after seeing a flock of geese seemingly ram face first into a cloaked ship hovering near the mountains, he tells the others (after laughing at the stupid geese). He informs the others, and the Animorphs acquire morphs of injured wolves at Cassie's farm, morph into them, and trot out into the forest looking for clues. At the lake, Tobias sees human Controllers and Hork-Bajir clearing people out of the area. Soon after, a giant Yeerk ship decloaks for all to see and bask in its geese-killing glory, and Bug Fighter ships fly out to drain water from the lake. "Yeerks be thirsty," Marco notes, observing that the Yeerk's stealth need of resources might be a potential weakness.
The Animorphs try to sneak off, but come across another pack of wolves who are very protective of a dead rabbit. To prevent a standoff between the two, Tobias flies in and snatches the rabbit, causing the other wolves to chase him in an epic game of Prey Keepaway. After escaping the wolves, Tobias notes the time on a car dashboard clock and notices the others have been morphed for two hours, and he rushes to tell them to demorph or else they'll have cooler permanent morphs than him! The Animorphs struggle to morph back into humans (Cassie oddly has the easiest time, even though she morphed the earliest), but eventually triumph, being all like "Man, we're glad we don't have to live life in stupid animal bodies!" This bums Tobias out, and he flies off. In the forest, he sees the lady hawk he rescued, and discovers he is horny for her, which weirds him out.
Later that night, he visits Rachel's house to remind himself of what a human woman looks like, living the dream of sneaking into a girl's room and perching on top of their underwear drawer. He confides in Rachel about his hawk instincts becoming stronger and his fear that he'll be unable to fight them. Rachel reassures him that what makes him human is his mind and his heart, and she and the others will never let him forget that.
The Animorphs then reuninte and make a plan for the weekend about sneaking onto the Yeerk ship and decloaking it above a city, so the invasion won't be a secret anymore. They have Tobias scope out some land intel while they're at school, but Tobias finds he has the munchies and his hawk instincts push him into killing and eating a rat. Horrified at himself, Tobias flies off in a panic looking for Rachel to help snap him back, and finds her at a gymnastic exhibition at the mall. He gets trapped in the mall and causes a panic, which ends with Marco (who just happened to be there, likely checking out all the girls in leotards) breaking a skylight with a baseball and Tobias flying away.
Tobias spends a few days by himself in nature, letting his human mind slip into the backseat and just lives as a hawk. He spends a few days near the lake, which is coincidentally the adopted territory of lady hawk, who is hawk flirting with him and he is trying to resist the signals of. One day he spots a Hork-Bajir chasing a human, and flies to the rescue, clawing at the Hork-Bajir's eyes and allowing the human escape. This event reminds him of his humanity, and he flies back to Rachel's house and reconciles, to which Rachel assures him it was the greatest thing to happen at a gymnastic exhibition in a long time, and it doesn't matter that Tobias eats rats because Marco probably has grosser eating habits.
The Animorphs go forward with their plan of sneaking onto the ship through the draining of the lake with trout morphs, but once back at the lake they find that security has doubled and Visser Three is personally supervising, all because some stupid Hork-Bajir was attacked by a hawk and it caused concern that the "Andalite Bandits" were in the area (Good one, Tobias!). With Controllers disintegrating everything left and right, the Animorphs come up with one of the dumber ideas they've ever had: to morph into fish out of water and have Tobias drop them in the lake one at a time. Shockingly, this plan succeeds and the fish Animorphs successfully get sucked up into the big ship above.
Tobias is eventually spotted by Controllers and is chased by Bug Fighters and Visser Three's Blade Ship, but Tobias keeps them at bay by hovering around the giant ship, which the fighters refuse to fire at because big ship go boom equals bad. While Tobias is stalling for time, he receives a telepathic message from Rachel telling him that they're trapped in the tank in the ship and can't escape, and she pleads with Tobias to not let them take the Animorphs alive and to destroy the ship if he can, taking them down with it. Tobias, while reluctant, seems badass enough to comply, because as if on cue, a group of Taxxons crawl aboard the hull of the ship and fire lasers at Tobias. Tobias snags one of their guns, shoots his way through the cockpit glass, and sets the ship to crash. In a total Birdiss Die Hard moment, this also causes the ship to get ruptured and to lose its water supply, sending the other Animorphs tumbling out of the tank, morphing into birds, and flying away before the ship explodes.
Think about it, this is the closest the Animorphs have gotten to a win yet.
All does not end well, as in the Yeerks attempt to kill at least one Andalite, they open fire upon every bird in the sky and kill the lady hawk. In a total Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger moment, Tobias is all "NOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooOOOOOOooooooo!" The next day he visits Rachel again, because she's the closest thing he has to a lady hawk anymore. She proposes they find her body and bury her, but Tobias declines, claiming that would be the human thing to do. She reminds them that he is still human no matter what body he is in. He agrees, because his sadness at her loss is a human emotion ("Fascinating," says Mr. Spock), but he is also a hawk and has to live in both worlds. He flies away without looking back, like a fucking heartbreaker.
The Animorphs go forward with their plan of sneaking onto the ship through the draining of the lake with trout morphs, but once back at the lake they find that security has doubled and Visser Three is personally supervising, all because some stupid Hork-Bajir was attacked by a hawk and it caused concern that the "Andalite Bandits" were in the area (Good one, Tobias!). With Controllers disintegrating everything left and right, the Animorphs come up with one of the dumber ideas they've ever had: to morph into fish out of water and have Tobias drop them in the lake one at a time. Shockingly, this plan succeeds and the fish Animorphs successfully get sucked up into the big ship above.
Tobias is eventually spotted by Controllers and is chased by Bug Fighters and Visser Three's Blade Ship, but Tobias keeps them at bay by hovering around the giant ship, which the fighters refuse to fire at because big ship go boom equals bad. While Tobias is stalling for time, he receives a telepathic message from Rachel telling him that they're trapped in the tank in the ship and can't escape, and she pleads with Tobias to not let them take the Animorphs alive and to destroy the ship if he can, taking them down with it. Tobias, while reluctant, seems badass enough to comply, because as if on cue, a group of Taxxons crawl aboard the hull of the ship and fire lasers at Tobias. Tobias snags one of their guns, shoots his way through the cockpit glass, and sets the ship to crash. In a total Birdiss Die Hard moment, this also causes the ship to get ruptured and to lose its water supply, sending the other Animorphs tumbling out of the tank, morphing into birds, and flying away before the ship explodes.
Think about it, this is the closest the Animorphs have gotten to a win yet.
All does not end well, as in the Yeerks attempt to kill at least one Andalite, they open fire upon every bird in the sky and kill the lady hawk. In a total Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger moment, Tobias is all "NOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooOOOOOOooooooo!" The next day he visits Rachel again, because she's the closest thing he has to a lady hawk anymore. She proposes they find her body and bury her, but Tobias declines, claiming that would be the human thing to do. She reminds them that he is still human no matter what body he is in. He agrees, because his sadness at her loss is a human emotion ("Fascinating," says Mr. Spock), but he is also a hawk and has to live in both worlds. He flies away without looking back, like a fucking heartbreaker.
Observations
First, I need to note one thing: Marco's a butthead. He whines about being an Animorph constantly, and while the books justify it with him being worried about his father after his mother's death, he's pushing it into being an asshat. Early in this book he goes on a huge rant of how they shouldn't fight because he doesn't know anybody in danger, then looks in Jake's eyes and is all like "Sorry about Tom, bro. We tried." Fuck you, dude.
The book seems like it's realizing how unlikable this character is becoming and gives him several contributing moments later in the story. Marco is responsible for helping Tobias escape the mall, he comes up with some of the more keen observations as to why the Yeerks are draining the lake, and also is responsible for sparking the plan of making the Yeerk's stealth ship visible for the world to see. It does feel like the book is desperate to make Marco look like he's actually doing something and establish himself as important to the team, but they're treading on thin ice with just how much of a jerk this character is.
I know "the Michelangelo" is usually the most popular "Ninja Turtle" group character, but work harder. So far, he's dangerously close to being the dead weight they need to dump.
Rant over. Let's talk about theme. The theme of this book is identity. Largely Tobias's identity. The previous book largely glossed over his predicament, leaving a lot of questions as to what exactly has he been doing since being trapped in a hawk morph. Turns out, he's been sleeping in Jake's attic and eating cold hamburger, while his emotionally abusive family members are so passive that they don't bother to look for him. The book's main focus, putting aside confrontation with the Yeerks over whatever McGuffin this week, starts to become if a boy is trapped in a hawk's body, is he a boy or a hawk? The book tries for a halfway point, knowing playing too much into the former would be cheap and the latter would be a huge bummer, which makes the main conflict of the book Tobias's inner turmoil to find that balance between the two. He is horrified to lean too much into his hawk identity, but is restless in trying to maintain too much of his humanity.
This is all an excuse to justify the book series' desire to have a narrator that will eat roadkill.
Tobias's point of view is very welcome, because what he sees is so incredibly different than what the other Animorphs see. His turmoil is different and his journey though his discovery of himself in the book is actually pretty interesting. One thing I was reminded of while reading this was an old episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer called The Zeppo, where Xander, who is seen as the most useless character on the show, looks from the outside in on the others fighting a world ending conflict, while he has is own quirky adventure outside of it. The Encounter isn't quite as extreme in its execution of "No, go away, you can't help," but for a while it seems like the Animorphs are going off on an adventure that doesn't have much to do with Tobias, as they infiltrate the Yeerk ship and he can't come with them. But it soon becomes clear that they worked themselves into a corner and he has to save them. It's more clever than I would have given this series credit for when I started.
The book seems like it's realizing how unlikable this character is becoming and gives him several contributing moments later in the story. Marco is responsible for helping Tobias escape the mall, he comes up with some of the more keen observations as to why the Yeerks are draining the lake, and also is responsible for sparking the plan of making the Yeerk's stealth ship visible for the world to see. It does feel like the book is desperate to make Marco look like he's actually doing something and establish himself as important to the team, but they're treading on thin ice with just how much of a jerk this character is.
I know "the Michelangelo" is usually the most popular "Ninja Turtle" group character, but work harder. So far, he's dangerously close to being the dead weight they need to dump.
Rant over. Let's talk about theme. The theme of this book is identity. Largely Tobias's identity. The previous book largely glossed over his predicament, leaving a lot of questions as to what exactly has he been doing since being trapped in a hawk morph. Turns out, he's been sleeping in Jake's attic and eating cold hamburger, while his emotionally abusive family members are so passive that they don't bother to look for him. The book's main focus, putting aside confrontation with the Yeerks over whatever McGuffin this week, starts to become if a boy is trapped in a hawk's body, is he a boy or a hawk? The book tries for a halfway point, knowing playing too much into the former would be cheap and the latter would be a huge bummer, which makes the main conflict of the book Tobias's inner turmoil to find that balance between the two. He is horrified to lean too much into his hawk identity, but is restless in trying to maintain too much of his humanity.
This is all an excuse to justify the book series' desire to have a narrator that will eat roadkill.
Tobias's point of view is very welcome, because what he sees is so incredibly different than what the other Animorphs see. His turmoil is different and his journey though his discovery of himself in the book is actually pretty interesting. One thing I was reminded of while reading this was an old episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer called The Zeppo, where Xander, who is seen as the most useless character on the show, looks from the outside in on the others fighting a world ending conflict, while he has is own quirky adventure outside of it. The Encounter isn't quite as extreme in its execution of "No, go away, you can't help," but for a while it seems like the Animorphs are going off on an adventure that doesn't have much to do with Tobias, as they infiltrate the Yeerk ship and he can't come with them. But it soon becomes clear that they worked themselves into a corner and he has to save them. It's more clever than I would have given this series credit for when I started.
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