...One of the reasons we've survived as long as we have is that the Yeerks don't know who we are. They think we're a group of "Andalite bandits." If they found out we were a bunch of human kids we'd be dead or infested within hours. No doubt our entire families, too...

...Morphing is not attractive. Actually, it's pretty much a freak show. My eyes sort of moved up and down as they traveled from the sides of my shrinking head to the front. Things went blurry for a second until human sight blinked on. And then...A small explosion of light...a camera...I heard a garbage can tumbling over. Squeaky footsteps on the wet pavement. Someone was running away!...

...I spotted Tobias maybe two hundred yards ahead and to my right, flying over some mid-rise buildings...He had tracked some kid...About our age. He had one of those disposable cameras...He had run into a building with pigeon cages on the roof...The kid's apartment building was kind of seedy. Peeling paint on the door. Dirty windows. Graffiti. Nobody lived in that part of town because they wanted to. I knew that firsthand...

...I picked my way over the crumbling concrete to the fire escape....I put my foot on the bottom rung and started to climb. Jake had said the kid lived on the fifth floor. I went up, passing a bedroom on each floor...Floor five -- The room was furnished with a metal frame bed. Tossed sheets. A desk. Empty bag of sour-cream-and-onion chips. Some notebooks and pens. And...a disposable camera. Bingo...

...I heaved the window open. Dropped down onto the floor...The camera was a few feet away, sitting on the kid's desk. I'd just closed my fingers on the bright yellow box when I heard voices in the hallway, surprisingly close...