The Arrival (Animorphs #38)

by K.A. Applegate

<Why doesn’t Mr. King just walk out of there and save us a whole lot of trouble?> Marco asked. <What’s the problem, Marco, missing the Rugrats marathon?> That was Rachel. Rachel never found reason to resist action. For my own part I sympathized with Marco. The Chee were frustrating. Very useful allies. But also liabilities. My human friends have a certain sentimental sympathy for the pacifism of the Chee. I do not. <Rachel, have I mentioned that I consider you the most attractive cockroach around? Psychotic, yet with a certain cockroach style.> Rachel laughed. <Anyway, there’s two of them and five of us. So don’t wet yourself.>

<I pity you, Aximili,> Estrid said. <How did you endure it? How could you bear to live among such inferior creatures?> <They have fought well in the past. But they are demoralized by the prospect of certain defeat.> Her voice was skeptical. <Perhaps. But no Andalite would behave so. Even in defeat, we are proud.> She sounded arrogant and vain. Like me.

Estrid looked at me, half amazed, half angry. <It was all a deception. You misled us. You lied to your own people.> I shook my head. <No. I have learned something, Estrid. These are my people. Anyone who believes in freedom, anyone who resists tyranny, anyone who pursues peace is “my people.” Andalite, Hork-Bajir, or human.> “Yeah,” Marco said. “Besides, we humans make a mean cinnamon bun.”

<And this is why you care for these humans?> I thought of the human hosts who had made a shield of their bodies to protect my friends. Thought of the many, many, uncountable times Prince Jake or Rachel or Cassie or Marco or Tobias had risked death to help me. <Yes,> I said. <That is why I like humans. It is all about the cinnamon buns.>

We walked along the dark streets, my friends and I. My more-than-friends. We laughed, so relieved to simply be alive. We joked. Cassie held my hand, and in the darkness where no one could see, I cried.