The Visitor Read Online Free PDF Page B

care of roaches at the rehab clinic.”
    We all sat there feeling glum for a few minutes. But I wasn’t going to let it drop. This was about more than just striking a blow at the Yeerks. I had to find out if Chapman suspected me. If he did, we were all in terrible danger.
    I happened to glance over at my desk. There was my math homework, still not done. That didn’t make me feel any better. But then I looked at the photos I had mounted in one of those big frames with six different holes. One was of me with my mom and dad on a white-water rafting trip we took. One was of me visiting my dad at his job—he’s a weatherman on TV. We were grinning in front of a map of storms. Another picture was of Cassie and me riding horses side by side, with Cassie, as usual, looking like she’d spent her entire life in the saddle, and me looking like a total clown.
    But the picture that got my attention was one taken a couple of years ago of Melissa and me.
    I got up and went over to take the frame down. I stared hard at the picture.
    â€œWhat?” Jake asked. “What is it?”
    â€œIt’s me and Melissa,” I said. “It was, like, her twelfth birthday, or some birthday, anyway, and we were out on her lawn playing with the present her dad gave her.”
    â€œSo what?” Marco asked.
    â€œSo …” I passed him the photograph. It showed me and Melissa in shorts. And between us, a small black-and-white kitten. “So her present was a cat.”

L ook! A kitty door!” Jake pointed.
    â€œWhere?” Marco asked.
    â€œSee the lines of light? At the bottom of the regular door?”
    â€œOh, yeah,” Marco said. “I wish the moon were out. I can’t see a thing.”
    The four of us were cowering behind a hedge that bordered the Chapmans’ lawn. They lived in a pretty normal-looking suburban home. You know: two stories, a garage, a lawn. Nothing to make you think that the person who lived there was part of a huge alien conspiracy to take over the world.
    â€œLet me just ask you this,” Marco whispered. “Why did it have to be Chapman? I was afraid of Chapman even before we found out he was a Controller.”
    â€œYou’re not still upset over that detention he gave you?” I asked. “Look, if you’re going to listen to music in math class with an earphone hidden under your hair, you have to remember not to start singing along.”
    â€œYeah, that was only slightly stupid, Marco,” Jake agreed.
    â€œI still say Chapman never would have given me a whole week’s detention if he were totally human.”
    â€œI have a question,” Cassie said. “How do we get Melissa’s cat to come outside?”
    We all looked at her.
    â€œGood question,” I admitted.
    â€œI mean, we could hide here in the bushes for a long time. But sooner or later the neighbors are going to notice.”
    
    Tobias was sitting perched on a nearby tree branch. He was close enough to hear us.
    I tried to remember. “It’s name is Fluffer, I remember that much. Fluffer McKitty.”
    â€œYou’ve got to be kidding.” Marco, of course.
    I tried to remember back to when I used to hangout with Melissa. “It’s black-and-white. You know, in patches.”
    
    Tobias spread his wings, swooped silently down over our heads, and flapped away into the night.
    â€œYou know what we need?” I said. “We need another kitty. We should have thought of that. Then we could have the second cat call out to Fluffer.”
    Marco turned to stare at me. “Meowfluffer, comeoutmeow, meow come and play meow?”
    â€œTobias morphed a cat very early on, didn’t he?” I asked.
    â€œYeah,” Jake said. “His first morph. The first morph any of us did.”
    â€œRachel, you need to remember if you go in there tonight that