The Predator Read Online Free PDF Page B
Author: K. A. Applegate
said.
According to Ax, an hour had passed when it happened.
I felt a strange disturbance in the water. Something large had splashed in. I sensed something above me.
Before I could think or react, I felt pressure on my shell.
I was rising rapidly through the water, being lifted.
Sudden shock!
I was out of the water.
Dryness. Heat. My antennae waved wildly as I tried to understand. My eyes registered nothing but bright light and huge, indistinct shadows.
Something large closed my right pincer forcibly. I could not open it. Then my left.
Rubber bands! I couldn’t see them in this waterless environment. I was nearly blind. But I knew what had happened.
Someone had picked me up and rubber-banded my pincers.
Then I was tumbling, sliding, rubbing against things I could tell were other lobsters.
Something very cold dropped on me and slithered around my body.
Ice?
I felt a sensation of swinging back and forth for a while, like being on a swing.
I said.
Jake said.
The ice seemed to be making me sleepy. Or not exactly sleepy, just slow. Sluggish.
I guess I kind of zoned out for a while. I didn’t know for how long, until I became suddenly alert and heard Ax’s drowsy voice in my head saying,
That jolted me. I was not about to spend the rest of my life trapped as a lobster.
of this morph, I don’t care who sees,> I yelled.
Jake said.
I said. I tried to look around, but my antennae felt nothing in the air. And my eyes only saw meaningless, blurry gray forms.
I focused on demorphing. I wondered if I could close my human eyes when Jake started to reappear. I really did not want to watch Jake and Ax demorph. Once had been enough. I would already have nightmares for a month.
I said. I began the change.
But just then I again felt the sensation of pressure on my shell. My pincers came free. Someone, or something, had removed the rubber bands.
And suddenly I felt a warmth billowing up around me.
Steam.
CHAPTER 8
N OOOOOO!> I screamed silently.
I knew where I was! I was in someone’s hand, about to be dropped into a pot of boiling water.
And maybe it was because I was so desperate to scream, or maybe it was just the luck of the morph, but my human mouth was one of the first things to emerge.
Small, open lips appeared in place of my lobster mouth.
I didn’t have normal lungs or vocal cords yet, so I couldn’t make a sound.
But I guess I didn’t have to.
I guess suddenly having lips appear on a lobster was enough to make the woman drop me.
I fell. My front pincers caught the edge of the pot. Sheer dumb luck. I hung on to the edge of the pot as my tail curled up, inches above the boiling water in the pot.
I grew rapidly, becoming a baby-sized creature half-covered with hard cuticle, half flesh. Human eyes grew in place of the useless stalk-eyes. The antennae sucked back into my forehead. I heard a grinding sound as my spine reappeared inside me.
With a desperate surge of energy, I tumbled over the side of the pot and landed flat on my shell back, atop the stove. I was looking up into a stove hood.
I rolled away from the heat and fell.
But the fall wasn’t far, because I was now the size of a toddler, more human than lobster. I was one nasty-looking kid, though, with eight legs growing from
According to Ax, an hour had passed when it happened.
I felt a strange disturbance in the water. Something large had splashed in. I sensed something above me.
Before I could think or react, I felt pressure on my shell.
I was rising rapidly through the water, being lifted.
Sudden shock!
I was out of the water.
Dryness. Heat. My antennae waved wildly as I tried to understand. My eyes registered nothing but bright light and huge, indistinct shadows.
Something large closed my right pincer forcibly. I could not open it. Then my left.
Rubber bands! I couldn’t see them in this waterless environment. I was nearly blind. But I knew what had happened.
Someone had picked me up and rubber-banded my pincers.
Then I was tumbling, sliding, rubbing against things I could tell were other lobsters.
Something very cold dropped on me and slithered around my body.
Ice?
I felt a sensation of swinging back and forth for a while, like being on a swing.
The ice seemed to be making me sleepy. Or not exactly sleepy, just slow. Sluggish.
I guess I kind of zoned out for a while. I didn’t know for how long, until I became suddenly alert and heard Ax’s drowsy voice in my head saying,
That jolted me. I was not about to spend the rest of my life trapped as a lobster.
of this morph, I don’t care who sees,> I yelled.
I focused on demorphing. I wondered if I could close my human eyes when Jake started to reappear. I really did not want to watch Jake and Ax demorph. Once had been enough. I would already have nightmares for a month.
But just then I again felt the sensation of pressure on my shell. My pincers came free. Someone, or something, had removed the rubber bands.
And suddenly I felt a warmth billowing up around me.
Steam.
CHAPTER 8
N OOOOOO!> I screamed silently.
I knew where I was! I was in someone’s hand, about to be dropped into a pot of boiling water.
And maybe it was because I was so desperate to scream, or maybe it was just the luck of the morph, but my human mouth was one of the first things to emerge.
Small, open lips appeared in place of my lobster mouth.
I didn’t have normal lungs or vocal cords yet, so I couldn’t make a sound.
But I guess I didn’t have to.
I guess suddenly having lips appear on a lobster was enough to make the woman drop me.
I fell. My front pincers caught the edge of the pot. Sheer dumb luck. I hung on to the edge of the pot as my tail curled up, inches above the boiling water in the pot.
I grew rapidly, becoming a baby-sized creature half-covered with hard cuticle, half flesh. Human eyes grew in place of the useless stalk-eyes. The antennae sucked back into my forehead. I heard a grinding sound as my spine reappeared inside me.
With a desperate surge of energy, I tumbled over the side of the pot and landed flat on my shell back, atop the stove. I was looking up into a stove hood.
I rolled away from the heat and fell.
But the fall wasn’t far, because I was now the size of a toddler, more human than lobster. I was one nasty-looking kid, though, with eight legs growing from
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