was still there. Visser Three's awful gaze focused on me.

I slithered under the bed, fast as I could. I raised up into strike position, hooked myself over one of the bed slats, and held on, wishing I were a python.

Powerful hands threw the bed back.

<Hah-hah! We'll have one Andalite to play with, at least!> Visser Three gloated.

But what they saw on the floor was not me. It was Spawn.

The Hork-Bajir threw a towel over Spawn and gathered him up. They stomped away, down the stairs, carrying what they thought was an Andalite in morph.

I didn't want to think what they'd do to the poor snake. Maybe just hold him, waiting for him to demorph.

But maybe when they realized that wasn't happening, they'd do other things. Visser Three isStupid. Now I'd just confirmed that David would hate me.

<Motor on outta here!> Jake yelled as the "sky" above us grew lighter. It was the helicopter rising, rising slowly up.

We hauled like only a cockroach can haul: six legs scampering madly, like Wile E. Coyote loading up to chase Roadrunner.

Zoom! Off across the steel deck.

Zoom! Over a seam in the floor that was maybe an eighth of an inch but seemed like a wide ditch.

Zoom! My little compound eyes millimeters above the ground, my antennae waving, streaming out behind me.

Zoom! We were Vipers on the interstate! We were Porsches on the autobahn! We were like those crazy rocket cars out on the salt flats. We were moving at full, screaming, cockroach speed.

Which, unfortunately, is about walking speed for